And today I bring you the music of one of my favorite artists.  It’s fairly difficult to get copies of her singles, but I have the distinct advantage of living with her.  So suck it, fools.  Below are two tracks from Jad Montenegro with percussions by Dave Ibao, and bass by Pjoe Sabanpan — the finished radio edit of Guitar Man, followed by a rough demo of Invincible.  Enjoy.

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Time was I’d go through the trouble of redrawing a whole panel with a mistake in it, or at least do a patch or a frisket for a small revision.  I’ve covered up many asymmetrical faces and oversized hands this way, and boy did it take time.  Having to rescan single elements in, then meticulously pasting it via Photoshop like some digital crane operator was never something I looked forward to.

Digital drawing didn’t right away occur to me as the obvious solution.  I’ve been coloring with a mouse for as long as I can remember, and when my peers demanded I get a drawing tablet, it only ever hit me as a coloring tool.  Silly me.

It’s no giant leap, I know.  But now all my page and panel revisions are done digitally.  I erase stuff out and draw things in, all with the Wacom.  Only the correction phase has changed though, all the original art is still done traditionally.  And that retention  makes me happy for some strange reason.

About a week ago I completely adopted the habit of doing absolutely all my spot blacks in the computer.  It’s faster and much less messy, but I’m also left, for all intents and purposes, with an unfinished original page.  There is a balance to be struck here, and I haven’t found it yet.

The irony of being torn between a laborious and messy physical process versus a speedy and accurate ethereal one doesn’t escape me, but hey… comics versus art?

Years ago, when I still had an allowance, a Magic the Gathering obsession, and a fixed bed time, my sister told me that the best way to get to eat your favorite dishes was to learn to cook them yourself. This little nugget of wisdom, of course, was prompted by me always asking her to prepare things like cinnamon french toast and apple pie.  I remember this now, as I am finishing up brunch — french toast and some bacon.

I am at the desk, and there is work to be done.  Today is to be about layouts, a coupla page corrections, and some heavy-duty scanning.  Today is about drawing.

The medium of comics is a funny animal.  Love it too much, and you begin to see the strings; the cyclical nature of the stories get to you and you find yourself scoffing at new ideas, comparing them to some Bronze Age arc you barely remember anyway; and you smell editorial decisions where you could once just sit down, shut the fuck up, and enjoy the ride.

Love Comics too little, and as a storyteller, you feel like a fraud.  There is no passive enjoyment in an artistic medium that is defined by long-term character investment and serial story delivery.

And so we come to a crossroads.  How much do I love comics?

The question didn’t occur to me to ask until I saw this week’s pull list and found myself getting more excited about indies rather than the mainstream.  And more often than not, I feel passionate about the quality of the books I read because I feel a very real stake in it.  I make comics too, having done freelance work for over two years now.  And on top of that, I review them.  I am no longer just a fanboy.  I may be a small fish, but at least my feet are wet.  And this is why the books matter. The better the books are, the better the entire medium is.  And the better the medium is, the more room there is for new stories — not just tights, not just powers.

The best way to ensure that I get to read the comics I want to read… is to make them myself.

Today is to be about drawing.  Tonight, about writing.

It’s about midnight and Jad and I are working in our dining room/office.  My artsy stuff is on the dining table, and she’s typing up some internet voodoo on the momentarily-displaced desktop.  Studio isn’t quite done up yet, so we’ll at least wait until a proper AC is installed before we even think about actually moving PCs into that space.

That said, working in the dining room ain’t half bad.

I’m allowed to eat chips here.

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1888 #2 is back on track after a brief hiatus to accommodate some editorial changes — nothing too heavy, but I can certainly see the narrative value in what was modified.  Wolfgang and the guys are onto something big, and they know it, and so the blood gushes on.

Been giving JUDAH and CLOSETWORLD a lot of love lately, so those two are feeling all fuzzy, I’m glad to say.  I had a project fall through the other week though, so I’m looking to start moving on a fourth project that I’ve had on the back burner for quite some time.

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Life in Davao is a far cry from how things are in Cebu, but there’s something to be said for living away from too much city noise.  The sound of delivery boys on motorbikes with ridiculously loud tailpipes passing through the neighborhood in the morning has been replaced with the occasional soy curd or vegetable vendor.  Not to jinx anything, but my output has improved and my ideas feel more fresh.  If I want noise (and come on, we all do sometimes), I have the internet.

And chips.