10 Facts About My Comic Books

Hi! It’s been awhile. June has been a rough month for personal reasons. I wanted to publish my first comic book in July, but it will probably have to wait until August or September.

Anyway, I felt that it is about time to write a new blog post. As it says in the title, I will list 10 quick facts about my comic books 🙂

#1 – The Program I Use For Making My Comics

I mentioned this in some other blog posts of mine, but I’ll say it again here. I use Clip Studio Paint Pro to make my comic books. I believe the usual price is $50. I bought the program for $25 during a Black Friday sale.

#2 – Main Fonts I Use

I mainly use 5 fonts for my comics. They are copyright free. I downloaded them from this website: https://www.fontspace.com/

The 5 Main Fonts

1. TroubleSide – The font I use for the speech bubbles.
2. Komika – The font I use for captions. I also use this font to make the dialogue more expressive. For some reason, I can’t italicize or bold the TroubleSide font, so I use the Komika fonts to remedy this.
3. Bicubik – The font I use when robots or computers are talking. I use this font a lot because RSL (a robot character) is part of the ensemble cast.
4. Space Frigate – The font I use for Space Grind‘s title.
5. Space and Astronomy – The font I use for Celestial Circle‘s title.

#3 – CSP Assets

I sometimes use 3D assets for Clip Studio Paint to help me draw. If I have trouble drawing a character from a certain angle, I can download a pose to help me draw better. I can also download objects and 3D environments.

#4 – Dimwit’s Appearance Evolution

I know that I have mentioned this before in a previous blog post, but I’ll tell you again here. One of the main characters took me a whole year to decide on a design. That’s right! It took me one year to decide on Dimwit’s character design.

For quite awhile, Dimwit was going to be a kid or a young teenager. I think the main reason for this was because of Dimwit’s child-like characteristics. However, the majority of the Space Grind characters were young adults. It made Dimwit feel sorta out of place. Obviously, I eventually chose to make Dimwit an adult like Neuro and Onion. I feel like this was a good decision because his dimwittedness is more apparent I think. I was worried people might think that that Dimwit’s dumb antics was because of his young age (if I chose to make him a kid). Dimwit is now officially 25 years old, so that he doesn’t have an excuse for his simple-mindedness.

#5 – I Made a TV Show Outline for Space Grind

In 2018, I became friends with a professional cartoonist named Butch Hartman. He created 4 animated series for Nickelodeon. In December 2019, he suggested that I make an outline presentation for Space Grind. I got these outlines finished by July 2020. Butch gave me useful feedback 🙂

#6 – I Had A Different Website For Space Grind Before Alexzendraw Comics was Born

I made a WordPress blog for Space Grind in January 2021. However, I eventually wanted to make comics about my other story ideas, too. That is why I made the “AlexZenDraw” website to replace the “Space Grind Stories Blog.” I copy and pasted the majority of the first blog posts I made in April 2021.

I also felt that my Space Grind website wasn’t very memorable from a marketing perspective. “Space Grind Stories Blog” felt like it was too long of a website name. “AlexZenDraw” is shorter and catchier, thus more memorable. The AZD website has a bigger variety of content since it includes my other story ideas. I also have my portfolio to show what kind of art I can make.

#7 – Three Podcasts I Often Listen to While Drawing Comic Panels

I listen to several podcasts, but I’ll list 3 of them here:

1. Joyce Meyer – A Christian teacher that I like to listen to. She is very good at what she does. I listen to her sermons on YouTube.
2. Vision: Possible on XOTV – A paid subscription that helps people achieve their dreams, whatever that may be. There are also options for mentorship.
3. Mad Hustle – A podcast made by Butch Hartman. Here, he gives advice to people who want to pitch TV series ideas in Hollywood. You can listen to the episodes on Apple Podcasts.

#8 – How Long it Took to Finish my First 25-page Comic

It took 8 months to finish the comic, which is called “Corona is a Cabrona.” Hey, look at that! Fact #8 says that it took 8 months to finish. I didn’t realize the coincidence till now.

I began the comic somewhere in October 2020. I finished the comic completely toward the end of May 2021.

#9 – How Long it Took to Finish my First 25-page Comic Script

It took 3 days to finish the script. I did tweak the script here and there as I drew the comic panels though.

#10 – The Laptop I Use

I use a MacBook Pro 2017 to make my comic books. Unfortunately, it is starting to glitch more and more often. The battery also needs to be replaced. I did not expect my laptop to get so buggy after only 3 years. I have my comic book files in my Google Drive so that they aren’t lost forever, if my laptop were to break or something.

That’s It!

I hope this blog post was at least mildly interesting to read. Have a great day! 🙂