WHO LET THE DOG OUT?

The guys behind Madam & Eve chase new markets

Stephen Francis & Rico Schacherl, creators of “Madam & Eve” have launched a new cartoon strip, aimed at the international market.

Fans of Madam & Eve need not worry, the duo fully intends to continue supplying a daily dose of SA's most popular strip. In fact, they are currently working on expanding the “Madam & Eve universe”….and are busy finishing a new animated pilot episode for a new TV series.

However, with Bad Dog, Francis & Schacherl have  been setting their sights, focusing directly on the highly competitive international syndication market.    

According to Francis -  “One of Madam & Eve’s greatest strengths is that its so “South African”…..however, that can also be one of the cartoon strip’s great ‘weaknesses’ when it comes to international syndication.   For example, sometimes fan emails from overseas might say something like  “Love today’s Madam & Eve.  By the way….what’s a Mielie Lady?’

By keeping the new Bad Dog cartoon strip’s location non-specific to any city, state or country, the creators hope to broaden the strip’s appeal and increase chances of international syndication.

“Bad Dog can take place in Cape Town.  Australia,   New Jersey or anywhere in the UK.  We want the readers to feel like the Bad Dog characters may be living just down their own block.”

While a bit different than the ‘feel’ of the Madam & Eve cartoon, the creators promise that Bad Dog will still carry their inimitable style of humour and wackiness.

When asked to reveal a little bit about the direction of the new cartoon, Rico said:

“We don’t want to give too much away because we’re developing the characters as we go along.  But we feel confident in describing the new cartoon strip at this point, as being….’about guy who owns a pet.  Who’s….well, a bad dog.”

When Steve and Rico didn't send samples of their new strip to Africartoons, we went undercover and found it ourselves - to let the dog out of the bag, so to speak. And from what we've seen, our crit can be summed up in four words: "Bad Dog, good strip!"

Posted on Jun 07, 2010 by Africartoons