Hi, Everyone!  I made several updates to Monday and Thursday’s comics.  On Monday, the tall man is putting a pillow behind his head rather than sticking a music tube in his ear. On Thursday, Gauge is handing the EMT a clipboard, and I added in the “Action 4 News” logo.  Benita and I will try to stay more on the ball in the future!  I know I’ve learned a lesson about clarity here.

            

These last few weeks have been, shall we say, “non-standard” around here.  I’d like to think that we are back in the saddle and gearing up for some big stuff. (Ah, the joy of mixed metaphors!)

At the moment, plans to put “Johnny Saturn” out for the Kindle have been halted.  It seemed like a great idea, but a full “Johnny Saturn” page on the Kindle screen is just illegible. It is my hope that this can be figured out, but at the moment this push has stalled out.

I’m working on putting a new transcription plugin on the site, John Coswell’s “What Did They Say” plugin.  This has all the potential of being really fun for reader and creator, and helping out our traffic.  Unfortunately, I’ve run into problems with it, and I can’t get it to work right.  I’ve got a post on John’s forum asking for help, so perhaps he can get us up and running.

I have a huge artistic goal for the rest of this year, and it’s not the standard “draw better” or “study anatomy” type of goal.  Essentially, I want to be able to draw at my top level no matter what my mood or energy level is like.  The way it currently stands is that I draw pages in silence at my art table in my art nook.  If I’m sick, or someone stresses me out, or I’m really tired, then I no longer draw with inspiration, but get by on learned skills and memory.

Perhaps I should explain.  When we learn a skill like art or music, we practice a great deal to learn patterns and processes and build muscle memory.  When we start drawing, then we purposely forget all those rules and set out on inspiration.  You don’t really forget all the rules, of course—they are still there and hard at work in your subconscious.
A comparison might be a master guitarist—he learned all those chords and scales and modes and so on, but when he bends his mind to playing he thinks of none of that.  The technical aspects drop out of conscious thought, and there is a direct conduit between the musician and the music.

Well, musicians always play, no matter what’s going on.  The generally don’t skip concerts because they are in the wrong mood, or suddenly switch to playing only rhythm guitar because playing lead guitar feels clumsy.  Well, that’s how I want to be with my art.  The show must go on.

Scott.

            

I haven’t written a new blog in a while, so I figured it is time for some long, candid thoughts.  If you don’t care for such mental meanderings, that’s fine, just skip this post.

There’s been a particularly nasty head cold going around in central Indiana, and Benita and I traded it back and forth twice, so that each of us was sick twice.  We developed coughs, and that meant lots of cough syrup, much of it with Codeine.  We slept a lot. Now we are largely past this little bought of illness, and getting back to our normal lives.  The only positive thing I take away from this experience is that it is reasonably comfortable to lie on my back and draw in my sketchbook.  (I would not have thought this to be the case, really.)

I purchased Riven Phoenix’s course, “The Structure of Man.”  I strongly believe that drawing the human form well calls for a life-time commitment to learn the skills and anatomy necessary.  I go to life drawing studios at the Indianapolis Art Center weekly, and this has helped tremendously, but I’ve long felt that I’ve hit a plateau.  So, I ordered this course, which has 45 hours of video training on it. It is my sincere intent to use the knowledge held within to polish of some the weak points in my drawing ability.

We set up a store for Benita on www.basicallybenita.com, and we have three t-shirts for sale there.  I did the penciling, and Benita did the coloring and lettering on these.  I’m really proud of all this, because it took a lot of effort to figure out how to effectively set up this storefront.  It took three plugins working in concert, and I actually paid for the premium version of one of them.  (I mention this because we have all gotten so used to getting software for free online.  There are even free versions of many high-end programs out there!)  Anyway, as I was saying, there will soon be a new, replacement Johnny Saturn store, and we plan to sell (among other things): comics, trade paperbacks, t-shirts, posters, prints, PDF or CBR downloads, and much more.  Really, this is just over the top exciting for us.

Scott.

            

Well, Folks, this is it!  The end of issue eleven, as well as the end of the forthcoming second trade paperback.   That’s whole lot of comic.  On one hand I feel bittersweet about this ending, and on the other hand I am very excited about the next epic chapter in our tale.  We’re not taking a break between books, so Issue 12 page 1 comes up next Monday!

Scott

            

As you probably know from my earlier posts, I’ve been working on a comprehensive writeup of all the Spire City characters.  To help make sense of them, I broke them into classes, races, and alignments.  Since this is Spire City, and not Dungeons and Dragons, the character classes are custom made for this setting.  There are other classes out there, but I’ve limited it so far to only what has been introduced in the series to date.  Here they are:

1. Acrobat: A character who employs great speed, tumbles, rolls, and constant movement. This is usually used for fighting, climbing, free running, and other feats of great dexterity.
2. Artifact Wielder: One who is much like a gadgeteer, but with magic, this is a character who employs the powers of a magic item or fetish.
3. Assassin: A professional killer, usually brutal and effective.
4. Classic Meta: Perhaps the best known of metas, this is a character who possesses metastrength, damage resistance, and flight.
5. Cosmic Avenger: A character equipped to deal with the wars and trials of outer space and the greater universe.
6. Disruptor: One who disrupts, deactivates, or steals another’s powers.
7. Energy Worker: A character who projects beams of energy. Depending on the character, the energy might be sonic, or laser-based, or cold-based, etc.
8. Gadgeteer: A character who relies on a gadget and its powers.
9. Hunter: One who can track his target through seemingly impossible odds, often from the barest of trace evidence.
10. Information Pinpoint: A character who can pinpoint the weakness or Achilles’ heal in another character, structure, machine, object, etc.
11. Inventor: A visionary and builder with a cutting edge intellect, one often generations ahead of current cutting edge science.
12. Living Torch: A character who is surrounded by flames or becomes flame, often with fire projection abilities.
13. Mage: A master of the mystic arts who employs a variety of spells.
14. Martial Artist: One who employs a weapon or martial art to great effect.
15. Mecha: A robot piloted by someone inside.
16. Metaspeedster: This is a character able to reach great, metahuman speeds.
17. Mind Master: A character who excels at controlling or influencing other’s minds.
18. Mystery Man: Old-school, sometimes themed vigilantes who work as street level avengers.
19. Norm: The profession of any non-metahero.
20. Powerhouse: A character who relies on his great strength and damage resistance.
21. Psychic: A character who can use an assortment of psychic traits to great effect, abilities such as mind reading, remote viewing, prophesy, and so forth.
22. Psychic Vampire: Characters who can drain the energy levels of another, perhaps even to the point of death.
23. Reality Worker: One who manipulates the fabric or reality, sometimes in profound and confusing ways.
24. Spy: A character who goes where they are not wanted to steal information important to others.
25. Sysadmin: A character who oversees a computer network and coordinates the movements of one or more other characters.
26. Tank-Man: A warrior who uses powered armor.
27. Telekinetic: A character who telekinetically affects the behavior of matter at a distance.
28. Trickster: One who defeats his foes through trickery, deception, and confusion.
29. Winged Warrior: A winged flyer.

            

I finished the comprehensive character write up last night, and I passed it onto Benita for proof reading.  I’m pretty sure this guide is going to see print, and inclusion on some various WIKIs, so we need to get it polished up.

So, if any of you have a good command of the English language and it’s usage, and you want to help us out, we could use an additional proof reader.  There’s no pay involved, but we could send you one of the new Johnny Saturn shirts, or help fill in your collection of “Johnny Saturn” comics, or a piece of original art.

Anyone game to join in?

            

As mentioned above, there is no comic update for today—Sorry! I was sick all last week and couldn’t do much of anything.  Expect a regular update this Thursday, though.

If anyone wants to show their appreciation and wish me back to good health, here’s my Amazon Wish List!  (Well, at least you can check out what I want to read.)

My mom loaned me her Kindle today, and I’m pretty impressed.  So far, getting “Johnny Saturn” formatted to the Kindle has been a no-go, but that doesn’t mean I’m giving up.  Our main problem is that when he format the pages to the right size, the lettering becomes unreadable.  Still, I’m thinking hard, so it may well happen.

Scott.