Agents of Peril: Done Right!

I finally located my original artwork for my unfinished online comic strip: Agents of Peril. In doing so, I also found a bonus of sorts.

One thing I hadn't mentioned when I started reposting these strips from my old website was that my original intention was to do it as a regular sized comic book. I had finished a few pages when the Internet option came to me, which prompted me to take most of the artwork and literally cut it up and repaste together to fit a square format that seemed to fit my computer screen at that time.

Still, I couldn't cut up the splash page I had drawn, so I redrew it, adding some additional text and dialogue. So, to pave the way to the beginning of my posting the rescans, I'm also including the splash page here with the first strip for you to compare.

As for the future, I will keep rescanning until the artwork is gone, and, yes, I will get back to work to finally finish this story after all these years. Hope you enjoy them.

Oh... and 31 days to Halloween!

Agents of Peril 7... and Rumblings of Halloween

(I have removed the image due to inferior quality.)

This week, I was digging around in the vaults downstairs looking for the original artwork for Agents of Peril (among other things), realizing quickly that my previous attempts to organize myself had failed. Still, I found some very interesting things that I'll share with you in the near future. [Here's a blatant hint: The FUPOS Agents... for those who knew me when I had hair.] The really good stuff is still down there even deeper. I'll get up the guts to push aside the iron maiden and that dusty old rack... hopefully today... and wrest that artwork from that mummy's grasp down there.

Meanwhile, work continues on my two Mystery Projects. I want to make sure I have enough done in advance before I start posting material here. The reasoning, of course, is that even if I take a break, it doesn't seem like I had.

I also have to mention that one of those things that happens when you're being creative all the time, happened to me. Yet another new idea jumped up and grabbed me. I won't let it cause me to stray, but... nope, must stay focused! I'm not sure if the world is ready for a Secret Project #3 (or me, for that matter).

Oh, and Halloween is coming quickly. I finally accepted that this pagan celebration is my fave "holiday," with Christmas a close second. I just love trying to create a spooky atmosphere. I already have some stuff waiting in anticipation of that. My initial idea was to post something Halloweenish every day of October, artwork or ephemera, but that won't happen. I want to stay on track with the new stuff while serving up tasty treats from the past. Still, October looks very promising on a number of different fronts.

Agents of Peril 5 & Conversations at Night

I thought I'd post a couple of things this week...

(The Agents of Peril art has been removed due to inferior quality. It has or will be replaced by a much better scan of the artwork.)

First of all, here's the fifth installment of my Agents of Peril online strip. With this strip, the story finally kicks in while also introducing one of my oddest creations: Dick Protozoa, the one-celled detective. Honestly, the reason the leads of this strip; Dick and Agent Frankenstein; are even there is because I liked drawing them. They were also lots of fun to write. It's an old cliche, but still true, that they would very often write themselves. More correctly, when I'm creating comics, I'm also role-playing to a certain extent, providing each of my characters with life... of a sort.

Let me add that I wasn't using any Zip-A-Tone or computer to texture Dick's clothes. That was good, old fashioned stippling (incessantly tapping my technical ink pen to get a texture and/or shade). I'm still a sucker for this technique because of the organic quality it provides... though I have to admit that I must have been a lot more patient when I drew this than how I am today.

After that, I've put up a little one-shot strip, which appeared in slightly different form than when I posted it on my old website. Rather than build the page layout with HTML, I put it all on a single jpeg graphic this time. The influence here may be underground comics or slice-of-life stuff that was prevalent after Harvey Pekar's American Splendor. There's some slight foul language and adult themes.

The character in the start and end of the strip was something I kept coming back to. He's another fun-to-draw type and I eventually used him in the second Creepsville comic book series, issue #2, as a creepy, unspeaking peeping tom called Doctor Nothing.

One More... Wait, Make That Two More Teaser Images

Still hard at work on my comic projects... despite some completely exhausting situations resulting from my "Day Job." I find that doing some comics work when I get home from a long day is just perfect for relieving stress.

I have to admit that I like giving glimpses of what's happening... particularly from what I've been calling Secret Project #1. Honestly, the images I've shown are being used but are totally misleading. That's all I can really say right now.

In addition, I think this will be the last of the teases before I have something really solid to show you.

Good luck trying to figure out how these two images relate to each other. They do, though. I should also add that I am aware that the artwork on Foxy's is unbalanced, squiggley, whatever. That was done on purpose.

In the meantime, have a great and safe Labor Day weekend.