Hot and fresh out of the colouring oven, it's … CHAPTER FOUR!
This newest episode of young Alexandra's unfortunate travails should continue for the next ten weeks or so, as I post between four and six pages a week.
For the uninitiated, these are essentially finished pages. You're welcome to dive into them now, or, I don't know, read them whenever and however you like. You know what you're doing. These are either fun to follow along with as I finish them (careful though, they...
2024-04-25 17:21:38 +0000 UTC
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This week, a timely little dive into how long it takes to make comics, in response to The Cartoonists Cooperative's industry survey. But first…
Flatting is done! Colour prep is done!
I had not previously separated these two tasks, so here's the difference.
This is what I call "flatting:"
All the major objects in a scene are isolated from each other, making it easier to colour...
2024-04-19 00:42:26 +0000 UTC
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This week: Come for the flower photos and the links to the livestream recordings, stay for the "doctor, doctor" jokes that I just edited in!
Our magnolia tree is in bloom right now, and I'm making a special effort to relish it, because last year it feels like the blooms came and went in a flash. It always surprises me how early they flower, and as soon as I get used to seeing them around, they'...
2024-04-11 16:55:01 +0000 UTC
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Flatting continues at a pace! What kind of pace is it? Well, it's certainly a pace. (Only fourteen more pages to prep!)
Streaming!
Remember when I said, "ugh I'll need a second computer to do a proper live stream?" Well, it turns out I do have a second computer that is up to the task, sort-of. I bought myself a capture device, hooked it all up, and tested it ...
2024-04-03 17:11:33 +0000 UTC
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Every time I publish a new chapter of PRACTICAL DEFENCE AGAINST PIRACY to the web, I prepare illustrated pages to acknowledge you, the patrons who have very literally and practically helped to make this work possible.
Take a look at the acknowledgements for Chapter One, Chapter Two, and 2024-03-28 19:11:09 +0000 UTC
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Last night I fell asleep at 7:30 while putting Kiddo to bed, then slept straight through until 7:00 the next morning. That's my little snapshot of this week.
Flatting continues! While I was working on Monday and Tuesday, I recorded some snippets of the process and turned it into
2024-03-23 05:28:03 +0000 UTC
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Unfortunately, I won't be able to do live streams. Not yet, at least.
More unfortunately, I told you I would do something, and now I'm not going to do it. This is the most frustrating part for me. "Keeping your word" is important, I believe.
The TL;DR is that while I have my streaming software open, ONE of Photoshop's tools performs so poorly that it's difficult to actually work. Unfortunately, it's one I need. I've made a short video (above) demonstrating the pro...
2024-03-15 18:03:01 +0000 UTC
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First of all, thank you to everyone who has been leaving nice comments and sharing the retrospective posts. I was nervous about writing them (and still am), so I'm glad they are being enjoyed.
Second, I'm half-way finished flatting Chapter Four. I wanted to be further along by now, but it is what it ...
2024-03-14 18:47:08 +0000 UTC
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It's the final instalment in my look back at 2016's THE KING'S SHILLING, or "DD2!"
In the first instalment, I said that I have often thought of DD2 as a sort of detour in the direction that I thought Delilah Dirk would take. As I wrap up reading the book for the first time in a long time, let's find out if that feeling remains!
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The context notes from the previous<...
2024-03-08 19:23:57 +0000 UTC
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In the image carousel, Let's Get Sleepy illustrations, one old and one new. I hope they charm and delight you! More on this below, but no, I am not making another Sleepy book.
This week has been a hectic one — everyone is sick, including my partner/wife/significant other/her-own-person, who never gets sick. Plus, the dinguses who run the internet have decided to make the whole place a lot less fun, so I've spent an unpleasant amount of time researching alter...
2024-02-28 21:17:42 +0000 UTC
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This week I had to look up reference photos of horse droppings so I could get the colours right.
That's as much as needs to be said on that topic. This is part two of a look back at 2016's Delilah Dirk and the King's Shilling. It's been more than ten years since I started work on it (my earliest files on it are from 2012). I haven't looked at it in a long time. Let's see how it holds up.<...
2024-02-22 18:33:01 +0000 UTC
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Some time during the summer of 2013 — before The Turkish Lieutenant came out — Calista, my editor at First Second, asked for a pitch for a second Delilah Dirk book. This caught me off guard. Not because I didn't think there should be a near-infinite number of Delilah Dirk books, only that I thought this sort of request would be made after the first book sold a near-infinite number of copies.
So I put together a pitch, all the time quietly ruminating on the idea tha...
2024-02-15 17:56:01 +0000 UTC
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This week, a short video about a dumb little thing I did to amuse myself. If you already know what “flatting” is, you can skip the first half.
No one else would ever see this thing (well, until now, I guess). It serves no purpose. In fact, it was probably counterproductive. But it makes me smile, and flatting is a meditative task at best (and a tedious chore at worst), so why not add a little fun?
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Just this “quick” update this week. It’s the seco...
2024-02-09 18:48:19 +0000 UTC
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Happy Friday! Or whenever you're reading this!
This week, a little gem I discovered that REALLY opened my eyes on some important things. But first, a quick DD4 progress update…
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I've been working on Chapter Four colour keys this week, as well as writing Chapter Five.
On the days where I'm looking after our kiddo, I get about two-and-a-half work hours in the mornings while he's at preschool. This week I took Chapter Five to the library and did some writing.
2024-02-02 19:59:07 +0000 UTC
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This week, I pick up where I left off last week and look at the second half of DELILAH DIRK AND THE TURKISH LIEUTENANT, as published by First Second Books in August 2013!
First, though: in the last instalment I mentioned that the tea recipe Selim recites in the prologue of TURKISH LIEUTENANT is actually the recipe for a "Blood of My Enemies" tea designed by Reader Nikki long ago. She commented on last week's post and reminded me about a little publicity initiative timed with the release...
2024-01-25 19:35:01 +0000 UTC
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… or "DD1," for short.
This book was published by First Second Books in August of 2013. It is, essentially, what I put together in the last instalment, with a few additional bits (which I'll mention when they pop up) and a judicious application of copy editing. It's my own DELILAH DIRK AND THE TREASURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE plus Flight Volume 5's DELILAH DIRK AND THE AQUEDUCT, with a new "prologue," a bridge ch...
2024-01-19 00:50:13 +0000 UTC
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This week, a brief intermission in the flow of retrospective posts.
I've been thinking a lot about Chapter Five of PRACTICAL DEFENCE and beyond, specifically who does what and where do they go. In my mind, I shuffle little army figures around a tactical battlefield. But when I find myself doing that, I often think about one of my favourite movies and the way the logistics for one of its most important scenes is absolutely, wildly inconsistent.
This week I want to take a quick look...
2024-01-11 17:54:01 +0000 UTC
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Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant, or "DD1," was published in 2013 by First Second Books, six years after The Treasure of Constantinople, which I talked about last week. I thought I'd be able to skip straight to talking about DD1, but then I looked through my books and realized it's just not that easy…
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But first, some other small items of note:
- Big ima...
2024-01-04 17:45:01 +0000 UTC
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Hello! I'm in the weird liminal space between Christmas and New Year's, and PRACTICAL DEFENCE AGAINST PIRACY is in the liminal space between The Inking Is Finished and Colouring Has Begun. I have a lot of time-consuming work to do — laying out the digital pages, lettering, and flatting — but none of that makes for colourful Patreon posts. So I asked you, "during this gap, would you like me to talk about some of my older work?" and several people said yes, so here we are.
Th...
2023-12-28 23:50:58 +0000 UTC
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I asked you for your font opnions! You provided them! And the results right now are as such:
Option B edged out A and C by a slight margin!
Initially, this surprised me — option B feels so different from what I'm used to. But we'll get into that in a second. Let's first discard fonts D and E.
2023-12-22 00:20:43 +0000 UTC
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This week, a quick recommendation, a quick adventure-fiction note, then a look at the last batch of Chapter Four Inks!
As always, the big spoilery images are in the carousel above, the images below are medium-level spoilery.
I'll follow up on the FONT SHOWDOWN in next week's update. Here's the post with the full pages, and 2023-12-17 00:00:22 +0000 UTC
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As promised, the poll for the Font Showdown!
How to vote? However you like!
You can vote for more than one, which also means you can effectively vote against one or two, if you like.
In C, D, and E, please be kind about the appearance of the capital "I" (it should be barred, like in A and B), and the apostrophes might look weird. These are limitations of the "Trial" versions of these fonts.
I've set...
2023-12-07 18:02:01 +0000 UTC
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As mentioned last week, I am speed-dating some new typefaces for Practical Defence. My criticisms for the font I have been using to date are that it lacks some international characters, has no em-dash, and does not offer the fancy features that newer, more sophisticated fonts do, like variable "I" characters and alternate glyphs for repeated letters (like the es in "need").
So I looked at the two major vendors for comic-friendly typefaces — Blambot and Comicraft — ...
2023-12-07 18:00:04 +0000 UTC
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This week! SO MANY THINGS.
- Rob Roy! The movie.
- Costuming for History
- Byzantine jewellery? and Archaeology Thoughts.
- Pages!
- HORSE CONSIDERATIONS.
- New typefaces (that is, fonts).
And, as usual, there are extreme spoilers in the image carousel above, and medium-level spoilers in the images below.
But before that: other things!
ROB ROY (1995)
If, like me, you were A) around when this m...
2023-11-30 19:25:45 +0000 UTC
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As usual please select your preferred level of SPOILER SPICE:
🌶️ - Minimum spoilers. If you're scrolling and you see an image, GET OUT!
🌶️🌶️ - Medium spoilers. Enjoy the post and its images, but do not look at the image carousel above!
🌶️🌶️🌶️ - Full spoiler spice. Browse that image carousel! Take in every detail of the inked pages!
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"Director Commentary"
Last week I asked whether anyone would be int...
2023-11-24 19:41:01 +0000 UTC
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Not sure how it happened, but I got a whole carriage-load of pages inked since last we spoke. Whoops.
This week: first, I want your opinion! Then, the usual unasked-for opinions on things, and a closer look at these pages.
The spoilers are intensifying. The full pages are in the carousel above, but if you want to carve a half-way path between Spoiler Town and Blissfully Unspoiled Valley, the stuff below does that.
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This week I...
2023-11-16 19:12:09 +0000 UTC
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It's "Oops All Bangers" this week.
As usual, spoilers spoilers spoilers. More spoilers than a Fast and the Furious. Full pages are posted in the image carousel above.
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Weekly tangent: Adam Buxton interview...
2023-11-09 17:57:34 +0000 UTC
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Hello Dear Readers, I am writing to you from The Groggy Place.
Yesterday I took Kiddo and we both got our dose of both a COVID booster and a flu shot. I was expecting to be a little sleepy, maybe have a bit of a headache. I was not expecting to get the shakes and the cold sweats.
So sleep was already not great when, at 4 o'clock in the morning, there was a loud clatter from somewhere in the house. Probably the kitchen, though a half-awake brain is not...
2023-11-02 21:04:22 +0000 UTC
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THE SEAL IS BROKEN,
THE INKING HAS BEGUN
First, thank you for your patience while I review two familiar points for anyone who's new:
1) Now that we're done with pencils — which were never very legible — I will remind you that there will be spoilers in the images I share during the inking process. If you want to avoid spoilers, I typically only post full pages in the image carousel above, which is easy enough to avoid. No one has co...
2023-10-26 17:22:01 +0000 UTC
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Look at that glorious stack of drawings!
Fifty-six pages of drama and excitement, ready to ink. Buckle up! It's time to make some PERMANENT MARKS.
[ As always, the images in the carousel and below may be spoilery to certain degrees. And if you're wondering, "why are the images so bad?" it's because my pencil drawings are very light and difficult to photograph. ]
^ T...
2023-10-19 17:04:00 +0000 UTC
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