It's Over

Some years ago I made this comic, ZX, one page at a time, on this blog. A web-comic, as it were. Afterwards, I got it printed in real-life real paper made out of real trees, I got it published, it won an award and I've been told that it had a positive impact on several people. Then I moved on to other endeavours. 

Recently I've decided to upload it in cbr and pdf form for posterity, as its print run has long since ran its course. For good measure, I finished up translating the few pages that were in the book but weren't on this blog, so the whole thing is now in english too. 

For the English version PDF, click here.

For the English version CBR, here instead.

If instead you're of the Greek persuasion, please don't hesitate to grab the PDF or the CBR. 

I think this is a more fitting end to this blog than the abrupt fadeaway post below it. If you seek to contact me, I still check blogger periodically, but you'll have better luck hitting me up on facebook.


I'll leave you with a little secret. I'm employed in a different field now and in a different country and I enjoy my life and my work. But I'd still like to make more at least another comic. Don't tell anyone.

- Helm

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ZX wins an award.

At this year's Comicdom Con, ZX was nominated for 'Best Fanzine'. You can see a video of the whole ceremony below. I'm the awkward person taking the award at around 8-9 minutes in and saying not very much to the microphone ("thank you very much" for you foreign barbarians). A few more thoughts after the video/jump.




The category was "Best Fanzine". In Greece, the term 'fanzine' is misused. What the term really means is a small (but not necessarily) print run publication, usually periodical (as in, there are more than one issues and they come out incrementally) whose subject is an examination of culture; Say, if I were a big fan of a football club (like AEK, or Olympiacos) and I put out 'Olympiacos Monthly' on a shoestring budget, that could classify as a fan-zine. Usually fanzines are about underground music, though. Most often punk and indie, and that's where we got the term from, as in Greece there is a tradition for the usual xerox'ed anarchopunk fanzine as there is all around the world.

Comics were gradually introduced in fanzine pages, and slowly comics-only fanzines started coming out. Again, it is valid to call something a fanzine if it's comics-only, but the comics in it deal with an item of culture. If let's say I were to put out a small run comic full of my own Superman stories, that's indeed a fanzine.

But ZX is not a fanzine in this respect. It is a privately funded small print comic book. I am not complaining or anything, in fact I am very grateful for the recognition. Just saying, for the future, the Greek scene should stop calling small press comics fanzines. Many 'proper' comics are small press as well. If the distinction is an economic one, then 'small press' is the proper term. If the distinction is a cultural one (subject matter and point of view related) then though I understand using 'fanzine' for historical reasons, there should be steps taken to use clearer terminology in the future. Self-published is a useful term.

There will be other, pertinent news in the next few weeks. This blog might be coming out of its hiatus soon.

All the best to you, readers. If there's any of you left.

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ZX in stores

If you'd like to buy ZX from one of these following stores: Solaris, Comicon, Πολιτεία, Πρωτοπορία, Χρηστάκης, Τζεβελέκου you now can. Jemma also, soon.

You can order online here.


Nothing much after the jump, just contentment.





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Thank you / Ευχαριστώ πολύ

It is done. It exists and it has been bought by numerous wonderful people. I feel elation not unlike that after having given birth. This is said with the lack of weight characteristic to the gender that will never have that experience and therefore approximates it with artistic endeavours, but even so!

Thank you to every single one of you that paid patronage for the book. I sincerely wish you are not burdened by the story and that you find something positive in it, as this is how it is meant. If you'd like to give something further back, you could discuss the book and your impressions in the comments here, or e-mail me in private (if you're the shy type).



Below repeats the same message in Greek.



Έγινε, υπάρχει και το αγόρασαν πολλοί υπέροχοι άνθρωποι. Νοιώθω ξαλάφρωμα ανάλογο μετά της γέννας. Το λέω αυτό με την ανάλαφρη διάθεση χαρακτηριστική του φύλλου που ποτέ δεν θα την έχει αυτή την εμπειρία και μπορεί μόνο να την προσεγγίσει με δημιουργήματα τέχνης, άλλα έστω!

Ευχαριστώ τον κάθε ένα σας που αγόρασε το βιβλίο. Ειλικρινά ελπίζω να μην σας βαραίνει και να βρείτε κάτι θετικό μέσα του, εγώ έτσι το εννόησα. Αν θέλετε να δώσετε κάτι σαν επιπλέον αντίδωρο, μπορείτε να συζητήσετε τις εντυπώσεις σας από το βιβλίο στα σχόλια παρακάτω, ή να μου στείλετε ιδιαίτερος μήνυμα εδώ (εάν ντρέπεστε) .

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ZX says: Come to Comicdom

That is all.
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ZX coming out, finally!

I have maintained radio silence for a while because this was in the works. So, at april 8, I am debuting the Greek-language publication of the all-improved, all-augmented, all morale-debilitating ZX comic on the Comicdom Convention. If you'd like to buy it, you could do worse than come over and say hi to me while you're at it.


If you're shy and/or hate filthy longhairs, you could pick it up at the usual Athens comics shops, and also for the first time, select bookstores (more info on that after the convention). If you'd like to make a direct order for whatever reason, this can be arranged (click on 'contact).

I'm very proud of how things have turned out with this comic on the whole. It's high time I release it to the wild, finally. I plan for there to be an international, English language release eventually. If nothing better comes up, at least as 'print on demand'.

I learned Quark Xpress in the span of two days in order to format the book. If you want something killed, you have to slay it yourself. But! In contrast with past self-publishing efforts, this comic is going to be distributed by the lovely folks at Comicworld, which will mean you stand more of a chance to actually find it in comics-relevant shops! Baby steps towards relevancy.


Excitement.

-Helm


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More work, ZX update, more 'what I did', et cetera

Click and click again for larger sizes.

First one is a 'nobody wants to be in charge when they pieces fall' type of thing, the second makes more sense for you foreigner savages if you look at a geographical map of Greece. The person doing the hacking is the esteemed mr. Papakonstantinou, featured once before.

As usual, if any of these strike a chord with the reader, feel free to link them around and whatnot. This is the purpose of political commentary.

Strangely, streamlining my process (to make increasingly hard deadlines) called for a return to digital inking, and a more watercolor type of soft wash. In any case, I'm getting faster/(better?). I regret how the second image is a photo trace, but deadline ridiculous called for 'anything that works' measures.

On other news! I've finally inked half of the missing chapter of ZX. Four out of the eight pages are done right now. The two first are introductory vignettes (seriously ten minutes to draw each), the middle two are heavy duty proper inking proper pages of proper artistry, then there's two sparser Eisner-ian pages that won't take too long to do. And then there's the final page, a comic strip I have in the past been torn on whether to do or not, to give a 'full circle' feel to the comic. I'd say I'm almost halfway with my final obligations towards this comic. Here's a teaser image of one of the more challenging inked pages.


Clicking for bigger sizes will prove fruitless. Buy the comic instead!

I'm proud of how this one in particular turned out. Hopefully next week, at the most the week after that, I'll be putting my final ink stains on ZX. And not a moment too soon, as we'll be going to the printers right after, and on the 8th of April it'll be for sale at Comicdom con. (I'll be posting more about this as the time approaches).

On other other news, one-coining ESP Galuda must have given me extra strength, because this week I managed to defeat an old foe of mine, Dodonpachi. Here's how this old devil plays, to give you an idea.



Actually it wasn't the second wind from finishing Galuda that pushed this one over the edge after years and years of playing. It was Ptoing (fellow shooter aficionado) telling me in conversation that I should switch from the red - laser ship to blue - shot ship, if I want to survive the first loop. So I did, and after a few days of re-training (blue ship is slower and its laser is much, much weaker than I have been used to) I one-coined this one as well! I bombed the hell out of the last boss. Let's just say that if DDP had auto-bomb on bullet proximity, I'd have finished the first loop years ago.

This is meaningless to the reader not familiar with the joys and frustrations of really hard video-games (or really hard hobbies in general, I'd expect) but it's a significant event in the lives of those given to such vices. I've been playing DDP off and on for what feels like at least six years, but it could be seven or eight too. To finally achieve some closure on such an endeavor has surprising psychological benefits. I feel like I can beat up a mountain right now. It's no wonder I inked for twelve hours in the span of two days. When I finished ESP Galuda I was somewhat "meh" about it, but here, after I got the Game Over screen there was straight-up primal hollering and sweaty adrenaline airfists and everything. Yes I realize that saying such things to the internet drastically increases my chances of sleeping alone for a long, long time to come, but hey. I'm Helm, I'm (trying to feel) fine with myself, how are you doing?

My fucking credentials, son



May the long-beaked stoic one reside in the pantheon forever!


Reality check: This is a small victory, as veteran arcade shooter players know. There's of course, a full second loop of Dodonpachi after the first one, which one is granted access too only on specialized conditions (scoring over 50,000,0000 points, only dying once or twice, getting all the hidden score items in at least four stages, that sort of thing). This second loop is somewhat harder than the first and at the end of it you face the true boss of the game, Hibachi.



Here's however that I draw a line. I'm not an obsessive achiever, I played DDP for all this time because it's a fun game to me, it seems perfectly balanced at the exact edge where my skill runs out and just before frustration sets in. I probably will still play it on and off, perhaps improve my score a bit here and there, but I'm completely resigned to that defeating the boss above is beyond my projected skill even years down the line. I have better things to do than train DDP every day concentrated for months (or possibly years) to achieve an one-coin two loop clear. So be happy for me for getting halfway there while still retaining some semblance of a social existence.

Let's see, what else did I do in the days between this and my last post? Did I post this?


I'm not helping my case with these projects, am I?


-Helm
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I guess I wasn't done.

I'm inking an extra chapter for ZX. I wonder if I should put it online here or just save it for the print version.


It's about 6 pages (some of them sparser than others). It goes right after the flashback sequence with the car crash, but before the final chapter (9) where Stephan and ZX say their goodbyes. It documents in more detail the psychological fallout of what happened and how exactly, the ZX entity came to appear out of that.

Also a final page after the end of the comic, which as some readers might remember, I've debated on including.


The missing chapter could be inferred by the reader but I felt that there is a degree of anguish and mental-mutilation involved that I didn't trust the reader to invent in the case they've never lost someone they love very much. As I didn't want this comic to just tall to the grief-stricken about what they already know, I'm in the process of inking that extra chapter.

Then I'm done. Honest.

Should I post it here or should it be an added bonus for the print version, you think?
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You told me what to draw!

And I drew it.

The two ideas are "I request an alternate cover to ZX, in the style of pulpy fantasy novel covers and Frazetta in general, wherein ZX is battling a dragon." by Mr. Sterling and "Iphigenia being sacrificed" by Casey.

Click and click again for bigger and better.

These are just pencils though, you have to decide which of the two I should ink this week!

Also! Also! Please, kind readers, do not read too much into the selection of the first two comments for drawing. It will not be a recurring effect. I kinda started the ZX dragon one the moment I got my first comment because I was scared that I wouldn't get any more and then the Iphigenia idea was too good to pass up so I started that the day after. Next time I'll be more patient.

But you people kept posting wonderful ideas and I kinda want to draw them all. So! I will (kinda). I'll do pencil sketches, at least, for a couple of more ideas from your first suggestion thread. Then, when we have the second suggestion thread, I'll get results from that and pencil more and post all the penciled ideas together to choose which one to ink. The idea is to make a repository of pencil sketches so there's always more to ink if I feel like it and I'm never out of wonderful reader-submitted ideas.

So, make your choice for this week, if you have further ideas-for-pencil-sketches, never hesitate. I keep a little notebook with the best ones, I won't forget.

It was refreshing to do more labored pencil work, I must say. It's been a while. Doing the ZX pencils was completely different to this because there was practically no shading, just contours and space definition. I did all the shading in the inks, digitally, but here I can't afford to mess around I'll need to know where my lights are well before I put ink to paper, there's no undo.

For the Iphigenia picture, I tried to capture her self-sacrifice, the reticence of the priest and the stoic resolution of her father, Agamemnon, in the distance.

For the ZX versus the dragon picture I was mainly going for a good composition and trying to think where I'll put the pulp-fantasy wordage in the top left corner. The unfinished pencil parts in the background is just cloud shapes that I was pretty certain I could do straight in ink.





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I might go with this logo color, though.

Also I am a bit worried about Gamut warnings on CMYK printout now. The whole yellow-to-blue gradient behind ZX's head shows as outside the range. On some test printouts I did it looks fine but I wonder when it'll go to the proper print machine itself...


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ZX Cover 3: Colored

I just finished this like, 2 minutes ago so excuse any major art-blindness, I'll catch errors later on.

But I'd love to hear the reader opinion on it.
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ZX Cover 2: Inked

This took more time than any other page of the comic, predictably.

And I'm still not done, I have to color it!

Nothing much under the jump.



Well, here's a color/texture primer because you're nosy.
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A reader comment.

Same named reader left the following comment at the end of the ZX comic.

I think I would have said that [the revelation of ZX not being real ruined the comic for me] because I was enjoying the juxtaposition of reality and ridiculous at the time. The story from the beginning was something I was relating to. Perhaps this comes from my own conviction that we live in an invented reality anyway. I know I have several different lives running at once, dependent on which viewpoint I wish to take at the time. This is essentially what stereotyping and caricature are, that is, a selective viewpoint of certain points of reality, and probably what all story telling is also.

The revelation of ZX as form of emotional self management took my ability to relate away. Not because I have no loss to deal with, but because Stephan is forced to face his realities, and I am reasonably sure that like most people, I will usually take the easy way out and choose to never notice the reality exists. Because once that point is passed, it cannot be retrieved.

I find myself feeling hollow at the end of this story. Something so conclusive is very difficult to feel optimistic about. However this reaction is probably all about 'not wanting to look directly inside a wound.', therefore the point is essentially achieved? Besides, a story that leaves me feeling less than happy is a story that will stay with me for longer. Satisfaction is easy to forget, discontent rankles longer.

I don't know if this comment knows how much I enjoyed engaging with this story, because I really did. It's the whimsy and human weakness intermingled with the tragedy that get me hooked. Like Shakespeare who could never stop making jokes even when all his characters died in the end. Life just isn't made to be take seriously because so many things go wrong that what can but acknowledge the ridiculous? Even when you are in love you are always going to be thinking about how your pants are itchy or the dishes need washing.


Anyway, I'll be buying this when I can, and reading it several times over.

Besides my sincerest thanks for it, a wordy reply follows the jump.


Eliza, while I was reading your comment I became increasingly lightheaded.

Your initial read of the ZX robot as a 'magical realist' entity is how I had used him in past stories. I too see no reason to offer explanations for why a robot would intermingle with human beings in the abstract: whatever serves the point of the story, namely an expose of humanity and a degree of pathos, would do.

It is apt you stopped relating when you did. I made a point when making this to try to create increasing distance for the reader and the characters. I did not want them to live vicariously through the storyline as escapism wasn't my goal (and actually if I were to let them 'escape' into such a harrowing place then that'd be pretty sadistic of me). Well, I was a bit cruel. At the beginning I set something of a 'false hook' to lure the reader in what appears to be a 'boy meets girl' scenario, and I gradually pulled the carpet underneath it. I am glad that your inability to relate didn't keep you for reading the rest of it and that it was effective nonetheless for you.

The concept of alienation is not a new one (Bertolt Brecht) but it is one that's hardly employed in most comics (though definite examples like Chris Ware's and Dan Clowes' work shine). I might be misinterpreting it but it serves me right even through misinterpretation: I want readers (myself foremost) to read this and accept certain things. To stand intellectually against them as much - if not more - as they stand emotionally for the characters. The idea is not to 'like' Stephan or Mary in this story (in fact I added a lot that I personally find uncomfortable, that make me like the characters less and even feel embarrassed about them), it is to accept their existence and their situation as a reality. Not a conception of their existence that might suit the reader, like how we look at our friends and family (ever notice how sometimes we'd rather not hear the problems of our friends and family because we'd rather pretend they *have* no problems?). The only power of the terms 'reality' and 'existence' comes from this acceptance after all. If you can shut off a reality five minutes after experiencing it (like with most Hollywood films, for example) then you haven't accepted anything, it was just tourism.

This is what looking inside the wound means to me, and it's unbearable but we have to survive it. To survive it we need to breathe inside the trauma, adapt. This is what art does, it enforces a reality in which certain (be them brave or destructive or irresponsible or ridiculous or hilarious or whatever else) effects can be attempted and their results be binding for a time. Art is a spell.

In this particular piece, we try desperately to think that things that cannot be, are. And that things that certainly are, can not possibly be. But in the end we have to look directly in the wound and steel ourselves for the answer we find. That's what this story is about and that's what all characters in it go through.

Stephan wants his friend though he's not there and Mary wants Stephan though he's not there and the reader wants their romantic comedy though it's not there. What's there is worse, the worst. And then, hopefully, it becomes better. Slowly.

Thank you for reading and thank you for commenting. Mail like this makes it worthwhile for me to publicize my work.

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ZX cover

Working on the cover, slowly.

I'm going to do the coloring this time, sadly Ptoing doesn't have the time in this juncture. Probably for the best since my next project is going to be in -some sort of- color so this is training.

I'm going to go with a focal yellow light and dark, earthy rust and purple colors in the stuff around. I hope I do a good job, I never felt comfortable with color.

On other news I'm expecting to hear from a few Greek publishers soon. I'll be making the final page of the book I was talking about, I've decided. After the cover.

Oh, the gesture and text of ZX on the focal piece is a placeholder :)

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Back from the convention.

Well that was fun. I sold out of 'Ektos Thematos' - well, I only took 32 pieces with me... they're really heavy to carry. I ran out just as the convention was winding down though so my sixth sense is accurate. I have... *goes to count*



about a hundred copies left. Also, check out that phantasmal profile on the wall. Visited by Apollo?


Friend and co-conspirator Thanos (of the now sadly dormant but hopefully not defunct 'Days of the Locust' cine-blog) also has another two packs stashed at home in case of emergency so the grand total of unsold Ektos Thematos is about one hundred and sixty copies out of a print run of five hundred. These were circulated mostly hand-by-hand at three conventions, a minuscule quantity through fanzine-friendly comic shops and of course a significant amount through the Catch The Soap mailorder (from where you may still order your copy if you feel like it) without any formal promotion or other marketing efforts within the span of almost a year. I count the project as a modest success in that I didn't make any huge money out of it but didn't lose any money either. Artistically I still like most of the material in the book and perhaps at some point in the future would venture a second print edition via some more formal publisher so the book can outlast my however-brief mortality, safely tucked between other comic inconsequentialities in the bookshop shelf.

I didn't win the 'Best Fanzine' award in this years' Comicdom Awards but Mike did so I can't really complain!

On the other front, there has been interest expressed by a number of our local publishers in my ZX comic and I have gathered a lot of useful critique and feedback by many comrades & acquaintances. Things look hopeful for a Greek official printing soon, and who knows, an international may follow.

I might be drawing a SINGLE extra page for the comic soon, but I also might not be, I haven't made up my mind. I have some time to consider it while Ptoing works his magic on the cover.

Comic conventions rejuvenate me somehow by making me feel useful and relevant to a society I don't have too much to do with on a normal, daily basis. The return after them is bitter-sweet. On one hand I look forward to my peace and quiet for some days, on the other I tend to feel increasingly useless in that timespan. However this blog is useful in yet another way by reminding me that I'll have to post... something here at least every Monday. Got to get my affairs in order!

All that being said I feel strangely ready to tackle my next project.

Keep reading...
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ZX Post-vitum 1 : comic plastic surgery

I've been going over the comic many, many times after I did the last few pages and I've been keeping meticulous notes of what I'd like to fix per-page. Some pages are fine as they are, some need just lettering fixes (good god, the sloppy, amateurish lettering!) and others need full fledged redraw-the-panel overhauls.

On one hand this is because in the last 10 months, I have grown not only as a comic artist (well, a little I guess) but also as a digital comic artist (I now have complete mastery of Manga Studio, and if I make any money off of this comic, I'm going to be buying a full license, they deserve it and it's good karma too). So now I see things in earlier pages that look alright, but could be done much cleaner and simpler by using all the tools of Manga Studio. I have decided however, to not go into fixing such textures and effects because it's disingenuous; Let the comic reflect the process I went through. Besides, there's something pleasing about how it starts of fairly minimal-looking and then towards the end becomes fuller and more nuanced in the inking. An interesting unintentional 'inking as commentary' effect.

On the other hand, some changes have to be made because the character's faces are either distorted or have outright changed from the beginning to now. Like on the very second page (crop pictured above) the original Stephan looks way more morose and severe than I needed him to look in the opening of the story. I had to change his face to a more neutral, innocent tone, because I expect some readers will finish the story and then turn to the beginning and start over. It won't do to go from the last-page-Stephan to the first-page Stephan to find him looking so fatigued and weary. I kind of liked how he looked to the reader in the original version, a sort of knowing look, but let's not be too clever, he's unaware of what's going to happen so I changed his eyes to look to his left. Also the black eyebrows were changed to the lighter-colored ones that became the default in the continuation of the comic. Check out the newly added Greco-Roman nose job too! That's what you get when you start a comic without having done 20 pages of character studies to get their look down completely, right? But consider the upside: if I had done 20 pages of character studies before I started this comic proper, I would have never finished it. I know this now. This is the only knowledge I have to offer other struggling comic artists: start drawing, now. Fix lazy mistakes later, have the comic in your hands and then you can afford changing whatever. Don't bother with too much foundation work. You are not an architect. You are a poet. (or to be more precise: if you find yourself unable to go through with building your comic after you've laid all the meticulous foundations for it, then you're the poet type. If you can manage it however then you might be one of those fabled poet-architects that achieve amazing success at anything they set their mind to do. Congratulations!)

Many small such fixes occur in the first 15 pages of the comic (that's how many I've gone through so far, today I'll do the rest) but for the reader the changes will not always be discernible. This is not because they are not major changes sometimes (some faces have been completely redrawn, for example) but because what the faces signify has rarely changed so the reader's memory will improvise with the new data and not worry the consciousness by sending it signals that stuff has changed. Only in two panels so far have I changed the actual expression of the characters to better convey their emotional status. I count this as a minor victory, it means that although I've struggled to draw people right in this comic the problem was with where their eye or nose would best be situated, not with what emotional expressions they held.

The other big thing about the comic is fixing the lettering. Because it was the last job I had to do for any given page of these, it's the most rushed, awful thing. Especially in the English version of the comic, at around page 8 to 20 it's a mess. Complete re-lettering has to occur and I'm not looking forward to it, oh not at all. I hate lettering. I'm now fixing the Greek versions so I can show it to publishers in a reasonable reading form in the upcoming Comicdom Convention, but straight after that I'll be spending two awful, tiring days re-lettering most of the English version too, so I can e-mail samples to the various publishers.

Although that's a bit of work if you think about it, my brain doesn't count it as such. It feels just like spring cleaning, moving a few furniture about. The comic is finished, now all that's left is to finish it.

-Helm
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ZX page 42, 43 : Dream's end

The comic has ended.

Just a cover to do, fix errors in all the pages (I estimate that'll take a week or so) and then I start on the painful trek to publishing. I'll try my luck with the Greek publishers first, at the annual Comicdom Convention that occurs on 16. 17 and 18 of this month. If you're Greek and you'd like to meet me you can seek me out at the fanzine room as usual. I'll post about it when it's about to happen, again.

If you have any thoughts on the comic you could share them in the comments. I'll be tweaking the art and writing in the past pages but probably not posting them hey, I have to save something for the printed version, right? The meanings of the comic will not change so although this is not yet the definitive version, it is complete.

- Helm
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ZX page 41: pillars of doubt

I opted to use a different vantage because I didn't want to do the usual Marathon dam shot. I used this photograph for reference. It kind of looks wonky architecturally in the comic but so it does in the reference too, perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to use unreal-looking reference but it did suit my purposes on a few higher levels. One is that is gives the page a nice overall construction, panel segments slotted into natural divisors. The other is that I wanted to place the monologue of Stephan on top of the pillar that supports the bridge because his doubts are shaking up the foundation of the relationship between the two of them. The black/white contrast between them in the establishing shot is a further indication of distance, of the here and the beyond. I don't expect anyone reader to read my comic and go "oh, the doubts are over the foundation of their relationship, nice!" because I think these things work best - and are most worth it - when they leave a subconscious mark. I only mention such here because I know that some readers enjoy post-analysis of an the art as a separate joy to actually reading the comic.

Marathon's already looking better, by the way. I mean after we burned it down last summer. My friend Vasilis showed up out of the blue and gave me a ride over there, it was a very pleasant afternoon. I dreaded going back because of the summer fires but it seems the green is back at least. The trees will take a while. Possible dam walkers are invited back, I guess. I wonder if we'll burn it again this summer.

Next couple of pages end this story. I'll try to post them both at the same time (if not on next Monday then certainly a couple of days later) so as to not diminish the impact of the finale. Then it's revisions on the art and a cover left to do. I'm not looking forward to trying to shop this around but in the same time, I am, if that makes sense. The comic certainly feels as if it's over already for me even though I haven't drawn the next two pages. It's over in my brain and in my heart. Drawing the last bits and then fixing the badly drawn bits before them is just routine housekeeping now. What's strange (strange? perhaps not so much) is that it has brought some psychological issues on the surface it seems I have to tackle directly soon. I guess it's a good thing if your art surprises you, right?

-Helm
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ZX page 40: Energetic Disassembly

This one took a long time. I am considering it colored for the cover too, don't know. Perhaps something else might come to me after I'm done with the comic proper.

Also a new thing I did this time I let the pencils show underneath the inks, I almost never do this as I consider it sloppy but I wanted a few more rough edges here and there on this piece, and the extra rendering level really. I tried to keep the pencils relatively tight just for this reason which increased the workload. It was a full-time week for me, an artist that isn't even paid to do this. Oh well, you're only 25 and living in the good graces of your father once, right?



Which reminds me, I won't be 25 for long, heh. Oh well, good spirits, now. Like every time I finish a page. But will this making comics thing work out at the end? I don't know!

This chapter is the last one, by the way.

-Helm
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ZX Page 39: And then she says

Chiaroscuro, they call it I think? From darkness to the light, something like that.

I wonder how many times in my life I've been inappropriate without realizing it.
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