Grizzly & The Bear Patrol #8

[kybearfuzz]

I finished the cover tonight and gave the comic one last proofread in the hopes I caught all the errors. Issue 8 has taken a while to get moving. I started plotting this issue all the way back in April. Drawing and coloring take a lot more time, but this issue has been in progress for five months. Overall, I'm pretty happy how this issue turned out and it was good to bring back a familiar villain.

I hope you guys and gals like it. There are 24 full-color pages behind the spoiler cut below, all are "PG-13" and work-safe, but they might take a bit of time to load. I also put some notes about the issue at the end.


















































Notes:

• This issue took a bit longer to do because I created a few new characters based on friends: The Bear Runner (_decibel_), The Flying Scotsman (kybigstew), Dynamo (jeepdude_70), and Cloak (former LJ'er ronm). Only Monolith was completely new, but he's somewhat based, at least physically, on a co-worker of mine.


• I enjoyed bringing back The Bear Collector. I figured a six issue hiatus was long enough.


• As you read the comic, you might notice that the cover image and the story images don't match up exactly, in terms of how the team arrives and how the Collector tortures Center. This was pretty common back when I started reading comics in the 1970's. It occurred I think because often the cover artist was different than the story artist and the book and cover were often not done at the same time. When I was drawing the cover last night, I thought it would be fun to copy that idea.


• I've noticed that most comic book covers these days don't have speech bubbles on them, but it was pretty commonplace on comics in the 1970's and 80's. I looked back to my past covers and I'm about 50% on the speech bubble covers. I guess I'm a throwback in that regard.


• Most pages have at least one panel with backgrounds on each page. Some pages turned out better than others. I am trying to standardize the layout of the "On the Growl" bar at least.

Any questions or criticisms, just let me know. :)

Comments

[barak.livejournal.com]

Has it been six months since your last issue already? Seems like just last week... I love the results of your efforts! Great job!

Why not do some smaller issues, if you want to release more frequently? Focus on smaller cast of characters, have a storyline that involves two or three at a time? The large number of characters to keep track of sometimes makes the story harder to follow.

I'm all about wanting to see more character development and slice of life in stories. For example, how do your superheroes spend their free time? What are their jobs? Pets? Odd quirks or funny mishaps? How does their powers effect their private lives? Are there any deep dark embarrassing stories they might not prefer to come to light?

Stuff like that makes a character feel more... rounded, real... more interesting to me.

Oh well, that's my late night ponderings.

[kybearfuzz.livejournal.com]

It has been six months! With all the work and family stuff this summer, I got a bit behind. I'm glad you're enjoy it.

I have thought about doing "vignettes" of sorts, but sometimes it's hard to get all the story I want in 24 or so pages versus say five or six.

The plot for the next issue has been floating about in my head while working on this comic and I think a lot of the things you'd like to see will be in it. No spoilers, all the characters will be in it, but it will deal mainly with just a few.

Big hugs!