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 #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 #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...Boük

What can I say about the character Boük? He was initially created as a counterbalance to Opal; another cataloger who, instead of loathing technology, was the master of technology. I thought it would be funny to have someone who could control technology with his mind, so I designed him with an unusually large head. We haven't explained what exactly Boük can and can't do in regards to controlling technology mentally, or how he does it...we just hope that people will overlook that due to his large brain. I mean, there's room for 3-4 extra lobes up there! As someone who could control technology, he was a good counter for SCOM, who up to that point seemed uncontrollable. Boük first showed up in strip #42, but was first mentioned in strip #41. I always see him as a snappy dresser, and I don't think I've drawn him without his sunglasses yet. He has the same kind of weak eyes that Bono has. Since he's a cataloger, I thought that Book would be an appropriate name, but the name was a little obvious for me, so I decided to make him Northern European. I did some searches on the word "boük" to see if it was a bad word and as far as I could tell it was okay. I'm not totally sure if it means anything though, so if any of our Northern European viewers want to chime in, please feel free.Ok, I guess that's about it for Boük. Enjoy the image!

Search and Research #148

Ever gotten about halfway done drawing a comic strip and realized that you wrote too much stuff to fit into a normal sized strip, and you didn't want to have to redraw it all on a bigger paper? Me too! As a result, I really had to choose my angles and shots carefully to show the stuff that was important, which took me a lot of time...I had to sort of leave it for a while and come back with (hopefully) fresh eyes every now and then. I decided to sort of darken in the background when showing Marc and the copier so that the other elements of the panels would stand out. I hope this strip makes sense visually...I really felt more cramped than usual. I draw these (with the exception of the big color ones) on normal 8.5x11" paper, and sometimes that's just doesn't feel like enough room. Ok, well, enough of me rambling. 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 #146

So I made myself a deal. In order to get this story going again, I cannot play Starcraft today until I got done with this strip. This will be the weekly policy until the end of this story. Thank you.

I really enjoyed giving SCOM his guns back, and drawing a companion shot to Strip #92 where SCOM discovers his guns have been removed. I hope you enjoy it as well!

Search and Research #145

Well, I really did not intend to take two and a half weeks to get this strip done, but I suppose that's life. Regular viewers will be aware that summers are usually much busier for me than the school year, and we're now in that summer phase. I'm going to pretend that being distracted to an extreme degree by the upcoming release of Starcraft 2 by Blizzard, and a resulting increase in desire to play Starcraft is just part of that summer busyness. :0) I LOVE STARCRAFT!!! Ok, I feel better now. Anyone else out there like Starcraft?

It's obvious now to me now that I was much more concerned about drawing the figures here than making nice word bubbles. I do think my figure work has been getting better; proportions are more consistent, I'm making myself draw hands more, I'm trying to work on expressions. But...I can't neglect the speech bubbles side of things either. I'll have to keep that in mind. Enjoy!

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!