WebAmused :: Comics - Meanwhile, Back in the Dining Hall of Justice
I'm quite proud of the art in this one. Though Hawkgirl's wings could use a bit of work...
Recently in WebAmused: The Comic Category
Well, I managed two strips today: a fumetti (I went out at lunch and got a mini-tripod, hoping that'll be enough to cause the missing piece to come out of hiding), and my first Star Trek strip. It's scheduled to go live on December 10th, and I may redraw the final panel before then...I'm not entirely satisfied with the way it came out, but I promised myself I'd not let better become the enemy of good enough when I started this, so I posted it and I'll only rework it if I get well ahead and can do a better job on that single panel. Really it's just a face that maybe needs a redo. Well, and I might fiddle with the background--it looks a little sparse.
but more than nothing. I was planning on doing several fumetti, but unfortunately I seem to have misplaced my tripod attachment and I wasted a good couple of hours turning the apartment upside-down looking for it. I did manage to find my watch, which had been missing for about a month, where it had fallen down behind my nightstand, but no luck on the attachment. I may have to get a new one, since that's the only way to guarantee that it will turn up.
So I ended up drawing the first one that I had intended to photograph by hand; I think it came out pretty well, maybe even better than it would have as a photograph, but that took all evening. I started in on a second, but I think I'm going to call it a night and finish it tomorrow.
I've submitted WebAmused to the list of comics at OblineComics.net, a webcomic directory service, and they've notified me that they accepted the listing today. If you'd like to support WebAmused, follow the link and add it to your favorites (you may have to create a free account to do so). The chances that it will ever get a high enough popularity score to be displayed in the Popular Comics list are slim and none, but it would still give me a warm glow. You want to give me a warm glow, don't you?
I still managed to do one comic, so at least I'm not falling behind.... Another hand-drawn super-hero one this time. It came out kind of rough, but oh well. I was trying to experiment a little with a different style. It didn't come out either as different or as clean as I wanted, but maybe next time. Next I think I'm going to try Star Trek. I'm of two minds on whether to go really simple, almost iconic, or try for a very realistic likeness. I've been practicing both--but I think I'll probably go with the simple design, since I can only do a good likeness with a photo reference, and that really limits the poses.
Online Comics at OnlineComics.net
I've created an account here, to promote my comic a little, and to see what else is out there. I think this is a pretty exciting time as far as the proliferation of amateur comics goes; I'm not so sure what's going to happen to professional comics--particularly comic books, which seem to be in the process of imploding. Bookstore sales, particularly of manga, have just exploded, but the 32-page staple-bound objects seem to be on the way out--or at least acting as loss-leaders for the collections.
Sure, a lot of amateur comics (and even the semi-pro to pro webcomics) are crap, but like Linus, I'm all about the sincerity. And publication by Image, Marvel or DC, or King Syndicates or UP, doesn't exempt you from Sturgeon's Law. Even if 99% of amateur comics are crap to only 90% of pro comics, the numbers of amateur comics that aren't crap are greater than the numbers of pro comics that aren't crap; it's inevitable, given how many of them there are. OnlineComics.net lists 4,238 comics. SmackJeeves hosts 6,105. Comic Genesis over 6,000. A lot of those are barely comics, but still...
What's more, even the crappiest of those, the ones that even a mother couldn't put on a refrigerator represent genuine public involvement in art. I think folk art is important, and healthy. For a long time it seems to me there's been hardly any mass folk art in America, outside of music and arguably cooking. There's always been some, but this feeling that everybody and their neighbor is producing something that they're proudly displaying to the world via the web (just like blogging is turning everybody and their neighbors into reporters and publishers) is something new and exciting. And I'm proud to be a part of it.
I've built up my buffer of finished, posted comics out to December 6th, with at least three comics being hand-drawn. If I can keep up this pace, I should be able to pad the buffer to my goal of two weeks ahead by this weekend. I probably won't be able to do quite that much, because one of those comics was done during an excruciating "Town Hall" conference call and I don't have anything scheduled like that for the rest of the week. And I've managed to extend my buffer of scripts for comics to 102 this morning (I"ve used 32 so far). Of course, not every script is likely to make it into a comic; I've got a whole series of ten or so that build upon that first "Minimalism Sucks" comic that I'll probably not bother with at this point, since it would feel like retrogressing as far as the art goes. Though if I ever have a deadline crunch, who knows?
I continue to be pleased with just how satisfying doing this is. The process of drawing them is fun and energizing. So far I've completely managed to avoid being paralyzed by self-criticism, and finishing one usually makes me want to start another instead of scrap it and redo it until it's perfect.
I just posted what is easily the most complicated cartoon I've done to date, scheduled to go live December 2nd. This was the first cartoon I scripted, back when I first thought about doing this project, and I've tried it a number of times already over the past six or more months without ever being satisfied with the way it came out. Well, I'm still not sure I'm satisfied, but I finally said good enough and uploaded it. Then I had to retouch and upload again another four or so times, to correct the difference in brightness between my Mac and my Windows machines....I hope it looks ok for other people.
I'm pretty sure I'm not going to use that format again; I like the pictures to come out larger, which means the four-across format looks mighty cramped. I don't know how David Morgan-Mar does it. From now on, I suspect I'll stick mostly to either 4 × 1 or 2 × 2.
I found today's immensely satisfying to work on, though I have no idea whether anyone else in the whole world will even get a ghost of a smile out of it. It actually required research, and a lot of pixel-fiddling in Painter, but the time just flew by.
The buffer that I built up to start with is completely gone, and I'm having to do them day-by-day right now. I'm counting on using the long weekend to build it back up. Just before my vacation I was 5 days ahead, but I only managed to do one during that time, so by the day after I got back I was dry. Ideally I'd like to be working two weeks ahead, so occassional disruptions will be a non-issue.
My Intuos 3 pen tablet arrived today, and I had a few minutes at lunch to install and play with it. Sweeeet. Not only is the drawing surface a bit over three times as large, but the action of the pen is smooth as silk; it really feels like drawing, in a way that its little brother, the Graphire 3×5 did not.
