While doing an eight-page comic story over the last couple of months, I've managed to build up some momentum in drawing. I don't really want to lose it, so I'm going to work on something of my own for a while, until I find another project to tackle.

Dead City Judas
by Trevor Giberson

Format: Daily-style space western comic strip, complete with Sundays. I won't be able keep up a daily pace, but I've been inspired by all the old Steve Canyon reprints I've been gobbling up recently and I'm going to give this format a shot.

Synopsis: Dead City Judas is space western about a badass bounty hunter tracking dangerous killers across a post-Civil War stellar empire.

The first story take place on a frontier space station built next to an asteroid field, mining the now ultra-rare copper from the asteroids. The space station is a sci-fi version of the small, decrepit towns that built around the Yukon Gold Rush. People live mostly on the asteroids, then sell their findings on the station and get to sinnin’. Work has suddenly been halted by the government in the entire belt because an ancient, alien tomb has just been discovered on one of the asteroids. The government has a skeleton police force there now, but the place is a powder-keg and they are so few that they are in over their heads. Worse yet, this is the frontier, right smack dab in the middle of the losing side in the recent war of succession. There are no more police coming, and the current force is expected to deputize from amongst the unhappy civilians. A team of archeologists, anthropologists, linguists and bureaucrats are on route to excavate, unaware at just how animosity is directed towards them by the miners. To this environment, our protagonist arrives, tracking a murderer hiding somewhere in the asteroid belt.

Now, I'm not particularly good at any aspect of this comic creating thing, so any advice, criticism or other comments are very much welcomed.

As a preview, this is what I've got done so far today (click to resize):

Looks Fun Trevor.

Looking good so far. Are you inking by hand or digitally? I'm interested because you've place your word balloons first, which is a great idea to make sure they fit, but the lettering looks digital.

Everything is digital, but I'm trying like hell to make it look hand-drawn and brush-inked (not because I'm trying to fool anyone, just because I love that look so much and I want to figure out how to do it).

I do the prelim sketch first, then the lettering. That gives me a chance to correct layout issues if the balloons take up too much space. Then I ink over the prelim sketches. Generally there's a layer for perspective lines, a layer for background inks and a layer for figure construction underneath the figure inks. This is probably overkill, but I'm really new at this so I'm still figuring out the best approach.

I've got news for you. It's working. It looks great.


I don't think it's overkill. Whatever gets you there is the way to do it. Looks great so far! What program are you using?

Thanks

I'm using Manga Studio 3.0.

HA! I was going to suggest that. I just picked up 4.0 since 3.0 was running buggy on my Windows 7 machine. It's a fantastic inking program.

Cool! Is it worth the upgrade? I'm too cheap to pay for the EX version

Well, if you're getting just the upgrade, especially to EX, then I think so. Maybe. I like using zipatone, and they have tons of zip patterns and such in it. The only reason I got the EX version is because I get quite a bit knocked off for where I work. You really just need to look at the side by side of the two programs and see if the extras are worth if for you.

Here's a link to Debut vs. Pro:
http://manga.smithmicro.com/debut_vs_ex.html

I want to cross hatch my backgrounds like Gerhard, so having no tones isn't a problem. Lack of perspective rulers in Debut makes me cry, though. Still, I can do those by hand, if it saves me $250 ....

Wow! 250 for the upgrade?!?! I had no idea.

Yeah, stick with Debut for now. As long as it has that "rotate" command you can do just about anything you want.

Not really an upgrade for me... my version is the trial that came with Manga Studios for Dummies. The upgrade is $200, but I've got to register first.

No, I get it. I saw that as well.

I got 4.0 EX for $85.

AWESOME!

Still working on this, but it is much harder than I expected. It's going to take a long time to get a few weeks ahead at this rate.

Trevor, this looks really great.

Thanks! I think I've got a good story that suits the format, and I think the art is going to be the best thing I've ever done (which is not saying much, really). Do you know anywhere I can submit this? I think I may be sixty years too late...

I think we need an update on this.

It is on hold for now - my skills isn't up to snuff. I need to find an artist for it, and I have to finish Johnny Impossible before I can do that.

Back working on Dead City Judas again. It was originally intended to be a newspaper-style comic strip, but I’m going to do it as a graphic novel instead.

The pic below is taken with my phone because my scanner isn’t big enough to handle the original art. I notice that I can’t letter for crap.

The other change is that I'm doing it with pencil & ink rather than digitally.

Lookin' good.

Nice establishing shots!