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Updates/News/Announcements July 29, 2010 Hope these recent pages are coming out okay... I confess I'm consciously using some "cartooning" shortcuts on some backgrounds (for instance, not drawing individual leaves on trees and slashes for grass). I still worry that the average reader only glances over these panels for a handful of seconds each, so I just can't justify spending too long on each one. =\ I bet there are whole college cartoon courses on that exact topic: figuring out where to draw the line between quality and time. Though, it only applies if you're drawing all the art yourself (rather than the conveyor belt style of production, which I'm not a huge fan of). Want to know one trick? Not penciling too much. Takes too much time, and nobody's going to ever see it. Urgh... I want to talk more about what I've learned, but. I guess I'm not going to meet
my fake August 1st deadline. Oh well. I suppose one achievable
deadline would be to have a printed version of Paris finished by NYCC to
hand out to publishers in October. That's doable. Maybe Whipped,
too. July 28, 2010
Pages 37 and 38 of Paris uploaded. July 24, 2010 Also, a new Bite-Size. I don't confess to this often, but today's strip is absolutely true.
July 22, 2010 Page 35 of Paris uploaded. A note on what is written on panel 5 of this page: I decided not to directly translate it because it wasn't "spoken" but that phrase literally means "to good," which would ordinarily be used in the context of "good day," or "good-bye". In this case, however, it is being used as an exclamation like "darn it!" Got a decent pace going, I suppose. I think I'm beginning to learn not to give a single panel too much emphasis or attention - worrying over tiny details which the eye glances over for less than a second. It's a "perfectionist" habit which is carried over from "fine art"... and it seems it has less priority in comics. On the other hand of the spectrum, one could be too careless but I've definitely had to steer myself away from micro-managing panels. Re-reading old work, I've noticed that it's very, very rarely I ever see something which is "unforgivable." When I do find lazy art or errors, it's often something I forget by the next page. I once read Will Eisner say that comics are impressionistic. I see what he means now. What's the point of making hyper-realistic background characters that people hardly ever look at? I'm thinking aloud today for some reason. Maybe someone will benefit from this information. My goal is to finish part one of Paris, which should end at around page 48, by August 1st. I wonder if I can do it? If it were "crunch time" on a published work, I could... hrm. Often, after a "sprint" like that, I need a few days off afterwards. Do I want to push myself? I'm trying to reach that goal so I could print out a test version of the story to maybe hand out at Small Press Expo, which I plan to attend in September. Thirteen pages in nine
days...with a good attitude, the right music and the promise of treating
myself to dinner at the end (even though it's digging into my comic
expenses), it can be done! July 21, 2010 July 20, 2010 A new Bite-Size, after a while of not making any (lack of motivation, I guess). I hope to resume a steady production schedule tomorrow... though I'm prioritizing Paris right now because I just want to get it done - not that I'm rushing - but it's been sitting on the queue for way too long and there are more stories I'd like to finish before time runs out.
July 19, 2010 Not feeling well. I would have published a detailed report complaining about it, but there's no point. More importantly, I've made page 33 of Paris and uploaded it. - - - July 18, 2010 - - - July 13, 2010 Uploaded page thirty-one of Paris. Thanks to everyone who still visits the website regularly even though I haven't posted a lot lately. As of this week and onward to the next several months, there should be more (perhaps daily) updates. Paris may be done by the beginning of Autumn, too, if I'm responsible. I should probably make some more "Bite-Size" strips, too. Acceptance is the first step to recovery. - - - July 5, 2010 - - - July 4, 2010 - - - July 3, 2010 Added a new page to Paris. (This page makes me happy and actually sorta reminds me of Greece a little bit!) There's good and bad news. They're almost the same thing: Paris is running longer than I thought it would. Like, a lot longer. I intended this short story to be about fifty pages, like the one I drew back in 2007, Whipped, but... wow. Thirty pages in, I've barely made it past the first act! So, the news is that Paris is going to be about ninety pages at this rate. That means it might take longer to finish... OR NOT, because I'm freeing up my schedule very soon, in one of the stupidest/riskiest moves of my young life. But I'm doing it in the name of comics! Anyhow...maybe I can finish Paris before my money runs out. Then at least I'll know I made a good little...free comic. Sigh. Unless I make a printed version and people buy it? What's the smart thing to do here? - - -
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