What I Accomplished So Far For My First Comic Book

(Date of Original Post: January 22nd, 2021)

Hi, guys. I felt like making this blog post was important. This is because I want you guys to see how dedicated I am to getting this project done. I wouldn’t want you to guys to follow this blog wondering if I’m just some lazy butt that hasn’t gotten anything done. I don’t ever wanna be “all talk, no walk.” So, I’m gonna give ya a brief log of what I’ve done since starting this comic. (Warning: this may not look very brief due to a bunch of images I included to show my progress)

Firstly

I will confess that I wanted to make a comic book since January of 2019. I started working on a digital version of a sketchbook comic I made back in February 2018. However, I stopped working on it on May 3rd, 2019 (with only seven pages accomplished, smh).

By the time I paused on making the digital comic (which was actually the story “Just A Little Longer”), I was getting my very first apartment. I started a job at Amazon, which was the first time I ever had a full-time job. I had bills to pay and adult errands for the first time. I also met a notable Hollywood producer the year before. When we met in-person for a second time, I asked if he would give me tips on how to move forward with Space Grind. This man actually offered to read TWO OF MY SCRIPTS and look over FULL-BLOWN TV SHOW OUTLINES for Space Grind!! I spent most of 2020 working on the TV outlines, so I didn’t have the time to work on my optional comic book project. I got them done in the Summer, and got good feedback.

In October of 2020, I decided to quit my job at a grocery store. I don’t have a driver’s license, and kept having to use Lyft to get to work. When I was living at my apartment, it was literally just a four-minute walk from my home to my job. After my lease was up, I moved back in with my parents. It was a 15-minute drive to get to work. The Lyft rides were a lot of money. I was basically paying the same amount of money that I was making. I was lucky to leave on good terms, thankfully. I had good managers that understood.

Now that I didn’t have a job anymore, I had a bunch of time on my hands. I remembered the comic book I wanted to make back in 2019. I decided to work on the project. This time, I had the intention of actually getting it finished. Back when I first started, I had other commitments. I wasn’t as determined to get the comic book done. It was just for fun. In October, I decided to actually commit to getting the entire comic book done in a timely manner. So.. what have I been doing since then? Lemme tell ya:

October 2020

I started working on my comic book again. I completely finished my 10-page comic on the 14th. By the 19th, I completely finished a 3-page comic. After those got done, I had the desire to make a full-blown, 25-page story. It was around that time that I got the idea for “Corona is a Cabrona.” On October 24th, I started writing the script for it. It’s basically just a bunch of jokes about COVID-19. Pretty much a parody of all the ridiculous things that went down in 2020 (not the serious stuff, but the super dumb stuff like the TP crisis). I literally finished the script within 3 days! (with the exception of editing here and there as I was drawing the panels) It was so fun and everything went so smoothly! I sent it to some friends, and they all got a kick out of reading it! I was super excited to make all the drawings 😀

Here is the first page of the “Corona is a Cabrona” script. I wrote it out as a TV script. The look of the script is a lot like how it looks for the screenplay *Get Out* by Jordan Peele. To be honest, that is the only Hollywood script I’ve ever fully read. Scripts for animation don’t always look like this. In the *Invader Zim* comics, the writers actually type out the scripts like actual TV episodes. That’s the method I decided to use.

Here is how the first page of the script looks in comic book form 🙂

November 2020

November was super stressful. The “Corona is a Cabrona” script was a breeze. However, the look for Trax’s home wasn’t finalized. I had no solid vision for what the interior nor exterior looked like. You’ll even notice in the other comics that Trax’s house looks different each time. For “Corona is a Cabrona,” I decided it was time to make an official design for Trax’s home.

I looked at countless references, drew up several amateur blueprints, and even spent money on a Steam game called Home Design 3D to try to get ideas. Guys.. I literally spent SEVEN HOURS trying to figure out what the damn house should look like!! And that’s just the time I spent in Home Design 3D. I don’t even know how many hours I spent doing other things to get the final look decided upon! Research, drawings, references, etc. Usually coming up with these type of things is fun for me, but this was actually quite stressful. I wasn’t even able to move forward with “Corona is a Cabrona” until the look was finalized. I only got one page done. Artist Block hit me pretty hard, too. That’s how I spent the majority of November. It was painful..

A drawing I made of Trax’s living room. I was not satisfied with it *at all*. It looked too much like a real-life living room as opposed to a sci-fi looking one. This was before I settled on making Trax’s house a retro alien saucer.

Here is the super crappy look of Trax’s home using *Home Design 3*D. It was not the most fun experience I’ve had with world building.

A “blueprint” of a possible layout of Trax’s home.

This was actually a pretty cool thing to learn about. As I was doing research for Trax’s alien saucer neighborhood, I learned that there is an IRL one in FRICKIN’ TAIWAN!! I definitely looked at images of the actual houses. Sadly, the neighborhood is abandoned 😦

This drawing was made around the time Trax’s home was finally looking somewhat decent. Trax’s home used to belong to a group of aliens that would do classic alien tropes like abducting people & animals, and then ass probing them. I decided this retro style should contrast with the most “sophisticated” look of Zeyrion City. I actually have plans in place to make a future comic book that focuses on Zeyrion City.

Here’s another screenshot of me using *Home Design 3D*. As you can see, I *did not* have much to work with. This is supposed to be Trax’s office.

This was made on May 24th, but just another example of how long it took to make Trax’s home feel right.

Here’s how the men’s bedroom looks in “Just A Little Longer” vs. “Corona is a Cabrona.”

December 2020

December is where the real action is. Even though the work I did in November was necessary, this is when most of the pages got made. I got EIGHT pages completed during this month. I got so much done! 😀 I can’t really show you any of the pages I made during this time (ya know.. spoilers n such). But take my word for it that a lot got done during this month. I also got eight pages printed using Ka-Blam.

I use *Clip Studio Paint* as my main drawing program. That’s what I’m using to make this comic. In the program, I’m able to use a 3D posing tool. I’ve used it several times, and it works wonders! 😀 I also use a *Wacom* Cintiq as my main drawing tablet.

The screenshot of the file info for the last page I got done in December. I think 9 out of 25 pages is not too shabby for a first-time comic book artist 😛

By this time, I had enough pages finished to print some of them.

One of the printed pages in the Ka-Blam preview comic.

January 2021 (This Month)

I will give you guys a progress report for this month on February 1st.

So, that’s how hard my dedication has been for this comic book so far.

I hope I convinced you that I will get this comic book done in a timely manner. I’m pretty sure I convinced myself of this (even though I’ve never done it before). Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. I know I post a lot of images for you, so I’m glad you bared with me. I feel that each one is important to give you an idea of how much I’ve worked hard on this book. I know that for some people, it’s kinda frustrating to read a blog post with a bunch of images. Particularly if your internet is slow. Then the images take forever to load. If you did like seeing the images and reading the captions, please let me know 🙂

Final Notes: Looking back, I’m glad I didn’t begin truly working on the comic book until October 2020. I got a whole year to work on my idea and flesh out the story and characters more 🙂 I also made TV show outlines for an actual Hollywood mentor! I will write a blog post about him in the future. The outlines really helped me figure out my own show. Plus, without 2020, “Corona is a Cabrona” probably wouldn’t be a story for my first comic book (even though the pandemic is unfortunate and horrible). At least I can say humor gets us through hard times. It did for me. Looks like it all worked out 🙂

Have a good day! 😀