Pre-Announcement and Plug

Submitted by Chris W. on Tue, 10/13/2009 - 20:32

The newest Jim is finished and will be uploaded tomorrow. By this point, I think my style's developed to where I can consider the comic officially "started". Although I've already made 4, I tend to think of them as prototypes, leading up to what I want to make, here and now. The characters aren't going to be "different" in terms of personality, but they'll definitely look slicker, the composition will be more ambitious, and the settings will be more detailed. I'm really satisfied with this latest comic, and things can only go up from here.

I also feel kind of bad that the comic takes so long to make. It took almost a month just to make this latest one, with Stan & Rich running me about half an hour. The level of shading and detail in the Jims is just immense. And working that much detail into tiny panels, sometimes less than 2 inches square, can be painstaking. But oh man, is it ever wonderful when something works, when the image that swims about in the perfect, crystal-clear world of the mind bumbles its way onto the page, with every drop of its character intact. It hurts a little, because you hope that people will be enriched by it, and you don't know if you've succeeded. But listening to people tell me how the work impacts them, and how they want to pore over every detail, is the part that makes it all worthwhile. It's even better than the satisfaction of having made it.

Especially when they're people you look up to! Jay Stephens (http://jaystephens.com) is a local artist I met at the Guelph Pen Club (http://guelphpenclub.blogspot.com). You might know some of his work from Cartoon Network and Discovery Kids, since he created The Secret Saturdays and Tutenstein for them, respectively. Jay is an amazing cartoonist, and we happen to agree on a lot of things about the animation industry. His stuff incorporates tons of different styles, from 20s classic to 60s Hana-Barbera to just straight up DRAWINS. Check him out!

There's a lot left to do. The site needs tweaking, so maybe I'll take a look at that instead.

Oh wait, I'm hungry again. Never mind.

Your pal,
Chris W.