Zwol.org

I bought a copy the other day. It's a good book to have around for basic principles spelled out in a clear way. (And I like how the principles are all basically protrayed as optional. "you can do this or not, and here's why you would or wouldn't.") It seemed much more textbook like than his other bo...

My post-apocalyptic cooking comic is updating again, after extensive site surgery and a dalliance with webcomicsnation. The url is http://www.surlyben.com/ There are only a few updates to go before Cooking with Anne is done, and then I'll be moving on to my new comic: Space Pirate Apocalypse. Which ...

Wow, that would be great! I'm not sure if I know enough about sql and php, but I already planned on learning more (and I have general code savvy...) I'd love to give it a try, if you are willing to let me.

surlyben at benhard.com is a working email...

Thanks!

I've decided to attempt to automate my webcomic (hopefully this week... Cooking with Anne has been offline for too long), so I've been looking into what scripts are availaible, and I came across a thread about atp autoupdate over on comixpedia where zwol (who I assume is Greg?) was talking about mak...

I go all out with grids and diagonals and construction lines pointing to vanishing points and so on, but I eyeball all of that and generally draw them with no rulers (making corrections as needed). Then I base the drawing on the messed up hand-sketched guidelines. So my perspective drawings often cu...

Hmm. I've read that the Toshiba Tecra M4 does include pressure sensitivity (256 levels, IIRC). I think it also includes tilt sensitivity and so on. Google says that it has a wacom digitizer, which would imply pressure sensitivity. When I was looking into buying a tablet PC a while back, I came acros...

Howdy, howdy, howdy. I did a small one hour comic today, and I thought I'd post about it here. This one turned out ok, if I do say so myself. Link to comic: http://www.surlyben.com/archives/2005/surly110405b.html Link to long dead thread about one hour comics: http://www.zwol.org/forum/viewtopic.php...

Lol. Most of them won't. But I hardly ever need to draw naked people...

Maxfield Parrish used to photograph himself nude for modelling purposes...

I use skeletons, but yeah, there's really no substitute for drawing from a live model. OK, I'm lying. There are some substitutes. I take photographs of friends in poses that I need. I used to use a polaroid for this; now I use a small point and shoot digital camera.

Well, in that case, I like the second style better. It's an unusual style for a webcomic, and that's a good thing, IMO.

My advice is to not worry too much about how long it takes the artist to draw, and also don't pay them by the hour. Pay them by the page, or panel, or the project... Figure out how much you are willing to pay, and try to get the best artist for your project and your money. As for how long your examp...

I suggest that next time you go in the opposite direction, and try a one hour or 24 minute comic . See how short you can go! Because if you keep going this way, you'll end up doing a 500 page comic in 20 days, and that just makes everyone else look bad. Seriously, though, I'm rooting for ya. (I can'...

That is pretty cool. Thanks for the link.

Woo hoo! I feel so special. I'm surprised that you haven't made registration a requirement for posting before this...

I dunno, seems pretty fair to me. It's only one sentence, and the sentence is almost all a description of a more or less unchanging scene, very little action. Could almost get it into one panel, except that time has to pass. The digression about light and moving air carrying heat would be tough to s...

Lately I've been using a gouache to cover up my mistakes. It works with watercolors to an extent, and is flatter than white out... I also clean things up digitally, sometimes. Or I don't. It's not as if my comic is polished to a fine sheen...

That's quite good. Thanks! I dig the art and use of color...

Ben

[edit: 'dig'?!! what the hell kind of hippy language is that? What I mean is that I like the sort of designey art. ]

I don't really see what's wrong with selling out. If someone were to plunk down a pile of cash in order to use some of my art to sell a product, I'd say yes in a second. Even if they wanted to change it to better sell their product. The degree of change might alter my price, of course, as would the ...

Just to be clear, though, just because Scott knows who I am doesn't mean that when I met him last I didn't behave like some kind of demented fan, because I did. I was so tense that I probably shouldn't have been allowed near people that day, but time waits for no one and now I'm degressing horribly...

My table is flat. I could adjust it to be at an angle, but I hate the way things always roll off of it. Also having it at an angle prevents my watercolors from being messed up in the way I want them to be. I often draw on a board on my lap, anyway, and use the table only for the finished stuff. As f...

Geez Rip, I wonder how you feel about those rotten Belgians... Do you even know anything at all about WWII? I hate the French as much as anyone, but it's not like the Germans just showed up at the French border and the French said "Zut, alors! we surrender!". No, they got their butts well and truly ...

I think Scott should do one where he goes back and changes stuff in previous panels every day. By the end, the early panels could be altered enough to make the story completely different than it would have been had it all stayed the same.

I get that from zinesters and minicomics people sometimes. If it's not print, it's not real... Then I talk about how easy it is to publish, and how I can reach a large audience, and the quiet right down...

Where is Robots Love to Dance? (edit due to html error...) I like the current one, and parallelogram, but they don't have robots. Mmm, dancing robots...