Living With Insanity

Been sick all week and am only now just getting over it. I hate the flu, so much. But at least it’s not pneumonia like my mother worried. I still have a cough and my right leg is sore as hell for some reason, but at least the worst is over.

So the cock punch strip seems to be quite popular, which is always good. Add that to the way our hits seem to be going up and I’m starting to think it’s time to get out some t-shirts. Would anyone be interested in buying a cock punch t-shirt?

Oh, and Indyplanet is finally back up, so now everyone can go buy a copy of Just Another Day.

That’s all for this week. Hopefully I’ll have something more next time.

~ David

So, what to talk about this week?

Yesterday, we had a federal election to choose the next Australian Prime Minister. Unfortunately, it’s still too close to call, so we may not find out for a while. And really, I don’t feel like getting into Australian politics with this comic (I’ve tried once or twice but Paul tends to ignore a strip if he doesn’t get the joke. And I’m here to entertain, not preach). I stayed up late last night with my family, trying to find out the results, and then got sick of waiting and went to bed even though it’s Sunday. Meh.

That comic I was talking about last week? You can see some of the pages on my deviantArt gallery. Still wondering whether I should colour them and whether I should start a new webcomic for them. I just finished pencilling page 13, all the others are inked, and I have ten pages scanned. But as I look at it, I’m really thinking about just finishing the story, calling it a one-shot and starting all over again on something else.

Oh, I have it: The Wheel of Time.

I was never really a big fantasy reader growing up. My dad tried to get me into Lord of the Rings when I was young, but I could barely get past twenty pages. And then we saw the movies when they came out and the books were ruined for me forever (I can’t read a book if I’ve seen the movie). Then I found Harry Potter and enjoyed it so much I was willing to get through 760 pages of Order of the Phoenix. The fifth book really helped prep me for the door stopper fantasy genre, ongoing scenes, endless description, pointless details, new character after new character who you’ll probably forget about five pages later, etc. It was in 2008 that I checked out A Song of Fire and Ice after seeing so many people say it was good and thoroughly enjoyed it. I checked to see when a Dance of Dragons would come out, found out how overdue it was and that according to George R.R. Martin’s blog, it wasn’t near done, so I went looking for a new series.

Wheel of Time was perfect. Hundreds of pages, going over the thousand number in some books, eleven volumes so far and a prequel novel, plus the books were coming out a couple of years apart, plus a lot of recommendations from people who had similar tastes to me. I dove right in, not knowing Robert Jordan had died until The Shadow Rising. Thankfully we had Brandon Sanderson to fill in, so i wasn’t worried (I was afraid Sanderson might ruin the series, but I’ll talk about that later).

Right away I found the books to drag on. The Great Hunt, while enjoyable, felt like it took me half a year to get through. And this is back when I only read books on the train, not at home, so I got through about fifty pages a day roughly, but only rode it three or four days a week, so it did take me about a month to get through each book. The first five books I loved, especially Fires of Heaven since it wrapped up a lot of the plots that I thought would drag out. And then came Lord of Chaos, which set the stage for the next five books. These took even longer, even though I skipped whole paragraphs and pages that were nothing more than descriptions of dresses and expressions and arms being folded under breasts and all the rest. I went weeks and months before buying the next book at times, tending to pick up some Stephen King or Neil Gaiman book. Crossroads of Twilight I heard so much negativity I put it off for a while before finally getting it and groaning as I found everyone proven right. Thankfully, Knife of Dreams managed to bring me back some hope. Plots were actually being solved, Mat and Tylin were married, Perrin had finally rescued Faile, Elayne was pretty much on the throne of Andor.

A month after I finished Knife of Dreams, The Gathering Storm came out. I had heard that Sanderson had spread it out to three books even though there was only supposed to be one and was wondering if things were going to get better or worse. The series was finally becoming interesting again, I didn’t want it spoilt. But it was a couple of weeks before Christmas, so I told my parents to get it for me. Then the reviews came in and everyone was praising Sanderson’s work. I read a couple of spoilers, flicked through the last couple of pages in the book stores and eagerly awaited Christmas morning. By New Year’s Eve I had the entire thing read. Sanderson had managed to suck me in and I couldn’t stop reading, something Jordan had been unable to do. Everyone started talking to each other, the women weren’t as hate-worthy and so much happened I couldn’t believe that there needed to be three books.

I’ve added Brandon Sanderson to my twitter feed, smiling as he posts updates on Towers of Midnight, which is getting through with its editing process, and eagerly await its release. I have the entire Mistborn trilogy and enjoyed that too. Currently, I’m re-reading the old Wheel of Time books and finding them so much more enjoyable, noticing things I missed, being reintroduced to the characters I’ve grown fond of and growing more anxious for the release of book 13.

I’ll be sad to see it go, but all good things must come to an end. Hmm, but what to read when it’s done? I’ve heard some good things about The Sword of Truth. Or maybe I should write my own. Yeah, add it to the other twenty-five hundred things I have going.

~ David

I’ve mentioned this a couple of times, so I’m sorry if you guys are getting sick of it, but I’ve only ever had one regret about hiring Paul: I stopped being the artist of Living With Insanity.

I started the strip to practice my art and hopefully evolve, but then that went nowhere. Since that a year and a half ago (Holy crap we’re getting near the 2nd anniversary of LWI) I have attempted a few other projects, but all of them ended the same way: I took one look at the drawings I was producing, declared the thing worthless and gave up.

However, the one good thing about reading a shit load of comics is you start to notice the evolution of artists over the years. Compare the first few issues of Batman: Hush to the end of All Star Batman and Robin. Compare Steve Epting and Frank D’Armata on Captain America #1 with #46. Invincible #8 compared to Ottley’s current work. I could go on and on, and I might, but I’m sure you guys get the idea.

And the thing is, I’ve improved as well just by reading these works, and also the webcomics in my reading list. I notice techniques, body shapes, things like that. But whenever I try to mimic Steve Epting, Mark Bagley, Tony Daniel, Mike McKone or Don Kramer, it doesn’t look right. When I try to mimic Bruce Timm, Lar DeSouza, Ryan Ottley or Scott Kurtz, things start to look like they should. So I think it’s time to finally admit it.

My name is David Herbert. And I am a cartoonist.

May not make sense, but for the past couple of years I’ve been trying to do a semi-realistic style, with rendering consistent to the DC and Marvel art style. But I have a natural talent for a cartoony sort of style, which kind of throws me off at times unless I’m actually trying to do that style. So, inspired by the Scott Pilgrim books, which have a cartoony style but remain epic, I have decided to start a new comic. And by that I mean I’ve inked seven pages and will start the pencils of page eight when I’m done here. Hmm, I have a bit of scanning to do. Oh, and I’ve learnt my lesson from LWI. I’m still writing as I draw, but this time I write the dialogue down during the pencils stage so I won’t forget it. Also, it allows me to make sure there’s enough room for the speech bubbles.

Only thing is, I don’t know what to do with it. My goal is to make at least twenty pages, but then what? Put it up on deviantArt and have it only in my gallery? Set up a sub-section of this site and post it as a webcomic for you all to enjoy and/or laugh at how bad my art is? And do I continue it beyond twenty pages?

I’ll probably give up soon any way, so this will probably all be moot, but I find blogging about this stuff helps me think, knowing it’s out there and other people know about what’s going through my head. It’s like therapy, but for the non serious stuff. It’s therapy for making comics, really. Deciding what my next move will be, how to do it, will it work or not? But I guess that’s the reason a lot of bloggers do this sort of thing. It gives you another perspective.

Hope everyone’s having a good weekend.

~ David

So I need a new computer (Don’t worry about missing tomorrow’s update, I have my mother’s laptop if it’s required) and he one I ordered should come in tomorrow. With Windows 7 and everything. Hooray.

Okay, last week I told eveyone I was going to Graphic. I only went on Saturday though, because while it was okay, it wasn’t really what I was hoping it would be. I should have gone to SMASH, I walked past it between events and it looked like fun (So much cosplay. And the people I talked to said they loved it).

The first event was supposed to start at noon, but due to an incredibly long line, it didn’t start for a while. And they lost my reservation so I had to stand to the side for an extra twenty minutes to wait and see if a spare spotwould open up, staying with the people who forgot to register.

Then we began the comics making event work shop. I’m wondering what we were actually taught though. First we had to draw people in 30 seconds (Felt more like 20) and then draw anything in 5 seconds (It almost instantly devolved into a bunch of squiggles). And then it was time to get to making comics.

But the guy instructing my group didn’t give us any directions on sequential story telling, like how best to make use of a panel or page layout. We got a regular piece of A3 paper, folded it into eights and then cut the middle so it turned into a mini-book. We were then told to make a pencilled, inked and lettered comic within an hour.

This guy didn’t give us any nibs or pens with various weights or brushes. Just a box of pencils and a box of regular office grade felt tip black pens. The guy actually recommended using ball point pens (Kind of hard to take a guy seriously when it’s clear you know more about comicking than he does).

So I made my book and then gave it to him to print off. He used a regular office printer and printed off seventy copies and told me to make them into little books too, the idea being that everyone in the room would get their own copy of each other’s and we could all see each other’s handiwork.

I was almost done with my piled when he realised we didn’t have enough time, so everyone got two copies each of everyone’s on the table and we were all stuck with fifty copies of our own work. If I go to a convention, I’m giving these things away for free (Can’t believe I forgot to put the site’s address on the things. Oh well, I was the only one who remembered to put my name on them).

Anyway, it was fun, but I think it would have been more fun if everyone was more chatty. I tried starting up a couple of conversations but mostly everyone was too focused or just not interested in talking to some random guy sitting near them.

Then I walked around town because it was another hour and a half before the next thing and ended up at the comic store. I showed them Just Another Day, which I had brought with me, and the guy at the counter thought it was all right. He said he was going to give it to the owner to review, so hooray for me, I might have some sales! I need a new copy though.

Then the next event was a panel of self-published comickers (The guy who drew From Hell and an agent) and the publisher of Fantagraphics (I can’t remember who the other guy was). That was okay, they gave some advice on being an indie author.

And then the moment everyone showed up for, Neil Gaiman did a reading. And I didn’t attend because it was $50 a ticket. But I did get to see him before I left. We had a brief conversation, mostly about how much I loved Neverwhere, and I tried to get him to look at Gemini Storm, but he was in a rush so that didn’t happen (sad). He did let me summarise it in a few sentences and gave his opinion (Has potential to be a fun read). Don’t know if he was being nice or sincere or just trying to get me to shut up and let him go, but I liked hearing it.

So that was my day at Graphic. Will I go back next year? Maybe, if they have other things on or different guests. And I can afford the tickets. But it was interesting. Free Comic Book Day beats it by far as best comic event I’ve been to.

Now to see if any of my local shops are doing 24 Hour Comic Day.

Hope all is well.

~ David

Okay people, big news! Just Another Day is finally available over at Indyplanet and Comicsmonkey. Unfortunately, both sites are down, but I’ll let you know when they come up.

I don’t really have much else to talk about this week. I’m heading to Graphic this weekend to take a look around, maybe see Neil Gaiman and Kevin Smith. Maybe they’ll like me so much they’ll insist on getting me a top spot with DC and Marvel and I’ll write one of the greatest stories ever. Nah, I’m being delusional. I don’t even think they’re doing a meet and greet or anything like that.

But there are a couple of work shops on making comics and stuff, so maybe, just maybe, I can learn something that’ll get me a leg up compared to the other people. It’s hard being an Australian trying to get into comics. Oh well, as least we have the Internet.

I’ll let you know how it goes next week.

~ David