Heckbringers Action Continues With Intense Vomit Action!

Another page in a timely manner! It's kinda funny that when I was doing Basurake, I didn't think doing a weekly color comic was really feasible, but now that I'm working a full time job, I'm somehow finding the time. Funny how things work out! Speaking of, I keep saying I'm gonna post Basurake. That will happen someday, just need to figure out whether I want to do it page by page, or in bunches, or what.

Anyway, this alley scene is just about over! And the two principle characters are about to actually interact! Who would have thought this would have taken months to do! Hilarious. Neither character has a name yet, of course, but hopefully in the near future that will change as well. Not next week, because I already scripted that page. That's right! I started actually scripting these! Hooray.

I think I need to get the dvds of Home Movies. Its crazy how much you miss something once its off Netflix. God what a good show.

Last topic! Anybody notice that there's barely any anime for kids anymore? What the hell? Kaito Joker or whatever should get a Saturday morning localization. 4KIDS! WHERE ARE YOU!?

Okay, that's enough. Dinoswords stuff soon, probably. What? Shh.

Heckbringers and Tumblr Plans

A late posting tonight, which is a shame considering this page was done yesterday. Planned to come straight home and post this, but ended up having to make a last minute dinner, so I got a little side tracked. Still, this makes seven weeks of pages! Sort of exciting to have stuck with it, even if in seven weeks (more like 9 since there was one week where I posted Janken and one week where I posted Weeping Pines instead) not too much has happened. This introductory scene felt much shorter in my head, to be honest, but it'll soon be wrapped up, and we'll be moving right along to some scenes that, believe it or not, take place outside of an alley. It only just dawned on me that 9 weeks in, only one character has a name, and it's the bad guy. Weird. Oh well!

In other news! I've decided to finally start  utilizing the long dormant Doki Doki Arcade tumblr account. I had initially planned to just post whatever I did here, but now I think I'll be using it as more of a sketch dump, just posting the less finished doodles that I do time to time, that either turn into pages of something, or go forgotten forever. I'm gonna try to put stuff up there occasionally, if no other reason than to chronicle some otherwise lost pieces of doodly goodness, and because I always do my best design work in the margins of notebooks.

I have been watching an insane amount of Home Movies lately. I'm not sure what it is about that show, but I can't ever see any given episode enough times. I think the absolutely aimless and somewhat compulsive creative endeavors of the kids resonate with me in a powerful way, and between that shows assertion that they make their movies for no one and that no one should watch their movies, Greg Universe's 180 turn from dreams of rock stardom to pursue Rose-Quartz, and many conversations with my brother, I'm increasingly coming to balk at the idea of audience altogether. In this age of internet horror, I'm not even sure I want anybody looking at my work, but creating and sharing is fun and cathartic, and the minute it isn't I'm just gonna stop.

If you haven't already, you can find the DokiDokiArcade tumblr at jmatchead.tumblr.com. There isn't too much up there yet, but whatever.

I think either this week or next I'm gonna start posting pages of my last major web comic, Basurake, partly because I think I was way better at writing weekly content then, partly because I think it would be cool to post more often here, and partly because I just miss it.

Genius Dialogue in New Page of Heckbringers!

Hey, that's what you get when you don't ever write a script, right? My process on this comic is completely backwards and probably a terrible idea, but whatever. Working out so far!

Confession time. When I started doing Heckbringers as a feature here, I literally thought about it zero seconds. I had the characters and setting and what not from an older project, and figured it would be an easy way to get a color feature going on here. Then, of course, I started actually doing the comic, and after a few weeks I came to a startling discovery.

I had absolutely no idea where I was going with it.

This was tough, because it threw some real bumps into the whole weekly feature thing. I was lucky to have Weeping Pines in the wings anyway, and I'm glad it encouraged me to get it out there, but I seriously feared I would have to give up on Heckbringers before I even made it to the first fight scene (probably not a good way to measure the progress of a comic, but whatever).

Maybe there is something stimulating about the rushing of water, or maybe isolation really does lead to self discovery, but I think I tend to do some of my best thinking in the shower, and sure enough, without any explanation or warning, I suddenly had a rush of ideas. They came slowly at first, but one thing very naturally led to another, and before I knew it, I had the entire story outlined. Not just the first chapter either, but like, the entire arc of the whole series. So there I was, with a sweeping post apocalyptic epic fully formed in my brain, butt-naked and dripping wet. Hot.

Not really sure why, but I thought it'd be fun to get that insight into my creative process. Sorry! Weeping Pines on Friday!

SURPRISE! NEW HECKBRINGERS PAGE!

Got it together this week! For whatever reason, this page took me a long time to conceptualize, but I'm happy with the results. Other than this taking kind of forever to move along, I think it's turning out pretty well so far. I'm having some trouble keeping Gubba remotely on model, but I do seem to enjoy his look more and more each time I draw him, so I guess that's a good thing. Next time, maybe we'll actually get to see that axe do something! Maybe.

Of course, I still have another strip of Weeping Pines to post some time this week, which I hope I will be able to keep up with. It's a story I've had on the back burner for a while now, a little over a year, but I habe no idea whether it will be any good. I hope it will.

In other news! I have finally sat down to play one of the many Dreamcast games I bought online over the summer, so look forward to hearing about my experience with Blue Stinger in the near future! I also may soon have something to show off of a new game project, which is a collaboration with a buddy of minem with whom I also do a podcast, which I will soon link to. Busy!

HECKBRINGERS PAGE 004! TECHNICALLY ON SCHEDULE!

Okay. So I got real real sick this weekend. Had this page inked LAST Sunday, but that didn't stop me from ALMOST being late with this one. It is late. But it's technically still Tuesday, and here it is. Four weeks in a row! That's practically a big deal. I think at this point, I might even start actually scripting these! Wouldn't that be fun!

It's a lot of fun to draw Gubba. He's like, part frog, part dragon, part Bowser, and he really is a satisfying figure. I hope this color scheme isn't getting too old just yet. I'm trying to slowly add some little nuances here and there, and at some point maybe the entire city won't be red. But probably not.

JA-JA-JA-JANKEN!! is for real almost done. I think I have two pages left. After that, I think Nova Phase will be the main focus for me, although I'll definitely keep doing a weekly Heckbringers. Hopefully I'll post something else this week, maybe an article about something. We shall see!

HECKBRINGERS AGAIN! Three Weeks in a Row!

So on the plus side, I have actually managed to keep up a solid weekly schedule for three consecutive weeks. If you are someone that has followed my work in the past, I think you will agree that is something of a shock. On the other hand, I haven't posted much else in between, and the whole point was to be delivering more smaller chunks of content. I guess technically I'm still doing that, and one post a week is still better than one every few months, but I want to do better.

That said, I have a fair amount of material in the pipeline, so to speak, including another new comic in an entirely different format, designed to be a serialized micro-comic, of sorts, and of course the next chapter of JANKEN!, which I have slacked off on a little bit. I will do better.

As far as HECKBRINGERS goes, I am pleased with the product so far. I'm experimenting with a different process, which I think will be my go to procedure for works done in color, which I think everyone tends to enjoy a bit more. The story is moving a long nicely, and it's refreshing to work in a weekly format again.

Speaking of, I have plans to leverage my somewhat sizable  body of previous work, most of which is no longer available anywhere, to help fill in content around here when I am busy. Be excited!

MORE HECKBRINGERS: A Second Page!

I bet you thought I wasn't gonna post another page of this! I bet you figured I NEVER follow up when I say I'm gonna post more of something. Well, normally you'd be right, but I'm turning over a new leaf around here. Thus, I present, the next page of Heckbringers!

I'd also like to point out that this even came in a timely fashion! I think I can probably swing one page a week of this comic. Should also have JANKEN! done for next week, which would be cool. After that, in addition to trying to rotate one more comic in (as a substitute while JANKEN! goes on a hiatus) I'm also going to be trying to finish the next issue of Nova Phase, which some might remember is the comic that I illustrate, published by Slave Labor Graphics. The 4th issue came out online a month ago, and the second paperback edition, collecting issues 3 and 4, just became available on Amazon recently! I'll post an official promo thing tomorrow, but for now feel free to go look for it!

Of course, what that next comic is going to be is still up in the air. There are a lot of choices, even if I only look at ides that I've already mentioned here, but for all I know I might feel like doing something totally new. Who knows!? Either way, it will follow a similar format to JANKEN!, in that it will be six pages and black and white. I'm also contemplating adding one more format into the rotation, perhaps an even smaller one, Bazooka Joe style or something. If I could somehow give you guys gum through the internet, I would.

I still have another big announcement waiting in the wings, but I'm so busy I haven't really had a chance to make the most of it. It involves games and is exciting, maybe. 

New Ongoing Comic: HECKBRINGERS!

Trying something a little different today. I really want to post here more frequently, and part of doing that involves  experimenting with some content that is a little less time intensive on my end. The articles are good because they require relatively little preparation, but I don't want to go too long without posting any art, and although I will continue to post more shirt designs and stickers (I promise those are coming), I think narrative art is really my strong suit, and I want to do more of that. JA-JA-JA-JANKEN! is nearing the end of it's first major story arc, so I thought now would be a good time to start introducing a new ongoing series to experiment with.

A few things to note. First of all, this series will be posted in single pages at a time. This means less work on my end in between postings, as I don't need to finish a whole set of six pages to post an update. This also means that each page will be a little more self contained than before. This also means that I'm more able to spend a little extra time per page, and as a result, I'd like to keep this format in all color. It's certainly not necessary, but I think it's fun and adds a lot. 

Heckbringers is actually a comic that me and some friends put together years ago, and even printed a book or two of, but this version is going to be a bit different in tone and execution due to the shift in format. I may post some bits of the old comic, or some designs for characters and such, but for now I'll just be posting single pages here and then in between other things. JANKEN! Will still continue for at least another chapter, after which I may rotate in a different series to be the six pager. This will help keep things fresh around here, and hopefully build up a colorful and fun cast of diverse characters to play with.

For now, enjoy the first page of Heckbringers, in glorious COLOR! I have a few other announcements to make this week (all good, exciting things!), and a few more articles planned, but I need to get some things in order first. Be excited, please!