The Interior Landscape.

For a while I've been working on finding the best way to draw landscapes... Then I wrote some jokes that took place inside. Boy was my face red. I had no idea how to draw furniture. I mean, obviously I know what couches and tables look like... But I couldn't render them with any character. (I'm still working on it.) Drawing backgrounds is at least as important as drawing the people who interact with them. I know that since comics began, plenty of artists kept the 'camera' in a fixed location, and only draw their characters from the front, and then they'd draw back drops from head on. This is the easiest way to do it, (and faster) but I think it can be a good way to stifle the life of a comic... it's not a world then, it's just a shallow stage. Not to say that it should be avoided at all cost, but it's got to be an intentional decision, not a decision based on the fact that I just can't properly cartoon a television set.

Visual Language

For the longest time, I've been hung up with rendering. I always thought the most important thing was how well something was drawn. I would always compulsively "fill the space" whenever making any cartoon, and I'd draw everything in the cartoon with equal care to make it look as good as possible. This lead to some nice looking comics, some nice looking, utterly incomprehensible comics. People would look and my comics, and say "they look good", followed with, "I don't get it." I often found myself explaining things. It's because you could look at a single panel, and have no idea what was important, or what I was trying to communicate. (but they looked sharp)

What does this have to do with the sketchbook page? Well, I've been trying to figure out a variety of ways to visually communicate some of the internal workings of Adam's brains, and one thing I was playing with was having the panels shrink down around his friend's head while he was talking, showing him starting to be ignored. What's on the page is the last panel before his friend is phased out with a 'pop' or some other sound. Those little things are robot ninjas (running around Adam's imagination.) All this just goes back to exploring ways of visually communicating a story without having to spell everything out in dialog. The only question is, how far can I push the visual language? It really depends on the format I suppose...

Comic progress has stalled due to the need to make a living. I've got to push myself to get busy again... Must budget time better.

I don't know... I'm gonna have to write more jokes I think... I'm having trouble coming up with anything I feel is up to par...

Need jokes involving robot pirates.