Monkey Squad One #8. Pages 2 & 3.

As I've mentioned time & time again, pretty much everybody in MS1 is based on, or "played by" one of my Real Life friends or family members.

Cletus Whiteheart is no exception.

I met Cletus in 2001, we both worked at a Wild Oats here in St. Louis. He's a really funny fucking dude & we pretty much hit it off right away. 

Before too long, I needed a roommate & Cletus needed a place to stay & he moved in my apartment in the fall of 2002.

I guess I should say here that in Real Life, Cletus is a pretty bad-ass guitar player.

When we began living together, Cletus was 21 & coming off a long run as a super-hippie. I was 25 & clenched in the claws of punk rock. It didn't take long for Cletus to plunge into punk rock. Face fucking first.

It also didn't take long for Cletus & I to start making music together.

I had played some bass & sang in some bands in high school, so Cletus handed me a bass & we learned every Misfits & Ramones song that we could. We soon started writing songs of our own & eventually Cletus taught me basic guitar skills & I started writing songs on my own.

We called ourselves the Unholy 3 {from the DC Elseworlds story (we claimed the Devil as our 3rd member)} and we wrote a bunch of songs & learned a bunch of others & generally had a fantastic time making music & sharing the experience of creating something from nothing. Y'all that have been in bands or made music with others know that shit is pretty fucking powerful. 

Cletus and I moved apart in 2006 when I got married & he went back to school to get his teaching degree.

Cletus is a teacher by day, now. But he still plays guitar and has blended punk & folk like motherfucking chocolate & peanut butter!

For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAWCkknpBes

Figuring out how to put Cletus in the comic was no easy task. His character went through several incarnations, beginning with full on super villain & ending up with something not too far from the truth.

He's a good-guy in my book.

(See what I did there?)

I've actually been drawing some Cletus Whiteheart lately. He's got a pretty big role in the upcoming Monkey Squad One Annual #2!

NEXT WEEK:

The Saddest Song In The Whole World!

Monkey Squad One #8. Cover, P.I.P. & Page 1.

Issue 8, huh?

I'd say I can't believe it, but I say that at the start of EVERY issue! 

To be honest, at this point, posting issue 8 is pretty surreal. When I was posting the early stuff, issues 1-6, I felt pretty removed from the material because all that stuff feels like I made it SO long ago. But this issue is less than 24 months old. It seems like I just made it!

I really like this issue. It's a "middle" issue, the 2nd part of a 3 part story, and I think I knock it out of the park. I feel like it's stronger than #11, which is my most recent "middle" issue. While this issue has plenty of exposition & info dumping, it's still got a lot of fun moments & moves right along.

And the ending is super-fucked up.

The Secret Stuff is as follows:

On the cover is a gravestone with the names "Whitey Christmas" & "Nacho Christmas". Those were the names of 2 of the leads in a old comic I did in my parent's basement called, "Fuck Whitey". I may have talked about it before here but I got drug-related memory issues.

The flier on the telephone pole outside of Mississippi Nights has the names of some awesome folk singers:

Tim Barry, Chuck Ragan, Austin Lucas & my good buddy John Helm (a.k.a. Pizza Reggie).

If you're into folk music or rock or whatever, go to youtube  check all these guys out.

The line, "I awoke cold & alone. Surrounded by my own filth." is a variation of a phrase my old roommate Noah Zimmerman used to say. He's the same Noah that wore the headband in Real Life that Brendan wears here in MS1. There was also a "Noah" character in "Fuck Whitey" that was based on the same dude.

Fucking layers, man!

NEXT WEEK!

THE LIFE & TIMES OF 

CLETUS WHITEHEART!

To read an entire issue:

Scroll down and click "Newer Post" to get to the next page & repeat!

Monkey Squad One #7. Special Features.

This issue was a whole lot of fun to make! I figured out how to put more of my best friends in my comic that was already full of friends & family.

Trik-Eeze was one of the new characters to this issue. This is the 1st sketch I did of him while I was writing the issue. I showed the Real-Life Trik-Eeze this sketch before I started drawing the issue and he didn't like it at all. The Real-Life Trik-Eeze is a super-skinny dude & he wanted to be represented as such.

Here's a pic of the RL Trik-Eeze. Just for reference...AND FUN!

The original version of the cover stated "And you thought ZOMBIES were PLAYED OUT!" because The Walking Dead TV show was in it's 1st season & all of the sudden I felt like "someone" would think I was trying to capitalize on the popularity of zombies even though my zombie story was earnest & pure & true. So, I was gonna pull a classic me & point out my own faults before anyone else could.

In the end I decided that I would lose the tagline and just stand behind my story if it ever came up and of course it didn't because why would it?

The following few pages are examples of my second/final draft pages for this issue. There are several panel & dialogue changes from these pages to the final comic. Most of those changes happen while I'm pencilling the actual comic page.

 (I'm really glad I left that Sarah Palin joke out!)

The following 5 pages are from the original draft of the comic & is totally a deleted scene.

Originally, the boys & Trik-Eeze were going to be weaponless. In the tradition of Survival Horror I was gonna have the gang find weapons on the battlefield. When I showed my nephews this draft at one of our many sleepovers, they told me it didn't make any sense that they would be acting as security for Trik-Eeze and not be armed at all.

And I was like duh.

So I rewrote the 2nd half of the comic, giving everyone guns because it just made more sense. But in the pages below they had to find/make their own weapons.

Also in the scene below is a cut plot line where the boys want to cuss since it's the end of the world. The joke was that they were shitty at swearing. I cut it because it took too long to explain.

  

Enjoy what almost was.

(I had the idea to draw zombie hands tearing through the page around the splash page & then thought it sounded difficult & stupid.)

The following is the flier I made for this issue. It was the first of 2 fliers where I actually made new art outside of the pages of MS1. Which is something I really avoid because of my laziness.

I like this flier though.

NEXT WEEK!!!
ISSUE #8 BEGINS!

Monkey Squad One #7. Pages 20, 21 & Back Cover.

Hey dudes.

One of my favorite moves in comics is the thing where there's a big crazy reveal in an issue and then it isn't brought up again for several issues. It shows commitment to the story from the writer & also makes the reader feel like there's some foresight & planning going on.

Now when I did the scene above, I had no idea where I was going with it. I just knew I wanted the readers to think that T.T., Hell-Kitty & Bad-Girl were traitors & still allies of A.U.N.T.

Current readers know that this plot thread was partially resolved in issue #11. I was pretty proud of myself for successfully landing one of my favorite comic moves.

The flier that is the back cover was made by my best friend Joe Metro (who I've gone on & on about in previous posts). It's a flier for the show that opened the issue.

Duh.

NEXT WEEK:

The MS1 #7 Special Features!

Thanks for reading!