Posts tagged comic

So, I caught some scum-sucker on the roof of our wash house the other day trying to steal a metal flue. I mean honest to god, a metal flue. I know that people are hard up, and scrap metal is going for a bomb and all that, but if I had thought the hunk of junk up on that roof was worth something I’d have ripped it off already and sold it myself.

Just even more galling is the fact it looks like said scumbag returned yesterday morning to remove said flue from the roof, leaving a massive gap in the roof in the process. All I can say is that the asshole had better pray he gets caught by the police before I catch him, mainly as prison would be a cake walk compared to what I’d do to him.

</rant>

Anyways, the picture that I posted on Sunday night is indeed something I’m working on, and hope to launch sooner rather than later. Basically, I’m relaunching ‘projectfortytwo’, which will now be known as Project 42.

What is Project 42 you ask? Well, I’ve found in recent times that any time I try to start and write and draw and complete a story based comic, I find myself drifting away from it completely in one way or another. Look at Alienated Youth last year. I find myself not really planning the story out properly and just generally winging it which makes the process much more difficult for me to complete and much more difficult to produce a coherent product. Which is where the concept of Project 42 is coming in - to help me teach myself to actually plan and work out a full story and produce a fully complete comic story. Although I’ve not fully settled on the full concept of how Project 42 is going to work, I have settled on one little rule.

Each comic story I produce on Project 42 will be 42 pages long. No more, no less.

I know that one of my New Year’s Resolutions was to fully do a 20 page comic minimum, but that felt a bit restricting. In that length it’s difficult to set up, develop and properly resolve a conflict. 42 pages means enough leeway to set up the foil, develop the characters and the relationships and resolve the story to a satisfactory level.

I have a few concepts already brewing for this little endeavour and the first I’m doing is a piece called ‘Don’t Ask For Decaf’. This is going to essentially be a reboot of my old comic ‘Coffee of Doom’, renamed as I have too much respect for certain comic creators. I did a lot of learning of the writing and drawing process when I first did COD, but I was never happy with the finished product, especially with the first couple of chapters. This is going to be my way of resolving that and pulling the story back to the way I had originally envisaged it.

I am already quite a bit in to developing the story and I’ve already started thumbnailling the first few comics. But I’m not posting anything completed until I’m happy to start. And besides, I’ve still got to pull together a home for all these new comics I’ll be drawing. More news on Project 42 and ‘Don’t Ask For Decaf’ when I have it.

You may or may not be familiar with my comic Alienated Youth. You may or may not also know about how… temperamental I am with the general updating of said comic. You might also notice that I haven’t updated the comic in around… ooooh… a month.

Basically, I feel like I have absolutely screwed up the production of the comic, from the story to the format. I’ve basically made a bit of a hash of it since I got back to it at the start of the year. And because of that, I’ve decided that it is best to put the comic on a temporary hiatus.

Basically, I need to get everything straight. From the story to the format to the art to… well everything really.

I totally intend to get back to AY in the future as it’s a story that’s been brewing in my head for an absolute age, but in all fairness I’d rather get it right and take my time over it that just get it done and move on. I owe it to the story, the people who take the time to read the comic and to myself to get this done right.

Keep an eye out here and I’ll keep you posted on the plans for the comic. But at the moment, it’s a no-go.