MSU Comics Forum and Sequentials pt.IV

I really want to start this post off by stating, for the record, that this was easily the best MSU Comics Forum we've had to date. I'd like to express an gratuitous "Thank You" to all the Scholars, Creators, and Fans who made the MSU Comics Forum 2011 such a success.

Thanks to Ryan Claytor and all of the organizers who helped us put this event together.

I also need to thank the various websites and media outlets that helped promote the event.

A special thank you to Nate Powell for his great Keynote Address (subsequent power moves included in his great presentation,) his participation in the Creator Panel with Joe Foo and Jeremy Bastian, and just being an all around great guy.

Lastly thank you to all of the sponsers: The Journal of Popular Culture, 21st Century Comics and Games, The Department of Art and Art History, the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities, and MATRIX: The Center for the Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences Online.

I'm looking forward to the MSU Comics Forum 2012. I think I'll refrain from calling it the "doomsday" edition though I'm sure if we look on the Mayan calendar it mentions the MSU Comics Forum somewhere. I'll look into and let you know what I find.

Asides from the Comics Forum, here we are on week four of 2011 and you know what that means...

Things are really starting to move along. Now that the MSU Comics Forum is done, I might have a chance to be finished with these weekly pages prior to the eleventh hour. I'm Looking forward to sharing more than just pages each week.

In case you've missed them, here's links to the previous pages of The Cutting Edge.

The Cutting Edge Pg 1

The Cutting Edge Pg 2

The Cutting Edge Pg 3

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

Until next week,

-Jacot

24 Weeks of Sequentials pt.III

Here we are for week three. Gotta say, working on this page, I solidified quite a bit of my creation process. Things are moving a little smoother and I'm settling into a good pace I like to call, "on time." It's especially impressive for me to be on time with the MSU Comics Forum taking place this weekend. Interviews and a podcast last week cut into my production schedule.

If you're in the Lansing, MI area be sure to pick up this weeks edition of The Noise and The City Pulse, it's going to have info about the MSU comics Forum and, if you haven't made plans to, then you should make plans come to The MSU Comics Forum this weekend, it's a free event that will provide a great venue to meet many comic book creators.

Starting off Friday night, January 21st,2011 from 7pm-8:30pm, will be the keynote address by Nate Powell. Over the past few years the Keynote Address has been a fantastic time to take a peak at the creator behind the art and story. Nate Powell's Keynote should be no different and I am looking forward to taking a peek into the mind behind his amazing comic works.

On Saturday January 22nd, 2011 from 11am-5pm in the LookOut! Gallery will be the Artist Alley. This is a seriously good lineup for an Artist Alley including the aforementioned Nate Powell, Guy Davis, David Petersen, Jason Howard, Ryan Stegman, Jeremy Bastian, Jay Fosgitt, and many more! Creators will have some examples of their work on display albeit in comics, graphic novels, prints, or original art. Many of these items will be available for purchase. Don't be afraid to talk with the creators, we're all happy to converse with our adoring public (too pretentious?) Don't worry though, they won't bite, not last I checked anyways. For information on the guest list for the artist alley head over to the MSU Comics Forum website. www.comicsforum.msu.edu

Almost forgot during the Artist alley many panels will be taking place be sure to check them out.

For this weeks post I was thinking about going into my process of creating a comic page looking at it though I think this post has been long enough. Maybe for a future page I'll do a "process" post. But for now we'll just get on with the show. The Tao of Snarky: The Cutting Edge page 3!

For those that missed the previous pages you can find them through the links below

The Cutting Edge Pg 1

The Cutting Edge Pg 2

As with every Tuesday for the first 24 weeks of 2011 my buddy Ryan Claytor has posted a new page of his conversation with Dr. Polkinhorn from his new book And Then One Day #9. Jump on over to his website and check it out www.elephanteater.com. Ryan, is hyper intelligent when it comes to the Comic field and his knowledge comes together with the subtleties found in each of his pages.

Catch everyone back here next week, and hope to see you at the MSU Comics Forum this weekend.

-Jacot

24 Weeks of Sequentials pt. II

Alright, here I am back for week two of new Snarky pages.

This one was a doozy and a blast. Action, movement, and mood were the essentials on this page. It's funny how things start to develop and solidify while creating these pages. My process is becoming more distinct and there's a lot less "wasted effort" going into each one. I'll keep this first part nice and short... onto the page! click on the image or any link to open in a new window.

Here's a link to the first page, just in case you missed it.

The Cutting Edge: Page 1

We're under two weeks until the MSU Comics Forum 2011 takes place, right now we have 25 creators who will be tabling in the Artist Alley on Saturday, January 22, 2011. Also, be sure to make it to the Keynote Address by Nate Powell Friday, January 21st. This should be a great time had by all, and the best part its admission is free. Check out the MSU Comics Forum website for more info including a complete guest list for the artist alley. www.comicsforum.msu.edu

Speaking of the MSU Comics Forum I just got back from recording a podcast with the talent from Ginger and the Geek podcast. Had a great time talking with Daniel J. Hogan and Kat Cooper, they make a fantastic team. It'll be out this Thursday so be sure to stop over and check it out at gingerandthegeek.com.

Well that's about it for now, sorry there's no other art this week. I'm trying to work out a production schedule for Snarky and everything else. It's coming together and I have a few kinks to work out, but I'll be there soon. I do have to say, I really miss focusing on sequential artwork.

Don't forget to stop over to my LADDie Ryan Claytor's website, www.elephanteater.com, and check out the next page of And Then One Day.

Catch you back here in 168 hours, now time for me to get back to work.

-Jacot

PC Maintenance Round 2

Ahoy there, mateys!

This be Cap'n Jacket here for the second installment of art and computer maintenance. this week we're going to delve into some software to help with your computer.

There's some general things to help out with the health of your disk drives.

These days hard drives measure in terabytes (TB) and each terabyte is approximately 1000 gigabytes (GB). Now you can leave these drives alone or you can split the drive into smaller portions called partitions. Splitting them up into smaller portions allows for quicker searches and usually faster load times. There's a lot more that goes into this such as write speeds, read speeds, and rpm of the drive though we're not worried about that for now. there's many great programs out there to manage the partitions of the drive, you can use the disk management utility built into windows but I prefer EASEUS Partition Master. The free version is good enough to help manage the size of partitions and manage your disk layouts. This isn't something you need to use all the time but it's useful when you get a new drive or manage the size of an old one.

Speaking of hard drives, when information is written (saved) to the hard drive it isn't saved in order or even all together. Most of the time the information is fragmented and saved in various locations of the disk. After a while your hard drive will start slowing down when trying to load various files depending on how fragmented they are. This fragmentation also increases the chance of file corruption by having the computer accidentally write two separate bits of info to the same location. To help prevent this you'll want to defragment your hard drive. Windows has a built in defragmenter that will work but I recommend using a different tool. I've found Auslogics Disk Defrag performs better than the defrag utility built into windows. It's faster (which is good when working with larger hard drives) and has a good visual and user interface. Depending on how much info use save or delete during the month you'll want to run a defrag every month or two. After a few times you'll find a good schedule that works for you.

That's enough for this week on general PC maintenance. Onto the Art!

This week we have a little illustration I did to create a quick handout for the MSU Comics Forum 2011. I've had this concept in my head for the past few years and finally found a good combination of Comics and a Spartan helmet.





Speaking of the MSU Comics Forum 2011 pop over to the MSU Comics Forum website for more information about this years event. Also any comic creators who would like to be part of the artist alley table spaces are still available, more info can be found on the Comics Forum website.

Hell why not give you a peak at the quarter page flyer that the art was done for.



Now I bid you Adieu for this week, be back next Tuesday night.

-Jacot