Yet Another Web Comic

Unfortunately, I tried to do a lot today and color this strip at the last minute, and a layer mistake set me back a half hour, so the colors will be flat. Fortunately, part of those other things include scanning some samples from my sketchbook for the gallery page, so be on the lookout for that in the coming days.

The mark of an amateur is putting your friends in your strip. Sure, it makes everyone happy to see themselves in a comic, but then you`re stuck in a writing corner. I`ve often told everyone that the characters in my strip share name and some characteristics, but nobody is a carbon copy. This still leads to awkward moments…Like Joelle being a grammar Nazi, which is two steps beyond a grammar vigilante. Sorry. Understand the character is not you. To those aspiring cartoonists, I strongly encourage you to come up with characters not inspired by your friends. If you can`t help it, at least change names to protect the innocent. People will see themselves or others in your characters anyway, and they will be based on your experiences, so you can`t escape it entirely, but it`s a real n00b thing to do it this explicitly. I would know, being a huge n00b when I started this.

I like the conflicting personalities here, and I`m glad to be writing for some other characters and exploring them further. I also like the lobster riding on Joelle`s head…that`s totally awesome.

And by the way, I realize there`s a bit of irony in a man with middling grammar to write for a grammar nazi, so forgive that up front. If you must correct me, you can write an e-mail, but I`ll probably never correct it. I have too much to do to go back, but going forward I`ll try to pay attention if it`s not too unabsorbent for my thick head to ingest.