The Times Are A-Changin’


So some of you more diligent readers may have noticed that I cheated a bit on my first blog by reposting the origins of Black Snow that used to reside in the now defunct Creators section.  So consider this my first blog proper.  I’ve spent the last couple days completely redesigning the website.  It’s been a lot of work, but I’m pretty happy with the results, though there’s still lots to do.  I do miss the old site’s style, but white on black is a pretty dated look and it was time to update.  I do feel that it captured the bare bones style of the comic well, but even that’s been changing and evolving.  A lot of these changes stem from the drawings I’ve been doing for the Characters section.

I decided to draw some larger, more detailed pictures for the site, and when I finished the first one of Black Snow I got the wild idea to try coloring it.  For a long time I said I’d never draw this comic in color, but I’ve been doing some pretty exciting non Black Snow stuff with color for awhile now and getting good at it.  So I saw Black Snow in color and it excited me, inspired me if you will.  From there I’ve been gradually drawing each character and having a blast coloring them.  I’ve been drawing the characters in order of my most favorite/fun to draw.

You may notice that the women are last, and that’s no accident.  I don’t really like drawing women.  There was a time in my teenage years when I preferred drawing female characters, but that was about ten years ago.  I think the thing that bothers me about it is that they always have to be attractive.  The men can be big, fat, drunken, slobs and no one cares, but women always have to be pretty.  It’s an annoying double standard that I wish didn’t exist, but you won’t see me challenging it.  You try making your female lead characters ugly and see how popular your comic is.

I’m still torn on whether I’ll start coloring the actual issues in the future.  In a very productive meeting with Alex the other night we finished writing Issue #6 and also discussed shifting our focus entirely to being a web comic.  Being on the web exclusively, I wouldn’t have to worry about the cost of color printing, so it’s an intriguing prospect to color at this point.  If I do color I think it will be sparingly, ala Sin City.

Today is my first wedding anniversary!  That year flew by.  My wife and I are going to see The Watchmen in IMAX tonight.  I’ve never been to a narrative feature length film at the IMAX, so I’m pretty excited.  I did already see The Watchmen on opening night, but I loved it and want to see it again.  It’s been stuck in my head all week and has been another big personal inspiration with this whole re-launch of Black Snow.  Hopefully my wife will enjoy it!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.