Page 22 of Old Ghosts is up! Turns out ghosts need to take breaks occasionally? (I spent more time than was strictly necessary figuring out which of Britain’s several national papers would be Archer’s rag of choice. He is, of course, a Times reader.)

Read it here on Tapastic, or here on Studio NDR.

Need to get caught up? The archive of pages posted to date is here.

SDCC news: yes, I will be there! I’ll be hanging around the Northwest Press table, which will once again be part of the Prism Comics mega-booth. I’ll also be on the “BREAKING BARRIERS: TRANSGENDER TRENDS IN POPULAR CULTURE” panel, which is Thursday, 7/24/14, 5:00p.m. – 6:00p.m., Room: 28DE. More queer comics panel deets here.

Finally, this week’s Beyond progress report: all pages are inked, and 15 out of 16 pages are flatted. After that, it’s time for shading, texturing, and other finishing touches, and then it is DONE. My hope is to have it finished before SDCC, but we’ll see if that actually happens. Chaos tends to intervene.

Cheers,

Dylan

Page 21 of PiQue: Old Ghosts is up! You’re always complaining that Archer never smiles. Well, here you go! Don’t you feel better now? (Huh. I wonder what Archer could be up to. Oh well, probably nothing, right?) Read it here on Tapastic, or here on Studio NDR.

Need to get caught up? The archive of pages posted to date is here.

In Beyond news, I’m still trucking along with the inking and shading. I’m in the midst of inking page 14, and have 6 pages flatted. I would really, really like to have that done before I go to San Diego for Comic Con, but we’ll see if that actually happens. Chaos has a way of intervening. Still, it’s not completely unreasonable, right?

Cheers,

Dylan

PiQue: Old Ghosts page 20 is up! Todd and Archer discuss the horrors of being haunted by a treacle tart, and the moral ramifications of rampant vegetable slaughter.

Read it here on Tapastic, or here on Studio NDR.

Need to get caught up? The archive of all pages posted to date is here.

In Beyond news, I’m inking away on my story. Got the line work done on 9 out of 16 pages. My plan is to do digital shading on this one, so I’ll be scanning those inks today, that I may begin laying in flats, and then trade off inking and flatting at my whim.

Why digital shading? First of all, it’s a long story, so making sure the tones work together from one page to the next while staying consistent is going to take some tweaking. Easier to do that with digital. Second, the anthology is black & white, but I want the option to do a color version in the future. That’ll be a whole heckuva lot simpler and faster to achieve if I do the B&W version on the compooper. So there you have it. I expect I’ll be posting teasers of in-progress pages over on my tumblr in the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out for that.

Cheers,

Dylan

Page 19 of Old Ghosts is up! I am actually quite jealous of Todd’s ability to fall asleep so easily. Not necessarily jealous of the tendency to drool, but … eh? Tradeoffs.

Read it here on Tapastic, or here on Studio NDR.

Need to get caught up? The archive of pages posted to date is here.

In Beyond news, I’ve gotten approval on my pencils, so I’ve started the process of inking all these pages. I have about a six week buffer of finished pages on Old Ghosts, so I’m hoping that will be sufficient to cover me while I get my story for Beyond done.

Cheers,

Dylan

Politically InQueerect: Old Ghosts page 18 is up! And a little early, too, as I have jury duty and won’t be able to post at my usual time. Read it here on Tapastic (scheduled post, so it’ll go up at the usual time), or here on Studio NDR.

I’m sure you all remember Gran’s colorful description of the contents of the haunted wardrobe from page 13, yes? Archer (or, at least, his subconscious) clearly does.

Art notes: In my own dreams, places are often visually completely different from what they look like in real life, even though in the dream I never question this discrepancy. I couldn’t really do that here without having the location change just confuse the heck out of people (and who knows, maybe other people dream places that look just like they do in real life).

Instead, I cranked up the color saturation and made the lighting off kilter, and changed some details of the room’s layout and accoutrements. So you the reader can tell it’s supposed to be the same room, but something about it is … awry.

Cheers,

Dylan

Page 17 of Old Ghosts is up! Is Archer’s stomach hurting because of all the treacle tart, or because of the cutesy nicknames?

Read it here on Tapastic, or here on Studio NDR.

Need to get caught up? The archive of pages posted to date is here.

In other exciting news, I finished the pencils for my story for Beyond! It now sits with the editors awaiting their comment. Once I have their approval, I’ll move on to the inks.

In the meantime, I’m back to coloring the remaining pages of Old Ghosts. Gotta build that buffer back up, dontcha know. Well, and finish the comic, I guess. BUT. You know. Point is, CoLoRiNg.

Cheers,

Dylan

Old Ghosts page 16 up! In which detente is achieved and Todd learns a valuable piece of information.

Read it here on Studio NDR, or here on Tapastic.

Need to get caught up? The archive of all pages posted to date is here.

On the Beyond front, I have the layout set up for the LAST PAGE, so the pencils are very, very nearly done on that. HOO ROOR.

Busy day today, so back to work!

Cheers,

Dylan

Page 15 of Politically InQueerect: Old Ghosts is up! The metaphysics debate rages between Todd and Archer until the dinner bell mercifully puts a halt to the proceedings and sends the combatants to their corners.

You can read it here on Tapastic, or here on Studio NDR.

Need to get caught up? The archive of all pages posted to date is here.

Yes, I promise, this exchange is all in aid of something. :) STAY TOONED …

Cheers,

Dylan

Page 14 of Politically InQueerect: Old Ghosts is up! In this episode: Todd makes a grab for the reins – can a rampaging Archer be stopped in time??? Read it here on Tapastic, or here on Studio NDR.

If you need to get caught up, the archive of all pages posted to date is here.

In other news, TCAF was several buckets of fun, and I sincerely hope I’m able to attend next year as well. I’m actually a little sad I’m not going to be at VanCAF in a couple of weeks (though Northwest Press WILL be there, so you can still get my book), but I gotta make the comics, ya know?

Speaking of which, I’m in the midst of penciling page 8 of 16 for my story for Beyond. It’s a lot of fun finally getting to work with these characters after all this planning. I frequently find that most of the actual personality development emerges with the pencils. I mean, I can make up traits for characters to have, but it’s not until I’m actually drawing them for real in the context of a story (as opposed to pin-ups or design roughs) that I learn, for instance, that Amihan REALLY hates the cold. Or that Tavaly is wound up and intense, in contrast to Juharfa’s resigned curmudgeonliness. (And yeah, I know these names don’t mean much of anything to you at the moment, but soon, my lovelies. Soon.)

Cheers,

Dylan