Well, I know there are a lot of Black & White fans out there, so I decided to do this one up in a classic inking style. Heavy lines and “when in doubt, black it out” for the rest. Even snuck in some gray tones like the old newspaper strips use to do. Believe it or not, it took me as long to do this as it does to just ink and colors. I spent more time thinking where to put the shadows and such, so it ate up some time, but well worth the effort in my book. There are no short-cuts in cartooning, so I’m just gonna bite the bullet and do what I want.
Did you ever have one of those weekends? Sure, we all do. I’ve been dealing with various “stuff” in my life and have learned not to play the “victim” and feel sorry for myself. It is what it is and move along. You can still complain, but I try not to let it get to me. This weekend was a bit different. I am pushing myself a bit to hard and have a lot on my plate. I actually kinda enjoy it, but the mental and physical states aren’t what they use to be. Just ask my aching back and you’ll know I’m not 25 any more.
🙂
So, I will look at this past weekend like this, at least I was able to get the pencils done. Trust me, the rest of the weekend sucked. And to top it off, GrooveShark.com, where I get the songs for each post, updated their site and the export widget thingy was a tad FUBAR’d… thus a perfect ending for a “perfect” weekend!
Song and a completed comic as things straighten themselves out in the Universe.
Okay, the song’s here now. Last week I mentioned Paul Rodgers and Bad Company. This week is my favorite song from Free, the first band I know of that had Paul Rodgers in it. This song, “Wishing Well” is really grungy and I love it. It kicked off side one of their last studio album “Heartbreaker” from 1973.  I guess it’s an anti-drug song, or simply a story about one of the band’s mates that had a drug habit of some kind. I don’t know, I just like the music. Words don’t mean that much to me (as I duck the flying debris from all the song writers out there). Rock on.
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Can’t. Stop. The. Music. Go boys go!
As always, enjoying the rough WiP stuff 🙂
Apparently Grooveshark can stop the music… damn their website is broken and I can’t export any tunes.
I know a lot of you folks like seeing these versions, so I may post them on Monday this way and then update on Tuesday with full color.
We’ll see how that goes!
Well, I’m not complaining, since I don’t have sound enabled on this box most of the time 😛
Road trip ? Road trip !!!!
Bet your ass, ROADTRIP!
Stand by for drunkenness and some wild 70s parties.
That a way to take initiative boys. I love how they take the time to relish in what life has dealt them, but get up and push forward as quickly as they get down about it. Go boys go!!!
Sorry you had a rough weekend Byron. I hope this week more than makes up for it for ya. Have a great one my friend.
Hey, it could have been worse for sure, but we still bitch just the same. 🙂
Yeah, my guys don’t take much sitting down. We need some male-bonding time so Lorraine and Robyn will sit this trip out. I’m sure they’ll get equal time here soon… (hint).
😛
You take care of You, Byron. We’ll still be here when you get back. 🙂
Oh, and yeah – good ol’ Grooveshark has been a mess to work with lately. I noticed that while selecting songs for Arpeggio. Arg!
Ah, well – good luck with everything. *sits back, hangs out*
Um, did I say I was going anywhere? Or did we both pull a 70s moment there…
😛
I guess “bat crap” sounds like much better slang than “guano”.
“Guano! We’re never gonna get that lawsuit paid off at this rate!”
Yeah, I thought of that, but at age 20 there’s no way I knew what guano was, so… bat crap for sure. It’s a lot more fun than just saying “shit” so…
“Now look here, “Bat” Guano, if that IS your real name…!”
Anyone want to guess the reference?
Yup, sometimes ya gotta just go for it. 30 years ago I was playing in a Denver-based band & we weren’t getting much around action town, so we decided on an impromtu Colorado road trip, booking as we went: Boulder, Greeley, Ft. Collins, Grand Junction, Durango. Co. Springs – about 20 gigs over 2 1/2 months that were mostly successful & well received, but sometimes we didn’t know what we’d get… We booked a gig in Cortez that was billed as “Summertime Festival” if I recall right. Imagine our surprise when it turned out to be a HUGE – 400 people, hispanic wedding reception at the high school gym! Thankfully, there were alot of younger folks, so the rock went over well, & between the 5 of us, we knew enough mellower & hispanic stuff to mix it up & pull it off to rave reviews. The more hillarious thing about it though – when we got back to Denver at the end of the tour, me & two of the other guys went to see the new “Blues Brothers” movie that had just come out, and when the deja vu scene where the BB band plays Bob’s Country Bunker played out, we were literally screaming laughter all through it – the rest of the audience must’ve thought we were mental…
Well, we are mental to play in rock bands… 🙂
That sounds like a fun road trip for sure… and in Colorado too! Spent a week or so hiking the foothills of Denver, camping near Aspen and generally enjoying the great Colorado May/June weather. I also took a piss in the stream that feeds the Coors brewery… just had to. It was damn cold water too.
“Blues Brothers” was a great film and I remember when they filmed here in Chicago. It was near the end of my year of “debaunchery” and was just getting back to college. Good times by all. Belushi was the best.
Get your motor running….head out on the highway.
Heavy Metal Thunder! Your Born to Be Wild, baby!
Saw Steppenwolf (or as we called them in college: Steppenshit) in 1986 opening for BTO. Crowd went nuts on “Born to be Wild” of course. Got a great wave from John Kaye as he walked past me (I was near the front… as always for BTO concerts!). Was a bit of thrill getting a wave from him… maybe is was the girl behind me with the great knockers, but that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!
😛
I caught Steppenwolf around that time too, might’ve been closer to ’84. The Guess Who opened for them in a medium-sized night club … about 2000 seats or so. Hard cold frozen night, nasty ice & snow. Fantastic show. I snuck in a old Toshiba walkman and managed to tape about 90% of it. Was a surprisingly decent quality boot & very popular tape among my crowd at the time.
My original is long lost now, but I hope (someday) to run across some nth generation preserved copy. If you ever run across ’em, they were originally three 90-minute cassettes at Pulsations Nightclub in Pennsylvania … I did that. 🙂
Hellza-Yeah … Road Trip!
And (of course!) thank you for the black & white ink. Looks damned sharp. That grin on Bud’s face in panel #3 … 😀
The “shit-eating-grin” has become my trademark. Love doing them and when well placed, are a ton of fun. They say soooo much without having to type a single word. You know he’s going “Roadtrip, YES!”
The Guess Who, eh? I go way back listening to them. That’s how I became a Bachman-Turner Overdrive fan as Randy Bachman left the Guess Who in 1970 and ended up with BTO after a bit.
🙂
Omg you’ve been updating this? yay! lol
Yeah, I’ll be doing weekly updates on Mondays now. 🙂
aww only once a week? that sucks. Thanks for not bringing up my new display pic btw. lol
Just because I don’t mention it doesn’t mean I don’t *see* it! 🙂
You’re getting the same amount of content, just all in one larger format which will be easier to print and/or distribute to e-readers like the iPad or Kindle. And this format makes it easier on my schedule to work on one larger comic instead of three tiny ones.
It may suck at first, but in the long run this will be better.
🙂
ooo I wish I had an ipad.. Though the name sounds so wrong! lol Yea larger ones are better. Btw I posted that pic for ya. 😉 lol
Hey there “old” man, my take on what life throws at me is, Mr. Murphy and I go waaaayyyy back.
Oh, Mr. Murphy has a room in my house… 😛
GREYSCALE FTW!!! The finished strip looks absolutely AWESOME, and brings to mind your crowning ‘1977 Noir’ achievement of a while back. Fabulous use of shadowing, and the strong lines make the strip positively jump off the page. Colour (as it were) me impressed 🙂
When it comes to old rocks songs called Wishing Well, I love the Free one and the Procol one equally. Totally different songs but both superb. IIRC Procol Harum’s track was actually called Wish Me Well, but everyone called it Wishing Well…
Black and White has it’s place and can be really effective. I bought a few old Mad magazines and have been studying the inks and lines of Mort Drucker and Jack Davis, two of my comic heroes as a young lad.
I’ll be doing more of this now as I get more practice at it. 🙂
Well, I guess I’m the only reader old enough, and nerdy enough, to notice the awesomeness that was the Zenith Heathkit TV.
HUGE brownie points for you sir. I helped a friend build a HeathKit TV and MAN what a pain in the ass. I did radios, keyboards, amps, etc., but a TV was just like the biggest pain ever. Didn’t really save any money either, which sucked.
Yes, Bud has been seen with soldering iron in hand a few times over the years and like his creator, likes to build electronic kits! Nerds rule.
😛
Doing it in B/W is not that hard once you’ve got the basics down. Don’t overthink it too much, and just let the darks come alive.
The great thing about using heavy pools of shadow is having the reader fill in the blanks with their imagination. Silhouettes and subtle darks can create some killer mood.
If you’re going for the halftone effect, you should check out Jonny Wander. The artists uses some really cool halftone patterns to create subtle shades, and she pulls off the old school newsprint reproduction stuff nicely.
http://www.jonnywander.com