Getting back to the comic

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Hi anyone listening.

I have not updated fade since about March. I really feel bad about that. Here are my excuses. A) I was focusing on looking for work for the summer and for the future--more on that later. B) After April, I've been concentrating on the Gulf Oil Spill. C) I wrote myself into a corner.

On the last point, the main issue is that I had a next page planned out. I wrote it, I thumbed it out, and it was ready to go. Frankly, it sucked. Enough that I thought it brought the book down . In retrospect, I probably should have just forced it out and moved on, because perfectionism is the enemy of production. But I didn't. Shame on me.

Anyway, I finally wrote something satisfactory, and I'm producing the page now. Will be up ASAP. Thank you for your patience and your readership.

--Jack

 

[Espy]

You should post thumbs and stuff, it's always cool to see what WIP's look like...

 

[Soliloquy]

May I add that I find your comic to be AWESOME whenever you actually update?

Because I do.

 

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That actually means more than you probably think it does. Critique is welcome always, but positive feedback makes me want to do better and get to work right away.

 

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Okay. Another (minor) sidetrack, dammit. Here's the page I just finished penciling. Coloring now. (whitespace will be black behind panels, too)

 

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Thanks for the critique. I actually agree on the color...maybe not so much on the ink. I've been toying with a more simplistic coloring style actually. More old bookplate style, with minimalist highlights and a little added shading. Maybe I'll do that on this page. I don't want to go too wild. I think I'll end this issue here, mostly just to break the thread in my own mind from before the long hiatus. In the new issue I can do that. Another thing is that I don't want to get too whiny or anti-hero. I do wish the pencil tone values would come through the colors better, though. They seem to get washed out. I don't mind the saturation. I like the levity it brings. But I don't like how it loses the detail I worked so hard to bring in.

Sorry for the ramble, but that was a lot of disconnected thought.

Also, thanks, but I don't think I'm being too hard on myself. I see enough comic art to know mine is better than some, but a far sight worse than a lot of others.

 

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Forgot to put it here, but I did update the comic finally. Not only that, I've actually written the next issue. I don't mean my usual "vague idea" followed by page-to-page planning. I actually wrote it. Anyway, here's the page.

I'm pretty happy with the dialogue pacing. It works. Fairly proud of the phrase "Nachtmann's terrific death" too.

 

[tegid]

Very good page, with very good pacing.

 

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Alright. I have NOT been idle. I did something new. Usually, I just have a rough idea of the issue, and I pencil it as I see fit. This time, I actually wrote out a script! I'd scan it, but it's on paper, and barely legible with all the scratchouts and erasures. If I do say so, this is a decent one. With the script, I should be able to pump it out, too. Actually, I'm a bit worried this may be a 30-40 page issue.

 

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"SPOILERS" ahead. Actually if you can read hasty, scratchy script. I write this way when I'm scribbling down thoughts really quickly lest I lose them.

 

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Geez, I really friggin wrote that script 2 years ago?? It's been crazy. I have an editor now, and she has promised to beat me into a schedule. I had totally lost interest in this story for a while, but now I'm getting the interest back. Expect a semi-reboot, I think. I will use the same art, but I I think I will delete issue 1, which I never cared for. It was a good way in, and I'll keep the hard copies, but it's going to go away. I think I'm going to redo the site. The current one is written by hand in hand coded html, css, php, SQL, and JS, but I just don't have time for that anymore. It was fun, but tools like Joomla are well up to the task now. They weren't what I wanted in 2005, but times have changed.