Arbitrary Comix

Author notes

Playlist Forward

patrickdevine

on Sept. 3, 2008

So this is a minicomic that I've been debating on whether or not to post for a long time. So after pondering whether or not it's a good idea I've decided that I don't care if it is or isn't and I'm posting it anyway.
This is a high school romance story called "Playlist," and outside the microcosm of DrunkDuck it's probably the most popular thing I've ever done. I've also developed a lot of mixed feelings about it, especially around what sort of creative control I have over the project hence the hesitation to put it online. I originally met the author of the script, Jamie White through a Yahoo group for manga artists. Jamie had some really great story ideas and some pretty ambitious projects. Normally I hate doing collaborations just because the ones that I have done never seem to get completed. Despite this I asked Jamie if she would consider collaborating on a project with me, specifically I told her that if she came up with a short form story I'd be up for illustrating it. Later, she came up with this script for a short about about a stolen iPod, (changed to a "MiPod" in the actual comic,) I really loved the script but it took a while to get the courage to draw it. Honestly I was worried that I'd take a great story and hack it up.
We settled on a deadline of Free Comic Book day of 2007, basically the idea was for Playlist to be a free promo piece for Jamie's studio. Shortly after I finished the comic I never heard from Jamie again. So now I had this comic that a lot of people seemed to respond to but I wasn't sure what to do with. Because Playlist was originally given away I never felt right about charging anything for it, although I did use it for trades a couple of times. Every now and again somebody will approach me and say that they really liked Playlist, which is flattering and humbling at the same time because the only parts that are clever are the parts that Jamie thought of and told me to draw.
Anyway, this was originally the cover for the minicomic and I'm going to be posting pages of this daily so stay tuned.