Page 214 – First Aid

Doctors spend years getting degrees and wasting their time. Just stick things back together and walk it off.

…I honestly don’t have much to say today, so this is going to be a pretty anemic blog post. Actually, let me take this opportunity to post something Charlotte and I talked about when she was four years old. We were in her room playing with her stuffed animals, and she established that we live in a world of dogs. I joked that I wanted to eat one of the dogs.

Her: “No, don’t eat one of the dogs. Here…” she brings over a stuffed dog. “This one’s dead.”

Me: “It’s dead??”

Her: “Yeah. So you can eat it.”

Me: “Oh. Well, that’s considerate and creepy. Where’d you get this dead dog?”

Her: “The store.”

Me: “You bought a dead dog at a store?”

Her: “Yeah.”

Me: “What else do they sell at this store?”

Her: “I dunno. Nothing.”

Me: “So it’s a dead dog store.”

Her: “Yep.”

Me: “What’s the name of the store?”

Her: “World Dead Dog.”

Me: “Wow. What’s their slogan? A slogan is something the store says about itself. McDonald’s is I’m lovin’ it. What’s World Dead Dog’s slogan?”

Her: “I’m Puppin’ it.”

Me: “How much can I buy a dead dog for?”

Her: “Twenty cents.”

Me: “What do you do with a dead dog once you’ve got it?”

Her: “You eat it!”

Me: “Do they come in different flavors?”

Her: “Yep. Chocolate and strawberry.”

Me: “This sounds great, but how do the dogs die?”

Her: “Well, they live to 65 years old, and when they get to 75 they die.”

Me: “And World Dead Dog sells them to eat. Aren’t old dead dogs less tasty than fresh ones?”

Her: “No, they’re delicious!”

Me: “So if my dog dies, can I sell it to World Dead Dog?”

Her: “Yep. Fifty-five cents.”

Me: “They’re not making much of a profit, then.”

Her: “No they’re not.”

Me: “Do they have a kids’ meal?”

Her: “They have little monkeys that kids like to eat.”

Me: “Are the monkeys dead too

?”

Her: “Of course.”

Me: “I thought World Dead Dog sold only dead dogs.”

Her: “Well, they sell a few dead monkeys.”

Me: “I see. Do they do catering?”

Her: “What’s catering?”

Me: “Catering is when a restaurant brings food to a place. So do they go to parties and set up piles of dead dogs on long buffet tables?”

At that point I imagined silver catering trays filled with dead dachshunds and burst out laughing hysterically. I’d been trying to hold it in and just couldn’t anymore.

Oh, hey! Ethan and I are throwing a contest on the Axe Cop Facebook page. It’s the GET REVENGE ON RAINBOW GIRL contest, in which you tell us how you’d get revenge on that dastardly villainess. The winner gets a bunch of cool signed Axe Cop stuff. Visit the page for details and enter.

Contest-01

I guess that’s it for this week. Big page next week, and from here on out, not one page of REVENGE ON RAINBOW GIRL isn’t packed with violence. It’s been a peaceful story so far, but things are about to go off. Have a great week.

KIDS’ QUOTES OF THE WEEK

“I have a boo-boo in my mouth
and it’s like a toy for my tongue.”
                                        -Charlotte, 5 years old

“Mommy? I wanna be a drag
queen when I grow up.”
                                        -Amelia, 5 years old

Ask Axe Cop #94 – Axe Land

This has been a popular question and it was about time we look at what Axe Land really looks like.  This easily could have been an entire book.  Malachai was ready to map out a theme park that could cover a planet.  I think we get the idea here though… you just add axes and dinosaurs to old theme park favorites like Splash Mountain and the Jurassic Park ride (which already had dinosaurs, so you make them into mummies too).

I don’t think my wife generally keeps up to date on my posts, so I am going to take a chance here and post this link to an original piece by Doug TenNapel and me of Axe Cop teaming up with Earthworm Jim.  I want to use the money from this to put towards her birthday present.  It will help me be able to buy her something a little more spendy if I don’t pull money directly out of our checking account.  The use of bonus funds alone will be a gift to her, as she is very frugal, which is one of the many great things about her.

ac_ewjORIGINAL

I sold 100 of these as prints with a bit of color added.  This is the actual original drawing by Doug and me.  As far as I know, this is the only drawing we have ever drawn together.

Ethan

Page 213 – You Will Never Be Evil Again

And there it is, the first blow of the coming battle is struck, and it’s called foul right off. The way this came about was in telling the story, Charlotte got to this part and said:

“…Axe Cop walks up with all his pals. And he says to them “you will never be evil again! And then he chops off the little kids’ heads.”

She immediately rethought it and started to go another way, but it was too funny to let go so I kept it. You HAVE to keep a sudden, unprovoked axe attack on little kids to punish the parents. You know, when I type it out like that, it’s not so funny anymore. But… well… at least it’s funny in the Axe Cop universe. Infanticide is many horrible things, but at least we can enjoy that it’s hilarious in the context of an Axe Cop comic.

KIDS’ QUOTES OF THE WEEK

‎”If The Hulk just played dead,
nobody would ever bother him.”
                                        -Charlotte, 6 years old

Amelia’s in trouble and she thinks her
stuffed bear, Vanilla, has told on her.
She yells 
“Curse you, Vanilla!!”
then throws him down the stairs.
                                        -Amelia, 5 years old

Ask Axe Cop #93 – Blind and Paralyzed

There are a lot of questions surrounding Axe Cop’s methods for determining the hard-lined, black and white morality he can determine before he chops a bad guy’s head off.  Obviously, we know his most common method is to check their front kick or their eye color.  But if the bad guy cannot kick, and does not have eye pigment, Axe Cop employs other methods.  I don’t know why, but I find the shirt-lifting belly button check the most intrusive.  Maybe it’s because I am a self conscious fat guy.

 

Ethan

 

Page 212 – Showdown

Well, all right, all that art-talk over the last two blogs was a complete dud and no one cared. Sorry ’bout that.

 I don’t have the time to write up much of a blog this week, I’m under the gun on an art deadline and am cranking out pages. I wouldn’t leave you with nothing, though, so here’s the audio of Amelia telling an Axe Cop story. I requested it be in a smoothie shop because I was trying to tie it in to the comic story, and didn’t wind up using this at all. I definitely don’t have the time to draw it these days, but if anyone  has the time, this’d make a good guest strip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBiZBu5nkCw

KIDS’ QUOTES OF THE WEEK

Me: “I need to take a shower.”
Charlotte: “Why?”
Me: “I need one, I’m stinky.”
She gives me a hug.
Charlotte: “You’re not stinky.”
Me: “Aww, thanks!”
I sneeze.
Charlotte: “But you ARE gross.”
                                        -Charlotte, 6 years old

Amelia is going to get her room painted.
She says she’s going to have pictures painted
of “blocks and tigers and people and butts and people.”
                                        -Amelia, 4 years old

Next week, the first act of aggression in this street fight is about to go down, and it’s a doozy.

Ask Axe Cop #92 – Military Training

This one goes out to all the Axe Cop readers who are enlisted or are veterans of military service.  I am always humbled by people who choose that path, considering my line of work.  If it weren’t for people like I could never live in a country where making silly comics like this would afford me a living.

Ethan

Page 211 – How to be a bad guy

For anyone wondering, yes, Axe Cop only slept for two minutes.

Last week, I mentioned that I’ve come up with a pretty solid inking technique in Manga Studio and said that if anyone wanted to know the process I’d fully detail it. It got a couple of responses, so here we go. These instructions are for Manga Studio 5 or EX5. If there’s some way you can make it work for your inking program, do it up.

Coloring Detail-02-02

Before you begin, go to Manga Studio > Shortcut Settings and in the Main Menu settings area, find Transfer To Lower Level. Set its shortcut to Cmd + F. You’ll be using this function a lot, and this command will make the process much quicker for you than clicking the button on the Layer palette, seen above. Note that I use Mac, so PC users substitute Cmd with the Ctrl key.

Screen Shot 2013-12-30 at 10.55.46 AM

1. Have your pencils on a layer. Set the Expression Color to cyan and lock the layer.

Expression Color is a very useful setting in the Layer Properties palette. It applies a lightening color to everything in the entire layer, but not permanently- meaning that if you click it off again, the image is normal. You’re using it as a way to see between your layers while you work.

2. Create two layers above your Pencils layer. These are your inking layers. Name the top one “Working Inks” and the bottom one “Finished Inks.”

3. Set the expression color of Finished Inks to red.

4. Begin inking, in black, on the layer Working Inks. Hit Undo frequently and redraw a line as often as it takes to get the line you want.

Remember that you can change your brush size on the fly by holding Option + Cmd and dragging your pen to find the desired size. This keeps things moving so much more quickly than clicking over to the brush palette and sliding the brush size slider. Also hit the R key to rotate the page freely as needed.

5. When you have a chunk of inking you’re happy with, hit Cmd + F. You’ll see the inking turn red as it moves to the Finished Inks layer.

6. When you have overlapping ink lines at corners and edges, erase at will on either inking layer until you get the desired effect.

Hitting the C key will set the color you’re drawing with from black to erase. This keeps things moving somewhat more quickly than switching over to the eraser. Hit C again and you’re back to black.

7. Repeat steps 4-6 until you’re done inking.

8. Delete Working Inks and click the Expression Color button for Finished Inks to turn it off, and to turn the red lines to black. You’re done!

I hope some of you find this helpful. It’s really streamlined my process quite a bit. To think that just a year ago I was inking on paper, erasing pencils, scanning, and cleaning up the mess in Photoshop. I’ll never go back.

KIDS’ QUOTES OF THE WEEK

Me: (yawn) “Man, I’m tired.”
Charlotte: “So go to sleep.
Blah blah blah, end of story.”
                                        -Charlotte, 6 years old

Daddy: “Charlotte, you have to eat some of your salad.”
Charlotte: “But I don’t LIKE salad.”
Amelia: (points to bottle of bacon ranch dressing)
“Probably, this will help you.”
                                        -Amelia, 3 years old

The kids are planning to stay up until midnight tonight and then camp out in the living room in Amelia’s new Spider-Man tent that she bought with her Christmas money. Amelia’s a huge Spider-Man fan. Everyone got her Spidey stuff for her birthday and Christmas (I got her a full costume, she loved it) and she still bought more on her own. It’s pretty awesome. Anyway, I’m predicting that Amelia will have passed out by 10:30, and Charlotte will be a zombie by 12:20. They always think they’re going to go all the way on these late nights they occasionally have, but they never quite make it.

This year’s been good for me, and I hope 2014’s even better. Have a great New Year’s Eve, everyone, and a happy 2014.

Next week, it’s a showdown on the street, good guys vs. bad. Heads are about to start getting seriously chopped.

Page 210 – We Have To Plan Revenge

Merrrrrry Christmas, y’all! I wish I had more of a “very special Christmassy episode” to share with you today, but today’s page is all about the plan.

I thought I’d talk a little, today, about the art process. Unless you like art-talk, the following chunk of text will be terribly boring to you so skip to the end for your Kids’ Quotes and you’re free to leave. For everyone else, let’s go.

I work entirely digitally these days- everything from sketch to finished happens in the computer. I understand Ethan works the same way. The difference between us is that now and then, I think he still likes to draw on paper in the real world. Me, I couldn’t be happier to be done with paper, art supplies and scanning. I don’t have to go to the art store anymore at all, now, and I love it. It’s kinda like when you discovered Netflix and began dancing merrily on the grave of Blockbuster Video.

I’ve tried going wholly digital in the past with Painter and Photoshop. Painter had a completely baffling interface that I couldn’t figure out and Photoshop’s brushes were nnnnot good for inking. I felt trapped in the world of drawing on paper. Then- and here’s where what I’m saying is going to start sounding like a paid endorsement- I tried Manga Studio in March of last year. A colleague had used it and recommended it, and it was only $80. I gave it a try and was impressed- it did almost everything Photoshop did (at least for art production), the interface mimics Photoshop so it was easy to pick up how things worked, and the inking handled like a dream.

Ethan uses it too, but he’s much less… I dunno… evangelical about it. I use it for almost everything and I sing its praises all the time. These days I only open Illustrator and Photoshop to do lettering and photo manipulation, respectively. I’m churning out pages in a quarter of the time and at twice the quality, and I do it going from sketch straight to inks. I never fully pencil anything out anymore. I’ve pioneered a technique- or at least I think I came up with it- that maximizes speed and efficiency in digital inking. It involves using two layers. If anyone’s interested in the full inking process, sound off in the comments and I’ll detail it fully.

Here’s a video I made doing the art for my pin-up in the new Axe Cop print volume.

KIDS’ QUOTES OF THE WEEK

We’re playing superheroes one day.
Me: “I’m Superman. I can fly and I’m strong. What can you do?”
Charlotte: “I”m Spider-Man. I can play on my ropes, jump,
stick, and make everybody pay attention to me.”
                                        -Charlotte, 2 years old

On the phone with mommy, who’s at work:
“When you come home, can I have you?”
                                        -Amelia, 2 years old

If you’re looking for a nice present to get me, I could really use one of these. Don’t look at the price, just get it for me… we’ll both be happier that way. Merry Christmas everyone.

Ask Axe Cop #91 – Mustache Wax

Apologies for the late post.  I had such a busy day on Thursday that I totally forgot to post this.  I took off on quick romantic getaway with my wife and realized I forgot to post Ask Axe Cop.  Luckily it was all ready to post, so I was able to do it remotely.  I mean that in the sense of controlling my computer at home using my tablet, but I also mean remotely as in, I am in the middle of the woods right now on a weak satellite internet connection.

So, here you go.  One of the most bizarre episodes of Ask Axe Cop, and that is saying something.  Turns out we have been experiencing Axe Cop’s second life with-mustache this entire time… all of Axe Cop is the new memories of death bed Axe Cop with a mustache.  Thanks for reading.

Ethan

Page 209 – Title paaage!

Hiya everyone, I hope you’re all having a lovely holiday season filled with… I dunno, holiday stuff.

I took Charlotte to see THE HOBBIT on Friday. She liked it a lot- she got to stay up late and watch a “grown-up movie,” she got all the popcorn she could shove down her throat, and it was just scary enough for her. Charlotte likes scary. Since she was little she’s asked me to tell her scary stories, forcing me to improv not only a horror story, but one that’s good for kids. That’s a tough balance to strike. You have to hit somewhere between scary and too scary, and then you have to consider that some things aren’t scary to kids at all. I did one, once, that was about someone in a house alone getting phone calls from someone that seemed to know what the protagonist was doing. Charlotte said “you can stop now, this isn’t even scary.” Meanwhile, her mother was just about to ask me to stop because it was scaring her to death.

Eventually, I ran out of stories to tell and just began retelling horror movies as scary stories for kids. It’s easy- just boil down the story to its base plot points and tone down the truly horrific parts. Monster movies work best. I don’t recommend trying this with SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, that’s a tricky one. …and if you do, leave out Multiple Miggs.

I trailed off there, for a bit, but yeah: Charlotte enjoyed THE HOBBIT’s kid-sized scary parts. Giant spiders, a dragon, the necromancer, the orcs. And the fighting. Charlotte and Amelia have been shielded from violence all their lives. Now, at 9, Charlotte’s being allowed to see some movies for older audiences. Turns out… she likes violence. When she got home she talked excitedly about Bombur the dwarf “spinning around, killing everyone,” heads getting chopped off and all the instances of Legolas and Tauriel planting arrows through orcs.

You’ll see plenty of Charlotte’s violence in upcoming pages of REVENGE ON RAINBOW GIRL. For a pair of kids shielded against violence, it’s pretty horrific. People die in all sorts of ways. Fire, bullets, bombs, teeth, poison, axes… and rainbows.

KIDS’ QUOTES OF THE WEEK

“My friends Grace and Lianna are werewolves.
They turn into werewolves at night and howl
in their room.” She pauses. “They look
creepy even when they’re not werewolves.”
                                        -Charlotte, 5 years old

Mommy: “Mia, what should we do for
dinner tonight, pizza or Halfway Cafe?”
Amelia: “Halfway Cafe.”
Mommy: “Okay. What do they have
that you like to eat?”
Amelia: “Pizza.”
                                        -Amelia, 3 years old