Who are Marilla and Hank?
Marilla P. Alligator and Hank DeBird are professional comic strip characters with over 35 combined years in the business. They author this blog to bring you an insider’s perspective of how to create great comic strips.
Marilla got her start as a young reptile in ‘The Alligateer Club’ and later in ‘Out of the Water’. She co-founded the comic ‘Alligator Funnies’ with cartoon gators Albert (from Pogo) and Wally Gator (Hanna-Barbara) which ran for 23 years in the Swamp Animal Gazette. Marilla’s contributions to the feature landed her a Outcault Award in 2001 for best animal humorist.
Hank was pushed out of the nest and right into the prestigious Ignatz Charactering School where he studied the ins-and-outs of the comic strip character trade. Upon graduation, he became a respected teacher at the school and followed with opening his own practice as a creative consultant. He has consulted dozens of well-known characters, most of which are in publication today.
The two met at a trade convention in 2006 and decided to collaborate on a project to help human cartoonists work better with their characters. They soon got involved with the Zingerding team and this blog was born.