Newman Goes Live

Well, it's going to take a while to sort this whole mess out, but Newman (my long form story) has officialy launched. This will be taking place of the strips, and was a decision I thought long and hard over.

The issue has been that I simply have to much on my plate right now, and trying to juggle two comics at the same time was to much stress. I also realized that I was only doing the strip because I felt obligated.

Now, this does not mean that I will never do any more strips, in fact they will be popping there heads in off and on, however they will not be in any sort of routine update schedule.

I have enough things in my life stressing me out right now, I don't need my comics to be one of them.

Over the next few weeks/months I will be fleshing out the new URL www.joshulrich.com/newman and the site will be moving over there. Joshulrich.com will become more of a portfolio site and have links to various works, including "Newman".

I'm taking my time on this new site and using dreamweaver instead of the wretched GoLive. I will also be using CSS and hardcoding this thing properly. It's super simple right now, but I just wanted to get something up. I also want to have a blog directly on the homepage (gotta figure that one out.)

I will have an archive of the Wizard and Snort strips somewhere on the site, and may even doing something to the effect of what apple geeks has done with the "apple geeks light" under the main comic. *shrug* We will see.

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy this new story, I know I'm having a lot of fun putting it together, and I really like where it's going.

Onward we march, into the vast unknown.

We "fixed" the glitch

Internet troubles are over, comic returns to regular scheduled updates.

Internet Worries

*le sigh*

So I set up a new studio in the house this weekend to do my work, which was great. I've got more space, a clean enviroment and minimal distractions... of course I also have a less then amazing internet connection. My Imac has a built in airport wireless internet, but I'm having trouble getting it to respond to the router from where I'm at. There's a few possible ways I can try to fix this, but if all else fails, I will be moving the computer back to my room. This is way there has been no comic monday. Uploading Fridays comic was an absolute nightmare. Everytime I tried to upload the new index, completely different pages that I haden't touched for years where showing up as my homepage, and then it was just white and broken for most of the day because I had to go to work. Then several hours later, I finally got it back up... so, I'm a little scared to try and post again until I get my internet back up properly.

If this continues too long, I will start posting the new strips here in the blog. I should have this resolved pretty soon however.

Sneak peak!!

Thought I would give you guys a taste of what I'm working on. These are the first two pages (without words) from my long form project "Newman". I'm pretty excited about this project, I'll keep you guys posted as I get farther along.

It's official...

I HATE GOLIVE!!! This has to be the worst program adobe has ever made. What kind of program just randomly decides to change links that you have made in past pages??? I can create a page, let's say 45. I will set the forward button to link to page 46, and the back button to link to page 44. I will save everything and load it. Then I load up the page and when I press the back button it goes to 41 instead of 44. I bring up the html file and sure enough, it has changed without me doing it. I really, really, hate this program. If you are experiencing these issues, I apologize, I'm trying to fix all of them as I find them.

I'm still learning Dreamweaver, CSS, and web standards and will be rebuilding the site from the ground up once I'm comfortable with the programing.

Getting Back on Track

Well, I've been running on the excuse that I've got to much work to get done to update properly, but I don't like that. I want to apologize for missing so many updates lately, and I will be getting back on track. There WILL be a comic up today and I plan to get back ahead of myself so this doesn't happen again. I will also be posting some screens of the new full length story I've been working on called "Newman".

I feel like I've been making this comic a third wheel, and that's not fair to the comic, or you the reader.

Work, work, work

Sorry for the missed updates the last two weeks guys, monday seems to be death day lately. The school year is getting heavier and heavier and the other comic is getting a lot of my attention. I WILL have something up and online for today, but it wont be till later in the afternoon.

What's on the horizon

I have been long torn between the short form comic strip, and the long form story. I have had a story I want to tell with the W&S characters for quite a while, and I didn't feel like the strip was a good place for it. That being said, I have begun work on a full length comic books series that I intend to submit to various comic book publishers. I am nearly finished writing and thumbnailing the first issue, and have begun the pencils for page one.

So what does this mean for the website as it is? Well, the answer is I'm not quite sure. I do Intend to continue the comic strip, because I like the outlet of short form humer. The strips will be mostly self contained and on a side note, the events and happenings in the comic strip are in no way tied to the happenings in the full lenght story and visa versa, they are completely different enteties for the most part. Emaline for example will be quite a bit different in the long form story. Once the full length story starts getting more involved, updates on the site may be cut back. I don't like having to do that, but the longer story is what I intend to make money off of, and if you guys like the strip, you will appriciate the story as well.

There is a lot going on with this and I'm pretty excited about it. Wednesdays strip will be replaced with an animation of Newman I did.

Take care,
Josh

What's new and Artist Tips

Well, I finished up the strips for next week. It's going to be a little three strip series I was workin on that I think you guys will like. I've been putting a lot of focus on my writing these days and it's have a big impact. I'm finding that if I write far in advance, it's no sweat cranking out the strips. It's when I don't have a strip written and I sit down to the drawing table, because deadline is aproaching that I have a problem. So my advice to you other aspiring comic artists out there, focus on your writing, and write well ahead of deadlines.

Also, I want to start giving out some tips on this blog, mostly targeted to beginner cartoonists. So today's tip is about crow quill pens. These things can be a bit of a pain sometimes, especialy if you are an impacient person. You have give your lines time to dry before you cross over them, or you will end up with ink blotching at the connection points. Also, if you're a bit quick to erase your pencil lines you're going to find a lot of ink streaks on your paper. The good news is they come out real nice in photoshop ;)

The advantage to this pen is the great line variation it gives you. Whenever I try to use microns, it just doesn't feel the same for me. It's a very mechanical line that is the same size at all times. The quill feels looser, and more dynamic. You may think it wont change much, but it makes a big difference in your work. It's all dependent on what kind of style you're going for. I personally suggest to the beginner to try out everything and see what works best for you.

If you DO use crow quill pens, make sure you get SMOOTH bristel board, NOT velum. If you use velum, the ink will sink right into the paper and bleed out of your lines. It looks terrible, and you will be pissed, especialy if you just spent hours getting your pencils right. When you use the smooth bristel, the ink sits almost on top of the paper and your lines do not fall apart.

Revisions

So I was working on one of my strips when suddenly it dawned on me. Why am I turning in submission packages that I know have issues that will hurt me? I don't know why it wasn't before, but suddenly it was very clear that this was a bad idea. I was reading Get Fuzzy and looking at some of the longer stories he tells. He manages to keep the story moving, but you could read pretty much any strip in the story by itself, having never read another one of his strips, and it's funny.

I have identified a few strips in my submission that will not work alone and I am taking the steps to fix them. A few will be re-worded, some will have panels added, and others will be cut altogether. I wrote four new strips yesterday and I'm still going at it. A lot of sydnicates will take up to 6 weeks worth of strips, currently my submission was the minimum of four.

So how does this effect the site? It doesn't really. The strips on the site will pretty much stay unchanged. However, when I'm finished with it, I will probably post all the revised strips somewhere for you guys to check out.

Monday

Today's strip will be posted around noon. Soon as I get home from class I will post it up. The new Sunday strip for Wednesday has been written and thumbed. Between today and tomorrow it will be ready for Wednesday morning.

Aha!! and other W&S news.

I knew wednesday's strip still looked squished, and I was right. For some reason I ran into a ton of problems getting that page up properly, and after finally sorting it out, it still seemed off. I think I acciently let the shift key slip when i was resizing it for web and it got squished. All fixed now however. I'm trying to keep three strips up a week, even though I posted the official switch to two. I have two never seen daily strips that will be going up soon, since I probably wont be able to get another sunday done before monday. Hope you guys are liking the sunday strips, they are a beast to make.

I am almost finished getting my submission packages done. All I have left is to make a character sheet for one of the syndicates, and two more sundays for another. The all have different specifics for submissions. I believe I have everything I need for at least two of them, maybe three. I sent one off to United Features already, but it wasn't as strong as the ones I put together for the others. Oh well. As soon as all this is done, I start the road to building my next submission for three months from now =P

The one thing I feel that may hurt me with the submission I put together (it's not exactly what you've seen on the site. I cut out the first strip, and the strip where snort is whisteling, and added two strips you havent seen yet.) is that most of my strips so far are very narrative. I've tried to tell small stories, but at the same time make each strip funny on it's own. I think for a lot of them I did that, but there are still some that falter a bit. I don't think what I'm doing is bad, it's just that for the most part, the first few weeks of a newspaper strip should all explain themselves. In other words, you dont need to have read yesterdays strip, to get todays. Maybe I'm just paranoid and sceptical, but I also feel like I'm being realistic.

So the next few months of Wizard and Snort will be much more self contained strips, funny on their own. I may still do little stories, but they will be shorter, and you should be able to jump into them at pretty much any moment.

Mike came over the other night and we did a new podcast, it should be up within the next few days.

Til' next time,
-Josh

Huh...

So apparently todays post got corrupted or something. I posted it last night and it looked fine on my computer. Now that I'm at school it's only half showing up. Anybody else have that problem? Going to look into it later when I get home.

The next few strips will be Sunday format because I am putting together submission packets and need them.

Workin away

As you can see, I've been redesigning the site so it will fit better on most screens. The design is pretty much done, I just have to apply it to the rest of the pages. Hope you guys are enjoying the strip, I'm still well head of myself in back log, so no worries about missed updates.

Keep checking back monday, wednesday, and friday for new strips!

Doh!

Well I just got into TN and I hopped on Emily's laptop to take a look at things, and I realized an issue. Page 6 jumps strait to page 8. If you want to see page 7 you have to go back from page 8 or go to www.joshulrich.com/7.html

Sorry about the inconvenience guys, not sure how that happened. I will fix it as soon as I get back into town. Hope you have a great weekend!

Woops!

So it's come to my attention that the site design is a wee bit big for those viewing on a 1024x768 resolution. This is the size rez I was gearing towards, which means I need to make some changes. After viewing it at that resolution, I realized the issues. I don't want you guys to have to do any scrolling to read the comic, so I will be re-working the design to fix this problem. Thanks for your patience.

I will be out of town Sat-Mon, so the monday strip will update on Tuesday morning and things will continue as usual.

And we're live!!

Wizard and Snort rides again!!

After many long hours of redesign, the site lives again. I will be working out bugs and glitches as I go along, but it's looking pretty stable so far. Look forward to Wizard and Snort three times a week!

Also, check out From Death Til Now by my good friend Michael Regina, there is a link to his comic on the main page. You can also listen to our podcast on his site. As soon as I get it worked out, you will be able to check out the podcast from my site as well.

Stay tuned for more W&S!!!

Live from Colorado

I've been in Denver visiting family since Saturday, so I thought I would drop a little update now that I finally have computer access.

So, here's the plan for the site.

Joshulrich.com is going to recieve a much needed update/upgrade. I will be fashioning it towards more of a boltcity. You will be able to read Wizard and Snort about three times a week (still trying to decide my update schedual.)I'm also going to have a place to read short stories and experimental comics that I would like to work on. You will also be able to check out the podcast that Mike and I will be doing together. I will be posting a link to his site as soon as it goes live. He has a great comic coming out, I really think you will like it.

I had thought about some different buisness models, but for now I just want to continue to work, and practice at this young point in my career.

Anyways, God-speed from the mile high city, see you next time.

Sneak Preview

Wanted to give you guys a sample of what I've been working on.

Dusting off the cobwebs

You (if you're out there) may have noticed the lack of activity here. This is somewhat of an archive of my old work at this point. I have a lot of new Wizard and Snort material that I have been cranking out, but hasn't gone online yet. Feel free to look around at all the old stuff, the new strips are on the way. I will keep you posted.

Chapter one finished!

First chapter is DONE =D Look forward to chapter two next week!

Back at last

Wizard and Snort returns. Feels good to finaly get back at it. It looks like it's going to be a good summer =)

Red Army

I had to come up with a nine panel narrative for my illustration class. Needless to say I went a little bit longer.

EDIT: I realize this came out super tiny for some reason *scorns blogger*. To see it in large format go to http://www.joshulrich.com/ra.html

Yikes!!!!!

Ok, so those of you who check this website are probably wondering what the heck happened to me. Well, I'm still alive, and I apologize for the lack of updates around here. Winding into the final weeks of the semester has been kicking my butt, but thank goodness, it's almost over. I wont be taking any summer classes this year, but I will however be getting my pilots lisence (starting saturday-very excited) which is something I've wanted to do before I could say airplane.

Anyways, Wizard and Snort will be returning in May on a regular schedual.

I haven't been completely unproductive however, I recently finished up a comic called Red Army which I will post here in the blog.

Happy Tuesday

Hey folks,
Hope your tuesday is going well. School is keeping me plenty busy, thank God the semester will be over soon *cheer*. The script writing for Shattered Earth (SE) is going well, plenty of ideas flowing in and I'm organizing them as I go. Above is another character design for your enjoyment.

About to start on Page 17 here in a minute, should be up on time for tomorrow. Have a great week guys and gals.
Catch ya later,
Josh

New Developments

So I have finally begun work on my next project, Shattered Earth. I'm in the script process right now, and will be for quite a while. I do have a few drawings to share with you though. I was doing various portrait studies and I got some inspiration from Adrian Brody's character in the village. These are some early studies of Benjamin Shepherd, the main character in the story. These are of course subject to change and will likely be tweaked and modified as I get closer to drawing the pages.
Enjoy =)

And the posts go on

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of comic last week. Springbreak'itis got the best of me. Giant design projects didn't help, but hey, we're back on schedual. The next page will be up by about 1:00PM by the latest, pending no natural disasters. The artwork is finished, just have to add in the diologue and prep for web. Catch you guys later!
-Josh

Possible Issues

I'm having some issues since I updated the latest page. On my browser it's breaking some of the links on various pages throughout the chapter one gallery. Basically what is happening is that page 15 is dissapearing from the list of pages as you go through the comic. You have to refresh the page for it to show up. On some instances, I will get to page 14, click next and it takes me right back to 1. I don't know if this issue is limited to me, or if anybody else is having the problem. If you are noticing it, please let me know so I can work on a solution. In the mean time, just refresh until the page shows up. Thanks for your help and patience on this issue.

Also, on another note, page 16 will most likely have a delayed release because I will be out of town. The page will still be out next week, just not on wednesday.

Godspeed,
Josh

Page 15 on the way

Page 15 will be posted later tonight. Sorry for the delay. School is a'catchin up to me oO

Page 14

Finally! This felt like it took forever, the sickness was trying to drag me down, but the page is out. Hope you like, more later.
-Josh

Tuesday tuesday tuesday...

Well, I've been getting sick the past few days, but page 14 is still on schedual for wednesday. It will be up early afternoon by the latest.

I haden't posted anything in a while, just wanted everyone to know I was still alive.

Stay tuned!
later,
Josh

Page 13 and the Power of Short Story

Well, page 13 is up and running. I had a lot of free time this morning, so I decided to go ahead and knock out a new page, so I did! So Newman is finally introduced into the story. I had been trying to figure out just how I was going to do it, and I finally worked it all out, as well as several things to come. Relax kids, I know what I'm doing... kinda.

Anyway, I was reading the flight forums recently and there is an ongoing discussion about short stories and whether or not a comic artist should attempt short stories before trying to do any sort of long form graphic novel work. I've been tooling this over in my mind and decided I would post my thoughts about it here.

I'm not going to tell you that you HAVE to do short stories before you can do anything else, but I will tell you why I believe it's a pretty good idea. Doing short stories is both a confidence builder, and a talent builder.

How it makes you better:
When you set out to do a 20 page, 10 page, or even 5 page story, you have a large amount of freedom. You are much more likely to try different things and step out of your comfort zone because you don't have a long term commitment to the project. You probably wont be willing do some crazy artistic/literary experiments with your 200 page graphic novel. On the contrary you are going to stick to what your best at, what you know you can do, and do your best to keep a continuous look. While it is certainly good to stick to your strengths in a long form story, you may not know what your best at if you don't experiment. Writing short stories allows you to teach yourself the art of story telling. This is where it's safe to make mistakes. It's better here to try something different and fail, than to succeed at what you already know how to do.

So what do I mean by experiment? For example, try using a limited color pallet; 4-5 colors with a decent value range and see how it comes out. Perhaps a monotone approach. Try different styles, different ways of inking. Try using brushes, quills, technical pens. See what happens when you free hand your panel borders, or even if you take away the panel borders all together. Maybe try drawing all your characters and leaving out the line work, using shapes and colors to complete your figures (See the work of "Pascal Campion"). There are endless things you can try visually to tell a story. I guarantee you will take something away from doing this. Figure out what worked well for you in those stories, and then start to apply what you have learned and what works well to your long form story.

You wont know if you can do something, or if it will work, until you try.

Building Confidence:

There is nothing more satisfying than finishing a piece of work. Being able to look back on the hard work you did and knowing that you have a finished product, good or bad, can put a little bounce in your step.

A lot of people, myself included have attacked a huge story, and then given up after the first ten pages or so. Maybe even less. What happens is that the artist is usually not confident in their own abilities, or isn't sure how they are going to make the story work. Perhaps you suddenly realize you've written yourself into a corner and you don't know how to get out. You don't want to get into the rut of never finishing anything. That goes for anything in life.

Especially if you are a young artist and you've just recently decided that you want to make a comic, I urge you to start small. Don't try to tackle a massive project right off the bat. If your still learning how to draw, definitely don't tackle something huge right away. What ends up happening (if your serious about your work) is you get about ten pages in and realize you don't like the way it looks, you want to make it better and you end up scrapping it all together. Instead, aim for ten pages in the first place. That way, when you get to page ten, it may not be top shelf material, but you finished it. Learn who you are as an artist, improve your skills, work hard, and slowly move up to the bigger, scarier task of the long form story.

Small victories go a long way to defining who you are to YOURSELF. In order to pull off a comic, you have to believe that you can do it, regardless of what other people are telling you. It's hard work and it takes dedication. It's not always fun, but it's worth it if you're willing to do what it takes.

Later,
Josh

Page 12

Got page 12 finished early, so it's live as we speak.

Also, I'm adding a comic called, North World by Lars Brown, to my links section, you should all go check it out, it's great!!!!

Take care,
Josh

On track

I've started laying out the next strip. Set to go up on Wednesday. I'm considering making that my official update day, and anything inbetween is a bonus.

I've been doing all kinds of outlines, sketchwork, character design, and what not that are really helping me shape the comic. I've got a lot of vision for where I want this to go and I'm excited to get there. Look forward to new exciting things!!

Pressing on!

Well, the shading is done, page 11 is up, the site has been adjusted, and I'm still working away. I need to make some changes to the site that will make the navigation a bit easier. I have a lot of links that don't lead back to the main page, requiring excessive use of the "back" button. Fear not! This will soon change.

Hope everyone is enjoying the comic, I spent about three and a half hours on the latest page. I really wanted to get a strong sence of place and atmosphere in this panel. So I took a little advice from Scott McCloud and hopefully it worked out.

Anyways, not much to say for today. I will be posting more indepth blogs about making comics, and the comic world in general in the near future. That's all for now though, have a great wednesday!

-Josh

Working away

Well, I'm half way through shading the first ten strips and it's looking good so far. The shading is adding a ton of depth to the strip (at least in my opinion) and hopefully will make it a lot easier to read.

If all goes according to plan, the shaded strips, along with page eleven should be up some point on monday. The website itself is still a bit bare bones right now, which I kind of like to some degree. I don't really want a crazy flashy site, it needs to be clean, easy to navigate, and pleasing to the eyes. So expect to see some things changing around over the next week or so.

On a side note, you should all go check out Mike Maihack's website and purchase his new book "Cow and Buffalo in Adventures in Sandwhich Making" It's a great little book and the bonus art is great. So stop sitting around reading this blog, go buy the book! www.cowshell.com Go there!

Reworking Wizard and Snort

So I will be taking the next few days to go back in and shade the pages of W&S. I had been considering doing this for a while, and now I think I'm going to go ahead and do it. It gives the artwork so much more depth, and I think if I execute it properly, it will make the comic easier to read.

I've posted an example of what the shaded pages will look like. This is subject to change.

The Beginning

Well, I finally started up a blog. I will be posting bits from my comic, illustrations, and various thoughts and happenings in the comic world.

To kick things off, here's an illustartion I did for Emily, for valentines day =)

Also, page 10 of Wizard and Snort went up today.