Mini-a-MonthA minicomic a month for one year

Christ, I need to go to sleep. But first, how about a page from this months mini.. OK actually the only page Seriously I’m so behind right now, plus I’m moving this month, and trying to finish a script for Brandon, also trying to finish like 3 other scripts. I’m pretty sure I have a vendetta against free time or something. Oh well, that’s what you have to do to break in, right? ….right.. seriously someone tell me I’m right. Anywho, here’s the page. This mini is completely inked with a brush, I seriously love my brush. I think I’m going to work on moving my style to something high-contrasty and brushy. Not sure yet.

Page 1.. so many trees.. why so many trees!

So quick update for the masses. Augusts mini will be titled ‘Hello?’. There won’t be any script talk because there’s not a formal script for it. Basically I wanted to work on my page composition and graphic storytelling this month (also my brush work..) and this story fit that work perfectly. I’ve got the outline done and I have page to page happenings but not anything I’d consider a formal script.

The story centers around a child lost in the woods. We follow her for 16 pages and see what comes of it. I honestly don’t know 100% how it will end. I’ve got an idea written down but I’m going to let this one come a bit more organic to the page. This could end up a travesty :D. Lets hope it doesn’t though!

So. I have no flippin idea what I’m going to do this month! I know what I’m doing next month. I know that because I need to finish it early to ship it over to the lovely and talented Brandon J. Carr who’ll be handling the art for September. This month however, blank. Well not really blank, I have a sinking suspicion I know what it’ll be I just have to see if the light I think will be blinking on, actually will.

I’ve got no beginning and no end to that story.. just a middle bit. Actually just a panel or two in my head. I just need to sit down at a white page and pound it out. I know it’s buried in the sand up there, I just have to unearth it.

In the meantime I’m working on a ton of anthology stories. I’ve got three seperate anthologies I plan on submitting to in the next couple of months. Two of which I have really solid stories for, the third.. well I have a story but it needs work. I also need to line artists up for those. I have a people in mind for each of them and I think they’ll probably be game.

OK I really need to sleep. My sleep schedule has been completely tossed this past week. G’night interwebs.

Steve

So, 0101010ve is now complete. Man what a rush! I’m pretty happy with it overall. I think the story is solid and the  dialogue is good. The art is better than most of the art I’ve done, I can definitely see that I’m progressing. This is all good news I suppose! Anyway I’m sure I’ll hate all of it in a week or two, I generally consider all my work trash a bit after finishing it… I think that’s most artists though.

So what did I learn. Well first off I know I need to speed up scripting. Also I figured out that a pdf version looks like crap on screen, so I’ve opted to set up a slideshow for each issue. The files will be optimized for the screen and look a ton better. Hrrm. What else then? Well I’ll be tackling the wonderful world of laser printing this week. I think it should go smoothly but I’ve never really done this outside of a few ashcans I did as a resume at NY this year. Those I printed at UPS Store because they had a cheap color copy special. I think these I’ll use a certain laser printer that a friend has access to. I believe this will output a nice copy, but I’ll know for sure a bit later.

You can access the web version of the comic by clicking the 0101010ve tab up top there. That will take you to the gallery page. Click on the first page and the viewer will load up. You can control the viewer with either your mouse or your keyboard arrow keys. Feel free to leave feedbacks or flames in the comment section!

OK so onwards and upwards! On to August. I’ve got about a bajillion ideas bouncing round but I’ll settle on one before the end of the weekend and update Monday or Tuesday.

See ya!

Wow, so close to the end now. I’m actually pretty happy with my work so far, I’ve really been pushing myself with these panels. I’ve tried to make sure I’m pulling out a lot more, that I’m not falling into the talking head trap that I tended toward on The Devil and Ted and that I’m staying consistent a bit more. There are still a few panels here and there where I’m not quite happy with how stuff turned out and if I have time before the months over I plan to redo at least 2 of the panels.

I’ve still got the cover to do and I’ve been pondering exactly what I want to go for with it. I’ve some ideas but I’ve not tacked anything down yet.

After I finish the last couple of pages I’ve still got to do the lettering, I’m not expecting that to take that long however. My workflow on that front is pretty streamlined and fairly quick.

Once lettering is done I’ve got to do the paste up in InDesign. I’ll be releasing two PDFs for free, one that will allow you to print your own (sans snazzy cover) and one that is readable as is. Expect these within the first week of August. On top of that the printed/signed versions should be available by the second week. I’ll post up the paypal links around that time. I’ll also include a physical address if you’re more comfortable with that.

So I’m officially 31% done with the art for 0101010ve (5 out of 16 pages.. not counting the cover). I’ve got some good leads on where I’ll be printing the first run of the book and I can’t wait to have a physical copy in my grubby little hands! I’ve decided the cover will be a light brown card stock with black line work. I plan on doing silkscreen covers for a book at some point but I’m pretty sure that will have to wait for one of the books I have someone else do art on otherwise I’ll not have enough time to finish the screening within the month. Anyway I’m pretty happy with how the pages are turning out and I’m quite happy with the story, I really can’t wait until next month though as I’ve got a thousand ideas of what I want to do!

Here’s page 1 from 0101010ve. You’ll notice it’s a rather high contrast black and white. The rest of the pages arent’ this way, just this establishing shot. I wanted something rather sexy and I’ve always felt b/w high contrasts tends to lend itself to that sort of feeling. Plus it should look great photocopied. Anyway enjoy the peek after the break.

So I’ve finished page 1. I’ve got 13 days for 15 more pages + the cover. I really need to speed up scripting next month in order to maintain a proper pace without killing myself. I’m not too concerned though, I should have no problem producing the art. I’ll post page 1 up here in a little while so you can see it. It’s a high contrast black and white page and I think it turned out pretty well. I’m 100% that I’ll be a better artist once this experiment is said and done, just because the scripts I write now are way more challenging than the ones I wrote for DnT.