pow! boom! zap!

i've mentioned before that i dont like doing licensed characters.  being able to copy someone else's art might indicate good hand-eye coordination (or you have a Kopykake projector) but if you want Tinkerbell, i'll leave it to Disney. plus i never understood why Barbie, for instance, when made into a party theme, has to have her face on everything.  if i were Barbie, i'd want flowers, or hearts, or something about Barbie at the party--i wouldn't want to eat my own face.  so when Evelyn turned 4 and wanted a Spiderman party, i wanted to work around just doing red masks and logos.
a neat thing about comic books is that they're full of pictures.  they even have pictures to depict what you cant see--sound.  in text we call it onomatopoeia. but if you draw it, a big colorful blast shape with a KA-POW, etc, right in the middle is a cool graphic by itself.  and who doesn't chuckle when watching fight scenes in old Batman episodes? (Oof! Splat!)
so i made Evelyn some comic-style action sounds in what were supposed to be yellow blue and red, but oh that red, i need a new brand, because i could only get dark pink.  but it's ok, because girls like pink too.
all 3 colors were applied one after the other so they dried flat, then i "inked" them with the edible marker.  the imprecision of the piping lent to a nice sketchy, hand-drawn effect with the marker, like fun little doodles.  the shapes were a flower for 'pop,' 2 asymmetrical flowers for 'boom,' and 2 elongated stars for 'zap.'
and i've mentioned before that not everyone gets up close to admire the cake before it's eaten.  if you're late, or standing in back, you may miss the big communal dessert/art before it's divided up, but once we were done singing, and the cake was being cut, the plate of cookies circled the room and everyone got a fun piece of comic book art, via a cookie. and anyone who had ever read a comic book got the connection without any direct reference to a character.  besides, the birthday kid is always enough of a character :)  Happy Birthday Evelyn!
and stay tuned for cows and lizards and hearts and plants and plaid, and more flowers... and feel free to throw a few suggestions my way for April Fool's Day, i'm pondering that too...