Monday, December 23, 2013

A Small Personal Indulgence

This brief interlude started out as a funny idea for a one page story, that grew into a three page story, then grew into a three page poem, which I shrank back down to one page, cause, like, who needs three pages of my bad poetry?

The characters may (or more likely may not) resemble some of the friends I have made, some recently and some old, who have offered so much support as I jump into the pond of self-publishing. My apologies to the ones I've left out, and it was probably because you are too hard to draw.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

And That's All I have to Say About That

If there was one question about Jeffrey that I heard more than any other, it was "Doesn't he drive you crazy?" followed by "You're so nice to spend so much time with him." There were a few people in the club along with me that heard the same thing. In fact, we would say it to each other. "thanks for spending so much time/doing all that/taking such good care..." that kind of thing.

The funny  thing was, we all knew why we did it. If you could see past the at times incredibly aggravating and annoying but at best somewhat trying surface layer of Jeffrey, you saw someone who wanted to do the right thing all the time, and wanted nothing more than a few friends to talk to and spend time with. Once you got to that point, you couldn't leave, and you wanted to do what you could. The list of social workers he had was long and legendary, but the ones who stuck were not in it for the money or to get their name on some employee of the month plaque. Whether family, friend or acquaintance, if you liked Jeffrey, you went out of your way to help him, and just because you liked him and knew he could use it.

That's it.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Okay, I need a little work on that last maneuver...

Among other things I have worked on in my life, I did a lot of graphics for the V-22 program. As you may or may not be aware, the V-22 is that big propeller short wing airplane that the Marines want to have instead of helicopters. Here's a picture or two:

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=v-22+photo&id=C0732656A6F08A4D4EFEF9D40320EA6BBAAE9A2A&FORM=IQFRBA#a

The main problem they had to overcome (jury is out on if they've fixed it, which is part of the reason why you don't see them flying around everywhere) is that the wings and engines have to tilt to get the thing to take off and land. This causes problems which I won't go into here. MY solution, embodied by the R2, is to tilt the whole aircraft so it takes off (with the running start you saw on page 30) and land almost vertically, with the help of the landing legs. My drawing on page 46 is supposed to capture this, but it needs work. I'll get on that while I get to the point of this blog entry.

Jeffrey was perceived as an overly cautious person, and many might think from this that he would never set foot on, let alone build, a plane like the Reindeer Mark 2. In fact, Jeffrey loved to fly. One of his favorite experiences was to get on a small (4-seater) that his cousin Bernie owned and fly to Detroit or somewhere else for a visit. Having been on small aircraft myself, this is not an exercise for the timid, but Jeffrey relished the experience, especially as he had complete confidence in Bernie's abilities as a pilot. Just one more example of the man being completely different than his image.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Just made it

44 pages and I haven't officially missed a deadline yet... but I keep coming close. My original plan was to be at least a month ahead on art and two months ahead on story. Instead, I find myself running out of scripts and drawing and coloring at midnight on the day of updates. Whatfor this deplorable situation?

Well, I'm still getting used to this, okay? I knew going in that three days a week would be a tough schedule to keep up with, especially in light of the other work I'm doing, but I wanted to keep thepace lively and get the completed story arc done in a timely fashion (and yes, there is a story arc - this adventure will end and another Master Jeffrey will start.)

Meanwhile, deadline is taking priority over other things - I cringe a little at some of the fast layouts and such, but I want the story to march along and I'm not vain enough to make my satisfaction more important than your getting the next page on time. That being said, the holidays are upon us, and I'm crossing my fingers, so, as the man said "lay on Macduff, and damned be he that first dost cry enough!"

Monday, December 2, 2013

Flan Down

If you know flan, then you know nothing hits the ground quite like flan. Individual servings are bad enough - my mother used to make a family sized flan, and once THAT slid off the plate. Hoo-boy, I'm telling you - we coulda used a 'little sucker' that day!

This is the 40th page of my little epic. I'll be adding to the site and trying to get ahead on pages in anticipation of the holiday press, so if you have any suggestions or comments, send them in now!