Strip 11: Bled Dry

I forgot to mention on the Strip 10 commentary that we've begun a new method of lining our comics. For Strips 1-9, Evan drew each panel out, and Alex scanned or photographed the pages, then retraced the pencil lines in Adobe Illustrator. Naturally, this was extremely time consuming and draining on Alex's sanity, so from strip 10 on, Alex is tracing over the pencils in pen and using Illustrator's Livetrace function to automatically vector the penned lines (Illustrator doesn't like Livetracing pencil lines, otherwise we'd really be in business). While this is still a lot of work, it's at least a greater variety of work, and Alex doesn't have to spend all his time on the comic in front of a computer screen.

What this means for you readers is that the lines could potentially be a bit rougher, at least at the start. This effect is most noticeable in the first and last panels of strip 10, and it'll get cleaned up as Alex gets used to the new style. I think the change is already less noticeable in this strip, and it should only continue to improve with time.

- J.S. Conner

June 14th 2013