Narbonic Doodles
Shaenon: Random recent doodles for my old strip, Narbonic. I’m working on a TV/movie adaptation, though when or whether such a thing will happen is anyone’s guess.
Channing: If this actually comes to pass, it will confirm that this is the best possible timeline.
I mean, I would want the crystal behind me in my YouTube videos, too.
I just realized that I have no mental image of what I think any of these characters’ voices sounds like.
I keep thinking of Helen as having a Minnesotan accent, but I’m pretty sure it’s actually Dave who’s supposed to be from that area?
Madblood reads like he’s affecting an upper class British accent.
I agree on Madblood, but he’s poorly affecting an upper class British accent. As for his mother, I hear Anne Ramsey in Throw Momma from the Train… “Owen doesn’t have any friends. He’s fat and he’s stupid.”
And yeah, Dave grew up in Minnesota. But then there’s the problem of him having smoked for ten years, and then suddenly having never smoked at all. Might have some effect on his voice.
I envision Helen having something of a mixture of a number of different American dialects, due to moving around so much. Kind of how Audrey Hepburn had a combination Dutch/French/English accent because of where she spent her formative years.
Mell strikes me (not literally, thank goodness) as having a contrived non-accent, particularly at school, but tries to sound all mafia when she’s feeling murder-y.
I think that Helen Narbon Sr. (Mom) would sound like Meryl Streep if she had gone evil. Seriously, seriously evil.
For Helen: Kate Jackson, but higher pitched- gotta have that “crack” in the voice.Intelligent and interesting. For Mel (Public) a sophisticated voice like Veronica Lodge from the old Archie show. For Mel (Default) something like whatshername from Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space. Sophisticated with a side order of “escape if possible”. For Artie, whose voice shifts octaves… good luck! For Dave… hmmm… Madblood? Like Dogbert with a touch of Dr. Smith’s affectations…
You’d want Helen Beta and Dr. Narbon to be played by the same person if at all possible, mind, or maybe identical twins with one in age makeup…
Or a mother-daughter pair who looked the same at the same age. They do exist.
Selma Diamond would’ve been great…
Like Zoe Perry and Laurie Metcalf.
The only one I can hear is young Dave, who sounds to me like Linus in A Charlie Brown Christmas: “Mad science is not only getting too commercial, it’s getting too dangerous.“
I don’t know whether to applaud enthusiastically or run screaming in terror.
We can do both at the same time!
Live or animated?
I’ll pay good money to get the “Madblood video shenanigans” storyline in whatever form it takes.
if it was a TV sitcom adaptation and came with a laugh track, that would be Evil.
I want a Narbonic TV series. I want it very, very much.
I don’t think you can write a movie that’s a good adaption, though. Two hours isn’t really enough for Dave’s character arc – I think you’d lose a lot of it if you compressed it.
You could do a movie that was just a ‘missing episode’ from halfway through, though, and that would, obviously, be awesome. Narbonic was the best webcomic.
Well, trilogies are all the rage nowadays. We could have an initial film with Madblood as the villain, the Council of Daves and introduction of Lovelace in the second, and the third for the Dave twist and resolution.
Narbonic: Madness & Genius: Part II (The Director’s Cut). I wish.
Pitch it to Netflix. They’re doing alot these days.
I always thought Narbonic would make a good radio series. It was always more about the dialogue that the visuals (which is not to say it didn’t have some good sight gags). Much easier to show a giant killer robot OF DOOM transforming into a crappy car, too. There’s a reason HHGTTG started out (and was always best) on the radio.
Narbonic has a lot of visuals that I think would be difficult to convey as effectively via radio. As for H2G2, I have the book, the radio series, the TV miniseries, and the 2005 abomination of a movie remake. The radio series is very well-done, but overall, I really prefer the BBC TV miniseries.
Narbonic was more about the dialogue than the visuals… in a sense. Shaenon’s characters have amazing body language; quite a lot of what they’re communicating isn’t through their words, but through how they move and how they stand. I think you’d lose a lot in radio.
get a kickstarter for an animated narbonic and skin horse and I will pledge my life savings to it! Granted, that’s only about $100 right now, but still.
I seem to recall making a comment years ago (or last year anyway) that a Narbonic television series would be the awesomest thing ever committed to film… or digital media, whatever.
How about a kickstarter campaign? not for the whole, feature length film. Instead, just enough to create a few minutes.. proof of concept… kind of production.
Be careful about that. It might succeed beyond all expectations. Which is why we have MST3K rebooted, and getting a second season on Netflix.
I can’t decide between Narbonic: The Animated Series and Narbonic: Live Action TV — maybe you should do both just to be on the safe side?
It occurs to me that if we could find a sufficiently dedicated cast and crew, and put together a decent Kickstarter campaign, we fans of Narbonic and Skin Horse could probably put together a decent Youtube webseries… I can easily see this being done as a series of 8-10min video shorts, like RWBY or Carmilla: The Series, and working quite well. The hardest part, IMHO, would be finding people who were both sufficiently dedicated and available for the better part of a year to do at least one decent season. (And I agree that Helen Sr. & Jr would probably have to be played by the same actress, ‘aged up’ with makeup for Helen Sr.)
Just popping in to say I would stab a man for a Narbonic cartoon series. And I would definitely contribute to a Kickstarter campaign towards the cause. That is all. xD