Fun_Horror_MO

Welcome to the start of another week. You might notice today's title may seem like a repeat of Friday, but there's a new twist. I feel forced to unveil this feature earlier than I had hoped, but here it is now: the new suffix, "MO," stands for "Making Of," so now you can see what goes into making one of my comics.

We initiate the feature with the thought line of last week's comic, "Horror" because as I feared, the inevitable (in my line of "work") has happened: someone has taken offense with one of my comics. So hopefully this more in depth look behind the scenes will help affirm that there's nothing malicious about last week's comic.

This is a shot from my Moleskine, a little black notebook I log my ideas in as soon as I think of them. This is the "thought line," the text that sums up my idea.

Again, from last week, I said I sent out a call to the Herald comics staff to try to do a uniform Horror theme week, as a Simpson's inspired "Halloween Special." I wanted the Herald Halloween special week to become a highlight of the year for readers, by having greatly different content just once per year, like the Simpsons' annual "Treehouse of Horror" special. Only one other person took part, and he did a very humorous take on it. But all throughout the week, in my daily ponderings of how to approach the theme, I decided that I wanted to actually scare people, even make them feel a little uncomfortable, but unfortunately I apparently offended someone instead.

Here is a page or so later in that same Moleskine. It's the pre-rough draft of what the comic will look like. I'm now starting to visualize my idea, aside from just text, and trying to put it all together in an interesting presentation. You can see the odd framing I wanted to use originally for the drinking and driving scenes.

Here's the proper rough draft. Check out the struggle to figure out that first frame. Also, you'll find the original dialogue differs from what finally appears. Many things typically change from here until the final draft.

And of course here we find our final draft, with Heroine's hair colored in this time. So ends an obviously notfunny comic that tackles an issue by presenting it so as to interfere with careless thoughts of aimless fun around this spooky Halloween time.

All I can say at this point is that anyone who can call last week's comic a joke is clearly missing the point. I would not like to meet the person who would find this comic humorous.

Would you?

As always thanks for visiting and for your support,

Reuxben