Sketches. Sketches, forever.

In an attempt to try to update this more often, I'm going to start sharing some drawings from my sketchbooks and other various places.


I drew people I saw from the last hour of my second shift at the aquarium last night on a feeding schedule.


Salome from my webcomic, GHOST! From my comic sketchbook/notebook from school. The discussion had tangent-ed into Harry Potter debate at that point haha.


Grave from GHOST! again trying to be a badass but failing.


Grave in Halloween garb because I don't know.


Uhm. :D


Lol character design of a superhero/boyslove comic I've been concepting. HE CONTROLS THE POWER OF THE STARSSSHURP. *sogay*


Rough sketch for a repeating pattern project for school. Of course I'm going overboard as usual. :I

Anddd that's it for now. I have literally an asston of sketches and process pages that just sit here, so if you like seeing this stuff and want to see more of it, let me know. c:

The best way to become a better comic artist is to make comics.

This week was my first week back to school at ye old MCAD. Taking WAY too many classes and gonna die, but I'm excited to be back.

BUT.
The one thing I absolutely can't STAND about starting a new year is introductions. You'd think as juniors, this kind of thing would be unnecessary. WRONG. And the thing that happens EVERY. YEAR. is that I get asked:

"So what was the last comic you read that totally like, BLEW YER MIND?"

MOTHERFUCKER.
I NEVER have an answer for this because HEY I DON'T READ COMICS I MAKE THEM. I usually have to fumble for an excuse and say, "Well I'm more of a novel reader I guess," and then I have to poorly pronounce the last Russian novel I read. :I It just makes me sound like an asshole/retard.

I am taking a screenwriting class as well. Before the teacher told us the story of how he stole the original script of Last Action Hero, he said "The best way to become a better writer is to write. The second best way to become a writer is to read."

So, you'd think this would apply to comics. Reading comics certainly can teach you a thing or two, but it is nowhere near as effective as making them and learning from personal mistakes and triumphs. I hardly read comics on my own time. It's not that I dislike them, but I would chose the chance to make a comic over reading a comic any day.

I mean, this is why I was the only person in my comic publishing class that had actually published any of their work. (Another awkward introduction where I sound like a pretentious asshole.)

Why settle for a secondary learning method when you can have a first hand experience that actually moves you forward?

Doing that in that dress would get real old real fast.

While trying to figure out how I'm going tag GHOST! updates when I tweet about them, I started pondering how webcomic artists abuse the advantage of social networking, on-demand search engines, rss feeds, etc. I mean, we're all up in that shit. I mean, the whole point of WEBcomics is that they're on the WEB. You don't have to leave your house.

Then I tried imagining myself trying to be a solo comic artist in 17th century England, but not having the connections or decency to go through proper channels like newspapers so I'd just do this:



I call it barking. (HA.)

Thank god for the internet sometimes because doing that in that dress would get real old real fast.

Bleed Margin Paranoia

This will be more of an informative post than anything else just because this shit is important, but no one knows about the horror of...


Despite the dramatics, this shit is relatively unknown to most beginning comic artists. At least it was to me. I had one hell of a time trying to print Acid Monday because I wanted the images to bleed off the page, but I didn't have enough room to safely do that. It was a long process of resizing images and going back and forth with the printer to get it done, but it could have all been avoided had I known about the process of getting full bleed comics printed.

The standard work size for comics lately seems to be 10"x15". It's reduced down to 6"x9" for print (in America at least). However, that doesn't mean you have to keep to that size. If you want to go to the 10"x14"/5"x7" manga size, go ahead. If you want to take creative control and do an unusual size, knock your socks off. Just keep in mind that it will be more expensive to print. Since I work in the traditional American size, I'll be using that as my example, but the same rules should carry over to other sizes.

So, I start with a 10"x15" page with an additional 1/2" bleed margin on all sides, making the final size 11"x16". Here's an example of what one of my GHOST! pages looks like with the bleed margin marked off:

Note that this is a screen shot from Manga Studio, and I added in the color in photoshop to better show the bleed margin. You can create rulers in photoshop like this as well, it's just more difficult. :)

The bleed margin is basically giving the printers room for your comic to be trimmed. When perfect binding a book, it is necessary to do a final trim of the pages so it is perfectly aligned. But, in the process of binding, pages tend to move over a little, and if there is no extra image on the pages, the pages may have an unseemly white border.

BUT. There's more. See, when the bleed margin is cut off, the composition of the page changes slightly. Which is where I'd like to introduce the what is called the "live area". I work with a 9"x14" live area, so it's another 1/2" margin away from the bleed margin, depicted below in orange:

Basically, all the important shit (faces, text, etc.) should stay within an area that has not been colorized. If you cross the live area margin, it's not a huge deal since that area is mostly for compositional compensation anyways, but crossing the bleed margin SHOULD NOT happen. Otherwise you'll get cut off faces and text.

That's all for now! I hope this was somewhat helpful and not just terrifying, because when I think about bleed margins I shake and my palms start to sweat. :o

A Comic Artist's Typographic Blacklist

You know, comics are pretty damn simple in their most basic form. It's just pictures and words.
PICTURES.
AND WORDS.

So what constitutes a "good" comic, then? Nice drawings? Attractive characters? Attention to color theory? Decent writing?

What about this "writing" then? It should be displayed in a visually appealing (or at least comprehensive) style, right? If it's not, then the reader will be less inclined to read the content and just gaze over the pretty pictures. Which is all fine and dandy, but that kind of destroys any kind of purpose the words were set there for.

So, then, typography in comics is important, yes?

Assuming you didn't just get punched in the face for disagreeing, then let me ask you this...

WHY ON THIS GOOD, GREEN EARTH ARE COMIC ARTISTS ALLOWED TO USE PAPYRUS?

It doesn't matter HOW GOOD or HOW WELL WRITTEN or HOW PRETTY the comic is. If I see a shred of this typeface on a comic I just completely lose my appetite for it. I lose any respect I had for the artist the second that damned P with its simulated cracked edges and gimpy shoulder appears on a page.

Mainstream media sees its fair share of bad typography *coughbluecatpeoplecough*, and so has mainstream comics. But, the place that seems to be the infesting breeding grounds for Papyrus and Chiller is the webcomic. Just today I lost respect for at least three webcomics because for some godawful reason the author thought their webcomic name looked best in Papyrus of all typefaces. Was it accidental? Did they just open up their font selection, close their eyes, hit a key, save the image, upload it to their site, and just never look at it again?

I fear thinking it could ever be intentional.

Not all webcomic artists have the typographic skill of a first grader on dope, however. The author of Hanna is Not a Boy's Name, for example (best example), has be-a-utiful typography. Girl knows her shit. Lots of it is hand done and guess what? Not a fucking ounce of Papyrus.

Here's a cheat sheet of the HORRENDOUSLY UNACCEPTABLE TYPEFACES TO USE EVER:
{A comic artist's typographic blacklist}
-Papyrus
-Chiller
-Comic Sans
-Curls MT
-Marker Felt
-oh god and so many more. These are just the default.

I'M EVEN OKAY WITH COMIC SANS JESUS CHRIST.
(not really, but if I have to read one more comic page with Chiller text I will stab a baby)

It takes.
Two seconds.
To go to blambot.
And download a free comic typeface.
You don't have to be stuck in 1999 with Chiller.
You don't have to die from being stabbed if you use Papyrus in your comic about bluecatpeople.

I don't know. Maybe I'm being too sensitive about this because I live with a graphic designer and partake in an occasional design course. But all I know is that I will not read your comic if you use a blacklisted typeface.

I don't care if that makes me an elitist douchebag.

Fuck you, Papyrus.
Suck a dick.

LONGASS Scripts Infected by Short Stories

As of now, I am in the midst of writing GHOST! And I must say IT'S BEEN AWHILE. I haven't written a graphic novel since Acid Monday (and that was mostly bullshit writing-as-you-go anyways). In (comic) art school I'm forced to write short stories, something that I can deal with, but not really interested in pursuing outside of assignments. Then I have to cram it all in five pages or less to pull it out of my ass in time, so I cram lots of story into little space. IT'S ANNOYING to say the least. I like writing LONGASS comics so I can drag out the storytelling and make a fucking point.

So I thought that by writing GHOST! (which is currently planned for three volumes) I could let loose and write like a fucking madwoman. Which I am. But. You know how I'm ending up writing this thing? IN FUCKING SHORT STORIES. I mean, it's probably a good thing because it will help tie up inconsistencies and form a pace to the comic, but I know. I just KNOW. That it's because of goddamn art school and those stupid short assignments fucking with my head.

Not that I'm condemning the short story style or anything. Who knows, it may turn out really well for what I'm doing. It's just that I'm realizing this as I go along and IT'S FREAKING ME OUT, MAN.

Also the PLANNING.
THE PLANNING.
Oh god there is so much of it, I had forgotten.
butiloveitsomuchsoexcitedhooray

Earth Day and Command+Z

What you see here is (one of) my desk(s) mid-finals. There are about ten books piled around my computer, at least three cans of ginger ale, all kinds of paper and pens, and a three pound bag of gummi bears. I'm not just sharing this to embarrass myself. There's something critical in this snapshot that is important to what today is.

Oh yeah happy Earth Day!

As an art student/comic artist, I find myself using excessive resources in my process. I've probably killed more trees than any so-called environmental vegetarian ever would. I feel like I'm taking trips down to the paper recycling bin more and more every week. In light of the holiday, and in light of my high school background as an environmentalist, I think the sustainability of traditional art is huge issue for me. I try to think of ways to reduce my embarrassing paper trail every year, but it's a difficult task. The nature of art is creation, which requires consumption of resources.

I reuse and hoard paper like no other. The bristol you see laying on my desk contains my failed blue lines/inking experiment, pencils for an instruction page, and the inks for a GHOST! test. Oh, and it was my roommate's print reject. But! Not everything can be reused like that, right? Last semester I tried to get away with doing my pencils on one side of bristol and printing blue lines on the other. Needless to say, it was off and on in quality, and it was a little awkward to turn in as a final.

When I was at a high school that didn't have recycling bins, I would carry around a tote bag to capture people's plastic bottles so I could recycle them at home. I still recycle religiously, but I retain that hoarding nature with the paper I use. I'll keep the sensible paper like large sheets left over from a trim, but I'll also keep weird things like masonite I find on the street and the back of drawing pads. Will I really ever need a marker-stained sheet of cardboard? Probably not, but just the thought of throwing away a "perfectly good" blank surface rips my eco-drilled consciousness apart.

I'm a little neurotic, so paper conservation comes rather naturally for me. However, that's not good enough dammit. Which is why I'm leaning more and more towards digital process. Using just the computer is the godliness of saving trees. There's also a huge advantage to going digital within the programs. For example, I just learned that Manga Studio EX grids out three-point perspective lines for you. GOD DAMN talk about a time saver.

Command+Z never looked so good.

Fantasy Co-op Publishing House for Webcomic Artists

I can't decide if the joy of literally rolling in a pile of comic books I made outweighs the torture of orchestrating it all.

I wrapped up Acid Monday orders today.
I was up till 5:00 am.
I can not tell you how fucking amazing it feels to get that done with. I've spent countless hours organizing spreadsheets, reimaging pages for prepress, and packaging so many boxes until my hands bleed. All while in college, which requires so much time itself. The time I had to spend on the books really ate into my homework time (the job didn't help either). I was stuck in a vortex of responsibilities and ambition.

But don't get me wrong. I shit my pants when I got the books. I can't say much for being proud of the content, because, well, it's really bad. But at some point I stopped caring about what the book was about and started just concentrating on getting it out there. I think I'll be able to appreciate this more once the stress from turning my tiny apartment into a publishing house blows over.

When (and if) I self-publish again, I will have to seriously consider having a direct handle on the books. I liked having the control of the printing, but when it came to organizing the physical objects, all hell broke loose. My apartment kind of looks like a post office monster exploded in the living room. I'm thinking that next time I might just send the books directly to a book store or to Amazon. But I guess that takes away the advantage of having presales to financially assist me. I know the big printers like Lulu (which has awful printing quality so I've heard) will handle this all for you, but they lack the control I found so awesome with a smaller printer. I would be all for outsourcing a shipping/handling business to handle the grunt work, but then I think a) do those even exist? and b) oh no not more money.

I mean, this business already doesn't make much money as it is, and relying on presales to pay for the printing runs makes it even harder. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a co-op for webcomic artists looking to print their books? Getting everything moving to publish your book by yourself is incredibly difficult. If there were a co-op that could assist webcomic artists in things like printer connections and pre-press and (especially) shipping, I think I wouldn't be as afraid for my future as I already am. I know I'm basically talking about starting a publishing house, but what the important part is that it would be directed towards webcomics. If a comic artist is hired by a publisher (like tokyopop or vertigo) to create a comic, they don't want the whole comic already, right? But with webcomics that's kind of the way it is. There's a kind of artistic freedom that comes from not working for a publisher. You don't have to get your script approved or your sketches edited. You wouldn't have to work in a specific style to fit the boundaries of the company. I mean have you seen the manga asiles at B&N? They ALL look the same. (in format and style)

That's why a co-op publishing company specifically directed towards artists that already have their work out there on the web is something that I think could attract a really diverse collection of work that appeals to the internet-hungry generation. Maybe even developing into an industry with popularity-based salaries through advertising on webcomic sites. Maybe I'm fruitless in trying to create a fantasy middleman that will make what I'm doing a profitable career, but I can dream right?

Maybe it's something for a future project.
For now I'll keep blindly making webcomics.

GHOST! Logo

So as some of you may know, I'm in the middle of scripting and developing my next webcomic project, GHOST! The comic is about a purgatory-esque dimension that is infested by "ghosts." The suicide/murder victims that inhabit the land are split into a group that hunts these "ghosts" for research/game and a group that believes the "ghosts" are a direct connection to heaven and thus worships them on a spiritual level.

As of now, along with working out plot demons, I'm trying to find an identity for the comic. I drafted up a few logos for the comic the other day and this is the one that I brought to some kind of completion.
Thoughts? Hopefully you can see what I was going for, but I'd like a second opinion on it. I'm worried about readability or visual awkwardness, but right now I am too attracted to that H to coherently make a decision.

You can see more of GHOST! over at the smackjeeves site (http://g-h-o-s-t.smackjeeves.com/), but there's not too much up there now.

Lucid out. <3

Ahw Hellz Yeah

So I caved in and started a blog. Balls. I mean. Yes woo fun!

In an attempt to not make it one of those things that I start half heartedly and then give up after two posts, I'm going to be keeping it relatively impersonal. Meaning you won't be able to hear about what I had for breakfast. Sorry. What you will hear will be based around my stark raving mad obsession with the comic art form. The FORM, not the fan agenda. I make comics, I don't have time to read them. This is about what I like to call "comic theory." It's a pretentious little term I devised in order to convince myself I'm not just drawing dumb shit and putting words over it. It's a little more than that, isn't it?

Let's hope so, otherwise this blog will be stupid and contrived.

Other than farting out pseudo-poetic essays on the nature of comics, I'll probably end up discussing the terrors/wonders of the webcomic/self-publishing world and throwing out a couple of technical tutorials. Maybe we'll learn something while I'm blathering on about gutter width affecting the spacetime continuum.