As I mention before I plan to start posting a new strip every Friday. Mostly likely it will only be a one page comic, like this one, but maybe a few longer ones with squeeze in there. This comic might look a bit familiar because I posted a rough version of it years ago. I did a number of these one page strips in a scratchy style about 3 years ago. I’ve never done anything with them, so I figured why not use them now. I think they are all really funny!

                The idea to do this came from an interview I was listening to on TCJ talkies with Evan Dorkin. He was talking about how if he was an up and comer now, doing humor books, he would be putting his stuff on the internet. It only makes since. So I thought I should try a bit harder to get more comics on the internet for people to see. I’m not sure I’ve got the skill, or the time, to do a daily web comic, or even a few times a week, so I thought that doing it once a week would be a good idea. If I’m able to produce it faster than that I’ll work on getting it up to two days a week. If I had a simpler style I might be able to put stuff up with more regularly, but I just overwork the pages too much.

                Speaking of style I did something new with this page! I actually measured out the lettering for the panels! I wanted the pages to look cleaner. My letter is somewhat crazy and lopsided at times. I think it adds to anxiety of my stories, but I also feel that the straighter lettering helps the overall look of the page. It was a pain in the as to do though. I’ll have to find a faster way of doing it if I want to keep it up.  The other big change on this page is that I actually typed the dialogue out on a computer first, to check for spelling errors and grammar mistakes. I’m a bit sick of spelling words wrong all the time so I think I be doing this all the time now.

                I thought I’d give you another update as to what I’ve been up to lately, since my plans from my previous rant have changed. Here are some of my future projects I’ve got in mind.

WEEKLY STRIPS

                I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how to get more of an audience. I feel like I’m drawing comics that get thrown into a big well. I do all the work then just toss them into the dark. It’s not a very satisfying why of working.

                When you’re working on things that are based in humor it isn’t that hard to do short strips. In fact all I used to do is short strips. 3 pages at the most. Now I find that I’m working on stories that are longer and longer. However I still get ideas for the one page gag comics. I draw them up for an issue, but they don’t make the final cut. As a result they have just been piling up.

                I thought it might be a good idea to have some sort of strip that I post regularly to get people coming back to my site. If you want people to buy your comics, or even read them, it doesn’t seem like a bad idea to give them a free taste of what you’ve got in store for them. My plan, for now, is to post a one page strip every Friday, starting tomorrow. I’ve got a back log of strips that are thumb nailed out, but haven’t been drawn yet, so I won’t be posting any old stuff. However some of the strips will be the final drawn version of sketchbook comics I’ve posted before.

                Once I’ve got enough of them done I think I will collect them all together in an issue of Ugly People. It will most likely be issue 4 or 5.

UGLY PEOPLE 3

                I’ve started doing the writing for the next issue of Ugly People. This one will be a bit different because I’m actually writing this one out on a computer, before I draw it. This is just an effort to get away from so many spelling and grammar mistakes that I always have. My comics are riddled with them, and it’s something that I often hear complaints about. If I can manage to get rid of the one complaint I always get then maybe I’ll start getting a bigger audience. Positive word of mouth and all.

                With Jerkface comics, and Ugly People 2 (which will be out before the end of this year) I was working more with established characters, trying to build a bit of continuity for the characters. Well, as much continuity as you can have when drawing about a guy beating off several times a day. I think for Ugly People 3 I might do less of that and just try to do some stories that are flat out silly and funny.  Worry a little bit less about building up the Empireverse and concentrate on making people laugh!

SPIDER MAN COMIC

                Instead of doing a whole big thing as a comic for Lucy I decided to do something smaller for her.  I’m drawing a Spider-man comic for her. I’m doing it in my own style, but it’s not dirty like my work usually is. There’s no harsh language or anything. Right now I’m still writing and thumb nailing it out, which is fun. I get to look through old issues of Spider-Man and say it’s just research for my kid! How cool is that?

                Of course I won’t be able to sell this comic, but when I finish it I’ll post it on line.

DRAWINGS

                I still want to just do some drawings that I can sell, or even just to have fun with. All I ever drawing is comics and it’s somewhat dull. I love drawing comics, but I also love drawing. When I was in high school I would do art projects all the time. Mostly I drew pictures of girls that I copied from Maxim or FHM, but it was still fun to do. Gary Panter says that you should never tie yourself down to one thing at a time because if you get bored with it you stop working. One of the things I learned when doing Ugly People 2 was that, while I was able to get a lot of comics done in a short amount of time, it was a bit boring. When I sat down to draw I knew I was only going to be drawing comics. I love doing comics but if I’m being honest sometimes it’s really fucking boring.

                Well that about does it for me. Tomorrow I’ll post a new comic. See you later.

Here is what I did today. This is one of my more designed pages, with the four tiers, two of the tiers in black and two with motion lines. It seems like many artist have these images and standard panels they use over and over. I’ve found that I have a few of this myself, like ending my stories with a panel that has no boarder. Many of my stories feature people fighting and I’ve noticed that I always draw the same punching panel over and over. You can see a bit of that shot in the fourth panel. When it came time to do this page I tried to find some other way of showing the fight. There seems to be an idea of doing really big panels when you drawing fight scenes, to show the energy and speed of those events I suppose. But why not go the other way? Those were the things I was thinking about when I drew this page.

                It is funny to me that all the way up to high school I wanted to work in Superhero comics, drawing Spiderman, or Batman, and now that I’m publishing my own work I’ve still got that superheroes in my blood, but a servilely perverse version of it. Rather than drawing Spiderman fighting Doctor Octopus, I’m drawing a to-do list fighting a comic book page. What would I of ten years ago think about that? Could he possible understand all the steps and struggles it took for my current style and stories to come about? Something to think about.

                Here is a panel from a comic I’m working on now. I like the classic cartoon images, in this case the image of a “fight cloud”. I realized something while drawing this story; a lot of my stories involve people solving an argument by starting a fight. I’m not sure why that is. Something left over from my days reading superheroes comics perhaps? Or maybe it’s just me living out my fantasy of simply punching people when they get on my nerves?

sketchbook stuff

empire does ditko!



here is a drawing i did the other day while lucy and i were doodling. i had a lot of fun drawing this. i also opened a store where you can buy some sweet comics from me. although i already have each one shown on this page so i'm not sure how often i'll remind people of it.