As of this morning, I officially have a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from the University of Alberta!
On Saturday: Angry prison inmates don’t take kindly to smack talk.
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Posts Tagged ‘Mad Doc Crockett’
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Usually when I write a HEAT page, I’ll write out all of the dialogue and, by the time the script is printed out so I can start drawing pages, it’s pretty much finalized. Minor tweaks while I’m drawing are fairly common (splitting lines or small additions or deletions), but for the most part the lines I wrote in the script are the ones you read in the comic. When I wrote this page I couldn’t come up with a line I was happy with for Mad Doc Crockett, so I just wrote that he shouted obscenities and figured I’d think of something later. And then I kept on writing and forgot about it completely until the blank page was sitting on my desk next to the script and I realized I didn’t have a line there. I again tried to come up with something funny and terrible that he could yell, and again, nothing. Then a light bulb went off in my head and I took it in a kind of bizarre, abstract direction, which you’ve just read the results of.
On Saturday: The run-in continues!
I had to look it up, but this is the first appearance of Los Gordinflones Negros. Normally I would be on top of something like that, but I’ve been drawing them for long enough that I forgot they hadn’t shown up online yet. I actually forgot a detail of their costume in this rendition of them, although you don’t know what it is (yet). The PPW Tag Team Title belts were a design that kind of just popped into my head. I’d been trying to figure out what they should look like and couldn’t come up with something that really said “tag team”, then all of a sudden I knew exactly what it should look like, resulting in those belts. I have a pencil version that I might scan later to add to the bonus art gallery, since it gives a better view of the front plate on the belt.
Dick, Doc, and Ron’s suits were kind of fun to work on. I took the basic “future suit” from the Warden and then modified them a bit to fit each of their personalities and visual styles. Dick and Ron just got different ties; Dick’s is black to match his trunks while Ron’s uses the same sparkly texture as his entrance jacket. Doc, on the other hand, I got to go a little wild with. The sequins on the back of his jacket are an homage to Bobby “The Brain” Heenan’s old jackets, then I added a little version of his logo (which is kind of a shitty logo, but meh. I can give him a better one later) and a tie based on Scott Hall’s nWo trunks; y’know, the ones that were black and had a blood design running down them. I think I might use that design on Doc’s wrestling costume later on, I like it.
On Wednesday: Doc is the kind of fan you don’t want to sit next to.
Plot mover AND the insinuation that the Warden is a) a racist, and, b) doesn’t realize that racism isn’t cool. Also, a perfectly good Spanish word has been ruined forever.
The side headlock in panel one was a lot of fun to draw, and I think made the page a little more interesting than just Doc and the Warden talking. Although the Warden’s awkward cough turned out better than I was expecting it to.
Fun facts about current projects: A pitch for a British magazine resulted in me learning that Canada and the United States are the only two countries that use 8.5 x 11″ paper dimensions instead of A4 (8.3 x 11.7″). I could probably just go out and buy some A4 paper, but I found a whole bunch of Legal-sized paper in my basement so I measured out borders on it and got to work without having to leave my house. Becasue that outside shit is scary. I also learned that I really like turning “nothing” moments into action sequences (I do it a fair bit in my print series, Hell, Inc.). Hell, Inc. doesn’t lend itself to combative action like HEAT does, so I have to find action in other places. Like putting toner in a photocopier, or hoping the elevator shows up before somebody you don’t want to talk to gets there.
On Saturday: Off to Prison Asteroid 17E. And yet another homage to Bobby “The Brain” Heenan.
The “kick him in the back” thing is pretty much straight out of The Simpsons. I don’t remember which episode it was, but Homer’s words of wisdom about fighting were to “kick him in the back.” And then run away, I think. It’s also how most hot tag situations tend to be resolved in wrestling, except that it’s usually a forearm smash or an axe handle instead of a kick. Much like “isolate the guy in the corner” from last page, the hot tag is one of those staples of tag team wrestling that isn’t so much a strategy as what happens every time, sometimes more than once.
Doc is still a little too thick in this one, but I really like how the first panel turned out, so art-wise it’s kind of a wash. In other art news, I finnished page 51 the other day, which is the beginning of the next match: Dick the Bastard & Ron “The Con” Gould vs. Los Gordinflones Negros in the opening contest of the Super Max Challenge.
On Wednesday: ROAD TRIP!
The script for this page had “tag team strategy” written on the board in the background, but when I sat down to draw it I decided to indulge my love of sign jokes. Not that there haven’t been enough in Hell, Inc. #2, which I just hit the halfway point on. I’ve been having a lot of fun with a sign in the elevator which changes in every panel it appears in.
Drawing Dick and Ron’s poses on this page was an interesting challenge. A less interesting thing that turned into a challenge was Doc’s physique, which is a little too bulky, I think. Drawing him with two separate designs, one of which is in his prime, probably doesn’t help.
On Saturday: More tag team strategery.
This page was the newest HEAT page to be part of my pitch package at the Calgary Comic Con. HEAT #38, #37, #26, and #24 were the other pages included, along with a copy of Hell, Inc. #1. Ron throwing Tim out of the ring wasa fun challenge to tackle, which was made easier with ample video reference (I have 9 or 10 WWF Royal Rumbles in my tape collection). Speaking of Royal Rumbles, I’m currently writing HEAT scripts for episodes numbered in the high 70s and am just about to start writing a Royal Rumble-style match, which I have yet to come up with a not-lame name for.
Mad Doc Crockett referring to the fans as “the troglodytes” is a shout-out to former WWF and WCW colour commentator Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, who used to have a variety of insulting nicknames for the audience. If only modern commentators could dial down the suck a little bit and make me stop yearning for the late ’80s/early ’90s.
On Wednesday: Chapter 4 begins!
This page, along with the last one and the next one were used in my pitch package at the Calgary Comic Con. It is fairly likely they will not result in me getting hired by anybody, but I still like them a lot. I think my favourite panel on this page is the last one, mostly because I like depth of field (is that even what that’s called?). Ron’s belly-t0-belly suplex was a lot harder to draw than I anticipated, which I think I end up saying in practically every one of these news posts. There was a lot of me clutching a blanket folded to roughly person-width and suplexing it on my family room floor to figure out Ron’s body position, and then flinging myself on the couch to get an approximation for what Tim should look like. I mostly draw at night for a reason.
I’ve recently been writing a lot of HEAT scripts. I’m currently in the high 70s, page-wise, and writing a bunch of scenes that my future self will hate me for.
On Saturday: Doc Crockett rocks the mic. Not unlike Jesus does here (I drew the second one).
This scene whole scene with the Warden ended up being a ton of fun to draw, although when I was looking at it in the script I wasn’t looking forward to it. It was a nice change of pace for the comic, since it’s a few pages of talking heads. Although in retrospect I’m not sure why that was a welcome change of pace, since that’s basically the entirety of drawing my print series, Hell, Inc. That book was great for learning how to make extended dialogue interesting, visually, since there were two action scenes in the entire book. One involves a photocopier. Man is that book fun to work on. I just finished page 8 of the second issue this afternoon.
Tomorrow (Saturday, May 1st) is Free Comic Book Day. I’ll be at Happy Harbor Comics Volume 2 along with Daniel Schneider (artist of Zenescope’s Merc. Regular readers of this blog probably recognize his name even if you’ve never read a thing he’s ever done), Tony Esteves of Cigarro & Cerveja fame, colourist extraordinaire Stephanie Chan, and Julie Duczynski (who I only met briefly at the drink and draw in Calgary, but is probably also awesome if she’s hanging out with us). We’ll be doing sketches in exchange for donations to the Food Bank, so you should definitely come donate and get a purdy drawing. Rumour has it that costumes will be involved.
Next week the udpate schedule will be returning to the usual Wednesday/Saturday routine. Finally.
On Wednesday: A plan starts to come together, and there are sparkly jackets.
This is a page that I wasn’t particularly excited about drawing, but I ended up having a lot of fun with it. I wasn’t so sure about the first half of this chapter, actually, in terms of whether or not the pace would work, but couldn’t come up with a snappier way to get all of the information out in an entertaining way (ie. not an infodump, which I’m not fond of).
Simpsons fans may notice that the Warden’s office is based on Mr. Burns’ office (which I think was, itself, based on the office from Citizen Kane). So if anyone asks I guess I can say that my lowbrow wrestling webcomic has influences from one of the grandest works in cinematic history. The polar bear in the corner was replaced with a statue of a wrestler, although it might have been funny to just leave it as a polar bear, but put tights on it. I hear the Bear Men of Ursa IV are excellent wrestlers. Although the rate of in-ring maulings skyrockets when they’re involved.
This early update is brought to you in part by the Calgary Entertainment Expo, which I’ll be attending this weekend. Really not excited about having to get up before 7 AM to hitch a ride with the artist of Zenescope’s series Merc, Dan Schneider, but the show will be awesome. I spent the better part of today putting together pitch packages for some of the publishers that are going to be there, so hopefully I’ll come out of it with a comics job (or at least with valuable pitching experience).
On Wednesday: The Warden isn’t the kind of guy who does a lot of manual labour.
