War Games - Part 9

Hey, sorry about the tardiness of this one.  I mean, it's still Tuesday, but I like to get these posted in the mornings.  With yesterday being a holiday, I had some family over, and needless to say I didn't get much drawing done.  

This one was a blast to work on.  I don't think I've done a "splash page" quite like this yet.  Drawing combat is fun!  I hope you like the change of pace, because there's a lot more face-smashing to come!

War Games - Part 8

Kris Straub, who does a few webcomics, tweeted earlier:

"Do you know why I like webcomics?  Because anyone can say, 'I couldn't find the story we all wanted to read. So I wrote it.' "

This especially rings true for me.  Growing up as a huge fan of the X-Men, I never, ever got tired of seeing them just doing regular stuff in the school environment they lived in, like playing sports together, or even just shooting the shit.  I could read entire books just about the stuff they got up to in the Danger Room.  I wanted to live in the X-Mansion.

Moreover, I wanted to see something like the Venture Brothers, but strictly for superheroes.  There are a few superhero satires out there, for sure, but nothing that I've found has been quite what I was after.  All that, combined with having these characters in my head for years that have been absolutely screaming at me to tell their stories, Super U. came to be.

War Games - Part 3

If you're new to Super U., you may be wondering why suddenly I'm using photos as background instead of drawing it out.  You may be thinking I'm lazy.  In fact, you'd be right, but moreover, I use photos as background during the "Dangerous Room" sequences, when the students are participating in holographic simulations in Combat Education class.

Teams have been chosen.  Roles are being assigned.  On Thursday, you'll get a glimpse of Team Frost and Team Ex doing the same... and then the fur is gonna fly.

Hapless

One of the cool things about having gone on vacation was getting to work ahead on my roughs for the comic.  I don't generally draw the strip on paper until the day before I work on it on the computer, sometimes not even until that morning.  But I worked far enough ahead where I don't actually even remember what strip comes next, so it's kind of a fun surprise to open my sketchbook and be like, "Oh yeah, I'm doing that one today!"

Going through past strips, I realize Chance comes off as cocky, but that's not actually true.  He's just a normal guy who happens to have uncanny good luck; he tries hard (and unsucessfully) to be "cool," and, at least when it comes to women, he sets his goal at the top.

Of course, it would come as a shock to Justice to find out she was the most sought-after girl in school; she's simply too modest and naively kind to fathom that.

Trepidation

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.  I won't be doing a strip for Thursday.  I'm still planning to do a Walter's File for Saturday, though.

I was lucky to have been able to finish this one as it is.  My daughter is home from school for the whole week.  Fortunately she was reasonably accommodating yesterday to her Dad sitting at the computer for the entire day, but I won't be pushing my luck on that one.

Now that Aiden knows of his curse, he's become as fearful of dying as any mortal.  After all, what good is it being immortal if you have to start from scratch each time you die?  It seems the brazen, misplaced-confidence Aiden has gone the way of the dodo...

Technosyde Enters

(Make sure to read the comic before the blog.)

If this comic were never to get off the ground, at the minimum years from now I can say that I was able to draw a robot getting intimate with a weedwacker.

Things are going to get even uglier from here, but I promise you that's the last of the mechanophilia.  At least for a little while.

Believe it or not, this begins the chain of events that lead to the end of Chapter 3.  It's weird to think that I'm so close to that point already.  Posting comics bi-weekly instead of sporadically has been a major contributing factor to that, sure, but still...

For those of you interested in knowing, there are 39 strips per chapter.  I went with that number because it allows me, when making a book, to put three strips on a page (a book being two chapters).

I'm getting ahead of myself a bit, but I wanted to let you know that I plan on the "hiatus" between Chapters 3 and 4 being pretty short.  I won't be doing the YouTube movies anymore, so really I'll just need a short amount of time to get some ideas down on paper, and re-evaluate the merchandise and marketing and all that fun stuff.  After Chapter 4, the hiatus will be longer, because I plan on making a new book.  Once I have two of those under my belt, we'll just have to see how things go from there.  Conventions may be the next logical step.

To Revel

I had to fight my way through this one, and I think it shows.  I came down with a bad cold the night before last, and all I wanted to do all day yesterday was curl up in a ball and sleep like the dead for a day or two.  I made a lot of stupid mistakes, most especially I had almost fully drawn Hydro standing behind Mr. Smith in the middle panel lighting up a bong, but I somehow managed to delete it and not realize this until I was well beyond the point where I could get him back.

Also, I just realized the irony of a character named Hydro smoking a bong. That wasn't even intentional.

Anyway, this comic is the first of... I don't know, ten strips?  Let's call it ten.  There'll be action.  There'll be drama.  There'll be inappropriate use of gardening equipment.

Trying New Things

I made the thumbnail very small on this one, so hopefully nothing is spoiled.  I made myself laugh a lot drawing this one.  Read the comic before the blog, too.

Kudos to Jason for the Hello Kitty underwear idea.  I knew Aiden was either going to be wearing ridiculous underwear or be buck-naked with someone's shoulder or something blocking the view of the naughty bits, but Jason suggested Hello Kitty underwear during our Google Hangout yesterday and I knew it had to be done.

Speaking of Google Hangouts, did you know that I've been doing them quite often while I draw the comic?  Well, I have.  If you want to watch any of the previous Hangouts, you can see them on my Google+ page.  Come chat with me while I'm drawing.  I'm lonely.

Poor Aiden's always on a desperate journey to discover himself.  This is something most of us can relate to, but not, I think, on the level of a guy who's lost his memory countless times over the course of hundreds of years and been forced to reinvent himself over and over.  This time around (at least, for now), Aiden's decided he should really be pursuing the superhero angle.  SPOILER: It probably won't work out too well for him.

This is clarification more for myself than anything, but I wanted to shed some light on Aiden's immortal curse.  When Aiden dies, he loses the details of his life, but he retains general knowledge of history and the world.  Each time, he starts at square one concerning personal traits as well, so any amount of training he's pursued or talents he's honed go right out the window.  So, he can still make cultural references, but he can (and does) forget about that last fifteen years he spent mastering the lute.

This is what makes Daemon integral to Aiden's life.  He's been there since Aiden's first resurrection, to point him in (usually) the right direction.  Of course, this has gotten pretty tedious for Daemon, so he does his best to have fun with the whole thing.  Time Lass, their sister Meghan, has taken a more hands-off approach, but we'll see more about that soon...

Of course, it's all rather more complicated than that, but you'll just have to stay tuned if you want the whole story.

Super U. Strip #66: The Slip

Super U. Strip #65: Felinophilia

Super U. Strip #62: Locution

Super U. Strip #46: The Empress of Wintermoor

Super U. Strip #47: Divine Blessing

Super U. Strip #44: Random Encounter

Super U. Strip #45: Fairy Fetish

Super U. Strip #42: The Quest

Super U. Strip #43: A Well-Rounded Party

The Walters Files: Chance

Chance is one of my favorite characters.  He's the most "ordinary" student in just about every way, and comes off the least "hero-like" among all of his peers.  He maybe doesn't have aspirations to don a cape and cowl anytime soon, but he knows he belongs at Super U. nonetheless. 
He was a prominent NPC in the role-playing game that many of the ideas for Super U. spawned from.  That game actually took place in the near future, but since my biggest influences in comics came from the 90's, in that game-world people were enjoying a resurgence of 90's culture, in much the same way the 70's and and 80's have come back for us.  I mean, just look at that hairstyle.  And he's not the only character, either.  Look at Raine's ridiculous small jacket.  That was a trend I enjoyed, actually; characters in skin-tight spandex, sporting a useless small jacket over it for no goddamn reason.
If you can narrow down the characters in Super U. that are the "main characters," Chance would be one of them.  He'll be one to watch as the comic progresses.

The Slip

Managed to get a strip up before I head out of town for a few days.  I won't be able to post a strip on Tuesday, but it seems likely I will have some rad guest art for you to affix your peepers to instead.  If you haven't seen Mason's work yet, click on his name over in the tag cloud.  It's good stuff.

I gotta hit the sack so I can get on a plane in the morning.  Thanks for stopping by, and please help me spread some Super U. love with one of them there social media share buttons or some such.

Felinophilia

Gonna keep this short, because immediately after posting it I'm going to watch Penny Arcade's new Strip Search.  I'd link to it, but they don't need the publicity.  I am not a fan of television, especially reality television, but then again, there's never been a reality TV show featuring artists trying to get into webcomics before.  But if you are a fan of such things, I highly, highly recommend this show.

I had considered trying to get into this show.  I may still if they do another.

Big news!  There is so much Saturday Super Story content, I've given it its own site and put it in the capable hands of J. Klemm.  What's more, I think Jason has been limiting himself to squeeze his ideas into my universe, and so this is an opportunity for him to explore some paths that might not necessarily see exploration in the comic.

For those of you following both, note that you can expect there will be times when the strips and stories differ.  I'm putting the content of his site solely in his hands, just as everything here is solely in mine.

And so, more big news!  In an effort to get closer to my goal of posting thrice a week, on this site on Saturdays I will periodically be posting new Walters Files!  In fact, I have already posted the one that was previously featured in a comic to get us started, and there is a new Walters Files section just over there on the left of your screen!

The Walters Files are Mr. Walters' (formerly the Dark Avenger) personal, top-secret files he keeps on the students and staff.  This is a thing I've been wanting to do for a while, and I think it's a pretty cool way to to get to learn all the characters.

I purchased Manga Studio 5, a digital art program that I plan on using to draw the strip starting with Chapter 3.  I haven't had much time yet to fiddle with it, but in the short time that I have, I have been extremely impressed.  It seems you can do a lot with this thing, and, oh yeah, it's hella cheaper than Adobe products.  If such things interest you, I can already safely recommend you buy this product.

This Thursday I'm flying out to see family, and since I have to leave the house relatively early in the AM, I'm not entirely sure I'll get the strip posted.  But never fear!  Even if I do not, there are plans in the works...  The same goes for the following Tuesday.

Oh, yeah.  I saw the new Evil Dead the other night.  I don't want to talk about it.  Go see it if you like having nightmares.

Hrmph.  So much for keeping this short.