May 30th, 2006: Anatomy Of A Comic - Part Three

Next up: making those pencil marks PERMANENT. I have three different pens I use to ink the strips but mostly rely on the Pilot Razor Point Extra Fine Tip. Then I take an eraser to the paper, remove the stray lines, and end up with this:



And that, my friends, is the last physical thing that will happen to the image before I scan it and drop it into my file of "finished strips."

Once scanned, it is saved as a 300dpi Bitmap and then the colors are dropped in:





Only a few short steps to go... will cover them tomorrow.

And by the way: if you click one of those images, you will get a larger view of them. No need to sit there squinting at the screen ;)

- J!

May 26th, 2006: Anatomy of A Comic - Part Two

Y'allrighty... so we've got an idea that we consider relatively amusing, we've written out the dialogue, and broken it up into panels. Now what? The art, of course! Using an average ordinary 8 1/2 X 11 sheet of cardstock, I use a straightedge to create the four panels (sometimes more, depending on the script) and then ink the panels freehand (I like the not-quite-perfectly-straight look.) Then I don my trusty Clickster Grip pencil and start laying it all out.

When I'm done, I usually have a mix of messy lines, overlapping body parts, occasional detail, and a pain my neck from hunching over my desk for 40 minutes. It looks (the comic, not my hunch) something like this:



And just when you thought that's all that went into it... let's talk inks, shall we?

Have a good weekend and I'll talk to y'all on Tuesday with installment three of "Anatomy of A Strip!"

- J!

May 25th, 2006: Anatomy Of A Comic - Part One

Howdy! Just for fun, I thought I would show y'all what goes into your average everyday installment of PIRATE COVE. Let's look at the process for the May 26th, 2006 comic strip.

Step One involves the script. Sometimes I'll have an idea written down beforehand - like on a scrap of Burger King napkin that I scribbled the idea on while doing 88 mph on the 405 freeway - but more often than not, installments of PIRATE COVE breathe their first life in my script notebook. This one was fairly straighforward. I knew where I was going with it and what the punchline was. I added to Edre's dialogue in the first panel after finishing the script and crossed out a few words in panel three...



Once I'm satisfied with the script, whether it's completely chicken-scratched out or not, I proceed to Step Two: Pencils. Which in this case, you'll get to see tomorrow.

- J!

May 8th, 2006: Woops!

HowdyHowdyHowdy! Just realized I goofed on the Blog! I didn't realize I had to adjust the settings so ANYONE could post comments. My bad. All fixed. Anyone can comment now, not just Blogger users. You should start by calling me an Internet Doofus.

Anyway. While I'm here, I just thought I would mention that I received a letter from the San Diego Comic Con and PIRATE COVE in the Small Press Section is 100% an official GO (barring my untimely death that is. Speaking of which, did you know I have a comic strip prepared for just that unfortunate occasion? I wouldn't wanna leave you all hanging! Let's hope I never have to use it!)

All right, back to scripting "Till Death Do Us Part." This one's gonna be a DOOZY. Muh ha!

- J!