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!
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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.