Pliable

I think I can pretty much declare at this point that I'm around 85% back to my original comic style.  It's taken a long time to undo the damage that caricaturing did to my work, not to say I didn't learn a lot from it.  I was fortunate to work with other caricaturists that strongly-emphasized cartooning over exaggeration, and my cartooning skills improved quite a bit because of it.  For example, I knocked out that Spaz pic there in the third panel in no time at all.  Don't get me wrong: I love cartoons, and I think caricatures are pretty cool, too.  And like I said before, initially when I began Super U. I think I was trying to emulate the style of other webcomics.  I certainly don't knock cartooning and caricaturing.  They both take an incredible amount of practice and skill to do right.  But recently, I found a picture I did of Raine a few years ago, and I got a little upset, because I knew I couldn't draw it that well anymore.  I will get there again, and soon.

The last strip, this one and probably the next few all deal with the wrap-up / fallout after Justice's capture, Rex Ruthless' demise and Aiden's death and subsequent ressurection.  This little action-run has been fun, but it can't be punches to the face all the time.  Don't worry, I will endeavor to continue delivering the funny, even if I'm only using humor to disguise my true intentions of making you find yourself compelled to learn more about these characters.

Hey, that gives me a cool idea!  I'm going to put a poll up on the bottom of the site for you to vote for some of your characters.  Who do you want to see more of?

As always, thanks for your support, and please keep sharing Super U. with your friends!  I've made it easier to follow me on Facebook and Twitter with the new buttons there on the top, and to share things you like on your social media of choice.  Tune in for next week's blog as I think I might discuss how freaking amazing Grand Theft Auto 5 is.

It Comes to a Head

I worked on this on pretty much the entire day.  I thought I was trying to get these done quicker!  Still, I'm really happy with how it turned out.  

You can look at this strip and compare it to pretty much any strip prior, and see how much better it looks.  Why?  Because I Photoshopped it.  Sure, I put considerable effort into shadowing and line-work, and my style has gravitated even further toward my comic roots as I continue to undo the damage caricaturing did to my art-style, but aside from those things, I literally just moved a couple sliders around in Photoshop and got this amazing finished product.  It's really quite sad, but that's how the game is played.  You don't actually have to be very talented to make something look amazing in Photoshop.  Artists these days, or what passes for artists, can perform in a couple clicks what it would take a skilled traditional artist a lot of forethought and technique to accomplish.

So why did I use Photoshop on it?  Because it made the strip look better, and what's more, you can no longer include yourself in the world of professional artists if you don't know how to use Photoshop.  It's really very unfortunate.  But being that I don't enjoy painting (and I'm not particularly good at it), and having to produce artwork so quickly, it's the only logical option.

I'd love to draw this stuff by hand and just go to town with some Prismacolor markers, but that just isn't in the budget.  I mean, we're talking like 4 bucks a marker.  Sucks to that.

Maybe I shouldn't belittle my efforts.  It's probably a bad idea.  I don't want other people to know how easy it is to make things look amazing in Photoshop, because the world needs more artists; the real kind.

When not drawing or house-cleaning (and sometimes during house-cleaning), I've been watching a lot of programs lately involving people travelling to all corners of the Earth, doing astonishing things and seeing amazing places.  And up until recently, I had become once again heavily embroiled in Skyrim.

I realized I was trying to live vicariously through these people (and these characters).

There's still so, so much beauty left in the world, and I want very badly to experience it firsthand, but to do so requires money and freedom from obligations, both of which I have in short supply.

I still haven't given up hope that I'll soon be relocating, where I can live a life that more closely resembles my ideal one.  But I think about Kyoto and British Columbia and the Himalayas and the Alps and New Zealand, and I get very sad, because I know I'll never see them.

God, but I get mopey, don't I?  Sorry.  Occasionally I remember that this is a blog page, and I just start dumping out all the stuff that's been weighing heavily on my brain.

No more of that.  Gotta keep it professional.  Stiff upper lip, and all that.

Please help spread the Super U. love and share stuff with your friends, especially the geeky ones.

Super U. Strip #76: Archrival - Part 4

Here's the last three movies!  They've been a ton of fun to make, and they gave me the time needed to put together ideas for Chapter 3 while still putting out some content.  I had hopes I could drum up a small YouTube audience with these, but no such luck.  For the most part, not even some of my regular readers seem to watch them (but some of you do, of course, and I thank you profusely).  So, while they've been fun, I don't think I'll be doing them anymore.  That, and I've about exhausted my iTunes music library making them.

Next Tuesday, Chapter 3 begins!  The very first strip will be done in Illustrator as usual, but after that point they will all be done (hopefully) in Manga Studio.  That means they will have a different look, one that will more closely-resemble my hand drawn artwork, and with any luck that will be a good thing.  The reason for the art-style switch should become apparent on Thursday, because, as I've done several times before, I'm incorporating the style-shift to accompany the story.  Beyond that, I can say no more... you'll just have to wait and see.

Seriously though, you guys, I need help.  If you don't want to buy merchandise or whatever, I'm totally cool with that.  I'm not keen on soliciting my friends, anyway.  But it's free to share the comic with your friends.  And all of you goomba friends of mine who don't read the comic?  You guys are mean and unsupportive.

I figured out a way to put these directly from YouTube onto the site here at Blogspot again.  Before I would just click "Share to Blogspot," but they removed that option on YouTube (so much for this whole "one-Google thing...).  But I realized if I put the address for the movie directly into the... well, the point is, here they are, more or less how I want them to be.

So, without further ado, I give you the Archrival: Part 4,5 and 6!

Super U. Strip #71: Roommates

Archrival: Part 4

I did warn you about the change of atmosphere.

Only two strips left until the dramatic conclusion of Chapter 2.  And when I say dramatic, what I mean is you will hate me for the ending I have planned.

Also, *gasp!* An establishing shot?  Varying panel sizes? This comic is getting all professional and stuff.

Not much to report other than that, though.  I've been stuck in the house for a while because my car's got a flat and we're broke. It's nuts out here in Touristopolis for the long weekend, anyway. 

We tried to take the kid out to have some fun this last Sunday at one of those bounce-house places, only to discover upon our arrival that the place was closed.  That went over as well as you might imagine.  Looking into it, I saw that there is a possibility the place is closed while one of their employees is being investigated for something to do with child pornography, so it's probably just as well she couldn't go.

It turned out all right in the end, though.  We took her to a place she could ride on a Ferris Wheel for the first time, and she decided she wanted me to take her on the go-carts, which was pretty bad-ass because A.) my five-year-old daughter loves driving fast in a go-carts B.) I got to drive a go-cart.

But that's all I've got for now.  Thanks for coming to the site, and please share the comic with your friends using one of those handy-dandy social media butttons there.

Roommates

This is how much of a geek I am: I have a list of who is a roommate with whom.  "Whom," right? Or just "who?"  I don't remember.  It's almost 3:00 AM and I just finished this, and I'm definitely not thinking straight.  There was probably going to be some dialogue in this one, but I forgot what it was.  Something to the effect of Bobby Rocket vowing to hunt them all down and kill them one-by-one, I think.

There's a lot characters in this one I haven't used in a while... and some not much at all, really.  Bobby was a last-minute edition to the list of students; I needed somebody to balance out the Combat Education teams.  He's heavily-based off of an old role-playing character of mine who was sort of like a 50's greaser meets a pyromaniac.  

I have too many damn characters.

I had to go with something a little "light-hearted" for this week, because starting next week, shit gets real.  Pretty much.

There's still one strip before the end of Chapter 2 that I have no idea what I'm going to do with.  Maybe that one will be less real.

He's Got the Kung Fu

So, the game-plan is falling into place. 

Super U., until further notice, will continue to be posted here on Blogspot, as will Jason's Saturday Super Stories. 
Animatics of each strip will be posted on YouTube on the Super U. Channel, and hopefully you'll think they're cool enough to subscribe to it.
I'm going to submit Super U. to Comic Genesis and Drunk Duck as well, two webcomic hosting sites. 
One of the longer-term goals is to get the strip up on KeenSpot, which is probably the primo place to get it published, but they're not currently accepting submissions, and honestly, they're still out of my league.  But they operate Comic Genesis, and so the hope is that if it does well there, maybe they'll consider Super U. for KeenSpot in the future.

A dedicated website is still in the plans, but I'm going to start with the above first and see how things go.  Other long-term plans include posting a new strip three times a week.  In the near future, I'd like to make actual, physical books of each chapter available for purchase, and from there, who knows?  Guest spots? Commissions?  Prints?  T-shirts?

I'll keep posting links on Facebook and Google+ to this site, and occasionally to some of the others, as I think most of you reading this now will probably prefer Blogspot.  Posting on the webcomic sites will be my attempt to have Super U. reach a broader audience outside of the Facebook circle.

There's only two more strips until the "hiatus," but don't forget during that time, while I'm establishing Super U. on these other sites, I'll keep posting animatics to Youtube and be linking them to Facebook and stuff.  The first "chapter" ends then, anyway, so it's as good a time as any to take a step back and re-familiarize ourselves with what has transpired so far.

Again, much love to my readers!  Your support is what is going to keep this train chug-a-lugging.

Share/Like/Join, and thanks.
-Matt

Haikeeba!