NEWS and musings

05.10.07
Heres tonights page. Read it here.


05.09.07
Todays page. Adam panics and maks himself look silly. Jason cuddles him. Read it here.


05.08.07
I was at an anime con over the weekend, so in the run up, duration, and aftermath of that, I was relaxing and didn't update. I'll be on a lighter schedule for a while until I get back in the groove of updating, so this week it will be just one page a day. Read todays page here.


05.01.07
Two pages. Read it here and here.


04.30.07
Two pages. I've been having a nonstop panic attack since Thursday, bit I'm never going to stop updating once a day for ANYTHING.Read it here.


04.29.07
Two pages. I've had a rough few days, but I won't let ANYTHING stop me from updating at least one page per day, fucking PERIOD. If I had to found my own ISP, server, build my own powerplant, lay the foundation for my own fucking city, this comic WILL go on! Read it here.



04.28.07
Four pages. I said I would make up the lack of updates. So now things are caught up. I just need to get over my panic attacks and keep drawing. Koon initiates his dead plan, and Jean and Maria discuss their underwear. Read it here.


04.27.07
Only one page again, for reasons I'll go in to later. Read it here.


04.26.07
Only one page tonight. I'm running on 2 1/2 hours of sleep. Add to that a very annoying visit to the dentist for a deep cleaning. Ugh. Anyhow, one page. Read it here.

04.25.07
These pages don't add much to the story, they're just sequential action pages of the gas grenade going off in the room. Read it here.


04.24.07
Two pages. More on the date, and Koon creates a diversion. This U.F.O. story arc is not 60 pages long, which means I've drawn and posted 60 pages in about a month. My right arm is tired, my eyes are strained, and my back hurts from leaning over the drawing desk. And this is just ONE thing I'm spending my day doing, the rest of my time is devoted to my graphic design work. I'm very happy to have brought the story this far and to have devoted myself to it as much as I have. Read it here.



04.23.07
Three pages, just like I said. I deliver on my promises, unlike reality, life, and the world. Some things sound better on paper than they work...on paper. I'm not sure where these pages fall. I'm not dissatisfied with them, but I'm not happy with how some of the backgrounds and props look, especially that phone. I'm getting happier with my use of tones, at least. I was unsure how to approach the torture scene in the first panel. At first I had this plan to make Jason go in to this big Jack Bauer style torture sequence, but when it came to draw it, I just couldn't bring myself to make the main character show such vicious cruelty when it wasn't called for. But I was still unsure how to handle the sequence, so I decided to take an easy way out, and have the guy break down and tell everything only after a small cut. The whole argument about the ethics of torture is something I want to address later in the comic, but this wasn't the time to launch that discussion.
Read it here.

From now on, this news section will also include misc. commentary on anything I want to talk about, and the occasional photo of the day.
As many have probably noticed, Boris Yeltsin died today. I have to say, I was not expecting to wake up today and read the news of Yeltsin's death, but he was getting on in the years. Yeltsin led Russia after the fall of Communism in 1991, and while he was the first freely elected leader of modern Russia, and he is credited by some as helping to topple Communism, he never managed to get a solid handle on things, not enough to drag Russia out of the chaos and confusion that followed the collapse of the U.S.S.R. Hell, I don't know if anyone could have. It has me thinking, anyway, because cold war history is something that I intend to work in to the comic in a big way later on.



04.22.07
Just one tonight. This was an exhausting week and I don't have the energy to scan and touch up another page. I'll make it up with three pages tomorrow night, which will keep it on schedule. In any case, more on Maria and Jean's date, and an anecdote of an adventre Jean and Maria had when they were teens. This drawing of Jean is something I'm very happy with, and it really did turn out exactly as I wanted it to. I was originally going to have her legs positioned a bit differently, but I thought this would work better. I came up with the idea of Jean's mother being an old-school goth/deathrock girl a long time ago, but there was never a moment when the subject was relevant enough to mention until now. For those that don't know, the Batcave was considered the first "goth club" ever. Anyway, the page is here.


04.21.07
Two more pages. Read it here and here.

04.20.07
Two pages. More on the date. For those wondering, "Sienna" is a shade of brown. I think. Read it here.


04.19.07
Two pages. Jean and Maria go on a date. Read it here.


04.18.07
Like I said, three pages today. Read it here.



04.17.07
One page today. Three tomorrow. Read it here.



04.16.07
Two more pages. Read it here and here.


04.15.07
Thats my drawing desk. I'm going to redesign this page. Its had a new layout before, but its been the same basic theme and idea as it was in June of 05.



04.15.07
Backbreaking. Two pages. Read it here.

04.14.07
Two more pages. Adam argues with a campus official, and Alex has another argument with Cole. Read it here.

04.13.07
Tonights pages. More involving Klass and the militia compound. I enjoy making my own pseudo-tones in photoshop. In other news, I've been working at a feverish pace since beginning the update-a-day schedule. I've posted 30 or so pages since then, and there are still another 20 or so done. I generally do 2 1/1 to 3 1/2 pages a day, barring anything interrupting me for a long period of time. I've managed to inscrease my speed, and I'm starting to approach a level of quality that I'm somewhat satisfied with. anyway, tonights pages are here.


04.12.07
Tonight's update. Not a whole lot to say about it. Read it here.


04.11.07
Tonights pages. Maria asks Jean something, and Grant gives Jason the run down on an investigative lead. Read it here and here.


04.10.07
Here's tonights update. That is all. Read it here.

04.09.07
Two pages, reused from a previously dropped story that was merged in to this one. The next day, and we switch to Jean for a moment. Read it here.



04.08.07
Tonights pages. Jason and Adam talk while getting ready for bed, and we learn of more shady transpirings. Read it here.




04.07.07
Two more pages. Jason and Adam at home. In case anyone has wondered, Jason is 26, Adam is 22. I don't think it's ever been stated in the comic before, but thats how old they are. Read it here.



04.06.07
Two more pages. We learn the identity of "Alex", but not his motives. More of Majestic-12. Also, Jason has a surprise waiting for him at home. The dog is a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, in case it's unclear. Read it here. and here.



04.05.07
Two more pages. In these two pages, we meet all 12 council members of Majestic-12, which makes this the perfect time to recap whats going on, for those who don't know. Many conspiracy theories posit that, in 1947, after Roswell, the government decided that a secret organization needed to be establish to deal with all things related to aliens and alien technology, and to that end,President Truman established an roganization known as Majestc-12, whch was given carte-blanche to do whatever was needed to cover up the reality of alien contact with humanity. Conspiracy theorists assert that Majestic-12 is nothing less than a massive shadow government, made up of the most elite people in the country, if not the world. The group is named Majestic-12 because it is governed by a council of 12 members. These pages introduce those members. In this comic, howeverm Majestic-12 does not deal with extraterrestrial threats, since my comic does not involve aliens. It's still a shadow government, but it deals with earthbound enemies. A few bits of trivia;
-David Johnsons last name is taken from former president Lyndon Banes Johnson, and his appearance is vaguely based on LBJ.
-Most of the members are are seen with bluetooth headsets.
Aubreys company, Jones-Jodorowsky Manufacturing, is named after both Indiana Jones, and filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky. He was a former Mj-12 member, whose story and fate will be revealed eventually.
-Just to clarify, Frankie is a neurologist and MJ-12 member, but this is not meant to imply that she experiments on the patients in her hospital. She is actually very warm and kind, and goes out of her way to make sure those in her care are comfortable and treated humanely.
-Most of the members of the council are American, but a few are from other nations. Specifically, Mike is obviously from England, being the director of MI6, Kaoru is form Japan, and Vincent is from Germany.
-There are two gay members of the council (Jason and Kaoru), one lesbian (Samantha) and one bisexual member (Faireborne).
Read it here.



04.04.07
Two more pages. Alex and Cole dislike each other, a lot. We learn that CMP was not the only breach that took place. Not a lot else to say. Random trivia: Adam's phone is a Palm Treo. The psych hospital Adam and Jason have been in, and Frankie is the owner of, is based on McLean hospital. The vehicle Alex drives is a BMW X3. Lots of text used in these two pages. I'm trying to catch the comic up to where I want it to be, and lettering is one of the most time consuming things in making the comic, so I do this to cut down on time. I think that, in a few weeks, I'll be completely caught up. Read it here.



04.03.07
Two more pages. Alex has a heated conversation with Cole, the evil billionaire software developer. (No, this isn't supposed to be some kind of comment on Bill Gates.) Adam and Jean meet with Samantha, who has appeared a few times before. In case anyone is wondering, yes, Samantha is named after Samantha Mulder from the X-Files, and "Alex" is named after Alex Krychek from the X-Files. I'm unoriginal. We also meet Frankie, an old friend of Jason and Grant's wife. and learn a bit about just what happened to Adam after he was freed from bein a human test subject years ago. Read it here.