Halloween Special

I decided to interrupt continuity for a week and do a Halloween Special. I kept my standards especially low for this: no pencils, just straight to ink and you gets what you gets, errors and all. It's just a simple "talking heads" gag, and nothing too original at that, but I like the idea of doing specials now and again, so you may see more of them.

I hope next week to have a more elaborate and interesting strip, and to finally get them to the college.

Episode 8: "An Impenetrable Disguise"

I made some layout mistakes here. The top is too crowded, and the bottom I should've just re-done to make sure everything led where it should. I resorted to drawing arrows to be sure people would follow, but I think that's a cop-out. Good comics manage to do a lot more interesting things with panels than I've done here without needing arrows. McCloud says even the pros blow it sometimes, though, so I'm in good company.

I got to use my new pens. I love them, but I'm still learning how to use them well. They're going to change how I pencil as well as how I ink, but I'll continue experimenting with them.

It was a fun challenge to draw Francis clothed. The cap especially gave me some trouble. And as much as I love the mirror image, when I first penciled it I had the cap facing the wrong way in the reflection.

I still am frustrated by my poor drawing skills though. If I were starting over, I think I'd design Marissa differently. When I draw her straight on I'm pretty consistent, but at other angles she routinely comes out looking more like an alien than Francis. I don't even know what I'm doing wrong.

Next episode may be next week or the week after. I'm eager to get to it, because I've finally figured out a fun way to lay out at least the first part, but time is the issue.

Stay tuned!

Episode 7: "Everything We Wanted to Know"

More experiments in layout this time than last week. When I got to the end of the first line it occurred to me to break up what could have been one panel into two. Once I made that decision, it quickly seemed natural to make the break something other than just two boxes, and to make the panels non-parallel to further emphasize how the two conversations are diverging into their own directions.

The oval panel was just for variety, but there's something I like about it.

The hourglass was a last-second discovery. I realized that all three word balloons in the panel were double-balloons, so I made the panel shape reinforce that stacked design. Not sure what good that really is.

To meet deadline I had to lower my standards on lettering quite a bit. I hope it's still legible.

Next week's exists only as an unfinished sketch and a script note in my pocket PC, so it's anybody's guess whether I'll get it done in a week. I hope so, because one of my fans (to date, I have 2) gave me a very wonderful set of pens, which will make inking much more interesting. Thanks, fan!

Your gifts are expected--I mean, accepted too. Or just gift me with a comment.

progress report

I finally got the new episode inked and cleaned up, so I'll once again have a new comic posted next Monday. I know what the next episode after that is, but I don't really have anything on paper yet. So we'll see if I can keep up the pace.

Episode 6: "Guess Who's Coming for Snack?"

This blog is for me to share my comments on my ongoing experiment of creating the comic strip Alien Education. It's published by the high-tech means of sticking it to my office door.

I finally made some time Sunday before church to get episode 6 inked, so once again I can meet my target of a new episode every Monday.

This week's episode didn't involve as much experimentation with panels as some of them. I did try in the last line to use extra space to isolate the middle panel, hoping to create a sense that mom's stunned reaction lasts for quite a while. This trick is straight out of Scott McCloud's phenomenal Understanding Comics: the Invisible Art, so no credit to me for innovation. It was funny to find myself pressed for space when part of the point of this is to have extra space to work with.

In a couple of ways my little sketch version of this was better. I really showed the background, and made a little sight gag about Chuck's capacity to eat. But I still like the second panel, and it's still fun to watch these three bounce off of each other.

Next week a little more panel experimentation. Feel free to comment yourselves, if anyone's actually reading this!