Frequently Asked Questions

The Apple Tower is a comical, graphic ode to hometowns the world over, and is meant to capture a sense of the charm found there. 

The Apple Tower officially launched on November 23, 2009. 

The Apple Tower ran for a while as a daily comic strip, featuring black & white dailys and a special, full-color 'Sunday' strip which generally ran on Saturday, with the rough, penciled version published the following day as a special bonus. Currently, The Apple Tower, full-color Sunday strips are being published once weekly to allow Brian Barnett time to accumulate plenty of new, daily material. 

Brian Barnett is the sole registered copyright owner of everything in this graphic work, The Apple Tower, which includes all related characters and images.

Not legally without Brian Barnett’s written permission. To seek permission, please use the Contact link.

Please note that provisions have also been made for sharing The Apple Tower comics by means of the Email A Friend! link.

Brian Barnett is also happy to give signed prints of his individual cartoons. Email him for further information. 

No, but be patient! Brian Barnett's desire is that at some point, after the first year of online publication, The Apple Tower might find a way into your local bookstore. The reality of this will depend primarily on enthusiasm, support, and word of mouth from you, the reader.

There is a real water tower in Jackson, Ohio that is painted to look like an apple. It is this tower that is the source of inspiration for the fictional water tower in Applegrove.

To see a photograph, go to the Characters section of this site, and click on the sketch of the water tower there.

No, Applegrove isn't inspired by a single town. Rather, it is inspired by many different towns that the creator of this work has experience with. Most notably, Jackson, Ohio and Grandview Heights, Columbus, Ohio. However, the fictional town of Applegrove is intended to mirror all hometowns in general.

Todd McFarlane, Bill Watterson, Gary Larson, Drew Struzan, Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, Mel Blanc, Walt Disney. This is the abbreviated list.

Brian Barnett first began developing his idea for The Apple Tower in 2004.

By the time The Apple Tower premiered on November 23, 2009, Barnett had invested countless hours in the creation of his fictional world. Some of the strips that have appeared here since the launch of the website were actually drawn back in 2004. Others will never see publication, due to the evolution and progression of the overall idea.  

There are so many elements that go into this sort of thing. A good cartoonist must be a decent writer, a comedian, a philosopher, and finally, he or she must be able to draw. A certain amount of time is invested into each of these elements before the finished product finally reaches publication. 

All told, Brian Barnett generally spends about 3-4 hours on the daily strips. Depending on their complexity, the full-color Sunday strips can take much longer, generally between 8-12 hours. 

There are several good reasons why The Apple Tower is presented in black & white except on Sundays.

1. The black & white format is an art form all its own, and many people (including Brian Barnett) are fans of it.
2. Publishing in black & white during the week makes the full color Sunday strip stand out more, and adds a special element to the overall experience.
3. Presenting The Apple Tower in this way is a nod to the format in which many classic comic strips of yesteryear were presented.

Creative freedom is a funny thing, in that more is not always better. Based on years of experience trying out a variety of sizes and formats, Brian Barnett respects the classic, 4-panel layout as being ideal for daily comics. It provides enough space to do the art form justice, while at the same time not overwhelming the cartoonist in his ability to provide a daily, quality comic strip.

The Apple Tower Sunday strips have been given plenty of space so that Brian Barnett can really let loose when he wants to.

Yes, Brian Barnett worked for a couple of years as a published cartoonist in Ohio.

Some of them are, yes. For example, Norman, Orson, Carrie, Orson’s Parents, Larry and Deputy Keifer have all been inspired by real people. It is important to keep in mind what ‘inspired by’ does not mean. The characters share some personality traits to real people. This means they are inspired by certain individuals, but are not meant to represent them.

Ninjas.

No. Instead, he spent most of his 12 years in regular school drawing instead of paying attention, as most of his teachers will attest.

Brian Barnett starts with a theme that he is personally interested in seeing come to life, or an idea inspired by daily experiences. This may include a point of view he wishes to express, some sort of drawn visual effect, an interesting concept, or simply a chance to get to know the characters better. At any rate, the spark for a new strip begins here. 

Barnett then follows these basic steps, included here are the technical details: 

1. Sketching, Writing - Barnett spends time sketching his idea, playing with variations, until he settles on a satisfactory flow of the way things should play out. The sketching process is also usually Barnett's way of writing each strip. 

2. Layout - Barnett measures out his panels and text lines on a 4x13 space of two-ply, smooth, Bristol paper. This will be the completed strip after all is said and done. 

3. Lettering - Barnett letters all of the dialog in the strip by hand, using either a .05 HB mechanical pencil, or a .07 HB mechanical pencil.  

4. Pencils - Barnett then uses the same pencil to sketch all of the characters into the panels under their respective text dialog. 

5. Panels (Inks) - Barnett uses a Sharpie Fine Point to ink the panels. 

6. Lettering (Inks) - Once all of the pencil work has been completed, Barnett then uses a bold Pilot Bravo Marker pen to ink over all of the penciled lettering. 

7. Inks - Next, Barnett goes over all the drawn pencil lines of the characters, etc. using a combination of the following pens: A) Sharpie Fine Point for large black areas B) Sharpie Extra Fine Point for the main, outer lines C) Pilot Precise Extra Fine V5 for detail. 

8. Erasing - Finally, Barnett erases all of the pencil lines that are now (mostly) covered in inks, adds any last minute detail that he may notice missing. 

9. Scanning - The last step is scanning the completed strip into the computer, and adding it to the bank of comics which are preprogramed to appear on the site at midnight on whatever date they have been created for. 

*The rough, penciled version of the strips always appear on theappletower.com on one of the two weekend days. This is specifically so that those who want to analyze the creative process are able to do so. Also, remember it was the rough, unfinished cartoon work that attracted Brian Barnett to cartooning in the first place. 

Technology has changed the world of cartooning quite a bit, but Brian Barnett is old-school. He comes from the age of White Out and copy machines.

Brian Barnett still prefers to do his work with pencil and paper, and he doesn’t see that changing any time soon. The computer’s role in his work is basically this:

1. It replaces White Out when making corrections.
2. It replaces the copy machine when making reductions.
3. It makes coloring the Sunday strip easier in the interest of time.

In other words, everything you see here was done by hand and scanned in. That includes the lettering and even the panels around the comic strips. Therefore, everything is completely original and comes directly from the mind and hand of Brian Barnett.

Many people now correctly assume that a lot of cartooning is done with computers. Though, to attribute the artwork here in The Apple Tower to the tricks and shortcuts of a computer program cheapens and undermines the efforts of the creator.