War Games - Part 17

This Thursday: the conclusion of the War Games story arc!  I hope you've enjoyed this change of pace these last several weeks.  I have to admit that I'm pretty happy with the the way this chapter has turned out, and I can't wait to see Chapters 3 and 4 in the next book.

Only two more strips until the end of Chapter 4!

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 4

This shit took me forever.  Sorry I'm posting later in the day than usual.  Man... I never thought I'd need a break from drawing comics!  

Looking forward to this weekend.  Happy Mother's Day to all you mom's out there!

Starting next week: action, and lots of it!

War Games - Part 1

War Games, part one of... a lot!  I've been chomping at the bit to start this scene.  

Team Justice is arguably the strongest, and has an extra team member due to, um, unforeseen adjustments.  As a result, the other Combat Education teams are eager to take them down a peg.

Team Dick-Punch, well... they are not the strongest, especially since they lost Raine.

Mr. Walters' loathing for SuperDude is well-known... is he taking it out on SuperDude's daughter?

Walters undoubtedly got the memo that Aiden was to be given "special attention"... is this some twisted act of defiance in the face of his employers?

Yeah, it probably is.

Either way, Team Ex and Team Frost are about to show what they're truly capable of...

Saboteur

Welcome to the 100th strip of Super U.!  Super U. has been going on for very nearly two years already.  Can you believe it?  It has been a road long and difficult, and yet thoroughly enjoyable and has gone by in a blur.  I know those things are opposites.  They're still true.

Also, Happy Halloween.  I thought I would do something a little different today, for the occasion(s).  I've stepped outside the plot for a moment to show off my new villain for this chapter, Technosyde.  I thank my friend Jason for doing most of the footwork on his creation (Technosyde has already been featured in a couple Saturday Super Stories).  I've been trying to piece together a quirky personality for him in my brain for some time now, and I like what I've come up with.  I'm anxious to show more of him to you.  You'll just have to wait to see what the hell's up with that purple toaster.

Also, man, them panels look pretty sharp, right?  Shading is fun.  It makes the strip take significantly longer, when I'm trying to shorten the length of time I spend on each comic, but it's so worth it.

For the last couple strips I haven't been drawing in a Hangout.  Sorry.  Hopefully next week I'll be doing that again.

There are lots of you who've been reading since the beginning 2 years ago, and I want to take a moment again to thank you.  This wouldn't be going on without your support.

But we still have lots of work to do.  Don't forget, just because I'm not on Facebook anymore doesn't mean you are prohibited from sharing the comic on Facebook, or anywhere else for that matter.

Also, in celebration of the 100th strip, why not buy a metric ton of merchandise?  I have provided you ample opportunities right here on the site to do so.  There people who have already purchased one or many items from the shop or bookstore, and it's an inarguable fact that those people are just really a lot cooler than other people.

The Walters Files: Frost

I wanted to insert some humor into this one, but I ran out of room.  Walters would have went on to say the other reason he made her a team leader would be to force her into a role of responsibility, because as a leader she would be forced to think about and care for others.  But, you know, it would have been done in the Walters-style, so it would have been blunt.

Frost is a character I conceived for an RPG way back in the day, and she went on to become one of my more popular NPC's.  She really evolved and came into her own as a character.  The Frost featured in the comic at the moment is as she was in the beginning: kind of stuck-up, frigid and not overly tough.  I'm anxious to grow her as a character as the strip continues.

Super U. Strip #53: The Exchange

Super U. Strip #46: The Empress of Wintermoor

The Exchange

Sorry, brief bitching-session upcoming.  I'm going to post the comic first, before I invite you to the pity party.

It was tough scrounging up the motivation to finish the strip this week.  Anyone reading this has probably been supporting me from the beginning, and I appreciate that to no end.

The problem is... well, let me give you an example.  Every Wednesday, Facebook sends me an activity report.  On a given week, an average of  5 to 8 people total either Like or Share the links (both for the strip and the Saturday Super Stories combined).  In all likelihood, those people mostly consist of my close family and a couple friends.  Now, this week, for example, the links reached a combined total of 70 people, which is actually somewhat low in comparison to previous weeks.  But let's use that as an average.  So, on any given week, 62 to 65 people see the link and say, "meh, this does not have pictures of cats," and they ignore it.

I don't have anyone to blame anyone for this but myself.  The problem must be that either my comic sucks, or I'm doing something wrong to promote it.  Though promotion is something I really need to invest further in (as in, spend money), I'm going to have to lean toward the first option, because most of my "best friends" don't even read it.

I'm just going to stop there, because everything I try to follow that up with becomes even more negative,

Anyway.  I'd like to follow up on that with something more uplifting, but I got nothin'.  Hope you enjoy the strip this week.  Got some good stuff lined up.

The Empress of Wintermoor

Next week is the last one of these.  I hope you've enjoyed them.  After that, it's business as usual.

It dawned on me after having my anti-Facebook hissy fit and deleting everyone on my friends list (I couldn't just outright deactivate my account because I use it for work) that people couldn't see when I was posting links to the new comic anymore.  I had assumed that if someone "Liked" the Super U. Facebook page, they would be getting the links, but for some reason this wasn't happening.  I mean, stuff that I simpy "Liked" shows up on my news feed constantly, so why wouldn't it?  Your guess is as good as mine.

I won't get into all the crap behind my decision (and subsequent flip-flop of that decision) to ditch Facebook, but here's a funny interchange that happened to me recently that may shed some light.  (And by funny, I mean depressing.)

Person: "Hey, what happened to you on Facebook?"
Me: "I deleted everybody, but I think I screwed myself because now they can't see links to the comic."
Person: "Are you still doing the comic?"
Me: "Yeah.  You might not be able to see links to it anymore, but you can always just check the webpage on Wednesdays."
Person: "There's a webpage?"

Anyway, so I "refriended" a bunch of people, a lot of whom I know read and share the comic.  For those of you who've been missing out, please check out the Archive on the left over there to get yourselves caught up.  I imagine for a lot of people just returning to Super U., they're probably a bit confused.  Hand-drawn art, barbarians, hands have four fingers and a thumb instead of three fingers and a thumb...

I've been back and forth on the four fingers thing.  When I first started Super U., I was going with a more cartoony style that was supposed to, in theory, be quicker to draw so I could eventually be fast enough to put these out multiple times a week.  But as I continued to draw the comic, the comic book artist in me, and not the cartoonist, has been fighting for dominance.  This has means I still haven't been putting them out any faster a year later, but overall I'm happier with the quality of the material. 

Yeah, that's right, Super U. celebrated it's year anniversary in November.  Kinda cool.

General feedback suggests you guys like the hand-drawn stuff, and you like the more comic book-y look.  I do still think I will continue to work in Adobe Illustrator (or something along those lines) in the future, mostly because I like how crisp and animated the final product appears, but we shall see. 

There are several downsides to going fully hand-drawn, one of which being the money I need to put into supplies, and another being drawing one panel one night, and then another panel much later on a different sheet of paper but not having your first panel with you at the time, so you wing it and end up with glaring inconsistencies that most people won't notice but will drive you crazy every time you look at it, yet you don't have the time to change it because you're trying to meet your deadline, and it's not like you can really work on it at the house anyway when your kid wants to be all up in your business.

Anyway, as always, please share with your unsuspecting friends, and don't forget to "Like" the webpage by clicking that Facebook "Like Box" over there, or +1 if you do the Google.  You can also join the site as a member if you have a Google, and you can sign up to receive e-mail notifications when the site updates.  These things are not new.

 

Escalation

So, yay!  I saw the Avengers.  It was pretty bad-ass, of course.  I won't spoil anything by telling you that there's one scene during the big combat sequence toward the end where they pan from one Avenger to the next, all fighting in their own fashion, some of them even doing team-up techniques, that is utter Geek Nirvana.  Nothing has come closer to emulating a comic book in a movie than that scene.  
There's probably nothing else I can tell you about it that you haven't already heard...


Although, here's something neat.  You know how all these flicks have that stuff after the credits?  This does, too, and there's a villain cameo.
I won't say who it is, but I'll tell you who the actor is.  Remember the final (un-aired) episode of Firefly?  That awesome bounty hunter?  Him.  Cool, right?


Getting settled in nicely in the new place.  The neighbors already hate us, but that's nothing new.  


I have to say that I'm extremely lucky and thankful to have the wife that I do.  Not only did she decide it would be cool to do the living room up in a comic book theme, and this was her idea, not mine, but she wants to find a way to make part of the wall look like a page out of a comic, panels and all.
I have to think that most geeks aren't as lucky as that.  I imagine most married geeks are lucky to even be able to hang an X-Men poster or two in their garage.


So, this week's strip isn't as funny as it should be, but it was needed as a lead-in to a great couple of strips I have coming up for you.  Some of them are going to be a lot of work, but I'm quite excited about them.


Slowly but surely, Super U. is growing, and I just want to say thanks.


Please continue to share / like / and join, and send me some feedback, too.  Lemme know what you'd like to see in upcoming strips (I know, Miah... side-boob).  I have lots of ideas, but I could always use more.


-Matt

More words than Draw Something.

The Decree

I have a major artistic task in front of me for next week's strip, so you'll have to forgive me if it ends up being late.  I've also got... stuff... going on that may prohibit me from getting it done in a timely fashion.  I'll keep you all posted, and I'll do my best to get the next strip up A.S.A.P.


Share / Like / Join, and thanks for checking out Super U.!


-Matt

Click it or Stick it.

Self-Ostracization

No time for blog, Dr. Jones!

Enlarginate