Awesome stuff guys! This is a lot of fun to read, and Nick’s art is awesome! Keep up the good work!!!

Figures that Cupid would be a total pervert!

Just one of the many facets of Andrew’s personality that made it into his characters. Thanks guys!

This just keeps getting better and better. I’m really digging how animated the character designs look in action. And the guns that are like real guns, except not. Awesome stuff guys.

Jeff

Great stuff. Puts me to mind of Steve Gerberish satire and from me there’s no higher compliment.

BTW, Steve is having some very challenging health issues. Everyone should visit his blog at http://www.stevegerber.com/sgblog/ to give him a word of support.I’m sure it will be appreciated.

COMMENTARY WEEK THREE

A: I thought I’d be bored of this by now, but nope, I’m just as fascinated by my thought processes and those of my HOLIDAY MEN collaborator as ever. Join me and Nick again, as we once again traverse the depths of our navels in a discussion of the trials and tribulations of putting together the third H-Men installment…

N: So. Much. Lint!

A: We open up this week with some of the ridiculous violence that readers are going to come to discover is a primary characteristic of the average HOLIDAY MEN story. If a group as splendiferous as THE HOLIDAY MEN can be said to have an “average” anything.
I’ve been a little nervous about the time it’s taken to get us to the point where the reader can recognize the lengths our quartet of Holiday icons are willing, if not eager, to go to in order to achieve their objectives. It’s one thing for someone to find out a title character’s willing to slaughter a bunch of at least potentially innocent bystanders on page five of a 24 page comic; it’s another to discover it two weeks after you’ve been introduced to the characters, at least potentially.
Over on the CanadianGeek.org forums, someone asked if The H-Men weren’t basically doing the same thing as O’Mega-Mart by senselessly killing its employees. I must admit I reacted somewhat defensively, a habit I’m going to have to get out of if I’m going to be able to keep these stories going in the direction and tone they have to go to work.
I’m going to cut, paste, and reorder the two replies I made to that poster’s comment–which was entirely innocuous, I might add. Regardless of the morality of the H-Men’s actions, they (the poster, that is) said they’re still enjoying the story, which should be all that matters…but still, the potential blowback for the ridiculous violence we’re going to have the characters perpetrating on almost every environment and character they encounter…I’m going to lose sleep over it, I swear.
Anyway, here’s what I wrote in a fit of self-defensive self-defending: *ahem*

QUOTE
While we kind of address this in a roundabout way in the opening of next week’s installment, I think it’s safe to say The Holiday Men aren’t entirely logical in their approach to destroying their creator.

Rationalizations for the killings–and I emphasize these are rationalizations, not actual legitimate excuses–would probably include:

“They had their choice; they chose to serve O’Mega-Mart; therefore, they are the enemy; therefore they can be killed without remorse.”

“We’re not senselessly killed employees. We’re SENSIBLY killing the employees necessary to accomplish our mission.”

“The ends justify the means.”

“I’d like to just walk in and take over the comms van so I can spread our message, but unfortunately, a bunch of people are going to stop me before I get the chance unless I kill them, so they aren’t really leaving me much choice.”

“The people we kill are just fictional characters in a comic, so nobody’s really getting hurt.” (OK, they probably wouldn’t think that one.)

“It’s an unfortunate fact that, during a war, innocent people die.”

It should be noted that, as much fun as The Holiday Men are to write (and hopefully read), they are not heroes in the “let’s go do heroic things” sense, or even particularly nice people. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…
ENDQUOTE

The point that’s important in all that is that THE HOLIDAY MEN are definitely not superheroes, could only be considered heroes in the most liberal interpretation of the word, and their behaviour would be completely unacceptable if it wasn’t in the service of taking down a (perceived) evil that needs to be utterly destroyed. And if they were actually, y’know, real, well, then their actions would be utterly unacceptable period, unless Halliburton paid them to do them in certain Middle Eastern countries.
But I digress.

N: Halliburton pays me to make their photocopies and they say that civilian casualties are a routine part of any job. I’ve never seen the Holiday Men as heroes of any kind. Just a group of madmen, hellbent on the destruction of the corporate machine that created them. It’s soooo punk rock. Like me.

A: Y’know, the infofeed gag in the first panel–which isn’t exactly a classic to begin with–isn’t going to make a lick of sense to people in countries that don’t have Pizza 73. Has that chain swarmed, locust-like, over the US, the way it has over Alberta? I’m not sure if I hope so or not…the joke might actually be improved if it’s perceived as being a complete non-sequitur.
Speaking of non-sequiturs, this installment’s “Fun Fact” about bullets has generated a fair amount of positive comment. Which is nice, because it further backs up my “textual density = effective webcomic” theory.
I love the way you did the bullets in the second panel, BTW. That sort of ridiculous overkill is exactly what the H-Men needs.

N: Yes, I yoinked that effect from a Deadpool pic by Skottie Young.

A: “Bad artists copy. Great artists steal.” Picasso.
I went to art college, can you tell?

N: I think Bunny is the character I’ve drawn the most so far, and he was probably the one I had the most trouble designing. I wanted his face to have a distinct look to it, one where you could see what a smart ass lunatic he was, without being a simple rip off of other rabbit characters.

A: I love that he’s pink. Not just in this opening episode, but in full-colour, too.
Tiina’s fade on the sound effect was nice, too.

N: I love the sound effects. They add so much to the final look of the page.

A: I just wish I could’ve thought of something to tweak the sound effect to make it less generic. Sometimes the well runs dry, and the sound effect well doesn’t really have that much water in it to begin with, esp. when it comes to gunfire…

N: BAMBAMBAM! RATATATATATAT! LONGLIVETHENRA!

A: Damn it! I should’ve thought of that…
The third panel gets us to our first official intro. So far, we’ve managed to slyly slide in the names of three of our protags, including Bunny, in COMPLETELY UNINFLECTED conversational dialogue. We’ve also managed to blatantly reveal the names of all four main characters in the character designs we posted prior to actually putting pages up.
But that’s not enough. Our readers want to know more about these characters. They want to know their distinguishing characteristics, their likes and dislikes, what really makes them tick. And, in case we were a little too subtle about it, I wanted to make absolutely sure they’re aware that Bunny is a 6 and a half foot tall, talking rabbit. (I love that this isn’t the first thing on the “distinguishing characteristics” list.)
Originally, I wanted to model these on Playmate fact sheets, but my wife found my research material, threw it out, and threatened me with divorce, so I ended up playing it by ear when writing the I-Feed intros. I think Val gets one in the next installment, doesn’t he?

N: He certainly does. Jacko’s isn’t for a while yet. He’s the character I’ve drawn the least and so naturally, want to draw the most. He has flaming pants…

A: You and those flaming pants…
When it comes to panel four, I just want to say that is actually the phone number to Tiina’s Diva Designs company, and we are absolutely willing to advertise pretty much anything in the pages of THE HOLIDAY MEN, provided whoever wants it advertised gives us enough money. I’m not proud; I am, in fact, hungry and overwhelmed by personal debt.

N: I was kinda wondering if that was the real deal. Bold, Foley. Very bold. But now the awful people to whom you owe this debt will more easily able to hunt you down. Ward is a scary man.

A: Fortunately, he’s in Calgary…
Panel Five. Y’know, the “chcht!” diagonal “cut-in” sound effect looked a lot better in my head than it does in reality, either here or last installment. Tiina did what she could to make it work, but I’m beginning to think it’s just a complete non-starter. Which doesn’t mean it isn’t going to show up a time or two before the end of this story…it may not work, but at least it’s going to CONSISTENTLY not work.

N: Originally it wasn’t that clear that his image was going down, but that static smear that Tiina added on this and the next panel really helped.

A: Yeah, it needed something to make the transition clear.
Love the colouring on this panel, by the way. Having the stark black and white on the foreground figures really makes them pop. And, as always, you really nail that sense of motion. You don’t drawing people running, you draw them RUNNING. Visually, that’s a subtle but important distinction.

N: As an artist, there’s still lots I can’t do,…

A: Yeah, I’ve heard you sing…

N: …but action seems to come kinda naturally. I must therefore milk that action teat every chance I get. And while the monotone is a whole new process for me, panels like this one show that when I keep it simple, even a little color can really help separate elements and make certain images POP! Though in most cases, I feel I miss the mark…

A: A: *sigh* Artists and their confidence issues. Leave it to the writers and other not-incredibly-obviously-talented creative folk out there, man…
All right. Moving on to the statement of intent that gave us this week’s installment’s title. And it goes right to the heart of what drives me when it comes to the H-Men. Ask anyone in my family, on any given day I am not exactly sweetness and light, but come Christmas time I transform, Jekyll and Hyde-like, into Misery Incarnate. I loathe that time of year, for one very simple reason: I can’t afford it.
There are few things in the world more disheartening than knowing you’re not going to be able to give proper Christmas gifts to the people you want to give them to (it doesn’t help that about half of them are going to give them to you, regardless. That isn’t knocking them–I’d do the same if I had money, but I don’t, and it just shrivels my sense of self-worth down to a microscopic level.)
On top of that, at least with my family, you’ve got some fairly highly-strung people working under pressure-cooker conditions. Emotionally, even if I start in a good mood, Christmas just grinds me down.
Why is that? Nick Klaus speaks for me on this one: commercial interests have perverted the holidays. Ooohhhh, it makes me SO MAD…
Anyway. That’s how I feel about Christmas, and if I wasn’t a lazy sod, I might well have gotten it into my head to do something drastic about it. In that regard, the H-Men are a bit of personal wish fulfillment.
I’m pretty sure I’m now on about fifteen different government Watch Lists I wasn’t before I started typing this…

N: Yeah, I hear ya. I had one of the best Christmasses…

A: I’m pretty sure that’s not how that’s spelled, but you managed to get “asses” in there, so I approve anyway.

N: I had one of the best Christmasses this year, largely due to the fact that there was no gift exchange or huge event. Just a small dinner with family and friends. It was great. Say, you don’t think my being your collaborator has gotten me onto those lists too, do you?

A: I just sort of assumed you were on them already. Seemed like the kind of thing Vicious Ambitious would be on the cutting edge of…
I like this tier, too–getting three of the four H-Men, each doing their thing, or at least getting ready to do it. A nice amount of back and forth dialogue that fits neatly in the panels without too much difficulty, a bit about a cherub taking upskirt shots (cue “write what you know” jokes)…That’s some pretty sweet comics, if I do say so myself.

N: Damn right it is! I was really paying attention to leaving room for the dialogue on this one. Looks like it worked great. And I love the back and forth between Val and Jacko. Lots of personality.

A: I love the way you drew Nick in the second-last panel. He’s just so…intense.

N: I really wanted his passion and hatred to come through. And you can see people in the audience are slowly catching on that something might be amiss.

A: I’m going to be doing a public reading of some Holiday Men (among other things) at the local library on Sunday. Because of all the stuff that makes it work (IMO), it’s a tricky piece to break down into something suitable for reading. Ultimately, I decided to take out the majority of Infofeed text after the initial flashback sequence–but I’m going to have the “The opinions of Nick Klaus…” block of text appear onscreen while I read Nick’s screed. That one’s just too close to the heart of the strip to cut out–and seeing as it is going to appear in the middle of a lengthy tirade (I’ll be reading the manifesto stuff more or less straight through, without much cutting back and forth), I’m hoping the audience will understand who’s talking when that text appears. We’ll see how it goes.

N: I imagine you’ll look just as passionate (and batshit crazy) as Nick Klaus. I wish I could be there to see it. Have a good time, Andrew.

A: This has been Hell Week for deadlines, so I’m actually finishing this off later than I wanted, on Sunday. On the upside, I can report that it went pretty well, or so I’m told. I blanked out as soon as I was introduced and came to two hours later sitting in a snowdrift with a soy vanilla bean hot chocolate spilled in my lap. No idea how I got there…)
Finally, we’ve got O’Mega Soldiers converging on the Comms van. WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?!?!?

N: More glorious violence!
Let’s take a moment to examine all of the separate elements in this one 1/3 of a page: flying Val aiming his massive rifle, the van that Bunny entered on the previous page, four O’Mega soldiers approaching said van, one dead soldier, a giant screen with Nick reacting to what’s being said off screen, and a crowd of people in front of it. This also required space for dialogue and use of perspective and a vehicle, areas I am slightly lacking in. I couldn’t help thinking: “Are you fucking kidding me!?! Damn you for doing this to me, Andrew Foley. I hope you rot in a special kind of hell.”
But seeing it all done, and having everything be clear enough to tell the story and not break the flow, I think it worked out well. This comic is really forcing me to cram the panels with as much information and story as possible without disrupting the flow or confusing the reader. It’s a huge challenge, but when all is said and done, I know I’ll have learned a shit load. So I take back what I said, Andrew. I hope you rot in regular hell with the rest of us.

A: Consider it done.
See you next week, all.

For anyone who was confused by the previous post, I believe I’ve finally fixed it and promise never to use the pointy parentheses tag thingies ever again.

Sorry.

A