Blast Off

I didn't win. Boo hoo. Such is life.

But wait! There's more!

UNTRUE TALES continues on its very own shiny and sparkly website!

http://www.untruetales.com/

The first page of the new story THE TROUBLE WITH UZIS is up now and updates will follow twice weekly on Mondays and Thursdays.

Do check it out, won't you?

The Offending Finger

So there's been a bit of discussion in the UNTRUE TALES comment section over at Zuda about the preview-screen/avatar/icon thingamajig for my comic. Some think it's ugly, some think it's inappropriate, some think it looks like our lovely leading lady is flipping them the bird.












Me, I'm OK with it, since I'm all about the funny faces. If I could only draw people sticking out their tongues or gurning or screaming their heads off I'd be a happy fellow.  Also, it was cool to see a hint of my unused color version.

However, when I sent in my high-res screens for the competition, I did include a suggestion for the preview screen. Figured it was worth a shot, right? So, here's what I would have thrown up there if it was up to me:



















I always liked the idea of having the title/logo in the preview screen. I think it worked well for Crooked Man and Alpha Monkey, and it looks good for this month's entries Fool King and SuperTron.

So how does my version stack up against the one actually in play? Better? Worse? 'Bout the same?

You be the judge.

In any event, I imagine the preview-screen has little to no impact on the voting outcome.
Everybody knows the old saw about books and cover-judging and all that good stuff.

Countdown to Inaccuracy

Big things are a-brewing. Not to mention afoot. I'm oh so very tempted to tell you all about it right this very minute, but alas... my tongue is tied. My lips are sealed. My oath is bound.

But soon. Soon, my pretties. All will be revealed, and the power I have lusted after lo these untold eons shall at last be... well, you know.

Stay tuned, skeptical ones!










The untruth is out there...

Are you still here?

Golly. I'm... er, um, that is to say....I'm kinda running outta stuff to go on and on about without going ahead and posting an actual strip or getting outright spoilery about upcoming storylines.

Here's a picture of Batman:

















What?

Pencil Pitchers

Good day to you, sir or madam. I said Good day!

Here's a look at the pencils from that Knave of Krypton interview thingy:

Random Thoughts and Notions

Hey HEY Hey!

So I get ideas for stuff.
When that happens I generally scribble down thoughts, images, snatches of dialogue and various brick a brack which will eventually (if I'm lucky) turn into a story with a beginning, middle and end.

Here's a few examples of these idea sketches:





























































































If there's any justice in this crazy mixed-up world,
one bright shining day these will all end up as...
UNTRUE TALES!

Krypton, and the Knave what cometh therefrom

Zip a dee do dah day!

If you haven't seen it already there's an interview with yours truly and a little bonus strip featuring Gabe, courtesy of the fine fellows at Knave of Krypton.

The lovely and talented Robert Berry was kind enough to throw some watercolors on my scratchy lines and boy, am I pleased with the results. Check it out!

http://knaveofkrypton.blogspot.com

She who must not be named

Oh...hello there!

So I've gone on and on about Gabe this and Gabe that and random guy number two blah blah blah, but I've yet to address the one character we've actually seen in action over on Zuda: The lovely and mysterious (name withheld).
















Rest assured, (name withheld) has a big part to play in UNTRUE TALES.
She will weave in and out of the stories, just as she weaves in and out of Gabe's life.
























There's busted hearts and broken dishes on the horizon...





















I dare not say more...for now.

Pitchers of Peoples

Yo-ho-ho!

A comic is only as good as its characters and UNTRUE TALES will feature an international cast of superstars!

Um.That is....it'll have interesting characters anyways.

Trust me.

Here's a few character sketches from stories in the works, some sweethearts and some scumbags:

The Australian

Mister Somchai

Boo

Gene Fancy

Karen Teal

Winston Peel

Non sequitur Girl!*

...and these are just a few of the peculiar persons
we'll be meeting in the midst of UNTRUE TALES!

*Non sequiturs not actually featured in upcoming comics.

Great Gobs of Gabe

Greetings!

Today we've got a few more sketches of our fraudulent fictitious friend Gabriel Stein. For those of you just joining us, Gabe is the main character in UNTRUE TALES despite the fact that he doesn't actually appear in the episode currently on display over at Zuda.

We'll meet various incarnations of Gabe in subsequent stories as we hop back and forth through different periods of his life.

Hippy-dippy Gabe:




















Punk Wannabe Gabe:





















Teenage Gabe:















Boyhood Gabe:














Kung-Fu Action Gabe:

















Next time we'll have a glimpse at some of of the supporting characters that may pop up in the future. Until then...

Cover Story

Good morning, afternoon, evening, or night!

So I'd been kicking around ideas for UNTRUE TALES for awhile before submitting to the Zuda contest, and at one point I was thinking of it as a genuine printed hold-it-in-your-hands comic book.

Here's a cover concept I came up with as an homage to the beloved Amazing Spider-Man covers of my bygone youth:


















Mmmmm. Nostalgialicious.

Oh, the places we'll go!

All aboard the exaggeration express!

The realm of UNTRUE TALES is the whole wide world. From Indonesia to Oslo, from New Mexico to New York, we'll globetrot with Gabe to locales both exotic and mundane. Here's a peek at some of the places we'll be perusing in comics to come:



































































































Hope to see you there!

Action is his reward!

Ahoy-hoy!

For those of you who may fear that UNTRUE TALES will be filled with nothing but sob stories and talking heads, I present these thumbnails from an action-packed upcoming installment of the fake funnies:

Ooooo, Ninjas!
Is that a bandwagon I see? I'm jumping on it!
If only I could figure out a way to include some robots... :)

But don't despair Talking Heads fans! There will still be plenty of yakkety yak for those readers that crave the clever conversation. I plan to alternate histories of hijinks and high adventure with the kind of first-person confessional quippage on display in the current comic.

UNTRUE TALES: All things to all people all the time.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The Bolts

Was the suspense killing you? Of course it was.

So why in the wide world of sports have I got color artwork for my black and white comic, you say?

I'm so glad you asked.

The thing is, after I submitted the thing to Zuda I started to worry that I was handicapping my chances in the contest by submitting a black and white comic. Even though it was conceived as black and white from the beginning, I thought maybe the addition of bright shining rainbows of color might buy me a few extra votes.

Oh yes, I'm a shameless vote whore.

So, while I waited to hear back from Zuda I frantically colored in my comic.

I tried coloring it with bright in-your-face colors.






















I tried it in subdued earth tones.
























I tried it in grayscale.
























I tried it with old-timey 4-color printing effects.
























Finally, I settled on a combination of grayscale on a colored background with highlights and a subtle dot matrix screen.
























When, miracle of miracles, I received the hallowed e-mail from Zuda informing me that my comic had been selected for the January contest, I proudly sent in my new pages bursting with joyous color.










...

But the editors preferred the black and white version.

And thank the holy tortoise (and his bouncing rubber ball of mercy) for the wisdom and impeccable taste of editors everywhere!

I think it does indeed work better in black and white.

Plus, coloring, I have discovered, is a huge time-consuming pain in the USS Enterprise. It is an art in and of itself, and one at which I don't particularly excel. So I'm quite relieved that I can remain focused on scratching out my millions of little lines in not-so-glorious black and white.

Keep it simple, stupid.

I'm totally blaming the zudaluminati if I don't win though. :)

The Nuts

Tallyho truthseekers!

In this scintillating session I thought I'd show some of the actual mechanics of my compulsive comic-making mania for those that may be interested in that kinda thing.

Here's a few of the initial breakdowns I did just to figure out how to break up the text, place the figures, and the basic character expression I'm aiming for in each particular panel before taking a bunch of reference pics.

Then it's on to pencils:

Inks:

Drop in the background (sold separately):

And finally, the pretty pretty colors:

What the---?! Color?! But isn't UNTRUE TALES a black and white comic!?

What gives??!!

Tune in next time for the shocking untruth!

Catch ya later, cliffhangers...