OK good I am glad to have moved on from the last page.  The comments section got a little unpleasant and though I did through some joking comments around, it felt like I was getting most of the anger from people who completely either did not get, or could not take, a joke.  Of course the internet’s main use is to misinterpret, call names and freak out.  So really I should be surprised we made it to page 55 before the first person called me an A-hole.

If any of you listened to the recent Making Comics podcast with Doug and me, you may have heard me mention my newfound appreciation for George Washington.  I have been quite taken with this guy and so I decided to do this piece, which is already sold.  But here is a photo.

George Washington: Actual Bad Ass

Oddly I was not even thinking about it being President’s Day, I just felt like drawing this and just so happened to finish it on President’s Day.  I am not trying to make an obscure or essoteric statement with this piece.  I did not leave it up to the viewer’s interpretation.  The message of this piece is simple: George Washington was a bad ass.

That’s that! See you Friday.
Ethan

I took the opportunity with this page to poke fun at the way girls always say they are tom boys, but they really aren’t.  They also like to say they are nerds, or that geeks are cool, but they would never touch a real geek or nerd with a ten foot pole.  Yes this is a broad generalization and it is totally true.  If you get offended you are not being much of a tom boy.

If I have infuriated any sensitive ladies, well, I did paint this…

…which will instantly make you think I am awesome.  I’m just saying it’s hard to resist a nice walnut ink rendition of a Bear Elk.  This is another one of the pieces I am doing that will find its way to eBay here soon.  I’m pretty proud of this one if you couldn’t tell from how pompous I am being.  Unfortunately the image is blurry because it is a photo, the original is too big to scan!

And yes, Gogs is that awesome and that is why we love him.  I think the desire to practice punching a severed bear head is something most men can identify with, and that is why women in general find men as a species totally horrifying.  This could lead into an entire Seinfeld routine of some sort, but I am out of material.

Bearicatures are basically sold out.  I’ll sell a couple more bystanders then I will have to shut it down because that is going to be a lot of email and photo juggling to work into upcoming pages.  Thanks again to all who bought them up!

Hey I haven’t had any blog-inspiring questions sent to me in a while. If you have any burning questions please feel free to send an email!

Ethan

Yes, we have to get our cast of characters up to speed on what we already know… that this was not just four bears attacking.  They will figure it out soon enough.

To those of you who are curious about the Bearicatures and when they will start to appear… I’ll say they will be showing up around the high 60′s in page numbers.  I will notify you by email when yours is posted (probably before the page goes up).  I will probably not announce every single one on the blog because that could get redundant, but if you see yours you are welcome to shout with joy in the comments.

On we go!

Ethan

It terrifies me because it feels like I just drew this page yesterday and it is already up.  I’m back working on Axe Cop again right now and every time I work on something non-Bearmageddon I watch the comic catch up to me and it freaks me out.  The other thing that freaks me out is the amount of Bearicature orders I got.  I had to shut them all down except for the bystander level.  I’m going to be drawing a lot your mugs!

It is exhausting and thrilling to be pumping out so much work.  I think I have produced more comics in the last two years than I had in my entire life before that.  The biggest struggle I had creatively as an aspiring creator was actually coming up with a comic to draw.  I wanted to draw lots of comics, but I just didn’t have a solid idea.  When I would try to write them I would get stumped.  I would labor over the character designs, the scripts, every detail and never be satisfied enough to start drawing panels.  It amazes me how fast that changed.  One day I just started pumping comics out.  Part of it was demand, part of it was probably not only a growth in my own abilities, but also that I let go of trying to make the ultimate project and just started making stuff as much as possible.  The only way to make the ultimate project is, most likely, to make a bunch of non-ultimate projects first.  If you realize that the pressure is off.

So just make something already!

See you Wednesday.
Ethan

Bearmageddon is of course about the conflict between bears and humans, but it is also about other conflicts between ideas.  It’s easy to believe a lot of sunny ideas in our comfortable world where bears are not trying to kill us, but once the bears attack we have to ask ourselves where we stand.  Plus it just makes the story more fun to force two polar opposites like Nigel and Dickinson into the same bear infested hell.

In other news, I have been working on some art pieces to attempt to sell on eBay.  I don’t have a lot of experience selling my art on eBay but I wanted to give it a try and see if it can help me generate more income.  Below is an Octo-Bear I did.  This is 18×24, Charcoal, sumi ink, walnut ink, acrylic ink… and other stuff.

"Octobear Frolics in the Pond" by E. Nicolle

I have some others, and will be making some more.  I’ll do some Axe Cop, some Bearmageddon, and some other stuff.  If you would like to commission something in the higher price range, I might be willing to do it.  Send me an email and we can talk.  These are not quick little pieces in bulk like at Christmas though, so please don’t expect those prices.

And if you ordered a Bearicature, please make sure to reply to the email you were sent and attach a photo.  I have been trying to reply to most of them to confirm I got them.  If you get any doubts feel free to check, I did miss a couple orders with the Christmas orders and if people had asked earlier I would have gotten them their stuff on time.  This is a little different.  It will be a week or two before I start drawing any of the pages with “extras” on them and months before they post.  So be patient, your time will come.

Also, if you didn’t order a Bearicature because the good ones are sold out, order a bystander and just let me know in your message that you want to upgrade if one becomes available and I’ll put you on a waiting list.  Bystanders are the positions I have the most of and I have sold the fewest of!

If you haven’t clicked “like” or shared Bearmageddon with friends recently, please take a moment to do so.  I was looking at traffic and it’s not bad, but the number of new visits is starting to get lower.  I know there’s more Bearmofos out there who would be excited to read this comic, they just need to find out about it.  Of course you guys are the OGBs (Original Gangsta Bearmofos).

Alright, I feel like that was a lot of talk about money and traffic and numbers.  I need to write a real blog.  Maybe next time.  Today was all business!

Ethan

If you are looking at this page, and it is not in color, you probably need to go see an eye doctor.  He will probably tell you that your seeing is fine.  What happened is some kind of mix up with Noah.  He told me the page was done and updated, but it never transferred to me, and when I messaged him I think he was already asleep.  Since I like to have this done the night before I went ahead and posted the black and white  page.  Once I get the colors I will update it.  Hopefully that didn’t throw you off too much.

Of course if you got here and it is in color already you can totally ignore that first paragraph.

I like this page.  I like Dickinson eating the hell out of a fish.  I like Gogs sneaking off toward that severed bear head.  I like it.

Remember that podcast I posted on Wednesday?  Well part 2 is up!

There is good stuff in there.  I like this half the best of the two, though between the two we cover a lot of ground.  We veer off the comics reservation into other topics like comedy, jadedness, G.K. Chesterton and George Washington.

Man, thanks everybody who bought Bearicatures!  I literally went from terrifyingly broke to being covered for a couple months in a day.  What a huge relief.  As you may have seen, the Premium and Cheater level kills are sold out for now.  I would love to sell them all day, but then the entire comic would be random people being killed by bears.  That might be a cool comic in itself, but I have a story to tell here.  They may open back up if I find I have more room for them.  If you want to be on a waiting list, buy the $50 Bearicature and let me know in the description you would like to be on the list.  If one opens up I will let you know, but if not you will still get in at the mid-tier.

See you guys next week when we finally get our lovable group of slackers unchained from those trees and on with the story.

Ethan

Page 50!  I can’t say I planned for this page to just happen to post the week before the Superbowl, but it works.

A couple things… First, you may have seen my Facebook post asking if people would be willing to pay to be in Bearmageddon as bear attack victims.  There was a huge response and, frankly I need the income!  Between Christmas, a couple large surprise bills, a long time without a very lucrative con or sizable check… these comics just aren’t paying for themselves like they usually do.  So this is what I came up with as a way to monetize Bearmageddon: pay me and I’ll put you in the comic as a bear attack victim.  Mike, the Bearmageddon webmaster dubbed them “bearicatures”.  Details are on the page, I tried to make different price levels to give most readers an opportunity.  The only catch is there is definitely a limited number of opportunities, so if you want a spot, buy it up!  I thank you in advance if you are one who chooses to buy one of these.

Next, Doug TenNapel and I were interviewed by Jason Brubaker on his Making Comics podcast.  Jason has only posted the first half of the interview, and it is an hour!  This was one of the funnest and most in depth interviews I have ever been a part of.  We really got lost in it as it went along.  This was a live, in person podcast.  Doug and i went to Jason’s home and recorded this in his studio so it is not your typical skype call podcast.  There is definitely material in there that you will have heard before if you follow this blog, but I still recommend it especially to anyone who has aspirations to work in comics and related fields.

Also, if you didn’t see it yet, here is the TMNT cover I did with Noah Maas.  It is a variant cover on the April issue of the new IDW TMNT series.  This was a blast to draw.

That about covers it for today.  We have officially made it through the first bear attack of the comic!

Ethan

I didn’t want to title this entry anything related to the comic so I titled it Tuvan throat singing.  To make it relevant, here is a video.

Tuvan Throat Singing

Also, need I remind you to buy an Octo-bear shirt?  Check out how good it looks on people like this girl named Noelle for instance.

this is what winning looks like.

Tonight I was on a podcast with Doug TenNapel and Jason Brubaker who does reMIND which I highly recommend.  All three of us happened to have books on YALSA’s list of great graphic novels for teens.  That has nothing to do with why we did a pocast though, we just did it because Jason has a podcast and we like Jason because he is our friend.  It is actually the first time Doug and I have done a podcast together and I think it went quite well. We’ll find out when the recording goes up.

See you in a couple days when we will find out if Dickinson just died.

Ethan

Just one bear to go.  I tried a number of possible bits of dialog for Dickinson to indicate that he is looking for the last bear and it seems to have escaped him for a moment, but in general I really hate when comic book characters talk to themselves just to let the audience in on what is going on.  I do it as little as possible, and I think Dickinson is more effective as a generally quiet character, especially when he is so deeply focused on bear killin’.

We’re coming to the end of a scene I’ve had swirling around in my head for years.  It’s been thrilling to finally bring it to life and see you all react.  I really appreciate the comments. This story is just getting started.  I can’t believe we’ll hit page 50 next week.  We are really just getting over the hump of the bridge into Act Two.  I would not consider this Act Two yet, but we are close.  Considering Act One generally takes up about 1/4 of a story, it’s safe to say this story is going to be over 200 pages.  Be strong little fingers!  I hope the color team can hang on that long, this page is glorious!

Speaking of the color team, I posted links to their sites in the links section.  Check out what these guys do when they are not coloring bear fights.  Color flatter Matthew Sargent even has his own web comic called Bag Drop.  Noah and I did a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cover together for the new IDW series.  It will be the alternate cover in April on issue #9 so keep your eyes open for that.

Also, I’m not sure if I mentioned it in the blog yet, but the Characters Page has been updated!  Big thanks to Mike Weber for making the Character and Links pages so nice and tidy.

Alright Bearmofos, we’ll pick this back up on Friday!

Ethan

Yep, gross huh.

This actually wasn’t in the script, I just realized as I was drawing it that with meaty guts guy there the choice would be easy, but gross.  Chop the dude, loosen the chain. I doubt you can even chop through a chain with an axe but we will pretend you can if it is a huge axe like that one and we’ll assume these chains are organic, made from hemp, purchased at Whole Foods and contain nothing harmful for the environment.

Part two of my interview at Flightpath is up.  Other than that I don’t have a whole lot to say today.  I have been working on the upcoming Bearmageddon pages.  It’s funny how excited I get drawing these action sequences.  I am working on the next sequence following this one and it’s intense.  I get all excited the whole time I am laying out the pages and planning out the action.  I hope they are this exciting to read.  Tomorrow the Axe Cop Documentary is going to be at my apartment filming me working.  I may have to pretend to be working on Axe Cop even though I am nips deep in Bearmageddon right now.

Ethan