week 2

Since the point of this strip is to get syndicated, and to explore the medium within that realm, I'm going to try and set up little goals for myself each week. Any advice you all might have in that regard, feel free to post on the bulletin board or just email me at cbaldwin@baldwinpage.com. The goal this week is to not have ANY specific "Jim is dumb" jokes. If Jim appears, he may exhibit dim-bulbedness, but that will not be the core butt of the joke. This is too easy and I showed that i could do it almost every strip last week.

11/14 - Well, i don't know how i feel about today. The hug is fine, I'm not sure Madge's reaction is totally in character. Kinda' too play-acted. Plus I did a shoddy job inking. but something in it feels good. Maybe how I'm pushing the characters to see where they go, whether right or wrong.. Again, remember, this strip is in progress, I'm doing it currently, and I have no road map. it's an exploration, to find out what works.

11/15 - Ahhh... i feel this is back on track. In regards to yesterdays, the "hug" strip, i plan to rework it, I'll speak more of it when i have time to do so.

11/16 - And today: the first re-tooled Shep&May strip. I put the original strip below it, just to compare. I actually think the Shep&May version is more charming, but I do think the new one holds up. It isn't as much that it's worse, as much as it's just different. The original was cute, the new one is a bit more sarcastic, less innocent. It's odd to compare the inking styles. it reminds me that I'm still getting used to inking with a brush, and so creating expressions is still a bit more challenging. But i do think there's a hell of a lot more life in the linework of the new strip. That's encouraging.

I thought a lot about if could keep the pause that was in the orginal strip, although it would actually be Madge pausing, not Sheppard. But I think it's kinda' necessary for me to show shep departing to do devious things. I put up the pasted together alt version for the feel of it here, and I'm not totally sure, but i think the "thanks, no problem" version (above) works better.