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