Monday, Monday

I'm just getting around to using this, had it for some time, I guess.

Well, I've been doing Ad Astra for 2 years, now, and it's been a blast.

Way back in ye olden days, when I was trying to break into comics, I did everything the way I was told to do it, and I never got a break. I was too easily discouraged, for one thing, and for another, I was just the tiniest bit too full of myself. I couldn't see my own weaknesses, even when they were pointed out to me by competent professionals.

And then, as I got older, I wanted less and less to work on other people's characters, and more and more to work on my own. I created a large and complex universe, that I dubbed "Powers", before someone else actually went and published a comic with that title. I call that universe "Gladiators" now, and I've just begun working on those characters again, with a friend of mine. Ad Astra was, originally, meant to be the future of the Powers/Gladiators universe, but something happened along the way. In 2005, I got the idea to tell a super-hero story in blog form. This evolved into the website and universe I call HeroBlog. HeroBlog tells the story of Amp, a young super starting out in the biz. As the HeroBlog universe grew more complex, and as my desire to do an actual comic strip grew more intense, the idea of fitting Ad Astra in with the HeroBlog characters was born.

Oh, and as I work on Ad Astra, I do everything wrong. I don't write up tight plots to help me plan my pages, I don't do thumbnail sketches to hep lay out pages. I draw a page, if I like it, I ink it. Once inked, I color it, then I letter it. I have a rough idea of the dialog, before I begin lettering, but almost never have a thought-out gag or turn of phrase. You might say I let the characters speak, as the moment comes for them to say something. I know, it seems odd, but it seems to work for me. It keeps me from bogging down in minutae, the way I always have on everything I've ever tried to do. So, whatever works for me is what I'll stick with.

One of these days, I'll stop along the way to snap some photos of the sausage-making process. Maybe I can help some other slightly obsessive artist to overcome the inertia that keeps him from completing the next panel, the next page, whatever.