Grizzly & The Bear Patrol #19

[kybearfuzz]

Here it is, late March, and I am finally getting my first issue of the year out. Holidays, work, and the like often get into the way of creating these. And putting these issues together do take time. I think if I won the lottery, I'd travel around for a bit, then settle in and do comic book stuff full-time. If I didn't need my day job, I probably could get out 8-10 issues a year.

Issue #19 is below. The bulk of the 25 pages are behind the cut to save space. Enjoy!































And as always, here are some comic notes behind the spoiler cut.

• This is the first issue of the comic where I inserted a double-paged spread. It messes up the centering in LJ, but it actually turned out well for the most part, comic-book-wise. Fortunately, I got the numbering right so it wasn't on front-to-back pages, as it wasn't something I'd considered until long after it was drawn, inked, and colored.



• I've reintroduced Monolith as a possible new member of the team. Usually comic book teams have added new members long before issue #19. I think I'm going to rotate him in slowly. Drawing a hero cast of six is rough enough, but I like Monolith and his powers.



• The Clone was a fun villain to create. I've always loved the 1970's clone look that gay men had -- the leather, the mustache, the sunglasses. It was definitely a look and an attractive one, I think.



• This is the first issue I've colored with Manga Studios 5. Ever since a tragic system update back in October, I can no longer use my old version of Photoshop to color the pages. MS5 was a cheaper alternative and geared more toward use in comic books than Photoshop. However, it has taken me a lot of time to build up my proficiency in using it. The average coloring time with Photoshop was an hour/page. Using Manga, it's taken me about 90 minutes/page. Hopefully, I'll get faster, but there is still a lot to learn about the software.

Any questions, comments, or criticism? I welcome any and all of them.