Advanced Placement

Author notes

Taps

apcomic

on Jan. 26, 2008

So, since I now hand draw all of the comics before digitally inking and coloring them, I do most of my work on the weekends on my lunch breaks at work. This has actually worked quite well, because I was able to finish the physical sketches and inkings for this comic on Saturday. Well, come last night, I thought that I was in the clear, only having to post the comic and a news update. Well, I am an idiot, because I forgot to digitally ink and color the comic. I was able to do that this morning, so the comic is up, but I thought you would all find that amusing.

As for the comic itself, this is the first comic that I have ever done, where I had all of the artwork done, before I actually had a punch line (I have my mom to thank for this one). This strip alludes to the Jazz Club scene in Spiderman 3.

Anyway, I wanted to wait until this comic to talk a bit more about the new art style (this comic having to do with a physical change and all). As I mentioned in a previous news post, I didn’t feel like a cartoonist the way I was doing the comics. I began to think about it, and realized that anybody could do the comic the way that I was doing it before, because there was nothing that special about it. It was simply copy and pasted characters. With the old method, I didn’t feel like the characters were really mine.

Also, with the way things were done before, there were things that constantly bugged me. For instance, the characters bodies were not proportioned, AT ALL. Huge heads, small torsos, and no real bottom halves. With the way things were done before, I could never have done the first two comics in this episode, because they had no real bodies. Also, in the copy and pasting process, there would be, without fail, issues in keeping my original proportions right. I would either copy the characters too thin or too fat, and I just got fed up with it. Consistency is a very important thing to me, and not being able to have it in the comic was too much. With this method, I know that all of the characters are the same size and proportions each time I draw them, and there are only minor inconsistencies.

As for the overall look of it, I wanted to keep things “cartoony” (I will not get rid of my circle eyes), while making the characters seem a little more real, by giving them bodies. One other thing I did, which was a somewhat difficult decision, was closing DJ’s eyes somewhat. In the end, I decided that he always looked surprised in previous comics, and this made him seem A LOT younger. To fix this, we closed his close a bit, which I think suits the character a lot better.

Now, I understand that some are not going to like the new look and changes that I have made (simplifying Mike and Pam’s hair), but at the end of the day, I have to be pleased with what I put out. Just like I wouldn’t put a comic up that I didn’t think was funny or moved the story forward, I wouldn’t change the art style unless I thought it was for the best.

DJ