Max Riffner

The Parlor

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Planning & Learning

Now that my workload is considerably less, I’m debating a couple of projects. I am going to start work on my next graphic novel this week. I’ve been doing research for this since January and I’m really excited to start sharing some of that with you all. A good deal of the book will go into the world of professional wrestling, and since that isn’t something I’m familiar with, I read many books dealing with the subject matter. I’d especially like to thank my fellow Shocktraumanaut Jason Caskey (writer of The Holy Terror) with my research. Calling Jason knowledgeable about wrestling is something of an understatement.

The other project I’m considering is another webcomic. Free Comic Book Day showed me how rusty I’ve become as an artist. Not that my sketching was inferior, just that they took more time. Part of the reason why I worked on Quick Step was to draw something sequential every week, and since that comic ended in December, I haven’t been doing much with art (I’ve been writing HTML like a fiend though).

I don’t want to do another graphic novel online though. They tend to work better in print. The big successes in webcomics are strips, and let me tell you, I suck at strips. I’ve never been good at strips because I came from a comic book viewpoint. So when I did strips in college, I kept trying to make the strip act like a comic page very unsuccessfully. I didn’t get the rules for strips then. I do now. Or at least, I’m aware of the rules now.

In order to try to stretch my imaginin’ muscles a bit better, I may try a webcomic in strip format only if it doesn’t take away from the graphic novel. I’ll get for sure money from the graphic novel. However, I’ve always wanted to try my hand at doing a webcomic using proven and successful methods for growing an audience and even making some scratch. The entrepreneur in me wants to give it a shot. Of course, it helps that I have a good idea in mind too, one that I think we’ll be entertaining (think Bukowski meets Daffy Duck).

Finally, on the Daffy Duck note, everyone knows who John Kricfalusi is, yes? Creator of Ren & Stimpy, master animator? Well, he has a series of cartooning tutorials on his blog that you can download. They’re from a Preston Blair book, which John believes is all you need to use to learn how to draw, instead of a $100,000 degree. I’m all in. I’m going to be working on these too. You are never too old or too accomplished to try something new, and this is something completely different from my current cartooning sensibilities. Plus it looks like a blast! I hope this will help loosen me up as I prepare for my next works.

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