Llama: Well then, have you guys met face to face?

John: Haha…no, we have not.  The magic and wonder of the interwebz.  Pluck was like starting a family without the joy of childbirth.

Gabe and I were recently interviewed about PLUCK over at pop culture Ezine Rocket Llama HQ.  I somehow got around to actually talking about the comic…

Check out the full interview here.

As most of you guys have probably already gotten sick of used to by now, I like to post sketches and such just to share a bit of the process behind certain projects.  Here are the rough thumbnails for PLUCK, along with the finished fully inked renderings.

Though the roughs for page one were pretty much what I wanted to go with fairly early on, this still took a bit longer than I wanted because I was actually designing the characters right on the page.  I had done a handful of prelim sketches to get some looks down, but I wasn’t really happy with any of them.  I’m a big fan of HBO’s Entourage though, and it may not be apparent to anyone other than myself, but I imagine Pluck’s mannerisms and speech to resemble that of a young Kevin Connoly.

The black outlines for clouds in panels 2 and 3 were afterthoughts, but I hope they helped to add a bit of weight as well as frame those beats in the story.I imagined Dreda to have black hair initially, but I found it fit the character better to have her be a dirty blonde.  The negative silhouette of the knight on the horse was a late addition to this page, as I felt the thumbnail needed a bit of clarity.

This was easily one of my favorite pages to do, since it’s the first time it becomes apparent that we’re dealing with a fantasy story.  And I gotta say… nothing pisses me off more than pretty boy knights, so I was just snickering as I was putting this together.

The last panel of this page came out a little less dynamic than I would have liked, but I think it’s somewhat clear anyway.

A coupla big influences on how the art for PLUCK came together was Mignola’s Baltimore and Tony Moore’s run on Walking Dead.  I don’t have any grays in it at all, but I thought this a threshold version of a grayscale image.  Granted that most black and white stories are either horror or crime, a comedic fantasy needed a bit more hatching for some midtones, so I looked at some  old copies Xenozoic Tales I still have.  It’d be great to come back to this and slap down some gray tones myself though, so I guess we’ll see…

I hope you guys found this interesting.  I’ll post the second half of the commentary in a coupla days.

You can read the actual comic here.  We’d really appreciate your votes!

Gabe White and I collaborated a few months back on a little sword and sorcery tale entitled PLUCK, and now we’ve found our way into Zuda’s October competition.  I’ve always enjoyed the fantasy genre, but this project was a joy to work on because of how offbeat it is.  I approached it as Lord of the Rings meets Huck Finn.

Come check it out >>> http://zudacomics.com/node/1488

If you guys wanna read more of our webcomic, we need y’all to vote.  Here’s how:

1. Register an account at Zuda.  It’s quick and free, and a confirmation email takes you right back to the site.

2. Go to PLUCK, and click on the VOTE button.  It’ll change from Red to Tan.

3. Finally, add the comic to your favorites — this helps with the final tally as well.

4. Tell your friends!

Much appreciated, guys!

Okay so things are looking busy — between Orlando losing to LA and Hillary fracturing her elbow, I actually have a lotta stuff going on that I’m actually involved in. Whoodathunkit?  So I’m gonna keep this short so I can get back to work and my characteristic self-loathing.  But mostly work.  Schwing!

Quasi-religious Existentialist project with the ever-dashing William Prince just needs a couple more pages to wrap up my part in the pitch process.  Here are some concept sketches from that story.

Steam punk Battle Chasers-esque Zuda proposal with the well-oiled machine Gabe White is about half way done.  Shouldn’t be long now.  Here’s a peek.

Crime-horror saga 1888 with Wolfgang “People Pleaser” Parker is practically ready to pitch.  Just a coupla character sketches needed from the only slow guy on the team.  Oh wait… that’s me.

Justin “I know where you live” Jordan is juggling the pitches for OVERTHROW and JENNY STRANGE.  All appendages are crossed.  Do not activate webcam.

The yet unnamable period piece with lord and master Alexis Nolte went to pitch last week with some friends across the pond.  Initial reaction has been positive.

Just getting into the groove of what’s shaping up to be my first solo series after MASK of MANOLO.  I’ve somehow attracted the attention of the lovely Rod Hannah, with ties to cerealgeek.com, to illustrate a three-issue mini about wee super-heroine SOVENA RED.  Designs have been approved.  Scripts have been read.  Layouts have been… laid out.  More on that as the weeks go by.  Here’s a peek though.

On the homefront, the online game Alex “You should really be drawing” Cipriano and I were hired to do is plodding along politely.  The worst is probably over, with all the human characters done and approved… now it’s just a buncha cool monsters and we’re home free.  After a fashion.

Speaking of monsters, my HORROR CLASSICS are on hold.  Personal projects… bah!  That werewolf sketch I showed off a month ago is here in Fort Bastard somewhere under a pile of Invincible back issues… I hope.

Just got back home from a… well… a “creative summit” with Jad “Why am I still with you?” Montenegro, at her end of the island chain.  HARBINGER WAR is currently in the conceptualization stage, and we’re giggly as fuck about it.  A lot.  Here’s a sketch from the trip.

There’s that Comic Book Creation Seminar I got invited to speak at, for all the good that’ll do them. HEHAH! That’s set for next month still, but plans are solidifying.  Like a flan.  But creamier.  Maybe I can give out tax advice.

Should look into cloning myself.

More updates as they happen.

As I’m working on a handful of projects I’ve started a little something-something with my lady Jad Montenegro.  We’ll be taking turns talking about our progress:

So John came to me with a proposal to do a comic together, aside from the  sheer audacity of a previously conceptualized “relationship strip” *John slaps hand to forehead*, he wanted to do another project entirely, one that wasn’t borne of a need to shamelessly indulge our egos, and when I heard his idea to wrap the storyline around one simple, beautiful concept, there was nothing I could do but to agree.

I mean, come on:

Cavemen versus Aliens.

.

Tell me how any self-respecting sci-fi lover could resist taking that and not going to TOWN with it, you know?

Drawing inspiration from the likes of sci-fi romance and tall-tale spinning Arthur C. Clarke to the classic iconoclasm (iconoclasstic?) of Isaac Asimov, to Frank Herbert’s Duneverse sagas and Bradbury’s moody, chronicling cynicism (to name just a few of the authors I grew up reading), I guess I’m pretty set for helping create this rippin’ yarn of a graphic novel. If anything, I’ve certainly got the enthusiasm covered.

I’ve never done this before, but that’s where John comes in: he’s good at showing me the ropes.

Huh.

I zoned out for a bit.

Anyway, that’s what me and the boy have got in the kitchen, and hopefully we’ll have something in the coming weeks for you folks to sink your teeth into.

— Jad