mulele.com

The other day I posted on this site’s Japanese blog a small rant about the state of Japanese webcomics, saying they’re too long vertically to fit the screen. The reader then has to scroll up and down, up and down, up and down to read the comic. That sucks! Readers shouldn’t have to go through all that mess just to read a comic. I then went on to say, “America has it sorted. We even have wonderful tools to help us get our stuff right like wordpress.org and comicpress. In fact, I’m using them to bring you my content right now.”

When my rant received some feedback I had to take a second look at how well I was adhering to my own standards. Yes, I had been hypocritical, but I think I can fix this problem.

I’ve gone through all the comics in the comics and manga subsites and reformatted them to fit my own theories on how a webcomic should be presented.

So, in short, here are the rules or standards of the comic I’m making for this site.

Comic dimensions:

960 x 550 pixels

This is the guideline for most of my online comics. The reader shouldn’t have to scroll unless the artist has a reason for making them do so. Scrolling is a tool, a device of the webcomic similar the fold-out panel in that badly written batman comic or a centerfold in playboy magazine. If you’re going to make them unfold it, there better be a reward for doing so.

Depending on the size and the resolution of the viewers monitor, Some viewers may be able to see more or less of a comic site. But  most people people are looking at my site with 1280 x 1024 monitors, so the 960 x 550 format works well for me.

File format:

Jpegs saved for the web

I don’t like the limited colors here, but the smaller file size and quicker load times are more important.

The rest really depends on the format of the story the artist is trying to tell. This time out, Elbis is a one-pic-a-day comic similar to the presentation in a children’s storybook. My next comic might not be.

And finally, It was feedback that carried me to this place.

feedback=growth

Well, I’ve done it. I’ve finally started my web comic in earnest. Though I sometimes question the timing of starting a project, ‘cause they’re always bigger, more complex and harder than you first thought, I’ve got a good feeling about this one.

“But man, there’s only one picture and some text. What the hell is it?”
It’s a picture book. You know, for adults! Well, not like that. It’s only a children’s picture book in format. The themes are dark and though you wont find much swearing, I wouldn’t recommend some of these stories for the kiddies.

But if you love the dark mysteries of life, you’ll love this comic.

I’ll be updating the comic starting every Tuesday at midnight, Japan local time, and updating daily after that three to five times that week to complete that week’s story.

Enough hype. Go enjoy the comic.

The night bares fruit for my questions and loosens the boundaries of time. Space. Inhibition. We run barefoot through its fertile fields. The truth of life clings to me, for I have stepped in it. Deeply. An odd metaphor but apt nonetheless as in daylight I see to avoid such missteps and learn nothing.
As I approach the launch of the elbis strip my time in the light shortens. I work until light and sleep what I can until dark.
Squish. Squish. The truth of art, the truth of me between my toes. My mind expands and contracts. Night gives in to day. Folds me into sleep.

Just completed work on TUROK: Son of Stone for Dark Horse Comics. I did the layout, screen captures and lettering for this book based on the DVD.

Dark Horse Comics plugs the book thusly…
“After a warring tribe falls upon his people, an exiled Turok has to return to save the day. Armed with an enchanted tomahawk, he heads into battle, but the opposition has special weapons of their own; muskets! When Turok is forced to retreat into a mysterious cave he is sent to a lost land filled with dinosaurs! Now in a savage realm with danger behind every corner, Turok will have to unleash the rage within him if he is to ever see his people again.”

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these but I have to say, I’m quite proud of the book.

Publication Date: Oct 15, 2008
Format: Full color, 88 pages, TPB, 5″ x 7″
Price: $14.95
Age range: 14+
ISBN-10: 1-59582-201-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-59582-201-7

For those of you who don’t follow my twitter feed, this morning I was introduced to one of the greatest webbrowsers I’ve ever seen-Flock. Flock can be d/l-ed at flock.com

What did flock beat out in my ever-shrinking attention span? Safari and Firefox2.0.
Why? Speed, functionality and connectivity. Far be it from me to plug something other than my art on this blog ( even adsense may taste shoe leather by the end of the month) but this is just too good for me not to mention. Anyway, you can check out the quick intro videos on the site, lickety-click.

End of commercial.

Living in Japan and being pretty much bilingual life is good here but coming to the realization that I don’t really take part in Japanese society, I’ve decided to hit it full force by publishing my elbis web comic simultaneously on this website in Japanese. There is no change in the menu up top but if you go to the comics page there is now a language button to take you to the Japanese version of the page. As my Japanese friends say, “Dude, you sound like a foreigner but it’s cool.”

I don’t expect much difference between the English and Japanese sites but you never know. Check it out and lemme know what you think.

The good people at illustrophile.com have a blurb up about me on their site. Their main function: showcasing artists who do cool work, like me! None too specific but a nice site none the less. Very much worth checking out. http://www.illustrophile.com

elbis is a comic I started way back when under a different name: blackswan. Some of you may remember the story debuted on DC Comics’ Zuda.com, on-line imprint. The blackswan comic is still over there and you can take a look, if you like. During the production of that 8-page preview I began to understand the lure of on-line comics and have since even started reading a few.

When the Zuda.com contest was over and my story was not chosen to continue, I chose to tell the rest of the story here. Naturally, as one looks back in time you come to understand the foibles of even your closest, greatest work. You might start tinkering. And suddenly you have a whole new comic with new characters, a completely different format and a renewed interest in telling the story in your own way, but now in your own time.

A new comic means a new title. I was originally going to call it black lizard, a kind of split homage to blackswan and black lizard press. Eventually I bowed to the pressure of friends and mothers who preferred the title elbis after the main character of the story.

I published some of my story experiments in connection with illustrationfriday.com as a way of promoting my site. I may still do so from time to time. The main problems I had with doing that was the presentation of the work: on the art blog in the last incarnation of mulele.com.

This time elbis has his own space to do what he needs on a blog engine that conforms to standard webcomic formats.

I’d been planning for a while to re-launch elbis in his own comic section and have had the space reserved for a while. Yesterday, I suddenly found myself with less than a month before my launch date and I hadn’t put anything up to announce it.

So now there are comics page links on every page and the count down has officially begun.

Ooooooh, the pressure.

Check out the comics page for further announcements, bells and whistles.

Grand, bold artist that I am, the joys and foibles of fame have not been lost on me. I have, however dark and cruel a thought, hit upon the relativity of my branding. Ergo, vis-à-vis, concordantly, I am famous only to those that know me. <shudder>
Inexorably, for those of you who do not know me, I’ve put up an about page.

To the people reading the twitter feed on the site, there seems to be some problems at the source of the feed so you might not be able to see anything here. I’m still twittering away but you might have to go to the twitter site to read it.

Will keep you updated.