Thursday, August 07, 2008

EARTHWARD-HO! FRIDAY!

There are TOO MANY exciting things to talk about this Friday!!!

First up, there's a BRAND NEW Earthward-Ho strip today! I'm super proud of this one and it's the first of many that are in a brand new format. CHECK IT OUT NOW!

Secondly, I did a interview for Fulle Circle Productions that you can read here: http://www.fullecirclestuff.blogspot.com/
I'm spillin' the beans so you can see what it's REALLY like to work for cartoon big shots like John K., Dave Wasson, Jorge Gutierrez, Gabe Swarr, and Dave Thomas!

Third, Discover the Secrets of Making a Dumm Comic in 5 or so Dumm steps...

For this step by step I'm using the very first panel of this weeks Earthward-Ho! You will notice there is no dialog, don't worry, I didn't forget it, just go to Dumm Comics to look at the words (and complete strip)

The first pass is the thumbnail stage and it's super rough. I'm just trying to figure out where all the characters are going to be as well as where to put the word balloons and how large they need to be to fit the dialog. The main reason these are drawn so rough is because I may go through 3 or 4 version until I'm happy with the basic layout and don't want to get bogged down in details.







The second pass is basically just a tied down version of the thumbnail step. At this point I'm thinking more about the poses and especially (this is my favorite part) the expressions.







The third step is probably the most labor intensive. I take the roughs and scan 'em into the computer. From there I import them into Flash and ink them using the brush tool all the while making tiny corrections to the placement and size of the character, word balloons and backgrounds.







Once it's all inked I type in the font (jivetalk) and color the strip (still in Flash)







Finally, when I'm happy with everything I save it out of Flash as a jpeg and import it into Photoshop to add textures and shading.


All done. See how easy it is??? Be sure to check out Dumm Comics to view the strip in it's entirety!


And Finally, be sure to check out the brand new weekend guest spots starting tomorrow at www.dummcomics.com

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Earthward-Ho! things and stuff...

Wow! Got back from Comic-Con early this week and I'm still trying to recover from sensory overload. While I was there I got to meet up with a bunch of my pals from Dumm Comics and share some libations. Also we all handed out postcards to promote the site and I just thought I'd share mine here.








Oh, and here are a few ruffs from this weeks Earthward-Ho! Go check it out!





Saturday, July 19, 2008

Dumm Contest!!!




T-minus "PLOP" and counting! Only 2 more days until PLOP WEEK is in FULL EFFECT! Rumors abound regarding this mind-blowingly mysterious event! All we can do to appease this RABID DEMAND for further PLOP INFORMATION is to kick off a FABULOUS PLOP CONTEST!

Go to the forums. Clearly explain your theory regarding the eternal question: "WHAT IS PLOP?"

You don't have to guess the right answer, but our favorite theory, right or wrong, will win a FREE DUMM COMICS T-SHIRT! (see below).

The adventure begins here: http://www.dummcomics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=76

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Dumm Comics Banner!

New Earthward-Ho! Dumm Comics Banner...

Monday, May 05, 2008

Dumm Comics Dot Com!!!



I'm super excited to announce a brand new adventure I'm partaking in! It's a website that features daily comic strips by some of my good friends and myself. Each of us gets a day of the week to share our strip with all the fine folks on the internet. Here's the breakdown...

Monday is Gabe Swarr's Big Pants Mouse
Tuesday is Sean Szeles' Through the Port-Hole
Wednesday is Katie Rice and Luke Cormican's Skadi
Thursday is Ricky Garduno's 1930 Nightmare Theatre
and Friday is Earthward-Ho! by me.

Not to be left out is the amazing Matt Gadbois who has done a great job at building our website.

You can check it out right now by going to
www.dummcomics.com


This here is Sam, he's the main character of the strip. Sam is obsessed with all things outer space. When he's not being abducted by aliens he's looking through his telescope searching for them.





This is a typical "eyball headed alien" that can be seen in this weeks strip...



And finally here is a glimpse at an alien which will be making an appearance in upcoming strips...