Culture Thursday: A word from Victor the Crab
So this past month, I've been in contact with Scopedog about a commission for his art talents. I gave him the graphic that you see in the heading, and gave him exact instructions of what I wanted. And this past Friday, he showed me the final results.
But before I continue, I would like to make a confession to everyone here.
My real name is not Victor! It's actually Chris.
Why would I want to use another person's name for my username, you may ask? Well interestingly, my Victor the Crab predates the internet. About 1990, I was going through an emotional wreck at that point in my life. I was looking for a way to find an outlet for my frustrations.
That's when I came up with Victor the Crab.
Why a crab, you ask? Well funny thing. I actually have a phobia of crabs, aka kabourophobia. Yeah, weird, I know! But I figured, as Liam Neeson told Christian Bale in Batman Begins, the best way to conquer my fear is to become that what I fear! And I think it might have helped. Besides, Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse as way to combat his fear of mice. The name Victor comes from the coasts of British Columbia, where Canadian Dungeness crabs, like Victor, come from. But, more specifically, he's from that province's capital, Victoria. He's Victor from Victoria!
I drew inspiration for Victor from both late Toronto Star editorial cartoonist Sid Barron's cat, and Ken Dryden's leaning upright pose with his goalie stick trademark. I drew him to talk to me about the issues I'm going through. Kinda like talking to myself, but with pen and ink on paper.
After having to come to terms with myself, Victor as an artform started waning. But that's when the internet started becoming a thing. So Victor the Crab went from being an editorial cartoon mascot to my default username on the internet.
But along the way, I was developing a head cannon that would make for an animated series. It would be like if the looney tune animators of Termite Terrace started doing anime type stories with North American art.
The series would revolve around a character named Max Edwards.
He's a high school history teacher who one day took advice from one of his fellow faculty members to try something different. So, on his way home from work, he stops off at a fish market to buy seafood for his dinner. The proprietor gives him a very problematic crab at an extremely reduced rate so as to get rid of him.
This one:
(*my drawing, BTW!
)When Max returns to his apartment, he tries to prepare dinner using the crab, but the crab has other ideas and tries to make a jailbreak. Max keeps thwarting him, getting his fingers and nose pinched along the way. Until finally, when it looks like Max is about to put the crab in hot water, the crab speaks out "PLEEEEASE, I WANNA LIVE!!!"
The crab talking stunned Max to the point where he couldn't possibly cook and eat the crab. So Max keeps the crab as a pet/roomate, naming him Victor, and the series mostly revolves around Victor trying to make things better for Max and his friends, only to have it blow up in their faces, leaving Max screaming "Vic-TORRRRRR!!!" It's kind of a cartoon micro trope that can be seen here and here.
Max and Victor represent both of me. Max looks something like me in my younger days. I didn't give Scopedog any real specifics for Max, but I'd say he did a great job of creating a reasonably (and literally) hand drawn facsimile of me. Victor represents my id, while Max represents my ego. In fact, the name "Max Edwards" is based on my own middle name, Maxted.
A running theme here would be Max having sub zero luck meeting women. It's not that he doesn't try, it's just that something bad always happens to him that doesn't go beyond another date, whether it's another guy picking up his own date, or being used to make his date's guy or girl jealous. All while leaving Max with nothing.
The worst of this was an old college crush of his named Lydia Cole, whom he thought was interested in him, only to leave him hanging for someone else. And when she returned to visit him, they finally got together. But when Max went to pick Lydia up on their first date, at the bar he and his friends hang out at, he sees her ditching him for the bar's thug lothario named Rudolph, leaving Max on the verge of a breakdown.
Max had decided to give up on women, believing no one woman was ever going to be interested in him, and was prepared to face a life of loneliness.
Until he meets Frida Olsen:
Frida was a new member to the faculty of Max's high school. She's the spitting image of Marta Kristen's Judy Robinson from Lost In Space. She's the most beautiful woman Max had ever seen.
Max, already vowing not to be taken in for fear he would be disappointed and upset again, tried his best to avoid her early on. But soon they would connect and become friends. Then, fate and circumstance would play itself out.
And then, this would be the end result:
Max and Frida falling in love with each other. Frida sees Max as the most wonderfully perfect man she's ever met. And Max is so happy with Frida, becoming the most grateful man on the planet for having someone like Frida to love. The series would end with Max marrying Frida and then later on becoming principal of the school he works at.
This is a beautiful and fully detailed drawing Scopedog created. I love how he drew the eyes of the two. You can really see, into their souls, through their eyes how they love each other. And Victor looks more crablike in Scopedog's depiction than I could ever come up with, as he's happy that his best bud Max finally has someone to love. And while Scope's artwork tends to be more in line with anime/manga, his drawings would make for the perfect anime/manga interpretation.
As to the voices for this series, I'd have both Max and Victor voiced by none other than Mark Hamill himself. Hamill can use his regular voice for Max, while developing a gravelly, high pitch version of his iconic Joker voice. As for Frida, the person I had in mind for her would be Hélène Joy, the Australian born Canadian actress best know for playing the very progressive for her time Dr Julia Ogden on the CBC/Acorn series, Murdoch Mysteries.
I had some plots created in my head that I never typed out or recorded. I'm not sure if any of you would be interested in reading them, but if you are, I could make something or two for any future Culture Thursdays. I am a little hesitant as I don't know how you'd respond, as this might not be everyone's cup of tea.
But you have to admit. Scopedog's work is a thing of beauty, eh?