A Mystery Develops
on November 4, 2013Happy Monday, Wacky Readers!
Hoo, boy! I have Full Blast Colors to present to you today, folks!
Here are the “tourists”. So far, we know their names are Shirley, Lana and Eddie.
Sandia and Nacho were taking them for a guided hike tour in Costa Rica’s Caribbean Sea-side cliffs when they fell off and met an unruly bunch of smelly monkeys. Nacho constructed a make-shift palm tree catapult. It flung them too far and now they are headed for the foully named Mud Pits! And there’s lots of unanswered questions!
- So are these people really tourists?
- Who are they and what are they here for?
- What do they know about the ants that bit Sandia?
- What experiments are they talking about?
- Why don’t they want to tell Nacho and Sandia about it?
- Are they good guys or bad guys?
Dun dun duunnn!!!
Who knows what will transpire? I surely don’t! At least not yet! :OP
I decided to change the character concepts on the tourists a bit. I’ll go back and adjust their look in the preceding pages for the sake of continuity. Another consequence of making things up as I go! Dun dun duunnn!!! But it’s lots of fun!
Below is the Pencils Stage of this page
Below is the Inked Stage of this page
Keep it weird, keep it WACKY! :O)
-Joseph
Your comic pages are deliciously full of entertainment.
Thank you, Spencey! I love making comics and seeing how things develop! :O)
With the ink and colour added it goes from strength to strength. Can’t wait to see it shaded.
Thank you for your encouragement, Spencey. I considered ditching the color so that I could post more pages more often but I’m giving it a whirl until January to see if I can speed things up instead. Anyway, I posted the Full Blast Color version with shading, highlights and a fancy glass reflection. Hope you like it.
I do indeed like it. Great stuff.
Thanks for checking back for a look-see, Spencey! :O)
It looks great now, I can’t wait to see it in full color! 🙂
Inks and Full Blast Color are guaranteed next week or your money back! Thanks for visiting, Tim!
Me too! 🙂
Me three! Thanks, Chris! :O)
I can see this story line will get fun (and interesting). Like everyone else, really looking forward to the inks and colors!
Hopefully my story will come across as understandable. I’m having fun inking it right now!
That’s a wicked looking bug!!
Thanks, Bearman! I did my best to make it as mean as possible!
I’m fairly certain that zaniness will ensue!
And you would be correct, my dear Jerry! I love being fair and being zany! :OP
That ant is sa-weet. I like how it looks like its wearing cowboy boots 🙂
Don’t mess with an ant wearing boots! Thanks for the compliment, Mat!
And the plot thickens! 😀
Congratulations on increasing your work pace Joseph!
It’s as thick as “la caca del diablo” Bill! Thanks for your encouragement on my production levels!
Shirley is a hoot, Joseph! Love her roly poly look! Another great page in the works!
Shirley was so much fun to draw. I love her. I really had a difficult time with Lana. But I felt I should at least learn to draw a pretty lady. Thanks for visiting and your compliment, Mark! :O)
I didn’t realize that you hand-lettered your comics? Wow, you have great penmanship and wrist control.
Thanks, George! I enjoy doing it freehand. I feel I have more control over the final look. I used to ink it with Microns, but now I use a brush to letter.
As something totally irrelevant goes….I just thought about the factors that make me salivate for your drawing style. It reminds me a lot of what I loved about an old comic book series called “Ralph Snart” from Continuity Comics. It’s just so energetic and frenzied! I like it!
Marc Hansen is one of my favorite cartoonists, George! I love the way he inks, composes panels, scenes and pages, and how he stretches characters. So amazing! I contacted him so that I could buy an original page of his, because I want to study it, but he wasn’t selling. :O(
Thanks for the compliment! :OD
Sounds like someone has been the victim of science. That’s one mean looking ant. No wonder the bites were so bad.
Correct, Tony! I’m glad that came across in my story. Soon we’ll know the secret origins of the biting ants.
I just about always make things up as I go. Barry & Cedric’s epic 60 episode Spae Adventure was mostly made up as I went along episode by episode.
Errr… Space adventure. I have no idea what a spae adventure is. Stupid keyboard
Sounds like fun, Tony! I’m gonna search for it and read up on Barry and Cedric’s journeys!
I haven’t updated a lot of comics that transferred across from my WP.com blog. I’ve discovered when I deleted all the comic images from my WP.com blog all the comics that were still showing as embedded blog posts have now vanished. I’m in the process of reposting them as proper comic images. I haven’t re-done the Space Odyssey series yet. Will let you know once I’ve done it ‘cos at 60 episodes it may take a while.
Wow, the technical side of the website is always a labyrinth for me. That’s gonna be a lot of work! Let me know when you get it up, Tony :O)
I like that ant! He looks pretty mean!
(P.S. It’s “effects” not “affects”)
I’m glad you like the ant, Binky! Thanks!
Are you sure about the affects and effects? I thought I had it correct: Effects is like sound or light FX, and Affects is what happens to you/it. I don’t know! Maybe I’ll just reword everything! :O/
I’m pretty sure it’s effect. Effect is something that happens. Like the effects of an injury. Whereas affect is how an injury would affect your performance. Okay, I guess that doesn’t make it very clear. Well, I’m no grammarian, so I’m not totally sure either!
Thanks, Peter. I checked it out and I think you are correct, my friend. “effects” is appropriate in this context. Affect is a verb. Effect is a noun. (In most cases.) Here’s the lowdown link from Grammer Girl.
You’re welcome, Joseph. It’s always easier to spot someone else’s mistakes, than your own.
I love these perspectives and the characters.
Thanks, Gruhn! I’m going to rework the background in the first panel because it tends to flatten out a bit.
I love the detail you have in your sketches. I think I am going to enjoy the finished product!
I’ve learned the more precise I am with my pencils stage the better my inks come out because I’m not having to guess. Thanks for the compliment! I’m sure you’ll enjoy the finished page! :O)
I don’t think they’re tourists!
They seem to know a lot about the area. Also, they’re centering their interest on those mean ants. So, your assumption may be correct, Kristen! Thanks for visiting! :O)
This comic is a tourist attraction!
Aw, thanks, Jason! I do my best to draw a crowd! :O)
Look at that, the colors look great Joseph. I really love the first panel!
Thanks, David. I had lots of fun drawing Shirley! :O)
Looks Awesome!
:OD
I don’t think they’d be capturing a bug that big unless they’re evil.
You have a point there, Christopher. You just may be on to something ;O)
That there is some sweeeet coloring, Joseph! Really brought this page to life!
Thanks, Mark. I’ll have it Full-Blast Colored later this week.
I love that red-head character haha
Shirley is my favorite of the three, Jared. It’ll be a shame if something dreadful were to happen to her.
That ant has issues. Great page Joseph!
Perhaps he’s just misunderstood. See, he was probably minding his own business slurping on some lime Jello when all of a sudden he gets thrown into a glass jar.
I know *I* wouldn’t tell! Beautiful page, btw! 🙂
:O) Thanks, Chris!
It’s funny, but I didn’t realize the ant was in a jar in your pencil sketch. When I look back at it now, it’s easy to see. But the colored version certainly makes that fact a lot clearer.
Oh, Binky. You were too busy proof reading my copy! :OP At first I thought about putting Fraz in the jar but decided against it at the last minute.
Fraz?? Poor kid. He hardly bites anyone.
That’s why I gave him a chocolate and sent him back to Wombania. We were happy to have him visit!
Man, that is one insect I don’t wanna ever run into! Zoinks!!!
There’s actually an outbreak in California.. at the Ford house! . :OP
Haha, Nacho and Sandia have the worst luck. Looks like things are gonna get even worse for them regarding that mysterious mutant ant in the Jar. You’re definitely keeping things interesting!
Their day hasn’t gone well, Patrice. But hopefully it’ll get better, soon! Let’s just hope Sandia can wake up poor Nacho in time for their landing! Thanks for the compliment. I do my best to keep the story interesting! :O)
I’m so glad you chose to color your strips. I know it take a lot longer for you to finish them but it’s so worth the wait.
Thanks, Bill. I do love to see it in color myself. Doing it is the hard part! At least I’m getting closer to my two week production time. Ultimately though, I plan to do a completed page: pencils, inks and colors in one week.
Love the color treatment to it Joseph, your work is even stunning in B&W but the color really pops. I love the reference to the restaurant, that would be an awesome name for a hot sauce served at a Taco Stand “La Caca El Diablo”, it’ll burn twice as much going out as it did going in. 🙂 Poor Shirley may not make it back from this hike if she has to do anymore running. 🙂
Thanks for your compliments, Todd. I’m glad you found the restaurant name funny. And for those who don’t know, “CACA” means POOP while “CASA” means HOME. And of course “DIABLO” means “DEVIL”. That’s the Spanish lesson for today, folks. Maybe I should include a footnote about it.
Shirley is definitely getting a workout, Todd! Maybe she can roll around for the rest of the way! I’m excited to see what kind of character becomes of her. And if she’ll be a force for good or evil. Who knows…
Thanks for visiting!
That’s an evil little ant. 🙂
Good thing it’s bottled up inside the jar! But poor Sandia got a lot of nasty bites from these. We’ll see what effects it has on her. Thanks for visiting, Daniel! :O)