The
small press comics tradition is joining the fanzine as something that grows
more obsolete each year. Aspiring artists who once struggled with mimeograph
machines or scrambled to pay a printer's fee now use a scanner and put
their comics on the World-Wide Web. Two of those artists appeared on Ushicon's
opening day. Robbie "Yamcha Hibiki" Allen is the creator of the "Fusion
D" series about a "catgirl stripper," and Emily Snodgrass is part of
the group that comes up with the "Strange
Candy" series about an evil maniac's plots to take over the world.
Neither artist makes a living from the online strip and both put more time
into the stories than they can justify. Why? Both agreed that it's their
idea of fun. "You have to love your art," said Allen. Part of being an
artist is that you have to suffer for your work."
"Fusion
D is a form of stress relief for Allen. "It's just there... I'll be doodling
and I'll get a new character. A lot of it comes up from personal experience,"
with the characters and stories often based on his friends. "Most it was
about gaming, but some of it was stories like my friends turning into dogs."
Allen's designs start on a big sketchbook which leads to drawings that
he pencils and inks himself, using the technique of penciling his drawings
in blue lead then inking in black. Colors come on Photoshop after the drawings
are scanned into a computer. Like manga artists, Allen writes and draws
his comics, although "I probably should hire a writer at one point. My
writing wouldn't be as bad if I used a spell checker. I'm in a hurry and
then next day I say `I can't believe i misspelled "the."' If I get serious
writers' block I go off and do something else, and then the idea pops up."
Snodgrass
once colored her art with colored markers and drew backgrounds in Photoshop,
but now she handles most color on the computer. While Allen operates solo
on "Fusion D," Snodgrass is one of three people who create "Strange Candy."
"My story is so much a parody of genres that I can look at an anime and
get ideas from that. I'm not the main writer for my comic, I have someone
who does most of the writing. I brainstorm with her and we come up with
the direction for the comic." A couple of those story ideas come from the
satiric "evil overlord list" and the "laws of anime" that have popped up
on Usenet newsgroups over the years, she said. If a story line runs out
of steam, she'll create a "plot hole" and go someplace else. The move of
the Megatokyo online strip into print has led some online artists to dream
of making the same transition. That might be a problem for "Strange Candy"
because the art is created small and often isn't scanned at a high resolution.
"Of my comics, the collection is exactly the size you have on screen. If
I, ever in my dreams, decide to print everything, it won't look good."
The
small press comics tradition is joining the fanzine as something that grows
more obsolete each year. Aspiring artists who once struggled with mimeograph
machines or scrambled to pay a printer's fee now use a scanner and put
their comics on the World-Wide Web. Two of those artists appeared on Ushicon's
opening day. Robbie "Yamcha Hibiki" Allen is the creator of the "Fusion
D" series about a "catgirl stripper," and Emily Snodgrass is part of
the group that comes up with the "Strange
Candy" series about an evil maniac's plots to take over the world.
Neither artist makes a living from the online strip and both put more time
into the stories than they can justify. Why? Both agreed that it's their
idea of fun. "You have to love your art," said Allen. Part of being an
artist is that you have to suffer for your work."
"Fusion
D is a form of stress relief for Allen. "It's just there... I'll be doodling
and I'll get a new character. A lot of it comes up from personal experience,"
with the characters and stories often based on his friends. "Most it was
about gaming, but some of it was stories like my friends turning into dogs."
Allen's designs start on a big sketchbook which leads to drawings that
he pencils and inks himself, using the technique of penciling his drawings
in blue lead then inking in black. Colors come on Photoshop after the drawings
are scanned into a computer. Like manga artists, Allen writes and draws
his comics, although "I probably should hire a writer at one point. My
writing wouldn't be as bad if I used a spell checker. I'm in a hurry and
then next day I say `I can't believe i misspelled "the."' If I get serious
writers' block I go off and do something else, and then the idea pops up."
Snodgrass
once colored her art with colored markers and drew backgrounds in Photoshop,
but now she handles most color on the computer. While Allen operates solo
on "Fusion D," Snodgrass is one of three people who create "Strange Candy."
"My story is so much a parody of genres that I can look at an anime and
get ideas from that. I'm not the main writer for my comic, I have someone
who does most of the writing. I brainstorm with her and we come up with
the direction for the comic." A couple of those story ideas come from the
satiric "evil overlord list" and the "laws of anime" that have popped up
on Usenet newsgroups over the years, she said. If a story line runs out
of steam, she'll create a "plot hole" and go someplace else. The move of
the Megatokyo online strip into print has led some online artists to dream
of making the same transition. That might be a problem for "Strange Candy"
because the art is created small and often isn't scanned at a high resolution.
"Of my comics, the collection is exactly the size you have on screen. If
I, ever in my dreams, decide to print everything, it won't look good."
