Independent Comic Books & Podcasts

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Duplicity - Complete

Webcomicking: RGB vs CMYK

Brock Beauchamp
March 2, 2011

To preface why I’m writing this blog, one of my first post-college jobs was working as a pre-press tech in a print shop before later moving into graphic design for the better part of a decade. I’ve sent hundreds, if not thousands, of print jobs to printers all over the world. I learned much of what I know on the job and while the experience was often “do it wrong three times before getting it right”, during that time I became very comfortable with various print processes ranging from film-based offset to digital offset to pure digital to large-format printing.... View Article

Superhero webcomics

Brock Beauchamp
February 23, 2011

I've been fishing (trolling) around the Internet for weeks, trying to determine why there is a dearth of superhero webcomics online. They completely dominate the print market in America but have a very small web footprint. After asking various webcomickers and fans why this is the case, I'm still nearly as puzzled as I was when I set out to answer the question. On the plus side, I did find a few superhero books so the landscape isn't *quite* as barren as I initially believed it to be. These are the reasons people gave me: They dominate print and therefore, no one wants to read them online.

New page, Variables

Brock Beauchamp
February 21, 2011

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. 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.

Preview – new comic strip

Brock Beauchamp
February 18, 2011

Bill Watterson is one of the artistic icons of the past 50 years and one of the biggest influences on my art as a child. As a result, I've always wanted to do a straight-up, old-fashioned comic strip that drew from the elements of his brilliant Calvin & Hobbes work (one of the most fun, warm-hearted, and absolutely rolling-on-the-floor funny comics strips ever created), along with other great strip creators I followed such as Walt Kelly (Pogo... just fantastic) and Breathed (Bloom County, Outland... political, yet still charming). But, alas, my talent compared to these men is limited and despite thinking about ideas for a strip off-and-on for 20 years, I never found the correct mix of biting humor and cutesy charm that all of these strips possess.

Hello, Android.

Brock Beauchamp
February 16, 2011

After purchasing an original iPhone in early 2008 and upgrading to a 3G in 2009, I have deserted the iPhone camp and joined the Android crew. Overall, the two operating systems are nearly interchangeable, with iOS getting the nod in some regards while Android gets the nod in others. It's the hardware that separates these two phones and I couldn't be happier to move away from Apple's closed system and into the loving embrace of the Inspire's 4.3" screen, HSPA+ 4G data (really, more like 3.5G), and faster hardware specs. All of this for just $99, or $100 less than the lower-specced iPhone 4.

First Variables page

Brock Beauchamp
February 14, 2011

I think this is the point where I tell a bit about Variables: the comic begins in 1992 when, for the sake of the story, two people are suddenly aware of two strange abilities they now possess and how the people around them, the government, and the powered beings themselves react to these changes. It's a kind of origin story but not in the conventional sense because these characters are not the main characters in Variables, for there are no "main characters", per se. You will see recurring characters that play prominent roles in the universe but the story arcs deal with the universe, not one protagonist and/or antagonist. In this regard, it's similar to Frank Miller's Sin City series with a touch of conventional "superheroes", though superheroes are few and far between in the universe. To put it simply, someone donning a cape and fighting crime wouldn't last very long in the real world.