Dear Subconscious:

I realize that Bruce Campbell and graveyardgreg share a certain over-the-topness. However, that's no reason for you to be inflicting upon me dreams in which Greg performs the If You Have It, You Don't Need It routine in what appears to be a co-ed locker room.

I mean, seriously, WTF.

What's next, tygercowboy on a football field, reciting, "Hello ladies! How are you? Fantastic. Look at your man — now back to me!"?

-The Gneech

Perspective! [artwork]

One of the most neglected, and yet simultaneously most important, aspects of comic art is drawing backgrounds. It doesn't matter quite as much in a comic strip, where a couple of talking heads floating in space has been the norm since Peanuts hit the papers, but in a comic book, you absolutely have to have a solid background in order to sell a scene.

This becomes doubly true if you're working on a fantasy story. It doesn't have to be realistic, necessarily, but it does have to look like your characters actually are somewhere. My new comic is a fantasy adventure, and the backgrounds are going to be vital to making it believable, so I figured some background and perspective practice is in order. The weather made getting out to draw some actual buildings a less-than-pleasing prospect, so I pulled out Barron's Perspective Drawing (Drawing Academy) and started going through the exercises in it.

( This is what I came up with... )

Not too shabby in all. :) I guess that practice stuff pays off! The tricky part will be to keep doing good backgrounds when I'm putting characters in front of them, too...

-The Gneech