![]() It’s more just me overcompensating for not knowing if it’s going to play well. So with some of the wordplay stuff, I have a little more time to play around, because that’s the only color that I have to work with. I’m just sitting there with words in front of me. I get a lot more wordy…I mean the show is already wordy enough, and then the comics are already more wordy. With comics, I’m writing a script and giving it to Jim to do the art. So it’s like you’re writing it and drawing it at the same time. Writing comics is still weird for me because I’m not drawing it, whereas with animation we usually write an outline and then go right to storyboard. Is it easier to write some characters in this form than in cartoon scripts? Paste: Greg’s non sequiturs and punchlines work out beautifully for the comic format, especially the food magician bit. So it wasn’t like they were these things that were already written that I could just use it was more like there were these two characters that were supposed to be in an episode that never ended up in an episode, and now I have to write a story for them. McHale: A lot of ideas from those additional episodes were mashed together or re-used in different ways for what actually became the series. Paste: So were stories you’re going to be telling in the comic thought out for the cartoon series, or are they recent creations? And then for the amount of time we had to finish it, and our deadline and all that stuff, well we could only do 10. ![]() I said that fills out everything in detail. When I actually started working in the industry, and then it all developed into actually making this miniseries, I was told to brainstorm and lay it out ideally how I’d want it as a finite story, and then we would discuss it. I said if this ever got picked up, I’d do three seasons. McHale: Well, back when I pitched Tome of the Unknown right out of college, back then I had big plans for my future. Paste: Were the stories in the comics created initially for the cartoon series? I know you’d initially planned for 18 episodes… Over the Garden Wall #1 Interior Art by Jim Campbell If there’s no music, it’s more fun to go with the lighter side of things and make it more about the visuals and jokes. Some people can, but maybe because I’m new to comics, it’s hard for me to think that way without music. In comics, I really don’t know how to do that. When doing some stuff, I have a sense of how to build the mood or make something creepy. That said, it does veer more towards the lighter side of things, mostly because it works better for comics. It’s not really cohesive-it’s just additional things that fit in with the rest of the show. It does get a little closer to the darker second half of the series as it goes. And the fourth comic is about the Woodsman and his daughter. Patrick McHale: This comic is set between episodes three and four, but the second comic is between episodes four and five and the third episode is between episodes five and six. What’s drawing you to explore the more light-hearted side of Over the Garden Wall? This is also a divide between one of the most light-hearted episodes, “Schooltown Follies,” and when things get a little more dark and adult, in “Songs of the Dark Lantern.” This first issue is definitely more whimsical and humorous, as was the previous one shot special with the wayward soldiers and land schooners. Paste: This comic is set between the third and fourth episodes of the cartoon. Brave, bizarre and intoxicating, McHale offers the same element of surprise that marks his run as creative director/writer on Adventure Time and his quirky mystery novella, Bags. Other episodes revel in the glow of Silly Symphony-era musicals, 1800s folk and John Hughes rom-com sincerity. While that description may sound familiar-a clear design choice by its authors-the context shifts magnificently from episode to episode, pivoting from genres at a breakneck pace without ever losing a singular vision.ĭebut episode “The Old Grist Mill” channels the Brothers Grimm’s fatalistic doom in the tale of a manic woodsman (Christopher Lloyd) who warns of an ominous beast, while the brothers battle a dog who transforms into a feral monster after ingesting black turtles (a recurring, unexplained sight throughout the series). ![]() The pair inexplicably finds itself marching through a folk-fantasy wonderland with the singular goal to find home. The 10-episode story follows step brothers Greg, a frog-loving adolescent whose non-sequiturs rival Mitch Hedberg’s, and Wirt, a neurotic teenager who records poetry and clarinet cassettes. Despite lasting short of 115 minutes, Patrick McHale’s Over the Garden Wall miniseries for Cartoon Network scales epic ambitions that transcend its runtime. ![]()
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