The Super Cliche Hero Chick #4 is Off to the Printers.

Hello!
The newest issue of my superhero sitcom "the Super Cliche Hero Chick" is off to the printers. And should be available October 15. For this issue we decided to go with a group of short stories highlighting different parts of the Hero Chick world.
  

The Future!

When I started making The Super Cliche Hero Chick last year I thought, "oh I'll write the two or three Superhero stories that have been aching to get out of my brain and get on to my other projects!" Hero Chick was only to be in a couple of comics and then maybe there would be others down the road as ideas came to me. You know the first story where she beats up the thug? Stories like that where supposed to be the extent of her existence. 

But y'know Creative endeavors never seem to go quite the way you expect, and as I was writing the first Issue Hero Chick took on a life of it's own! I started to really have a thing for the characters and as I wrote the origin and started working on the other stories. They began to really work for me. In fact issue two was written in an evening after falling out of love with the two followups I had already written (they're unlikely to see the light of day any time soon) Alice, Drew and Soon Erin took hold of me. But it wasn't just me they took a hold of. They also caught my cousin Ruben* in they're thrall. And as a leap of faith in both him as a writer and myself as collaborator** I offered Ruben to come on board as co writer. Then something happened, ideas really took off.  Ruben has this amazing ability to come up with an entire plot line from a line of dialogue in the current story! And when we started talking about ideas, they just kept going and by the time we had finished writing Issue 3 and I was drawing it we had started on at least four other stories! I think I like this collaboration business.

In a round about way what I'm getting to is that The Super Cliche Hero Chick isn't going anywhere, and for those of you along with us for the ride, it's only getting better.

Here's a bit of what's in store for The Super Cliche Hero Chick...

A Sharper focus. Hero Chick has had a bit of an identity crisis in it's first year as I then We have tried to figure out just what makes it tick. It's been a straight parody, big comedy, action, and situation comedy. And trying to figure out what, that we do is special, I think we've arrived at the answer. The Super Cliche Hero Chick is above all under all of the action a character piece. I'm for lack of a better term calling it a superhero sitcom.*** Not that the action is going away! but expect to see more character driven and comical work in the future.

Bigger Stories. The next three stories, and possibly the fourth (as planned today) are huge. With Ruben and I reaching to the farthest levels of our creative ambition. I mean these are so big I will have to be at the absolute top of my game as a cartoonist to even hope that they'll be pulled off.

An Arc based story structure. Since The Super Cliche Hero Chick is not going anywhere anytime soon. Ruben and I have gotten more comfortable with linking our stories together, forming arcs that we're jokingly referring to as seasons. If you've been following the book you are in the mid way point of season one, of which there are two more episodes, as planned. These have followed the loose arc (we hadn't thought of this until we where writing what will probably be issue 6) of Alice taking up the mantle of Hero Chick. The next Season starts at (the proposed) issue 7. Now those of you that are worried that we'll be dropping the stand alone Nature of the series. Don't worry! We plan for each issue of The Super Cliche Hero Chick to be a satisfying experience to any reader whether as a stand alone adventure or a chapter in a bigger narrative. Each book is more of a sequel to the previous not another episode in a serial.

A tighter Schedule (I hope) The Super Cliche Hero Chick has operated on the tightest turnaround I've ever had making comics, having something new for each Convention season. But I know, especially with the creative burst we've been having, it isn't good enough. I mean at the rate I'm going I'll be finishing Season one in 2015. So I'm going to try to get my turn around to bi monthly, I really hope I can for both you guys and myself, but I work a job, and try to get wahtever freelance and convention work I can get in between, so i won't promise you guys anything until I've actually acommplished it.

More con appearances (and hopefully getting Ruben to them) I've learned that the only way to get the book out there is to get out there! So I hopefully will be getting to more cons in the next year. I really need to find something (preferably in the LA area) in the middle months of the year. Also I hope to get Ruben to more since half the creative team just doesn't seem quite as impressive. But as said earlier he is a busy man and has the misfortune (at least for cons) of working on Saturday, but we're working on it.

Well here's to Hero Chick's Future. Hope you come along.

*Check out his Tumblr Doctor Jigga Who the Expert on Everything. He doesn't update often (he's quite busy and I think I'm taking up all of his writing time :P) but, just like the man, it is very insightful, funny and heartfelt.
**Something I had never done and was afraid I was too self centered to do. 
***I love this name but sitcom has so many unfortunate implications these days.

Hero Chick Issue #4 Progress.

Hey Everybody. for as you probably recall I did a progress Journal for Issue 3 of my Comic Series, "The Super Cliche Hero Chick". I've chosen not to do one for Issue Four. Since I haven't I've decided to show you a couple of bits from the upcoming book.

After the big action pieces that where the last two issues I've decided to go more low key with this one. Issue four is comprised of four short stories. Two of which are introduction of other heroes in the Hero Chick world, one is an epilogue written for issue three that just didn't quite fit into an issue that was already ten pages over, and finally the last is the most unique Hero Chick story to date. Well enough of that! on to the purdy pictures.

The Comic-Con 2013 Post.

Friday's Exhibit Hall.

Well I've finally gotten my life back to normal, so now it's time to reminisce about Comic-Con International 2013. It was a fun show not the blast that previous years have tended to be but very fun nonetheless.

Comic-Con is an interesting show for me, while I tend to have a great time at it every year, I'm left with a feeling that this year will be the year the other shoe drops and it won't be fun anymore, or at least not fun enough to deal with all of the crap that going to Comic-Con International requires. Well I can merrily say that this is not that year. Though it came close.

Purses

Hey everybody it's been a while since I last posted here. Well let me tell you, when you're driving down the highway and encounter a reverse space wedgie of immense proportions, turn around, just turn around. That said I'm alright and I'm already at work on The Super Cliche Hero Chick #4 and I figured I should put something up on the ol' Wonder Blog. So What shall I post about? I'm not doing a production blog for this issue as I spend most of those going "uh.... this week I drew... and stuff" I could write about how DC and Marvel seem allergic to making money... but that's too much work. I know! I'll write one of my self proclaimedly (that's a word... now) witty and insightful comic culture pieces, Hm, uh.

Purses! 

Hey where are you going? this one's gonna be good!

Okay As you may know I write comics. And I've done two series' that have both been led by female main characters. Well  the other day I noticed something, only twice (in the same issue) in my ten years of drawing female led comics have I ever drawn a purse. I thought "well that's an oversight I draw women and I've consistently left out one piece of  kit almost every woman I know carries." After this thought I noticed, while reading comics, nobody draws women with purses, or at least no one who draws the comics I've been reading. And that got me thinking, "is it an oversight or a purposed omission?" And sadly I don't know, I really don't have an answer to that. But I wouldn't be me if I didn't make up some. So here are my thoughts on this huge yet not that big omission in comicdom.

Comic artists are mostly guys and can't get into a feminine mindset. 

Let's face it most comics artists are guys (sadly) and guys just don't think about lady things all that often, unless their married or researching. So let's say married. Since men don't carry purses they don't give them any thought. And sadly many of the men that draw comics think girls have cooties* so it's not likely to change. As for the women who draw comics maybe they're all folks who don't carry purses, or maybe they do carry purses and I'm seriously over thinking this. so onto another reason.

The purse is so ever present that it's invisible. 

There's a psychological concept (sorry I'm not gonna look up what it's called for a silly post about purses) in which we view a persons affects as a part of them. This is best exemplified by the scenario where you see you're uncle Horace in his car driving down the street  and you say "Hey it's uncle Horace!" instead of the more accurate "It's uncle Horace in his bitchin' 57 Chevy". Uncle Horace's car becomes him when he's in it,  perhaps this same effect happens with women and their purses. Leaving the purse as an un-thought about detail. Or it could just be...

Comic artists draw a bajillion things for every comic and who gives a crap about a stupid purse. 

This is probably the heart of the matter. Most comics involve drawing the same thing over and over again, while nowhere on par with animation, a comic artist could easily draw their characters around  a hundred times per issue. And that's on top of places, things, cars, animals, monsters, weaponry, airplanes, explosions, shrapnel, Kirby crackle, power cosmic, dinosaurs, spacecraft, not life as we know it aliens, and cosmic incidents rivaling the big bang. In all of this it's really pretty easy to forget a little thing like a purse.

This is kind of a shame because personal affects can be great tools of visual narrative. Because anything someone keeps on their person can tell us about that person without being told. So maybe we artist should think more about little things like purses. Maybe it'll help us in making our characters people, and thus our comics better.  

Hey this worked out pretty good maybe I should do more of these. Well see you around. 


* sorry I just need to take that potshot again. 
 







 

Hero Chick #3 is Here!

Well you've followed it from the day I started drawing it and now Hero Chick #3 is a real honest to god comic! I just received my copies from the printer and they look good. The comic will be making it's debut at the Long Beach Comic Expo May 11. What's that I hear you say, You can't make it to the Long Beach Comic Expo? Well you can pick it, and issues one and two, up from indyplanet.com.


Speaking of the Long Beach Comic Expo. I will be at table 5000 it's on a corner right inside the door to the exhibit hall look for the red table cloth and the lovely comic pictured to the right. 

Production blog 18

Hello and welcome to my last Hero Chick Production blog. As you've probably guessed, I've finished up issue #3 and it's off to the printers. I'm sorry it's been a while since I wrote one of these but I was in a mad dash to get the book done on time for it to be ready at the Long Beach Comic Expo on May 11.  Also the pages I was producing where full of spoilers and we wouldn't want to see those now would we. Maybe I'll make a process book and put it up on my deviantart after the book is out. 

But there's one more thing to talk about when it comes to a comic and that's the cover. So for this final Production blog we're gonna talk about designing the cover....