| Well, the good news is that the injury to my shoulder is healing nicely and a lot of the pain and difficulty I have had with it over the last two months has subsided significantly;
The bad news is that it isn't enough for me to yet resume cartooning duties in any significant way - I have been working on the story over the past month but that is all, no actual drawing as that tends to inflame the injury;
The good news is that it should be 100% better by the end of december;
The bad news is that means the hiatus will be extended until the end of December;
The good news is that it means the comic isvery likely to start updating again from the first week of January 2010! yay!
Thanks for your patience in the meantime! | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment   |
| Ye gods, I'm having a bad month of things. Unfortunately I have injured my right shoulder and, whilst it hasn't incapacitated me entirely, it IS making drawing and using the computer to colour my artwork difficult and painful. To proceed as such would probably cause more injury from which the likelihood of recovery would be considerably lessened. While I get treatment for it I have decided it is indeed time for a short break from tooning and I will take the rest of October all of November off.
As long as the physio goes according to plan I anticipate being back on deck from December. So, sorry about that - no comics for the next month but I'll be using the time to write, etc since that's much less dependant on my right hand...
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| I kind of lost my cartooning mojo over the last couple of weeks (as evidenced by the lack of updates). It is sort of back now and Monday's update is finished and ready to roll with Wednesday's underway. I get this way from time to time but it hit me pretty bad this time - so bad I did consider stopping the current story altogether for an indefinite period of time (ie hiatus) but have decided instead to see it through.
What I have realised though is that it is time for a change in the way I do things - and that means an end to the weekly serialisations.
For a long time now I have felt that my personal and work life has been suffering due to my focus on the toons - weekends and evenings and even vacations and workdays have been totally consumed by attempts to keep on a two day a week update schedule. When I do something with family or friends I can't let go of the thought in the back of my head that I could/should be working on the toons. Adding to that has been the fact that each individual page/update comes under much greater scrutiny between updates than a normal print comic book page would.
At this stage I intend to serialise the current story to the end of its run (probably about 30 pages in total) but after that I won't be putting the next story up until it is totally finished. That means the story will either go up in one hit like a proper book or it will be serialised at a page a weekday until completion (eg a 20 page story would serialise over 20 days/4 weeks). But I'm pretty much through with pushing myself to meet a self-imposed weekly deadline. I'm angry at myself for getting myself into this situation time and time again, I think I can meet the schedule and then I just about kill myself in the process and everything falls apart as a result.
Switching to the non-serialised model has benefits and some downsides. Benefits in that it means I have more time available to work on the story and finish it before I start the art and more time to work on the art and not rush (some of the stuff I've turned in for the sake of meeting the deadline has been, in my opinion, rather sub-par). Another benefit is that hopefully stories will hold together better since there won't be days and weeks and months inbetween pages... readers generally comment that a story holds together better once it can be read in total.
Admittedly reader feedback and speculation during the course of a story has had an impact on the course of the story (eg Chrystel meeting Famke and the resulting Zinni feud, Lorraine NOT getting hit in the head with a boomerang and coming out of her amnesia were results of reader commentary) - that's a benefit and a downside... it's good to tweak a problem or cliche before I get there but too much can overcook the story. (It is highly likely I will ask for feedback on drafts before proceeding further with final art as a way to get around this).
The biggest downside is that it may be many, many months in between new stories coming online... but it has got to that point where I don't want to put an incomplete story up in pieces at a time anymore. Some might suggest that I change the schedule to once a week but this would, I feel, be even worse... slowing the story down to a trickle. An even bigger downside to this model is that readers will forget about it and drift away during the time that I am working on it, especially if it is a long story and the time to completion is over six months (doing Birthday Suits this way would have meant nothing for over a year but then a hit of 120 pages all at once).
And yes, I'll start up a mailing list to notify of updates (but don't use the one currently on the site - it's broke, can't be fixed and can't be removed...). Also, I might post chapters if I'm writing longer stories (I expect the general length to be in the 30 page mark anyway). The only time I've written specific chapters was the first story The Koala Bares - those chapters varied in length from 5 to 15 to 45 pages.... no promises on that one - I wouldn't consider Birthday Suits or Nood World to have specific chapters, for example.
I hope that ultimately it will improve the quality of what readers get, not just in terms of story & art, but overall site experience...
Thanks everyone for your support up to this point, it's not really the end after all but a new way of doing things...
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| ... is his first name Dean too, I wonder? A bit like Major Major Major from Catch 22...
Not much to say here except that I personally like the character design for Dean Deene (if I do say so myself) plus I really like the last panel with all the other would be noodnik protesters hiding behind Darcy. The guy might be a "jerk" as Willow surmises (and he sure seems to have put a number of readers off-side as well)... but he sure has chutzpah!
Also, to readers whose first language isn't English and are wondering what the Dean's 'jaybird' reference is to, it's from a saying "Naked as a jaybird"... and yes, jaybirds do have feathers so I'm no clearer on the origin or meaning of the saying either! | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Very sorry but today's update has been delayed until Wednesday, I had hoped not to have a break for at least the first 5 weeks of this story but real life circumstances over the weekend have, as usual, thrown a spanner into the works. Nothing to be concerned about though... will see you Wednesday! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| A new installment of silliness for this month... here!
As with all these cartoons, I'm working to H&E's publications deadline and usually have some idea of what I plan on drawing for the upcoming issue at least a week or so ahead of time. With the June issue deadline looming (in fact only 12 hours away - yes, with a whole month at my disposal I still leave it to the last minute, sad, I know) I got the idea for the above toon out of the blue and decided to go with it (putting aside the idea I had been nurturing for the last fortnight).
This is latest Bare Manors is one of my favorites so far and I think it opened up a whole swag of possiblities for these single panel toons - although I won't be overdoing the "Meanwhile, in the future..." theme there will be more of them in the... er... future!
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| | The people who own the Webcomicsnation domain name (where The Bare Pit is hosted) forgot to renew it so the whole site got bumped and replaced with a place holder page - although the renewal has been dealt with there have been some ongoing DNS propagation issues for some readers. Depending on your ISP it may take 24 hours or more before things settle down and you can access The Bare Pit again. Annoying and frustrating I know - my apologies but it is totally out of my hands. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| And so the new story gets off to a fairly ambiguous start...
I won't say anything about the storyline at the moment, except that the themes will become fairly evident within the next four or so pages. The title gives away a fair bit... and yes, it is a deliberate riff on a certain Jane Austin novel.
It's a Willow-centric story and will feature a few new characters but also many from previous stories - including some you won't have seen for a very long time. Today's update shows Willow with Jasmine and Ellie. Jas was most notably seen in Generation Gap (and briefly in the halloween special Tales to Scare Your Pants Off). Ellie was last seen in the Loxie & Zoot story Frank.cam. Next to her is Andy, also from Frank.cam;- he told a story - Curse of the Were-Nudist - in Tales to Scare your Pants Off. Who's the guy who just sat next to Willow? You'll find out in due course!
Just a note about the colouring - I've changed a few of the tones and added some shading... hope you like it! | | comments: 22 comments or Leave a comment |
| It's been good to take a bit longer - I've been working on the story and drafting pages. Not having to produce the goods to a self-imposed deadline (ie two pages a week) has allowed me the luxury of being able to work through some of the trickier points which have presented themselves so far. The next story will be somewhat wordy in parts and getting that right can take a fair bit of editing.
Ideally I would have liked to have finished drafting the story before getting started again with the updates - I've managed 18 pages of what will probably be about 30-40 pages in total. A draft is a rough outline of the art and text - and I learned a long time ago it was the best way for me to work. I don't script stories... I just draft them. I'll just have to make sure I continue the drafting now that I've started the final artwork as well. Most previous delays have always been due to a lack of drafted pages... most webcartoonists talk about needing a "comic buffer" (ie number of pages completed ahead of their actual live date) for me it's more a case of draft buffer.
Something that proved the value of having a draft buffer arose when I hit a bit of an obstacle in the upcoming story at page 9 - I knew what I wanted to have happen, but not how. So instead of wrestling with the writer's block it was throwing up I skipped ahead to the 'aftermath' a few pages later. Spending time on that instead gave me some backwards insight into the preceding pages and I was then able to draft those also. This is something that can't happen when I'm working 'live' - drafting and drawing two pages a week, the week those pages go live. Anyway, I'm sure I'll learn my lesson one day.
So... the next story... I'm not going to say anything about the story itself, not even its title. I will say though that it's based on a story I've been wanting to tell for a number of years now - in fact it was originally going to be the first Bare Pit story. I'm glad it wasn't because it probably would have suffered the same fate as Generation Gap did (bad planning!). It's about Willow and although it will have many characters in it (a few new ones but mostly those already introduced, including some you won't have seen for a very looooong time) I'm keeping the focus on Willow so it will be less sprawling and much less 'epic'. The theme/plot might annoy a few readers, I'll have to wait and see. Anyway, the first page is ready to roll on Monday - hope to see you there! | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| It's sci-fi/fantasy/comics convention time in Sydney, Australia and I know that a percentage of my readers are local to the area... maybe some of you are going to the Sydney Supanova next weekend. I'll be there, sharing a stall with my webcartooning buds Noemz & Rah. If you are there I'd love nothing more than for you do drop around to our table in Artists Alley (table G) and say hi!
I'll be selling some Magellan stuff (details here).
Supanova doesn't allow public display of anything that might damage it's "family-friendly" image... which includes family friendly nudist cartoons - so I can't really put the Koala Bare books out for sale (stinks, I know) but I will have some copies for sale if you wanna by them... just $AU15 for 120 excellent pages!
The first people who come up to me on both Saturday and Sunday and tells me who their fave L&Z/Bare Pit character is will get a free signed copy of the comic.
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| Regular forum member JirkaRybka has written a review/overview of The Bare Pit/L&Z/Birthday Suits for his naturist blog. It's in Czech so probably not easily read by non-Czech speakers... 
* Czech version
* Google mangle (loose translation into English)
It's very thorough and positive. Thanks JirkaRybka!
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| I have to undergo a minor surgical procedure on 3 July and while it really is minor and I doubt there will be any issues arising from it I will be out of it for most of the day - so rather than kicking off the story on 1 July and then probably having to skip a week right after that I think I'll just push it back a week.
I've been writing the next story so it is underway and coming together really well... I'll reveal the title and maybe some sneak art on 1 July...
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| And so we arrive at the last page of Birthday Suits... woo! As is the tendency with my larger stories there's no special last minute twist (so, sorry if you were expecting something more spectacular).
The last few pages in particular have been all about wrapping things up and giving the various plot/characters some sort of closure. Of course it's not possible (nor desirable) to dot every single i and cross every single t but I think I managed to tie up most loose ends. In the true spirit of leaving-them-wanting-more I haven't really resolved 100% a whole heap of things - like Loxie's mother and sister (in fact, her whole family!) but I prefer to leave that somewhat unresolved. I know some people were hoping/expecting to see something specific about the friendship between Sally/Zinni & Famke/Chrystel but you know how friendships are with kids & teens - best pals one day, worst of enemies the next!
There were a few characters I never developed fully and some other things I never got a chance to do in this story - had I tackled them all then the whole thing would have taken at least another 100 pages (and another year!). But these unexplored issues (including those I started down the road to but ultimately removed and rewrote, most notably the "religion & nudity" thread) will provide fodder for future stories I hope.
Despite the bumps and delays and occasional complaining (by me) I did have a great time working on this story. I can honestly say I never expected Birthday Suits to become what it did - and probably just as well or I would have been more hesitant about starting it. The fact I expected a story with so many interesting new characters would resolve itself in 30 pages just shows I was temporarily insane!
So where to now? I'm going to take a short break from the noodtooning. This time I'm going to use the break to develop the next story and plot it out properly. I'll still be around the LJ though and might post some teaser art from the next story before it kicks off on 1 July.
Many thanks to everyone on the LJ, the forum and the emailers for your support, patience, feedback and input throughout the last 14 and a bit months - and thanks to everyone for reading!!
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| HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
YOU WERE BORN IN THE NUDE!
AND LOOK! YOU'RE STILL NAKEY...
BUT IT'S NOT AT ALL RUDE!
Yep, I just turned the corn factor up to 11, but I couldn't resist!
The song is to the same tune as "Happy birthday to you, you were born in the zoo, you look like a monkey and you act/smell like one too!" - haha, Hope you get the chance to sing my revised version at someone's naked birthday party real soon! 
As you can imagine, page 119 took a while to draw (hence the one day delay)... but it was a lot of fun!
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| I had hoped to have page 119 finished in time for the Friday update, alas that is not to be! I'm aiming for Saturday now...
There's a teaser of the art in progress below the cut...!
( Page 119...! )
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| I made a comment in this forum thread about receiving feedback (or not) on The Bare Pit - really it was just me having a bit of a whinge. I guess I was trying to nail down something I couldn't put my finger on - possibly my ego was feeling a bit jaded that day, who knows!
Of course, I haven't made things easy for readers to provide feedback - I removed the comment box under the comic (I really had no choice, it was causing significant navigation problems on many browsers), I didn't have my email on the home page (an unbelievable oversight... now fixed) and the forum has registration issues making it hard for people to sign up and join in.
Of course, since then I've received quite a bit of feedback - and while I hadn't written that other post in an effort to fish up some compliments it's always nice to receive them. Thanks to those people!
I suppose what I was rather unclearly trying to express wasn't so much for people to tell me that they like the comic but to tell others instead... if you enjoy the comic please tell other people about it through your own forum groups (nudist or not), blogs, message boards, website, LJ, twitter, whatever or even face-to-face contacts, especially at nudist gatherings and the like (I'm sure they'll thank you for it later!). Many thanks to those people who have done so already. I know many, many people are hugely supportive of this comic and have spent a lot of their own time and effort promoting The Bare Pit in their own unique way and I would like to thank them all.
Anyway, I guess it's obvious people enjoy the comic or it wouldn't have the number of readers it does have... so I should probably stop whinging and get back to the tooning.
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