9: Nightriderz

Bless me readers, for I have sinned. It has been 10 days since my last update.

The landlord called us in the middle of the week and announced he would be coming by to pick up some things from the attic. At the time, our house was a total mess, and we freaked right the fuck out.

Since then I have been busting my ass every waking hour cleaning the place, or recovering from exhaustion from doing so. So not so much with the Fishheadman. However, I've had much time to think about FHM and contemplate the increase of quality.

I tried a new technique with this page, and I'm quite pleased with the outcome. I drew the comic on a piece of graph paper, which allowed me to use the lines to measure things. Then I scanned it, cleaned it up, and adjusted the panels for optimum framing. After all this, I printed out the result, taped it to a piece of bristol board, and inked it on my light box. It's a variation on a technique Eric from Minimalist Stick Figure Theater told me about.

Next page, I do believe I'll try drawing different layers of the comic on different pages, to give it more of an animation feel, and allow me to really go into detail without making the colorization process a nightmare.

For those who didn't get the punchline, go read Questionable Content.

8: Welcome to the Vomitorium

This one took a lot less time to finish, which was a nice change of pace from page 7. I've changed my method yet again, implementing the light box in a battle of the pencil against the ink.

My friend Eric, proprietor of Minimalist Stick Figure Theater, holds movie nights on occasion, and last night was definitely the best so far. We watched The Shadow, which was pure comedy gold, and Adam brought a crazy spaghetti zombie film that featured a miniature 30 year old playing an 8 year old. I busted a nut laughing the first time I saw him, and things just got worse from there.

The best line of the night goes to Kyle when, during the Shadow, we viewed a message flying through a complicated network of pneumatic tubes and Kyle said "It's the internet!"

Second place goes to whoever said "Meanwhile, on the set of Brazil" immediately afterwards. I'm pretty sure that was Dan.

I sometimes fantasize about what I will say on my next Fishheadman post, but when it comes time to write, I just want to get the damn comic up.

7: The Fuzz

I've got a fever. And the only cure is not doing this comic!

No, seriously. I've been sick. What's your excuse?? ...Sorry, I'm being defensive, I know. That wasn't fair and I'm sorry.

Expect things to pick up from here on out. We are officially past the birthing stage. Thank you for letting me give birth into your eyes. Thank you. I'll never forget this...
...moment.

I like how this panel explodes over the whole house. It really breaks out of the past few that have all been dialog in the bathroom. I hope the pacing isn't too painful. If there is one flaw every linear webcomic has, it's that they all seem to drag on forever. There's precedence, dammit! The pacing issue has a lot to do with the page by page delivery. When you buy a comic, you get to read every page at once.

I dug out my old light box, so I'm going to try something a little different. We'll see if it pans out with the next page. This is an evolving process that's every bit about me getting good at this as it is about me telling a story.

6: In Which Our Hero Discovers the Lot of an Artist

This one took a lot longer than it had any right to, due to extenuating circumstances. It seems like I scanned the page ages ago.

The story is starting to pick up. I've introduced the main characters, and soon we'll be exploring the setting. Fishheadman takes place in a world similar, yet different from our own. Different in the same way the Japanese Spiderman TV show was from the tales we're familiar with. Though I can 87% guarantee Fishheadman will not involve giant robots. The possibility exists, but I'm opposed to giant robots on general principle. There is a line where the size of an automated humanoid simply becomes redundant.

I get a lot of my ideas from current events. I am a news junkie, to which the staggering number of podcasts on my aggregator can attest. I swear, I don't even listen to music on my iPod anymore, except for the occasional Brian Eno when I can't seem to fall asleep.

Yesterday was my favorite girl Elizabeth's birthday. I hope Fishheadman becomes profitable at some point so I can buy her nice things instead of photoshopping pictures of my scantily clad form bursting out of a birthday cake and printing said images on photopaper.

I have some ideas for promotional materials that I will be producing eventually so I can pimp the comic at conventions and eventually sell said merchandise.

5: RE:ANS (HZB)

Here's a picture of my workspace for anyone interested.

I'm listening to Robert Reich at the Commonwealth Club of California right now. How he lost to Mitt Romney is a fucking mystery to me. You western mass bucktoothed pony fucking farmers should be ashamed of yourselves.

What I like about this page is that, along with a tasteful gag about zombie fuckin', is that I sneaked in the date. The back cover features an advertisement for American Lifts, which are the best damn lifts on the planet. I have had every lift I've need covered by these guys. That's a lot of lifting!

The only thing that could be better about the ad is if the motto was "We produce products that produce productivity."

I've been watching a great TV show called "Invasion" that some how slipped under the radar of the Lost/Heroes/Surface set. The shows pace is artfully executed, the characters are equally believable and interesting, with back stories that are revealed without the ham handed flashbacks of Lost. If you want a really good show that tells a story, I suggest you check it out.

4: The Ghost of Billy Hero

Rolling right along. Expect page five in a hot minute. Give or take a few days.

This one was the stumbling block, the page I wasn't looking forward to doing. There's no real 'gag' to this one. I wanted to focus on introducing the new character, and lost sight of any kind of joke.

Despite being a comedy, Fishheadman is, first and foremost, an adventure story, and there will be times where humor is sacrificed in the name of that vengeful and almighty deity, Plot.

I swear to god, last night I was thinking how I could wait another day before putting out another page. Then I immediately saw that thought for the threat it was; I know first hand how that kind of laziness leads to the death of a project, if it doesn't neutralize the inchoate seed of the idea instantaneously, like some kind of radioactive mental abortion, or a turtle birth on Seagull Island.

So I did it even though I didn't want to. It was pulling teeth for the first bit of it, but I get into a flow, where I lose track of time and just enjoy tooling around with my drawings in photoshop.

Now I've watched the sun rise from the wrong side of the the bed. Sleep eludes me, but Fishheadman and the Ghost of Billy Hero do not.