Gnoodtoons: 'Enchanted Beta'
The concept for the Enchanted storyline germinated in 2000. Back then I had been thinking it would be good to have a fantastical world of elves, gnomes and fairies where naturism was so much the norm that clothes were unheard of - and so Gnood Gnomes was born. Just like all projects that I don't put enough forethought into, it had a very short lifespan... only three pages in fact - an incomplete story originaly titled "The Curse of the Magical Underpants!" The story has been dormant ever since its first appearance in 2000 - it was just one of those things I was going to get back to but never got the chance.

Enter Abúi. And Sven Allestädes.

Cartoonist Reinder Dijkhuis wrote and drew Incognito, a wonderful The Bare Pit guest story in which Abúi - one the characters from his long running fantasy webcomic Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan - makes an unexpected visit to the Koala Bay nudist resort that is the principle setting for The Bare Pit. The fact that Abúi was a faerie, complete with wings, long pointy ears and elaborate body art didn't stop her from trying to blend in with the nudist resort locals... until her secret is sprung! The story ended there but it was a catalyst for me to introduce a few other magical/fantasy concepts that I had wanted to bring into The Bare Pit as an occasional circuit breaker from the realism it was steeped in. That's where Sven enters the story. There was, of course, a fictional "Sven" back in The Koala Bares - the original Loxie & Zoot story - in which Tex Tyler gets dressed in a nude suit and christens himeslf Sven, complete with tortured Swedish accent, in an attempt to enter and disrupt the nudist resort's Open Day. Discussions on the Bare Pit forum gave me the thought that there might be some milage in a real Sven, cast in the mould of Jenny Everywhere - a dimension/reality hopping adventurer who's appearance usually results in mayhem (Jenny has even had her own adventure amongst the nudists in Ghost Story.)

So I had my two protagonists, Abúi and Sven, but no story... until I remembered the unfinished Gnood Gnomes tale. Right away I knew I had my concept which then became the story Enchanted. Presented below are the original three pages, complete with some commentary. You'll probably notice that this plot sequence has already been replicated in Enchanted so there are no spoilers contained in what follows.

I'm glad I waited six years before giving this story another go, I feel my skills as a writer and artist have improved somewhat since 2000 - and Enchanted has been a ornery tale to wrestle into shape and keep on-track, needing every bit of cartooning nous at my disposal. Some of the wonderful twists yet to be told in Enchanted would never have occured to me back in 2000, so the orignal story would have been somewhat diminished by that lack, just as it would have been by the non-inclusion of Abúi and Sven... and Tash for that matter.

Enough blathering - on with the show!

Page 1: Wasting no time, all the characters are introduced by the end of the first installment! Gog and Mim the gnomes, Puddle the troll, Erman the elf, Jai Jai the fairy and Sprite the nymph. Also included is Mungo, already familiar to readers of Loxie & Zoot as a bit of a mystery shaman type, and Yin and Yang two characters shoehorned in from one of my natural health comics and who really stick out like sore thumbs as a result.

Page 2: By here I already felt that Mungo was completely out of character. The 'real' Mungo would have just sat back and watched the show unfold rather getting involved, let alone worry about the underpants. Unlike in Enchanted there is no connection here to the garment belonging to anyone. The physical characteristics of the Enchanted versions of Gog, Mim, Puddle, Erman, Sprite and Jai-Jai are fairly faithful to their original depictions - the most notable differences being their height relative to each other plus Jai-Jai now has much darker skin.

Page 3: And there you have it. That's as far as it ever got. You won't be seeing Yin or Yang in Enchanted but I think they are more than ably replaced by Abúi and Tash. Sven's character is more suited to the situation than Mungo's so I'm really happy with his inclusion in Enchanted. The character traits of the original characters have been copied across to Enchanted but I hope they're somewhat more nuanced now!