nb "strip" format???

I had a crazy idea last night. For a while now I've formatted/laid out most of my Nothing Better pages divided into thirds horizontally. It developed naturally from a storytelling perspective and once I realized I was doing it, it has provided a nice structure/constraint to work off of. I also think it greatly helps set the pacing of the story. Last night I wondered, "could I chop the pages into thirds for online posting?" This post is a good example of what it would look like.

Bad idea? Good idea? The "plus" being that I could update three times a week versus one, but with the same amount of material. Would you rather have three little chunks like this over the week, or a whole page at a time??? Hmm...

space rock

for some reason I can't quite figure, I really love the drawing I posted for Page-A-Day today.

OMG here they come!!

I've kept a pretty low online profile over the summer because I've been busy finishing the Nothing Better Vol 2 collection and guess what - it's finally done!! got it back from the printer last week. and that's not all - I've got another new book to put out too. that's right - TWO NEW BOOKS!


that second book is Stylish Vittles Vol 4 Behind the Page: The Saga of Rob Harvard. that's right - I finally went back and finished the Stylish Vittles storyline. this fourth volume contains the amazing and absolutely true story behind the Stylish Vittles graphic novels and is not to be missed. this will be a limited edition book - it is hand-printed and hand-bound and there will only ever be 250 of them. EVER!

I will have both of these new books at FallCon this coming weekend so if you're in the Twin Cities area, come pick them up! they will be available through my online store soooooon. STAY TUNED!!

bike'n stuff

been neglecting my various online homes. recovering from the school year and finishing up the script/layouts for Nothing Better 14. resuming regular posting. here's some bike-related sketches from a while back...

recent sketchbook page

"gombah gombah" is a term cori recently coined for an eating sound.

NB Vol2 cover

workin' away...

darker!

I was looking at some other people's work the other day, of vampires and monsters, and it reminded me, as so often happens when I look at work like that, that I should do some. I drew lots of monsters when I was a kid but I mostly stick to people now.

so I sat down to draw some vampires or monsters or whatever, and this is what came out. just a dirty looking guy and a sketchy/edgy version of katt. and a wolfman to boot.

sometimes I wonder if my Nothing Better style is too middle-of-the-road. sure, it's cartoony, but it's ultimately pretty representational and sometimes I really want to push it into something more stylized. or maybe I just want to push my storytelling into edgier territory where I can make use of more blacks and dramatic effects.

I'll continue to work on this...

half links!

Originally uploaded by David Ribas

check out this wacky chain made up of half links!

nubbly and beady-eyed us

I've really been into drawing characters with nubbly teeth lately. it's especially fun to draw my established Nothing Better characters this way - and give them beady little eyes. makes them look kind of perpetually dopey. in fact it made me think about the idea of an NB daily strip or something - if I would draw the characters goofier.

and the drawing of katt on the far left i was thinking about how if NB were a daily comic I could put the characters in more timely outfits and possibly turn their clever t-shirts into products like some webcomickers do. or maybe I'm poking fun at them. I can't tell...

abc's

k's and f's are becoming my favorite letters to draw. and i'm really drawn (no pun intended) to lowercase forms for some reason. even to the point where I only type with caps when necessary.

scott pilgrim

if you don't know who or what Scott Pilgrim is, you should get hip to it right now! especially because Edgar Wright is in Toronto making it into a movie with Michael Cera and other cool people. the best part is his production/photo blog. it looks like they're having a ton of fun making the movie and Wright has done a good job of teasing the public with actors as their comic counterparts. can't wait to see this!

freelance

here's a peak at what I'm working on outside of Nothing Better. it was mentioned in a Publisher's Weekly article a few days ago so I figured it was safe to at least say something. more info when I know it's okay to be more particular.

thinkin' about tomorrow

kind of digging this idea of song titles/band names. might do more but I'd like to figure out a more solid 'direction' for it. my initial idea with the previous AC/DC image was that the type was supposed to be in opposition to the hard edge of the band's music and image. we'll see.

you forgot the lightening bolt!

meetings...

meetings are the grown-up version of sitting through a class lecture in school - and we all know how great class was for doodling in the margins of your notebooks and coming up with brilliant ideas, right? I used to come up with so many great ideas. so I end up doodling when I am in a meeting a lot. this was from the other day. no big brilliant ideas but some fun silly drawings. I especially like the bird. and the guy in the left margin with the mole. he made me realize I never give full consideration to facial blemishes when I design characters. MORE MOLES!

doodlin

color sketch

some more color sketching - playing with photoshop. not really sure what I'm going for, and I don't know how well this sketchy, textured style works with the drawing. but it's fun to play. katt is wearing a shirt in support of THIS WEBSITE which does an excellent job of highlighting local twin cities music.

drinkin'

Came across this amazing animated comic by Vincent Giard that does a good job of getting at the feeling of being just a *little* too drunk. Lots of good comics and drawings there.

sketchage

magenta

an interesting article about the color magenta, and how we process color in general.

lines and waves

letterrrrrs

given how shaky I was with lettering my comics in the beginning, drawing letterforms is something I've really come to appreciate and enjoy. I've always had fun designing the various logos I've made - and often wished I had reason to do more. I've gotten back to polishing my pitch for the Cuffs graphic novel and planning on making up some posters to send along with it. these are some sketches for the band name on the poster(s). I've been thinking lately it would be neat to start a 3rd career as a type designer...

love for the comic

I was pleasantly surprised this afternoon with this very nice and well-written review of Nothing Better. Totally made my day!

messing around

trying to mess around more with digital inking and painting. I don't know that this image is totally "finished" but it was at a good place to stop without knowing what else I was going to do with it. but I'm getting a better hang of the various paintbrushes in photoshop that I've neglected for a long time. just trying to have some fun!

elemental

I happened to catch sight of a periodic table a few weeks back and got the idea to do this. I thought it was pretty clever - a name/profile as an element on the periodic table.

i thought this old post appropriate as I've been feeling the same way lately - which is not a bad thing. I like having lots to do. but it *would* be great to have a truly relaxing day or two. hmm - what does past-tyler have to say?
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(originally posted 3/30/04)
So many projects, so little time. (I wrote this one line right after I got to work yesterday and didn't get any farther. ugh.)

In the grand scheme of things, I suppose it's not so bad, but there is just such a long list of things I'm trying to work on. As usual, the difficulty is that I generate more good ideas than I'm physically capable of working on. Up until the last few months I've allowed myself to focus solely on Stylish Vittles, but I've found that doing a little other stuff here and there helps keep me interested in that as well as purge that backlist of projects.

It's one of those situations where I get some really good ideas for stories or projects, good enough to say, "hey, I want to work something up," and add it to my list. Trouble is that by the time I cross off one thing on that list, 5-10 more things have been added.

I've got my focus narrowed down to just a few now, though: there's Stylish Vittles Book 3 of course, and then the Jane Fisher story; also, Ride to Work, Le Tour, Alloy, A Cori Story, and bringing up the rear is a Girlfriends story.

What I'm planning on doing is adding a 'Projects' list to The Tyler Page, both for myself and anyone else interested in my work, as a reminder of what's going on - my obsession for the last several months is simply getting more work out on a regular basis. Now that I've published 2 graphic novels, with a third on the way, I'm finding that there is something lacking in coming out with a book with such long spans of time in between. While I am still enjoying that work, there is a frustration that, for example, here I am getting ready to head to SPACE this weekend, the first convention of the season, with no real new work. I will have Mini Vittles with me, put together for the express purpose of having something sort of 'new,' but how much nicer it would be to have a new issue of something to talk to people about, etc.

So I've spent a lot of time just turning that problem over in my head: what can I do, which stories can I tell that would lend themselves to publishing more often?... Hopefully, the Jane Fisher story will be the first of that. I've got it mostly written and I'm starting to lay it out. It shouldn't take me more than a couple of months to get drawn. Along with the Ride to Work story, it should give me enough material to maybe put out an SV Special late in the summer.

We'll see. I have work to do.
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I don't remember what some of those other projects are, but Jane Fisher turned into Nothing Better and that's been updating regularly online for two years now! and I started page-a-day last fall and that's working well. I've got work coming out my ears!

starting over

I have had a blogger account since 2001 when I started 'the tyler page,' but I stopped updating when I started using livejournal. the last post I made to 'the tyler page' was back in 2005! I started other blogs for my stylishvittles.com and nothing better news updates. but i know a lot more people using blogger now so I thought it was time to start up again - probably just cross-posting here and livejournal if you care. I saved and imported all of those old blog entries and I'm thinking it might be fun to re-post one here once in a while. you'll just have to wait and see!