"IT HAS BEGUN! Alexa, cue 'Mortal Kombat' theme..."
No time for me today? I get it. But before you delete, here are the highlights:
Taking a Twitter break.
Started drawing, it was hard.
Try Daredevil: Love and War; Ang Lee's Hulk.
I think watermarking is smart. Come at me.
Let's talk about screen time, and how mine was creeping up on 4 hours a day.
Just scrolling, needlessly, through Twitter. Not sure what for. Something to get angry about?
And despite what some artists say, the anger didn't make me productive, it just made me... well, it made me angry.
So I am taking a Twitter hiatus. I'll come back when I have pages to show, or a webcomic to talk about.
Speaking of:
I think I'll make this into a convention banner.
In any case, to make good on that promise, I have started eating my veggies as an artist. This means a lot of reading, tutorials, and practice.
Pros say the best way to start doing comics is to just do a comic.
While I appreciate the sentiment, I don't think it hurts to get the basic principles down before you embarrass yourself.
So, here's me working on the basic principles of one-point perspective:
Next year we'll all look back on this newsletter and laugh.
I'm having a professional disagreement over watermarking your original art before putting it into the wild.
My take -- watermarking is good.
Respected peer's take -- watermarking is ugly and distracting.
I think the main reason to watermark art is to discourage re-post accounts, or at minimum, to make damn sure you get your credit.
Respected peer opined that re-posting creates #exposure, so why discourage it?
Well, it just so happens this experiment got run.
I was approached by a re-post account which asked if they could share a drawing of mine. Nice of them to ask, they don't always, I said "yes."
Here's the final tally:
51 likes to re-post.
1 follower.
I don't even know if that follower came from this post, it was just the sole follower I got after I was tagged in the re-post.
Maybe their followers saw the watermark and were so thoroughly disgusted by it that they passed on checking my page out.
I don't know. But I do know I got my damn credit.
I follow Bill Sienkiewicz (yeah, I Googled it) on Instagram and he posted art from Daredevil: Love and War which reminded me to buy Daredevil: Love and War so I did, and while I was waiting for it to arrive, I went to my LCS and saw they were selling omnibuses half-off, so I swore at them for taking food out of my kids' mouths and bought 3 of them, one of which was a Daredevil omnibus which includes Born Again, Man Without Fear, and, you guessed it, Daredevil: Love and War.
I regret nothing, and am still going to keep the over-sized 1986 Love and War OGN because it's like a coffee table graphic novel whereas an omnibus is a library edition, and possibly a weapon.
The story itself is pretty good, though it feels a bit rushed at the end. Definitely not Miller's strongest, but still worth reading on its merits.
I like discovering old Miller stories that don't always get talked about in the same breath as TDKR or Born Again.
Oh, and if anyone wants a copy of Born Again, I have an extra trade, so email me, otherwise I'm donating it to the library.
Also, the Ang Lee Hulk is on HBO streaming. I think it's worth a revisit. I'm not saying it's great, but I am saying there isn't any other superhero movie like it.
That's it for this week's adventure.
As always, I adore you for your support and in lieu of asking for Patreon donations, I will simply ask that you share this content with your followers if you enjoyed it. That's the best way to help a novice like myself, and I love you millions for it.
Back to work.
*rent