Hope ya’ll like cheesecake! As we all know by this point, my good friend Andrew Gregoire of I AM ARG, is a pervert. Doesn’t matter if its boys or girls, if he can make a sex joke, he’s sure to put a dick in it.

If you don’t know Andrew… click those links above, you’ll get familiar with him in no time. ^_~ Also, he did a guest for me last year.

NEWS:

As promised, on Wenesday’s Strip, here’s another sample of some of the art updates I’m doing for the book. Some of the changes are subtle, as you can see with Cadence in panel 1 but others are pretty big… like Joseph’s DERP EYES in panel 2. Again these changes are only gonna be made for the book, so if you’d to see the newly updated art and all the extras I’m including, make sure to pre-order your copy today!

The book is about 85% done I’d say… I’m still working on more extra content and finalizing the art updates, for instance…even on the sample above.. I’m not 100% done.. I’m still not happy with Cadence’s eye shape in panel 4. I just wanted to post something to show you guys as far as book progress goes but I hope to send this all to the printers by next week!

Also, final note, I’ve been working with my friend Ali to develop his own Trading Card Game, Destined Legends! You guys should check it out and watch this video he threw together of a “blind play test” we did with some people. You’ll notice I’m in it, I’m not playing, I’m just drawing sketches for you guys for pledging on Kickstarter.. but I stop to teach my girlfriend how to play. :]

See y’all Monday with one last guest strip from another AWESOME webcomic artists friend of mine, I’m confident you’ll love it as well.

Damn he’s clueless.

If you guys don’t know Ty Halley, you should. I really enjoy his style of art work; It sort of has that dark gothy feel that I love to see in art and comics, like a Jhonen Vasquez, but has a bit more of a personal feel to it. Also, here’s a little secret, a few strips back when Cadence was talking to the pretentious dude at the party, that was Ty. I was just giving him a hard time because Ty likes to write what he calls “essays” under his comics posing ideas for his readers to ponder upon.. but DOESN’T have a comment section for people to react and discuss this ideas with him! What a douche!

So check out his comic “The Secret Life of a Journal Comic,” friend him over at Tyland and maybe even check out his old comic “That’s Inhuman!” Thank you Ty for the awesome strip!

NEWS:

Have had another few sleepless nights recently trying my best to wrap up this book. All 125 of the comic pages are set up and ready to go… Though, I’m still making a few more art changes which I’ll share a few more on Friday’s post. Tonight I’m working on the the extra content section… character concepts, sketches etc. See ya Friday with a new comic!

Hey! Where have I seen THAT shirt before?

Recently I was at my friends house and he has one of those fancy 3D TV’s, it was pretty neat… I guess. I don’t, maybe it’s just me, but I just don’t care for 3D technology. It REALLY feels like a fad that is going to die out sooner than later. (That may just be me wishfully thinking though) Out of the hundreds of films that have come out in the last year or so that have been needlessly put into 3D, there were only a handful worth seeing that way… for example: Avatar and Tron. But seriously… Gulliver’s Travels (with Jack Black) and A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas? REALLY? I guess the big difference though was solely if the movie was FILMED in 3D or if it was post production 3D.

Other than that, which is also proving to me that 3D is a fad is the fact that there is a 3DS for Nintendo. Have you guys played with this thing? Again… it’s SORTA neat.. but i can’t play a game with it on for more than 30minutes before my eyes feel like they are going completely cross eyed.

NEWS:

I’m completely done with 100pages of the book. I’m still going back and tweaking a panel or two here or there when I feel it’s needed though. Here’s an example of one of my edits that I felt was needed:

These updates on the art that I’m doing will ONLY be available via the book though, so if you wanna see all the new fancy stuff, pre-order your copy now!

Have you ever gone to a party and TRIED having a conversation with someone about something or another on a more intellectual level but instead of discussing or ever admitting they may be wrong, they just shoot down everything you say with out consideration? Probably one of my biggest pet peeves ever.

NEWS: Still struggling with how I want to color characters in the ALT Universe… So far I’ve been doing them all monochromatic per character… but that’s proving to ADD more work than it should… especially when I add characters that aren’t reoccurring..since theses are supposed to be a bit easier for me to do, I feel like I need to reconsider some things. A part of me wants to just do these flat out grayscale rather than doing colors for each character, that’s pretty much as simple as you can make it (except for flat black and white) AND it would be the cheapest to print in a book down the line… nearly HALF the cost! But then, I don’t love gray scale either… Here’s an example of what it would look like if I switch straight up to grayscale instead of characters being monochromatic… OR even grayscale with an occasional accent color.. What do you think?

EDIT: After playing around a bit more, I felt like it was a shame that I still colored the characters… and you’d NEVER know that… since I was throwing a filter over them to make them monochromatic. :/ So I though about just softening the colors and doing gray backgrounds like I did on this strip.. but to reinforce the alt world, fade the characters unlike Hatticus was in that one. Thoughts?

In other news, I spent the last three days in a row working on the book.. I’m starting to get to a point where I’m really happy with the design inside… but think I may start doing a few artistic updates to some of the older strips before i submit the final version.

Sorry that there is no comic today. I’ve been up all night the past few nights doing TONS of work on the book. I’m constantly blown away by how much goes into one of these things. I would have thought that just because I’ve already done the art files that slapping the book together would be a simple as can be… I was wrong. I’ve been doing print tests checking font sizes, positions of design elements, modifying colors to get ready for CMYK Printing and much more. I’m glad to say that I’ve made a good bit of progress… but I’m gonna need this next week or so to work on it to make sure its perfect. This Friday I will be posting a ALT comic that I wrote today and next week will be a mix of guest strips and ALT strips. Hopefully I wont need anymore time than that to finalize this book… but who knows, the world of print is a vast one.

Anyway, I wanted to share some samples with you guys so you can see a bit of what has gone into the book so far:

Above is an example the legal page, a nice little written foreword that I just received from scott yesterday (came out really nice, he said some stuff in it), a splash page and an example of what the comics/commentary will look like. The book at the moment is a little over 150pages.. I don’t have a final count JUST because I keep deciding to add little things into it.. for example, since I’ve been working ahead of time on the sketch rewards from kickstarter, I will be scanning some of my favorites and putting those in the book as well:

I’m a little behind on scanning the most recent ones that I’ve finished so far.. but if you wanna see the ones that I’ve scanned so far, check them out here. Finally here is a better example of exactly what I changed on the cover:

Since I first drew the cover, I’ve grown A LOT artistically and my eye for design has gotten a bit more sensitive to placement and color and such. After having a discussion with Joel on the topic of my cover, he pointed out that I didn’t put the title “L.A.W.L.S.” on it… and that I would regret that if I didn’t. After giving it some thought I gave in and agreed. I had to make some changes to color as well. The blue that I previously used was great for RGB (Compute screens and inkjet printers) but looked TERRIBLE when you’d print it out CMYK… it kept printing WAY darker than I had expected. Overall I’m happy that I made those changes… the test print I have on my desk looks really nice. Though.. even that picture is a bit dated. After inspecting it longer I decided to update the art again, give it a bit more of a “serious tone” if you look closer at the comparison picture above, you’ll see that I’ve made changes to Josephs eyes and Cadence and Autumns faces. They all look a bit more mature/serious… and Cadence looks a bit more feminine now.

Anyway, I need to get back to working on the book. I still have a pile of commentary to write out and tons of little tweaks I’d like to get done tonight…Plus, this next week I’m going to be flattening all the strips and saving them for CMYK and actually saving them out a bit bigger so the art looks bigger, since I recently realized I didn’t need AS big of a bleed area as I originally planned for… which should be an amazing fun adventure! ><

See you guys Friday with a new strip!

CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO PRE-ORDER YOURS TODAY!

Your body can only take so much battling, before you pass out.

News:

THIS IS THE LAST STRIP IN VOLUME 1! I’m SO HAPPY to finally have it done! I apologize for this strip going up so late today. Been really busy finalizing things for the book. I just got off the phone with the printers about an hour ago and think I’ve finally negotiated the prices on printing. I’d write more, but I’ve gotta get back to work… feel like I have SOOO MUCH MORE to do for the book.

Don’t forget to pre-order a copy!

Quick note: My friend Brian, the guy who runs InkOUTBREAK made a “thumb up” system he’s asked me help beta test it here. If you have an account with his site (which you should cos its an awesome site), bump up LAWLS by clicking the thumb below:

Thanks! See y’all Wednesday.

I don’t often derp, but when I do I herp when I derp.

NEWS:

ONE MORE STRIP TILL THE BOOK IS DONE! XD I’m really excited about this guys! Come Monday to see how this EXTREMELY LONG story arch comes to a close!

Also, Just a quick heads up, when this “chapter” is over my plan is to do the following:

I will be taking a short break from “story line” comics while I finalize the rest of the book. However, this does NOT mean the comic is going on hiatus, it simply means that I will be focusing more on the ALT Universe for a while. Also, I have a few guest strips lined up from a few comic artists I think you know/will enjoy! Finally, another thing I’m gonna be working on is a new shirt/apron design. If all goes well the book should be ready in my hands and ready to ship out to you guys by the end of February or early March… and the new shirt/apron sometime early February!

Anyway, Don’t forget pre-order your copy of the book here and I’ll see you guys back here Monday for a new strip!

Rather than punish you, my loyal readers who support me as a content creator by continuing to traffic my website, read my comic and purchase my merchandise, I decided it would be best to post a comic about SOPA. Iinstead of blacking out my site, I felt it would be best to use it as a venue of discussion rather than a platform of protest.

So, In honor of today’s protest to Stop SOPA & PIPA I thought I’d start by raising awareness as to exactly what SOPA and PIPA is, and what you can do about it. I’m not going to stand on a soapbox and go on a boring rant telling you all what it is, why it should be stopped and/or what potential repercussions will come of it if it passes… Rather just bring it up, let you guys form your own opinions and do what you see fit with the knowledge you’ve gained. Please, by all means, feel free to discuss it and share articles here in the comment section, I will take part in that. :]

“On Jan 24th, Congress will vote to pass internet censorship in the Senate, even though the vast majority of Americans are opposed. We need to kill the bill – PIPA in the Senate and SOPA in the House – to protect our rights to free speech, privacy, and prosperity. We need internet companies to follow Reddit’s lead and stand up for the web, as we internet users are doing every day.” – AmericanCensorship.Org

NEWS:
I had plans to post a regular story comic… but decided for today that this would be the better post. Story resumes Friday.

SAMPLE OF FRIDAYS COMIC HERE.

I do in fact have crush on Kristen Stewart, even if people think she isn’t the most talented actress. In my opinion she’s still pretty hot and I’m not ashamed thinking that! Anyway, this joke came from my recent realization that my girlfriend had a little secret crush on Ryan Gosling. She never outwardly said anything to me about it or anything… it’s just once you sit through a handful of movies with your girlfriend all staring the same dude, you start to wonder. It was sorta like that Seinfeld episode where George starts watching a ton of Marisa Tomei Films. I teased her about it for a while until I finally got her to admit it! It was a proud day for me… now I don’t have to feel guilty about my desktop wallpaper being Kristen Stewart on a occasion! XD

So, Do you guys have Celebrity Crushes? I know we can’t be the only ones… COME ON, FESS UP! WHO IS IT!?!

NEWS: I ended up having a few hang ups over the weekend so I needed to post an Alt Universe strip for today. Hope you don’t mind! Next story strip will be up Wednesday!

Preview of Wednesday’s Comic.

And he thought POGs were useless.

NEWS:

Next week is officially the last week of what will go into the first L.A.W.L.S. book! I’m getting supper excited about it! If you haven’t pre-ordered a copy yet, you now can at the Rush Haven store!

See ya Monday!