Think this would be a good place to post this up, so here goes. This is a rough page from the cannabis smuggling book I'm doing and a page which I want to have testread for comments before I produce the full colour artwork on. Let me set the scene first: Thy're on the road with a tonne of cannabis in the back of the van on the 800 mile drive back to the U.k with a criminal gang in pursuit and customs officers awaiting on the road ahead( a la Sugarland Express). It's necessary to test the gear and... This is her first smoke ever. Until this adventure she'd only bothered with alcohol, though that is all about to change. So your first response on reading is...? (If you want to read more you can go to www.smugglingvacation.co.uk)
thanks for sharing your rough page. i think it looks brilliant. so you are writing AND doing the drawing? that's rather impressive. Why did you have to censor out all the swearing though? Do you already have a publisher lined up then for the completed work? Good luck to ya.
My initial influence in drawing are the french cartoons who use symbols for swearing. I came up with red asterixes as an alternative that mimicks the bleeping out on television. Now having seen more of other comics I'm questioning it again and am putting the swearing back into the originals ink versions which I'm going to post up on a myspace to see how they go. If well, then I plan to change the colour version on the site. Would you prefer the swearing left in? I'm hoping to publish it myself in a few months time and by then I need to know if swearing is to be left in and how? Will children be buying it aswell as adults?To print in B&w or colour or both? Any thoughts on this would be welcome.
i'd say leave the swearing in. it's a bit strange, in my opinion, to have a comic that has all sorts of talk about drugs and crime and such and then have the swearing edited out. (also being that i come from the more fascist USA i found it funny that on page 3 you edited out every word but 'cock' which would never get by the censors there - if it were for children - though i know it's a coloquial term here to say 'cock up') i can't say i'm familiar with the french cartoons, but are they as graphic? i'd say if it's about the criminal underworld (or parts of it at least) and drug smuggling then i'd leave it geared towards adults. sort of like the difference between a DC comic (more for the kiddies) and a DC Vertigo comic (definitely adult-oriented with darker, grittier themes). hmm ... as far as the b&W versus colour ... that's really a personal preference i think. your B&W version looks great, but the colour makes things stand out more. i like your B&W version, but after reading a few pages of it in colour i think the colour enhances the quality of it. in my opinion, a comic with the subject matter that yours has would be more along the lines of a Jay & Silent Bob turn out (for the drug references) or like a Paul Pope. If I remember correctly Paul Pope used both B&W along with colour to emphasis certain scenes. Say the scene in the restaurant might be in colour but then the scene on the beach would be done with greyscale to make it look grittier. if that makes sense. however his drawing style was much different not as 'cartoon-based' but more realistic. in yours the colour seems to enhance it and provide the same sort of realism though in cartoon environment. i have no experience at making comics myself; but have read a few in my time (though honestly not much in recent years). i always tended to like the more gritty, dark, and mature stories though. for instance Transmetropolitan (where my sig quote comes from) and various other DC Vertigo comics. however as i wandered about the shop I always loved looking for Independent comics, and yours would definitely be one that would attract my eye. it looks really unique. if i were wandering about a comic shop and saw it i'd definitely be intrigued and inclined to buy it for the simple fact that it is something again that is more adult, decent story (from what i've read so far), and a unique drawing style. the cartoon like drawings make it look as if it's going to be a 'cute' sort of story but then you read it and it's definitely much darker and say at times sinister. i love the way you drew the girl especially, the facial expressions she has are ace. especially those scenes when she's really miffed off. lol at "my god by now he'll be rubbing her!" the red [size=-1]asterisk[/size] in fuck makes it look like 'fook' sorry got carried away reading it there ... i got up to page 14 so far and honestly i love it. as much as i love reading the 'free' copy though are you really sure you want to put the whole thing up online before you publish it? or are you only putting up a 'teaser' amount of pages before the final thing is done? the more i read though, the more i really like it. i chuckle at the guy's and girls relationship, and the mess they've now gotten themselves into. again though with the asterisk thing, i found it odd on the page that the guy gets shot (though it's off square so you don't see it but you know it's happened) and then someone says 'bastard' in the next square and it's b*****d. i'm not one for censorship at all though, however, and it seems more peculiar when accompanied by scenes of violence (or in your case implied violence) good stuff though. be sure to keep us updated as to when you publish it and how to get our grubby hands on copies.
Am real glad to read your comments especially aswell as giving constructive critisism you really got what it's about and also enjoyed what you'd read so far. You've articulated why I need to put the swearing back in as the readers of the strip are almost all adult and the red stars are directing the appeal towards a younger audience whom I also hoped would enjoy it but are in the minority of those who seemed to have found it. I hoped in setting out that this modern adult story under a cartoon style would mark it out as unusual once people began to read it and the reviews at this early stage have been very good, but perhaps it's going well despite the red asterixes and putting the swearing back in would mark it more clearly as an adult book which is what it really is. Am now looking to print it in a few months time. The whole story is 74 pages long and I hope to print it off by the time I'm putting page 50 up on the site. This would leave people with the option of buying it straight away from the site, or waiting a little longer and still getting it for free off the site, which I think is a right and fare thing to do. I'll update the forum now and then on new pages. It's now up to page 26 and from this Monday I'll be updating it every Monday. Hope you keep reading.
Hey definitely will. Glad you weren't offended in anyway by the comments. I think you've done a smashing job with it. Is this the first comic you've put together?
Yeah, this is the very first one. It mixes everything I know, or at least think I know. By the way, me and a few mates went into the site last night and replaced all the starred out swearing with the proper swearing. It took most the night but we had a great laugh crafting all those swear words in so they sat just right. I showed them your message from yesterday as the final bit of evidence that the starred out swearing was a big error and we did needed to correct it asap. I think it looks a lot more natural and better for it. Big, big thanks.
definitely great for a first ever attempt for sure. i'm really surprised you haven't done anything like this before. i just went and took a look at the new revision of the first few pages, and it definitely flows much better now. glad i could have some influence into how it's going to turn out. hopefully i'll get on your site and finish up reading the next few pages you've got up soon.
