UPDATE! 6.7.10:
I was not happy with Colonel Haulley’s eyes in the original page, and it bugged me all day. So I came home and changed them around, and now I like them much better. His eyes above all others have caused me no end of grief. They always go all big and almondy when I want them to be natural and masculine. I wonder why that happens.
Anyway, that’s all I have to add. ExCEPT… there’s a new incentive on the vote site! Yes, after leaving that old blueprint up for eight weeks it was DEFINTIELY time for a change. From here on out, I hope to give you a new sneak peek or other little bit of extra stuff every week, just to keep the thing from getting stale. I’ve even considered making each week a panel from next week’s page, just to keep everyone on the edge of their seats! As for THIS week… well, vote and see! And draw your own conclusions about what might become of that little bit of 6-Commando goodness!
Thanks again for all the reads, folks, and all the encouragement! Onward and upward!
[Original Post: 6.6.10] An eventful week, way out here, but most of those events had little or nothing to do with comics. I did manage to squeeze in this page around the edges, and I’m pretty pleased with it. All four main protagonists on one page – you know it’s getting good now! And Major Bronniford has a lethal left hook! I think it brings up a major issue, though, that I’ve been meaning to touch on in the “blog” portion of this comic.
The main critique I’ve had of this comic so far (disregarding the fact that the vast majority of the things people have had to say have been really upbeat and supportive!) is that the story moves too slowly. I think this is more a measure of the fact that the long-form comic and the web comic are like tow waveforms with different frequencies, and that they don’t always match up. What works online is not always what works in print, and vice versa. This current scene is an example. Seems like they’ve been fighting forever, sometimes. But were you sitting and reading this in book form, I think it would pace out just right.
The fact of the matter is, this comic is designed for print. And much as I might wish I could go faster, a page a week is my current limit. So gaining and keeping consistent readership is always going to be a challenge. The story is also an experiment for me – one about technique and process, and as a result I’m still feeling my way through the whole thing. So in the end, yes, this does pace rather liberally for an online comic, I’ll admit. But if you go to the start and flip page to page at a go, I think the pacing works pretty well.
All this is by way of rambling around to the fact that ultimately, while I call this an Online Graphic Novel, it is drawn with print in mind, and when I have to make the call between what works in print and what works online, I go with the paper over the screen. Thus, I have to consider things like which pages face which other pages, when a scene changes, and where to terminate a chapter for maximum effect. And so showing a single page a week is knd of an injustice to that. But in the end, I think it’ll all work. I hope it will, anyhow.
By the way, special thanks to everyone who posted last week with ideas for Cool 6-Commando Stuff – all ideas have been noted in my log. And one or two are actually in production as we speak, but will remain top secret until they are actually in my big hairy hands, and I can officially start sending them places. There’s also the matter of the official side of things – before I can begin distributing things for money, I have to be licensed to do so in my state of record, which is not ncessarily my state of residence (damn, this Federal system is cool, huh?). But that is all just part of the preliminary goodness. I’ve also received information from the New York Comic Con about alternate space for exhibiting, which may or may not turn out to be a second fiasco, but I have to read it all and figure it out, and will keep you posted.
So onward and upward! Keep reading, keep voting, and all the best for another busy week!
Is that the Quebec flag on his shoulder? Sorry first time i notice it
Her. And yes, it is. Quebec is an independent nation, and member of the United Nations Alliance. The République-Québecoise is politically a minor player, but is host to a lot of French emigrés, the French government in exile, and a number of important military industries that fled there after the Scarlet Revolution overtook France in 1973. Sarah Bronniford is not French, though, but full-blood Québecoise. She was born in Rivière-du-Loup.
–M
Aaand here we go. My prediction: Big bomb gets dropped, girl gets killed, we fast forward a few years to see a disgraced/demoted Mike working in a nuclear wasteland.
I could be right, I could be wrong,
I just gotta wait
to hear the rest of this song. 😀
“You may very well say so, but I couldn’t possibly comment!”
We are very very close, though. Your continued support and readership is much appreciated, even though I can’t say what’s happening next! |:’
–M
Blueprint, dammit, why did i Find This Just now, WHY NOT SOONER!!!
Well, I certainly am glad you did find it, sooner or later!
–M
Anychance of Haveing a Gallery of Missed Vote incentives? I do wish to obtain the Blueprints,
Check back soon – I’ve been meaning to set something like that up, and this is the chance.
–M
Page is looking good! That fighting scene between Major Sarah and the Russian really has some difficult angles, well done!
This is really an exciting point in the story, I hope Karen’s prediction won’t come true, I really like Major Sarah.
Oh, and Colonel Haulley’s eyes do look better this way!
Yeah, it was a tough one to get right. The colors helped – Sarah’s flight suit contrasts the green drab the Russian is wearing and keep the two in good perspective.
As to Conrad Haulley’s eyes, they are a real problem for me – have been from the start. They look much better in pencil, and even in ink, than they do in color. With the pencil you can suggest so much more, without having to actually draw it – lines can be implied. But adding the layer of color requires that areas to be colored be so much more specific – and Haulley’s eyes are in such stark contrast to the color of his skin that they stand out even more, and end up looking really huge and bright.
The next page is coming along very well so far – faster than usual, actually. I’ve actually been meaning to ask how you do your ink work – I’ve been asking around. You seem to keep a pretty vibrant but very precise line in Semmie that I like a lot. I use technical markers, here, mainly because they were what I had lying around when I first started the project and they were quick to work with. But more and more it’s making me think about making a stylistic change in the next chapter, using pencil instead of tech markers. I’ve had this discussion with Jason Brubaker of reMind, and I am starting to feel like the ink is sucking the energy right out of a lot of pages that would have been a lot livelier if left in pencil. I don’t know exactly what the logistics of this kind of a change might be yet – whether I’d need better scanning equipment, for example – but I think the start of chapter two will be a good place to introduce a little change.
–M
I inked Semmie with a crow quill nib pen and India ink. I am however going to change to pencil for the next story. I have experimented with penciled illustrations, both my 6-commando illustrations have penciled lines. And I learned from this experience that what looks good on paper doesn’t look as good when it is scanned and colored, so my approach would be to make as sharp and clean lines as possible and then use the levels tool in Photoshop to make the scanned image really black and white.
And Judging by Jason’s line art, penciled lines can be made really black and crisp in Photoshop.
Yeah, it occurred to me, during our conversations and when I realized how we work in the firm where I’m employed, that pencil is just a whole lot more natural – it’s softer, more forgiving, and has a kind of neutral color against paper that is a lot easier to look at. Ink has always been something of an imposture, since it was meant to produce something that could be plate-pressed for newspaper print, which did not allow for shades of grey. But with modern color printing, pencil can be print-reproduced fairly faithfully. Almost all of the renderings we do in our office are done in pencil. And in any case, you can always ink over a pencil drawing, but not vice versa. So it might be an interesting thing to try. See that? Jason’s started an arts trend!
–M
hail to the godking baby!
I… I’m sorry?
o.O
Eh?
Is that a John Ringo, Posleen War, reference?
I gotta say, this one is beyond me.
–M