Love the voice, love the colouring. I’ve got a thing for thick black outlines, dunno why.

I can never decide whether to wait a few months until enough pages have built up to devour in one sitting, or just pounce on them as they are released… Ah, who am I kidding, I’m always going to read them as they come out. I have no patience.

No “Zok!”? But I grok Zok!

Awesome.

I like it. Mr. O’Mega makes me uncomfortable, which is absolutely perfect for an evil corporate overlord. I don’t quite understand where the Reality Check caption box comes in, though.

Keep up the good work, guys.

Jeff

The Reality Check is my favorite “bit” (disclaimer: I am not, nor have I ever pretended to be, from the UK)

Well done.

THE HOLIDAY MEN CREATOR COMMENTARY TRACK, WEEK 2

A: Well, here we are, Andrew and Nick are back at it again, avoiding the things we should be doing by discussing stuff we’ve already done. Let’s get this commentary train rolling…

N:Choo, choo!

A: Have you been a little disappointed everybody’s looking at the scroll format and going “It’s two pages”? I am. I mean, it IS two pages, but I thought–or hoped, anyway–that putting them together and adding the title, credits, and next installment tease would get readers coming at it in a different frame of mind. I mean, you and I are absolutely intending to get in print with this stuff at some point, but I didn’t want people thinking we’re using the web as a “safety format”, y’know?

That’s part of where the title and footer elements–another eleventh hour addition to the strip–came from, a desire to give whatever audience we’re fortunate enough to attract a satisfying WEBCOMIC experience. Of course, I’m starting to feel the pressure of giving them that experience a little, coming up with suitable jokes and installment titles to start and finish each week’s piece off. I’m not saying it’s a great joke or anything, but only people who read the online version are going to be seeing the sound effects gag at the bottom of this week’s scroll.

And what do we get for all that effort? “It’s two pages.” I could weep.

N: And I’m sure you do. I got the same response but I hear the same thing even when I release full length comics. “It’s only 24 pages?” In a matter of minutes, they read three months worth of blood, sweat and tears. I just take it as a good sign that they want more.

A: If it helps, I’m reasonably sure they won’t read three months’ work on the H-Men in three minutes. Not if they’re actually READING it…

Moving onto the actual, y’know, story…that first panel look a little sparse to you? I’m not saying it’s drawn badly, far from it, but it feels…empty. Maybe my perspective on the desired level of textual density in a panel is a little too skewed from this project, but I really feel like I dropped the ball here, and should’ve come up with some sort of infofeed to put in this panel.
Of course, if I did that, I’d have to do it in practically every panel that’s not crammed full of stuff, and that way lies madness (”A short trip for someone like you,” I can hear my wife saying…)

N: Nah, it was just poorly put together. For once I left room for text, but didn’t realize it was one of the lightest panels of it.

A: You know there’s this thing called “the script” that describes all that prior to you drawing it, right…?

N: I knew I had to make it clear that Nick was on the O’Mega-Mart roof, so I had to throw that little sign point in there. And I knew the actual store was supposed to be really big so I figured the distance would help show that. All in all, I wasn’t really happy with the panel, but I had to trudge on. Though if anyone asks, I blame you. Mantra of the artist: “It’s always the writer’s fault.”

A: That reminds me, I’ve got to get that t-shirt with SCAPEGOAT written boldly across the chest finished…

Have I mentioned I love the stuff you’ve done with the balloons (the ones on strings, not the word balloons) yet? It’s the little things that hold something like this together. God knows the big stuff isn’t coherent enough to do the job…

N: Yeah I received another positive comment regarding the balloons. I really wanted this to look like a celebration and I sure as hell wasn’t going to draw millions of bits of confetti. The balloons also help fill up the panels if I notice too much empty space. Though that’s usually my response. “Empty space? Throw a balloon in there!” I realized after page 2 that the balloons would look better if they were being blown around instead of flying straight up, so you’ll notice a gust of wind picks up on page 3.

A: If I might have dropped the ball in the first panel, I or Ward definitely dropped it in the second. As you know, we had some difficulties getting a workable level of infofeed text readability inside the 600 width, 72 dpi format the ChemSet works in.

Actually, when Tiina sent me the first installment in that format for the first time–the day before the thing went live–I almost had a stroke. A lot of the infofeed stuff was hard to read, at best, and some of it was just impossible. I was almost in tears, till Tiina lowered the “heat” of the pink, which helped a lot.
After that, some things that need to be avoided, letteringwise, came in to focus. Onscreen, the italicized or angled infofeed text pixelates into near unreadability at the size we’re working at. And we need to maintain a certain minimum size.

I’m not sure which one we missed, here–but the “Do it when your parents aren’t at home” line is a little too fuzzy for my tastes.

N: That’s some seriously stressful shit but I’ve seen much worse in some webcomics. It’ll look better in print though right?

A: Yeah, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a weak link in the web presentation. I’m going to lose sleep over this…

The third panel’s a little tricky–you did great getting the “Nick’s squeezed tight” effect across (and I like how Tiina added to the effect with the lettering–she sort of stumbled into that one, but it was a happy accident), but I’d be happier if there was a little more context, just to make absolutely sure the reader knows he’s in the ventilation system. I suppose between the previous panel and the last six in this installment’s, I’m going to have to assume our readers are smart enough to figure out what’s going on. I’m also going to assume they’re vivacious and beautiful. Our imaginary readers are some really fabulous people.

N: I’m in love with all of them. Madly. Obsessively. I had big plans for that panel, a cool 3-D idea came to mind that I just couldn’t pull off. In all honesty, with at least 75% of all panels, I have some great thing in mind that I just can’t pull off. For the sake of progress and deadlines, I have to resign myself to simpler shots. Believe it or not, it was my first time drawing a fat guy squeezing into a tiny air duct. I should have made it a tighter fit…

A: Best compliment I’ve received for the H-Men so far is from someone who said they could actually see something like the Massacre Memorial Day Sale happening if terrorists did take out a large department store. O’Mega’s speech was supposed to be solidly in the realm of satire, even outright parody of certain chest-thumping political speeches I’m not going to directly refer to here. But I’m wondering if maybe I didn’t go over the top enough with it (there’s something you won’t often hear me wondering about when it comes to the H-Men…).

N: I’m sure you’ll make up for it very soon.

A: The two concurrent sequences presented in the last six panels were tricky from a lettering point of view. How were they to draw?

N: They were lots of fun, though tough knowing that there was so much dialogue to leave space for. I did actual reference on this van, unlike the flower van from the second page. “I’m not so good with vehicles,” he whispers. It was great drawing Bunny kicking some ass. I’d say he was the most fun to draw, but then I draw Nick or Val or Jacko and end up changing my mind. This comic is a literal blast to work on when I’m not sweating blood because of it. I really like that last panel. And who knew there two ways to spell “BIFF!”?

A: Making something interesting out of sound effects is rapidly becoming the biggest pain in my ass this project offers. Sometimes all you can do is Biff! Bam! Pow!, but I try to find some way to tweak them for (hopefully) humourous effect. The “Byph!” SFX actually led directly to the sound effects gag in the next installment teaser.

Originally, Nick Klaus had some dialogue when he entered the store, but I cut it out during lettering for a couple reasons. , First, the dialogue in the last panel he’s in was in reference to something that couldn’t really be seen in that panel. That aspect actually is visible at the beginning of his three panels, but it isn’t going to become relevant for a few more weeks. It didn’t seem like a good idea to toss it out and then let it dangle for more than an installment, so out it went, and in comes “Silent Ninja Nick” (the second-panel “KRNG!” notwithstanding.)

N: Honestly, I think my only critique for you thus far, Andrew, (aside from the constant dick jokes that Ward makes you cut out) is that with so many characters, and so much action, and so much dialogue in every episode of the Holiday Men, there really should be less panels per page. I’d rather draw 30 pages with room to breathe than 24 with too much crammed in. Ah, who am I kidding? I love dick jokes.

A: If I wrote the pages with a lower panel count, would you be able to draw them faster?

Yeah, I thought not. Suck it up, Artboy.

Keeping O’Mega’s speech flowing visually without cropping out too much art was a straight-up bitch for Bunny’s three panels. And we didn’t really have the option of shrinking panels down here, the way we did in the opening. Still, I’m very happy with the way Bunny’s sequence this week comes together.

N: Me too. Tiina is doing a fantastic job. Plus it had been two pages since I drew an action scene. I was getting restless.

A: And normally you’re so calm and restrained…riiiight…

Some people–well, one person, anyway–has asked what the Reality Check text is all about. From a storytelling perspective, the straight answer is “not much.” If I had to make some sort of argument for its inclusion (beyond “I find it faintly amusing”), I’d defend it on thematic grounds. “You can do anything you can set your mind to” is one of our culture’s great clichés, which I wouldn’t have a problem with if it was actually true. But it isn’t, and I think it sets a lot of people up for a lot of disappointment when they realize they’re destined to not be fabulously wealthy beautiful famous people.

N: Luckily I’m not one of those foolish people, right Andrew?…Andrew?

A: You’ve got an excuse–I’ve been lying to you about how incredibly successful and rich THE HOLIDAY MEN is going to make us from Day One.

It’s great to have aspirations and ambitions–anyone who gets into comics is going to need them to last more than fifteen minutes–but those need to be tempered by a realistic assessment of one’s own abilities. And all it takes is watching one commercial for early-season American Idol shows to know that a lot of people out there don’t have that.

N: Oooh, I love that show.

A: So, the Reality Check gets included as a jab at a Precious Lie that’s a part of North America’s cultural fabric, which is as close to a guiding philosophy as one’s likely to find for THE HOLIDAY MEN.

Jesus, have I always been this pompous?

N: No. just since I’ve known you.

A: I don’t think I was talking to you. Is your name Jesus?

N: P.S. I don’t really like American Idol.

A: OK, looks like we’re out of, let’s say, time. This is Andrew and Nick signing off. I hope you (and all your friends) will be back here at the Set in a couple of days for “The Holiday Manifesto”. Good night, and Good God, What is that? WHAT IS THAT??!?!?!

(I saw Cloverfield yesterday. Can you tell?)