Growing Up, Moving On: A Saturday Special

Ahoy! I’m all graduated! More on that another day – today I’m celebrating reaching 50 comics.

It seems like years and years ago I thought to myself, “To hell with it, I’ll just post them on a blog or something and see what happens.” A lot’s changed since then. For one, I know a little bit about Photoshop (how to make speech bubbles mostly) and I draw comics differently.

The first attempts at GUMO were horrendously misjudged. I drew about six comics and then decided to scrap all but one. It was awful. It wasn’t funny. It was a gaming comic (shudder.)

The comic that survived was Number Two – and, while we’re at it, those two aren’t coming back. They’re dead. They were in a car accident on their way to the studio to make the next comic. Sad, I know. They will be fondly missed.

So, with that in mind I decided that I should do something special for turning 50. I couldn’t be arsed to draw anything special, so I turned my attentions to the folder of comics on my desktop, and that’s when it occured to me: I have a bunch of comics that I’ve never put up!

Yes, friends, these are ten comics that, for one reason or another, I ended up not using. So rejoice! Today you get to see ten comics that weren’t good enough to make the cut! Is that a good thing? I don’t really know…

All I’ve done to these is add the missing dialogue. They are exactly as they were when I found them.

The first nine comics were victims of the Great Photoshop Crash of ’08. This first comic was one that I wasn’t too sure about and it sat unused until I wasn’t able to do anything with it.

Yes, that’s totally an Apollo Justice pose in panel 3.

This next one was going to be Number Twenty Five orginally, but it was lost in the Crash. The use of colour was my way of celebrating reaching half a half century. I was still going to use it, but by the time I had everything running again, British summer was over and the joke wouldn’t have been relevant.

I almost finished this one. Bloody Crash!

This next one was more of a study in drawing different facial expressions. I didn’t think it was that good, though.

While we’re on the subject, this is what I actually look like when playing Guitar Hero:

Serious face!

Next up, a comic that I really wanted to post up, but was destroyed in the Crash. It’s title was, “Jack Vs Call of Duty 4”.

Jack actually did this when we went to the PS3 showroom and had no idea he was saying it. Crazy.

Now it’s time for my tribute to Mario Kart Wii.

Looking back, it sure as hell isn’t the best Mario Kart. That position still belongs to the DS version.

Next, I tried my hand at telling a story without having people talk.

It would have looked good inked, I reckon. Just couldn’t be bothered – it was so out of date when everything was working that I decided to start again, instead of remaking old stuff.

The next one was almost finished. Sadly, the Crash happened just as I was going to put the dialogue in and it has sat around ever since, unfinished.

I really like the towel in panel one.

Bizarrely, I also have the pencils for this all scanned in:

I have no idea why I did this. You’d have thought I’d have learned my lesson after the last time I tried to work with pencils.

Now, the last victim of the Crash:

I still like it, even it is a bit dialogue-y. Jack’s expression in panel five cracks me up.

Now, one that was scrapped for completely different reasons – I didn’t find it funny!

A joke about sexual tension? Why did it seem funny in my head?

Anyway, random sidenote: I draw comics in bulk (between two and seven comics – it saves time scanning in the long run) and this was the first of such a group. The others were Number Forty Six through to Number Fifty One. As I was pencilling panel two, the pencil slipped slightly, giving Sam an entirely different chin. I liked it so much I made it her full-time chin and spent a while making the shapes of heads look different. For instance, Alex has a club chin, Jack has a sharp chin, Sam has a curved chin and Adam has a rounded chin.

Today’s final comic is a very strange beast. I made the entire thing, finished it, had it ready to post, everything. It was very nearly Number Twenty. But then I looked at it again. I decided that I didn’t really like it, that it wasn’t good enough to go up. It’s the most effort I’ve put into a comic, only to end up canning it. Oh well. It’s titled “Fun Things To Do At Parties”.

And that brings this celebration to a close. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading GUMO as much as I’ve enjoyed making it. Stick around for the next fifty – things are going to get all kinds of shaken up, trust me.

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