Comics, Movies, Fighting Games, and Pop Culture. 3 New Podcasts Every Week!
EXTREME #29! X-Men ( Season 3, Episode 29 ): Shi'ar SUCKFEST!!! The X-Men steal a rocket, Eric the Red has foxy legs, screen caps, and Xavier's wheels.
Writing and genre!!! Ross loves writing, Nick distracts him with a mention of Action Double Feature, Ross thinks prose has more genre diversity than comics, Nick is confused about genre nomenclature, and MORE!!! WE DIG DEEP!
NEXT: X-Men ( Season 3, Episode 30 ) and fratboy realism!!!
Point Break, Wild Target, Justique loves Shin Chan, Nick debuts Stick Cats, and then talks about Iron Man: Armored Adventures. Neal wants you to go to NealShyam.com and click "About" -- then tell us which one ISN'T true and we'll give you a shout out on the show. And why is Vitamin Water disappearing?
The podcast by indie comics creators for indie comics creators gets opinionated!
First up, a quick project announcement: Dan's Super Haters Guest Week debuts today! (NOTE: I'll post a link to his first strip when it goes live later today. -Nick)
Onto the conversation... we discuss Pittsburgh's Fleeting Pages -- one-month indie book store project -- and their submission process. And we drop a shout out to Bloomfield's Big Idea book shop.
Then we talk about selling prints of licensed properties at comic book conventions. C'mon, you know who and what we're talking about -- the artists who show up at cons and only do pinups of Big Two characters. We talk about how it's a legal gray area... and, of course, we make sure to express our strong opinions about it!!!
It's BAAAACK!!! And I've got classic Marvel vs. Capcom desktops for you!
Let's start things off with the original MvC1 title screen. Oh gawd... it's so beautiful... I'm getting teary-eyed just looking at it!!!
Next up? The select screen! While I love this image, there's something I love even more -- the music. Snag the wallpaper and then go listen to the MvC1 select screen theme on Grooveshark.
And last but not least -- the awesome character montage from the MvC opening!!! Even though most of my favs have been shuffled to the back, I still love it.
Next Hyper Combo Wallpaper? Chun-Li kicks some ass!
After raving about the restaurant's delicious sandwiches, Nick and Shawn were invited into the kitchen of Justique's Diner to meet the chef. As love blossomed between Nick and the burly cook, Shawn learned that Justique had a special button of her own...
| PREVIOUS | NOW | NEXT |
| Time Log #32 | Time Log #33 [ZOOM] |
Time Log #34 |
| New to Time Log? Start from the beginning with #0! | ||
This week I'd like to talk about... LETTERING! <everyone stands up and leaves>
No, seriously, I want to talk a little bit about lettering. See, back when I first started making my own comics, not only was lettering the last step in the process -- it was also the last thing on my mind.
But over the years, I've come to not only enjoy lettering but to also give my lettering decisions a lot of consideration. Maybe too much consideration!!!
That brings me to today's comic. In the first panel, we see a stylized silhouette of Justique's hand hitting the button on her stove. In Pete's script, it calls for the sound effect "Boo-Zeeep!" (an inversion of the "Bee-Zooop!" noise made by pushing the button on the time log).
I couldn't decide how I wanted to letter the panel, and I went through several different iterations, as you can see here:
I didn't want the letters to overpower the image, so I tried setting them on the bottom at first. But I had two problems with that -- the narrow panel looked empty AND the "Boo-Zeeep!" was buried too low.
So I tried adding an exclamation point to the arm/hand to generate some motion and excitement. But neither black nor white gave the image the punch I wanted it to have.
So I tried breaking away from the low "Boo-Zeeep!" and I moved the SFX up top where it could be seen clearly. I added a bouquet of exclamation points beneath the button, and I added just a smidgen more black space to the button area. It was close, but still not what I wanted.
I remembered back to Time Log #27, another installment that left me with a lettering conundrum. My solution that time was a freestanding "Bee-Zooop!" between the panels. Inspired by that solution, I tried overlaying the SFX directly on Justique's arm. And it worked!!!
While I'm not 100% satisfied (I think the SFX draws your eyes down when I'd rather have it draw them across), I dig the look of the first panel. And there you have it -- another Time Log lettering adventure!!!
Oh, BTW, if you live in Pittsburgh, have a few bucks to spare for an arts-related cause, and need something to do on Friday night, come check out the Sugar Factory art show. Both Shawn and I have donated original art to benefit Pittsburgh's Future Tenant art gallery.
Unconventional pt. 2 = cancelled... but Kaylie and her crazy radio voices are back for another round of X-Men and comics creation conversation!!!
EXTREME #28! X-Men ( Season 3, Episode 28 ): We talk about Ross's screen caps for the entire X-Men convo. That means misshapen Beast, annoying green light, and Jubilee's weird elongated sideways boobs.
Then it's time for an epic character design conversation!!! Ross discusses how he evolves the look of characters naturally for Wet Moon, and how he decided the proportions of Shadoweyes's big ol' head. Kaylie talks about developing her wild and detailed characters for Dinogeddon. And Nick discusses the importance of color in his character designs... all while designing his latest Super Haters character! Here's a sneak peak:
NEXT: X-Men ( Season 3, Episode 29 ) and, uhhh, something else!
Neal talks about himself for a while (Neal didn't wanna click this), Nick realizes that the podcast is a real straight-fest, Justique tries to convince Neal to go gay (he won't do it), and Neal wants to talk about Hellboy... and after the end theme, Justique says anything!
Today would be the day for a new episode of Sequential Underground, but the stars didn't align last week and so we're skipping today. WHY? Because we've been working on comics, damn it!!!
We'll be back next Monday with a brand new episode. But until then, why not check out some of our comics?
NOTE: Some of these links go to Drunk Duck, and at this point in time, they're having some sort of issue with their image files. Hopefully it'll be fixed soon.
Dan Greenwald*
Shawn Atkins
Shawn Atkins and Seth Fronzoli
Shawn Atkins and Nick Marino
Nick Marino
Dan's also been working on Super Haters because he's the next Super Haters Guest Week creator!!! His alternate-reality Guest Week story begins next Monday.
So, as I mentioned last post, I've been quite busy recently, co-founding the nation's most cutting-edge poetry festival, down here in Miami, Florida. Today I was down in the Wynwood neighborhood, at the gallery where we're hosting a month-long exhibition of Miami photography, along with a made-for-the-show installation by a handful of alumni from the New World School for the Arts down here, a kind of "writing village" in which visitors will write ekphrastic poems based on the photographs on display.
The show, done in conjunction with Abe's Penny micro-magazine, also features a lecture space where we're having several readings, taking place throughout April. Christy Gast, who runs the gallery, asked me to pose in a few places in the gallery, to take some preview pictures. And, by chance, I was wearing my Audioshocker.com t-shirt (this only a day after being pictured in the Miami Herald wearing a Dogfish Head brewery t-shirt (brewing up a minor scandal of my own)), so I thought it was only right to share a couple of preview images here as well, a day in advance of the show's opening on Saturday night.
Pete at the Abe's Penny Poetry Podium
"My Name is Pete, and I'm a Culturologist."
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