Dean Yeagle
(Continued from Page 3 )
DY: Well they’re not working on planes anymore. In the original story the air force came in and built aircraft factories in their woods. So they were so angry they started wrecking the airplanes. And the lead flyer came to an agreement with them to stop wrecking the airplanes, and let them live in the big house that he had, which is where they’re living now. In our story, they find out that their house might be sold, and they begin to wreak havoc again, on the more villainous characters. So they’re still up to their old tricks, but they don’t do them to planes; they do them to houses, cars and things.
JF: How much freedom did you have with the project?
DY: Disney is pretty hands-off, except I was approved by Disney to do this. I am in their database as an approved Disney artist, which was actually news to me, but Dark Horse found that out. And I have a reasonably free hand with what I can do.
JF: Tell me about Mandy. Where did she come from?
DY: Mandy is a character I developed in 2002 for an online workship I hosted at bellefree.com. A group of us cartoon pin-up types got together as an offshoot of sketchbook sessions, and that’s what I started on. I originally based her on what the Coppertone girl might look like grown up, in the style of my Playboy cartoons. Now she has a wide audience with both men and women. She doesn’t use guns or karate chops – she’s just herself, a sexy but innocent and, I hope, charming character. I get a lot of fans from my websites, and a good number of projects come up as well…for instance, she’s been licensed as the iconic character for coffee by a company in Russia – they’re actually calling it ‘Café Mandy’, and her picture’s on every package. They have big plans for the brand in Japan, Europe, China, and here in the US.