New Vote Incentive

Uploaded a new vote incentive for TopWebComics.com. I'm very surprised with how it came out. I mean that it came out much nicer than I thought it would.

I likely won't have a new page for a few days. This is the end of a 12 day streak. Maybe a new record of unbroken updates for me?

I'm going to start putting together some donation incentives. Either wallpapers or a mini-comic for a $1 or so. I'm in a fairly precarious financial situation so I have to think about that sort of thing now.

Here is a vote button to get to the incentive. Be warned; it is not safe for work.

Comic 20091129

Marla Meets Mary 3. The meeting is over. Nothing like a kick in the face to drive a point home. I've a few random Marla summer pages to put together and a couple plot specific ones. Then I'm done with that.

There might not be a regular comic update for a few days. I really need to get some other work and play done this weekend.

Comic 20091127

Anticipation 4. Hmmn I skimped around with this. The original lines for the 4 'Anticipation' pages were done years ago and they were a bit rough, even by my low standards. I spent a little more time on this particular page redrawing a few bits. If I had them to do over again there would definitely be a few changes to make it easier to put together and to read.

The synopsis is that Shub lures or captures men and takes them to this sub-basement, makes the sweet loving on them and then kills them, eventually turning them into tasty supper. She does this a lot and I have never addressed, even to myself, what she does with all the delivery vans. I assume they end up in the river.

Comic 20091126

Anticipation 2. I drew this little series a long time ago and it has bounced around on my computer for a while. I would work on the pages some then set it aside. I'm finally finishing them up. The final page should be out tomorrow and the next Marla's Summer installment the day after that then I'm not sure what updates are coming again.

I'm not fond of the black smudgy dark stuff. I thought it was interesting at first, but now it seems like a dodge. It was intended to just give that dark feeling.

I'm trying to work on banners and incentives but it is tough going at times.

Thanksgiving

I have plenty of nice ideas for holiday themed comics. This is not one of them. I wasn't going to do a thanksgiving holiday comic at all, but at dinner tonight (Thanksgiving eve) we were talking about crazy Thanksgiving legends and wondered; if one of our dimmer relatives were telling the Thanksgiving story how it would go?

This also, is not that comic. What we had a hearty chuckle about over supper was too involved and too full of inside jokes to be feasible in the time I could finish it. Since, the queue for the comic is filled up for Thanksgiving with a non-Thanksgiving Day comic I decided to just post this little snippet here. Hope you liked it.

Comic 20091123

Marla Meets Mary. Woohoo. I have so many little sketches of this section I'm very excited to be finally getting it done up. It will only be two pages, but I hope it makes a start in showing the character of LLXL and Mary. I may not have another page for a few days. I have some home projects I've put off and work too.

Comic 20091122

Not a Good Apology Q's libido is awake. rawr. I wasn't going to do something like this with her for a while, particularly not with Roland, but sometimes things don't work out the way they are planned.

It is interesting to make out the plot with certain character with certain traits then once you put them in the actual situation you see that they may not do what you had planned for them to do.

I have another couple pages where she makes the apology, but that is another one to add later if its needed.

Javascript Navigation

I'm unused to javascript. It is a pain for me but i will suffer through a few hours picking away making a javascript next/previous buttons that will follow the story time and not the creation time.

I actually have one loaded now. It is untested. I don't want to update the comic manually to start testing it. Because, the last time I tried that it updated the comics in the queue and made me think I had traveled to the future. So, I'll wait until tomorrow when the comic auto updates and puts the script on the daily pages. From there I should be able to upload fixes directly.

The script so far has two possible problems already and a part I left out, but it is a bit late in the day to start hunting around for fixes.

I've done a handy amount of perl (moons ago) and php coding and if I could run php easily on the comic server I'd have been done with this moments after the inception.

edit: After working on this for far too long I finally have a working version up. look for the |<- <- title -> ->| near the top of the daily pages. If anybody has problems with this .. keep it to your self. I'm not fooling around with it for a while.

Comic 20091119

Anti-Climax. No big crescendo. They just walk out, make some brief plans and head into the sunset.

There may be a few little pages taking place directly after this but I'm not sure when I will put them together. Roland and Q will need to talk about their time in the plant and Mabel is having a small crisis of training.

Other than that I'm going to be concentrating on working the rest of what is needed in story to continue into the next school year.

Archives and Out of Sequence Comics

Well. You are frustrated I'm sure. Reading along hitting the next comic button and suddenly the story is gone. A whole different story is taking place.

Let me tell you about Star Wars. I saw A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi as they came out. When Star Wars came out I was in the third or fourth grade. We didn't go to the movies much when I was that age. The movies I remember from that era were Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, Inframan, and Star Wars. So, as a third of the movie franchises I can recall Star Wars was active in my mind a good bit.

So when the 'prequels' were starting I had some personal misgivings. I already had an Old Republic in my mind. Many of the things that were hinted at or mentioned in the movies I had already fleshed out and had a real mythic substance to me. I have yet to see the newer movies and it is likely I will not. I have absolutely no desire to. I also wish I could unwatch the director's cut of Highlander. I liked having his secretary's past as a mystery.

Before I digress further. I'm writing this comic with several dozen individual story arcs with a definite final conclusion. But, the way I have this all pieced together is rather loose, much of my dialog is first draft. I'm adding things and taking things away and practicing every piece of bad storytelling I can stumble into. I need to leave an opening where I can go back and tack pieces in later. I work on things as I get to them with the only real logic being that I don't post so far ahead to ruin a dramatic moment.

For example, at this time I have to finish Marla's summer with llxl before I can start the next school year because I don't want to give away the outcome of her summer arc before I finish it.

To facilitate the non-linear presentation I created a false fourth wall. That these comics are the ramblings of some third party discovered and studied after an undisclosed event and are being presented as an archives project. In true Lovecraftian fashion reading the works in the raw have unsettled the archivists creating the spotty presentation.

Throw in a 3 year semi-hiatus and the confusion grows.

Their are now two main ways to view the comic now. As it was presented, just plugging away at the 'next comic' button, hoping to figure out what is happening as pages are presented or the Archive Page which lists the comics as they happen (small versions of the archives is framed into the individual comic pages also).

I would be interested in what people think watching the new pages come up and trying to remember where they may fit before 'cheating' and going to the archives page to find out where I put it in the linear story.

What is relevant to what I said about Star Wars prequels is that the actual creation and presentation is not linear and leaves some of the burden of connecting events and filling story gaps to the reader. I personally like the mystery over the fact.

Comic 20091118

End is Near. Tt really is, the Garden of Serenity is almost completed. One final page or two will let it be done.

Comic work has slowed down a bit because I'm having job troubles. I'm looking around for something to supplement or replace my current work and with Christmas looming it is getting distracting. The comic is supposed to be distracting me from that, not the other way around :)

I have a bunch of rough sketches for Marla's summer saga, including some dirty, naughty things and a few things that might make some uncomfortable.

Comic 20091116

Spin. Moving along in a disjointed way. It was lazier to just throw all the text in the empty frame so that is exactly what I did. One of the reasons is this little cat named Mania decided to try to kill and eat my tablet pen while I was coloring. The other reason -> lazy.

Weekend Busy Filler

Another busy weekend ahead. Trying to get out some comic stuff. So far it seems fairly hopeless to expect an update by tomorrow. Just realized it is Friday the 13th. I do have this filler. Which is an un-worked alternate to Classroom Introduction. I do have a few things drawn to be scanned and a few things to draw. The next part of the garden arc is blocked out. I just need to draw it and get it up.

I have to take the time to say I'm pleasantly surprised by the amount of visitors the comic has gotten since I started working on it again. With all the hectic things going on I'm thankful I have this little outlet to draw and write poorly and to know a few people out there like looking at the train wreck.

Comic 20091112

Map-tastic. For reasons unknown it looks like this comic updated a day early .. Have fun. I'm really hacking it up to get this storyline finished. Just a few more pages to go then they leave the Garden ! Then, I will be getting poor Marla through the rest of her summer. finally, we can start with some more interesting things.

I will likely be showing some more gag-a-day sort of things while I organize the arcs coming up. I do have some more bits to fill in here and there and I want to make sure everything is lined up before I start throwing stuff against the wall for year two.

Comic 20091111

Pool Wide Shot
Happy Veteran's Day; A holiday that has nothing to do with today's comic. This is a picture I've had sitting on the drive since the inception of the garden/pool arc. I threw in some bad dialog and called it an update.

As a partial update later I may add some frames at the bottom. Something to do with the excitement of finding a fully functioning pool but without any water.

Comic 20091110

New Fence Ha-rah. Pretty crappy update for the wait. My schedule is a little off, but I'm plugging away. I really hope to have some time to work on things in the morning and get a little bit ahead again.

Updates Coming

This was an exhausting weekend. I am not built to be sociable in crowds. I did have a a good time talking to a few people who were into my wife's work. I did get a few things drawn and I hope to have a brisk update schedule this week and hopefully more than a nod to vote and donation incentives.

Update Schedule Nov 6 Weekend

No schedule :p .. My wife and I are spending the weekend setting up at a Christmas craft show in Eldersville, PA: Christmas in the Village. It is our first year there and with the hours of the show, driving time (about 1.5 hours one way for us) there won't be much time for me to scan and process pictures. I plan on working on some things, but I don't think that work will bear fruit until next week sometime.

I've said this several times before. I really hope to be finishing up the Marla/LLXL (or is it XXLX?) and Garden story lines very soon.

Comic 20091104

Lawn Care During the summer I have 4 lawns I cut. The small one around my house, the two lot yard next door, my neighbor's across the street and a larger lot across the street. I do it all with my little push mower. There is a riding mower here but, meh, I'm not so old I need to use it yet. If I do it all at once it takes about 3+ hours (there are many things I have to mow around and under etc.). Whenever, I think about Marla doing work in the comic it is mowing lawns and whenever I doodle her thinking or talking while working it is mowing lawns and now you know why.

This is a real rush piece. If I get updates the next few days they will be very rushed also.

I would also warn my readers. If you weigh 300+ pounds and are unused to semi strenuous work rabid lawn mowing from dusk till dawn will not help you loose weight, it will kill you.

Comic 20091101

Welcome to November

Sarah Awakens, is a quick and dirty (not dirty in the sense of your dirty mind 'dirty') comic for today. I still have many things going on here this weekend, but I took a little time to crank this one out. I want to get this arc finished up.

The next thing to try and finish is Marla's summer arc. She is mostly on her own in her story, but I need it to finish because after Day 370 she is on screen a little more often.