Time Travel - Every PM’s Dream

Movie Inspiration: Back to the Future

I had the bright idea this past week that it would be fun to give a little background on each comic, my false starts and inspirations, and how it ultimately everything comes together.  With that, let’s go back nearly 30 years to 1985.

And yes, it hurts just to write that.

As with many of the more recent TCFs, this one came out of a desire to parody SOMETHING from one of the 80s greatest movies.  It didn’t take me long to find one of the more memorable lines to parody either – “Where we’re going, we don’t need… roads.”  Once I settled on time travel being exactly what the project manager ordered, the joke fell neatly into place.

The visual, however, needed some more work.  I started out with Marty and Doc sitting in the Delorean with the lines above, but after several attempts just to get the windshield of the car right, I decided that butchering an iconic 80s vehicle was not the way to go with this one.  It then dawned on me that drawing them in a cube would be funnier, be a better match for the lines, and of course, much simpler to draw.

Doc’s hair was another fun prop to draw.  I start with a single bent line, and then duplicated it several times.  I made the background hair a bit fuzzier than the foreground, and overall I think it definitely screams out “MAD SCIENTIST UNDER HERE!”

The computer was relatively straightforward, and is actually a copy of the one I did for the Mary Poppins parody. My original attempt included the rear-facing exhaust vents that were on the car.  I still think it was hilarious to put vents like that on a server, but after CJ questioned them (“What is that thing on the floor?!?”), I decided to drop them, figuring that no one but REALLY big fans would recognize them.

I think the flux capacitor turned out well, but when CJ first saw it she described it as a cross between a Lite-Brite and a diagram of a uterus.  Gee, thanks dear.  While the description is not entirely without merit, in my defense, THAT’S WHAT THE FREAKIN’ THING LOOKS LIKE!  Blame the set designer, I say.

The shot of the Delorean on the wall was a stroke of genius on CJ’s part.  Since I dumped the drawing of the car, why not have a picture of it on the wall?  I mean, Doc did have some great style in his choice of cars.  He’d probably have a poster of it on his cube.  Then again, I really don’t see Doc spending any amount of time in a cube.  Details, details.

The cables stated out as another of CJ’s suggestions.  She said I needed some cables to show that the thing on the floor next to Doc’s table was really a computer.  I went a little crazy and started drawing the cables up and around the cube, to mimic the cabling run around the trim of the Delorean.  She loved the effect.  (Yay! I earned got cred back after that uterus incident.)

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