[Updated: Vol 4 No 3 will release on comiXology February 18]

Had to revise page 22 of Ralph Snart Vol 4 No 3 to change the first panel for comiXology acceptance. First panel shows the original (from 1992) with "Homey Simpson". Second shows my revision that will be in the edition available on my online store, and the third panel shows my revision for comiXology. To their credit, they accepted the revision in a matter of hours.

I changed "Homey Simpson" to "Homer Johnson" because it's enough to safely fall under the parody banner. I further changed the drawing of the character for comiXology, not because they requested it, but just to avoid anymore rejections.

Finally got around to updating my store to match what's on comiXology's site. More books to come. There'll be some exclusive books too (not on comiXology).

comiXology is sometimes pretty slow and at the least very inconsistent with releasing books (probably understaffed). Submitting a book can take anywhere from two weeks to four months before release. Books will release much faster for my store.

Also, my store will always have the latest update to my books. When you submit to comiXology, you can't do any updates, so there's no way to go back and do any editing.

Stay tuned...

By this Wednesday, four comics will have been released through comiXology; Volume 3, numbers 19 through 22. Number 23 should release the following week. Of volume 4, issues 1 and 2 have been submitted, and I'm still working on number 3. I've also submitted the Weird Melvin comics issues 1 through 6. Soon I'll submit two graphic novels; Ralph Snart volume 7 and Weird Melvin comic strips. After that, I'll probably start work on Ralph Snart volume 3, numbers 16 - 18. Or maybe volume 5. Who knows. Eventually, everything on comixology will be mirrored on my site. When I catch up on all of this, I should have about 50 comics/books available - essentially all of my Snart, Weird Melvin and Doctor Gorpon stuff.

Just an update...

RSA issues will soon be offered on Comixology (Amazon). These will be individual issues and not the collected books. Eventually, I'll mirror this on my online store. Issues will be higher resolution and 99 each. Volume 3, issues 19-23 are done, and working on Volume 3, issues 16-18. I'll soon submit Volumes 4 through 7 to Comixology. New issues (Volume 8) will also eventually be offered. Not to mention the Doctor Gorpon and Weird Melvin series.

I say eventually a lot and mean it. I continue to plod purposely ahead without losing sight of the end goal - having all of my stuff available digitally.

Made beer #25 last weekend, so it's still fermenting away in the basement. This'll be my third doing a keg instead of bottling - definitely easier and faster. Hops are growing good so far - would love another 3+ ounce crop.

Not all books were colored in the method spelled out here. The issues done by the NOW staff were painted blue lines using watercolors and dyes, brush and airbrush. Almost all of the covers I did were done this way. I think Volume 3 Issue 5 was the only one not painted.

Volume 3 Issues 8 and 9 were colored with a special set of markers. I can't remember what they were, but it was at the request of whoever was doing the color separations. As the markers ran out, the tones became inconsistent and basically looked crappy.

The color separations in Fangraphix Issue 4 (1985) was done by Tony Caputo and I by hand. This was done by pasting a stat of the art on a board and then taping three layers of acetate on top. Each layer represented cyan, magenta and yellow. On those layers we would adhere different screens of zipotone for tones and rubylith for solid color. If there was a tone for black, that was adhered right to the stat. This was extremely tedious, but was a good education on color breakdowns and helped when I colored the later books. Aah, the good ol' days before computers.

The digital coloring is complete for Volume 3 issues 19 through 23. This will comprise Comic Collection #8. Below will give you an idea of the difference. In the image, on the left is a scan of the original comic page and on the right is the new coloring.Besides the improvement in quality, mistakes are being fixed along the way. And every page has several mistakes. For most of the books, I indicated the coloring. This was done by making photocopies of each page to printed size. I then colored the photocopies with Prismacolor markers because they wouldn't smear the photocopy ink or bleed on the paper. Each area of color was then marked referencing a color chart from the printer. Each color had it's own id number. Tony Caputo allowed me to do 3-4 gradients per book. The fewer the better because they cost extra.

Many of the mistakes in coloring were due to the printer not following my marker indications exactly. So, sometimes you'd get a character's hand colored the color of their arm sleeve. And then there are the books that weren't colored by myself, and all I have to do is refer you to issues 16 and 25 of Volume 3. In the image below, on the left is a panel from issue 16 colored by the NOW staff, and on the right is the same panel that I did from issue 25.In the panel colored by the NOW staff, you can't even tell the dad is wearing a tie, and all of the cross hatching in the background, which takes time to execute, disappeared in a dark blue blur. Needless to say, I wasn't pleased. After crap like that, I was not the friend of the NOW staff.

[UPDATE: Sale is over, but stock that's left is still available.]

I guess this means there'll be no Snart movie. Below, inks I did for the cover of NOW's Ghostbuster comic.[UPDATE]: Finished coloring Volume 3 Issue 21, and now working on 19 and 20. Beer #24 is quite tasty.

UPDATE: One week later. Krausen has dropped (almost ran out of head space) and the beer is starting to clear. Two more weeks to go before transferring to the keg.Saturday saw the proud birth of beer #24. Isn't it adorable?Looks darker than it is - SRM is about 8.2. Also made a bread from some of the spent grains - lots of fiber and tastes like the wort.Working on coloring Volume 3 Issue 22 and the new book. Also finished a drawing I owed Barry Petersen.