Back in the saddle

It has been a long, long time since I've spent much time working at getting the continuation of this story put together - but over the past few days I've spent a little more time going over my old notes and configuring how I want to approach the next installment.

The good news is this: I'm working on the new script that will pick up in Gobekli Tepe where a subterranean temple was demolished with Dr.s Casey Miller and Howard Bolam trapped inside.

What I loved about the last installment of Tomb of the Undead was that the script really worked on a lot of levels for me - I was really happy with how it came together and the character development throughout. The artwork developed nicely over the years, as well. Can you imagine it took four years to put it all together? Wow.

I'm not sure how long it will take to write this script, but it's the first step to finally getting back in and telling the rest of the story I wanted to tell.

I'm excited to talk about the project, but as usual, don't want to spoil anything before the time comes for you to see it. In any case, as I make developments, I'll probably post them up here, quietly, where they'll never be seen.

But they'll make for an interesting history of the project.

Today I made real strides in determining the "subject" of the story, which isn't necessarily zombie dinosaurs, as the title of this blog suggests, but rather, the story of a man who learns to love and open his heart. :) .... to zombie dinosaurs.

This Is It - Behind the Scenes

Some behind the scenes stuff for the "This Is It" scene - - as I've probably mentioned in every post, I had to rewrite quite a bit of the third act to add some "pay offs" and reveal what was necessary for things to make sense - - in any case, I've noticed now that I'm looking back over everything, that my inspiration for the names of each scene was definitely waning.

You can find the finished scene at this link: just click here! When I first started writing the story, too, I knew that the relic would "unlock" a device at the end, but hadn't really imagined what that device would be - - in my mind, I'd hoped it'd be this ingenious and convoluted device, but ... well, nothing to fantastic really came of it.

Though, perhaps this is fitting - - it's not like this was designed by a Mason or some brilliant engineer - - this was 1900 years ago, give or take, and in the middle of a war-torn nation.Perhaps this is more believable than some complicated Rube-Goldberg machine.

In this scene, I wanted to illustrate that once the relics returned into proximity to one another that their powers unlocked, like the earlier-mentioned magnetism experienced between the bones of Lazarus, and that they begin to react. I was aware that there may be confusion in this scene, where the relief carving of Christ on the Cross might appear like it was coming to life, whereas it was supposed to just look like it was being restored from the millenia of erosion (however much erosion occurs in a temple's sealed basement).

And then, of course, that's not the only reaction ...

Does it create just a weird laser, or do you think it means more? And if so what, but, if not, then ... it's still cool that you can shoot a laser out of a flag, or whatever that thing is, right!?

If  you've any questions, leave it in the comments section, or join up on the Facebook group and share your thoughts -- you can find contact info at the links (icons) below! Thanks for reading.

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Narrative and Character Development > behind the Temptation of Howard Bolam pt. 2

The Temptation of Howard Bolam was an interesting moment in the story to intentionally set our two protagonists against each other for a moment to explore how far they've developed since the beginning of their tale

Compare the rough pages with the finished pages at this link.

Casey is willing to stand up for his beliefs.

Of course we can remember Casey Miller being the timid, self-conscious scientist who was too conservative to let his imagination provide inspiration or motivation. Yet, when faced with higher stakes, for love, career and even for his life, he's had opportunities to confront his inhibitions and tackle obstacles head-on.

In the second half of this scene, he swallows his fear and jumps at the chance to not only stand up to Howard but also to the hulking Turk (who apparently has been hired as a security escort for the Sadducees).

And at the same time, Howard Bolam doesn't appear to have learned anything, he remains willing to sacrifice what he knows to be "the Christian thing to do," for personal gain and advantage. We know that this brings him shame and discomfort, but he's never felt that shame so much that he's ever resolved to discontinue taking advantages when they present themselves. 

There's an inner fury Casey releases, which continues to overcome unsuspecting antagonists.

I felt an extended action sequence to be overscored by the narrative exposition might be a balanced and enjoyable way to tell this part of the story. I probably should have used this method earlier and much more often! A lesson learned.

One of the initial mysteries I set up at the beginning of the story was, "Who was in the tomb beneath the church at Gobekli Tepe," if you can recall (here's some help, if you can't). While I was editing/rewriting the third act before publishing the pages, I realized I hadn't really answered that question, though I had fully intended to.

In any case, this answer was shoehorned back into the story, and probably isn't as rewarding a payoff as I had hoped. BUT it does satisfy some of the mythology I constructed in Lazarus's life story - - that one of his sisters, either Martha or Mary, had continued to spread the word of Christ and opened "ministries" outside of the Roman Empire to build the church.

And as the archaeological intepretation allows, great monuments and churches were built on top of the tombs of some of the most reverant leaders of the first church (like Lazarus's tomb beneath the chuch in Lanarka).

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Behind The Temptation of Howard Bolam pt. 1

The Temptation
The Temptation of Howard Bolam is a scene that I'd been waiting a long time to publish. It was something I'd planned the "Set up" for years ago, back in the first act I Tend to Agree With Your Partner.

I wanted character to motivate changes in the story just as much as the adventure - - I feel like this was something that was bound to payoff down the line - - that Bolam would be tempted to throw Casey under the bus again to save himself.

(If you clicked on that link - - think about how far the story has come since back then when they were still working at the museum. It's pretty cool. PLUS, that was freaking December 2010 when that was published. This story has been going on for a while now!)

Pacing
Ultimately, for the sake of pacing, I felt that 6 pages was too long for a scene to be. I felt that people would be impatient if it were too long, so I split it in two. This is the first time I've done this, and... well, perhaps you would have been fine with it if it were six pages long?

Let me know, I guess. In any case, I wanted the scene to be "finished" so I could say it was finished, because I feel people might wait for a few pages (or a scene) to accumulate before they check in on the site.

That was the impetus regarding publishing this in two parts, anyhow.


Check out the finished pages at The Temptation of Howard Bolam, pt. 1

The stick of straw in "The Turk's" mouth was just for fun in the rough draft, he felt like a grouchy rancher thwarting tresspassers when I drew him.

I raced through these pages while I was at my cottage back in the summer - - when I drafted out the rest of the story. You can see I was really racing through it, I didn't leave any details on the background at all.

Trivia
I'm not sure if these are facts, but I suppose it's interesting "trivia" if you ever wanted to know. I liked the name because it reminded me of both The Passion of the Christ, and The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham (from Lost).

In my original draft, the final few pages were adapted into a series of scenes to accomodate pacing and narrative flow. This prevented it from being just a bunch of dialogue - - and I think the next scene illustrates a balance between action and diction.

Beyond "The Turk," I don't have a name for the big guy that's holding the gun, and I don't think I actually refer to him as "The Turk" in the story. So, his name is an unspoken secret between you and I. How do you like that!?

Drawing a guy holding a rifle is hard.


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Artist's Confessions > The Secret of Gobekli Tepe - Behind the Scenes

I didn't think I was going to get into confessions  when I started writing this post, but ... a few came out, so ... be prepared. Might you be disillusioned as to where my character designs come from? I'm going to reveal the actual document you can turn to to find them. How about sloppy mistakes in this particular scene? I'll show you exactly where to look to find them. 

But before all that, I admit, this is a neat moment in the story where I'm returning to a location I designed way back at the beginning of the story, and it's an interesting time to look back at how the story looked back then.

It's fun to revisit, and it shows how far things have come stylistically. When I was drawing these pages back in 2010, I couldn't imagine how long it would take to get to the end of Act III. I wasn't confident in my artwork at the time, I was unsure how do the lettering, and the framing and pacing were all still being developed on the fly.

The rough page of 170. I HATE drawing trucks.

Designing on the fly fine - - this entire project has been exclusively for the purposes of learning more and gearing up for future projects. I knew back then, too, that this was going to take a long time - - and I was fine with that because it's a hobby I'm eager to pursue and in the end, when it's all said and done, it'll definitely be something of substance (if to nobody else, at least it'll be substantive to me).

Rough page 171 ... Miller looks bad-ass on the right side there, eh!?

There's a new character in this scene, and I'll tell you a bit of a secret on character design. ... Man, I'm reluctant to do this, but .... basically... I have this National Geographic magazine, just one, that I've been holding on to for years because I keep meaning to read this article on Caffeine (which I still have only started, but never finished) because, like anybody else in media and publishing, I'm dedicated to drinking coffee like it's the cure to what ails ya.

The National Geographic is right here, one sec, I'll grab the date and title. It's January 2005, "Why We Love Caffeine." Anyhow, there are a series of ads and articles, as you'd expect, with pictures, which National Geographic is famed for. I honestly flip through the book and pick a face that sort of fits what I'm planning, and copy it.

I think the final draft of this page turned out really nice. That's just my opinion, I haven' t heard anybody else say anything about it to the contrary.

It was a similar process when I designed "The Turk," who appears for the first time in the tomb beneath the ruins of Gobekli Tepe. Though, admittedly, I used a MacLean's magazine at the cottage instead of my trusty National Geographic to design him. The Turk is a silent 6'5" behemoth who, like Mugabe, has a sorted past that led to his recruitment into the employ of the Sadducees. I only call him "The Turk," probably because he's from Turkey, but also because it has visual and audible connotations to "The Hulk," sort of.

One other little Easter Egg for anyone interested in the "Blooper Reel" in the making of the Tomb of the Undead, on page 171, in the final word bubble, I'd accidentally accredited the word balloon to Ma'Aseh instead of Miller, so in the "post-production" when I do the lettering online, I had to do the editing to redraw and fix the word balloon's tail.

Can you zoom in and see the difference? I usually draw the balloons and then fill the lettering in online, but the word balloon had to be erased and then replaced with samples that were stretched and twisted so they looked like they were for Miller.

Cool, thanks for reading! Let me know if you have any questions about the project, that I'll be happy to answer. It's coming to a conclusion I'm certain will be unexpected. I promise.

Outfitted - - Behind the Scenes of Tomb of the Undead

Here's just a quick post from one of the more recent scenes at Tomb of the Undead: Outfitted. Before running into the Third Act for the script, I took a few days read and edit and tidy it up. After doing the artwork for the story up to this point, and getting a bit more familiar withe pacing of how the graphic novel works (for me, at least) I knew that some of the scenes would be WAY too long, so it had to be reworked.

That being said, I simplified some concepts down and reduced some dialogue and worked on the beat structure to get it into more manageable segments.

An example is this scene, in particular. Quick and easy, one page, tells a little story/character development, but doesn't drag ass. NOW, on the other hand, I totally dragged my ass while drawing and publishing it, but that's my problem, not the readers'. So I hope you felt it was quick and to the point and offers some cohesion and transition, which you don't ever want to be caught without.

Another discovery/admission I have is this: when I'm entering into a new setting that I haven't really figured out yet, I take FOREVER to get it designed in the rough stages and really struggle in finishing the page. Now, after I've established a setting, I can run the characters around in it without too much difficulty, but initializing the material is a different task altogether.

In any case, I hope you liked it!

Behind the Scenes of Whatever Happened To ....

Whatever happened to that shy archaeologist from Pennsylvania? This scene is a moment for Dr. Bolam and Dr. Miller to take stock of their situation, and sort of reflect on their journey so far, and perhaps for the readers, too, to think back on how he's changed and grown.

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That was the hope, anyhow. Plus, I needed a segue that helped carry them from Cyprus to Turkey, instead of just saying, "Later, in Turkey."

I hope when you look at this, you can see and feel that it's a time for reflection and perhaps even personal introspection, as no doubt Dr. Miller has to realize his life will never be the same from now on.

really rough, hardly any background

Sometimes when I enter a new scene where I have to create a whole new environment for the characters to exist in, like the slaughterhouse earlier. I'll do a lot of web browsing to pick and choose how the areas should look and try and envision the mood I'd like to be captured.

And then there are scenes like this, where I just pencil in where in a panel I want the characters to stand, and then I just fill in the background and setting way afterwards, hoping that the lack of preparation doesn't bite me in the ass.

basically just blocking

Another challenge is to try and draw some parallels between where the position of the sun is in each sequential scene. I've become acutely aware of how many dark, late night scenes I've drawn, because it's put a great strain on my 6B pencil. It's getting more use than Aaron Hernandez's lawyer.

So I was eager to get into the daylight again and have some nice scenes outside. I'm getting back to that now that they're out of the slaughterhouse and back in transit to a new country and a setting that we haven't visited since Act I, way back in the early days!

Sometimes I feel like I'm not honouring the process enough when I skip over the rough-sketch stage, and no doubt, it'll come at a price. I just felt a bit rushed and wanted to offer an update. The pacing over the summer is a challenge because we've got so much more going on (or so it feels, anyhow).

Kodikas Galanos and balancing panels

Code Blue - - which in hospital slang is generally used to indicate a patient in need of immediate medical attention. Switch that into Greek, Cyprus' national language (along with Turkish, I understand) and you've got the name of the latest scene, Kodikas Galanos.

And not to be too confusing with the language switche-r-oo, I even made a point to specifically point out that Blue in Greek is Galanos way back on page 130. So that's where the name comes from, if you were wondering.

Once again, I wanted to keep the scenes short, for two reasons; first, it quickens the pace of storytelling, which is more exciting for readers (I hope) and second; it's more interesting for me to write and draw these scenes when they don't take a whole month to produce.

I hate drawing cars - - I totally avoided even sketching a car in this page. I just hate it.

I felt in an earlier scene that the downpouring rain turned out nicely, or at least accomplished what I hoped it would visually, so I was eager to include it again, and this seemed like as good a time as any. There was no call for rain in the script.

The script did, however, feature more gesticulation and language barriers between the motorist and Ian Escutcheon, but ... again ... for the sake of brevity, I eliminated that. Perhaps it would have been better if this were a more comedic moment, but the urgency I was hoping to imply didn't allow for it.

I couldn't fit the image into a quarter panel at the top, so I turned it into a banner-shape on the fly.

Sometimes the images don't fit, and instead of redrafting them, I just change it on the fly, without even erasing the guidelines. It doesn't feel necessary to be too refined in a quick draft. What's most useful when I'm putting these draft pages together is finding a way to share the images in a balanced manner.

For example, in the above page, four consecutive square panels might have looked a little to "geometric" or "blocky," and could have been a visual distraction. That might be useful at some point, but it didn't feel like a natural fit in this scene.

If I understand correctly, most comics writers draw on much larger sheets of paper, and then they're scaled down to fit into the standard comic book format, whereas I simply use 8.5"x11" common stock paper. When you've got a larger page, you have more room to do creative things with the panels, and add a lot more detail, which is later shrunk down into a really fine piece of work.

It'd be neat to try some time - - in fact, I actually used one and a half pages to draw this page: 
 

Follow the link to get a closer look, but I meant to put a LOT more detail into this page, because I wanted to really impress the spectacle of entering the Church of St. Lazarus. I think it turned out really well, though, if you look, in the middle panel amidst the seats, you can see the seam where I married the two pages together to complete the final image.

At first glance, I'd hope you wouldn't notice it - - granted, now I've pointed it out, it probably sticks out unavoidably.

The reason I did this was because I wanted the three saints hanging on the wall behind Dr. Miller to be more detailed than a small panel would allow. If you're familiar with your old saints (I'm not, but IF you are) you might recognize Saint Demitrius, Saint Moses the Black and Saint George the Dragon Slayer.

I think the added effort was worth while.

I wanted them to appear as faithfully as I could reproduce them. When they're just the size of a half of a dime on the original page I'm working on, it's hard to include any more detail than a mere shadow. Taking the extra time to draw them much larger than usual, and then shrinking it down, made all the difference.

ALL of that being said, finding a nice balance on a small page can sometimes be a challenge, I guess that's what I was trying to say.

Thanks for checking in - - if you have any questions, let me know, I'll be happy to answer them.

Production Notes | Spill Your Guts

Once again,  I have to note, Spill Your Guts is a scene that I conceived early in the writing phase for the story and have been looking forward to creating for years and years. It's taken that long to get here, but I think it's worth it.

It seemed a showdown in an abandoned slaughterhouse would be incomplete without resorting to a captive bolt stunner -- traditionally you'd see people hanging from meat hooks, but this was something I thought would be a good balance between gruesome and effective.

I was a little dismayed a few months ago when I was watching Person of Interest (I think) when the protagonist grabbed a captive bolt stunner and executed a combatant, too, stealing a bit of my thunder, but that was at the same time when How I Met Your Mother also created the "Bro Bibs" which encroached on my "Gentleman's Bib" idea -- frankly, it's stupid that there isn't a classy  apron or bib out there we can wear to protect our three-piece suits when we're sipping on lobster bisque.  RIGHT?!

Another scene where I've tried to balance plot, exposition and action - - though they have to occur sequentially instead of concurrently. But perhaps later on I'll have another go at it.

The circled numbers all over the page are measurements - - I freely sketch the cells and images during the conception drawings, and then measure them a bit more accurately for the good copy. For the horizontal measurements, I usually just turn to a cell being 1/3, 1/2 or 1/4 of the page's width, rather than measuring it out specifically.

Sometimes in the rough sketches I find I REALLY like how an image looks, and I have trouble duplicating it - - like when Mugabe is glaring up at Miller after being tossed into the stall. I worked hard to make sure that image was as close to the concept drawing as I could. I think it worked out - - other times I haven't been so lucky.

In the final page, I wanted Mugabe to look like he was preparing for a coup de grace, accepting his fate -- and I thought that came through well in the scene above, which is probably why I was hoping to recreate that cell as closely as possible when drawing the good copy.

As we near the midway point of Act III, of course we're probably hitting the point of no return for most of these characters - - Miller has now committed murder, everybody is show, slashed, tortured and beaten, and they realize that the stakes are pretty high, even if they seem pretty ridiculous (is releasing another plague on the earth a cool villainous plot or a bit farfetched?)

However, "releasing a plague" does live up to the "He wants to kill everyone" remark from earlier, which might have been difficult to live up to when you read it at the end of Act II.

I hope some of these production notes are a handy complement to reading the story as we go. I'm happy to answer any questions, too.

Thanks.

behind the scenes for "Saves the Day"

Here are some more behind-the-scenes rough work when I was prepping the latest scene, Saves the Day.

While writing this whole story, I wanted Evelyn to be a motivation for Casey, but I didn't really feel it was right to have her be a burden, or bait, or the damsel in distress all the time. However, she's young and a bit reckless, perhaps a bit moody, and obviously spontaneous - - something you'd expect in a student, and perhaps not in a professional academic.

In any case, I'd like to think this played out well in this scene, when Mugabe expects he can threaten her to save himself, when in reality (in every other instance when Casey isn't in berzerker mode) Evelyn is by far the more dangerous captive.

I hope after a brief flash of mortal action that you're prepared for a few more talkative scenes of exposition.

There's something to be said for the clever Batman and Spiderman scenes where the exposition can be revealed during a duel, as they parry and lunge they spar verbally as well. Alas, this scene would have been prohibitively long and I just don't feel I have the patience to put people through much more than four pages at a time anymore.

I hope you'll find in Act III the scenes are more brief and to the point than some of the lengthier scenes in the previous acts.

I hope you're enjoying it!

Behind-the-scenes background stuff for two recent scenes

I'm not sure if people are "into" this sort of thing, but here are some "behind-the-scenes" stuff that might be interesting to check out from the latest scene. Basically it's just the rough drafts of the pages that helped me organize the pacing and spacing.

I hope you might find it interesting:

Yup -- it's all done on 8.5 x 11" sheets of paper.

You can compare them to the finished pages here: Silence of the Lambs

I named it "Silence of the Lambs" as an homage to the book series - - the idea of winding up in a slaughterhouse was pretty bad-ass and villainous to me, so I hoped to include that as a great point of confrontation for my characters.

In "Hannibal" Mason Verger was hellbent on hiring some Italians to capture Hannibal and feed him feet-first to a hybrid of man-eating hogs while he was still alive in revenge.

I really liked the idea and optioned to let it influence what happens in here - there was also a great scene in "The Hills Have Eyes" (the 21st century remake) that didn't occur in a slaughterhouse, but was influential in writing this scene, too. 

The emergence from the freezer is intended to act as a traumatizing rebirth for Dr. Miller to shape his story arc moving forward -- to give him some "guts" as Dr. Bolam would implore of him.  I hope it turned out well.

From my choice of medium, I'm a little restricted in two ways - - first, a comic would usually been drawn on a larger sheet of paper, then shrunk down to fit a print piece. This offers a lot more room and detail in a panel, much more room than an standard-leaf sheet of paper.

Second, because I'm using simple graphite pencils, it's awfully difficult to use black and darkness to its fullest effect. I would have loved to made this MUCH darker, but the sharpness of an image goes WAY down when you're using a soft graphite pencil, the details are lost in the blur. Even the maggots in the meat had to be re-inked after I'd finished shading to stand out.

Also, it's a wicked mess when you've poured all that darkness onto a page - - if you think your hands get dirty reading the newspaper, working with soft graphite is like reading a couple papers in a row and losing track of your soap.

Anyhow, I hope you found this informative - - and you liked the scene!

King-esque editing and Dogs of War in a Thrilling GooglePlus Community

Most importantly to announce, after completing the artwork for the second act to The Tomb of the Undead, I knew I would have to tackle a big chore that was waiting for me at this point - reviewing, revising and editing the third act to the story. It was something I KNEW I was going to have to do, but I'd been putting it off. Well, I'm finally there, after years of working on the story, so ... that's what I've been up to.

Struggling with jet lag and his professional relationship with Howard, Casey looks to make necessary changes in Why'd you do it?

I knew I would have to revise the third act of the script by the time I got to it - which wasn't until now. I just wrapped up the edits this week- and was able to put into practice one of Stephen King's first rules of writing - edit out 20 per cent.

8,224 words in the last draft I'd performed - the latest 6,533, which is pretty significant! It was like 31 pages in the .pdf format, and I trimmed it down to a lithe and svelte 24 pages, which is pretty good. Oddly, the last draft was like nine scenes, but I broke the action down into 19 scenes, which is pretty significant.

Only after doing the math do I discover that I've edited/revised the script down by 20.56 per cent, which is almost a coincidence. Very King-esque in my quantitative editing, which is great (to me).

See more by following the links:

• King Street Capers (updated Feb. 18)
• General comics (updated Feb. 19)
• Tomb of the Undead (updated Feb. 5) 
• Dinosuars (updated Feb. 21)
• Sketch Gallery (updated Jan. 17),
• Fundraising Faux-Pas, or the
• Mugabe comic strip (Pinocchio parody)

Graphic novel news

Sexy, Seductive, Thrilling Graphic Novel Not For Kids or Faint of Heart
PRWEB
PRWeb.com

Blaque Sun Mediaworks to publish sexy, murder mystery Thriller Graphic Novel with a mature audience in mind. First of Five (5) Graphic novels in production for release beginning this summer.

Click to read more.

Nathan Fox teases upcoming graphic novel ‘Dogs of War’
Chris Arrant
Comic Book Resources

Men and women working with dogs in military actions has been going on for decades in the United States; the practice actually goes back centuries. And it’s something writer Sheila Keenan and artist Nathan Fox are celebrating in the upcoming graphic novel Dogs of War.

Click to read more.

Webcomic Creators' GooglePlus page
GooglePlus

Image from Patrick Yurick's American Booom (@ www.american.booom.us)

A community for anyone who has created a webcomic. Introduce yourself, Share your work, ask questions and let us all work together to improve our storytelling abilities.

Click to read more and get involved.

I'm [Sic] of Hearing You Need "Better Drawing.s"

Here are some behind-the-scenes thoughts from page 85, while we're moving forward here. This package that's being shared around is the same that appeared in the first scene, way back in the early pages. It'll make another appearance in the story, but for now, while it may not be clear here, the package is being handed to James, Jesus' brother, and not to Lazarus yet. Lazarus is being charged with a more serious oath of service, though I'm not sure he quite knows what he's getting into.

The mythology of this story is revealed a little more as Jesus visits Bethany days before he is betrayed by Judas in Lazarus is Charged.

See more by following the links:

• King Street Capers (updated Feb. 11)
• General comics (updated Feb. 12)
• Tomb of the Undead (updated Feb. 5) 
• Dinosuars (updated Feb. 14)
• Sketch Gallery (updated Jan. 17),
• Fundraising Faux-Pas, or the
• Mugabe comic strip (Pinocchio parody)

Webcomic news
I don't really have any "news" for this week, but rather had something of a complaint for webcomics. It's something that's been gnawing at the back of my mind for a little while now, and I think it finally made sense to me just last night.

Mostly, it's the disassociation between a good webcomic and providing highly stylized and well designed art to accompany the regular updates.

What set me off on the epiphany was that Benjamin Pernick, the head sloth at Turbo Sloth, had announced the three-year milestone for his site, which boasts hundreds - perhaps even more than a thousand - pages of absolutely ridiculous jokes.[Ridiculous in the best way - the site if full of "groaners"!]

This is the faucet installers' equivalent of spitting in your burger.

I dropped Ben a line to congratulate him on the milestone, and his response is what really solidified my understanding of what I'm feeling here.

Benjamin Pernick ‏@TheTurboSloth

@RogersRyan22 Thanks! I'm glad I've stuck to it for so long...even if I haven't gotten much better :P

His answer immediately reminded me of some "constructive criticism" that the folks at The Broctopus had received upon launching their site after this comic was posted:

Gregory102714 Good in theory horrible in execution. I think you guys would have more hits if you had better drawing.s

Seriously!? This is what "Gregory" felt after reading this comic, that the strip is "good in theory" but unable to attract attention or traffic without "better drawing.s" [sic].

I can't imagine anything sillier - what these two strips have in common is that they're people who are eager and passionate about sharing their comics. They're doing it for the love of doing it - the side effects of which would only be to brighten the days of readers when they pass through, and the warm feeling that comes from knowing you had something to do with it.

If anything, the silly and nonchalant style is imperative to a good joke. It admits to readers that this isn't to be taken too seriously. I mean, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel was supposed to be a ceiling-comic, but he got carried away and people "don't get it" now.

Revisionist history and restoration "experts" completely missed the joke. A warning to us all that too much detail distracts us from the gag.

Now, I must admit, I was prescient of this concept before I endeavoured to start making comics about the bad haircuts I'd received at the bad barber's shop. He made me feel stupid by giving me a bad haircut, and drawing dumb comics is my outlet - after joking about it for ages with a co-worker, I thought the joke between us could live on if I immortalized it in a silly strip. To go along with the bad barber was the bum that begged for change outside our office:

I know, the Peterborough, Ont. version of Bert and Ernie, right?

I wanted the comic to look "thrown together" because I didn't want it to be taken too seriously, but I have to admit, I spent a lot of effort making sure the images looked like that. Like, an embarrassingly long time, if you ask me.

And that's the IMPORTANT lesson here. The merit of the comics, that spirit of creating them for the love to bringing a little joy to the lives of others, is what's essential - and cramping up because it's not straight out of the Yale University School of Art is no reason to stop.

As long as you love it, don't ever stop, slow down or feel less of yourself for letting your style and personality grow through your work.

It's ridiculous [in the bad way] to think you have to be great at something before you start, or that becoming a Master in your craft requires that you conform to the style of those who have been the most successful in your field. All of that's nonsense.

Keep it real!