Well, we didn’t really, we work from a list in advance of what the next Folklore Thursday is gonna be. The list is pretty far in advance, and, apparently, this week, changed. So instead of whatever-this-weeks-topic was it became insects. BUT THIS WAS THE FIRST WEEK I WAS ACTUALLY AHEAD! so, poop. Instead you’re getting too Folklore strips. Locker, was my new fav.
Davy Jones’ Locker. The deep-sea Hell of the drowned, according to pirate-lore and later nautical-lore. Davy Jones a diabolical figure, sometimes said to be glimpsed among the rigging during a storm. More often than not though, the sea-devil simply waits below.
I love stuff like this, instantly I could see it all – deep-sea Hell of the drowned? Class! Trying to get something of a narrative in there – the sailer with the red scarf, drowned in the waters. And shifting to a symbolic skull in the water, was fun in the last panel.
I enjoy drawing gruesome faces, so that much is fun for me.
I’m kind of enjoying this one page per day thing. These are taking me between 10-50 minutes. (I hope, I haven’t timed them. I’ll be horrified if they’re taking more than an hour…).
I’ve sort of got an ending for this story, but I’m actually tempted to keep going. Not with this, with something else in November.
The benifit is the pressure is low – I just sit and think of something to do and draw that. It’s a little more pressure a few days in since now you actually have a story and an end point you’ve got to get to, and you can’t quite meander all over.
My plan is to do a simple 28 pages story, with cover and back cover, it means, potentially I have a 32 page comic. Which I’ll self publish and bring to cons etc (but in very limited runs).
I’m trying to think of the best way to give this away online though. My initial plan was just push it twitter (which is satisfying artistically if not financially rewarding) but you guys deserve it exclusively.
New plan might be: one page a day on here (for all paying patreons) then at the weekend I unlock all the pages and send people over to read a week’s worth.
That’s worth considering.
(Course everything will fall apart the moment I have too much work on… which I already do. But this is like a little break from that)
At some point I should investigate comixology for selling digital comics.
My youngest son has been doing his own inktober comic too. It’s been fun sitting with him (and he’s enjoying mine) and I’ve been pushing that on twitter. I’ll maybe link his here to.
Anyway, any thoughts you have on the matter that’d be awesome.
Oh, this Saturday is 24 hour comic book day – but you’re nuts if you think I’m committing to doing one of those.
Tom had some edits – always valuable feedback. Found the flashback stuff a little confusing (I mean they’re in space, so flashbacks to them in space WILL be confusing for a kid) so I’ve edited page 4 to make it more clear too.
How it’s working: I make up something, pencil it, add dialogue, then ink it, then have a think about tomorrow’s page. And go from there.
So I’m about one / three pages ahead, plus I have an idea of what happens in the end, so everything in between can go nutso. I mean I know exactly why Captain Tomtom got lost, I know what will happen when we get to the story, but I honestly have no idea what will happen between those two things. Beyond some notional ideas.
(Slightly annoyed with myself, that I didn’t get in this “Lost In Space” “I don’t think you can call it that” “Well, what about Captain Tomtom’s Star Trek home?” “Er… no” “Ugh. It’s like you want to have a war with me in space, a kind of STAR W..” “ALSO NO” but you do what you can…)
Also: patrons only from here on in with this strip, I’ll post little snippets of panels on twitter, but that’s it, if you’d like to spread the word, that’d be awesome!
Inktober. I thought I’d try something more ambitious than simply inked drawings and maybe take a stab at a kids comic. Something for my kids to enjoy (or at least my youngest). One day at a time. I might falter, I might not get through it, but at least I tried… right?
