Web Comic Wednesdays

First off, some of you may have noticed that Tutorial Tuesday did not happen.  That is because yesterday’s workflow got a bit ahead of me.  I’m in the middle of preparing the whole post and should have it up by end of day today, so today becomes a two-fer. 

Onto the real business of today.  It’s Wednesday, which means new web comics!  I went back and forth about what I should talk about today.  I like a lot of different web comics and have spoken about some of them before.  To that end to keep it frosty I’ll be talking about web comics that I haven’t mentioned before. 

First up is Kate Beaton and Hark! A Vagrant.  Kate is a Historian who took her love of history and a whip smart sense of humor and started doing web strips.  The strips have gotten so popular that Drawn and Quarterly put out a collection of them.  Check out the funny here:

                                     Hark! A Vagrant 

 

Next up we’ve got Cleopatra In Spaaaace! by Mike Maihack.  This fun ongoing series is about a teenaged Cleopatra VII who is transported to the future from her home time of 52 BC, and is the center figure of a centuries long war. 

                                 Cleopatra In Spaaaace!

Series creator Mike Maihack has worked on such books as Jim Henson’s The Storyteller, Cow Boy and Comic Book Tattoo.

 

Finally for today we have My Sister The Freak by Dani Jones.  Dani has made a niche for herself working in all ages and children’s publishing and now is turning her fun style to web comics.  My sister the freak is about two sisters who are learning to deal with life and the ups and downs of family.  Did I mention the alien monsters?  Volume 1 is available to read and Dani is currently working on volume 2.

                                 My Sister The Freak

 

And that wraps up this week’s Web Comic Wednesday!  Tune in later today for the postponed Tutorial Tuesday, which is all about inking!  remember if you know a web comic I should be reading, or have a web comic of your own, tell me about it by leaving a comment in the comments section!  Until next time, keep it weird!

Sketch Monday

                                                 

                                I love drawing fish men.  This handsome devil is for a project I'm working on with my buddy Dave.  The tendency when drawing fish men now is to begin to move towards what Guillermo Del Toro did with Abe Sapien.  I mean it is hard not to.  Abe is a great design.  I immediately wanted to do something that moved the design away from that a bit and into something different.  Ray Harryhausen the greatest of all monster makers said if you can draw the creature in repose and make it look believable then you've got a good monster.  With that in mind, I moved the fish man into a seated pose, and saw that what I'm really going for is a more amphibian look.  This totally had an effect on the overall design.  Can't wait to do more on this.  

Check back here next Monday for more sketch goodness, and tune in tomorrow for Tutorial Tuesday!

Web Comics Wednesday

Wednesday is traditionally New Comics Day.  That day where you would run to the comic shop after school, work or during your lunch break and pick up your stuff.  The issues that you had been waiting whole months for.  That used to give me shivers.  Now, I can't make it to the store every Wednesday.  I live in the suburbs of Pennsylvania, and while there is a shop within a reasonable distance of my apartment, work has a tendency to keep me strapped to the drawing board.  When I do get to the shop I notice that my once very large stack of comics has dropped to maybe 2 single issues and more often than not a trade or Original Graphic Novel, kind of like this one:

                                               The Battle Of Blood And Ink
It's a shameless plug, I know :)  But nonetheless, the trend I'm noticing is that I'm picking up less and less single issues in stores.  I find myself looking at more and more webcomics. To that end I wanted to share with you some of the webcomics that I've been reading lately.  Every week on Wednesday I will post up 3 brand new webcomics links that I have been reading.  Oh, and if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to have them!  So let's begin shall we?

The first web comic is Red's Planet, which I found out about through newsarama.  Red's Planet is about a young orphan whom everyone calls Red much to her chagrin, who after running away from her foster home is kidnapped by aliens and stranded on a strange planet in a crashed starship with a motley crew of interstellar flea-market goers finds herself in a worse situation than her foster home. 
                                                                   
                                                         Red's Planet

Red's Planet was created by Eddie Pittman whose previous work was in animation on films like Mulan and Tarzan. 

The second web comic for today is Escape From Planet Nowhere, which I found through the link's page on Red's Planet.  Personally I've found tons of web comics just by clicking through suggested links.  Escape From Planet Nowhere is about a soldier trapped on an Alien Planet just trying to get off world so he can catch the perfect wave.
                                                     
                                            Escape From Planet Nowhere

Escape From Planet Nowhere was created by Otis Farmpton, best known for the graphic novel Oddly Normal.

The third  web comic for today is also by Otis Frampton (a two-fer!) and is called Song Of Xanthia.  It's a fantasy story about a girl named Min who finds a symbol of great power.  Right now the story clocks in at 13 pages with more on the way.

                                                       Song Of Xanthia

And that wraps it up for Webcomic Wednesday!  Be sure to check back next week for more great webcomics, and remember if you have a webcomic or know of one that I should be reading, send it along.  Also , Sketch Monday will be returning next week, as well as a new feature titled What I'm reading Thursdays.  Until then, keep it weird!