Grizzly & The Bear Patrol #18

[kybearfuzz]

My last issue was out back in May. Sadly, because of a very busy summer, I had to put my comic book work on the back burner for a while. Once things got back to normal for me, I started working on the next issue of the comic. It's taken quite a bit, but I finally got Issue #18 done.

The rest of the comic book are behind the cut below. There are issue notes for the comic below as well.

• This book marks the return of The Gaymer, a villain based on LJ'er martini_tim. This marks the second time so far that I've re-used a comic book villain I created. I usually like to create new villain, but sometimes there is more to tell of an established one.


• The original idea I had for the cover was the Bear Patrolers being bound to chess pieces and attacked by a holographic knight. As I was drawing the issue, I inserted the knight, but found that robots were a much larger part of the story, so I redrew the cover.


• Inking took much longer this time around than usual for some reason. Each page was about 90 minutes when they usually took me an hour. Not sure why.


• Polar Bear's daughter Anna appears in this issue again, out of costume this round. It hit me on my car ride home from work on Friday that I have a character named Anna with ice powers, pieces of which sound like they are from the Disney movie "Frozen." Luckily, my Anna appeared long before the movie. :)


• In this issue, we learned a bit more about Polar Bear's work. He works for Aurora Communications. In the Grizzlyverse, I think of him as having a lot of technical and computer skills (which is not uncommon, bears are rampant in the IT industry).


• We also get a bit of a look at Gabe and Jerry planning their wedding. I love vanilla bean and chocolate mocha flavors. The wedding issue is looming soon.

Any questions, comments, or criticism? Please let me know.

Comments

[notmypresident.livejournal.com]

Any questions, comments, or criticism?

Err... umm... well, since you asked...

I think there's been some real growth as far as panel placement and such. I guess that's to be expected as you grow more confident.

I remain, however, a bit disappointed with the flat backgrounds. I see here that you did some marvelous coloring effects in some panels to help alleviate this, but most of the backgrounds remain flat and uninteresting. I'm guessing that this is a time issue, since it would obviously up your time drawing. Still, with Photoshop layers, I would think it might be a little easier for you.

A fun issue, but I was confused by the panel where Gaymer is transferred into the data storage device because I thought the bearded image was a member of the Bear Patrol!

[kybearfuzz.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the comments.

In regards to the backgrounds, you are correct in that it is mainly a time issue. My general rule of thumb is to include one panel per page that has backgrounds in them. The color gradients are my replacements. Usually, the colors in the gradients are those of the panels with backgrounds. My intent in doing this is try to create the illusion of a background, think of it like a camera that is out of focus with the background while the foreground is sharp.

I have considered creating a series of stock "backgrounds" that I could plug into the panels, but I feel like I'd go through those quickly.