Postlude

And that's it!  The end of Chapter 4.  Come back on Thursday and I'll have Hrölf's Walter's File up.  In it you'll find out just how he's still alive and kicking, and get a glimpse into his ultimate transformation into a washed-up superhero.

Now, if you'll indulge me for a few minutes, I haven't had a good rant in a while.  And this could be the last one, so I'm going to make it count.

My friends, I have reached a crossroad.  The road on the left leads to Chapter 5 of Super U., onto Chapter 6 and so on.  The other road dead ends my ambition to create comics.

I've been struggling with this for a long time.  I love drawing comics.  But my life is in a strange place; a place where things have the potential to look very, very different in the near future, and I need to ask myself if it's worth it to pursue my aspirations of having a successful comic.  I never expected, or even wanted, to get rich or famous from this.  In fact, I'm positive that I would continue indefinitely if Super U. had even a small,  loyal audience who never gave me a dime.  I have managed to retain a few readers, and even pick up some new ones, and for that I am extremely grateful.  But let's face it, despite my efforts this comic hasn't even gotten off the ground.  It's lost in a sea of comics, many of them superior, and I don't appear to have what it takes to enable it to float to the surface.

I've grown up believing that being mildly intelligent and reasonably talented would take me places.  Instead, I now find myself getting older, in financial straits and unqualified for absolutely everything.  What's more, I find myself surrounded by a world I don't understand, where money alone makes it turn.  Where art and storytelling come second to marketing.  Where you will never make it as an artist unless you've mastered digital art, social networking and are adept at coding.

But most of all, I have a family that depends on me, and I can't continue to ask them to support this dream of mine.  I know they would without question, and that means more to me than anything, but that doesn't make it fair.  I need to take a hard look at myself and discover what it is I am capable of, so that I can give to them as equally as they do for me.  I have been a burden on them for far too long.

In other words, it may be time to put away the pencils.

I have a strange opportunity arising.  I'll reserve all the details, but it will likely involve farming.  It will involve being as separated from the modern world as realistically as I can manage, and you know what?  I think I want that.

I don't know if that life will have room for comics.  Maybe there'll be an opportunity to keep pursuing this, not for the sake of success, but just for the love of it.  Maybe the comic will take on a new form.  Maybe it'll be drawn with a muddy stick on sheep skin; I don't really know.  I can't pretend to have an answer to that yet.  All I ask is that you check back, from time to time, and see if I posted anything new.  Sign up to get e-mail updates.  Maybe I'll surprise you.  It's equally as plausible I'll only be able to deny my desire to make comics for so long.

In the meantime, I'll see this bit through to the end.  I'll be compiling the next book (Chapters 3 and 4), if only so I can have a copy of it myself, and maybe I'll put together some new merch for good measure.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading, and if after Thursday I don't communicate with you again, I wish you all the best that life has to bring.  If I do communicate with you after Thursday, I still wish that.

-Matt

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.

War Games - Part 2

Aiden hasn't been an outright lech in a while, so I thought it was about time he got back to that.  Still, it's good to see him back to his old self again.  Or, at least, the self he most recently created for himself.

I was up until the wee hours of the morning the other night mapping out the rest of the chapter, which in turn caused me to get incredibly tired last night and have to finish the strip this morning, so sorry it's a little tardy.  But thankfully I did, because as it turns out I'm going to need every available strip to finish this story arc.   I hope you're in for lots of action and excitement instead of the usual (which I guess could be classified as wannabe superheroes behaving badly).

Repercussions

I'm totally happy with the way I ripped off Jack Kirby's "Kirby dots" in that first panel.  Also, Dean Clobber's nose in that third panel.  Man, what a great nose I drew.

Looks like Aiden's mom and SuperDude sent out that memo.  This can only spell mo' problems for our protagonist.  Really though, his troubles are only just beginning...

*cues foreboding music*

Break It Down

This situation is not going to end well.

Can you believe Chapter 4 is already halfway through?  I gotta sit down and script out the rest of it so I can make sure there's room for all the cool things I still want to do!  There's lots more in store for the rest of Chapter 4!™  

But first, Aiden just has to get through the rest of the school day!

Insectified

It felt weird drawing a classroom scene again.  It's actually been a long time!  As you may have guessed, today starts something I like to do every chapter, and that's take you through a typical (or not-so-typical) school day at Super U.  The students' first period of the day is Languages of the Known Cosmos with Alien Ghost.  It's probably hard to go through your day when you begin it by having languages both domestic and alien mentally injected into your cerebral cortex.

Alien Ghost, like the other faculty, is a former superhero.  But being not of this world, his human

interaction is generally lacking in subtlety.  Still, if you need to comprehend the language of the Krillian Fish-Beetles pronto, he's your man.

The Gift

It's been fun visualizing these characters in various regions and periods throughout history.  This is probably the last one, for a little while at least, as this little sidetrack into Aiden's past comes to a close.  I hope that I've divulged just enough information to fill in some blanks while still leaving some things open for interpretation.  There are a lot of stories I'd like to tell concerning the past of the Ravenswood family, but this is supposed to be a humorous superhero comic, so it's high time I get back to that.

Voyagers

I haven't managed to make all these funny, but I think I've at least been able to keep them interesting.  The story of the Ravenswood siblings is one that I've pieced together over a long time, and it's one that is best told in tiny increments over a long period.  Because it's long.  More than once I've tried to sit down and actually work out a timeline for the whole thing.  I have this sort of "Forrest Gump" approach to their background; I like to think that the siblings have been there / done that, and that they've been involved in one way or another in several major historical events.

I've since thrown the timeline out the window, though, and taken the easy way out, and made one of the siblings able to manipulate time.  There, now I don't have to have a reason why they'd be in ancient Greece.

I noticed yesterday that I sold a couple of Alien Ghost stickers!  To people I don't even know!  Thank you!

Which reminds me, Zazzle's having some kind of St. Patrick's sale where shirts and buttons are 30% off, and everything else is 15% off.  That applies to my stuff as well!  The sale ENDS TOMORROW, so if you've been on the fence about buying some merch (and supporting my comic) now is the time to buy stuff!  After you make a purchase, use this discount code: STPATS30DEAL

Combined with the fact that I recently slashed all the prices... I mean, c'mon.

Reminisce

I shit you not, I've had the image of that third panel stuck in my head for, like, a decade.  Probably more.  Damn it felt good to get that out of there.

Granted, when I first conceived of the Ravenswood children, all of those years ago, Aiden and Time Lass were very different.  Different characters, in fact.  Aiden was called Kaine, and he was all of the cool and none of the goofy; he was more or less just a rip-off of Kwai Chang Caine.  Time Lass wasn't a time-jumping kleptomaniac at all; she was a witch called East with blonde and green hair, and personality-wise, she was pretty flat.  I'm happy with the way things have evolved.

As a random aside, if I had known how immensely popular the name "Aiden" would become, I would have picked something else.

I've been following @Sketch_Dailies on the Twooter for a couple of days now.  If you like drawrings I highly recommend it.  I really want to get involved; I know I should be drawing more, not just a few times a week.  I don't even have a real job, and I still can't conceive of how I'd have time for that, though.  Plus, there's so many talented artists contributing on a daily basis, it's intimidating; a daily reminder of how far I still have to go.

As always, thanks for reading, and please show your support by leaving comments, browsing the merch and checking out my book.  Any merch you'd like to see, but don't?  Let me know... I can probably cook it up for you.

The Blame Game

Back... to the future!  Which is the present.  As cool as the last few strips turned out, it felt good to keep things a little looser.  And not have to draw all that armor.

As you might guess, a word that can be used to describe the next several strips might be "expository."  I'm once again confronted with the dilemma of divulging lots of information while at the same time trying to keep things light and entertaining.  I hope you like the story that's being told so far, because there's going to be a lot of blanks being filled in over the next couple weeks!

Regicide

This one looked like crap from my sketches.  But now that I've completed it, I kind of dig it.  And there you have it!  I hope you've enjoyed my little viking flashback sequence.  I'm kind of entertaining the idea that I'll start off each chapter a past sequence.  Assuming there are more chapters to follow.

Next Tuesday we return to the present.

Please comment, share, and if you got some extra dillas, check out the book and the merchandise.  Support broke artists!

King Hrölf

I forgot to mention that my pen for my drawing tablet died before I started the last strip.  Not usually a problem; I primarily use the pen tool, and it's easy to do with a mouse.  But hair, and even moreso, fur?  Way easier to draw in Illustrator with a pen than with the damn mouse.  There's a lot of fur clothing in these strips.

Also, welcome back!  For the time being, Super U. is going to be updating twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I had been posting the Walters Files on Saturdays, but I'm pretty much done with those.  If you're looking for something to do on a Saturday, why not brush up on your Saturday Super Stories?  Jason's new one just happens to feature the bearded guy right up there.  We didn't even plan that!

Anywho, I've been sitting at this computer for a day and a half.  I'm going to stop now.

Gray Wolves

Hey, welcome back!  I'm pretty pleased with the way this one turned out.  When the strips feature flashbacks or other "other-than-normal" settings, I like to do something a little different.  This time around, another glimpse into the past of the siblings, I just drew my ass off.  Of course, there's some Photoshopping involved as well, but I try to set my own personal bar a little higher with each chapter.  When the story returns to the present, I'll have to force myself to ensure that the art stands up to the strips previous.  Not that I'm promising every strip is going to look this good.  Hell no.

Also, this is one of the first times I've been happy with the strip as a whole; I mean that all three panels, I think, look good alongside one another.

So yeah, Chapter 4!

If you're just returning, or if you're new to the comic, I'd like to take a moment to mention the merchandise.  There's an actual, physical book of Chapters 1 & 2 and also shirts and stickers and stuff you can purchase from the links to the left there.  I've just recently permanently slashed all of the prices.  Seriously, most of the stuff is dirt-cheap now.  Please consider buying some merch and supporting a very broke artist with a dream.  Have some sort of merchandise in mind that you don't see?  Let me know what you'd like and I can probably make it for you!

Sorry, I hate having to do that all the time.  It's going to be especially tough getting some exposure for Super U. at the moment.  I haven't reactivated my ad campaign.  Can't afford it.  That means that my potential readership has been reduced to the double digits, instead of in the hundreds.  In other words, I need your help!  Like what you see?  Tell people on the Netface and your Twooter!  Please?

And for fuck's sake, leave some comments, yeah?  

Seriously though, thanks for being here, and thanks again to those who've supported me and this comic from the beginning. 

Together Again

And there you have it!  The (dramatic?) conclusion of Chapter 3!  I'm happy with how it turned out.  I'm pleased with where the art went this chapter.  It feels a bit more natural, closer to my "style."  Plus, I was able to inch closer toward the meat and potatoes of the story that I want to tell, and I think I still managed to insert a lot of humor, so bonus.

So, after this, I'm back on hiatus.  Aside from the things I mentioned before I want to work on concerning the comic / site / merchandise, I'm also taking some time to look into online college degrees.  In what, you may ask?  Well, I'm trying to locate a degree in Forestry, actually, but I'm finding it impossible to find that specific degree to be offered online, which makes sense, because it's hard to learn about forests when you're sitting at a computer.  Barring that, a degree in Conservation would make sense, but I'm running into the same problems there.  Right now the best I can find is an online degree in Environmental Science, which sounds good, but they seem to have a heavy focus on green technology, and while I'm all for going green, it's not what I'm going for.  If anyone reading has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Why a degree in Forestry, you ask?  Well, so I can spend as much time as possible in forests, and in contact with as few humans and as little technology as possible, silly.

I anticipate this hiatus to be short, but once again I have to do some soul-searching and ask myself if it's worth continuing the comic.  I love to draw comics, and I love these characters, but I have to measure the time and money I put into this endeavor against the regular audience I attract from it, and that regular audience remains primarily in the single digits three years later.  It's tough, man.  The internet is tough.  Breaking into webcomics is especially so.

As always, though, to my readers who have remained faithful, I'm doing this as much for you as I am for me, and thank you many times over for continuing to be interested in my stuff.  I'll be back soon.

-Matt

P.S. And on a completely unrelated note, go play The Last of Us.  It gets your nerves the way Resident Evil did the first time you played it, and it tells a compelling story to boot, albeit a sad one that I just do not see ending well.  Still, it's gorgeous, plays well, and is easily one of the best games every made.

P.S.S. Thanks for the Amazon gift card for Christmas, mom.

Summons

Come back on Thursday for the conclusion of Chapter 3!

The Straw

I sketched this one out a couple days ago, but I never came up with an idea for the third panel.  Even after I'd completed the final versions of the first two panels, I still didn't know what to do for the third.  The best I could come up with was a Mr. Walters rage-face.

Yeah, well, they can't all be winners.  Shut up!  Get off my back.

Anyway, the point of this strip is to lead into the next two, which are the last two of Chapter 3.  We rarely see the siblings together, as Time Lass is usually off doing something by herself, and by "doing something" I mean pathologically stealing things throughout all of human history.

But now it seems SuperDude has gathered the three together... but for what?  Come back on Tuesday and see!

Aftermath - Part 1

I hope you've enjoyed the Technosyde storyline.  It's not quite over yet; there'll be a few strips dealing with the aftermath of the recent events.  And, of course, that won't be the last we see of Technosyde.  I've toyed around with the idea of having a different villain for every story arc.  Chapters 1 and 2 kind of comprise the first story arc, so at the very least we should be seeing more of Technosyde in Chapter 4.

As for this Chapter?  There's only seven strips left.  I've got the big finale planned, and the next couple strips after this one, but there's a few in the middle there that I, well... I guess I had better write them!  I'd wanted to leave some room to play with in case the Technosyde stuff ran longer than I anticipated; I didn't want to have to rush it like I ended up having to do with the E.P.I.C. stuff.

I'm sure that won't be a problem, though.  There's still so much I want to do with all of these characters.  Anybody you'd like to see in particular?

Serendipitous

While this is hilarious to me, there's a chance you won't get it, in which event I would direct you to this:

That strip, of course, can also be found in the book that I happen to be selling.

Also for your purchasing pleasure is various merchandise.  Give 'em a look-see.  Don't see anything you like?  Tell me what you want to see, and I'll make it for you.  Hats, different shirts, coffee mugs... it can probably be done.

Shanna (AKA ShitKicker) is one of my favorite characters, and has been around nearly since I started drawing comics.  In the initial incarnation of my comic from long ago, I'd always intended for Shanna to eventually hook up with the character that would eventually evolve to become Aiden.  Maybe that will still happen... who knows?  Right now I'm enjoying playing with the Aiden / Raine love / hate relationship, and Shanna seems to have found a lot of common ground with Scumbag; they both love punk rock, they're both outcasts / rebels, they both resort to violence, etc...

Also, in case you were wondering why Daemon isn't all shadowed-up in the second panel, it's because he's actually dead, and it's hard to use powers when you're dead.