The Fire-breathing Dragoon! – Cover
Hi Gang!
It’s been way too long but I’ve decided to start posting my all-ages horror comic again!
Before I jump into talking about my new Graveyard Gang adventure, I’ll share some answers about my dry spell:
Why did it take so long?
Well, I had a long rough patch between job insecurities, COVID, and the passing of my Mom. This slowed down my creativity quite a bit. I was still working on comic stuff, slowly, but all along.
Creatively, like I said, I have been working on stuff. I was (and still am) writing and planning a couple of Graveyard Gang graphic novels. I decided on this path because printing and selling single-issues of my all-ages horror comic was getting very expensive and not worth it financially. When I collected my GG adventures into a Trade Paperback, I found people loved this format and didn’t seem to mind paying the higher price. And since my comic is an all-ages comic, the graphic novel idea seemed an obvious move, look at a Kid’s Section at any book store. However creating a graphic novel story and artwork takes a while, especially on a part-time schedule.
At this point, I also decided to try some things to make my art production faster. First, I worked to simplify my art style to speed up my art output and yes, this has taken time but I think I’m getting there. Second, I tried changing how I make comics, using an iPad Pro to consolidate some of my steps to speed things up. This idea has not worked out, I spent too much time on this and did not like the results.
So this year I decided to go back to my original process – 1. drawing everything out with pencil and sketchbook. 2. taking a photo of my pencils, and inking, coloring, and lettering in Adobe Illustrator. I’m disappointed I wasted time on this and I’m back where I started, but I couldn’t waste any more time on it.
This leads me to:
The new Graveyard Gang adventures
So while I was doing everything I just shared with you, I was not making any new comics. I have so many story ideas that I want to share. Some stories are not enough for one 100+ page graphic novel but I still wanted to tell them. I decided to start posting online again. Not only to share my content with all of you but to push me to stick to a weekly deadline. This schedule will also help me get faster and fine-tune my simpler, quicker art style. So apologies in advance as you may notice an evolution of my art as we go.
I am also playing with my colors, going for muted tones. This too I expect to evolve somewhat.
I have also changed the size of my page template from the comic book size of 7″x10.5″ to the graphic novel size of 6″x9″. I hope to collect these new stories in a graphic novel someday so I wanted the pages ready for print. You won’t notice this on the website, as the pages will appear the same size. What you will notice is because of the smaller page dimensions, I am going with fewer panels per page so I can make the art and text as large as possible for print.
I decided to start posting today, June 19th, the 12th anniversary of my first Graveyard Gang all-ages horror comic post!
The Fire-Breathing Dragoon!
I’m very excited to share my new story with you! It’s one filled with horror hilarity and supernatural shenanigans! Lope and Sneezer are the main Gang members for this one and boy are they in for it! There will be other supporting characters too which I’m having a ball with, so stay ‘tooned’ for the fun!
Thank you!
I wanted to end this post by thanking my kids Andrew and Abigail for their unwavering support, patience, and encouragement. This comic would not exist without them. I love you both!
And thanks to you for reading my all-ages horror comic! Let me know what you think!
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