Saturday, November 30, 2013

SDF 7-2

Today's Webcomic:

SDF.  Issue 7.  Page 2.  www.torcpress.com

1) I once caught a large mouth bass in my Grandparent's pond.  It was huge.  I've never caught anything that big ever since.

2)  Fishing is a common running theme in my comics.  Ironically, I rarely ever go fishing.  I'm not sure why I'm always writing about fishing when I'm not a fisherman myself.

3)  The whole "Doom Eagle knows Octopus Jones but OJ doesn't know DE" thing is gonna go on for awhile, but eventually there will be an explanation for it.  Really.

4)  I wonder where they got teleported off to?

Friday, November 29, 2013

SDF 7-1

Today's webcomic:

Alrighty, first off, I was supposed to have the Print Edition of SDF 6 ready to go for today, but I don't.  I continue to blame the burst pipes in my house.  Sure, I got em fixed, but they threw me off schedule pretty bad.  I'm gonna try to have the Print Edition ready by next week.  Honestly, it don't much matter, I wouldn't be able to take orders this weekend anyway.  Not that anyone is just rip rarin' to go to order Issue 6 either, so I suppose it all works out.  Anyway, this is the start of Issue 7 of SDF.  Probably the most quiet start to an Issue of SDF to date.  Don't worry, I'm sure it will pick up in a few pages.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving! (Skull Mob 3-5)

Happy Turkey Day Folks!  Here's a pretty gross page of Skull Mob:

Skull Mob.  Issue 3.  Page 5.  www.torcpress.com

If you were wondering where Renee K-9 and Peacock got off to, well, this explains it.  Renee gets to display her ability to asexually reproduce, and Peacock displays his key sense of self-preservation.

May everyone Eat Hearty today! 

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Skull Mob 3-4

Today's Webcomic:

Skull Mob.  Issue 3.  Page 4.  www.torcpress.com.

I should probably take Turkey Day weekend off, but like virtually every store on the planet, I'm just gonna keep on doing my thing.  So, the webcomic will continue to update like normal all week.  As far as Black Friday promotion and other stuff go, I don't really have anything planned, but if you do order stuff through the online store this week, I'll probably throw some Original Art in with your order.  So there's that.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

HFSAC 20-10

Today's Webcomic:

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club.  Issue 20.  Page 10.  www.torcpress.com

I remember when I was writing the script for this issue that it was around this page that I became dissatisfied with this story.  (Yeah, I'm actually writing a full script for HFSAC.  Who knew?)  At the script stage, there's no art yet, so by this point, I'm over halfway through with the story, and all I've got are a bunch of 9 panel pages with too much dialogue, and a bunch of slow establishing shots.  So, here we are on Page 10, and it's just a Temple fading into 3D Space and our heroes walking and I wanna rip my hair out (which I can do now since I have hair) and call myself Brian Michael Bendis and award myself the BMB Boring Comics Award.

But, after doing the artwork for this issue, with all the pretty landscapes and environments, and the bright, lush colors, and some of the fun stuff that happens early on, I'm pretty happy with this comic so far.

Having said that, this page is still boring.

Having said that, next Monday's page is killer.  Because there is no way I'm gonna pull a Bendis and have absolutely nothing happen for 16 pages.

Monday, November 25, 2013

HFSAC 20-9

Today's Webcomic:

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club.  Issue 20.  Page 9.  www.torcpress.com

So, I've been working far enough ahead on the webcomics lately that I have had some breathing room for most of this month.  But now, thanks to spending two weeks doing unscheduled plumbing and renovations, I'm not only cutting it disturbingly close on my HFSAC deadlines, but I haven't got a start on my December output on the other strips either.  And now it's Thanksgiving week, and whereas normally that would mean I have three free days to work up as many pages as possible, this year I have stuff going on the entire weekend.  It looks like I'm riding the razor's edge again.  Course, that's half the fun. 

Sunday, November 24, 2013

2 Pages of Pulp Horrorshow

Alrighty, Here is today's Page:

Pulp Horrorshow.  Volume 4.  Issue 1.  Page 5.  www.torcpress.com

And here was yesterday's Page: 

Pulp Horrorshow.  Volume 4.  Issue 1.  B Side.  Page 2. 

I would talk a bunch about both pages, but I'm gonna live a lifelong dream and play videogames with my girlfriend.  Woo!


Friday, November 22, 2013

Pulp Horrorshow B Side

Today's Unscheduled Webcomic:

This is Page 1 of the Back Up story for Pulp Horrorshow, Volume 4, Issue 1.  www.torcpress.com

Sometimes an idea just hits you, and you've gotta run with it.  Or at least that's the way it works for me.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Skull Mob 3-3

The Second Half of Our Double Page Spread:

Skull Mob.  Issue 3.  Page 3.  www.torcpress.com

I was reading a column online the other day where the writer was lamenting the scarcity of double page spreads in comics nowadays, cause double page spreads don't translate into digital comics, and since most comics are also packaged digitally nowadays, the double page spread is a rare and dying breed.  I'm pretty sure I pointed out a few months back that the double pager is the only tool that the traditional Print Comic has in its arsenal that Digital/Online comics can't faithfully reproduce.  I mean, this page looks swell here, but it will look 1000 times better when it's combined with Page 2 in the Print Edition.  It's that Epic, Sweeping Widescreen approach to storytelling that brings to mind the glory days of 70s Kirby that I love.  That's why I incorporate so many Doubles nowadays.  Plus, with a scene like this, it's reminiscent of the Video Game and Warhammer 40K scenes I would draw as a kid.  Those were fun.  These are funner, cause they're for realsies.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Skull Mob 3-2

Today's Webcomic:

The first half of a double page spread.  Skull Mob.  Issue 3.  Page 2.  www.torcpress.com

It's somewhat appropriate that the Death Moth is having a Sewer Battle, as I myself continue to struggle with the plumbing in my own house.  Sigh.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

HFSAC 20-8

Today's Webcomic:

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club.  Issue 20.  Page 8.  www.torcpress.com

Most of what I need to say I already said on the NOTES page over at the Main Site, so I'll skip alla that. 

This page barely got done on time.  I pride myself on working ahead, and as of right now I have enough material for all of the webcomics for the Entire Month... except HFSAC.  HFSAC is the book that takes the most work and is the slowest to produce, so as a result I was working week to week on the necessary pages.  Then my pipes burst, and suddenly I had no time for drawing and handcoloring because I was too busy digging out pipes by hand out of the mud.  Hopefully, now that I have a bathroom again I will have time this week to finish the two pages I need for next Monday/Tuesday.

And the real irony is that I'm the only person who I'm meeting these self imposed deadlines for.  No one's reading my webcomix.

Monday, November 18, 2013

HFSAC 20-7

Today's Webcomic:

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club.  Issue 20.  Page 7.  www.torcpress.com.

And don't forget, Skull Mob #2 is now available for sale!  Just head over to the main site at the above link, and scroll down to the cover image.  There's a handy dandy "Add to Cart" button just below it.  Buying the physical books not only gives you a cool, handsome comic to read, but also is a great way to support TORC Press.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Playing Catch Up

Welp, Hellweek has more or less wrapped up.  For some reason I don't have water in my bathroom sink, but we'll deal with that, I'm sure.  Anyway, here's what we've missed out on while the Blog was buried in the mud under my house.

First off, Skull Mob #2 is now available.  Here's the Cover:

It's $3.50 plus $1.50 S&H.  Buying a copy is a good way to support TORC Press.  Also, there's a cool fight scene. 

Speaking of Skull Mob, Issue 3 started:

And, SDF Issue 6 Wrapped up, with Pages 15:

And Page 16:

And, finally, we did a new page of Pulp Horrorshow Volume 4, featuring Bigg Wulf making the most of his handicap:

So, that was this week's comix.  We had Giant Hardlight Armored Suits, Transdimensional Warping, and an Arm made of Assorted Junk like TeeVees, Refrigerators, Stuffed Teddy Bears, a Bowling Ball, and I think there's a Chainsaw in there somewhere.  A pretty standard week in the TORCverse.





Tuesday, November 12, 2013

HFSAC 20-6 (Water Hazard)

So, a pipe burst in my house recently.  As a result, Bro and I have been forced to pretty much overhaul my entire bathroom (turns out there were other problems under the surface as well...).  This is gonna throw TORC Press's Online Operations for a bit of a loop, because I'll be spending most of the rest of this week working on my bathroom.  Since I have no water, and my house is a disaster zone, I am staying at my parent's house for the time being.  Ironically, my actual parents are still on vacation, so I've got their house to myself.  Anyway, the regular webcomics will update as normal over at www.torcpress.com, but this Blog will be shut down until I can get back into my house.  Bleh.

In the meantime, here is the last webcomic for a day or two:

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club.  Issue 20.  Page 6.

Monday, November 11, 2013

HFSAC 20-5 + SDF #5 Now Available

Today's Webcomic:

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club.  Issue 20.  Page 5.  www.torcpress.com

In addition, this is now available:

It's SDF #5, the conclusion to the 5 Issue Long, "Longest Day" Story Arc.  It's $3.50 plus $1.50 S&H.  It features the desperate struggle between Octopus Jones and the nightmarish Dr. Strangler.  It's full color and 16 pages long.  You can score a copy by either going to the STORE on the Main Site, or by sending a Check or Money order for 5 Bucks to:  TORC Press, c/o Joseph Morris, 330 S 5th St SW, Clay City, IL 62824.  You can read the issue for free HERE, and if you dig it, please support the cause by purchasing a hard copy.  Thank you.


Sunday, November 10, 2013

Pulp Horrorshow v4-1-3

Today's Webcomic:

Pulp Horrorshow.  Volume 4.  Issue 1.  Page 3.  www.torcpress.com

What I like about today's page is the shot where Bigg Wulf fires his gun the wrong direction and still kills all three guys standing behind him.  With Magnetism, all sorts of trick shots be possible.

Saturday, November 9, 2013

SDF 6-14

Ah, Saturday's webcomic:

SDF.  Issue 6.  Page 14.  www.torcpress.com

What I like about the last few pages is that our heroes managed to come together quickly to deal with a potentially dangerous crisis.  Admittedly, that potentially dangerous crisis is a horrible Cancerman with scalpels for arms attempting to cut everyone to ribbons, but the point is, they dealt with it, and no one got sliced and diced.  I'd say that's a good day.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Skull Mob 2-16

Last Page of Issue 2 of Skull Mob:

Skull Mob.  Issue 2.  Page 16.  www.torcpress.com

That wraps up Issue 2 of Skull Mob.  We'll be taking next Wednesday off from the Death Moth & Co,, but they'll be back a week from today, next Thursday to be exact, with the start of Skull Mob #3.  We'll be running a page of "Sol" in next week's Wednesday slot.  Tune in tomorrow (if you could Tune your computers... this makes no sense now that I think about it) for new SDF featuring a showdown between the ad hoc Mango-Habenero group and Death Moth's Archnemesis, the nefarious Dr. Dendull.  Bum-bum-bum!

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Skull Mob 2-15

Today's Webcomic:

Skull Mob.  Issue 2.  Page 15.  www.torcpress.com

I'm having one of those "I've got nuthin'" mornings, which happens when you update your blog every single day.  So, yeah, gonna go eat some cereal.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

HFSAC 20-4

Today's Webcomic:

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club.  Issue 20.  Page 4.  www.torcpress.com

The main thing I feel like commenting on about today's page is that it is a Dreaded 9 Panel Page.  I've been doing the 9 panel page for a long, long time.  It's my go-to page when I've gotta do a lotta dialogue and/or plot exposition in a small amount of space.  The 9 panel page was a given in a lot of older comics, as well as comics from the fondly remembered 80s.  Watchmen excessively used the 9 panel structure, as did the Dark Knight Returns.  The 9 panel has a more cinematic feel to it, and, again, you can cover a lot of ground narrative-wise with this structure.

It's also a boring pain in the butt to draw.

As I do every six months or so, I was perusing my copy of Jack Kirby's 4th World Omnibus, and I noticed something:  No 9 Panel Pages!  I think there's some pages in Mr. Miracle that are 7 panels, but the bulk of the Panel count is 6 or less.  It got me thinking that, if I'm trying to build this big, epic, cosmicrazy book, I need to cut back on my panel count.  Give it that big feel, instead of this tiny, intimate 9 panel nonsense.

Now, the script for this issue has at least 3 more pages like this (Groooooooan), but after this issue, I'm gonna see if I can avoid the 9 panel page for all future issues of HFSAC.  See how that goes.

Monday, November 4, 2013

HFSAC 20-3

Today's Webcomic:

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club.  Issue 20.  Page 3.  www.torcpress.com.

Thanks to the time change, I'm up earlier than I should be.  On the one hand, it gives me more time to update all of my stuff (my completely ineffective Webblitz strategy involves Tumblr, Deviantart, Facebook (Groan), and this Blog.  Every single morning.  It's like aerobics, except I'm not getting in shape).  On the other, I have nothing important to say.

The Soda Shoppe is the new headquarters of the Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club and a blatant homage to my King, Jack Kirby.  I had a lot of fun drawing it.  Also, note how it's hanging out near Jupiter.  Very 2001, right?  I didn't even mean to do that.

Also, this is apparently my 400th Blog Post.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Pulp Horrorshow v.4-1-2 (The Oddball Origin of Bigg Wulf)

Today's Bloody Webcomic:

Pulp Horrorshow.  Volume 4.  Issue 1.  Page 2.  www.torcpress.com

So, here we have the introduction of our newest character, Bigg Wulf.  Or, conversely, you could view him in a manner similar to Death Moth or Doom Eagle, where I took an old character I wasn't satisfied with, and transformed him into something new.  Either way, you might be wondering where Mr. Wulf came from.  Here's the odd little story.

I'll talk about this more in a later post, but I have finally found my "Trio" in the TORCverse.  My Mickey/Donald/Goofy group.  That group is, of course, Cactus Joe, Death Moth, and Octopus Jones.  I shoulda been content with that, but I'm me, and you never know when a new idea is gonna be sparked.  So, one day, I'm working on the computer and watching the Disney Channel (Shut up.  "Phineas and Ferb" and "Gravity Falls" are really good shows.  Also, they've got new "Mickey Mouse" shorts on.  Shut up!), and they occasionally have Old School Disney shorts on, between shows.  Anyway, this one short that I had never seen before called "Mickey's Polo Team" came on.  Curious, I stopped working and paid attention to the TV.  The very old, very odd cartoon features Mickey's team playing polo against a team of what were famous comedic actors at the time, namely Laurel & Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, and Harpo Marx.  Mickey's team obviously consisted of Mickey, Donald, and Goofy, but the fourth member of the team turned out to be, surprisingly, The Big Bad Wolf from the Three Little Pigs shorts.  For some reason, this seemed shocking to me, having the cute, heroic Disney characters teamed up with this villainous, grinning, Wolf.  It just seemed creepy and wrong, despite the silly nature of the cartoon.

A weird obsession set in.  I couldn't stop thinking about this new, never seen before, never seen again, Quartet of Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and the Wolf.  What would my version of that look like?  And so, Bigg Wulf began to take shape inside my overactive imagination.  In my mind, I wanted to keep the Big Bad Wolf's jagged teeth and long, lolling tongue, so those went into the visual mix immediately, then I threw in bits of my previous character, Kanabub Abul, a character I didn't get to use that much, and a little bit of a simplistic, Venom-esque approach to the rest of the head, and Voila!  A new character is born.

The name Bigg Wulf is an old joke that only I get.  Here's that story:  Way, way back in... High School maybe, we had an assembly.  It was less of an assembly and more of a half hour long commercial for a guy trying to sell us Class Rings.  Anyway, our school's mascot was the Wolves, and we had a very, very odd looking cartoon wolf as our school mascot.  It looked a little like something out of a Tex Avery cartoon, or maybe a little like Disney's version of the Big Bad Wolf.  Also, our Cartoon Wolf was Blue for some reason.  Annnnyway, the guy trying to sell us class rings told us that we could get our unique cartoon wolf mascot engraved on our Class Rings.  Except, the Salesman was from further South somewhere, and he pronounced Wolf as "Wol-uf".  He somehow managed to turn a simple one syllable word into a two syllable word.  For some reason that stuck with me, so now, over 15 years later, I have a character called Bigg Wulf as something of an homage to that Salesman who couldn't say Wolf right.

Never bought a Class Ring either.  Screw remembering High School.

Anyway, next Sunday, we'll see what kinda abilities this Monsterman has, and the Next Sunday after that, we'll see why he only has one arm.  Mwa-ha-ha!

Saturday, November 2, 2013

SDF 6-12

Today's Webcomic:

SDF.  Issue 6.  Page 12.  www.torcpress.com

You never know when the Puzzelor is going to show up.

Friday, November 1, 2013

SDF 6-11

Musta had a Brain Fart and forgot to post this morning...

SDF.  Issue 6.  Page 11.

Man, I would hate to have to run into Dr. Dendull.