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 no...
2024-04-25 17:21:38 +0000 UTC View PostThis 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:"
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,...
2024-04-11 16:55:01 +0000 UTC View Post
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...
2024-04-03 17:11:33 +0000 UTC View Post
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 2024-03-28 19:11:09 +0000 UTC View Post
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 Tuesda...
2024-03-23 05:28:03 +0000 UTC View Post
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...
2024-03-15 18:03:01 +0000 UTC View Post
First of all, thank you to everyone who has been leaving nice comments and sharing the retrospective posts. I was nervous about writing t...
2024-03-14 18:47:08 +0000 UTC View Post
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 fe...
2024-03-08 19:23:57 +0000 UTC View Post
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...
2024-02-28 21:17:42 +0000 UTC View Post
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...
2024-02-22 18:33:01 +0000 UTC View PostSome 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 ...
2024-02-15 17:56:01 +0000 UTC View PostThis 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 flatti...
2024-02-09 18:48:19 +0000 UTC View PostHappy 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 lo...
2024-02-02 19:59:07 +0000 UTC View Post
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...
2024-01-25 19:35:01 +0000 UTC View Post
… 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 applica...
2024-01-19 00:50:13 +0000 UTC View PostThis 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...
2024-01-11 17:54:01 +0000 UTC View Post
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 abou...
2024-01-04 17:45:01 +0000 UTC View Post
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 colourf...
2023-12-28 23:50:58 +0000 UTC View PostI 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 t...
2023-12-22 00:20:43 +0000 UTC View Post
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. H 2023-12-17 00:00:22 +0000 UTC View Post
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 shoul...
2023-12-07 18:02:01 +0000 UTC View Post
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 alte...
2023-12-07 18:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
This week! SO MANY THINGS.
And, as usual, there are extreme spoilers in the image carousel above, a...
2023-11-30 19:25:45 +0000 UTC View Post
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 ca...
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 c...
2023-11-16 19:12:09 +0000 UTC View Post
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: 2023-11-09 17:57:34 +0000 UTC View Post
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 ...
2023-11-02 21:04:22 +0000 UTC View Post
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 ...
2023-10-26 17:22:01 +0000 UTC View Post
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 becaus...
2023-10-19 17:04:00 +0000 UTC View Post
