on zero fighter

(x-posted from tumblr)
I draw a weekly strip called ZERO FIGHTER that's published at http://www.misterkitty.org/. When I started it, my wife was working on a strip called "Behind The Blue Door" that was really loosely scripted, without a lot of advance planning or plotting. This was a reaction to the methods she used while working on her previous strip, which had been tightly plotted from beginning to end. I think the restrictions were stiffening the artwork and affecting her enjoyment of the story. At any rate she was having a great time on her new strip. You could see it in her pages, which loosened up and became a lot friendlier to the eye.

At any rate I wanted something similar, something more intuitive, working from the gut, not planned out and tight but loose, organic, immediate. I didn't want the same old 10x15 bristol board, pencils, inks, letters thing I'd spent years doing with my previous strip, "The Ozone Commandos" - my goal was to throw down the ink as fast as possible, emphasize shapes and spaces instead of lines, to let my technical pens gather dust. The story of ZERO FIGHTER is juvenile - man from outer space fighting monsters from the depths of the earth - but it's allowed me to fill out a laundry list of things I've avoided drawing for most of my life, and do so in a way that's satisfying visually and physically.

I'm a lousy cartoonist, but I enjoy it immensely. Having a regular weekly deadline is like having a regular session at the gym, or meditation, or eating a big comfort-food meal - it's relaxing and it keeps me sane. I go into each week's page with a vague idea of what's going to happen, with perhaps some sketches throughout the week of proposed panels. I know how the story is going to end, but how it gets there is anybody's guess.

I realize that a once-a-week strip is slow going, especially when it moves as slowly as ZERO FIGHTER does. On the other hand, I also know that people really enjoy the "Stupid Comics" feature, and that takes up a day's worth of free time every week; and of course I have a day job, and so many other time-taking things. And let's face it; if I was going to be a professional cartoonist, I'd be one by now. I'm a hobbyist, a Sunday painter. Nothing wrong with that.