Herald_daDooom.df

Last find: Kelly, after foiling the Ruemore and meeting Joe, finally lands an official post as Darling Find Clerk.
Now find 8!

This special comic is for the first annual(?) Yale Herald Comics' April Fools Day Stunt; half of a collaboration with Dan.

How to read: Our two comics form one big comic--his character asks, "Want to buy a fish tank?" then my top frame, then back to his comic, "An arm and a leg," and then finish with mine. They link through the gutter-crossing phone wires, enabled by Chittenden's tinkering.

Easter Eggs: There's a canceled event involving smiling, a graffiti "screw D," a store called Noooo, the Kool-Aid Man's wall-smashing catchphrase, Find 8 on the Jam Tank, and fishy debris.

Fun Facts: I'd prepared a comic with one panel reserved for Fooling, but they convinced me to make a whole new comic, which fits in the story, too.

Many thanks to the entire comics staff for taking part--last time I proposed a stunt, it failed miserably!

Reuxben

Fun_Salute2Chito

Some people are bad.

Some people are good.

Some people are something else.

Here's to you, Chittenden.

You:
-Got me used to inking
-Taught me to scan
-Taught me to be Comics Editor
-Suckered me into working on the Record
-Introduced me to the Herald
-Rock the colors

Thanks,

Reuxben

Record_RealRadioactives

Just by pure chance, I visited the YDN page and discovered that the Tower Parkway (<--where I live) power plant (<--near where I live) was ablaze!

Well, here's another power plant-related disaster: it's my first submission for the Yale Record, from way back in that wonderful, beautiful time I like to call Freshman Year. The assignment was to depict "realistic" outcomes for superheroes after their radioactive origins.

It was for the equally disastrous Nuclear Issue, the first issue of last school year. As rough and limited as the piece is, that's just how pure and unlimited my first year felt. Ah, I miss Freshman Year.

Easter Eggs: None! Lame.

Fun facts: This was the first time I'd ever seen my stuff Photoshopped. And who else but the unflappable Chittenden to cover colors. It's also a fun(?) contrast to our most recent collaboration, the Travel Issue cover. Completely opposite: wonky pencils and inks, and it's black and white.

Hopefully things keep on--or start?--getting better. I dunno.

Reuxben

Fun_TravelCover_MO

This week's the Making Of...the Travel Issue's Cover for the Yale Record. This is my second cover, but it's significant because it's the triumph of more complex covers over painfully simplistic ones--like my first cover, in fact! This issue also had other points I argued for: black pages and text wrap! Hopefully these changes stick around.

Ok, first was an in-progress shot. Very light, image still forming, many missing elements.

Now the final pencils! Everything's pretty much locked in and it just needs to be inked, cleaned up, and then colored!

And after some inking and erasering it's finally ready to be sent off to that coloring dynamo, the incredible Chittenden!

Here's our first colored draft (along with a mock-up of the final cover design).

Coloring was tricky because it was Thanksgiving break and everyone was scattered to their hometowns.

Over email we tried working as much out as possible, and this came out pretty well, considering.

After a few notes, this is just about the final draft for colors. There were really small tweaks afterwards, which you can find here.

Note that this is where all those weird planes were off to: the Record logo's O.

And that's the Travel Issue's cover.

Reuxben

Record_TravelCover

Here's the culmination of this cycle's Record hype: I did the cover for the Travel Issue. Beautiful colors by the indefatigable Chittenden.

This is a vast improvement over my first cover, for the Food Issue.

I've been pushing for more complicated covers and used the Food Issue as evidence of why plain covers suck. This issue's cover represents a definite win. Now if we can just get the interiors in step, we will finally dethrone that other magazine, aesthetically, at least.

Working with our wonderful colorist over Thanksgiving break was cool. The COOLER thing was being told that we'd all further work on tweaking colors when everyone involved returned to campus but then being completely cut out of the process! Sweet!

Easter Eggs: Kool-Aid man's leafy shirt design, The cop's owl logos, and a Da Vincian flying machine.

Fun Facts: Mini-jokes and a higher complexity are so important to a successful cover and such an important issue for me that I wrote one of my Spanish compositions on this subject.

Also: Curse you, Yale Record, for actually being funny this time.

Also also: this is post 50. Pretty exciting...

Reuxben

Herald_Depressed

This week's comic is about a personal philosophy: it doesn't matter how bad you've got it, you have no right to complain when there are people out there that are really, truly suffering.

My "bad days" mean nothing, especially here at Yale; I have it great, others do not. They have a right to complain. It would be selfish and insulting to try to whine about life's little annoyances when God's been so good to me.

Easter Eggs: Chittenden's "The Philosopher" and sewing machine, Motion City Soundtrack's Justin Pierre, Dee Dee from Commons, Harkness Tower hairstyle, sleeptalking like Ramos, Wal-Mart's smile, Betty from "The Future Freaks Me Out," and shackle-like uniform trim.

Fun facts: First time including females in a "Lighter Light" comic plus seated poses from a pose sheet by Mel Milton.

Thanks for visiting,

Reuxben

Fun_ChittyBirthday

This is for my "boss" (the helpful one), who is celebrating a birthday tomorrow.

So, happy birthday.

Easter eggs: inside jokes here and there (composition's like a spooky picture of him, art style mimics his, coloring relfects his love of color, text contains a name he often uses in his comics as well as his own nickname).

Fun fact: I actually have a list of names of people that I want surprise with art due to birthdays or other events. So I'll get to them all eventually. I hope.

Also, I'll likely happily draw $omething for someone I don't know I guess; I'm very lonely so I don't have much reason not to.

Reuxben