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:

Introducing...Opal

Opal is the second staff character I created for this strip, showing up in strip #3. She was based on a cataloger with whom my wife was working at the time (she has since changed jobs) who was very cranky, refused to use a computer for almost anything and seemed to despise change of any kind. She is certainly not my idea of all catalogers, and I don't personally know any catalogers with that kind of mindset, but I suppose that the cranky old woman is a little bit of a librarian stereotype. Oh well...I think that her personality is an asset to this strip. I made Boük a cataloger to sort of keep the strip from seeming biased against catalogers. Opal has been working at the library since she was a student there, so she has seen a lot of change. If I ever have her show up in a color strip, I will make the center of her broach a large opal. I'm not sure why I named her the way I did other than it just sounds like a name for an older woman. I love the animosity between Opal and SCOM and try to put them together in situations as much as possible. I enjoy thinking about where else we can put her! Enjoy!

Search and Research #147

This is a day of celebration! No, not just because there is a new strip, despite some humidity related delays. On this day, my friend, and co-writer, Jason Watts has welcomed his son Tobin Joshua into the world at 8:03 this morning. Tobin is Jason's third child, and first son. Let's all congratulate Jason, and celebrate with him! Also, please enjoy this continuation of "The Evil Copier Saga".

Search and Research #144

Hello! Welcome back! So, here in Nashville, Tennessee we've had some flooding recently along with a lot of other damage, including damage to the power lines behind the house, keeping me out of power for several days last week. It also affected our internet access. That, and a recently hectic schedule have sort of prevented me from posting this strip until now. Things are slowly getting back to normal now though.

Alright! It feels good to get this up. Where in the world is this story going? Keep coming back to find out!

Search and Research #143

We now bring you the next chapter in the blockbuster "Evil Copier" saga. I suppose it's pretty short for a chapter, but I don't want to rewrite the beginning, so we'll just have to go with that. I'm particularly pleased with the shot of SCOM running here. I always have a sort of difficult time drawing him at angles (despite the fact that he's essentially a box) but I really pushed myself to make this work. Enjoy!

Search and Research #139

Another one that is inspired by my real life. Something happened to the water pressure on my street, and I couldn't shower before work, and the only hat I had was a stocking cap kind of hat. I wore that thing all day, feeling super self-conscious and hoping my boss didn't see me. When I took it off at the end of the day, my hair looked like Marc's. I had fun drawing that hair. Enjoy!

Opal sketches

Here is the sketch I did of Opal as an MiB agent. The first sketch is the version I did with gray markers. The second image is colored with Photoshop by selecting certain areas and then playing with the hue. This was in response to a request by frequent commenter Angie, who suggested she'd like to see Opal decked out as a secret agent a few months ago. Angie, these are for you. I had to do detailed research on the design of the "flashy thing". And yes, she is carrying the noisy cricket in her other hand. More character sketches to follow. Enjoy!