The Curtailed Invasion Continues!

So my unsolicited Survival Sphere bombing last week tore a hole in comic reality. Oops! Apparently Mandy had a Precocious-influenced script sitting around, but is it responsible to merge a fictional comic with an autobio comic? *gets Jacob-bombed* I guess that issue's taken care of now, huh?  I abused her comic and I benefit! This is the best! Read the new Precocious cameo here, then pray they find a way to banish the demons back to the vortex from whence they came.

More background for all this is in the news post directly below!

Bonus comic + I drew a Curtailed!

First the links, then the backstory: Vote here to see a bonus Precocious scene, featuring everyone's favorite camp director. And click here to read a guest comic I drew for Curtailed!

It's a happy coincidence they both popped up at the same time, since they were born of the same idea.

One of the high-end tiers for the book 3 Kickstarter was to influence the design of a Precocious character. This tier was tied to the current camp story, and certain important character slots in the arc were kept open just in case. Once the campaign ended, I went forward with the characters *I* had ready to fill the roles - except for one.

The default story had the counselor (which became Cody) taking on most authority roles, with the camp director as a secondary, off-panel entity. BUT, I decided I'd go ahead and do the Kickstarter thing anyway, giving the character part of the reward to one of my comic buddies. And that's when I discovered my friends have a bunch of kid-hating, non-viable characters. Well, if it wasn't reasonable to bring THEM into MY story, what if I put MY characters into THEIR comic?

And that's why I drew a Curtailed - and why it has the theme it does!  Creating it was a comedy of errors - my favorite drawing pen isn't marker-safe, making Curtailed-style illustration a mess - but two 11x17" pages of mishaps later I ended up with a strip-sized comic!  Thanks to Mandy for tolerating my scribbles! (She was not aware of my plans until it arrived in her inbox, along with some manic, it-made-sense-at-3am rambling.)

The reason why the Kickstarter tier was so expensive is that, aside from the originals and extra art stuff, the character was far more than a cameo. The role was collaborative, and would become part of Precocious continuity, with a chance to recur. That's big for a control freak like me! With outright character-stealing off the table, I turned to stealing MY FRIENDS. I had just returned from Anthrocon, where Mat (of Badly Drawn Kitties fame) was, once again, my highly-excellent table assistant.  I asked him if it would be OK to work a Precocious version of him into the story, and he said yes.

The director's role was very open at this point, so we had a small discussion about it. I asked him how someone like Precocious Mat would end up as camp director, and he replied that something must have gone horribly wrong in his life. That was all the prompting I needed! Now, as the reward tier intended, Mat gets to play a solid role in the camp story, he's tied with Precocious history AND that also means the character lives in the area, so he may be called upon again! (If you like this reward, start saving now! There will be an opportunity to grab it next year!)

As for this specific bonus scene, I'm going ahead and calling NON-CANON on it. It's too over the top, but the idea of giving a polite Canadian a gun was too tempting to pass up! (That means that, unlike most deleted scenes, this one probably won't end up in a book.)

Praising the Guest Artists!

I really hope everyone enjoyed diving into the multiverse again. Not only are these fun stories for me to write, but it's an amazing feeling to know some of the best people out there are willing to lend their time to make this concept work. Creating guest content is such a struggle - not just in the effort, but because artists are so nervous about trying to get the look/tone right. Some artists draw different styles of comics. Some draw different styles of characters. Some are just learning the ways of art. It's a huge undertaking, and everyone took an unreasonable challenge and made something spectacular. This is why you need to go tell them how much you appreciate them!  (Read the post below for more of my thoughts on that.)

The rundown:

Tourism Ads/Spaceverse - Erik Amill
-Erik draws the monsterliciously fun comic Biff the Vampire. You can sent him positive vibes over at his Twitter or Tumblr account. If you were at ConnectiCon last year, he was the poor soul I sucked into being my table servant! (Well, one of them. Hi, James!)

Mirror Universe/Evil Max - Rachel Edwards
- Since this project asked for a lot of work, I only went to one of my amazing crop of reader artists. I chose Rachel because I felt bad that her wonderful Halloween contest work didn't earn a prize, and because I've watcher her grow as an artist over the years. That's so special! You can follow her and send some cheer at her DeviantArt page.

Super Weird Crazy/Beyond Belief - Matthew Dawson
- Matthew is one who is well known for saving my bacon over and over. I wouldn't have survived without him. He's one of the most talented artists I know, and mind dreams up exceedingly clever things! Thanks to his excellent work in the first universe jumping story, I was inspired to re-use the artist so I could pull out further and show the hidden quirks. Follow him on Twitter and Tumblr!

The Kindest Tiffany of All/Impolite Conquering - Becca Hillburn
- If you're coming to Furry Weekend Atlanta this weekend, she'll be with me, so thank her in person!  Becca is one of the hardest-working and most benevolent artists out there. Not only is she working on family-friendly watercolor comics  - which is cartooning on HARD MODE - but she runs an art/resource blog with tips and essays for developing artists. She does so many things to make other artists lives easier. She is on Twitter, and her Tumblr is a must follow!

Becca gets a second paragraph, because she turn her guest comics into a learning experience and shared photos of the special process she used! It's really spectacular. See the making of "The Kindest Tiffany of All" and "Impolite Conquering" by clicking those links. Be amazed, and be sure to let her know how impressive she is.

The Weirdest Universe Yet/Attack of the Clones - Carl Sjostrand
- If you've been paying attention, Carl and I have jokingly crossed over with comics before. (You have yet to see what I have planned for all the random Gingerfoxes, by the way.) It's some weird similar-but-not-actually-them thing going on with our character appropriation, and because if that I *had* to make one Precocious universe one that is eerily similar to (but not actually) Carl's comic, Ginger's Bread.  Ginger is recently back from hiatus, so now's a great time to catch up and get on board. If you want to help Carl out, he does have a Patreon campaign going. Also follow him on Twitter and Tumblr.

Have Cola, Will Travel - Veronica Vera
- I know how busy Veronica is with her comic, Bittersweet Candy Bowl, so I tried to give her the simple one-shot transition page. BUT, I was so sick and incoherent when I sent her the script, she went and made something much more elaborate. Sucks to be her, but I WIN! (I mean, WE ALL WIN!) You can find her on Twitter and Tumblr and lots of other places if you click around the links on her site!

Polite Conquering - Mandy Seley
- Her reward for being such a clever and skillful artist is that we keep crashing her comic's website!  Fixes are underway, so go read Curtailed and enjoy every page of it! I am forever appreciative of Mandy for her friendship and her positive influence - I've been changing I draw tails because her art has inspired me! Like everyone else, you definitely should give her a follow and shout out on Twitter and Tumblr.

Cartooning is hard work, and cartooning with someone else's character is a big challenge. Everyone brought their A game and impressed me so much. When I was at my worst, they helped me put out my best! Bless them, every one!

Table gifts are the best!

One of the joys about doing cons is the face-to-face interaction. I have a great time meeting readers, and then having the tables turned on me as I get to meet creators I adore and do the awkward geek-out thing! I especially love if when I get cool gifts, because I'm such a small-timer that such events are extremely rare. The best all these things happend while I was at Fur the More this past weekend, when I got a wonderful surprise of meeting Ahmeh Fahim, of the adorable comic, Silent Pirate! I didn't know he was in the area, so this was quite cool!

As well as a fun creator meeting, he brought me the original art for the amazing guest strip he did for Precocious. Ahh, if I only I had known, I would have given him the original for the guest art I did for him! (Note how he expertly blends his style and makes the Precociousverse his own - while mine simply looks like he was drunk when drawing one of his comics? He wins.)

With any luck, I can even things up by handing over my contribution at a late time, as he can be my Intervention con booth babe!

He got to go on his way with the second-to-last Precocious book one from the initial print run, and the last artist edition of that group! Silent Pirate Yvette! More shame: It wasn't until I was inking that I realized I was using the original headgear instead of the new, costume change beanie. It's not like I had read all the comic, done art of the comic before, or HAD THE REFERENCE IN THE GUEST COMIC PAGES SITTING IN FRONT OF ME or anything. *facepalm* I also totally butchered the ship. Embarrassing! Hey, it's still better than the standard convention cartoonist meet up: "Oh man, I love you work! ...but I'm two years behind in reading it." "Yeah, same here." (No one feels bad about it. We all know the rigors of cartooning.)

Oh, for the record: My preferred table gift is gummi fizzy cola bottles. (Well, assuming I can chew again by the next con.) Even better gift: Money.

Let's give everyone some love!

This week was full of some amazing birthday gifts, from amazing artists! I'm so grateful to those who sacrificed their time to let me pull off my sneaky idea! Each one of them delivered, giving me the variety of styles and intriguing interpretations that were exactly what I wanted when I reached out to them. I had so much fun tossing them scripts and anticipating the wonderful things I would get back.  Everyone who was involved, I salute you!

Now, let's cherish everyone who helped make this week a success! Go add them to your watch lists, read their comics and throw praise and every last one of them!

Tuesday:  Frosty
Wednesday: Mandy Seley and Alex Hoffmann
Thursday: Raiettei and Jennifer Wilder
Friday: ArtistJess, Mat Sherer and Dark
Saturday: Matthew Dawson
Sunday: Mandy Seley, ArtistJess, Becca Hillburn, Alex Hoffmann, Carl Sjostrand, Erik Amill, Frosty, Dark, Raiettei and Isabel Marks!
Panel up above: Artist Jess, who accidentally sent me extra art. Why not share it?

(Also a special thank you to DRB for chipping in with coloring efforts for Monday, Tuesday and Sunday!)

Guest art everywhere!

It's a SpiderForest collective lovefest today, featuring two pieces of guest art by me and the one above, by Nick Perkins of Cooties. This one was part of a Secret Santa art exchange, so apologies for just sharing this amazing piece now. Cooties is the story of a bunch of kids dealing with an alien invasion. Check it out!

As for the stuff I drew, head on over to Spare Keys for Strange Doors to see my guest art contribution. Stick around and read the comic too! It's a brilliant collection of cute and fun supernatural short stories, making for easy reading and great entertainment! Oh, and congratulate her on her babytimes, and maybe draw her something cool too!

Finally, here's *my* contribution for the SpiderForest Secret Santa, a guest comic for Silent Pirate! When I entered that draw, I admit that I was totally hoping to get Silent Pirate, as it's so cute and unique! I got what I wanted, and rewarded Ahmed with a comic that RUINS EVERYTHING. That's how I show love.

Another art showcase!

Once more, a great artist has come to help me in my time of greed!  The wonderful Matthew Dawson has contributed today's evil caricature. Give me thanks and love and follows!

Today's guest art showcase!

Here's the full art for today's comic, courtesy of the great Raiettei!

Much thanks to him for indulging me for this idea. Go check out his stuff and spread the love!

The Gingerfoxes

Update: Now with less typos and more links!

You may have some questions about today's comic, so here's a bit of story time!

Cameos are fun things, and cartoonists do them to play with friends and make new ones - most are just background characters.  That's how I started, by making Ginger's Beer. Ginger's Bread isn't remotely close to being Precocious's universe, being humans and all, so I furrified Ginger. (It was once a threat, then a cruel reality.)

The joke was that Precocious Gingerfox was good at business too! Was she just a spokesmodel? Was she the owner of her company? It didn't matter. It was all in good fun.

And then Autumn (and Bud, to a lesser extent) popped up in Ginger's Bread as humans - with Ginger starting the whole nemesis thing by stealing Autumn's fox hat. (Which is something I desperately want!) We had a good thing going!

Then I screwed it all up. I was set to give someone a random cameo in a random Precocious strip about the kids destroying a substitute teacher. Well, the person I was giving the cameo to annoyed me the day I drew it, so I instead threw in the first recognizable character I could think of - and Gingerfox is very distinctive!

Problem is... this one acted NOTHING like Ginger, and counteracted my own GingerCorp character. So...  now I have two Gingerfoxes - neither of which could match actual Ginger.  Carl's guest strip eventually gave me a THIRD Ginger, to reinforce the nemesis joke that he, being a better cartoonist, had kept consistent. (And I had fueled it in my own guest strip for him.)

Today we get Ginger #4 - who, having been informed by her sisters of the antagonism, decided to escalate things.  Oh, and Gingerfox and RealGinger both wearing 4 shirts this week was a happy coincidence. We were chatting as we made comics, and discovered we were drawing the same thing for different reasons.  I changed the color of the shirt in my comic to match his to make it more fun.

I haven't decided yet if there are seven or eight Gingerfoxes in the Precociousverse - considering this is more of a cartoonist joke than actual subplot, I feel little pressure to make anything truly canon.  This is more to amuse me (and him) but I hope you are amused as well.

It should be noted that, at this point, Gingerfox and HumanAutumn are treated as part of the comic they appear in.  RealGinger operates a bakery, and I don't think any of mine do. My Autumn never ages, but HumanAutumn will, as she is governed by Gingerverse laws - and Carl is free to play with her, wherever it goes. Since Precocious is a bit crazier, I'm not creating anything too epic - just occasional background jokes or putting Autumn through a Scott Pilgrim thing because I think it's funny.

Both situations are nothing more than very minor characters, used for fun.  We let each other know what's coming, and don't do anything nuts or mean. If anything bad happens between us, like me stealing his cat or him seducing my mother, these minor minor minor characters just won't pop up again. We cool. We funnin'.

Guest Week 3 Bonus Art!

As promised long ago, here are the guest art/comics used as vote incentives for Guest Week 3! You can click all the images for full-sized versions.

Pieces uploaded in the order Blogger chose to upload them in. I was too lazy to sort by date. First up is a great image by Erik Amill, of Biff the Vampire!

Here's a comic by Jordyn Jensen:

This one one comes from readers Jeremy and his sister.

The following two comics are by Iron Ed!

I love this artwork from Lucy Lyall, of Spare Keys for Strange Doors!

More guest art by Precocious' part-time coloring, DRB_II!

And this glorious piece of art by Heidi Black, a companion piece to her guest strip:

New Copper Road! 10/1/12

Our long national nightmare is over! Copper Road is back! Thank you all for allowing me a month of playing catch-up after my moving and convention chaos! Things are about to pick up again, and I think you're gonna like it!

Today's update is one of the script ideas that built up over the month off. It might be the only non-Ursula comic to pop up for a while - although there's always room for whims - but that's not a bad thing, is it? Vote to see the new Copper Road here!

In related news, the Copper Road archive has been updated with the three comics I'd forgotten to upload previous. Go enjoy them and get your comment on!

One more also: I'll be posting the incentive art from Guest Week 3 on the sketch blog later. (Edit: And here it is!)

A big 'ol thank you!

My (hellish) move is complete! While I am so tired and the buffer is gone, I now have the means to make comics, so make comics I shall! Precocious is back, and ready to rock your world!

I finished today's comic only a few hours before update time, so if not for the help of all the guest artists, Precocious would have been in much trouble. Let's give them some love!

Featured guest cartoonists: Ahmed Fahim of Silent Pirate, Jackie Wolenhaus of Between Failures, Ms. Dark, Lemmo, of Blank It, The amazing Heidi Black, Michelle Van Zandt of Ginpu, Artistjess and Carl Sjostrand, of Ginger's Bread!

Incentive artists: Jordyn Jensen, Lucy Lyall of Spare Keys for Strange Doors, Precocious' colorist DRB_II!, Iron Ed, Jeremy and his sister, Erick Amill of Biff the Vampire and...

We have one last incentive! Heidi Black created this bonus art to compliment her comic, but a scheduling conflict meant it didn't go up on her update day. Vote, and enjoy it now!

(FYI: When the next vote incentive goes up, all guest art will be collected in a sketch blog post.)

Guest Week 3!

To help keep me sane through my move ordeal, a bunch of supremely great folks have stepped up and provided some wonderful guest comics! Every day, you'll get a guest comic AND a bonus comic/art piece as a vote incentive on TWC! Don't miss anything!

This post will be updated every day to list all the contributors as their work appears. Make sure to go check 'em out and be lovely to them. They saved my skin this month!

Monday, September 3

(What? I'm not starting the back to school arc on LABOR DAY. That would be tacky!)

Comic: Carl Sjostrand, of Ginger's Bread! Slowly but surely, we're warping each other's canon, even though our comics clearly don't take place in the same universe. Stuff like this is why webcomics are neat!
Incentive: I'm leaving Sunday's incentive up an extra day, because I was so late in getting it up. (Check the sketch blog tomorrow for the story behind that.) I'll put the last bonus art up on Tuesday.

Sunday, September 2

Comic: A lovely reader comic by Jess! Is it not adorable!?
Incentive: This time, Iron Ed takes on Copper Road! Vote here to see it!

Friday, August 31 + Saturday, September 1

(I will be driving all Friday and Saturday, with almost no internet access, so I'll post both now.)

Friday's comic: The amazing Heidi Black! She is a wonderful friend and a wonderful artist and just the best at everything. (We'll be at Intervention together, btw, so come and express your appreciation in person!)
Friday's incentive: Erick Amill, of Biff the Vampire, has drawn probably the best pic of my characters ever. I should retire, because I can't top that.


Saturday's comic: Michelle Van Zandt of Ginpu! Her style is so adorable, and she was at the top of my guest comic wish list! Yay! Maybe it's best that you get day's head start on reading her comic. It might prepare you!
Saturday's incentive: Enjoy a guest comic by readers Jeremy and his sister!

Thursday, August 30

Comic: Lemmo, of Blank It! This man is a rare gem. He melted my heart with cartoonist generosity, and will melt your mind with cartooning excellence!
Incentive: A cute guest comic by reader Iron Ed!

Wednesday, August 29

Comic: This one comes from reader Ms. Dark! It's her second guest comic, so, for you scoring at home, that means she's in the lead!
Incentive: Once again, the bonus art goes hand-in-hand with the comic! This one comes from Precocious' part-time colorist and full-time savior, DRB_II!

Tuesday, August 28

Comic: Jackie Wolenhaus of Between Failures! This is one of the dudes that make you feel better about yourself when they talk to you and don't attempt to stab you in the face afterwards. I feel honored to have him contribute to this week. I wasn't face-stabbed! (Yet.)
Incentive: Bonus art from Lucy Lyall, the wonderful creator of Spare Keys for Strange Doors!

Monday, August 27

Comic: Ahmed Fahim of Silent Pirate! This is one of the cutest strips out there. A young lad who is not much for words ends up aboard a very odd pirate ship. Silly adventures happen. It is so delightful, you want to hug it!
Incentive: A bonus guest strip by Jordyn Jensen!

(By the way, if you missed a vote incentive, the guest art will eventually be compiled into a post for the sketch blog.)