By dose is stuffed ub preddy good right dow.

Do you hab EDDY idea how hard it is to DRAW whed your dose is tryig to rudd all ober the page?

I hab a roll of toilet paber sittig dext to be, ad I’b goig through it like a fabily of four od their way hobe frob Bexico.

–Howard

I was drawing some Schlock Mercenary a couple of weeks ago, and was inking General Tagon’s rather square jawline. I remember looking at that line I was making, and suddenly having that disconnected, “where am I and what am I doing here?” feeling. I looked down at the line I was drawing was struck at the absurdity of the thought that folks would PAY me for drawing it. I mean, it was just a LINE, connected to another line. The line itself, seen up close, was scratchy and a little pale — a side effect of using pigment liners until they give up not only the ghost, but also any other malingering spirits in the neighborhood — hardly top-of-the-(ahem)-line stuff.

I pulled back and looked at the whole comic. It wasn’t done yet, and looked, unsurprisingly, very unfinished. Of course, even when I’m done inking my work looks unfinished. I color it to cover that up, as I’ve done since June of 2000. Looking down at it I was struck again by the thought that it wasn’t worth a day’s wage. The math is simple: if I’m going to live off of a daily comic, each daily comic I draw needs to be worth whatever money I have to earn in a day in order to get by, right? These days that’s about $100, and even then that’s with a pretty tight belt. So I looked down at that comic and thought “is that worth $100?”

Now don’t go thinking that I’m having some mid-life crisis, or a failure of faith, or anything like that. I like what I’m doing… no, I LOVE what I’m doing. Even the crassly commercial GWAVAMan is fun. It’s just that sometimes I can’t believe that I AM doing it.

Remember playing with the old “house” legos and making space-ships? This would have been 1978 or so, in my case. The transparent bricks that were the original Lego windows became “dilithium crystals,” (as a 10-year-old in the 70s what other spaceship crystals WERE there?) and every ship needed one. Later on, at age 16 or so, I realized that those crystals were the “Suspension of Disbelief” engines that allowed these funny, boxy ships to look sleek and powerful in the eyes of a 10-year old. Well, I think I need to fasten a transparent lego-brick to my desk somewhere, because this disbelief I experience from time to time certainly could use a good spot of suspending.

Yes, I expect people to pay for that line. This year the rate is $100 per daily collection of lines. Next year I’m doubling it. And people will not only pay, they’ll SMILE as they pay. See this here clear lego? PURE DILITHIUM.

–Howard

Well, I pencilled and inked all but one of the GWAVAMan strips that run in February and March, and the last one in the queue has been mostly pencilled. It awaits approval of character design, so unless I want to ink the other stuff on the page without seeing how the missing character fits, I’m done with pen-and-ink.

My hand hurts a lot. This means I’m a) holding the pen too tightly, b) pushing down too hard, rather than using a light touch with a larger nib, and c) out of practice. This is not multiple choice. This is “all of the above.” S’okay. My hand will be better tomorrow.

I’m really pleased with the way these strips turned out. I spend a little more time on them than I do on the daily doses of Schlock Mercenary I crank out. I know, it hardly seems fair that 20,000 fans don’t get my “A” game, but let’s face it… youse guys ain’t paying more than about 20% of my monthly bills. My generous commercial patrons, on the other hand, get my “stretch” work.

This is good news for Schlock fans… I’m being paid to stretch my artistic abilities. The Sunday coloring has already benefited from the techniques I’m developing as I work on GWAVAMan, and I’m sure that the rest of the art I do for Schlock will follow along similarly.

Well, between Birthdays and Movings-Out, I’ve failed to get everything done that needs doing.

The Schlock Buffer stands at 12 inked, but only 5 colored-and-uploaded. There are 5 GWAVAMan strips needing pencils, inks, and colors this week. Oh, and by February 15th I need to be starting work on the GWAVAMan fold-out comic (cover, two interior action-packed pages, watermark on the back) for BrainShare. My deadline on those is probably going to have to be March 1st, which will mean enormous amounts of “crunch” right at the end. See, this comic will feature numerous caricatures and characterizations of Novell GroupWise partners, and will be used at BrainShare as part of a promotion by the GWAVA team to drive delegates to all participating partner booths where they’ll surrender business cards (and their attendant contact information) for the opportunity to win prizes. Those partners featured in the comic have to pay up-front to get included, which of course means that a week before I’m supposed to be finished with it I’ll be asked to insert panels because somebody’s check cleared.

(If there are GroupWise partners reading this Journal, get with The Bliss NOW)

Yes, GWAVAMan is a total sell-out for me. As if working for Novell for a decade WASN’T? Yeesh. At least THIS sell-out leaves me a modicum of creative control, and lies within a field of work I truly love. And it’s hard work– easily the most challenging art-and-story I’ve done since scripting the Death of Captain Tagon.

So, the point of all this: I need to have the rest of the GWAVAMan weeklies pencilled and inked today (tomorrow at the latest), and colored by Friday at the latest. During “rest-the-hand” times I need to be scripting Schlock Mercenary, so that from February 7th through the 15th I can aggressively grow that buffer, hopefully through March 7th. By March 7th I should be done working on GWAVAMan, and I’ll be free to work on Schlock full-time (I know, I know… some of you may have been under the mistaken impression that I’ve BEEN doing Schlock full-time. Not so!) and growing the buffer in preparation for my busy conference schedule in mid-March, April, and May.

In short, to punnishly paraphrase Johnny Storm, “Game ON!”

VOOOMF!

–Howard