Twice the Triplets

Resurfacing ideas

Posted on by Berg

Last night, after having thought a lot about the future of Twice the Triplets, I was reading some scripts I wrote a while back. These were scripts not for regular gags, but for longer stories (15+ pages) that just wouldn’t fit within the regular format of the comic, which means that if I am to actually make these it would be a separate thing from the main 2×3 series, which in turn means that finding the time to do it would be very difficult. So I was reading through them to see if I think, at this point in time, that these stories are worth telling or if I should just scrap the ideas entirely. I still haven’t really made my mind up.

But I stumbled upon a surprise when I was looking through my “Writings” folder: A (partial) script I’d written for an entirely new comic I never went through with actually making. Now, I’ve done a bunch of these over the years, but what made this one special was the fact that I had completely – and I mean completely – forgotten everything about it: The idea itself, the fact that I ever had the idea, the fact that I wrote the script and just about everything that happened in it. Almost a little strange, seeing as it’s been less than two years since I wrote it. It did start to slowly come back to me as I was reading it, but for the most part I was looking at it with fresh eyes just as any reader would. I found the idea to be fun and full of potential, and I would love to go back to it some day and turn it into an actual comic.

One snag is the fact that the script is unfinished. I do remember now that I did have plans for how the story would play out further – I just don’t remember what they were. Which is especially frustrating because the script ends at a point where the characters were about to carry out som well laid plan… Guess I should have written that down back then, eh? Oh well. Maybe it’s buried somewhere in the back of my mind and it will come back to me. Or maybe, if at some point I decide to do this comic, I’ll be able to come up with something new that works just as well.

In any case, add one more to the list of comics I’ve created in my head that I would like to do one day.

Origin of the Triplets

Posted on by Berg

The idea for Twice the Triplets came pretty easily, almost as if it just created itself inside of my head. I don’t remember where or when this happened, only that I was thinking about making a new comic and my thoughts went something like this:

Hey, what if I make a comic about a guy who suddenly has to take care of some kids?

He should be related to them – probably not their father, but what if he’s their uncle?

Maybe I should make the kids girls? I’ve made comics before about kids, but I always made the main characters boys.

I know, I’ll make the girls twins! No wait, triplets!

Wait a minute. Waaaaait a minute.

If I’m gonna do that, how about making it two sets of triplets? You know, to really make the guy have his hands full?

I could call it “Twice the Triplets”! And refer to it as “2×3”, as a kind of stylized abbreviation!

It was that quick, and that straight-forward. Next thing I remember is coming up with a gag – I immediately knew it would be a gag-a-page type comic – in which the uncle character would be planning some bedtime activity with a ladyfriend, and some of the kids would inadvertently scare her off. This idea would eventually become the fourth page of the comic, titled “Grownup Stuff”.

Right from the conception of Twice the Triplets, Fred just couldn’t catch a break.

It would be a while before that happened, though, because the next thing I did was to file away the ideas I had for Twice the Triplets in the back of my head. A cutesy comic about kids? I should probably try to do something a little bit more sophisticated than that for my next comic, I thought. In the months that followed, I did have other ideas I tried to make use of. Continue reading →

The story of Henry

Posted on by Berg

I said at the end of my previous blog entry that my next webcomic after Badass Brat would be more ambitious, and yes, I was referring to Twice the Triplets. Before that, though, I had made a short lived comic – one I did end up showing online – called Henry the Comic Strip Character. It was just a silly little thing I felt like doing when I felt burned out on Badass Brat at one point. I wanted to just have fun making a comic, not work hard or worry about quality, just indulge my silliest impulses in the form of a crudely drawn comic strip with excessively stupid jokes and giggle at readers’ confused response. I didn’t much care if anyone other than myself found it entertaining at all, but judging by the response I got, some people did see the humor in it (though they would usually wish it had better artwork). If I am to be completely honest, I should admit that there was a touch of parody about the comic, aimed at the “intelligent, hard working wife and fat, lazy stupid husband” sitcom cliché, but I am not going to claim it had some sort of high-brow subtext.

Groundbreaking comedy.

Henry was originally written in my native Norwegian, and probably is read best that way, but I nevertheless translated most of the strips into English and made them available starting right here.

So. If I made Henry, then how exactly was Twice the Triplets my next webcomic after Badass Brat? Simple: After I made Henry, I made the last few Badass Brat strips after having had a break from it for some time. When the comic ended shortly after, the next comic I made which actually went all the way to becoming a webcomic was Twice the Triplets. So what I told you was true… from a certain point of view.