Last month I stated that I hoped to have GPF back to a M-W-F schedule by November. Nuh-uh. Not gonna happen. While Ben’s sleep patterns are much more predictable (save for the occasional oddity like this past Wednesday night, where none of us got more than two hours sleep) and we’ve made significant headway in cleaning up and organizing our basement, I haven’t gotten any strips done since that September 10th post. Getting seven comics done in that week must have been a fluke, because I certainly haven’t been able to repeat it.
The hardest part of maintaining my schedule has to be the scripting. Drawing the line art is difficult because it means I have be sequestered in the basement at the art desk for about a half hour to an hour per strip. I’ve been working on ways to do the line art digitally, but all those R&D efforts have been largely on hold since Ben’s birth. And while it’s possible for everyone else to come down to the basement with me, I really don’t want to dictate what everyone else can do just to buy me art desk time. (At the moment, there’s little down there to entertain Ben with anyway.) Doing the digital half of the strips (clean-up, text, colors, etc.) can be time consuming but at least I can do those on the laptop in the living room with the rest of the family, so I can be a part of what’s going on and readily available if someone needs me.
But scripting is tough because I really need to shut myself off from everyone else and concentrate. Big stories like To Thine Own Self… usually have a large, overall time line that I follow from the beginning, but I very rarely script things down to the individual strip level that far in advance. Individual strips, jokes, and dialog are usually written as I come to them unless they are so critical to the plot that they need advance planning or I come up with something so good I can’t afford to forget it. So before I work on each “week” of strips (Sunday + six dailies) I hide myself somewhere quiet and script each line of dialog, block out each panel, and occasionally reorder things if necessary. This way I have a plan by the time I get to the art desk so my time there is most efficiently used and I’ve got a second chance to improve the art before it becomes semi-permanent. Scripting is time consuming because I write out each line of dialog (which I don’t do during the art desk phase; I just leave sufficient space and add the text digitally), occasionally erase and reword it, and sketch every panel. Often I have to think hard about how the dialog flows, who says what in what order, and what kind of punchline I can use for the last panel. I actually think scripting is the most time-consuming part of the process, because to do it right I can’t be interrupted. I can step away from the art desk or laptop and come back with little mental paging; scripting is a mindset, and when I am forced out of it, I often have to reorganize my thoughts to get back to where I was when I left. And none of what I’ve mentioned so far has brought research to light, since many times I have to go back and re-read old stories to make sure I get all the back references correct.
And that’s where I am now. I’m in the scripting phase for the next “week”, and I just can’t get enough time together to step away from everything else to hide myself away and just write. I may need to re-evaluate my process and look for alternative scripting methods, like typing dialog and descriptions into the computer first at times when I can’t sketch. I’ve tried that before, usually when I’m working with another artist for a crossover, but it rarely seems to work well for me. Part of the scripting work is figuring out how much space the dialog takes up per panel and balancing text versus art so one doesn’t overpower the other. That’s hard to do in a word processor. But right now, I can’t think of anything better to do than forsaking my family and effectively ceasing to exist for several hours.
So no big comeback in November. Sorry, folks, but thems the breaks. Nobody could be more frustrated about it than I am. I’m not sure what, if anything, I’ll do for GPF’s ninth anniversary. The strip will likely continue on the weekly Monday schedule at least through the end of the year; there’s no way I’ll be able to up my schedule with the winter holidays coming up. The Sketchbook Reruns will probably continue the “Rejected Story Month” updates during that time, and I’ll probably run the Book #2 bonus story on Fridays once the Book #1 bonus runs out. After that… we’ll just have to wait and see.
That’s fine Jeff. Things change… oh boy do I know that. Personally I’ll be around no matter how many days you “deliver.”
Update: I was able to sit down and script what will likely be the next-to-final week of the abbreviated last chapter of To Thine Own Self… tonight. So that’s one more step. I’ll still need to re-evaluate my scripting methods once TTOS is concluded, especially if I ever hope to get GPF back to normal again. But I also know pretty much exactly what’s going to happen in the final week, so that script should be relatively easy to scribble out.
You mention Jeff that you were doing some R&D into digitalisation. I’ve been doing a similar process, investing some time into figuring out the best tools to use for creating comics digitally.
I’ve figured that inkscape with two documents open, your panels and a “stencil” document where you basically create the art works in vector images and then any parts which can be re-used are put into the stencil document for later. you can then copy+paste from stencil into a new document and make tweaks as required to the lines to suite different perspectives etc.
This is nice because inkscape is free and I can guarantee there’s a version for what ever operating system you happen to do your work on.
Actually, I’ve done a little experimentation with Inkscape, including using it to template the panel borders. However, I’m not yet satisfied with my results to move it into a production stage yet. I’ve also been less impressed with my results at actually trying to draw in Inkscape, but I think that’s largely because I’m having trouble familiarizing myself with the right tool for the right job. (As previously mentioned, my R&D time is largely on the back burner.)
Unfortunately, I’m not a big fan of the stencil or copy + paste method. There are plenty of comics out there that do it well (Help Desk, Scary-Go-Round before it’s current incarnation), but there’s also plenty that do it horribly. I never thought it would work for GPF outside of a few special cases where I use it for emphasis (like here or here). Still, one does what one has to save time….
One last problem I’m having with going all digital is the disconnect between looking up at the screen while the hand is drawing on the tablet. I’m getting better at it, and I think the two all-digital “bikini” pics from last month are a fine example of that. But I’ve still got a long way to go. I’ll probably at least finish TTOS the traditional way, then I might try experimenting with new methods as soon as the next GPF “year” beings.
Thanks for the reply; I’m sure you have your ways and while I am attempting to find mine. I’m not a drawer by nature, I’m more suited to the roll of inking so perhaps it is not a surprise that I find using inkscape and simply tracing and modifying an easier task.
Oh and I’ve much enjoyed this instalment, I was sad to find it had gone to one day a week but your blog makes everything understandable so I can’t complain. I just wish I could give you the answers that would ease your burdens.
I’ll keep digging through the universes until one of them crops up with another you that found the answers and I’ll let you know what they were.