Roaches: A Graphic Novel: comicbook

Showing posts with label comicbook. Show all posts

King Crudd vs. The Tribunal Terrible

A War Criminal vs. A Terrifying Trio Of Judges
Strange Insect Kingdom Justice Is Decided By Deadly Combat

The Tribunal Terrible: Justice Reegen, then Chief Justice Kane and Jr. Justice Sprinkles. Prosecutor Dorenda is at the far right.

The previous comic's look as a vectory, cartoon style was a good basis for the style I am working on for this new book. That first style was directly derived from 60's cartoons from Hanna Barbera. That meant basic designs with a limited art style. This time I am focusing on more attention to the details.

I generally like using cartoony styled characters because it's practical. My art, writing and publishing team is one person. A very stressed out person. With a short temper.

This time out of the gate, I want to be more faithful to the type of action oriented books that I've been reading for 15+ years. These types of books include Kentaro Miura's Berserk, Arakawa's Full Metal Alchemist, the Drifters series, K&K's Lone Wolf and Cub and Stan Sakai's Yosagi Yojimbo.

These books I love for their style and the depth of character. These tales are multifaceted! Now, I am humbly working to make something 1/10th as awe inspiring and emotionally moving as these master artists and writers. Especially Miura and Arakawa who are the biggest influences on what I am up to today.

Above there are four sketches of a small female judge. Right at the top of the concept art piece is Justice Reegen. She is a ball of crazy energy and a hyperactive creature with a background in archery. In dark green robes, at the bottom right is the vicious and self-righteous creature Chief Prosecutor Dorenda.

How will this next leg of this webcomic series go down? Stay tuned, True Believers.

Webcomic Parody Pages

Sea Monkeys, WWF and Charles Atlas Parody Pages
DC And Marvel Comic Ads For Rip-Off Products

Ads were everywhere in Marvel and DC comics. I started noticing them in comics from the 1960's X-Men. The X-Ray specs, sea monkies, and strange Hostess ads with the Hulk or Spider-Man were usually badly printed two-toners. Later, there were ads in the 1990's for Nintendo characters and games.

The Archers

Meet The Cavern Cops
What crawls unseen in the dank catacombs beneath the Tower?

These nefarious looking insects are milkweed beetles. They are diligent, militant and very aggressive to trespassers. These creatures act as fearsome guardians in the underground tunnels beneath the Tower. They owe their loyalty to Justice Reegen.

Their real life counterparts belong to the genus Tetraopes, a Latin classification meaning "four-eyes".

Kingdom In Crisis Art

Satire Gets An Upgrade In New Volume
Webcomic Veers Into Fantasy Direction

The Exuvian villagers have a very different culture from the roaches we've seen before.

The story for the next book is a new direction for a series that began as a humble black-and-white webcomic. Instead of the gag/page-a-week format I've moved into a fantasy approach for the art and a more traditional approach to story. This arc turns the Roach kingdom upside down. It reveals intrigues and introduces fascinating new characters.

This book has been penciled. I'm in the process of cleaning it up and digitally inking now. Colors for the book seem to need more attention. The flat and slightly shaded style used in book one is now a thing of the past. The early results for book two look very good.

New production art from the new book promises more edgy adventures in the Insect Kingdom.

New types of roaches and insects are coming up in the next book. I really wish I could say more! Subscribe to this site for upcoming announcements.

Infestation

Upcoming Guest Strip At Social Vermyn
Featuring all original webcomic characters in a title cross-over.

Here is my guest comic page with the Roaches happily spoiling Victor Vermyn's lunch break. It that will be appearing at John Hageman's Social Vermyn.com webcomic this week, the week of June 28th.

More Roaches pages are heatedly underway for the full-color digital edition of the Roaches book available this Fall. Please subscribe and follow to keep these pages coming!

Bitchzilla/Chauvinism

New Comic Pages Released To A Stunned Internet Browsing World
Leading Critics: "This is clearly the work of a deranged mind."

These two pages are non-consecutive in the book and in the webcomic but they each deal with female roaches spazzing out. Spazzing out really hard, too. It's interesting that one character, Bitchzilla attacks unprovoked, while the Molecular Biologist bug in "Chauvinism" attacks for very good reason after she is jeered and nearly set upon by two guffawing morons.

These two pages are great examples of the art style being implemented for the second edition of the Roaches webcomic. Please continue to subscribe to the site with Blogger and Feedburner for more comics and cartoons. As long as you are viewing and subscribing I will be making 'em.


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The Great War

A character sheet for retro-roach soldiers from the up-coming Roaches short.

The New Year is here and with it the anniversary of Roaches. It was just over two years ago this winter when I started this title. Way back in the winter of 2010. In the beginning it was just a few gags scratched out in a sketchbook. I remember being on a wicked caffeine high in this little coffee shop in Ohio and taking a break from fighting a mean infestation of real-life roaches that were in my apt. building.

I showed the bits to a few people who, much to my surprise, really enjoyed it. So, I took up my first webcomic right there and then.

Since then, the zany Roaches found an audience on-line, a book has gotten published, it's toured a few cons and now a short is in production. This little title has gotten all grown up!

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more mischief.


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