Sunday, February 24, 2013

Monkey Squad One #7. Pages 2 & 3.



Trik-Eeze, did in fact, have Wolverine hair back in the day.

But in fairness, I had the haircut with long hair on top and shaved head underneath & it wasn't any better than Wolverine hair.

In Real Life, Trik-Eeze is my cousin Nick. We grew up next to each other & he has always been one of my best friends. He's also a veteran rapper and is a legend in the neighborhood.

Here's a recent video for his song, "1st, 2nd, 3rd":

It was awesome to be able to put Nick in Monkey Squad One. You guys are gonna fucking love his role in this story-arc.

The iCarly bit goes back to the Annual #1 when Connor proclaims that he will get iCarly's phone number at the Kids Choice Awards.

"Sometimes dogs are brown" is from a Louie CK bit.

NEXT WEEK:

They get off of the bus!


Sunday, February 17, 2013

Monkey Squad One #7. Cover, "Previously In" Page & Page 1.




BLOODY NIGHT, BLOODY KNIFE
HAS BEGUN!

This is my love letter to the Zombie movies & video games I grew up with.
This arc was a long time coming and a dream come true to make.
But more on that shit down the road when the zombies show up.

First off, Mississippi Nights was a club in downtown St. Louis where I must've seen a hundred million billion shows. It closed down a few years ago but I still had to use it as the set for the club in this story.
I did a pretty good job of recreating it if I do say so myself.

Secondly, The Fraud. Me & Rich Powers & our buddy Andrew had an inside joke at work 
that wouldn't be funny to you no matter how much I over-explained it that involved us being in a fake band called The Fraud. 
There was no doubt what I'd call the band in this story & even got to throw Rich Powers in there. I wanted to put Andrew in as well but 3 guitars in one band is fucking pretentious.

Third, I was a teenage punk-rocker. This story is peppered with nods to the punk rock scene I grew up in & the music I grew up listening to & still listen to today.
Dillenger 4, Hot Water Music, Avail & Lifetime are all awesome & if you like shit that kicks ass, you might wanna check them out.

Fourth, the lyrics are to a real song me and Cletus wrote in 2003 or 2004. 
But I guess we'll get to that stuff later, too.

There's other Easter Eggs too but the people that would get the jokes wouldn't ever read this or even know I make a comic, so why bother explaining it?

Oh yeah. Last but not least. Bucky Burger is the burger joint in Garth Ennis' masterpiece comic series, HITMAN. 
If you haven't read it, you're fucking up.

NEXT WEEK!
TRIK-EEZE REPRESENTS!


To read the entire issue:
Scroll down a little bit & click NEWER POST to get to the next page!


Sunday, February 10, 2013

Monkey Squad One Annual #1 Special Features!

As I'm sure I've said before, the Annual was a HUGE project for me. I saw it as an opportunity to grab new readers but only if I did it right.

I wanted to make it as big and as fun as the Annuals I grew up with. I wanted it to be bigger than the regular MS1 issues and I wanted it to have a bunch of different stories that fleshed out earlier issues or set up story lines that were coming down the line.

Below is the original page breakdown for the Annual. The 1st story is 2 pages shorter than it ends up being and I see that I have a page dedicated to "Deleted Scenes" (which is stuff I ended up using as Special Features for earlier issues, here on Monkey Squad Monday) and that the Cletus Whiteheart origin story was originally 2 pages long.

In the end I decided to make the story featuring the titular characters 5 pages long instead of 3 because it seemed stupid to have the stars of the book on less pages than everybody else.


Next is the original idea for the back cover. It was gonna be a postcard-style image of the Arch with a cannon on it. Cuz that shit is badass & I was totally proud of it.

I ultimately decided against it. Cuz it seemed like it'd be super fucking hard.


The next few pages are my versions of script pages.
 I did a rougher draft before these, but generally, pages like this are what I work from to make the final pages.

If you're interested, look at the script pages compared to the finished pages and pay attention to how many dialogue changes there are. I'm endlessly rewriting as I'm drawing the panels.

This is how I make comics.





Next is an alternate version of page 5.
I got hung up on panel 3 with the fucking couch & eventually decided that I needed to start over. It's something that happens at least once an issue. The dialogue is waaaaay better in the final version and the truth is that every time I've redrawn a page it's been the best decision I could make.

That's it! The Monkey Squad One Annual is really over!

If you want one of your very own, email me at monkeysquadmailbox@gmail.com & I'll hook your ass up!


NEXT WEEK!!!


MONKEY SQUAD ONE #7 BEGINS!

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Monkey Squad One Annual #1. Pages 24, 25 & Back Cover




That's the Annual, y'all!

I can't believe it's already over!


NEXT WEEK: Monkey Squad One Annual #1 Special Features!

AND THEN....

IN TWO WEEKS...


MONKEY SQUAD ONE #7

BEGINS!