I know I’ve been quiet for a while now guys, and I apologize, but I’ve had something in the works. There are things happening in the Jetpacks and Time Machines universe.

I don’t have much to post about it now, since I’m not exactly sure how it’s all going to go down, but essentially what’s going to happen, is at least one chapter of a JP&TM graphic novel (one chapter and a prologue actually).  I’d started plotting it out (doing some research, brainstorming, and sketching) a while back, and over the last few weeks I’ve started the writing process in earnest.

So far, here’s what I know for sure:

• This story will focus on and star some new characters
• There will be a cameo for at least one existing character (I’m trying to believably work in more)
• The world of JP&TM will be irrevocably altered at least a little
• There will be zombies

That’s all for now, but I hope to post more sketches as things progress and being posting pages as quickly as possible.

For more immediate info when available, or if you’d like to see what I had for breakfast, follow me on twitter.

That’s right… This is it.  No more sketchbook pages, and no more posts this week.  Next week, the comics begin.

Since this not the first time I’ve tried to return to a consistent comic posting schedule, I’m not going to make a big deal about it, or make a whole lot of promises about how this time it’ll be different and all that.  I hope it will, but I’m not going to go there.  What I will do, is say that I’m trying really hard to actually create a bit of a buffer this time around.  Next week, and the week after that I’ll be posting two comics each week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  For the week before Halloween, I’ll be posting three comics - Tuesday, Thursday, and a Halloween comic on Friday the 30th. After that, I’m not yet sure what my posting schedule will be, but I plan to strive for a minimum of two comics a week, and the occasional extra comic or larger f0rmat comic every once and a while.

Johnny Sanderson, the nature hating nature show host is here to stay.  Johnny is a great example of spontaneous and flexible character creation, and I’m quite fond of him.

The Creation of Johnny Sanderson

Originally, my idea was to put a really extreme nature show host in the strip based on Jeff Corwin (who I’m a fan of).  On paper, this was a good idea, but I found that once I started writing and drawing, I quickly became bored of the character.  I decided I had to make changes. While sketching out the character, I found I couldn’t draw a pair of legs I was happy with… which lead to the first defining characteristic – the wheel. At this point the switch flipped (because I felt that a guy that had to get around on a wheel probably wouldn’t be a tremendous nature fan), and  I decided to flip the personality around, so the nature-lover had to go. The safari hat was actually part of the original design, and absurd enough to keep.  From this point, Johnny took on a life of his own both in my imagination, and in the strip, and now he’s one of my favorite characters.

What I learned from this experience: If I’ve got a character I’m just not sure about or one I don’t think is interesting enough, I can’t be afraid to go back to the drawing board, because even a week idea has the potential to work out great with a few tweaks.

Originally, I’d planned on some really elaborate changes to JPTM before the relaunch.  I had a lot of ideas… I was gonna do them all old-school pen and ink on paper, or I was going to completely redesign the look and feel in one direction or anotherl, or I was going to switch programs and make all my strips in photoshop and color them all…

…and so for a while I’ve been messing around with all that for the last couple weeks, and I realized something… I realized that I’d originally spent a lot of time developing the look and feel of the strip, so why throw all that away?

That being said, there are going to be some changes to the strip, but they should be mostly small cosmetic changes.  This is partly due to my own personal preference, and partially due to the fact that I’d forgotten how to draw my characters, so I’m just winging it.  We’ll see how it all goes.

Over the next week or two I’ll be posting some more sketch book stuff while I work things out, then I’m going to pick the strip back up.  It’s not going to take up where it left off, but hopefully those few of you still reading will approve.

New comic will be posted friday.  Until then, more sketches.

This page is all about keeping the drawing loose.  Lately I’ve been really trying for expressive lines, gesture, and movement in my drawing.  Not that I’m trying to get away from or am against tight technical work… but I think there needs to be a balance of both (in my work anyways.)

Also, looseness helps the production speed.

What we have here, is a design for Adam’s dad, a drawing of The Announcer, a couple experiments with smaller character designs to see what clearly shows up on screen and what doesn’t, and at bottom right, a couple of characters that’ll be making appearances in the new comics (one of which will hopefully be coming out next week.)

That’s right, I plan on producing a new comic next week. Hopefully it’ll be appearing on wednesday.

No joke, just doing a little character redesigning maybe. I’ve never been happy with the character of Adam’s dad… Adam’s dad was the character that I designed without actually designing him, and what I mean is that I wrote a joke that needed the dad, and I decided to just draw him without any of my usual planning, but now that I have some new jokes coming up that involve a greater dad presence, I feel I need to rectify the situation.

Basically, what you’re all looking at are the usual sketches I do while trying to figure out what it is that I’m doing with the character. I fool around with facial structure, proportion, and possible robotic parts. I haven’t yet decided what changes to implement. Basically, now is your time as readers to weigh in if you want… Or not. It’s cool either way.