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Comic Notes: Strips 1-25

With most, if not all comics, I provide notes on what I was thinking when I came up with them. Originally these notes were displayed below the strips, but this time I'm keeping them separate for convenience.

1. Strips 26-50
2. Strips 51-75
3. Strips 76-100

1. Welcome to Te Kore

Well, here it started. That top panel took me a long time to draw, considering that it's just a vague overview. However, you can see most everything: the town, Moehau Bluff, the shops along the main road in. Note also how I've made the camera "spiral in" on our riders after the storm...

2. Checking in, checked out

That panel up top is almost a redrawing of the very first sketch I did of the motel, but from a different angle. I was also struggling with levels of detail, and I still do.

3. Gossip Jungle

One of the more challenging strips I've done, mainly because nothing much happens in it; the big challenge is that all the struggle's in the mind.

If you haven't noticed that Greg's kinda notorious by now...

Actually, this strip languished for three weeks due to an attack of the doubts. I also went into a funk when Tripod slashed my available space.

4. Twisted by the pool

I took technical drawing at college, and it probably shows here. The entire unit is about 8m by 4m; the bathroom's almost exactly the size of the one here at home.

Despite the joke being lame as, the reason the bottom panels are different sizes is that I screwed up when measuring them for the move from two panels per page to one. The idea? I could get more detail in and/or reduce the blobbiness of my brushwork by reducing to half size (except for that big top one, which was scanned actual size.)

5. The Universality of Neighbourliness

Well, this was the last strip I wanted finished before going live, as a cynical attempt to garner interest. It's a bit late since I was having trouble getting the fifth panel right.

Actually, I really stuffed up the sky in panel one, so I had to copy the sky from panel three to fix this. But... you probably noticed that already. Another stuffup is the fact that some important details are lost in reduction. I'll have to work on that sort of thing a lot more. Still learning, still learning...

6. Two Lovely Black Eyes

Tada! The long awaited revelation of Greg's mysterious effect upon others — he's... uh... good looking. With weird alien eyes. It'll be explained later.

This was one of the hardest strips to draw, coinciding as it did with all the mad preparatory running about for graduation and a number of other events. It also has some of the trickiest dialogue: I have only six panels, a definite course for the dialogue to navigate, and the last thing anyone wants is a panel that's almost nothing but wordiness. However, I feel fine with Bevan's spluttering delivery in panel four — I think it gives the stop-starting effect of his backpedalling. Besides, I've made a similar blunder when I was a salesman, but the results were much worse.

The light and shading effects, I think, are a step forward too.

7. Spitting the Dummy

This was also extremely hard to draw, mainly because I wrote myself into a corner with the word "reputation". Greg's only rep is that people talk shit about him; but how to depict this?

I finally hit on the answer a few days back: Use paper dolls as a metaphor. The trick was: what to draw? It took me a while to get the "space suit" right, not to mention Greg in just his gruts*. That right hand (in panel 1) and his feet were real bloody hard. Details, you know.

The movie idea comes thanks to a gag strip by a certain Toby Morris, whose work has regularly graced the local university newspaper and is now available from him in book form.

One problem with my imagination is that I think the characters might be saying one thing, then it turns out they're saying something else. I had to sacrifice an entire window to Greg's closing address; actually I can't "hear" what they're saying unless I actually draw them, or strain real hard.

*gruts = grundies = undies = underwear. Actually, I dunno if that slang is still in use. Can I join the Old Farts Club yet?

8. Smile at the Mirror as the Cameras Click

This comic is very three-dimensional, which obviously makes it harder to draw for me. I'm also messing with ink and brushes, as opposed to a strange little comic that I whipped off (more or less) on Monday in the space of an hour.

Basically, I'm mentally rendering a scene in 3D, and I don't really have the resources to keep that program stable. What I draw is my impressions of that rendered image before General P. Fault stages another coup.

Unlike other artists, I don't keep a morgue, partly because I have trouble filtering out extraneous noise from the desired signal. A mass of clippings and scanned images would be of little use; so I search for useful images on the fly, when I need them, feed what appears to be useful data into my mind's renderer and transcribe the result. That's why the reporter's knees look so odd. (I should've made her skirt longer, damn it.)

9. Much Ado

Why as a script? Because of the enormous trouble I've been having depicting the activity here — Janet's questioning, Stu and his poster, and the photographer (whoever he was). All my attempts either came out overly compressed and awkward, or laboured. Thinking as a comic was not working.

Will I ever draw this scene? I don't know. I may though; I'll have to take a good look at my work and consider it closely when I have more time.

Right now, there's an essay due in three weeks. I've got an assload of reading - not just regular reading, but close reading. However, remember Bevan's promise right at the beginning, folks; expect some filler art soon.

10. Dairy Queen

This strip was drawn on one sheet or paper instead of using one sheet per panel as previously. Why? Well, to see whether or not drawing the whole thing on one page would make things easier.

I think the experiment was a success.

The woman, by the way, has a very interesting history behind her, and since she runs the Prom' Dairy we'll find out what it is in due course. (Or as soon as I get a writeup done about her and her parent society.)

Full marks to those who already twigged to the webcomic reference :)

11. The Big Picture

Another one-sheet wonder. Sorry about the delay, but I had other things that took precedence. Namely, essays.

This strip does have a more serious purpose: placing Te Kore in a slightly larger context. Which large town is "the Big Smoke"? Well... you'll find out.

12. Minor (Celebrity) Problems

What you can't see — because I edited it out, of course — is that the thinks bubble in the middle right is actually a separate piece of paper. I originally started a "realistic" version before deciding that it's meaning wasn't obvious.

Thinks bubbles, silhouetting, and little bits of paper. What an advance.

13. Moving Day

Greg says farewell to the old flat... which ended up modelled on the one my Gran lived in.

I won't say anymore to prevent depressing myself.

14. Holden On

Greg's wheels are a souvenir from Bogans From Outer Space, and described as "arguably the worst spaceship ever to appear on screen." As Greg's character (Juniper) did most of the driving, he became fond of the dressed-up HQ Holden, and managed to drive away with it once filming wrapped up.

To research this vehicle, I spent about an hour in Te Papa — the big museum here in Wellington — sketching sculptor Jeff Thompson's old station wagon, which is much like a regular HQ except for all the panels being covered in corrugated iron.

What you can't see — hopefully! — is the ink spill from where a knocked-over container (with lid) oozed all weekend. I thought all the ink in it had dried up. Fargnax.

There's a Goon Show reference in this and the previous strip. Betcha can't spot it.

Owing to time pressures and lack of skill, I can't depict Greg's travels to Te Kore, to the sounds of The Clean's Wipe Me I'm Lucky.

15. Tonight's Human Interest Story

The "crowd scene" in the bottom panel scared the bejeezus out of me. I'm not talented enough to be able to draw lots of people (I am not Andrew Broadmore,) so I cheated by using silhouettes in the foreground.

Originally, the third interviewee was to be Layla Reopardu, but I decided Bevan was a safer bet. His wording is off, but I felt that slip was more natural.

That "Holmes" fellow had his own TV news show right after the TV1 news, does talkback radio on a nationwide station, has a CD of song covers out, and a biography, and nobody in my household can stand the gibbering little gnome.

16. The Price of Milk

Some time later, some strong directional light, and the plot veers off in a different direction to what I expected. Oh well, the groundwork has actually been laid for what I was trying to develop plotwise. Personally, I'm happy with the way these panels came out.

17. Modern Manners

Greg, Layla Jendolari Reopardu. Layla, Greg.

The bottom panels were damn hard to get right, and here you can see the trouble I have with too-small hands. My forearm is slightly less than two handspans long (i.e. from wrist to the tip of the middle finger), but try telling my eyes that.

18. That First Night in a New Place

And so the tumultuous day winds to a close, with both Greg and Layla reflecting on their meeting, and the stars coming out.

Layla, for all her independent leanings, still puts a high value on her Gryrnese heritage (hence the Alchemist glasses, ponytail and ring-neck coat.) She also keeps in touch with her fellow Gryrnese, obviously.

This, then, brings the scene-setting to a close. We have met the two main protagonists, we have seen the locale, and, most importantly, we know where the booze is!

19. It's not a Bug

And now, the first strip of the first real chapter, "Signage." There's three plot elements referred to in this strip; see if you can spot them all!

This strip was drawn and inked relatively quickly, probably prepared in a total of five or six hours, not including ideas. (I am particularly proud of my pretty flowers :)

Actually, in these panels I seem to have used a "rule of three" in design: Two points of interest connected by a third bit of background (such as the office counter.) This rule, of course, is flexible.

20. Putting On A.I.R.S.

Enter Agent Morecambe. Anyone who recognises the movie reference — no, not that one, the other one — well done.

Actually, Morecambe was going to be an assumed name, but I came up with a title for his and Greg’s eventual meeting that I couldn't resist. Also, Eric is quite amusing, in his batty off-by-one way.

21. No Admittance Except On

Right, that puts paid to all the boring plot-setting element stuff.

And besides, Stu's more or less "on loan" until Greg gets settled in. You didn't really think he's on Greg's side, did you?

22. Greg's Milk Run

At this point in the narrative, Jennifer Diane Reitz' Unicorn Jelly had one strip left to go. I mentioned this so that you'll go purchase lots of copies of the books.

23. Morecambe and Wise Guy

In case you hadn't noticed, Greg and Eric have... met... before.

I know how Greg was going to finish his last sentence here: "You wouldn't recognise the truth if..."

What do you think he was going to say? Answers by email please.

24. Posing in the Nude for That!?

I was going to add dialogue until I decided it was superfluous.

If you're wondering why Stu has shoulders like a gridiron player in the second panel, it's because originally I intended to use exaggerated perspective, but I flubbed it, like the folds in his shirt.

Ah well! At least we know Greg's plans.

25. All the Fuses have been Lit

Sorry I'm late! It's just that I went into town to see Spirited Away on Wednesday, so that was a whole day lost. That and planning computer upgrades.

Also, we see a new approach to sound effects, using the "Expand selection" function. I actually use the "Contract" function on all the speech bubbles, but this is the first time I've used it on text.

And yes, that's what modern telephones sound like to me.