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Footnotes: So, i've finished yet another masterpiece. well, I think its OK. So much to say, and yet, I dont know what to say. I was looking at Tarts earlier on which I did a few years ago. That was when the idea reigned supreme, the fact that it was about girls that were supposed to be cute but were not particuly cute to look at is quite glaring now. It was from those comics that I realised the it was worth focussing on the girls anatomy. I still havn't mastered it, but i'm getting there. If you look at Tarts you can see how I laboured on the faces and such and how all the shading made them look old and less cute. You wont find much shading on any of the girls in my recent work. Keeping the shading to a minimum really makes a lot of difference. I must say, I really dont like panel 10, it looks retarded, but what the hell. I have been looking at quite a few strips recently and its strange how i'm seeing alot of stuff in a different light, not so much better or worse, but its like i've grown, or matured, or my senses have at least and I can sort of see quite clearly major struggles in peoples work, especially my early stuff. But more to the point where people are drawing pictures of girls, I can sort of see all sorts of stuff that makes me slightly unconfortable. I dont think its really a surprise, but i'm seeing it differently, stuff where people are drawing girls and they are sort of sexually vulger, huge tits and stupis frilly bits and them behaving so seriously and probably drawn by blokes. It disturbs me a bit, but the point is, it got me wondering what people would think of this story. My motivations I think are different, as usual, to the percieved motivation. My reason for drawing this was as I said to focus on drawing a girl, but the percieved motivation is a story that sexually arouses, which is not what its about. Its supposed to be a journey through glory, pride, and something 'higher'. That probably sounds like shit, but i'm wondering. I was sifting through the mature section at Online Comics Net and realised that about a year ago I changed my avatar from the Mr Galumph to Ms Galumph image, and that my click throughs rocketed, thus, sex sells, but as I was sifting through all the other comics I realised that I was clicking on the ones of girls. I think its normal, but I was trying to figure out why, and I think its like a candy, it sort of feeds me inside, I sort of need to look at that sort of stuff, but at the same time I actually found most of it quite naff or unsettling. It got me wondering to what extent my work might have the same effect on other people. The personal challenge here is do I feel that my work is intellectually superior which is my gut reaction. My mind is saying, yeah, its girls and such but what i'm doing isn't base, it has a depper, higher more involved concept. All that said, you cant predict how people will view your work. Quite a bit of the stuff I see is actually very sexual in that the girls are showing nickers or virgin eyes, a hint of young breast, or something vunerable. I think thats the key to the difference, even though I cant quite put my finger on it, i'm still certain there is a difference. I dont know why i'm typing all this as theres no point, but my thoughts, thats what i've been thinking. So,
Comic wise, it feels good to have done another comic so close after the previous one. I'm in half a mind to really knock them out this Xmas, sort of catch up or make up for lost time. Even so, I was pretty tired for most of it. The bridge picture took a whole evening and I really dont like the geometry, but I really couldn't be assed to get it perfect. I just thought, ok, i'll dtick a bridge in here and before long I realised it was going to have to be a more detailed drawing than I first imagined. As I started to draw it I realised that it would require all the architectural detail that bridges have. the architectural stone work and such and I was like, shit, this could go on forever. And the perspective was roughed in loosly and once I tightened all the linework up it became clear that the perspective was warped. But in the end I think its good enough. I'm not unhappy with it, its just its not excellent, I didn't push myself to create something special. And both characters are kind of obscured by the shading. Oh well. Panel 4 is a nightmare. I really didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I just couldn't get her smile right. I might edit it, but as is usually the case i'll probably forget. But in just about every other panel the girls face is perfect, and thats my objective. Its just about creating images like that really, just glimpses or snap shots of the butterfly tht I want to preserve in amber. Its also interesting to note that I often get to feeling really good about what i'm doing and then I read someones stuff that really sinks my ship and leaves me feeling like an idiot because their art is so good, especially all that manga style young girl art with the frilly petty coats and school girl uniforms. The girls with the bigs eyes. I look at that and then I look at my stuff and I think whoa, i'm so shit, and really i'd love to be able to draw like that but I just dont have the patience to invest in colour, or spend on one image. For me its, half pencil it and then do it in ink and thats it, almost direct, but for that special stuff its get good pencils done, strong inking with controlled line weight and then scanned in and coloured, and its all that extra stuff that I dont have time for. But I keep trying to make time to do a bit more. Even just colouring my own stuff is a major barrier for me. Its 3.49 in the morning, I am way tired.
Also worth noting that I have a new domain for my comic and a new web host. The idea is that from now on, if I have to change host as did from free serve to usa host to super fre host to what ever I wont have to keep changing all the links pointin to me. I chose www.online-web-comics-galumph.com as my domain because I wanted to really spam the internet. Not in a bad way, but in the way that domains go. I never usually recomend that, so in this instance its really a luxury, its me splashing out into the realms of greed, but its more ironic really as getting traffic isn't a major concern, its more of an adiction to counting traffic. I love to count traffic and see how much i've had in a particular day. Most days I dont look at all, but now I have my own host I have a mySQL database and a bit of php code to record each page read. All I had before was a Nedstat counter. Now I can see every page. In fact I was looking today because it was the first day I had it working fully and the first guy that cam on board was Falcon.darkhorse, and he spent an hour reading loads of pages, and then after a break of an hour came back to read a bit more. It was weird because I could actually follow him around my site, or at least see the trail he was making. Interesting stuff. I also saw the Google bot on for the first time today although because this is a new domain i'm sure i'll be sand pitted for the nexxt two years. i'm gettinga bit excited about this new domain though. I wasnt to do a video section, music, photos, art and a whole bunch of extra tuff. Its also on a special porn host so that I dont get kicked off. Or at least they'll be more leniant with me.
It also made me realise how much traffic I might be getting. Before all I was monitoring was the entry page for each comic, and 1 hit was all i saw, but in this case, that 1 hit spent an hour reading the comic and lokked at possibly 50 - 100 pages, which is actually quite a lot. Its strange really because in the world of commerce and such marketeers would give their right arm for that sort of stuff. I know i'm not a teir 1 comic with thousands of hits a day, but I do get quite a bit more than nothing which is the interest alot of business sites get. People would pay for that attention. Its going to be interesting as this site slowly becomes more complete in the eyes of the search engines. I know that the free super host site showed a massive increase in traffic over the year I had it up. You have to renew it once a year and it has pop ups. Its free but they switch it off and you have to renew it for $0 which is cheap. But that site was getting, from the apache logs about 4-800 hits a month to start off with up to 1800 month right now. Thats not all unique hits, but the incrasing scale, shown monthly is relative, so I guess this domain will have to evolve at the same rate, so its going to be an interesting year. I know that my last domain was doing well for terms like milk maid and fap fap fap which is cool. but there have to be nearly 300 pages on this site which makes it humungouse!!! i'f I can get first place for the term online comics globally I would chortle, seriously. Not that I care too much, but it is fun playing that game. I also thought of changing my comic name to something like, fuck-the-british-government.co.uk or somthing to piss them off, but I dont want to be arrested for terrorism.
Oh, well, better go to bed, its now 4.13 am.
A few points without explanation. I hate shit mainstream comics on the web. I hate comics you have to pay to read. I have google ads on comics. I hate comics that apologise for being a bit late, like anyone gives a shit. I hate comics that celebrate their first year online or their first 100 strips. etc etc etc. I hate pop ups, gay comics, and other stuff.