| Feeling better already. |
[Feb. 27th, 2009|07:52 pm] |
I've had another day in which I had a word with my boss, got some of the load off my back and generally got it all out of my system. I'm probably not out of the woods yet, but I'm feeling a whole lot better. Thanks everyone who responded.
The previous post is now friends-locked. |
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| Invasion is back |
[Dec. 15th, 2008|10:25 pm] |
( family portrait )
Episodes for Invasion for the next three weeks have been uploaded. Next week, I may be able to finish the final ones that have been scanned so far - what happens after that depends on whether I've got the scanner working gain by that time. The episodes will appear on Mondays, December 15, 22 and 29.
Previous family portrait |
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| Invasion original art for sale |
[Jun. 28th, 2008|02:23 pm] |
Original art for page 29 of Invasion.
It's taken me months, but I've finally put all originals from the Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan story Invasion up for sale through my ComicSpace Galleries. So if you want an original from this popular series, you can now buy them there. Prices are somewhat negotiable - I've assigned a fixed price to all of them but you can email me if you want to haggle over any one page.
A few points:
1) The pages Calvin Bexfield worked on are more expensive because a) he's fab, and b) we're sharing the loot for these pages.
2) All pages are European A3 format, except for this one, the first to be made, which is A4.
3) I will give each page a final check before sending it out. I don't expect any issues with the state the pages are in, but if any turn up, I'll let you know and cancel the sale if you want.
4) All originals will ship with a colour print of the finished product.
5) Many originals from Feral are also still for sale.
There are 106 pages in the gallery, several of which got very good comments when they were published. The one you loved is almost certainly still there, so why not do some browsing and invest in the arts? |
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| Feral originals now for sale through Comicspace |
[Feb. 4th, 2008|07:24 pm] |
(Cross-posted from my blog)
All original drawings*) for Feral are now for sale through my ComicSpace Galleries. Prices are differentiated according to my own estimate of how good individual pages are, with the pages with backgrounds drawn by Calvin Bexfield being rated highest. Your opinion may differ, though, so do take a look at the whole gallery - your favourite page may just be available at a bargain price. You need a ComicSpace account to see and buy the pages, but registration is easy and I can assure you ComicSpace will respect your privacy. At the time of writing, several people have already registered just to buy pages from me, so you wouldn't be the first to do so.
Pages are drawn in pen and ink on Bristol board. All pages are marked up $10 on the base price for shipping outside the European Union, and $5 for shipping within the EU. All pages sold will be shipped with an A4 colour print showing the finished work.
Pages from Headsmen and Devil are also available, though the galleries for these show the finished work rather than the black and white line art. I'll get around to changing that eventually. Next week, I'll make pages from Invasion available.
And if a page you want has already been sold? I'm thinking of a fun solution for that situation as well. I'll announce that in a future bulletin, so keep your eyes peeled.
*) Except the ones that have already been sold, obviously. |
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| Selling more originals to finance future print editions |
[Oct. 27th, 2007|03:19 pm] |
All original art from the Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan stories Headsmen and Devil is now for sale through my Comicspace galleries. Moneys raised will go towards financing new print editions of Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan, which I should finally be able to get together in 2008.
When I was in my financial crisis earlier this year, sales of original art made a big difference. Now that that's over and I'm no longer living hand to mouth, it's time to get proactive. I want ROCR back in print and I want it to be done well, i.e. colour while available and decent print quality as well as good design, promotion and a good print run. To make this possible, I'm selling off as many originals as I can. This batch of 26 original pages and one drawing is just the start. Pages from Feral will soon follow, as well as more pages from Invasion. Some pages from the latter story are still available through the Webcomicsnation Swapmeet where you can see how they look in black and white. Also, more pages - everything I've ever published online, in fact - are available for sale on request. If there's a page or single drawing in the archives you want, just ask me about it and we'll make a deal!
For this new batch, I've switched from the Webcomicsnation Swapmeet to Comicspace because the latter site allows for much faster data entry and Paypal button generation, especially with already-existing galleries. Downsides include a lack of space to put detailed sales information in, so I can't offer alternate views of the black and white product, or mention that all pages shipped to buyers will include an A4 (297 x 210 mm) print of the finished page, so you also get it in colour. |
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| Maintenance status on ROCR.net - use mirrors instead |
[Jul. 18th, 2007|09:29 am] |
ROCR readers: to get your thrice-weekly fix, go to Invasion on Webcomicsnation. To read the archived stories, go to the archives on Modern Tales.
ROCR.net is currently in maintenance status in order to fix the Internal Service Errors that have been plaguing it lately. Unfortunately, this status also affects the blog and even the static pages, so I can't reach the readership through my normal channels. I'll be crossposting to a number of blogs in the hope that that will inform everyone who needs to be informed. |
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| Update on the caffeine reduction thing |
[Jul. 18th, 2007|09:12 am] |
[This was supposed to go into my blog, but Xepher has put my entire server into maintenance to fix the database overload problems, so I'm posting it here. It will go into the blog when that comes back, though.]
Two and a half weeks in, I'm settling in to... well, still caffeine addiction but a lower level of it. I sleep better, and longer, at least if I let myself go to bed on time. I wake up earlier, and most importantly, spend less time hitting the snooze button and going back to sleep after the alarm goes off. When I get my morning coffee, it tastes better — partly because I'm more sensitive to it, but also because now, when I wake up, I'm actually rested enough to make coffee without misjudging the dose, breaking my cup or spilling boiling water on my feet. Win.
I'm moving closer to a regular, nine-to-five working day. That should be handy when I get a full-time job. Also, early-evening appointments (life drawing, running, seeing friends) are now easier to fit into my schedule. I do get sleepy earlier in the evening, but that is by design. I've even stepped up my exercise program to ensure that I'm good and tired by half past ten in the evening. This also helps keep the metabolism going after the coffee wears out. I run twice a week with the club and am now making an effort to swim every day, half an hour at a time. Half an hour isn't long, but it's an amount of time and energy I can afford to spend every day. I'll probably build it up a little in the next few weeks.
I'm also slowly breaking the habit of procrastination. I spend less time distracted by blogs, webcomics and forums, though I need to cut much more deeply into that habit before I'll consider myself optimally productive. It's difficult, because most of the work I do is on the internet and is deeply intertwined with my online reading habits, but it will be worth it just to be able to combine whatever job I get with continued webcomic production. Of course, if everyone did that, there'd be no one left to read my work.
Back to the coffee: I tried cutting down from three cups before noon to two, but I don't think that's a step I'm ready to take, or indeed one that I need to. Coffee's not all bad, after all, as I mentioned earlier. |
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| People in Groningen who like cats, lend me your ear! |
[Jul. 9th, 2007|09:08 am] |
My brother is going to be in England for six months, and has been looking for temporary homes for his cats (he's managed to acquire seven of them in a year). Unfortunately, he's had to leave a week earlier than expected, and all seven cats are still in his house. My father will be looking after them once or twice a day for a week, but that's not something you can do for months on end. I took care of his cats over Christmas, but back then there were only four of them, and even then they triggered my allergies just a little bit, and, as I found out while visiting my brother's place yesterday, I get wheezy pretty quickly now that there are seven of them in the house.
So, if you live in or around Groningen, the Netherlands, and want a cat (or two - but no one is expecting anyone to take all seven) to keep you company for a few months, please give me a call, either through email or in the comments. We have a wide range of colours, ages and temperaments on offer, ranging from nearly-grown kittens to elderly mother cats and from the extremely sociable to the very self-reliant. All but one of the cats have been neutered and all have had their shots, with papers to prove it.
My brother is also willing to let someone live in his house for free if they agree to look after the however many cats remain in there. Might be worth your while if you've got a temporary job in the city. |
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| Is it can be make rent tiem naow? |
[Jul. 5th, 2007|02:56 pm] |
It's time for me to start worrying about next month's rent again, so I'm offering some more new originals for sale through the webcomicsnation swapmeet. These are some of my favourite pages from the Headsmen storyline:
Page for January 9, 2006. $ 80 including shipping and handling. Listing
Page for January 10, 2006. $80 including shipping and handling. Listing
Page for January 19, 2006. $80 inc. shipping and handling. Listing
Page for January 20, 2006. $80 including shipping and handling. Listing
All payments are handled by Paypal. You don't need a Paypal account to buy; you can pay with Visa or Mastercard if you prefer.
The listing system at Webcomicsnation, as observed before, is clunky and doesn't allow me to show the products properly. Entering this listing in my blog was sheer torture. I will investigate some way of making the process of listing, selling and buying original art more straightforward. If any of my readers have any experience with e-commerce systems such as OScommerce, please let me know. |
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| Push me over the edge! |
[Apr. 19th, 2007|04:20 pm] |
Or! Guilt-trip me into increasing my update schedule by reading my comics at me!
After two months of working pretty much non-stop on the crossover storyline Invasion, I was going to take a break. Then I wrote a blog post about my planned break, in which I mentioned that the comic had gained more than 250 daily readers in two months. So I checked to see if I wasn't overestimating the growth - and found that the actual difference was closer to 400. Crossovers clearly work.
It's a bit awkward to have a break while the readership is riding high. I'm not going to go back on my plans and scramble to get pages for tomorrow and Monday out - I need the time to do other things. But here's the deal. Yesterday, I had 1392 unique visitors. If I get more than 1500 today, I will compensate for the break by putting up weekend updates next weekend. If I get more than 2000, I will put up weekend updates the weekend after that.
And If I get more than 2500? I'll go back to 7 updates a week for as long as I'm able to. New updates in colour.So if you haven't been to Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan in a while, go there now! And if you are a fan and you want to arm-twist me into putting up more updates, tell your friends about the comic, link to it from your own website, in short, get the word out there! |
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| Easter Monday |
[Apr. 9th, 2007|09:53 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Scritti Politti - The Word Girl | ] |
How I spent Easter Monday:
Watched Doctor Who Confidential. Those behind-the-scenes things are too long,and too puff-piece-y, but learning how the packed crowd in the theatre was composited from multiple shots of the same 50 extras was worth it. I'm always fascinated with extras and the way they're handled. There was a woman with a megaphone who directed them while the main director, Charles Palmer, was faffing about with the main actors.I also liked seeing David Tennant's positions marked on the stage floor with gaffa tape. Charles Palmer looks uncannily like his father, actor Geoffrey Palmer, by the way. Same massive forehead, deep eye sockets and overall facial structure. He'll be getting his dad's jowls in a few years, mark my words. What I'm missing in Confidential this season is the internal politics. Last year, there was one episode that gave away a lot about who can pull strings within Doctor Who. I refer of course to Stephen Moffat's queeny strop in relation to the big horse-through-the-window moment in "The Girl in the Fireplace".
Fired off a sarcastic message to the Dragonboards over the plotting for the next bit in the big crossover. I've used sarcasm before, but always ended up deleting it before posting. Leaving it in this time crossed a bit of a line. But it was that kind of morning, I was in that kind of mood, the crossover is at that kind of stage of development (the kind where enough is going wrong that some shouting is necessary to regain focus), the plotted section in question really was bad and sloppy enough to merit it and I think the working relationship can handle it now. And actually, while the monkey was out in front flinging poo, the dinosaur plodded away in the back, chewed its water veggies and worked out a way to get the relevant plot points out while preserving the sight gag that had sprun up there. And the best thing is that one bit that I genuinely don't like and wouldn't want to happen even in a well-plotted section can still go on but has been made into Somebody Else's Problem. Now all that needs to be done is the splitting up of plot between two comics.
Cleaned up around the house. Two tasks: A Bin Liner Challenge (a trick I thought up to counteract the Clutter Blindness I mentioned here a year or so ago: Look around the house and throw away stuff until you've filled a bin liner) and cleaning the garden-side windows and door for the first time in... er... ever. I've only done the insides of the windows, but the difference in the amount of light that makes it into the bedroom is huge. I didn't complete the Bin Liner Challenge as such, but instead I'll be making some trip to the Chemical Waste station this week to get rid of some electronic appliances that turned up in the bike shed, and call the Milieudienst to pick up two bicycle wrecks that were also filling up space there. Then I'll spend some time and possibly even money fixing up the remaining three bikes, and reusing the free shed space for stuff that is now cluttering up my house that I can't throw out just yet.
Er...Went back to bed. After I called it quits with the cleaning, I realised that I was still sleepy and nodding off, so I might as well get some real sleep. I slept for about three hours, which really should be the maximum for a nap before it starts mucking up what is left of my natural rhythm and cutting into my sleep time at night. There's been enough keeping me awake at night over the past few weeks - particularly that dry cough I was left with after last week's flu bout. Nasty stuff. I know I'm lucky not to get more bronchitis, but this was almost as bad. I still have some codeine, I think, but it's probly past its best before date.
In short, an uneventful, boring day in which I didn't do any drawing. I realised I wasn't going to draw when I IM'ed Calvin and asked him about his schedule, and he said he was sorry but he was going to spend the day studying. I was relieved! Of course, I'll have to go back to the grind and work extra hard tomorrow, what with there being only one ROCR comic left in the buffer, but I think I'll be re-energised. That nap worked. |
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| Getting better |
[Apr. 1st, 2007|06:40 pm] |
I'm feeling a lot better now. Guess this latest bout of 'flu was the same one I'd been infected with in February - either the same strain or possibly even the same infection coming back for seconds - so I'd built up some immunity. I may even get out of this without any bronchitis symptoms! It's too early to tell, but I'll have a toot on my trusty old peak flow meter tomorrow afternoon, and if it registers over 580 in whatever unit that thing uses, I'll go running on Monday evening as if everything's been normal. Running is important - it's the best thing for warding off the blues.
I went to work today. I had to, but I ended up enjoying myself a lot. Three of my four studio-mates turned up, which is unusual for a Sunday. I explained my bold plan for staying ahead of the Crossover Wars over the week to Calvin, who had mentioned that he wouldn't be available much through the week, and he accepted the plan without blinking. He'll be drawing backgrounds for Wednesday-Friday before I do the character art, which I'll add on the light table during the week. Because he'll be setting the scene and I'll be following him instead of the other way around, and he'll be drawing full backgrounds without any gaps, it'll be easier to have the layers register properly than the last time we separated those parts of the process. It'll still be touch and go, but he's working both quickly and methodically. He's penciling three pages first and if he doesn't get around to inking them, I will at least have three penciled pages to work with.
Calvin's been particularly interested in drawing Hell for the Thursday and Friday updates. He's probably as fed up with Scale's apartment as he was with the longhouse a week or so ago.
I'm still hoping ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) roaminronin will be able to draw Tuesday's update though. That too will go up at the very last minute, but if he and I can work simultaneously, we'll be able to rebuild the buffer on Monday. And it'll be neat, because his cartooning deserves to be seen by the 1200 or so readers Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan currently has. |
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| I've LEARNED the lesson about 'flu shots, honestly. |
[Mar. 31st, 2007|11:24 pm] |
....AAAAAND I'm sick as a dog again. Second bout of 'flu this year, and the way it feels it's going to be worse than the first one. That should teach me never to forget to get my shots. I'm in an at-risk group and I'm not getting any younger. Like I've said before in my blog, if I get my 'flu shot, it won't stop me getting 'flu, but it will cut a week or so off the after-effects and, in the future, prevent it from killing me outright.
Allright, enough of that. It sucks, but I'll survive it this time. This new bout is going to make it very difficult for me to work next week, though, and what with my buffer having run out, this is a bit of a problem. Especially as I don't want to be the weakest link in this webcomic crossover.
Now, as it happens, my characters are due to cross over to Dangerous and Fluffy, and farmercuerden has had a big hand in scripting that sequence. Because even then, I was struggling to keep up, and having someone take over for a few days was very welcome. So we're already in a situation where myself and akilika are sharing farmercuerden's script (because lphogan was sick last weekend), and of course either droolfangrrl or mravac_kid is colouring it.
farmercuerden suggested we could take it one step further. Would any of the original Dangerous and Fluffy artists, roaminronin or rahball be interested in drawing Tuesday's episode at short notice? I'd be asking roaminronin on MSN right now, but he's not online.I guess either of them could simply restrict themselves to drawing the characters and pass the work on to Calvin Bexfield, so it needn't even take a lot of time (though roaminronin is so fast anyway it won't make much of a difference).
If either of you are reading this, let me know. It's short notice, but not un-doable. And it would be helping a poor, sick person out in a time of need!
Maybe I should change my job title on ROCR to "Creator and Executive Producer". It's a more prestigious job description than "Cartoonist" or "Writer" even if the job itself is a good deal simpler... |
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| .... better now |
[Jan. 22nd, 2007|03:22 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
| [ | music |
| | The news. | ] |
I've got a script accepted for the 8th installment of Gang of Four. Good. Ironically, this was a script that I'd written the afternoon after the previous attempt was rejected, but I waited until today to send it. I got a thumbs up from my editor within 5 minutes.
I think one problem with my one-pager writing is that I'm very hung up on one format: the one that Wilbert Plijnaar and Jan Van Die developed for Sjors & Sjimmie when I was a kid. Those one-pagers had very tight story beats - a fixed number of panels, twists on the fifth and tenth panels, post-gag denouement on panel 11. It's a good format. It kept doing the job even after, at age 14, I figured out that almost every single episode had the same structure and pacing. But where I go wrong is looking at every script I write through a filter that makes me extremely critical of any scripts that don't conform to it. Which is bunk. I'm not Plijnaar and Van Die, I'm doing a very different comic in a very different magazine, and it's not like there aren't some very long-running, succesful one-page comics in Dutch magazines that work very differently.
So today I looked again at my notes from Thursday, showed one script to studio-mate Jelena, who laughed at it, and decided to type it up and send it. I hope I've learned my lesson now. |
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| Punchline block |
[Jan. 18th, 2007|04:53 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | comics, writing | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Weather reports about the storms. | ] |
Those Gang of Four writing sessions are getting more and more nightmarish! More than a month ago, I had trouble with script no. 7. Now I have worse trouble with script no. 8. It's not so much writer's block as punchline block, in that I can think up funny situations, but every time I try to wrap one of them up in neat, punchy endings, the idea turns to jelly - getting there from here without breaking characterisation or the series' internal consistency (one potentially good idea had to be nixed because it directly contradicted the seventh comic) turns out to be elusive.
I've discussed scripts with several people, and have I've even gone as far as to look at the writing tips/story suggestions that Branko sent me three years ago when I was also stuck. Now, as then, the concrete suggestions were impossible to apply to this particular comic, but the tips had some value; that's why I was already using them. Damn.
I've asked my editors about their schedule, and I've got a little bit of slack - I can hand in the script next week. But it's as close as I've cut it in a looong time.
Tomorrow, I won't be able to work on the script because I'll have workshops to teach. Five hours worth of them. But at least that will get me into contact with the target group, which is always a good thing.
Next season, I think I'm going to work with a writer. I think a large part of the problem is that I've run out of workable material, and doing a new series, written by someone else, should allow me to recharge, learn about how other writers proceed turning raw material into drawable scripts, and not have to worry about the process going wrong. Drawing is at the same time easier and more difficult - it takes more effort and technique to do, but can be done more reliably. |
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| Whoa! |
[Jan. 9th, 2007|02:28 pm] |
roaminronin shanghaied me into teaching a life drawing class tomorrow. I don't even do life drawing as often as I should, let alone teach it. I do have some ideas though, and I've got some guidance from Jeroen as to what's expected of me, so I guess I should be able to wing it.
Regular teaching resumes on Friday the 19th, when I start a string of introductory cartooning workshops for schools in Groningen. That's another 14 or so hours of teaching under my belt. |
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