Howdy folks!

I've had an extended break from journaling here, trying to wrap up Shady Ranch, which I intended on finishing early January, and here we are beginning February and alas, I'm still wrestling with it.

The main problem was when I got my first test print back, I read the comic and was literally laughing out loud at some of the dialogue.  While the tone of the comic is sort of light, the subject matter is dark, and trying to find the right balance  to keep the reader in the right state of mind proved to be difficult.  Shady Ranch isn't super serious, but some of the dialogue was down right ridiculous!

So from there I decided to rewrite alot of the dialogue, and also correct a couple pages where the panels were'nt flowing right.  So I spent a couple evenings rewriting and redrawing those pages.  

The ending was especially tricky, because I wanted to tease the next book, but I also wanted the last fight scene to have some dramatic tension to it.  The version I have uploaded currently sort of abrubtly ends, and I wanted to fix it for awhile but couldn't think of a way to do so without completely redrawing alot of panels that I had become attached to.

Well... as Stephen King says, sometimes you have to kill your darlings.  So I started from page 32, and basically completely redrew the last 4 pages.  right now I'm inking page 36, and hope to have the whole book finished by the end of the week.

Printing Woes:

For printing I chose to use Kablam, at the suggestion of one of my friends (who's comics can be found on Indyplanet, "Adventures of the Double Duece")

Kablam had my print to me in 10 days, however the stapling was a little off center, and some of the pages were misaligned.  (I really wish i knew how to add photos to this journal entry)

Anyway, basically I sent them an email and the response was "we are using a new stapling machine, and we will keep an eye on that" So I'm going to give them another shot, with a single print, and see if it is corrected, but I would be weary of ordering a large number of comics for a convention, because although it doesn't make them unreadable, it screams "unprofessional" if your toting comics that look like they were put together in a malasian sweatshop.

I've got alot of ideas bouncing around in my head for my next comic, and don't exactly know what It will be yet...  If Shady Ranch sells well I'll start the sequel- otherwise Ive got some other genres I'm itching to explore...

will