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Hi, Folks!
This is the Comic Related interview we did with the friendly and indie-friendly Chuck Moore. We share this show with several other fine folks, including good friend Tom Stillwell, and Warrin Ellis. Enjoy!
Hi, Folks!
I got our Johnny Saturn Cafe Press site integrated with the blog tonight! You can find all fourteen cool items under the Cafe Press Swag page under the Store. My personal favorite is the Johnny Saturn mug, which is quite large and great for my morning (and all day long) coffee. I wore the Johnny Saturn black baseball hat, and several of the shirts, at Wizard World Chicago, and so did Benita–We were stylin! While the store in general is not set up yet, and probably won’t be fully functional until next week, the Cafe Press store is primed and ready to go.
So far, during the set-up and fine tuning of the site, I haven’t advertised. That’s about to change. Johnny Saturn has been running on the web for years, but I used to take the scattershot approach–I hosted the comic in up to four places at once, and I spread myself around various websites, forums, and social networking sites. This time, it’s different, because I’m pulling everything together under this single site. The old business plan worked fine for a long time, but the web changes often, and webcartoonists have to remain flexible. I’ve been doing a webcomic for long enough that at one time or another I’ve probably made every mistake that can be made–luckily, I’ve learned a lot along the way, and done my fair share right things too. I guess it’s time to level-up.
More tomorrow!
Scott
Hi, Folks
I just about have the store set up at www.johnnysaturn.com. We are starting with 17 items in the store, plus an integrated Cafe press store. It’s all nifty, really.
(If any of you think setting up and fleshing out one of these websites is easy, please go slap yourself silly with a trout.)
Not next week, but the week after, Johnny Saturn goes back to being fully rendered. I colored three pages today, pretty much because I rock. My game controller, parked under my left hand, has sped up the process considerably. I’ve gotten noticeably quicker at coloring every since my hand surgery, back in the day, when coloring was very painful for me. Now, zip zip zip!
Well, I’ve rambled enough. If I keep writing, I’ll embarrass myself.
S.
Hi, Folks!
Item—The Johnny Saturn Store is officially open! I haven’t got the eBooks formatted and uploaded, but they are coming soon and will probably be on site for next week. Everything else is primed and ready to go!
Item: People at conventions have often asked Benita and me where our ideas come from. The answer is easier than you might suspect, because most ideas become self-generating idea machines in their own right. In other words, once we’ve established a character, he will often become semi-autonomous, telling us how he will react to any given situation. Good characters write themselves! Settings are the same way, really, and they will tell us what type of stories fit well in their fictional environment. When you have a world as well established as Spire City, it’s virtually a machine with ideas as parts, and it will chug along, producing more possible stories than we could ever write in a human lifetime. I don’t really have time to explain this at conventions, but now you know.
Item: Here’s a great piece of art contributed by Canadian artist, Brad Bowers, the regular penciler on Spinner Rack’s “Honor Brigade.”
Hi, Folks:
This is my first episode of Super Tuesday, where I tackle superheroes in other media, not just comics. This is a big topic, because we are subjected to superhero imagery on billboards, television, at the grocery, and just about everywhere else that features pop culture and marketing. This week is more an overview of what I intend to cover.
Movies: With the power of Netflix, I intend to watch every superhero movie ever made. Really. Will this render me insane? Well, the movie “Batman and Robin” could well do it, really. There have been quite a few comic related movies I’ve missed over the years, such as Elektra, Punisher, Hulk, and Spider-Man III, so I’ve definitely got some catching up to do. If you want to check my pulse for where I stand on comic movies, here’s a short top list of mine:
Live Action: Iron Man, Mystery Men
Animated: The Incredibles, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Television: Heroes, M.A.N.T.I.S.
Video Games: I can’t comment, because I’ve never played a video game before.
Superhero Webcomics: This was a pretty hard list to gather, and I’m sure I’ve missed some, but these are the webcomics (besides Johnny Saturn) that actually feature superheroes:
Adventures of Dr. McNinja
Dasien
Evil Inc.
Gaming Guardian
Lightbringer
Local Heroes
Magellan
Mindmistress
Neighborhood Watch
Point Guardian
Shades
Sidechicks
Stealth
Superfogeys
Tales of the Zero Men
Union Der Helden
Unstoppable Comics
Vanguard
Webcomics can come and go pretty quickly, and it’s not always easy to find them, so this list should change often. Of the above list, my current favorites are Sidechicks and Evil Inc., but that could change because I haven’t had the chance to read many of these yet.
See you next Tuesday for more!
Scott
I don’t know much about Oasis, but this is a kick-ass cover
And, for your comparison, the original from the master himself:
I could listen to that all day. Scott.
Hi, Folks!
Witness the birth of Tech Thursday! On this day every week I plan to deal with some of the technical issues around cartooning. (Well, to be more exact, some of the technical issues around the way I cartoon, since I can’t speak for all cartoonists.) This won’t be the old “tool talk” variety of columns, where I discuss what type of brush, pencils, and paper I use—indeed, it will have more to do with pixels than pens! The computer has become more and more central to how I create comics, and that is what I aim to address.
First up, let me explain one thing: I rarely draw inside the computer. Instead, I still pencil and ink on Bristol board, and then scan that into the computer. Many people do draw inside the computer, keeping the whole process digital, and that’s fine. It’s not me, though. I enjoy drawing in the analog world, and I love to ink, so, while I could easily do those things digitally, I choose not to. I’ve done it several times, and I didn’t like it much. If you do everything digitally, great! You’ve simplified the production process and probably even sped things up quite a bit.
Anyway, while I don’t draw and ink much in the computer, I do all my colors, sound effects, special effects, and lettering there. Here’s an overview of my tools:
Software: Adobe Photoshop CS 3, Corel Painter IX, Illustrator 9, Sketchup 6, Inkscape, and Manga Studio 3.0. Photoshop is my production line workhorse, and I use it ten times as much as the other programs.
My hardware setup is pretty straightforward: A Dell custom computer, an Epson GT 15000 12 x 18 scanner, a Canon i9900 large output printer, and 8” x 10” Intuos 2 Wacom tablet, a Belkan n52te game controller, and an HP Super Multi DVD writer.
Much of what I cover will be Photoshop based, because I’ve developed my own approach to coloring, and I’ve custom made most my palettes, brushes, tool presets, shapes, and actions. No presets for me! Luckily, if are one of those rare folks who relies on something else than Photoshop, most of the information will still apply to you, because there is a similarity in most of these applications.
More next Thursday! Scott.
