Behind the Tablet!

Just sit right back and I'll tell a tale,
a Tale of a man insane,
that started on this comic voyage
aboard his stubborn brain.

The year was 1996, I'm one year out of High School and I'm making art. I go to graphic designs (which was a joke) and I go to creative writing (which was less a joke) and I decide collage isn't for me. Because for me, in this year, I decided I wanted to...

"Make a living, however modest, drawing comics."

My major obstacle has always been my bad bad business sense. I'm not good at making even a little money. My low self esteem didn't help, either, but every artist seems to start with that. You should know what I'm talking about. "My stuff isn't good enough to sell." Ugh.

I originally thought I'd make comics the old fashioned way, with brush and pen and special paper and all that. Then I read "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud and my mind opened. I realized as long as I told a story and focused on characters, it didn't matter what it was written on. I could print it out somehow and sell it directly. I could draw in pencil, scan it into an old cracked copy of Photoshop 6.0, and use my track/ball mouse to ink. (yes, I really did that)

Natch Evil began as a girl named Saffron kept falling in love with men and murdering them, then lamenting their passing. I was angsty, what can I say? I wrote a 3 page comic about coming to terms with murdering the ones you love, but meh. I wasn't feeling it. For one it was too dark.

So, kind of inspired by Johnny the Homicidal Maniac (by Jhonen Vasquez) I started over with Saffron moving into a town, Springhill Oklahoma. This town became something of a running joke with fans. I based the town completely on my home town and all the character I would run into in my daily life.

The first comic was on Jan 1st, 2003 posted on a rushed HTML code on Geocities. It would continue for 11 years.
Here's a rabbit hole: Linky

1084 strips, not including hidden comics around the website, commissioned comics in the forum, guest comics for other sites, and branching story lines like Rise of the Painful Moon, Worlsend Gate, or KNOT in the Red. Also not included is three issues of Rats Eating Rats and three (3) Novels about Annalow: Mandra's world. (NaNoWriMo was fun)

(Side note: Someone wrote a TV Tropes page on the comic, too. Weird.)

In the time I drew my comic, I gathered about 20 or so die-hard fans who languished with me in obscurity. I've seen my friends grow together and apart. We streamed movies and watched the first 70 episodes of Dark Shadows together. We've seen all the Puppet Master and Hallraise films. We've sung to each other over skype and some of us got married. Hell, I married one of my fans and could not be happier.

But the comic... Natch Evil has problems.
I was young and really dumb.
To start with, Saffron is a classic Mary Sue, and I didn't really see it until WAY late in the comic. There's also no consistency of story. Sometimes the story jumps to another project I wanted to work on, but wouldn't finish. Sometimes I would start a Saff story and that would dead-end, too. I have NO idea why my fans were sticking with me, but I kind of understand why Natch stayed forever in obscurity.

Eventually, in 2014, Project Wonderful pulled their ads from my website. The comic never made enough money to even pay for itself, but when advertisers said "Free" is a waste of resources, I took it as a sign. This wasn't working and I wasn't achieving my dream. I tearfully shut it down, doing one last comic. I included some quotes and farewells from my precious Natchians, the die hard fans who most of which were there from the very beginning.

I cried.
I nearly killed myself.
And I put down my tablet pen for a long long time.

But I can't stop thinking, you see? I had to make something else. I called it my "Suicide Mission to make my dreams come true." Whatever it was, stories would penetrate my foggy brain. I really did just want to draw. That's all I ever want to do, is draw.

So, I gathered some friends together and we did Worlsend Gate, a Radio show. Woof. Not bad, but not great. I had been doing Let's Plays for a while so was more used to Youtube than any podcast method. It got some hits. I included a comic, of course: Linky

I also followed up the Natch story with Painful Moon (un-linked because it's naughty) which was me trying to make sexy comics. Learned a lot more about anatomy in that one, but I'm terrible at porn. Also, I just couldn't push the story anymore. It was suffering from the same problems as Natch Evil.

Time passed and I was frequently dropping into depression. I wasn't working. I wasn't drawing. I felt useless. I still kind of do. Somehow, my wife stayed with me. No clue why.

So, that was a dark time.

Eventually, I found Tapastic (now Tapas) and I said, okay. Let's try this again. New story, new world.

In March of 2015, I posed the first page of Scarlet Acres. I obsessed over the world and kept a journal of some RPG I was planing for it. It wasn't a new system, but it was kind of like... I don't know. Nightmare Before Christmas meets Wild Arms RPG with some Lovecraft thrown in for good measure. It was one of those stories that bubbles in your brain like a pimple and you just need to pop it.

At this time I developed a horrible fear that everything I start would never finish. There were a lot of Let's Plays like that. Games begun, but never won. I was terrified that I wouldn't finish Scarlet Acres, but I fought on anyway. Finished the first issue, at least.

Then I stopped drawing again.

I got a job. I made money. I made friends. I talked to a lot of interesting people. I moved across country, returning to Springhill, my old town. And here I am.

So, this finally leads to Jackie Welldrop. The goal of this comic is...

To finish this comic.

I no longer care if it's good. I don't care if it takes another month or years. Just FINISH IT! I laid down the ground work for a mystery inspired by Marble Hornets and Everyman Hybrid, but the story wouldn't take center stage. The comic would instead be an experiment in Process. I streamed myself drawing it on a consistent schedule in order to make myself accountable to others. People could show up and say "Why aren't you working?" I would write pages on Mondays and use the rest of the week to ink and color one page at a time. Revision be damned. I've always been haphazard with my writing style, anyway. I don't even care that you don't always see Amy's wedding ring (Um... I should go back and fix that).

So... Now the monies ran out and I got really drunk last week, cried some more, and now I'm looking for a job again, pushing the comic aside. It's just another obstacle to be over come. I swallowed my pride and, at the request of a fan, created a Parteon account (which feels like begging for money). I'm still working on that. Need to make a video or something.

I have to adjust my process AND get another job, but somehow I'll find time to draw.
I'm not giving up on Jackie. I'll finish.
You just wait and see.

My comic Marked2 is actually inspired by many different things in my life.

I've enjoyed watching anime since I was a bit younger, and I wished I could draw it because it looked so awesome, just like cartoons in America before it became.... What it currently is. But that hope was dashed by my lack of concentration and lack of artistic skill , I mean I would still draw stuff but it either looked awful or it was Adventure Time Fan-Art . Then I started reading Manga, first one I started was Naruto (Which is hilarious because I hate that series after the ending), and it was awesome! Manga had so much detail and talent put into it, and since it was in black and white it just interested me. That's about the time that I came up with the idea for my comic, although at the time I was drawing Naruto Doujinshi's (Again hate that series right now...), which helped me to develop my comic drawing abilities, and artistic ability in general.

It wasn't until Naruto ended that I got fed up with drawing it and decided to work on my own comic idea, and thus Marked was born! Shortly after that my girlfriend left me for exact reasons unbeknownst to me... Which made me depressed, sad, and feeling horrible, in that time the only thing that really kept me going was wanting to get better at my art and make my comic a reality, it took a while but it did finally become a reality.

The comic takes inspiration many different animes/mangas like Highschool DxD (Which I really only take the demon/angel thing and flip it, as well as Issei's armor), Naruto, Tokyo Ghoul, etc. It's also based around my Christian heritage/beliefs, but often times I would see something that depicted Christian things it would be solely based around it and not have much else going for it, making it difficult or annoying for non-christian people to get into. So when I came up the idea I decided that it would be based on the Biblical Apocalypse, but it would be told in my own way, with my own characters and references here and there.

Although after all this time I finally did draw an anime style animation in the form of a music video based around the characters in my comic

Neon Glow was started because I was fed up with making comics and gave up on them. XD
I had been trying to start up a comic called Alkseeya Power, but it was not working and was having a hard time with it. It was a series that I put a lot of thought into so I felt like this is why I was having a hard time with it. I decided to do the opposite and toss some things together to see if I was even good at making comics. At the time there was a petsite where you could upload your own pets for people to adopt. I had 'neons' that were quite popular, so I based the comic around them. I was watching a lot of ghost hunting shows on TV and got inspired to make a series where two guys go out and catch the neons. Two guys because I like BL and wanted to make one. But I wanted to make a soft BL or a more realistic relation then just jumping into the smexy stuff like most do. So the comic keeps up a balance of plot and romance. Over the years the comic is more thought out, witch is why I rebooted the series to fix things from just blindly jumping into a series. lol

I have many comics I want to do. Alkseeya Power is one, The plot of that series had been smashed to bits and re worked so many times. I want to make it some day, but don't know if I will. It's hard for me to describe this series. When ever I do, it sounds cliche but its not. o n o,
The comic ideas came from when I chatted in chat rooms. We would make of OCs and kill each other for fun/pretend. XD I was a person that could turn into a dragon. I am not in the comic though.
Past AP arts.1

JAFS is a fantasy comic. It's humor series because I love fantasy and want to do a fun humerus fantasy adventure comic. I've questioned if this series would make a good RPG game, so There is a chance I could make it on RPG Maker if I find time.
OC Aquila

Oceonia is a merman comic. Lots of people know I love Mermen and have always asked why don't I make a merman comic. This would be it. I have a good opening and ending to the series but no meat. XD I'm still not sure if I want to make it a BL comic or not.
Forin, Thrasher, Koipan

Raise Craze. I decided to not do this comic, because people would hate it. lol But lately I have been reworking the plot for fun. It was a comic to just dick with readers. But the new invasion is quite interesting and not so crazy as it was going to be. I just don't know where I'm going with it beyond the opening.
Dozuki and Jared. | Dozuki's dog form.

StarShip 77 is a newer one and I want to somehow try to start it up soon. I joined the furry community to sell arts. I was doing so well I wanted to make a comic about my fersona. Again I am like, I'm doing this, then I do it. XD I didn't want to make it a space comic, but then I so did. XD I was listening to some songs that vaguely talk about space. (SpaceMan, Starships) These somehow got me excited about a space comic, IDK. I soon started making a crew and OMG these character might just be my most fun characters I've created if I can just make the comic! XD
DA Group1 | Tapas Link (noting really on Tapas yet.) Steven

I also JUST got inspired to do another comic, I've yet to name this series yet. But It's another merman comic. I was just talking to my husband and we joking said, "Merman afraid of water" I was like OMG I NEED TO COMIC THAT!! Then my mind went crazy. I have like the whole plot down as a one shot comic. I just need more time to make comics. lol T^T

Sorry If I don't really say what some of these really are, I tend to not like to say a whole not to not spoil the comics if they happen. IDK.

hey goobermation! i love the palettes in your comics, btw

my comic, There was a War, is a retelling of an irish myth, where the good guys are the bad guys and the bad guys are explored in intimate, myth-inaccurate detail. it follows balor, the daughter of a fomor (sea giant) king, who is cursed with a gorgon-style killer eye and imprisoned by the fomor army. the fomor are at war with the humans, and kidnap human witches to gain an upper hand in the war. at the military keep, balor meets cethlenn - one of the young stolen witches. then some Shit happens.

the idea for this story first came from collaboration with an old friend, in which cethlenn was her self insert, and balor mine, and we played the story out together. then, she went missing, and a few years after she didnt return the story had warped in my mind to something new, and i wanted to complete it in dedication to her, for her to see if shes still out there somewhere. i changed a lot of things, adding extra layers to the plot and developing the worldbuilding and motivations, filling in some of our teenage plotholes, but the original story is (hopefully) recogniseable.
theres also like... an influence from my own upbringing, both in the original collaboration and TWAW. my name is irish, meaning dream or vision, and my family takes regular trips to holy sites in scotland, so i was aaaaaaall about that from day one. also, an important part of the story is this old war that has multiple stories about its origin, and the MCs struggle to find the truth, which is heavily influenced by my own family's history. i didnt realise that until a couple months ago and i had to sit back like: "oh shit"

Goblins of Razard2 was created by myself and a friend at work. The writer really loves D&D and plays every weekend. I personally am a huge fan of fantasy and its not something you see too often in western comics. (And if you do find it, its very convoluted) So we set out to create a story that we would like to read, since we couldn't find anything like it. To me as an artist, it was less about the story and more about growing and learning. Most of our pages were not rushed, but we took our time and I personally tried to make our pages look really beautiful. I really wanted to be known as the artist who had a really pretty style. (Not sure if I succeeded with that...)

Now, years later, there are hundreds of really fabulous fantasy adventure webcomics. The genre has really bloomed online and I love it. I like to think our comic still has a place amongst the masses.

2 years ago, the writer of Goblins and I, decided we wanted to do something more light hearted and closer to home. We created VSEPR1 together, based off our experiences at the lab we worked at. It was a lot of fun and most of the work for it was done at lunch time, with our fellow scientists sitting in to watch us draw and plot.

Awake3, presented as a rather dark tale about a doll-maker in shameful love with her doll, is really about the first year of my marriage to my husband. I'd gone through some bad loves and I still idealized him quite a bit during the early days of our life together, because he's an actual good guy and that was like a new mythical creature to me. The comic is an allegory of my path to seeing him as a real person and no longer holding him at arm's length or putting him on a pedestal, but making him my partner in life.

The Ruby Machine and The Stone Squirrel are pieces of my observations and emotions in my somewhat drab, industrial midwestern town. Backgrounds are all taken directly from my own photographs taken walking or driving around my usual routes. Young male children are used because I have two young sons. Eventually they will be collected along with other stories I'm developing into one volume. I originally started drawing them because I was courting a publisher who liked an existing color comic of mine but could only accept black and white comic submissions.

The killing of Dreams and The Pretty Sun (both coming up) are faithful and painstaking transcriptions of my nightmares.

Allstory is my deliberate attempt to weave all the art I have ever made and recorded into one narrative. I don't remember how I came up with it, but I really love collaging so I guess at some point I just decided to collage my inner life together into one strip. Many of the images within are also directly taken from my dreams and nightmares. Others are childhood experiences and legends that moved me in childhood and move me still.

Biophilia1 is a chimaera of sorts. It came together from bits and pieces that all arose at a different time and from different backgrounds. The core idea of biophilia - the ability to generate living structures - as a gift, and an institution that teaches people how to master it, came to me sometime in 2013. I originally wanted to write it as a novel, and tried to work on a plot, but it fell through: the concept is literally the only thing that made it into the comic. Two years later, I got an unlikely source of inspiration from my students. I was teaching an undergraduate zoology class at the time and encountered several interesting personality types in the study groups. My mind just started working them together into a story, under the biophilia institute framework. It was going to be a one-shot, but as I got closer to finishing it, I got this nagging feeling that I really should expand it into something bigger. So I said to myself: "What is it that you want to tell with this story?" This is where some of my own struggles and conflicts crept into the mix. I had gone through a period of depression during which I thought a lot about life in general, and I realized that the story I was working on could become a sort of home for all those thoughts. The comic arose as a combination of those three elements.

As for Bright Light, it just sort of happened organically. I started it completely free of any expectations, and then struck into a well of inspiration. It's basically therapy in comic form, in the sense that I just filled it with everything that was building up inside me for a long time. I drew what I never had the chance (or didn't want) to talk about. It was a very cathartic and exhilarating experience, and I don't think I'll ever make another comic like that again.

I currently make a slice of life called JODDAS VAPD (each letter represents the casts name). I'd like to say its similar to the T.V. show Louie or a more well known one being Seinfeld. It isn't really about anything except the daily lives of these characters. I started JODDAS VAPD as a more satirical approach to life as most slice of life is usually overly positive or extremely depressing and I just wanted a series that kind of depicts life as what it is, just life. It's more of something I make because people think life sucks and it's nice to know someone is aware of that too. If my comic can put a smile on a persons face then mission accomplished.

My second series which is won't start until late December "Ivolice and the Emissaries" is about a high school girl who helps a weird animal from getting hit by a car. It's discovered that the creature comes from another world seeking warriors to help the many dimensions from suffering the same fate his world faced by the dimension killers. Through a struggle Ivolice discovers she's one of the emissaries and is forced to be a hero and prevent her world from destruction. I came up with this series back in high school, and with the recent passing of my cat I decided it was time that I actually went through and started making this back burner idea a reality.

That's all I have. I'm also starting a commissions account on Twitter, but I still need more references/images to really get that going.

I started making Background People after my friend borrowed my notebook, and did not return it (T.Ag, if you're here, it's already a year old...). Anyways, skipping about her...
I wanted to create some kind of environment where you could see views of two people in highschool that YA authors tend to mistake: the introvert, and the no-fks-given person. And maybe add a bit of my personal philosophy.
Here it is: https://tapas.io/series/Background-People/1

I've been doing comics since 2012. I started The Birthmarks of the _Dark World_1 in 2013 but I rebooted it in 2014/2015 believe, I probably should re-format the beginning chapters soon.

I also have another comic called The RED GUARDIANS Demons, Deities! that I had started in 2012 but I have rebooted it twice since then. Now its in the second almost third chapter.

I had created the concept of Ray Thunder over a decade ago, but then took a hiatus from comics & drawing after burnout from putting a ton of energy into my print series I had been working on for 3 straight years. After getting back into comics and remastering my print series a couple of years back, I had decided on making a webcomic series. Ray Thunder was the only concept I had that I could jump into right away; I changed a few things and developed the story more so that I could start on it and stay interested in it.