Bad Hair Day

Gigi Template Complete With Hairstyles

My artist Daniel approached me a month ago asking if he could re-style my Gigi character's hair.  Horror instantly reeled through my mind!  Not because Daniel was trying to assert some control over my character (which was okay with me), but my own negative views of changing generic hairstyles just to be trendy.  Bad hairstyles always seem to stand out, like the "artistic" challenges to Sue Richards' hair over the decades reading Marvel Comic's Fantastic Four:

Sue Richards Dubious Hairstyles: 1960s/1990s

Or that strange mullet Paul McCartney decided to coif in the late 1980s:


Thankfully the ex-Beatle is still around seemingly entertaining the whole world.  However, Fantastic Four, the nexus of Marvel Comic's ongoing creative boom, is no longer being published.

I'm not saying that my Pretty Vacant comics will go the way of Fantastic Four just because of bad hair.  I'm hoping that I get a 50-year run like Sir Paul!  His hair didn't get in the way of making great music over the years, as his albums/cds Band on the Run (1973), Flowers in The Dirt (1989), Flaming Pie (1997) or Memory Almost Full (2007) would attest.  Besides, I use Pretty Vacant as a springboard to obtain other work.  Daniel genuinely enjoys drawing the comic.

So I asked him to create a Gigi template with various hairstyles where I would choose which hairstyle to have for the next Pretty Vacant comic (it's at the top of this post).  I chose the style immediately to the right of Gigi's head.  However, Daniel really liked the style on the lower left. I thought this process would be democratic, but Daniel out-Trumped me and went with his preferred hairstyle for Gigi and the upcoming Pretty Vacant: Tijuana Special!

At least I can now say it will be Daniel's fault if Pretty Vacant: Tijuana Special is not as successful as my previous comics!  Yes, I'm kidding.  I know that any success or failure will be due to how well my plot is received, how much backing I can obtain through a crowd-funding campaign and the how receptive buyers are when my comic becomes available for sale online or at conventions.

(But, seriously, it will be his fault!)