24 Weeks of Sequentials pt. VI

Here we are week six. Time flies and I find Tuesday coming on sooner and sooner. I'd be lying if I said Tuesdays don't excite me though... here's the reason why.

I swear we're going to get out of this alley soon, I've had enough of drawing brick walls in the background. After all you can only do so much to keep it interesting.

In case you've missed the previous pages through the following links.

The Cutting Edge pg 1

The Cutting Edge pg 2

The Cutting Edge pg 3

The Cutting Edge pg 4

The Cutting Edge pg 5

As with every Tuesday be sure to stop over at Ryan Claytor's website where he's posted his next page of And Then One Day#9. www.elephanteater.com.

Throughout his auto-biographical account of his conversation with Dr Polkinhorn, Ryan has utilized his illustrating prowess to extrapolate the concepts that are being discussed. He's really taking his work to a new level with every page. Ryan is quickly becoming this generation's Scott McCloud.

Until next week,

-Jacot

LET IT BEGIN

Happy New Year, and what a year it shall be... and with a title like that how can you go wrong? After all, this is the beginning of new Snarky comic pages.

In case you're not sure what is happening, my good buddy Ryan Claytor is posting a new page of "And Then One Day" on his website every Tuesday for the first 24 weeks of 2011. Ryan challenged me to do the same with my own work. So here we are at the beginning of a 24 week journey. Hopefully at the end I will continue this trend and be able to complete the first full story arc to The Tao of Snarky with weekly posts.

It felt good to dust off Snarky and make him feel alive again. Brad DeMaagd and I have really started to organize and get this story moving, for this first page I pulled an old bit he'd written and pulled parts to start this story. Now that the fire's lit he's turning out some really great stuff for me to work with. It's been a while since I released/published new sequential work and I have got to say, I've missed it. Creating art is a lot of fun and I enjoy it but it's nothing like using art to tell a story and showing the passage of time. You can tell a story in one image, that's a skill in itself, but leading the reader through many images and words on a journey through a story, there's no feeling quite like that.

Alright enough of the fawning over the reason or the feeling, let's get one with it.

Ladies and gentleman I present the first page of The Tao of Snarky: The Cutting Edge. To see a larger copy just click on the image and it will open in a new window.

I'm tossing around the idea of setting up a wordpress page for this comic, any feedback on this would be great. Let me know what you want to see and how you would like to view these new pages as I release them. Don't be afraid to post comments, constructive criticism is gratefully accepted.

So now that you're done here pop on over and check out Ryan's weekly post/page at www.elephanteater.com. It'll be worth the trip.

-Jacot

Ding, Ding, Ding... PC maintenance round 3

Welcome back for your weekly dose of... well... me.

That wasn't that exciting but what do you want for nothing...? Rrrrrrrrrubber Biscuit? Bow bow oooh ooh oooh oooooooo-waaaah.

On with the show.

Everyone knows (if not, this might be shocking for you) that if you are connected to the internet, you need to have anti-virus software so I'm going to forgo that little bit and jump onto something not as many people know.

If you browse the internet on your computer you will more than likely end up with Malware. Malware is short for Malicious Software. This can be anything from software that fishes your browsing history for personal info and broadcasts it, bots that take control of your computer, Trojans which function like the classic Trojan horse (hence the name) and discretely install software on your computer (and you know how that worked for Troy), and much, much more. Essentially you need to protect yourself from this stuff. My recommendation is Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. This comes in two versions like a lot of the programs I've mentioned on this blog, an incredibly well functioning free version and an even more functional paid version. The free version does everything I need it to, it finds the malware and let's me get rid of it. I try to do this every other week to make sure my system is clean, you can find a frequency that works well for yourself. This is a necessity when if you browse the internet because Malware doesn't function like a virus, so your anti-virus won't catch it, and it can cause your computer to become infected with viruses.

Another thing you'll want to do is manage your installed programs. I find the add/remove programs feature leaves too many pieces of the program behind. I found a fantastic program called Revo Uninstaller. It not only makes it easier to uninstall programs, but it also hunts down all the little places on your system where the program is mentioned and gives you an option to delete it. This is where the standard windows feature is sorely lacking. Prior to finding and using Revo my system would end up with a whole bunch of little "crumbs" leftover from un-installed programs. With Revo it helps maintain a clean and healthy system.

And it's now the time in our program where we have fun with art...

This week is a little piece I did back at a LADD meeting. It all started with a story from Jon Gordon about his son Galbraithe. Galbraithe evidently loves Ryan Claytor's auto-biographical And Then One Day. Well one day I guess he was playing super heroes and said I'm Ryan Claytor... once Jon said this at the LADD meeting laughter ensued and this piece of art was born.

Hope you enjoyed this weeks post, I'll be back next week with an exciting announcement for 2011.

-Jacot

On Schedule... WOO HOO!!!

Well this is the first post of the regularly scheduled programming on Tuesday nights, as promised.

I was trying to think of something good to go over, something… useful. Something that people could learn from. Now, as I was thinking about this I began to realize a lot of the stuff has already been covered by one of my good friends, Ryan Claytor. So I thought I would take a moment to pimp out his website http://www.elephanteater.com/... (insert shameless plug here, well maybe just the image from his new bookmark. Click on the image to open his website in a new window.)

At his website you will find his weekly postings, musings, and his shop for comics/merchandise. He just finished posting "And then one day #8" (his most recent issue, to be printed soon), be sure to check out all the instollments of "And Then One Day", they're worth the read. Ryan (at the time of this post) is mainly an auto-biographical comics creator. He's used his series "And Then One Day" to push the boundaries and provoke thoughts on the concept of Auto-Biographies and the comics medium. He currently teaches Comic Studio courses at Michigan State University and University of Michigan - Flint. Be sure to take a moment to check out his resources page it includes one of my favorite topics - Small Press Professionalism.

Now this doesn't mean I won't be posting my own musings and information on the Comics medium. There’s plenty of time for me to write about that in the future.

I previously mentioned information on some of the projects that I’ve been working on and I thought I would share an image or two of the concept work.

First off… Space Teddy Roosevelt. This concept came from an old high school friend, Benjamin M. Sidou. Just the thought of a real life over-the-top character, such as Teddy Roosevelt, going on a space safari made me smile. The classic image of Teddy’s toothy grin framed inside a space helmet was too much to take. I started sketching some Ideas and this was actually the first piece I produced. I’ve cleaned it up a bit from my initial rough and am currently designing a mock cover to set the tone and direction for the project. I’ll post the final cover concept in a future post.


Now here's a little something from a great monthly gathering, Ypsi Ink & Stein. This is a monthly gathering of creator's and friends to have a good time and produce work in a highly creative environment. I was lucky enough to be able to attend this past month's Ink & Stein (it was moved to the same weekend as the Motor City Comic Con.) Once everyone settled in it didn't take long for the conversation to take a turn to the lower end of the comedy spectrum (pun intended, what do you expect after a long day at a convention?.) Of course this could have been due to the amazing company of Jay Fosgitt, Ryan Estrada, Adam Talley, Tony Miello, and Brett Pinson. With a line-up like that you can only guess what came next.

The subject: Zombies
The question: "Do Zombies Defecate?"

The debate started... Hilarity ensued... and here's what I threw into the "pot" of creativity.


Well that's about the end of this weeks segment.

Looking forward to seeing everyone next Tuesday night.

-Jacot