Project Waldo

I just finished reading " Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World ," by Mark Frauenfelder (founder of Boing Boing and editor in chief of Make magazine). I never thought of myself as much of a DIY guy, but I enjoyed his Colbert Report interview enough to hunt down his book at the library. It chronicles his misadventures in do-it-yourselfing -- undeterred by failure, he hacks his way through several ambitious projects, including the building of a chicken coop (and the stewardship of its residents), the construction of several cigar-box guitars, and the raising of a colony of bees. I wouldn't have predicted I'd have been interested in any of those things, but it turned out to be a fun ride. Frauenfelder quotes some interesting folks. For example, there's this gem from Charles Martin Simon's "Principles of Beekeeping Backwards": Our apicultural forefathers, those great men who defined the principles of modern beekeeping, Langstroth, ...

I just realized that I hadn't gotten around to posting the color version of page 8. Here it is. Click to enlarge: There seems to be a lot of disagreement about the usefulness of sound effects. The anti-SFX people point out that big words look cheesy, cover up the linework, and ruin the general fine-artness of things. The pro-SFX partisans counter that sounds can make things more visceral and engage the other senses (if indirectly). Then there's Japan. They'll add a sound effect for a gentle breeze or the sound of somebody blinking. This tool must have some value if it's been used for decades on multiple continents. Then again, so has dynamite. That doesn't mean I should use it to loosen a stuck spark plug. I guess the real question is whether sound effects make sense for Nonplayer. I started out staunchly against them, but was surprised to discover that some pages seemed to come to life when I added them. Of course, I then went whole hog and put in too many...

When I announced on Facebook a couple of weeks ago that I'd finished the first issue of Project Waldo, the plan was to post something here the next day. Since then, I've been making the comic a little more finished. Today, I finally threw in the towel for good. It's done. So first things first. "Project Waldo" has a new title: With any luck, you'll be seeing this soon on a shelf at your local comic store. Justin "Moritat" Norman went with me to Arcane Comics yesterday and we brought the cover along to see how well it would stand out among the other comics that started with "N." It'll be parked right next to Northlanders , which is some rotten luck, because that's one amazing-looking comic.  Northlanders notwithstanding, I was happy to discover that most modern comic covers are so dark that a yellow-and-orange pile of fruitsauce like mine glows like a little campfire in the forest.  One last thing: from now on, I'll try...