Computers can take you there.

This was based on something that frognuts acted out when he got the news that Dave and Carmen’s relationship had dissolved. I don’t think he really meant what he said though, instead he was just trying to be funny, or maybe he just really likes Dave Navarro and is just happy Carmen wont get in the way anymore.

If you notice, the line art for this comic is…inconsistent. The character’s face changes, so that he looks younger in the last panel. This was because I drew a quick rough draft that I used as the final line art instead of doing another draft. Was I lazy? Maybe, but that doesn’t usually stop me. What stopped me was when I looked at it and wondered if I could cover the crappy line work with color. So I did, and then showed the comic to some people, and they laughed so it worked. But then they mentioned that going back they noticed the inconsistency, but I was expecting that so it was cool with me. As long as they laughed and didn’t notice it the first time through.

This might only be interesting to me.

Also, this is the first color comic I’ve posted here at frognuts.net. I used color pencils and markers…giving the comic a “homemade charm.” The markers are made by prismacolor and they give a nice color and blend really well. They are something powerful though, and bleed through almost any paper, marking up any surface underneath. I protected the table I was working on by coloring on a folded piece of paper. When I was done the thing looked like a crappy work of incidental art, so I will share it with you. It reminded me of a time long ago when I would color with marker all the time, and how the first time I did I made a small irreversable marker mess on my dad’s nice drafting table.

I’m going to work on computer coloring techniques to color future comics, so expect some more hand colored comics before the techniques are learned.

Here is some advice for people who work on any type of projects…actually, it’s less advice, more of me venting about how much of a dumbass I was on making this one.

Sometimes it’s best to shut the hell up.

The “production” phase for this comic, the phase where I actually put the comic I’m going to post together, was too disjointed. I kept starting and stopping, figuring I would come back to it later…and I did, but the constant stalling took its toll on the quality. I sketched and inked it over a period of two weeks, in between work and random stuff I needed to do. That’s not a good way to work on something that should only take a day of focused effort.

I blame my human brain. It can make leaps of insight, bringing together desparate bits of information for a great idea, but when I take too long coming back to something all of a sudden I can’t remember how I was inking lines and suddenly the results seem disjointed to me. But I am putting it up on the internet because I believe in the joke.

So yeah, try to get things done as quickly and smoothly as possible.

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He has the right to say otherwise, but I think rednop would say something like what the kitten in the back said, you know, that ego deflating comment that hits you just right.

I had a hard time keeping my inking consistent on this one because I tried using a thin micron pen instead of the Rapidograph pens I’ve been using. I think I will be switching back to my Rapidographs for thicker lines and use micron pens for the thinner lines. The reason being that the Rapidograph pens I have that are very thin cannot seem to get a good ink flow going. I am also going to look into trying out different types of papers to see which holds inks better.

Also, I am now dreaming of setting up a nice comfortable space in which to produce comics. Being bent over a small space on an Ikea computer desk is giving me neck cramps.

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I found a draft of this in my sketchbook, so I decided to take it all the way to inks and then computer screens. The dude in the comic seemed to remind rednop of me, even though that was not my intention. Man, what does that say? No, shut up, that was rhetorical.

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Wow, it took quite a while for this one to see fruition, actually it has been a month since I first thought of making this Comic. For the record I know that in terms of “being funny”, this one is hit or miss. It’s gross and weird, but I found it funny. The twisted dialogue was based on words that came out of someone’s mouth way back on Jan. 4th, close to Valkyr One’s birthday. No, not me, although it was my bright idea to draw it out. What’s in the comic is not based on an actual conversation, we don’t talk to each other like that, and no one I know has actually asked for such a thing…at least I hope not.

Okay, there are two things of note in the production of this comic. The first note involves drawing the cartoon version of Thirdspud, who stands to the left of the hooded Valkyr One in the Comic. Getting Thirdspud drawn right took me several tries, and the frustrating thing at the time was that the attempts were not getting better. Each attempt sucked as bad as the one that came before it, so I took a break and wandered the house aimlessly. After a drink of water I sat back down and batted out a sketch of Thirdspud, and it came out right.

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Of course I was unable to duplicate it freehand, so I constructed a light box with a glass table, an old hair tie and a flashlight. I traced the sketch three times and just changed the expression.
I suppose I could have used Photoshop to do all that, but I am still learning how to use it so it would have actually taken me longer to do.

The second note involves how I used photoshop to eliminate my pencil lines from the finished comic. Back in the day I would use regular pencil to sketch in the drawings, then I would ink the pencils and erase the pencil lines. This time I followed a tutorial on comic creation written by Kazu who draws Copper, one of my favorite comics. Check out the tutorial here. Basically I drew my pencils in blue, then inked over them and instead of erasing by hand I scanned the comic in to photoshop pencils and all. Photoshop did my erasing for me. Cool.

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I just remembered that there is another note. I tried writing in the dialogue on the computer, but none of the fonts looked right, so I had to write it out in pen and scan my writing in and add it with photoshop. That spurns me to try and turn my handwriting into a font that I can type out on my computer. That’d be a good project, anybody have any hints on how to go about doing it?

Make with the clicky on the above image to experience some comic strip fun.

Right below is my initial sketch for what was supposed to go in the last panel, the visual punchline if you will. For this comic I didn’t bother drawing out a whole draft because most of the pacing and elements of the drawing were done in my head. The only part that I had trouble visualizing was the ending where Justice happened, hence my sketch. I thought it was pretty funny the way I drew it, but when I showed the sketch to frognuts and rednop way back in 2001 they pointed out something obvious. It looked like a funny “Panda” gag that Scott Kurtz occasionally does for his comic Player vs. Player, check it out if you don’t know what I am talking about.

It was a DAMMIT! moment when I realized that they were right. Why did it happen? Simple, that was the year I began to read PvP, and I grew to really like it, and if I’m not careful then sometimes I might inadvertenly copy something from what I like into my own work. It’s pretty natural and acceptable to have a level of influence, or ‘copying’ in my work, but not too much, not so specific. Fortunately for this comic I didn’t copy too much. I still liked the basic gag involving cosmic justice and squirrels. I also liked the idea of a giant squirrel being the vehicle for Justice. Sweet, Sweet Justice. Justice….Justice.

So I redid the sketch, you can see it below the first one. I made some notes for improvements, such as a more satisfied and in retrospect less creepy face. Then I drew the thing. Anyway, the point is that I have become ever vigilant in my search for anything resembling plagiarism in my work. Fortunately most people tell you right away if it reminds them of something, at which point I’d better get my ass back to the drawing board. In my mind, my work doesn’t need ‘unoriginal’ added to its list of problems. I don’t think anyone’s does.

Here’s a comic from five years ago. I remember sketching out the idea in the basement of a library when I should have been studying for some college exam. Screw Calculus. I drew the completed one during a family reunion. Below you can see an incomplete version that I abandoned. Starting over at the half way point is rare for me to do, usually I just go for it and don’t look back when I begin work on the final version. Looking at it now I can see that I wasn’t happy with the placement of the telephone pole in the first panel and the splash effect in the second panel. My critical examination of this comic is funny when you think about the content.

*Post Edit*
I was digging through my drawing archives for sketches to an upcoming comic when I came across the comic sketch below. It is the sketch I did for “Dog Day” in the library basement. It has some dialog that frognuts came up with as a punch line, apparently he was there when I came up with the whole thing, but after seeing the comic without text I decided it was better that way. My choice to leave the text out was based on laziness and the fact that it felt more effective as a wordless comic. Yes, I went with a gut instinct for that decision. Plus that’s what everyone who saw it told me anyway.

This level of detail into my drawing process is not something I will make a habit of posting for every comic because very often my sketches and rough drafts are not this clean and tidy. In fact they are often cryptic because I am only jotting down things to trigger my memory later, and not something that is meant to be intrepreted by other people.
Finally, one thing I learned from this is that if you pull off a good poop comic, you’re a genius, but if you mess it up you’ll look like a fool. I’m a genius.