! - page five

Happy New Year ever'body. To celebrate I drew the next page of ! for you.

Go nuts.

A Boy and His Squirrel - Page Three

Finally!
Continued from here, as you'll remember...

! - page four

Told you this would pull ahead. Really, I am still working on A Boy and His Squirrel...

! - page three

Page three. Almost done with page three for squirrel too, so these stories are neck and neck right now. I imagine ! is gonna pull ahead though.

If this weren't just a little sketchbook comic I'd have soo many ideas to artsy it up. Don't want to keep redoing what's already done, though. Not even at this early point, not when I have so much else to do.

! - page one(again) and two

I redrew page one of ! cause that's what I do: redraw things. Tightened it up a little, compressed the narrative (i.e. added a panel) and left out the hatches.

and then I drew page two:


One and two are a two page spread so here they are side by side:


I'm having a bit of trouble with drawing A Boy and His Squirrel this week. I hope to have some up next week. I'm still working on it...

! - page one

So much for "obsessive need to post here..."

I bought a new pen over the weekend. Rather than jump back into A Boy and His Squirrel, I wanted to warm up/break in the pen. So here's page one of another story called !. It's meant to be my best bad Steinberg impression but with all the hatching I accidentally put in it's like a poor man's (bad) Gauld. I'll be using this as a warm up to Squirrel pages so I'll jump back and forth between the two, posting here.

You know, if all goes well...

The Pen Runneth Dry

Continuing the stellar launch of my latest project here at the ol' blog: two pages in and I've hit another stumbling block.
The pen I've been using to ink these pages has gone and dried up on me. At least dried up enough that I can't get the line I want out of it. It's taking me about four times as long as it should to ink each panel - retracing the lines to get a good mark. Very frustrating. I can only use the one kind of pen as every other I have bleeds way out on this cheap sketchbook paper. Rather than butchering the new pages (as in the exerpt above) I'm gonna wait to draw more until I can find me a suitable replacement. I don't know when I'll get the chance to - soon I hope.

So, some filler then...

I've got a few other projects in the works right now, as well as normal sketchbooky type stuff to post. This'll fuel my obsessive desire to update this page. A Boy and His Squirrel will be back as soon as I buy a new pen.

Sorry about the rough going, but I'd rather have something I like to post, rather than just something.

ehh... such is the life of a sketch blog...

A Boy and His Squirrel - New Page Two

Page two again.
That's right. That's how things are gonna go here.

I've thumbed out the next several pages and will continue to do so. Hopefully a little planning ahead will stave off any more difficulties like this page gave me. I think I'm revising my "schedule" (more like goal) from three to two pages a week too, though this week is only one page (again).

Anyway, in other news: Ira Marcks once again has an internet presence! I'm a big fan of his old Angel Interceptor works. Along with their return, he's also posted a lot of his newer printed work. This is good news to me and you as well. Thanks to Phil McAndrew for the tipoff.

A Boy and His Squirrel - Page Two

Page two. Missed posting this yesterday...
Not as satisfied with this page. Had to fight the urge to redraw it.

Thanksgiving was crazy busy, just as I thought. It was nice having the family together.
Of course something always goes wrong. My sister, in town from England, brought along some kind of mystery illness (maybe probably picked up in NYC, where she was on business). It may be chicken pox or it may be scabies but in either case I have a two year old and a four month old exposed to something. Oh boy! Something else to freak out about. Can't anything just be easy for once? It's a holiday for chrtistsake.

A Boy and His Squirrel - Page One

Here we go, page one is up...
and now time for a break.

With my usual spectacular knack for timing, I'm starting in on this one just before a holiday weekend. We're hosting my family for Thanksgiving this year, which means I'll be busy,busy,busy. So I probably won't have another page up until next week. Sorry about the lousy planning on my part. I may through up something for you to look at. No guarantees on any new pages.

So much for that schedule...

A Boy and His Squirrel - Title Page

This feels like kind of a cheat - posting a title page like this. But I wanted to get something posted today and this was quicker than a real page. I'm going to be taking a little more time with these, with an eye towards collecting them at some point. It'll still be write-as-you-go but I'm thinking in scenes rather than in pages this time. I'm shooting for three pages a week but will only post them when I like them, and realistically I probably won't stick to that schedule. Anyway, here we go...


And, uh, guys? I haven't been at the whole LiveJournal thing long, but I think I may have broken it. Andrew has been a pretty vocal supporter in the comments section there and I always appreciate his comments. He's an immensely talented cartoonist as well, I'll miss his posting stuff to LJ. It is sad to see his journal close but I wish him well In wherever he goes next.

First real page scheduled for Wednesday.

one last sketch

Or, can I say that? Technically, the actual comic will be sketches too. It's a sketchbook comic...

In any case, It'll get started next week.

sketches+links = lazy cartoonist?

Some more sketches for the new project. It occurs to me that I may be doing so much prep work this time only to avoid actually starting in on the comic. So... next week, no matter how comfortable I am with the "look." That gives me one week to either nail it down or not. Sink or swim.

So, on to people that can actually finish comics. Whole pages at a time, even!
----
If I had, like ten bucks (or any money) to spare I'd be buying me some Trains are... Mint. Seriously. This page alone? Brilliant! (link from Derik)

Also, my buddy Neal is in fine form, Illustrating for Sam Costello at Split Lip. By "fine form" I mean, really kind of creepy. Neal shows a real propensity toward the darker parts of old folk songs like the one they're adapting here. Then again, a lot of those songs are pretty dark.

(Vicious murder is a theme in these links, I guess.)

No murder (so far), but still kind of vicious, is Dash Shaw's new webcomic (yeah, that's right) BodyWorld, for which he has a full prelude posted (regular updates are promised starting in January).
I do so hope that Shaw doesn't get too aggressively distopian with this one. The generic trappings are sometimes an easy mark for reflecting contemporary wierdness. A lot of young cartoonists are leaning that way lately, but Shaw has shown an eye for a more naturalistic wierdness (if that makes sense) in his previous work that speaks to me a little more (that's what it's all about, right? Speaking to me personally?). Way to early to make a judgement though. At least he'll have me for the ride. (link also via Derik, who has good taste)

Peanuts fan?

That gag I mentioned on Monday? It's up now, here. Filler for William G and Sahsha Andrade's It's About Girls while the comic is on hiatus. The gag makes a little more sense if you know the characters, so by all means go and read the archives.

For the observant and curious, Mostly Banal is my once and future diary strip.

Note: Ill-conceived and irritating (though brief) rant depublished.

"A Boy and His Squirrel" sketchdump

In case you haven't heard, the next story I'm doing here at the blog is going to be called A Boy and His Squirrel.
I'm still trying to narrow down a look for the thing, kind of a flattened zero (linear) perspective deal.

At some point I'm just gonna have to start drawing this, but for now here're some sketches.

At the bottom, here, you can also see the beginnings of a gag that should surface later this week. I'll let you know.

The story is about a boy and a squirrel. That's really all I've got to go on right now.

"real" character designs (and a new comic, too)

All about the character designs here lately. This is for what'll be the next comic I serialize here. Doing a little more planning before I jump in this time (don't worry, not too much...)

Been a bit slow posting this week because of the deadline crunch for this, my entry into Calamity Jon Morris's collaborative comics project, "BOO! Halloween stories"
When Flies Were Big was written by Jon hisself and, um... embellished by yours truly.

Check out all the comics springing up at the OuCoPo site and remember, this is monthly and open for anyone to contribute. (Every month has a new theme. It's not year-round Halloween, as cool as that sounds)

Happy Halloween, everybody!

one hundred character some head and profile designs

The other day I read (via sirive's LiveJournal) about a character design exercise that Steve Bissette and James Kochalka give to their cartooning students. The assignment is to design one hundred recognizably different characters in one week. Seems like a good enough way to fill space here until I start something new.

Of course, mine number significantly less than a hundred, are more floating head designs than character designs, and only took me about fifteen minutes total.

Well... I've never been good at following directions.



Ahhh... another exciting Friday!

Lost and Found - part sixteen

That's the end. Last page in the notebook too, so I guess I had to stop.

Hope you've enjoyed this little story. It started as an experiment in "installment writing," meaning I initially came to a new page each day not knowing where I would go with the story (Additionally, I wrote and drew these things on my breaks at work, so even the installments came in installments). Slowly the storyline warped and then solidified in my head (there's an image) until it ended up like this. Kind of rough and disjointed but not without it's charms.
I've decided to re-write and re-draw the story. I have a lot of changes in mind already, including a new ending. I've talked to Cat Garza about including it in his upcoming MoCCA anthology and he gave me the go ahead.

That being said, if anyone wants a kind of ashcan edition of this version, then let me know. I think I've found a method of publishing that won't lose all the charm of the notebook pages (and it's cheap!)

Now, on to something else here at the blog. But what?
I've got some more ideas, but probably just some random sketches for a bit...

Thanks for reading.

Lost and Found - part fifteen

One more page to go, I think.

Lost and Found - part fourteen

I had an idea that this might happen. And then I though tthat it probably wouldn't. I didn't know for sure until today, though.

Lost and Found - part thirteen

Edit: Put up the wrong cartoon at first. Whups.


Lucky part thirteen today. Starting to wrap this up.

Over at the LiveJournal, David Yoder suggested I collect this in a physical format as a mini, something that has crossed my mind. There is a kind of charm to this story and it presentation on the blog. I'm not sure the ad hoc process of creating this makes for a cohesive work. It's been fun trying to keep the continuity going one installment at a time, but looking over it I'm not so sure it works as a whole.
Another idea is fixing the errors and redrawing the whole thing. I think I'd be more satisfied with the end result there - it'd certainly have more polish - but is it worth the time it'd take to redo it?

I'll decide when the things all done, but I'm curious as to what anyone else thinks.

Any ideas?

Lost and Found - part twelve

I didn't even erase the pencil lines on this one. That goes to show how HARD CORE I am today!
Yeah!

whatever...

Lost and Found - part eleven

Lost and Found - part ten

I've just about hit critical mass as far as the number of projects I'm working on right now. I'll probably have to scale back to shooting for the every-other daily doodle rather than daily. Not too different from how I'm posting lately anyway.
I might fill in the off days with some sketches and other non-comics stuff.

Lost and Found - part nine

This was supposed to go up last Friday (note the cliffhanger leading into the weekend - I'm starting to pace this like such a sap), but things didn't work out that way. I think it's finally clumsily loping it's way to some kind of conclusion, though.

Lost and Found - part eight

Lost and Found - part seven

Page seven introduces the posibility of a whole new subtext that I probably don't need. Oh well, what's done is done.

This weeks turning out a lot less talky than last week.

Lost and Found - part six

Lost and Found - part five

Next week: a change of scenery!

Lost and Found - part four

Dear Blogger people, I have been unfaithful.
Yesterday I began cross posting at my long dormant LiveJournal account. Her wiles, they were just too great. And my friends egged me on besides.

This need not be the end of our relationship, however. If you keep an open mind, we can still enjoy the pleasure of one anothers company. Let's think of this as an "open" relationship. You are free to see others as well (or even join me and my LiveJournal for a sort of menage?).
Here. It's all explained in this book. All I ask is you read it.


(Too creepy?)
My Live Journal

And speaking of menage, have you heard about OuCoPo, Jon Morris' new collaborative anthology?
Every month there will be a different theme and everyone is invited to submit comics based on said theme.
The goal is to flood Jon with so many submissions that running the anthology will absorb every second of his time and ruin all hope of gainful employment, relationships, and other general enjoyments.
So submit! And often!
The first theme is BOO! halloween stories (to which I contributed last year)

Lost and Found - part three

Lost and Found - part two

Lost and Found - part one

on language

sorry...

can you find it?

Here are the "answers" to Monday's cartoon post:


1. Speaking out of place
2. Strong Words or Tough Talk (Derik got that)
3. His words have come back to haunt him.
4. The voice inside his head.
5. His words have come back to bite him on the ass.

These might have worked better with a little refinement, but in the end I decided it wasn't worth the time.
Thanks to those who played along though.

ouch...

Thanks to Derik for the validation of commenting on my last post. If anybody is interested I'll post the answers (or at least what I was going for) tomorrow.

ways with "words"

Can you guess the common idioms these cartoons represent?
('Cause if you can't then they're not all that good are they?)

angry mickey

My allergies are acting up like crazy today making it really hard for me to think straight. This drawing is the sad result.
I have no idea why copyrights are being tossed at cranky old mickey.

A Story (synopsis)

I'm toying around with turning these story-playthings into a concept. Maybe a mini comic...

Black Hat!

A Story (draft one-rewrite)

The end still seems kind of rushed.

pacman daydream

A Story (draft one)

The first draft is always kind of rough.