New Comic Strip Submission Part II

Well here we are already, week two completed and another six strips pencilled, inked and lettered.

This week I thought I'd concentrate more on one of the semi regular characters in Tales from Toonsville a poor hard done by old lady called Granny Apple.

As I mentioned in last weeks post this strip is not about one particular set of characters, although there are one or two that will make more regular appearances.  One of these is Granny Apple; and this week I decided to concentrate more on her.

Her character description is of someone who never thought retirement would ever be quite like this.
Just as she's settling down to what should be her golden years of rest and relaxation, she finds herself the centre of attention to her overly inquisitive grandchildren, the epicentre of the advances of an over enthusiastic and amorous octogenarian called Mr Wimpole; at constant war with technology---notably the email--- and is the owner of a 400lb lapdog called Winston, who slobbers, crashes and generally drags her all over the place.

So with all these possibilities I just had to have her in the strip. Below are three of her appearances plus a general strip about Apaches. Just because I can.

Enjoy and please come back next Friday for week three of six and even more slightly eccentric Tales from Toonsville.

This gag came from me doodling away in my sketchbook. This kind of joke allows you, the reader, to make up your own mind about what has just happened, or been happening all the time she was alone with her grandson. So all I have to do is draw the picture and let you create to funnies...ahhh, my work here is done.

Granny Apple, like a lot of older, old people, has terrible trouble with technology. My own Dad once admitted that the reason why he never sent an email was that he was terrified that someone would reply. I kid you not. When I finally did get him to pluck up the courage and send one, he clicked send and ran out of the house then hid in the car. So I guess this type of gag is inspired by my old Dad and plenty more like him.

I am a granddad. This cartoon speaks to me on levels I cannot begin to describe. 'Nuff Said.

And a little alternative. I have always been fascinated by Red Indians sending smoke signals. Are there commas, question marks? Do they have verbs and do they employ synonyms, antonyms and syntax? So I guess if there's a group where Red Indians learn to be Red Indians, then I guess there must be an Apache 101 on smoke signalling.

I sincerely hope you enjoyed this post. If you did then please share it like a demented sharing person and keep on coming back for more of the same, and a whole lot besides.

New comic strip, new hopes and new ideas...

Well, once again, here I am apologising for not having gotten around to posting on this, my launch pad site for the many ideas I have and the projects I undertake that you, my wonderful followers, follow.

As you can see I have been busy, and today I can announce the completion of my first comic strip submission for syndication in over 10 years. And to celebrate this mile stone I've attached the character sheet and all 30 strips, as I have submitted them, for your delectation and enjoyment.

The cartoon strip is titled simply 'Bib'. and below is the synopsis description from the cover letter that has accompanied it to the top three American Syndicates: King Features, Washington Post Writers Syndicate and Universal Uclick.

Strip Synopsis

Bib is a scientist one moment, an impressionist artist the next, (which he slams and criticises vociferously) a child psychologist (holding forth with his own particular brand of views and opinions, from the coal face as it where), inventor, poet, bohemian, food critic, marriage guidance councillor for the two argumentative garden Gnomes outside and on Thursdays, the leader of the crèche escape committee. Other than that he worries the cat next door, has adventures and flights of fantasy using the kitchen pedal bin as the vehicle for his imagination; avoids the attempts of the amorous dribbling baby from down the street, experiments through his department of dubious sciences on his hapless Grandma, the cat next door and an even more hapless travelling salesman, and wages a campaign of evasion against his slobbering aunt who seems unstoppable and indestructible in her quest for a kiss and a cuddle.

In short, Bib is not your quintessential little baby strip. He tears and howls his way through life as his diminutive little body tries to catch up with his overly developed imagination and mind.

I hope you like what you read and please do leave any comments--- and or your thoughts--- on Bib. Also please, PLEASE do keep coming back as I have so much to share and talk to you about.

Thank you

Karl 

September 2014

Character Sheet and Strips

A Day in the Life of a Cartoonist and Writer

It has been said of me on a number of occasions that I take too much on; that I have far too many projects on the go at any one time.

That's fair comment I would say, but the problem is this: If you are a writer, you create stories, tales, novels ect, that's what you do, and when you are a cartoonist, the same applies; you have to get your images onto the page and out there into the big bad ol' world; to be placed as greeting cards (coming soon, god help my sleepless nights), or graphic novels (Brabbles & Boggitt) and of course Roswell---god help even more sleepless nights.

But when you are both writer and artist...well I think you can see what I mean.

Anyway, I was thinking about what I did yesterday and the mountain I had to climb, and I thought: why not catalogue it with the relevant times; and through the use of both scanner, finished art and screen capture, show you what I did on that particular day, Monday 9th September 2013.

Here we go, fasten your pencil sharpeners and typewriter ribbons...

9.00am

Pencil & inked  two panel re-do's for Fridays Brabbles & Boggitt (all of which you will see when you come back here on Friday for page 40 with its brand spanking new panels, plus the ones they replaced)

11.00am

Much deserved cup of tea

11.15am

Colouring a comic book page

1.00pm

Lunch, cup of tea and a spot of light reading

2.00pm

Edit my Novel, Sleepy Hamlet (Oh please God, soon to be released)

3.00pm

More comic page colouring

5.30pm

Exercise

6.30

Modest Dinner with a few friends 

7.30

Two more pictures for mine and Clive Wards book 101 Uses for a Dead Mother-in-Law. These are just the black and whites, they will be grey-scaled before going to print and to be released through CreateSpace in time for Christmas, as will the Brabbles & Boggitt tale.

10.00

Stop for the night and sleep...phew!

So now you know what I get up to on a daily basis, and whenever you think to your self: 'I wonder what that cartoonist chappie is up to' as I'm sure you all regularly do, well now to have and answer....

HE'S FILLING HIS TIME MESSING AROUND ON PHOTOSHOP AND BEING GENERALLY SILLY!!

But then you wouldn't have me any other way...would you?

If you like my blog and the things that I say and do, please tell your friends; mention me on Facebook, Twitter and any of the other fine social media networking sites you use. I would love to have my work reach a much larger audience and although I could no doubt eventually get there under my own steam, I'll get there a lot quicker with your help, so please, please spread the word.

Cartoon Experiment

I guess the lifeblood of any business is, as they say, new business. And in a field where the flow of cartoons through the pages of newspapers, comics magazines and the internet is akin to a torrent of water passing through a sieve, it is important to constantly keep ahead of the game; to produce more ideas and never stem the flow of your creative juices.

Of course this is always easier said that done, especially when you find yourself on a cold, uninspiring morning with the rain beating down relentlessly outside as you sit with your cup of tea or coffee and a blank piece of paper with nothing springing to mind.

 'But this is what you do, if you are a creative person,' you tell yourself. You know that your mind has always been this way and that something will come to you; it may not be that diamond mine of an idea that'll make you the billion you richly deserve, but at least it will be something worth showing around my contacts.

So you pull a blank piece of paper out of the pack and start doodling...

At least that's how I do it.

But a while back I was looking for a new idea to send out to the editors of children's comics; something different to what I normally do, yet still maintain the signature 'action packed and lively style' that I've become known for.

Like I said, normally I would sit in a quiet area and scribble away until something new came out from the blinding whiteness of my paper, accompanied, hopefully, by the singing of angels to let me know that this idea was packed to the gunnel's with potential.

But this time was different. For a start I wasn't in a quiet room and scribbling, I was on the sofa chatting with Karen, and it was she who came up with the idea of an Alien that came out from under a child's bed and helped him cause calamity for those around them---especially his bullying brother, Hektor



And I'm not afraid to admit it, the idea struck me as one worth pursuing: kids love fantasy, they love slapstick action and the fascination with creatures--- especially magical ones--- from another planet was just a dream combination.

So I sat down with a sketch pad and the characters just came flooding from my pen, fully formed and needing no alteration.  Normally I have to fiddle with a new characters design at least a little bit until I'm happy with it, but every character I drew for this strip came flowing, unhindered from the end of my pencil.

That was a good omen, right? I sure as hell hoped it was!

And if that wasn't enough, the first story wrote itself too! I've never had this before. Normally I write a script out, play with it and hone it, sculpt it and mould it into exactly what I want, yet here I was, creating characters without seemingly thinking about it and writing a script as though my hand was being guided by another.

To say I was a little freaked out would be to understate my feeling by quite a considerable margin.

But I sat there for a while, looking at what I'd created and the short time that it had taken to do so. What could I say, this was completely alien to my normal creative pattern;  I'm normally quite quick with ideas, and character creation has never really caused me any problems, but this? This was something different.

After a while a spark came into my mind. Do you know what? I thought to myself 'just because its different, doesn't make it wrong, so why don't you just do it and see where it goes, y'know, go with the flow, stop trying to analyze it. Just accept it for what it is'.

Now I'm not here to say that I sent it out and a huge check came flying back with hundreds of little noughts on the end, and in truth its already been rejected once, but just as an experiment into the theory of 'the gut reaction', I'm letting you know about this little episode in my creative life and I will keep you updated as to its progress.

Below are the first three pages.

Enjoy my friends

If you like my blog and the things that I say and do, please tell your friends; mention me on Facebook, Twitter and any of the other fine social media networking sites you use. I would love to have my work reach a much larger audience and although I could no doubt eventually get there under my own steam, I'll get there a lot quicker with your help, so please, please spread the word.

Thank you

My First Children's Book Project

Seeing as its World Book Day, today, I thought it would be a perfect time to announce that I've just started a children's book. A book that was initially meant as a Christmas present for my grandson, Ryan, but is now going to be a birthday present instead. But the other good news is that I'm so happy with it I'll be offering it up for sale through LuLu.com

Some of you may know that I've been limbering up for a big Kindle launch on my novels--- and I'll be talking more about that as the glorious day approaches--- but for today I'm just happy to announce that my first children's book---written and illustrated by myself---will be due for publication, and therefore purchase, around the middle of next month.

Its going to be called Ryan's Dinosaur Dreams and will, through 22 vibrant, action filled full colour illustrations, depict what Ryan dreams about while he sleeps at night.

Ryan, my grandson, is absolutely obsessed with dinosaurs; he has every toy, model, video and book you can imagine. At the age of two he could name at least twenty species (I kid you not, we would all be left open mouthed as these highly complicated Latin names came tripping off his tongue), but could also tell the subtle difference between an Allosaurus and Tyrannosaurus Rex.

So when it came to writing a book for him there could only be one subject: Dinosaurs.

I've added my first illustration as an exclusive to you, my loyal readers, and will whet your appetite over the next few weeks by posting a few more; then when its all complete and uploaded to LuLu, you will be the first to know!

Page 12 from Ryan's Dinosaur Dreams

I'm hoping for it to be a 24 page book, size 7 x 9 inches (landscape) and retailing at around £8.99, although the price could change.

So with a regular weekly updates of my ever popular webcomic, Brabbles & Boggitt, plus news of my new children's book, Ryan's Dinosaur Dreams, tutorials, humorous tales, the introduction of my Kindle novels--- and short stories projects--- plus all my usual posts about what I'm working on and developing, you'd be crazy to go anywhere else for your insights into the mind of an oddball cartoonist and writer.

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for the next mad cap installment of Brabbles & Boggitt in the Goldilocks Affair

Cheers

If you like my blog and the things that I say and do, please tell your friends; mention me on Facebook, Twitter and any of the other fine social media networking sites you use. I would love to have my work reach a much larger audience and although I could no doubt eventually get there under my own steam, I'll get there a lot quicker with your help, so please, please spread the word.

Thank you

A Big, Big Thankyou!

I'd like to start this post  by saying a very big, and a very humbling, thank you to everyone who read the Brabbles & Boggitt cartoon last week. I'd also like to thank those of you who linked the page through to their Facebook and Twitter accounts; also to those who shared the post once they'd seen it and a big thank you to everyone out there who discussed it so favourably on their blogs.

Singularly though, I'd like to thank Karen who is and always has been my rock. She has stood by and urged me on through thick and thin and never failed in her belief of me and my work. You are the greatest Karen and I feel blessed, not only to have known you, but to be lucky enough to be with you.

That said, and everyone thanked, I really couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the Google analytic ratings for Brabbles & Boggitt; within two days it had become my second most popular post and the fastest growing one in this blogs history. You certainly seemed to have taken them to your hearts.

Also, I suppose this would be an ideal time to remind you that Brabbles & Boggitt's second page will be posted tomorrow around midday. Also I'd like to announce that from week three (January 4th 2013) I will be giving the story its own archive page--- on the menu bar up above--- so you can simply hit the link to re read or catch up on what they've been up to.

Finally I'd like to bring to your attention the very talented Steve Beckett who has offered to run Brabbles & Boggitt on his blog, or more to the point, on the comics section of his blog.

Steve runs a very entertaining site called Steve Becket Design which he uses, as I do, to show case his thoughts and ideas; its well worth the trip just to see what this top comics artist and illustrator is about.

But the other point---the one about Brabbles & Boggitt---is that on his blog he runs an online children's comic called Crumbs Comic and it is there that he'll also be showcasing our little oddball twosome.

Also, cartoonist Lew Stringer, who's site can be found here, has been very kind by running a write up on our very own Brabbles & Boggitt, thanks Lew, you are very kind. Besides running himself ragged, producing top notch material for comics like the Beano, Viz, Toxic and many many more, Lew also runs a very informative and excellently written fan blog for the comics officianardo; which is well worth a look.

Well that's me catching up on the weeks comings and goings, all that's left to say is: Don't forget to come back tomorrow for the next weekly installment of Brabbles & Boggitt.

See you then.


If you like my blog and the things that I say and do, please tell your friends; mention me on Facebook, Twitter and any of the other fine social media networking sites you use. I would love to have my work reach a much larger audience and although I could no doubt eventually get there under my own steam, I'll get there a lot quicker with your help, so please, please spread the word.

Thank you

Colouring an editorial cartoon in Photoshop

If we go way back, and by way back I mean waaaaaay back, some of the more persistent members of my little coterie will remember that I published a post called how to draw an editorial cartoon and I seem to remember making some vague threat that I'd be posting another tutorial---probably the next week if I'm true to form---about how I colour it using Photoshop.

Well, the good news is, boys and girls, that week has finally arrived; I have completed it and here it is. Well, to be honest with you, I completed it a while ago; on the day I drew the cartoon to be absolutely accurate; but its taken me until now to find it---due to the fact that there's an awful lot of work on my hard drive and I can never remember what I name these damned things and so generally loose them to the ether within seconds of saving them. So in the grand tradition of all things of this nature, I found it yesterday while looking for something completely different...which, for the record, I didn't find.

Anyhoo, that's enough about me and my lackadaisical attitude to tidiness and tardiness. Lets get onto it shall we; lets get onto the second post, the one in which I show you my process in colouring an editorial cartoon in Photoshop.

1: First off I scan the cartoon into Photoshop, selecting Black and white and 300 dpi as its resolution. Once I've  previewed it I use the marque tool (the bounding box of broken lines that surrounds it), then I click scan.

2: Once the cartoon appears, I select the eraser tool (see highlighted) and start removing all the black dots and imperfections; making very sure that I don't rub out anything important to the finished cartoon.

3: Once the cartoon has been cleaned up its time to create layers. So first off I go to images+mode+greyscale. Then go through the same process again images+mode but this time select CMYK. (if the cartoon is purely for the net you can chose RGB---more about that later). 


Once you've completed that click on the 'new layer' tab (highlighted) and in the box that says 'Normal' change it to Multiply.

4: Next choose the'pencil' tool, select '1' as the ratio, and connect the broken lines. I do this because when I apply the 'paint bucket' tool, and if there are any gaps, the colour will flood out all over your mini masterpiece.

6: Now start filling in the picture with colours of your choice.

If you only want solid colours then your picture will soon be complete, but if, like me, you like to give your images a little more substance, then in the next part we see how I personally build up the colour layers with just a mouse and no tablet

7: First off select the colour you want to shade. In this case I chose the flesh tint. Once you've clicked on it with the 'magic wand tool' then un-tick the 'contiguous' box on the bar above. This will ensure that Photoshop now only recognises the areas that have flesh colour in it (or what ever colour you chose); in other words, if you accidentally went over the edge of the flesh area, the pen or air-brush tool wouldn't make a mess of any neighbouring colours.

7: If you don't want the dotted lines running around the perimeters of your selected colour, select Ctrl+H and they will stay hidden.

Now chose which direction the light is coming from and with the 'Pencil Tool' define the delineation  lines. Once that's done to all the areas of the colour you've selected, hit the shaded side of the lines with the 'Paint-Bucket' tool.

Once completed you must press Ctrl+D to make sure the 'Magic-Wand' tool has been deselected before moving onto your next colour.
Follow this process on until your cartoon is complete.

8: And that is pretty much it. The cartoon has been coloured, save it as a JPeg for the newspapers or what ever format is required, and name it. (that's when things normally go pear shaped and I lose the whole file)

On another note. If you wish to put your work up on the net and you upload it in CMYK, all the colours will look garish and horrible. So to avoid this happening you will have to re-save it as an RGB. That way when you put your masterpiece up on your Facebook or Twitter or any other social media site you have, it will look to others the way you intended it to look.

To make this happen, simply retrieve your CMYK cartoon from your documents then go to: Image+Mode+RGB---once this is done  re-save the cartoon. I normally do it by simply adding 'RGB' to the end of whatever it was originally called. And that's it. Your cartoon is now saved for print and the web.

Phew, well there you have it; how I paint a cartoon in Photoshop. If I have the time, the inclination or I can be bothered, I'll be doing a few more of these to show you how more complicated work is rendered.

Until then; happy double clicking and I'll see you all soon.

Cheers

Karl

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