Monday, June 30, 2008

Nota Bene

By the way, If you click on the pictures, you can see them in all their glory. Even the ones that are just a red cross.

Introducing Bill.


Meet Bill. I've had the last panel in my head for the past few weeks, and I've been slowly - oh so slowly - working the strip towards this point. And now, today, I've comitted it to... well I suppose not paper, maybe an electromagnetic pattern on the internet.
It's the way I write. I see the story as a landscape, leading off into the far distance, with a number of waypoints, of which this is one. I have no idea what I'm going to find as I make my way there. The details come seconds before I write them.
Do I know what is going to happen to Bill? Absolutely! The basic outline exists in my brain. Do I know the details of his journey? No way! The fun of writing this strip is finding out along with the audience what happens.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Sic transit Lemony Teabag


I've just killed off a main character in my ongoing cartoon strip 'Bill the Klingon'.
Sir Lemony Teabag was an eminent Shakespearian actor who starred in such screen gems as 'Show us your tackle' and 'Centurion'. His final role as Saruman in the Klingon translation of the fourth Lord of the Rings film led to his tragic demise. He was last seen being dragged to uncertain doom in an alternate dimension by a hideous monster.
I shall miss Lemmy, but the demands of the plot dictated that he should be sacrificed. JK Rowling isn't the only one who can murder their darlings.

Monday, June 09, 2008

The return of Spellcaster!

I've had a week's break from Stripgenerator. So today I log back on, and find ... Spellcaster's back! He departed last month, after a bit of a tiff with Neochomik, but they seem to have made up. They're both polish, and I think they're both teenagers.
Neochomik's strips are unusual in that he doesn't use the predrawn characters, but creates them using the shapes. Simple but effective. Spellcaster loves to imitate. Neochomik got irritated because Spellcaster was doing similar versions of his stuff. But imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Spellcaster made @lpha in April through sheer force of numbers. He does several strips a day - usually one panel jobs, and so gets a high turnover. But hey, all credit to him. He put in the effort, he got the reward.
I missed him while he was away.

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Bill the Klingon - an intro

[url=http://deaconbarry.stripgenerator.com/2008/05/28/bill-the-klingon-dramatic-elements.html][img]http://static.stripgenerator.com/generated/deaconbarry/strip/2008/05/28/bill-the-klingon-dramatic-elements_embed.png[/img][/url]
If this works, you should be seeing the latest but one episode from my strip cartoon, "Bill the Klingon."
I'm hoping to revive this blog as a forum for the strip. I'll also be able to discuss its progress.