Chasing Skull Chaser

From the Making Comics Division

Getting close to having the first chapter penciled and inked. Really pumped to have this spread finished.

I hired a colorist to work on this project with me. His name is Anderson Carmen and he reached out to me last year with samples. He actually colored my entire Skull Chaser comic from Drawings 5 as a pitch for his services! It was a no brainer to hire him for this book.

These are his flats for this spread and they are actually muted by me to play up the inks. The final will be much more saturated.

By the way I've got a name for this comic!

RED SHIFT RENEGADES: Rumble on Spartha.

The Red Shift Territories are the out reaches of the galaxy, and my characters are all outcasts, outlaws, and renegades from the Red Shift...hence the name.

Can't wait to have this first chapter wrapped up!

Join the Patreon: Patrons are getting frequent updates on this comic, including more behind the scenes stuff. They've also read the full comic in both roughs and now pencils as I finish them. This week I've been posting inked pages for patrons. As well as the book title reveal. When I finish the comic I'll have an exclusive special edition PDF for patrons.

Join here: LINK

-Jake

This took soooo long

From the Making Comics Division

Missile Mouse flies the Raven into Spartha. ⁣
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Chipping away at this comic drip by drip. This one was on my desk for a while as I worked on it one line at a time.⁣ I love working on it though! I get a big grin on my face every time I flip through these finished pages.

⁣The comic I’m working on now will be kickstarted in April. Details and dates on that next month!

Join the Patreon: Patrons are getting frequent updates on this comic, including more behind the scenes stuff. They've also read the full comic in both roughs and now pencils as I finish them. This week I've been posting inked pages for patrons. As well as the book title reveal. When I finish the comic I'll have an exclusive special edition PDF for patrons.

Join here: LINK

-Jake

The YA-33 Foxrunner

From the Making Comics Division

The YA-33 Foxrunner makes an appearance in the comic I’m working on.⁣
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It’s a transport ship I designed for the Missile Mouse books I made a while ago. Bringing it back for this new comic!
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Trying to draw all my ships freehand instead of tracing over 3D models to give them a human wonkiness to them.⁣
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Unfortunately, the Missile Mouse book shown is out of print, but I got the rights back for it. Sooooo I might self publish it? Who knows! You can get used copies pretty cheap on eBay and Amazon though: LINK​
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The comic I’m working on now will be kickstarted in April. Details and dates on that next month!

Join the Patreon: Patrons are getting frequent updates on this comic, including more behind the scenes stuff. They've also read the full comic in both roughs and now pencils as I finish them. This week I've been posting inked pages for patrons. As well as the book title reveal. When I finish the comic I'll have an exclusive special edition PDF for patrons.

Join here: LINK​

-Jake

The Hunter

From the Comics Division

I get a kick out of animated comics. I think their creators walk a fine line between making a comic and making an animated short. Too much animation and it slows down the reading experience. Not enough animation and a little bit of movement looks conspicuous on a static page.

I think Joe Sparrow's "The Hunter" threads the needle nicely. It's a short story about a rich lord obsessed with hunting down and killing one of every animal on earth. Yes, you can expect that his preoccupation with hunting will lead to his demise, but there's a breakthrough the character has at the end which was kind of surprising.

You can read it here: LINK​

You can also get a print (non animated) copy on Amazon: LINK​

Lots of great work on his tumblr too: LINK

-Jake

A Beast of a Double Page Spread

From the Making Comics Division

Made some good progress on the comic this week. Really happy with this double page spread. I designed a new set of characters for the comic called the Scorpios. They're a criminal society with a strong presence on the planet Spartha. They specialize in arms trafficking. Initiation into their family requires one to remove all the hair on their body, have a special communication ring implanted around their jaw/neckline, and get a scorpio tattoo on their chest and forehead.

I'm going to release the first issue of this comic digitally at the end of the month. I'll be Kickstarting a print version in April.

Join the Patreon: Patrons are getting frequent updates on this comic, including more behind the scenes stuff. They've also read the full comic in both roughs and now pencils as I finish them. Tomorrow I'll be posting inked pages for patrons. When I finish the comic I'll have an exclusive special edition PDF for patrons.

Join here: LINK​

-Jake

Are You an Octopus or a Phoenix?

From the Department of Video Works and the Comics Division

In my first youtube video of 2022 I got to interview Ryan Claytor, who is one of the most creative and prolific visual storytellers I've had the pleasure to talk to. He shared something with me that was so profound I had to open the video with it. You can see it below: LINK

Come for the 2 minute intro, but stay for the hour long conversation because it's fascinating.

The reason I did this interview was because Ryan reached out to ask if I'd help promote his comic Kickstarter. Once I heard about the kickstarter and a little more about Ryan I knew I had to have him on the channel.

His comic is called A Hunter's Tale LINK​

It's a mini comic that was written by his grandfather and illustrated by himself. I love the idea of generational creative collaboration.

I read a poem once about how when everyone dies there's three deaths and it has just stuck with me. The first death is when your heart stops beating. The second is when your body is laid in the grave. And the third is that moment sometime in the future when your name is spoken for the last time.

By making new things out of our ancestor's experiences and words the act of creation has a way of turning the hearts of the children towards their fathers and in a way keeps them alive for future generations.

Ryan's kickstarter ends this weekend, so back it before you miss out on it.

Also, check out Ryan's website here: LINK​

-Jake

Absolute Zero

From the Comics Division

This is cool...Absolute Zero is a short, 7-page comic book published in Wired several years ago that I never knew about until recently. It tells the story of what happened to Dr. Mann (Matt Damon) on his ice planet before the events of the movie.

This was written by Christopher Nolan himself, and drawn by Sean Gordon Murphy. I kind of wish more movies did this: fleshed things out with comics drawn by really good artists. (That's why I kind of dig the Star Wars comics that are filling in all the gaps between the original trilogy.)

You can read the comic here: LINK​

Or go track down a copy of the November 2014 issue of Wired and read it in print.

-Jake

Mike Mignola doing fanart

From the Comics Division

Mignola doesn't have a lot of work right now or something, but that's good because he's filling time by doing fan art. An not the pencil sketches like he did during quarrantine. These are like comic covers or pin ups. I love seeing characters from DC and Marvel through his eyes.

Also he's posting process stuff which is cool:

I have no business doing this, but I couldn't help myself and colored the Joker one. You can see my take on it here: LINK​

He's posting them over on his facebook page if you want to stay up to date on these fan arts: LINK​

-Jake

Making Comics!

From the Making Comics Division

Been working on the comic this week. Laying down cauliflower panels one drip at a time. I've got the first chapter fleshed out. You can see here how loose and rough it is at the beginning. Next phase is pencils, then I'll ink it. I haven't thought about coloring yet: whether I'll hire a flatter and color the rest myself or just hire a colorist to do the whole thing remains to be seen.

I'm posting the whole process on my patreon. I've been sharing things step by step, and a lot of unpacking of thoughts around creating things and how I work.

Now would be a great time to join if you want to support the creation of my projects. I'll be rewarding patrons with the final PDF copy of this comic and issues 2 and 3 as well when they are finished.

Become a patron here: LINK

-Jake