Journal

Boom, baby.

12 Comments

Last week I sacrificed Schlock buffer to finish a commercial project, and succeeded in putting that project to bed. This week began with a bit of anxiety on Sunday when I realized that I was going to wake up Monday morning with only four scripts to work on, and with only five strips in the buffer.

The anxiety led to a late night, during which I scripted a bunch of crap I couldn’t use.

Monday morning I was determined to at least pencil and ink the Sunday that I knew worked (yes, that’s THIS COMING SUNDAY), and then dig in on scripting. I hoped to be able to script, pencil, and ink an entire week, but by 9am I hadn’t even started.

Well, here it is, 6:35pm, and I’ve succeeded. The buffer has more than doubled in size, because I cranked out seven strips. They’re good ones, too. Especially the one with the elf in it.

Anyway, the fight is NOT over. The buffer stands at 12 inked, 5 colored, which means I need to color seven, and then script, pencil, ink, and color ANOTHER seven this week. In fact, I hope to be able to do another FOURTEEN this week, because next week ends early with the start of LTUE 2005, and the week after that sees the beginning of another commercial project which is going to require MASSIVE amounts of time in a very short window.

So, here’s to continued cranking. I’m off to see about some fresh scripts.

–Howard

12 thoughts on “Boom, baby.”

  2. I don’t know if I say it enough, but thank you.

    That’s all. Just thank you.

    Thank you for having such a professional attitude that when you get to one week left in your buffer, you get uncomfortable instead of thinking “well, I still have a week left, so no big.”

    Thank you for thinking “you know, I put a bunch of work into scripts last night and this morning I realize they’re not usable, so I’m dumping them rather than inflating said buffer with them.”

    Thank you for the pride you have in Schlock. Thank you for the skill you put into it every day. Thank you for not having excuses. Thank you for, when you see something that needs doing, just sitting down and doing it.

    Thank you, sir. Sincerely.

    2. Too True.

      I only wish I could have the kind of work ethic we see from Mr. Tayler. Too bad there isn’t a class I can take for that. I suppose it can only come naturally from really caring about what you do and why you do it.

      Mr. Tayler, to care about your work and whether it is good enough for yourself, not to mention your fans, at such a level that can only be described as obsessive, quite possibly dangerous. The world needs more of that.

      Thank you.

    3. Hear hear! I can think of no webcomic writer more devoted to the task than Mr. Taylor (and I say that as a fan of about 40).

      Thank you.

    6. Definite agreement here as well.

      I was rather flabbergasted when a week or so ago another big name comic said basically “I guess I should start working a day ahead”.

      You guess?

      It’s your job, and you GUESS?

      gah!

      Not even looking at the fact that only a day ahead is insanity… the flu is a common occurence, and it’ll knock most folks out for a week, so a week is what I’d consider minimum safe buffer.

      1. The artists who floor me — utterly floor me — are the ones who have no buffer … and never miss a day. There are a few out there like that, and I don’t know how they do it.

  3. I’ve had it for months now. It occurred to me as I was writing this journal entry about drawing lots of Schlock Mercenary that “Turbo Schlock” wasn’t such a bad icon to use…

    –Howard

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