Some Terrific Sites

Just wanted to draw some attention to a couple of terrific websites. The first is called Just The First Frame. Just The First Frame solves the problems of comic sharing and aggregation by showing, as the title goes, just the first frame of the comic. That way, viewers can peruse comics visually, as they'd probably like to do, but to see the whole comic they have to go to the creator's site. It's quite ingenius!

JTFF

The second site is called What Things Do and simply features a ton of great comics made by some of my favorite indie comics artists. There are also interesting articles and links to interesting articles. And, as they say, much, much more. It's a beautifully designed and well curated site that I always find myself coming back to.

WTD

I like both these sites a lot. I hope you do too!

Forty-Two

Well, today heralds another birthday. My forty-second, if you must know. For the record, forty-two's not so bad. By now you're solidly into your forties and pretty adjusted to the idea of it. You've grown accustomed to all the new aches and pains and to the increasing acceptance of your own mortality. Forty-two also has some literary significance. It's the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything, according to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's also the number of years overdue that book is in that Shel Silverstein poem.

Forty-two is scientifically significant as well. It's the product of the first three terms of Sylvester's sequence and is a primary psuedoperfect number. (No, I do not know what any of that means.) It's also the atomic number of molybdenum. (Yes, I do know how to pronounce that.)

So, like I said, not so bad.

Malcontent-Strip-048-42

On the crueler side, this birthday lands precariously close to Daylight Savings Time. It's vaguely depressing to wake up and realize you're forty-two years older and then realize you've also lost an additional hour.

I also share this day of birth with the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, one Mr. Mitt Romney. Of course he shares his birthday with both Jack Kerouac and the soft-spoken singer-songwriter James Taylor, so really, how bad can he be?

Anyway, it's going to be a good day. I have a haircut appointment and a date for steak dinner with my fabulous sweetheart. I have the day off and a stack of presents to unwrap. I have a great life, a beautiful apartment and a terrific collie.

I think I'll stop now, before I jinx it.

Birth of a Comic

If you've ever wondered how comics get made, here's a really brief visual explanation of how I make mine. The panel is taken from the latest School Street comic.

Pencilling
The first step is the pencils. Actually, pencilling can be several steps. Often I'll make a quick thumbnail sketch in a sketchbook just to get a basic idea of the layout and poses. Then I'll pencil a first draft on the artboard for the final piece. Often I'll refine this draft before the next step.

pencils

Inking
My favorite part of the process is inking. This is where ink is applied over the pencilled art. This is where everything comes alive. The compositions start to sing, the figures start to pop, and the thing starts to look like a real drawing.

inks

Finishing
When the inks are done, the cleanup process begins. First the pencil lines are erased. Then any inking errors are corrected with Pro White correction fluid. Finally, the finished artwork is scanned. On the computer the text is added and the white and black levels are adjusted.

finish

And that's pretty much it! It's actually a lot of work and very time consuming. But it's one of my favorite things to do, and there's nothing cooler to me than a finished comic. I think they're truly beautiful!