A Zen Tale - The Complete Story!

Here in one post is the complete "I Bring Nothing", an adaptation of a Zen tale.  I modified some of the pages from the original postings.

I hope you like the story!

A Zen Tale - Page 8

Well, here it is the final page!  This is the long awaited conclusion to "I Bring Nothing", an adaptation of a Zen tale.

Believe it or not, this is the longest story I've done, since I did comics in junior high! 

I will post the complete story in one posting so it will be easier to read, but I need to make some minor changes to two of the pages first.

Thank you for hanging in so far!  I hope you enjoyed this story.

(Click to see full size)

A Zen Tale - Page 7

Whew!  Has it really been that long?!  Time really flies.  I was out of town, Thanksgiving, blah, blah, blah.

Well, sorry it took me so long to finish this page.  Like I've said before doing this comic has been a challenge, but also very rewarding.

One more page after this!

Thanks for hanging in there!

A Zen Tale - Page 6

I've had to attend to a few other things as well as deal with some distractions.  Squirrel! 

Sorry.

Here is page 6 of "I Bring Nothing!"  We are now getting into the meat of the story.  Only two pages left!


This is the longest piece I've done so far and it's been quite an experience!

Thanks for following along!

(Click to see full size)

A Zen Tale - Page 5

Whew!  It seems like each page takes more to do than the last one.  It's been a busy week, but here is page 5 of "I Bring Nothing!"   I'm hoping that the next couple of pages will be a bit easier. 

I hope you're enjoying this comic as much as I'm enjoying creating it.

(Click image to view full size)

A Zen Tale - Page 4

Well, better late than never!  Also, Good things are worth waiting for. 

This project has been more involved than I anticipated.  But it also has been more rewarding. 

Here is page 4 of "I Bring Nothing". 

I'm going to get page 5 out as soon as I can.  I hoping things will speed up over the next few pages.

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A Zen Tale - P2 "pencils"

Sorry to say, I am behind schedule at this point.  I was trying to finish a page a week, but the page few pages have been much more complex and involved that I thought they were going to be.  I am working hard on page 4 and I think you will really like it, but it's going to take a few more days to complete.

In the meantime, I wanted to share with you some of my process.  Here are my "pencils" for page 2.  I put pencils in quotes, because I've been working 100% digitally for the past few comics.  Instead of pencils, I usually call them roughs.  Some are rougher than others.

Usually, in Manga Studio they are blue line, but when I exported them, they came out grayscale.

(Click to see larger view)

A Zen Tale - Page 3

Well, I wasn't sure I was going to get this one done on time, but here it is! Page 3 of "I Bring Nothing!"

I'm really enjoying doing this story, I hope you are enjoying it also.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks!

(Click for full size)

A Zen Tale - Page 2

Here is page 2 of "I Bring Nothing", which is an adaptation of a traditional Zen story.  At this time, I don't know how long this story will be, but I'll continue to post pages as I finish them.  Thank you for your patience.

This page was quite a challenge to put together.  Halfway through, I had to change direction with the "coloring" of the page.  Overall, I'm pleased with the result.  I hope you are too!

(Click to see full size)

A Zen Tale - Page 1

This is something I've wanted to do for a very long time.  This is an experiment in many ways.  It's the longest piece I've attempted to date, I'm trying new ways of producing the pages and I haven't settled on one method yet, so I'm a little apprehensive. 

I've been using Manga Studio and have started to explore tones.  They look great on the screen, but don't always print the way they look on my monitor.  I tried printing grays in Manga Studio, but again, they didn't print well.  I may switch to coloring in Photoshop, which will set me back a bit. 

This is a Zen Story I call "I Bring Nothing".  I hope you enjoy it. 

(Click to see full view)

When do I get mine?

I've been working on a longer piece, which I hope to start sharing soon, when this conversation happened.  

At first I didn't think it was a "comic", but as I wrote about that day in my journal, it hit me, "Oh I need to make this into a comic!"  So, I did.  This is a related to last week's comic, "Righteous Anger". 

I'm a little concerned that it might be too much of "inside joke".  I hope you enjoy it. 

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Righteous Anger!

This was a conversation I recently had at work with a co-worker.  I love these kinds of conversations in the kitchen.  (Click image to see full size)

The Kindle

My girlfriend is the best, as you can see by this week's comic!

There's more to this story, which I may or may not do later.

I'm such a child!

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The Stove

Yep, this really happened.  (More than once).  I may do a second part to this to explain the "more than once" comment, but then you might realize how stupid I really am.  Ah, life is interesting. 

(Click to see full size)

What to say?

I drew this comic four years ago, shortly after my stepmother passed away.  She died suddenly from cancer (four months).  I went back home for the funeral.

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Conversations with Dad #2

My Dad lives in Michigan, but spends his winter's in Lake Havasu City, AZ.  Since I live in Los Angeles, I drive out every spring to see him.  I ride a motorcycle full time.  This conversation happened during one of my recent visits. 

Yes we do look alike!

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Comic-con - Days 3 & 4

Day three of Comic-con (Saturday), I didn't do as much as on Friday.  I did get to see Adam Hughes do a marker sketch, which was great.  Not only is Adam a great artist, he's very funny.  Great presentation.  Makes me want to run out and buy a bunch of Copic markers, but I'm resisting for now.  Then I went to a panel on marketing indie comics from the standpoint of getting press coverage.  Interesting, but similar to Friday's panel on Indie Marketing.

Then I went and did a total fanboy thing.  I went to the Nikita panel.  It's an pretty good show, but Maggie Q makes it all worth while!

Went back to the hotel and to bed early, because I had to get up at 4AM on Sunday!

Why did I have to get up at 4AM on Sunday?  Well, this year instead of selling next year's tickets in the Convention Center like last year (so easy!), they decided to only sell a limited number of tickets each day at the Hyatt from 8AM to 11AM.  I heard the first day, they sold out right away.  Same thing Friday.  One guy I ran into said he got in line around 5AM and got his ticket, but people who got in line around 6AM didn't.

Damn!

So, I set my alarm for 4AM on Sunday.  Basically, rolled out of bed and onto my Harley and rode on to the Hyatt.  When I got there the line extended out the back and along the waterfront.  It was a surreal experience.  As I walked toward the end of the line, it kept moving further and back.  I heard that the guy at the head of the line was there since 2PM the day before.  Insanity!!!

I later estimated that I was somewhere between the 600th-700th person in line.  Around 6:30-7:00 AM, they let us into Douglas Pavilion.  We were given a card, guaranteeing us some type of ticket, but not four day or preview night.  Once we were inside and in line, we could get up and go to the bathroom and get coffee!  Ah, the simple pleasures.

Once they started selling tickets things went fast.  They started selling at 8AM and I had my ticket by 8:30AM.  That's a lot of people in such a short time.  That's about one ticket every 3 seconds for all you math nerds out there.

That's about all I did on day 4 of Comic-con.  I went back to the hotel, ate breakfast and headed home.

This was my second time at Comic-con and it was a blast.  I'm looking forward to next year!

Comic-con - Day 2, Part 3

Okay, this will be the last posting about Day 2, which was so full of things to talk about! 

At about midday, I was in the bathroom.  (I don't know why these stories start with me in the bathroom, they just do!)  I heard a lot of screaming outside, but that's kind-of normal at Comic-con.  I come out of the bathroom and I'm walking down the hall past this long line of people waiting to get into Ballroom 20.  Up ahead I see people taking picture of this guy.  From the back, he doesn't look special.  So, I think it's just people taking "Hey, I'm here at Comic-con" pictures.

I get up to the people taking pictures and who is it?  None other than Colin Ferguson (Sheriff Carter) from Eureka!  I asked if I could take his picture, and he said yes. 

He was a really nice guy.  The line he was going down was a long line of people waiting to get into the "Eureka" panel.  He was shaking people's hands, taking pictures and I heard him say more than once, "Thank you for waiting, we'll get started in just a few minutes."  What a great guy!

I can be such a fanboy at times!

Comic-con - Day 2, Part 2

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the Drawn & Quarterly booth to pick up a couple of Chester Brown's books.  I had read his most recent book, "Paying for It" which is a memoir about his becoming a "John".  It's a great read and a lot deeper and thoughtful than the title would lead you to believe.

When I walked up to the booth, Chester Brown was there signing books!  I got him to sign my books and talked with him for a bit.  It was a great opportunity to meet him.

It's chance encounters like these that I really love about Comic-con.

Comic-con - Day 2

Wow, what a day!  I have no idea where to begin.  Also, there is no way I can include everything that happened, so I'll only include this one story for now. 

In the late afternoon, I got on the shuttle to go back to the hotel to rest a bit before going out for the evening.  I met a nice guy, Cory on the bus, who asked me, "What's the most interesting thing you saw today?" 

To which, I started to laugh and said, "I saw Stephen Moyer and Alexander Skarsgard at the urinal."  ("Bill" and "Eric" from True Blood.)

I was in the bathroom heading for the sink to wash my hands, when I saw two guys wearing suits come into the restroom and they seemed to have some guy attending to them.  I heard one of them talking and his voice sounded familiar, so I looked back wondering "Who are these guys?"  Just then, Stephen Moyer looked over his shoulder at me.  Then I knew, who they were.

I thought I would loiter just outside the bathroom and when they came out, ask if I could take their picture.  So, I finished washing my hands and went out of the bathroom.  Just outside the bathroom, there were a lot of security guards and they had the corridor to the bathroom blocked off.  So, I stood there acting like I didn't know what I was doing.  A big security guard came up to me and said, "Excuse me sir." 

I turned and said, "Yes?"

"Would you like to return to the Green Room?"

"Excuse me?"  I asked.

"Would you like to return to the Green Room?" He asked me again.

Now, a million thoughts were racing through my head.  Should I say, "Sure, I'd like to return to the Green Room."?  Well, my old Midwestern upbringing lept into action.  I couldn't lie.  What if they got angry at me and threw me out?  What if the security guard got in trouble?  So, I said, "No, I'm not with them.  I was just coming out of the restroom."

"Well, I'm going to have to ask you to leave then."  He said very politely and indicated that I should walk down the corridor in the opposite direction of the Green Room. 

Ever since that moment, I've been regretting my "good" side taking over and not jumping at the chance to go to the Green Room and hang out.  Oh well, at least I got a good story out of it.

I'll have to post more about my day later.

Hello from Comic-con! Day 1

Last night I went to preview night and met some interesting people.  I met David Peterson, who did Mouse Guard.  I met Carla Speed McNeil of Finder fame.  A surprise of the evening was meeting Lou Ferrigno!

If you dont' know who Lou Ferrigno is, he was the Incredible Hulk on the TV series.  I knew about Lou Ferrigno when he was a body builder and competing with Arnold Schwartzenegger for the title of Mr. Universe.  We chatted about the old days for a bit.  He was a really nice guy and still in great shape.

I also talked with Carla and David for a while.  Both of them were very nice and down to earth; easy to talk with.  I also learned a lot in terms of their work process, which I found helpful.

Today was filled with workshops and a lot of walking around.  The most interesting ones today were a Master Class with David Peterson, Digital coloring with Photoshop and Indie comic marketing. 

It's only the first day and already I'm tired!

Off to Comic-con!

Has it really been a year already?  I guess so.  Today, I'm leaving for San Diego Comic-con or Nerdvana as I like to call it.  So, postings are going to stop for a while, at least until I get back.  If you're going to be down there, I hope to run into you!

Have a great week!

Lunch with my daughter

I did this comic originally last year.  I was experimenting with a brush and I really didn't like it.  I decided to redo the comic digitally.  I expanded it from one page to two pages and made some other changes.  I think it is really a much better comic now.  I hope you agree.

(Click to see full size)

Warm ups

I have a love/hat relationship with exercise.  I always feel better after doing it, but I sometimes resent the time it takes. 

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Digital or Analog?

Unfortunately, no comic today.  I've been posting some of my old comics and I will be posting some new ones soon.  A big part of the problem is that I have very limited time to produce comics.  Also, I've started to explore producing comics digitally.

A while back I bought the Debut version (read cheap) of Manga Studio.  It's a program designed specifically for making comics of all kinds, not just Manga.  As such, it has some really nice features that make producing comics easy.

I've used Manga Studio in the past, but the results were not that good.  About a month ago, I got an email with a special offer to upgrade to the full version of Manga Studio for 1/3 the price.  So, I took the plunge and decided to give Manga Studio another try.

I work with a Wacom tablet, so all the drawing and inking are done free hand, just like working with regular paper.

One of the things that I really like about working digitally is how easy it is to make changes and corrections.  Also, using layers, I can work a panel one way and if I don't like it, I can redo it without losing the original drawing.  I can also move things around without having to redraw them.  It makes things so much easier.  The drawback is that with so many options and the ability to change things, I find myself tweaking my drawings more than I would if I was working with plain old pencil and paper.  This produces better drawings, but takes longer to produce the roughs.  Also, there is a learning curve with Manga Studio, but I'm getting more efficient.

I think the end product is better, but sometimes I miss paper.

So, today I started a new comic on Bristol board using a good old HB pencil.

I still have some old comics to publish, but look for some new digital work soon along with some old fashioned analog work too, as I experiment.

Thanks for stopping by!

An old Japanese woman

This was a great trip.  I wrote four comics, while sitting there.  Unfortunately, I only drew one.  :)

(Click to see full size)

I suck at drawing hands

I drew this a couple years ago.  I had just gotten some Manga templates and wanted to try them out.  I didn't have a comic to draw, so as I sat there trying to think of something to draw, this is what came to me.  (Click to see full size)

Odd Moments

I used to have these "odd moments" quite frequently.  At the time, I didn't know I have having existential crises.  Luckily, I haven't had any in a while. 

(Click to see larger image)

Yeah, I'm an asshole

I drew this simple comic in 2007 and it's still relevant today.

Conversations with Dad #1

Parents say the darnest things! 

(Click to see full size)

The Party

I posted this on Facebook and a lot of my friends knew the place I was talking about and the kind of people at these parties.  What can I say, I live in L.A.  I love it.

What do you want?

I drew these a couple years ago, when I was having problems with someone at work.  It was a great way to deal with my feelings.  (Click to view full size)

San Francisco Trip

I used to do a lot of business traveling, but then when I was unemployed for three years all of that stopped.  About a year ago, I got to travel to San Francisco for a workshop.  It was weird.  I drew this during the trip.

Welcome!

With some anxiety, I'm starting this blog.  I wanted a space where I could share some of my autobiographical comics and hopefully get some feedback.

Off and on for several years I have been drawing.  I usually am too embarrassed to show my drawings to anyone.  However, with the support and encouragement of friends, loved ones and some fellow cartoonists, I started showing some of my work to friends.

Well, I hope that you find something of interest here or are able to somehow connect to my little odd moments.