Art update

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted the last strip, and I'm here with an update on strip #165, which will be a large color strip. I've penciled it out, and am in the process of inking it, after which I'll be adding colors. I'm going to go back to markers this time for color instead of doing computer colors like the last color strip. Here's a look at the strip with the panels all lined out:

This is an 11x17 inch sheet of "official comic book paper" with 14 panels on it. The blank space in the lower left corner is a panel as well, it just won't have a border around it. I'm hoping to get it finished before my "pre-semester starting work exhaustion" kicks in. I don't want this to take 3 months like the last color strip, however, I'm finding it difficult to focus on the strip when there are Olympics on tv. That's it for now I guess. I hope you're all doing well.

 - Eli

Search and Research #164

Well, I meant to have this up yesterday, but when I sat down to post it, I remembered I hadn't yet scanned the strip (I usually scan the strips right after I finish them). I finished this one a few days ago, but wound up being busy afterwards I guess. Anyway, here is the penultimate (always wanted to use that word!) strip in the "SCOM tells a story about working in the Library of Congress" storyline.

Strip #165 will be a color strip and it will have 14 panels, so it'll take me a little longer than usual to complete. I'm going to try and finish it before my day job gets crazy in preparation for the beginning of the fall semester. If that happens, it will be the most quickly completed color strip in recent memory!

 - eli

Search and Research #163

Still exploring the intricacies of dramatic lighting. I mentioned before that I've never really drawn in this style before although I've long admired the look of that noir drawing style. In the last panel I figured that if the lights when down, SCOM's screen would be the only thing giving off light, and tried to use that to inform my lighting decisions.

You'll also notice in panel three that I've employed an interesting little lesson I learned a while ago: The expression of a character speaking must match the emotion of the last thing he says in a panel, not the first. People tend to read the word bubbles and then look at the pictures, so, if you don't match the expression to the last emotion, the pictures won't make sense. I learned that back in Search and Research 93 where SCOM discovers his missile has been replaced by a telescope. His face matches the first part of what he says rather than the last part, and the panel just winds up being weird because he looks mortified rather than slyly pleased. Ok, that little tip is free. Enjoy!

 - eli

Search and Research #162

Jason and I decided it would be fun to sort of explore some of SCOM's early days at the Library of Congress, and I wanted to try to make his "flashback" scenes distinct by drawing them in a noir style, where there is only black and white with very dramatic lighting. I've always loved that style, starting with the Tracer Bullet stories in Calvin and Hobbes. I've never been very good at it, but I thought that drawing SCOM's angular shape would be easier than trying to do the organic human shapes. Boy was I wrong! It turns out that it takes practice, no matter what you're drawing. As a result, I spent a while trying to develop the look of what I have now come to call "SCOM noir". It took about a month of off and on experimentation. Hopefully subsequent strips will easier for me now.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy what we have planned.

eli

Search and Research #161

Over the past few years of drawing this strip, I've noticed that sometimes I'll sit down to draw a strip and everything just flows, from the clarity of the idea in my mind to my ability to draw it. Other times, I'll have a clear idea in my head, but when it comes to actually drawing it I seem to do more erasing than actual drawing. This strip fell into the latter category. It also doesn't help I've been sick for the past few days. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy!

Search and Research #160

Well, technically it's still Monday (at least in USA Central Standard Time), but last week was a pretty busy week. My friend Ryan Nelson came up with the idea that spawned this strip, and since he's about to graduate with his masters degree, and since he's been bugging me about it since he first told me his idea, this is for you Ryan. Congratulations, and hope you enjoy Japan! - eli

Search and Research #159

Jason and I had originally intended this strip to be a Valentine's Day strip, but weren't able to make the timing work, so the idea has been hanging around for quite a while. I'm glad we were able to find a way to put the idea to use. When SCOM begins reciting the poem, it's because Boük is controlling him since Boük can control technology with his mind. I tried to indicate that this is what's happening with SCOM's surprise and the instant screen change, along with the "bzzt!" sound effect, but I had a hard time trying to think about how to definitively show that this is what was happening. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on how well that came across. Enjoy!

Search and Research #158

I'm not sure how anyone else feels, but I'm often tempted to pretend to use the handheld scanner as a phaser from Star Trek. That's where this strip came from. I guess I'll never be too old to pretend to play with laser guns. :0) Enjoy!

Search and Research #157

There are few things more annoying to me in the library than watching students "fix" a printer or some other piece of equipment. I mean, I'm right there at the desk, they can see me...why wouldn't they ask for help? However, in the spirit of full disclosure, I have to admit I'm guilty of the same thing when I'm outside the library, and I encounter stuff malfunctioning...paper towel dispensers for instance. I have a bit of expertise in how paper towel dispensers work, so if I find one jammed, I have no problem opening it up and fixing it. I'm sure the folks in charge of them would be equally as frustrated. Anyway...enjoy!

Search and Research #156

Ok, here we go with the next strip. Drawing this strip was like hanging out with friends you haven't seen in a long time, good and nostalgic at the same time. Enjoy!

Looking ahead...

Well my friends and readers, it's been about 9 months since anything was posted on this blog, but that's about to change. Since last July, my wife and I have moved, gotten settled, and I've been working with an illustration mentor who is helping me make a move towards being a free-lance illustrator. I've been learning about watercolors and all sorts of other stuff, which has been really exciting, and working to create a portfolio of images. I also had more commissioned artwork last year than all my previous years combined. All that stuff is the reason that I haven't posted any new strips. I felt like I needed to drop something, and Search and Research was the easiest thing to drop. However, Jason (my co-writer) has been consistent in encouraging me that we really couldn't leave these characters hanging like this, that we needed to bring some of our story threads to a conclusion. I mean, we've created over 150 strips at this point and it's worth the effort to complete the body of work. I've come to agree with him through some soul-searching and with the encouragement from one of my co-workers, and I'm pretty sure that, despite my work load, I can make this work, and produce the strip in a timely manner.

So, here's the plan as it sits: Jason and I are going to write the heck out of these strips, I'm going to draw the heck out of them and do my best to put a new strip up every week, and we're going to shoot for 45 new strips, which will give us 200 strips in total. Sound good?

Above you'll find a panel from a new strip that I penciled last night. Keep your eyes peeled and your feed-readers on! My best to you all,

eli

P.S. - Thanks Karen!

Search and Research #155

Man, this is only the fifth strip I've posted this year. I can't believe that I still have viewers who are interested in what's happening over here. I'm super grateful to you all though! Thanks so much for sticking with the strip!

This one took a while because we kept changing the script for it. Sometimes the writing for this thing comes easily, and sometimes it requires a lot of rewriting and revising before we're really happy with it. We hope you enjoy!

- eli

*edit*
In retrospect, now that I've posted it up, I should have added some color to Marc's shirt, because I chose to fully color Elsie's dress. He looks like he's wearing a white shirt....oh well. 

Search and Research #154

Welcome back to the strip everybody! I appreciate you all hanging in there with me. This particular idea stems from me being heavily into Star Trek: The Next Generation, and really not being able to get into Star Trek: Voyager all that much. My co-writer, Jason, would appreciate me saying that these opinions are my own, and do not reflect the opinions he personally holds. We'll be happy to host a spirited Star Trek discussion in the comments, if anyone should care to weigh in. Enjoy!

Search and Research #153

I'm back! Hooray for a new strip! My goodness, it has been a while, but I've been super busy with art commissions, and doing other art related stuff. It has been great! In the meantime, the blog has been getting crazy numbers of views per week, for which I'm grateful but also sort of curious as to why that's happening all of a sudden. I'm all for it!

Hopefully our next strip will be up sooner, since my friend and co-writer Jason seems to be having a little bit more free time to help write scripts. He's really the one who is able to take my ideas and actually turn them into fully fleshed-out scripts, and I'm always very hesitant to just write this strip by myself. It almost always suffers without his input, so I've been waiting until he had time. Until the next one, enjoy!

- Eli

Search and Research #152

Ah...yes. It's nice to get back to the blog. Everything is just as I left it. Well, again, it's been a while since I drew a strip, but this time it's been because I've been busy with commissioned work. That is a good problem for me to have, as doing artwork full time is a goal I'm trying to work towards, but I do miss these characters and I'm glad when I have these breaks where I can get back to the strip. No promises about the next one either...we'll just have to see what happens. In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of the more recent work (and some older work as well), here's a link to a gallery: http://kindgentleman.deviantart.com/gallery/. Enjoy!

Search and Research #151

Well my friends, I'm back with a new strip! Between holiday art commissions (I love actually getting paid to draw!!), the American holidays, and the onset of electronic reserve requests at work (my primary library job) I haven't had the time or energy to draw another strip until now. It felt good to get back to these characters again. I had to reteach myself how to draw them and how I lay out my comic strips and stuff after such a long absence. I mean, I haven't actually drawn them since last September! Anyway, thanks to those of you who have stuck with this comic strip through the long absences between content. Enjoy!

Search and Research #150

Whew! It's nice to finally get this up! My co-writer Jason and I wrote this whole story arc out back in April, but this final part of the story fell during the busiest time of my entire year...beginning of the fall semester at the college at which I work. That lasted about a month an a half, at which point I had penciled about half of this "super-sized" strip. I finally got myself together and finished penciling and inking this strip. Then I started getting other artwork commissions which demanded my free time, which left me sort of scrambling to do what coloring I could during my lunch break at work. There is so much work that goes into coloring that bits and pieces just doesn't really allow you to make much progress on the overall piece. Anyway...I'm finally done with this one, and it's my great pleasure to show it to you, not only because I think that it's one of the better jobs I've ever done drawing and coloring, but because it's the epic conclusion of the "Evil Copier Saga!!" The image above is sort of bigger than usual for the strip because I want you to have to opportunity to see the coloring details. Below, I'm posting a smaller resolution image in case the one above is really too big to comfortably view on your phone or whatever. Enjoy!

Smaller version:

Almost done!!!

I'm almost done coloring Strip #150!!! In celebration of this momentous event, I have a couple of preview images to tease and tantalize you:

I'm also going to repost all the strips that have led up to this strip, in case you want to review the story. I realize that 4 months is kind of a long time to try to keep a story in your memory. I'm planning on posting #150 on Monday. Until then, enjoy! Strips start below with #141 and move down the page in order.

Introducing...Wai Fai

At one point 4 years ago or so I doodled a picture in a staff meeting of an asian lady with sort of a funky haircut who was carrying a samurai sword. I should pause and a say that ever since watching the first Highlander movie, samurai swords have been my favorite style of sword (although the super awesome sword Inigo Montoya wields in The Princess Bride is a close second!!) and samurai swords and people holding them have been a staple of my doodling for many years now. When I started drawing this strip, I remembered that doodle and thought that it would be super cool to have an "ITS-chick" who used a samurai sword as one of her tools. Thus Wai Fai (which I pronounce as Wi-Fi...get it?) was born. She first showed up in Strip #83 and had made frequent appearances ever since.

I initially designed her hair to sort of look like samurai swords, but after the first few times i drew her, i decided that hairstyle only really worked when viewed from the front...other angles were too hard to draw, so I've been sort of experimenting with other styles for her subsequent appearances. I think I've sort of settled on the style she has in the image below. Marc has been sort of enamored with Wai Fai since meeting her, and Wai Fai shows concern for Marc when he's in trouble, but neither of them seems to be willing to discuss their feelings.

Introducing...SCOM

SCOM is possibly my favorite character in this comic strip. He started out in strip #10 as a cantankerous Self Check Out Machine (which is where the abreviation SCOM comes from) who was a bit grumpy and had a penchant for destroying books, but he has become, in my opinion, the central character of the strip. Much like Opus in Bloom County, he was initially a background character who has evolved into a lovable, naive, interesting character through which we can explore the library with new eyes.

By the way, if you have never read Bloom County, please make every effort to do so. Sometimes the references to political and world events from the early 80s might be a little obscure these days, but the characters and art are great and the stories are funny and interesting. Berkeley Breathed, the creator of Bloom County, is a cartoonist hero of mine, along with Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes), Gary Larson (The Far Side) and Bill Amend (Foxtrot).

Anyway, back to SCOM, we soon discovered that he could walk, that he'd been specially made by the CIA to work in the Library of Congress, and that he had a theft prevention system which included twin duel machine-guns and a missile. I sort of started thinking of him as a mix between R2-D2 and Mary Popopins' purse, in that he could contain almost any electronic device within him, and it would sort of be believable. Remember how Mary Poppins fit a whole coat rack into her purse? Remember how R2-D2 had, like, 576 different tools in the Star Wars movies? That's what I'm talking about. Here is a list of things we've seen SCOM equipped with:
- Legs
- Guns
- Missile
- Satellite Dish for missile tracking and TV reception
- Spotlight
- Electric Zapper
- A webcam
- A karaoke system including speakers and a microphone
- A toaster

At one point we had SCOM's guns replaced with a salad shooter and a caulking gun, and his missile replaced with a telescope, which really cracked me up. I drew the image of SCOM below during that period of time, so even though he now has his guns back, please enjoy SCOM trying to look cool with his replacement attachments.