Admiral Boom= Sgt. Shot

(Source: http://marypoppins.wikia.com/wiki/Admiral_Boom)


In the film Admiral Boom is known for shooting off a canon at certain times. He also still acts a lot like he's in the navy. I've adapted him into Sgt. Shot (obvious name change) an army veteran from an unspecified war. He keeps his flat similar to a military barracks the way Boom keeps his house like a ship. I've took Boom's eccentric behavior and put it down to some kind of ptsd. This makes Shot a darker character. Instead of shooting a canon he either screams or shoots his gun at certain points in the day.
While Boom is friendly and talkative with the neighborhood, Shot keeps to himself and treats Herb with disdain when he tries to socialise with him. This is in direct contrast to when Bert and Boom talk in the film. This modernisation is to show how there is less of a sense of community today and you can't really strike up a conversation with a stranger anymore.

There are other subtle ways of making my comic contemporary compared to the film. The first is when Herb is busking and everyone just walks past him. I've drawn the figure looking at something in their hand like a phone etc. In the film Bert is surrounded by people giving him their undivided attention. This is less likely to happen today.
On pg.2 of my comic Herb walks past a hobo with a trolley full of cans whereas in the film Bert walks past some sort of food cart. This is to present a darker world but also I never see food carts around today, (not the kind in the film at least) probably because we have more supermarkets and chain stores, meanwhile their seem to be more homeless than there are in Mary Poppins.
These sorts of touches pretty much stop however when I stop using shots from the film as direct references and come up with my own compositions.