Webcomicsnation/Comicspace merge, make money

This is a pretty big deal:

Today, Josh Roberts (owner of ComicSpace and Onlinecomics.net) and I are excited to announce that we have signed a Letter of Intent to merge our businesses into one corporate entity. We will be working with E-Line Ventures, a New Jersey-based ‘double bottom line’ early-stage investment firm (they look at both the financial and social impact of their investments) to secure the necessary funding and support for us to effectively merge and run the combined business.

It's a great match. Despite its meteoric rise and addition of comics "galleries" ComicSpace has needed a quality way of displaying webcomics.  And WCN would really benefit from a better social networking system for readers as well as creators. 

Josh and Joey are both visionaries in their own way, so I think this will be really interesting to watch.

Link

24-Hour Comic on index cards

Princess Rockstar Scientist found a clever way of participating in 24-Hour Comic Day.  She drew her 24 pages on index cards:

I wanted to try making a 24-hour comic... but I'm not 18 any more and I can't abuse my body like I used to. I need sleep.
Since there is no restriction on page size for 24-hour comics, I decided to make a tiny 24-page comic made out of index cards folded in half. I folded 7 index cards and sewed them together into a little booklet using coptic stitch (the first time I've ever done this).

It's a cute and funny little story, too.  Very well done!

Link

Jamie McKelvie's "Suburban Glamour"

From Kieron Gillen:

I return, daubed flourescent orange peaking through the beard like some kind of nu-rave Vagrant, from London, body worn from a night to celebrate the release of McKelvie’s Suburban Glamour. Then I remember something: I haven’t told you lot that it’s ready to get yet.

Anyway, it looks like this…

A preview can be read here.

Reviewers seem to like it.

And you should buy it from a comic shop, immediately if not sooner and stuff.

Suburban Glamour: For people who realise there’s not enough HOT PINK in comics.

Okay, true, I just jacked his whole post.  But I couldn't not include the pretty cover and the witty intro and the end of the post has the stuff about the preview and the word on the street.

Gillen and McKelvie are hot off the excellent "Phonogram", and now Jamie McKelvie's going solo with Suburban Glamour.  It's sure to be beautiful and very cool.

Also, apparently "flourescent" is the English spelling of "florescent".  I did not realize that.

Link

Jess Fink's "Chester 5000 XYV" reaches 50 pages!

Jess Fink's super-cute and sexy adult comic Chester 5000 XYV has just posted its 50th page.  If you're of age and not offended by robots doing naughty things with ladies, check it out!

Link

Chastity Towers "Appearance of Respectability", Sunday preview Oct 14,

Chastity Towers "Appearance of Respectability", Sunday preview Oct 14, 2007, originally uploaded by Jeff Coleman.

This week's sketch preview of this Wednesday's Chastity Towers page (NSFW).

Abigail didn't mean to volunteer to show potential new student Emily around, but she's on the hook now! Mischievous Mina just grins.

Link

New Chastity Towers

There's a new Chastity Towers page up today. Girls wear uniforms, there is flirting, and a butt is grabbed!

And if you haven't seen it, check out the new fan art by Hushicho!

(Note: As usual, most of these links are adults-only and not safe for work.Caveat lector.)

Link

Chastity Towers Sunday preview Oct 7 2007

Chastity Towers Sunday preview Oct 7 2007, originally uploaded by Jeff Coleman.

Sketch preview of this week's Chastity Towers (NSFW) page. Just a few more pages until it gets really naughty!

Link

Fan art from Hushicho!

forjeff
Originally uploaded by Jeff Coleman

Got this lovely fan art from Hushicho, creator of fellow Adultwebcomics series Incubus Tales (adults-only, NSFW).

This is Incubus Tales character Chana, slipping out of a school uniform!

Link

360 degree panoramic comic

From Neatorama:

Özi created a comic panel drawn in style of a single continuous camera-shot without cuts to tell a story. Kind of like a 360° panorama, but for comics (indeed, he called it the "panocomic").

Link - Thanks Özi!

Link

Liveblogging Butterfly

Dean Trippe has been liveblogging Butterfly today, posting new screenshots as he goes through each step of drawing, inking, coloring and lettering his webcomic.

Toning/whitespace tip: fill in the negative space, then invert

Here's a simple little tip that didn't occur to me until recently.

When I'm drawing a page, I usually have a background behind the characters, so I need to fill in whitespace underneath the characters' ink lines, to block out the background.

Until the other day, I did this by using the Fill tool with the All Layers option and filling in the lines of the characters with white, clicking on each little space created by the lines I'd drawn.

Then it hit me: Fill in the negative space, then invert.

Here's what I start with (click the thumbnail to see the full image):

What I do is this:

1. Turn off all layers except my characters.

 

2. Fill in the negative space with a color (I use black).

3. Select the negative space with the "Select Color Range" option.

4. Invert the selection.  You now have a selection covering all the space where your characters are, and none of the space where they're not.  A perfect silhouette.

5. On a new layer, fill the selection with white.  The background is now obscured and the characters are opaque.

6. Above the white layer, fill in with tones or colors as desired.

And you're done!

In this example, I was using Manga Studio, but the same principles apply in Painter, Photoshop, or any coloring program.

I'll be inking the figures on this page next.  I'll see what kind of tutorial I can come up with for them!

Jeff

New Sugarshock from Joss Whedon

New installment of Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon's Sugarshock!

Previously in Sugarshock: Part 1, Part 2.

(h/t Whedonesque)

New Chastity Towers page

The latest Chastity Towers (NSFW) page is up today, featuring a closeup of Headmistress Doctor Cain, getting sentimental over her pet French teacher, Mademoiselle Millefeuille.  It's also got the first closeup of the girls so far in the story, including sweet little Fleurette and mischievous Mina.

There's still a few more pages until they get naked, but there's plenty of sexy schoolgirl uniforms with anachronistically short skirts to tide you over til then!

As always, Chastity Towers is for adults only.  It features nudity and explicit sex.

Link

Busted Wonder's Charity Larrison wins $250 Creator Grant from Colleen Doran

http://adistantsoil.com/blog/?p=1691

(h/t Busted Wonder writer Kieron Gillen)

Link

"Spacegirl"--Prince Valiant/Flash Gordon style online comic by Travis Charest

(h/t Chi-Yun on the Stylus forum)

Link

My comics on Reddit

As was mentioned in the comments, my comics are listed on Reddit as well. It's a simple thing there to sign up for an account (you don't even need an email address) and add points to anything you like by clicking the "up arrow" by its listing.  The more points it gets, the higher its exposure.

Here's my listing on Reddit:

http://entertainment.reddit.com/user/progressions/

Thanks!

Jeff

Link

Stick Figure Hamlet T-shirts

Here's something I didn't know.  Dan Carroll has Stick Figure Hamlet T-shirts for sale, like this adorable 'ghost' shirt.

Link

Chastity Towers mentioned in TCJ's Journalista!

http://tcj.com/journalista/?p=449

(h/t to Alister Blake for the heads-up!)

Link

Can you help boost Chastity Towers and Progressions X?

It's a new month, which means the webcomics charts have reset.  I've got Progressions X signed up at Topwebcomics, The Webcomics List, and Buzzcomix.  These provide a pretty healthy boost to my readership if the comic gets higher in the charts.  It definitely happened last month, so this month I'm making an up-front call for votes in the charts.

To boost Progressions X you can click on the following buttons to vote (note, you don't even have to view Progressions X to click these first two buttons, which makes them safe for clicking at work):

Progressions X at Topwebcomics:

Progressions X at Buzzcomix:

Progressions X at The Webcomics List works a little differently.  The rankings seem to be based on clicking through to Prog-X from the Webcomcslist listing.  If you click this button:

And then click on the link to the comic, it should add a view for this month.

And for Chastity Towers on The Webcomics List it's the same procedure:

Each of these can be done daily, so however much you can do to help would be appreciated! 

And last, both my comics get a nice flow of traffic from The Belfry, a webcomics directory and portal.  On The Belfry, you can sign up for an account and list a webcomic as a Favorite, which helps keep that comic listed in its user favorites, and generally helps channel some traffic our way.  This would be another great way to help boost Progressions X and Chastity Towers!

Belfry listings:

Chastity Towers

Progressions X

Thanks again for anything you can do!

Jeff

CT Sunday Preview: schoolgirls on parade!

Here's this week's Chastity Towers (NSFW) Sunday preview--this Wednesday's page in sketch form.  Doctor Cain introduces herself and Mademoiselle Millefeuille, then introduces the lineup of Chastity Towers students...

Jeff

Link

Mina Roxbottom

Mina is fiesty and temperamental, always willing to go out on a limb for a friend. She is insatiable in bed, and devilishly clever at concocting new perversions to unleash upon her closest girlfriend, Fleurette. ... more

Link

Chastity Towers: Building a page from the background up

When I draw Chastity Towers (adults-only, NSFW), I build the backgrounds for each scene in SketchUp, and then capture the right angle for each panel as a 2D image.  I then import the 2D image into Manga Studio to draw the figures.

This works most of the time, but in some cases the backgrounds have requirements that SketchUp can't fill, either because I don't have or haven't built models for certain things that need to exist, or because some elements are too organic to be worth modeling in 3D.

The scene I'm working on now is set in the girls' bedroom at Chastity Towers, where the beds have sheets, blankets and pillows that need to be flexible, soft and organic.  So what I've done is model the beds themselves, with a flat mattress, so I can then draw in the pillows and bedspreads, wrinkles and all, by hand.

Here's the original sketch of the scene.  Two girls open the bedroom door and peek in, to find two girls sitting on the bed making out.

Here's the scene, with the sketches removed, featuring only the original background image exported from SketchUp.

Now I've drawn in a simple pillow and bedspread on a new layer over the background image.

Fill it in with white.

Add a tone to the bedspread.

And here it is, combined with the sketched figures.

As I ink the figures I'll know exactly where they're sitting, so I'll be able to put in specific folds, wrinkles and impressions in the fabric, and to add some texture to the cloth to make it blend in more.  Then the figures will be grey-toned and the page will be finished!

This is my first big story using this background creation technique, so I'm still learning and developing it as I go.  It wouldn't be suitable for every comic, but it works well in cases where a strictly realistic background is desired.

Jeff

House of Twelve #4: Funny, offensive war stories from Neil Kleid, Dave McKenna

Chese and the House of Twelve gang run the best sketch jam in New York City and put out excellently vile little comics anthologies as well.

The latest issue, House of Twelve Goes To War, covers war stories:

Allow me to let you in on a little known secret;
a few years ago Team 12 was drafted by THE GOVERNMENT and forced into working towards it's war effort. When we returned we decided the truth must be told in the most effective way possible, autobio comics! These are our stories of our experiences during THE GREAT WAR. Some
sad, some action packed, some unfathomable,
but I promise you each and every one is 100% true.

There are a lot of funny folks in this comic:

Team 12 members have gone and become successful all of a sudden, Miss Lasko-Gross has a book (Escape from 'Special') from Fantagrpahics, Kevin Colden's Fishtown has been getting raves online, it even won a Xeric Grant, Mike Dawson's Freddie and Me is one of the most anticipated graphic novels of next year, K. Thor Jensen's Red Eye, Black Eye has burned up the indie charts and Bald Eagles was featured in the last Kramer's Ergot. Sheesh, you bitches been busy!

Check it out!

Link

Would an English girls' school have had radiators in the rooms in 1907?

Anyone know if that's a possibility or a likelihood?

Chastity Towers girls' bedroom sets

Here are some more detailed views of the Chastity Towers girls' bedroom.  It's almost done now, but for the roof and any other incidental details I decide to throw in at the last minute.

Jeff

Chastity Towers set design: Girls' Bedroom

This is an early stage of the girls' shared bedroom in Chastity Towers. I'm coming up on the pages set here now, so it's time to build the set!

This is being created in Google Sketchup 6, from which I export the scenes as a PNG and import into Manga Studio.

Link

New erotic stories on Adultwebcomics begin today!

While you're checking out Chastity Towers: The Appearance of Respectability, page 3, don't forget to take a look at two new erotic serials from other Adultwebcomics artists.

J.L. Roberson and Charles Alverson begin The Story of OH!, drawn by J.L. in an ink-and-color style much different from his previous shaded pencil work.  It looks great so far!

And Bedlam Boy starts a new Hentai Action Comics story with two new pages of Letitia Cromwell, Community College Witch.

Enjoy!

Jeff

Chastity Towers: Meet Emily Branthleyshaw!

Emily Branthleyshaw has been brought up under the care of her doting mother and stern father, who have raised her to understand how a proper girl should behave. 

Now she is being given a tour of Chastity Towers, the naughtiest girls' school in England, where she's bound to get a crash course everything improper!

Chastity Towers: The Appearance of Respectability page 3 (adults-only, NSFW) goes live today.

Jeff

Link

CT Sunday Preview--meet naive young Emily!

Here's this week's preview of Wednesday's Chastity Towers page, posted at the Chastity Towers Flickr set:

Emily Branthleyshaw has been living with her stern father and doting mother her entire life.  She's naive and innocent of the ways of the world, which means she is in for quite an awakening as she meets the naughtiest schoolgirls in England!

Chastity Towers: The Appearance of Respectability page 3 goes live Wednesday, September 26.

Cross-posted at The Chastity Towers forum.

Link

Funny, erotic gaming comic Hentai Action Theater begins new story Sept 26

One of the funniest comics on Adultwebcomics.com is Hentai Action Theater, a cute, erotic, Sergio Aragones-inspired gaming comic.  It's beginning a new 40-page story, "Letitia Cromwell: Community College Witch", starting on September 26.

Link

CT character update: Devoted to the Headmistress...

 Abigail Shaftsbury

Abigail is the Head Girl at Chastity Towers, the senior and most trusted member of the student body... according to the Headmistress. ... more

 Mademoiselle Millefeuille

Mademoiselle Millefeuille handles French instruction at Chastity Towers. Her foreign tongue also comes in handy in other ways... ... more

Cross-posted at The Chastity Towers forum.

Jeff

Link

Hamlet in stick figures: Act IV scene II concludes

Dan Carroll's very funny Stick Figure Hamlet updates, finishing up a short act.

Here's how Dan puts it:

"Honestly, three pages? Little Billy, what the hell is that shit? You couldn't shave a few pages off Act 2, Scene 2, and put 'em in here?"

Link

Plastic Farm collected by Ambrosia Publishing

This is a little late news, but it's worth repeating:

Rafer Roberts' excellent self-published comic Plastic Farm is to be collected into a graphic novel by Ambrosia Publishing following online serialization at their site.

Rafer is a great guy and Plastic Farm's a unique and funky comic, so this is a great deal.

Link

----------------
Now playing: Paul & Linda Mccartney - Ram On
via FoxyTunes

Link

J.L Roberson debuts new material in "This Sickness"

John L. Roberson writes and draws the excellent This Sickness (adults-only) on AWC, and on September 26 he'll be debuting a new story with a guest writer, Charles Alverson.

Link

Jeff

----------------
Now playing: The Go-Go's - How Much More
via FoxyTunes

Casting Chastity Towers

In my case we have to stretch the imagination a bit, and imagine that the actresses I pick would be willing to give X-rated performances.

I hadn't actually thought about this before, but here goes..

Mina, the hot-tempered mischievous spitfire could be played by Lindsay Lohan. In my imaginary world she can not only stay out of rehab long enough but also can do the perfect English accent required. As well as doing hardcore porn.

Fleurette, the naive French student, would be Vanessa Hudgens. She's clearly hot enough, evidenced by the photos of her leaked recently, and she has a perpetual sweet little grin that would be excellent. Oh, and assume she can do a French accent.

Abigail the spoiled teacher's pet could be Ashley Tisdale. She does a similar character on High School Musical, and she's decently attractive.

Lizzie could be played by Hayden Panettiere.

Michelle Pfeiffer would make a good Headmistress Doctor Cain, and I wouldn't mind getting French pop star (and Mrs Johnny Depp) Vanessa Paradis to play Mademoiselle Millefeuille, the sweet and adorable French teacher.

I think it'd make a great movie! What do you think?

Jeff

Chastity Towers Sunday preview

Here's a preview of this Wednesday's page, posted at the Chastity Towers Flickr set:



Enjoy!

Jeff
cross-posted to The Chastity Towers Forum

CT on verge of top 100 at thewebcomiclist!

http://www.thewebcomiclist.com/p/10996/Chastity-Towers

Chastity Towers has been rising steadily in the rankings at The Webcomics List, and it's currently at #103, just on the verge of breaking the top 100!

A lot of our traffic comes from The Webcomics List, so this is a good sign.

I'm not sure how their ranking is generated, but I believe it counts the number of folks going to the comic from their listing, so if you've got a second, it'd help us out to go over there and click through!

UPDATE: CT has cracked the Top 100 and currently stand at #76!

UPDATE 2: We're at #60 now!

Jeff
cross-posted at The Chastity Towers Forum

Chastity Towers, now with forum-y goodness!

I've got a forum for Chastity Towers, now, so I'll be posting short pieces there about the development of the comic and hoping it takes off.

I'd love to get some feedback from users, since doing comics is such a solitary experience--especially porn comics, natch :)

Anyway, feel free to check it out and post if you've got any thoughts you'd like to share!

Jeff

Progressions X, now with annoying 'vote for me' buttons!

As part of the ongoing promotion of Progressions X, I've signed up for a few "Toplist" type webcomics sites, where readers vote on your comic by clicking a button, and the highest ranked get higher placement on the chart.

If you'd like to help out by voting, you can find the buttons on the bottom of each page of Prog X, below the calendar.

Thanks!

In other odd news, I was checking my Google Analytics and noticed that in July, we got a bump of referrals from Diesel Sweeties, which I didn't realize. On the day it happened, the guest artist on DS was Jess Fink, who draws some funny and sexy comics on Adultwebcomics.com.

I also noticed we get a few referrals each day from sexe.fluctuat.net, but I can't seem to locate why. There's no mention of Progressions on the site, and I don't have any ads there. It seems to be a French sex portal, so it's understandable there'd be some connection, but I dunno what it is exactly.

Jeff

Chastity Towers launches tomorrow!

My new adults-only comic launches tomorrow!

Chastity Towers is the story of an all-girls finishing school in Edwardian England, where the girls learn far more each night than they ever do in their daily classes.

The most prominent students are Mina Roxbottom, the lusty and spirited firebrand who causes most of the trouble. Mina has an insatiable appetite for trouble, both in the bedroom and out. She's constantly testing the limits of the rules at Chastity Towers, and frequently finds herself in trouble as a result. She is best friends and lovers with Fleurette, and a ringleader to the whole group, with the exception of Head Girl Abigail Shaftsbury, who craves the Headmistress's approval more than anything, and will go to any length to get it.

Fleurette de la Paniere, the naive and innocent French student, often finds herself being punished for aiding Mina in her transgressions--she's a willful partner, though, and she would do anything for her dear love Mina. Fleurette is innocent in the ways of the world, but experienced and inventive when it comes to the bedroom.

Headmistress Doctor Cain runs Chastity Towers with an iron fist, delivering stinging punishments for the slightest infraction in her well-stocked "Disciplinarium" underneath the school. Most of the students do their best to avoid Doctor Cain's attentions, but it must be said there are some students who relish the time alone with the Headmistress. Doctor Cain carries on an illicit affair with French instructor Mademoiselle Millefeuille, which is a well-known secret amongst the schoolgirls.

The first Chastity Towers story, "The Appearance of Respectability", begins when a potential new student, Emily Branthleyshaw, is introduced to the girls and given a tour of the school. Doctor Cain does her best to impress on Emily's mother the importance of discipline at Chastity Towers, while Mina, Fleurette and the girls take Emily on an extended trip through the heart of depravity and lust.

"The Appearance of Respectability" begins on Adultwebcomics.com tomorrow, Wednesday, September 12, and continues in weekly installments every following Wednesday. Chastity Towers features explicit sex and adult content.

Jeff

Chastity Towers: 2 pages done!

I've been drawing some comics this week!

I've got several pinups scheduled in Progressions X, starting this Monday. That'll keep going for as long as I keep doing them.

And I've drawn and uploaded the first two pages of the first Chastity Towers story, "The Appearance of Respectability". They'll be appearing weekly starting this Wednesday.

I'd been putting off doing Chastity Towers for the same reasons I usually do--I didn't think I was ready, I wanted it to be perfect, some characters still need designing, some backgrounds still need constructing. I decided to screw all that and go ahead and just start doing it. A page a week is a pretty light schedule, considering the pages are all already laid out, penciled and lettered. It's really just inking and tightening things up.

I've also made a bunch of new ads for Progressions X that are appearing all over the place on Project Wonderful. I need to make some for Chastity Towers, but I'll get to that soon.

I'm pretty rusty at drawing with Manga Studio, so I can't wait to get back up to speed on Chastity Towers!

Nana 2

Nana 2
Originally uploaded by Jeff Coleman.

Another angle of a study for a new look for hair and eyes. Ai Yazawa also has a completely different look for her eyes than most manga artists--instead of the elaborate shines, highlights and gradients, she basically just scribbles the eyeball.

I'm going to give that a shot in some tests and see if I like it enough to adapt it for my own use.

Nana 1

Nana 1
Originally uploaded by Jeff Coleman.

Testing out a new look for hair and eyes inspired by Nana's Ai Yazawa. I've never been happy with the way I render hair, especially blonde hair, so I'm looking for a new look that's not TOO high-maintenance.

A lot of manga artists lavish an incredible amount of work on hair, rendering seemingly every strand, curl and braid. I don't think that'd suit me but I love the way Ai Yazawa draws hair, with long simple lines showing the flow of the hair from root to tip.

Yazawa uses a single-width line for the majority of her cartooning while I use a brush-style so it should make an interesting combination.

Marguerite Sauvage

Marguerite Sauvage is a French illustrator with a gorgeous fashion-y style.

She also counts Rumiko Takahashi as one of her main influences! She says it was Takahashi's "Lum" which inspired her to start drawing and which influenced her style of coloring in the shoulders and knees of her characters!

I'm not sure how old Ms Sauvage is but when I lived in France in 1990, children's television was PACKED with Rumiko Takahashi, along with lots of other anime such as Dragonball and Fist of the North Star. That's where I discovered Takahashi's "Maison Ikkoku" aka "Juliette Je t'aime" and "Lum/Urusei Yatsura" aka "Lamu". It was a little before Ranma so they hadn't started showing that by the time I moved back in 1991.

One thing I remember was that there was some controversy over the violent nature of anime like Fist of the North Star, but that it was so devastatingly popular they had to keep showing it or they would've faced mobs of angry kids storming the studios!

(hat tip to the always excellent illustration blog Drawn!)

Working in Manga Studio

Jeff

Ghetto Librettos

This is just too beautiful not to post.



From Henry Jenkins: Ghetto Libretto: The Sexy Comics of Mexico

Progressions X hit 300,000 pageviews today! And this week I've lettered pages 1-17 of "The Appearance of Respectability" and drawn five Progressions X pinups to start posting on Monday.

Since the final Progressions X story finished last week, and Chastity Towers won't begin for another month, what I've decided to do is to draw a series of pinups focusing on a different fetish each week. The first week covers facials, and I've drawn closeup portraits of Pam Sage, Mad Morello, Ariane Usher, Jane Cutler and a combined pic of Ariane and Isabel.

Instead of Prog-X's regular update schedule of several pages on Monday, these portraits are going to post each day from Monday through Friday. Next week will cover a different topic, and so on, until Chastity Towers begins. Who knows, I may continue doing something similar even after Chastity Towers starts. It's fun and they're full color! So it's been a great exercise in doing more color.

(WARNING: Not safe for work (NSFW) discussion follows.)

Speaking of color, I learned quite a bit about doing fetish artwork from doing this series of pinups. Obviously when the subject matter that's fetishized is a woman's face covered in semen, the way the cum is rendered makes a big difference to whether it's an appealing image or not. And if that sort of thing isn't a particular fetish of yours, it's going to look ridiculous anyway!

In this case I tried about half a dozen different ways of rendering the cum until finally settling on what ended up being the simplest way to do it AND the most effective. The drawings are done in a stylized cartoon method with thick black lines and fairly flat colors, but I started out working on nearly photo-realistic renderings of the shapes, color and texture of the semen. That just looked freaky, so I tried mixing the realistic coloring with black outlines and that still didn't work.

What I was trying to do was based on the way it looks in real life--our brain wants cum to be WHITE, but in most cases it's translucent and reflective, so it's got a lot of variety in color, especially depending on the skin color underneath it. So I was trying to stay faithful to that reality, and finding that it was just not working against the cartoon style of the portraits.

I then decided to red