Heya folks.
I assure you, Dave and I have been busting our butts. I’m drawing some of my best work ever. Well, at least I’m happier with it than I have been with most of the TP stuff that I ever did in the past. Don’t get me wrong…I’m immensely happy with the catalog of work here on the site. I’m very proud of it. I don’t want to lapse into hyperbole, but I’m just having a great, great time working on the new stuff. I’m sure it won’t be for everyone, but for me and Dave it’s a ridiculous and satisfying outlet.
I’m convinced we’ll be posting the first new strip on January 1, 2010. That is 5 days from today. Dave isn’t as optimistic as me, but I can veto him. Of course he can veto me, too. It could go on like that for a while. But I’m going to go ahead and make a promise right here: I will be posting a new strip this Friday. And a new one every week after that, on Friday, for at least 4 weeks. We have 3 strips essentially in the can right now, with 3 more in various stages of development.
Working digitally gives us a ridiculous amount of flexibility. I can draw (and Dave can color) every single object in a single panel on a separate and distinct layer, which allows us to modify one tiny part of the strip without affecting any other. This allows us a huge amount of leeway to tweak and customize. Too much, I think. We obsess over every little detail and spend hours upon hours after any sane person would have declared a strip finished fixing this and that tiny little thing ad infinitum. We need to get away from that, and the best way I can think of to do that is by putting a deadline out ahead of us.
I plan on spending much of my time this week cranking out art. It’s slow. Not only because I’m rusty, but because of the density of artwork in the new strips. The unprecedented level of detail in the backgrounds and, for lack of a better term, props. I hope that folks aren’t disappointed. Don’t expect a revolution: expect more of our best work. No more, no less. I hope you enjoy seeing the new stuff as much as we enjoy creating it.
See you in 5 days.
