B.A.S.O. guest page

In June 2012 I decided I should start drawing things. I hadn't seriously attempted to draw since I was told that I was useless by my fourth form art teacher ... thirty years had gone by. I started slow. I'm still going slow.

However, I sent a couple of pages of what I had done to a webcomics friend, and he very kindly asked me to be a guest artist for one page of his webcomic ... B.A.S.O.

B.A.S.O., which stands for Big Arse Soap Opera, is a great webcomic that is epic in scope and concept. Check it out.

Quest for The Quail

Way back in 2011 I had an idea for a series of strips for a community webcomic on The Duck (formerly Drunk Duck) called Duck and Quail. Duck and Quail are the site mascots, and there were a number of stand alone pages done by some very talented people for Duck and Quail. The Duck website had just removed the Drunk part of its name, and undergone a series of coding changes that remain unfinished to this day. Overall the website's traffic plummeted, and what is left in 2013 is a mere shadow of what once existed when the duck was intoxicated. So I wrote a series of 80 strips that told a satirical tale of a sober Duck's quest to find his old drinking buddy Quail ... and somehow save the universe from destruction along the way.

From the first strip in September 2011 ... http://www.drunkduck.com/Duck_and_Quail/5355156/ to the last in May 2012 http://www.drunkduck.com/Duck_and_Quail/5394188/ I was lucky enough to have a large group of artists volunteer their time to get the strip done. The editor of the Duck and Quail community comic, VegaX, was very supportive and encouraging, and the whole project raced headlong to its sappy conclusion.

It was a fun project to be involved with, and through it I cyber-met some wonderful people who I have since worked with on other projects.

Helping Hocusha

I haven't been posting on this blog for a while, but it suddenly occurred to me I could use it to mention some of the writing I've been doing of late, starting with something I helped co-write; the end to chapter 7 of the wonderful webcomic Hocusha.

The creator of Hocusha, Vig Starmax, was suffering from a case of the dreaded writer's block, and his excellent webcomic was on indefinite hiatus. I was fortunate enough to be a fan of Hocusha and to have worked briefly with Vig on another project, so when he posted a call for help I was quick to offer my assistance.

Vig put together a Hocusha bible containing character notes, setting, and over-arching plot details, and from that I helped work out an ending for the chapter he was stuck on. I got to write the dialogue and give some page layout suggestions, and Vig took that and made it much better.

Now Vig seems to be inspired once again to write and draw Hocusha, and it looks like there's a long series of adventures to look forward to. I for one can't wait to see what Vig does next with Hocusha.

You can read Hocusha here ... my contributions started from page 10 of Chapter 7.