I spent almost all of yesterday working on the book and I’m happy to say that I have nearly an entire page of buffer finished. I’ll take some time to finish it today and possibly start on pencils for page four, which happens to be AN ENTIRELY NEW SCENE. So that means I have drawn my first introduction scene of Variables! Page three took me nearly 8 hours to color, which I hope does not become the standard for eight panel pages. That’s just too long to color a page once a week after spending anywhere from six to ten hours penciling and inking the damned thing. I’m hoping this page was just an oddity and not the rule for some of these high count pages that are coming up in the first issue. This page features Variables’ very first cuss word! Generally, I’m not crazy about swearing in comics, as many use them for a gratuitous titillation effect. In this specific case, two people were just struck by lightning at a timber producers’ site. Chances are, the workers would be swearing up a storm over this incident so I tossed in a solitary cuss word at the end of the page. Don’t expect to see me use swear words on a regular basis, for I just don’t care for them. Most of the time, a writer can find better ways to express what is happening without defaulting to a string of expletives. Anyway, I’m starting to pile up comics that I need to read, including the last 4-5 issues of The Walking Dead. I’ve been so busy working on this book that I rarely find time to sit and READ comic books anymore. I’ve powered through two Scott McCloud books (and still need to finish Making Comics) but other than that, I haven’t read much since I re-read a few Sin City yarns and the first several issues of the Sandman series. I’ve completely lost track of the Bruce Wayne storyline and some of the other mainstream comic events so I should probably hit up the local book store and buy a bunch of stuff that I’ve missed. I’m having a hard time really getting into superhero books lately… it’s just more of the same to me. Even Johnny Storm’s death seemed pointless, as everyone knows that Marvel will bring him back within 24 months. Big deal. Maybe I should look into some of Boom! Studios’ superhero books. I’ve heard they’re pretty good. Anyway… That’s about it for now. Today, I’m hoping to rest up a bit and maybe sketch out layouts for page four. If that doesn’t appeal to me, maybe I’ll work on more characters sketches for the comic strip. Follow the image below to enter the comic section of the site.

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