Well, as I approach the 100th panel I am busily preparing a print comic of the panels thus far. The idea is to try and make a bit of money from Clench and Cheese. I've also been looking at Adult Swim and assessing the animation there. It's pretty much along the lines of Family Guy with sudden non sequitur humor and flashbacks. Family Guy has surely been influential in that way.
One thing: I don't need to make it look like Disney. That, believe it or not, is a huge relief!
I am doing some contract work, building out a sales training tool in Flash for an enormous pharmo company. The comic is coming along nicely, hitting 77 episodes as of monday. I'm getting close to publishing a book and some other related items, but there will (obviously) be some work involved. I need to standardize the layout and text size as well as goosing up the resolution to 300 DPI. On the plus side, the book fits nicely on a 4 X 11 sheet, which means I can print it on letter-size paper cut lengthwise. A non-standard shape jumps out from the shelf (and fits nicely into a pocket). I think it's the next logical step, along with some stickers, shirts and maybe a coffee mug).
How about it?
One of the things that I always wanted to do was create a fairly realistic world populated with cartoon-y characters. One of my idols growing up was Herge, the creator of Tintin. His settings, cars, guns, props, etc. were all extremely realistic. This was due to a huge library of files he kept and drew from. Many of the drawings are flat-out copies of the photos, and no wonder. To draw a Citroen in 3/4 view racing down a Belgian street with other cars and people would be a drawing nightmare if you tried to do it from memory. He would often piece the various elements together to create balanced, superbly executed illustrations. As he became more famous, his comics improved amazingly, growing in depth and detail. He had a fine staff and a supportive publisher in addition to a huge network of fans.
I have none of this, but I do, fortunately, have Flickr and Photoshop. 
I almost always substantially rework the photos using Photoshop filters, coloring and so forth. I also will add and subtract elements either in Photoshop or Mirage. The basic process is usually thus:
More on specific drawing and story techniques at a later date. Thanks for readinig!
There's a post on the Drunk Duck Forums about why artists should update. Here's my two cents (totally blowhard pompous):
I think frequent updates show a level of commitment to your comic, this
site and your readers. Readers are busy and you often have one chance
to get their attention, so the more you post the better your chances.
Comic readers have always been fanatically loyal (look at your
newspaper) and that can have a couple of different results which I show
using examples:
1. Calvin & Hobbes was written and drawn by one person who had such
respect for his medium that he fought his syndicate for five years to
prevent the characters from being marketed. He had tremendous talent
and dedication and was rewarded by people who religiously read his
strip. He felt a duty to the readers to produce the very best he could
do every time (which was, barring two sabbaticals, every day for almost
eleven years).
2. Garfield. This strip was created by one person but is now produced
by a team of writers and artists. It was never very funny (IMHO) but
has slid into positive crap-ola. The writers steal gags from Charles
Schulz, Watterson, Walt Kelly and a host of others (and it's still not
funny). They reuse tired old gags and market the character in every
conceivable way. They obviously figure that, because people read it
anyway, they don't need to be better.
Most fall in between. In webcomics, almost all of us are unpaid. The only way we can show our respect is to produce whenever we can. I hold down a full time job, am raising a family and play in two bands ...and I'm holding myself to a rigorous (insane) schedule of full-color weekday updates. Haven't missed one yet in over 70 strips. I figure it's the least I can do.
In the interests of airing out my archives, I'm continuing to post completed material on DrunkDuck.com. The latest is Voice of Reason , a strip from 1994 that was in a few Portland papers before I moved into darker stuff. I also will be posting RAF and Barnes, two strips that were initially intended for mainstream syndication. I now have five or so strips on Drunk Duck, and will continue cranking out new ones .
In Clench and Cheese news, the long, long storyline of the possessed guitars has finally wound to a close. I had intended doing a series of single-gag strips for a while, but I've already got a new narrative suggesting itself, so that'll be that.
I'm going to start posting production notes with some of the techniques I use to achieve the rather unusual look to C&C' s backgrounds if there's any interest.
Here's a Voice of Reason that won't be published on DD because I reworked the idea into a much better Boig & Bitty strip.
For those interested in such things, I draw Clench & Cheese using Bauhaus Mirage, a great program for animation and all types of illustration. Not only does it have amazing drawing tools, it also allows you to edit and manipulate video, paint with light and create text effects. Using it to draw a comic is kind of like flying an F16 to the Quickie Mart, but I love it.
Lord, it's hard to get readership. I remember that when I started Tonar Syndicate in 1995, it was almost no time before I had 2200 hits a day. This on 9600 baud modems! I recall taking my cartoons to Kinko's for scanning and spending 40.00 an hour for low-res scans of the cartoons (I didn't know enough about compression in those days to save them properly). Now, although it's much easier to produce and distribute, it's way harder to stand out.
In light of this, I'm moving forward with the intro to Clench and Cheese using their theme song (this is a rough draft of it... working on a better version... and posting it on youtube (perhaps submitting it to Channel Frederator.
It's hard getting up, but I have a couple of regular readers who comment on my Drunk Duck site who are really fine cartoonists themselves and who are ebdlessly supported.
I hope one day to get plucked out of the sea of obscurity, but for now I draw chiefly to amuse myself and to develop my storytelling technique.
Actually, I think I'll enjoy this ability to comment on this strip. It's odd, because these have beenlargely nascent characters for the past ten years and have, in the last eighteen months, become subjects of much minute thought (being animated and all). It's really nice and somewhat relaxing to let them spool out stories. You realize, too, I get up at 4 AM to do this strip evn though I no longer work a standard nine to five. Something about the early morning and itsa inherent suffering makes for a good foil to the devil-may-care punk alt comics dudes. It's an indulgence for such storytelling, especially at the glacial paces I've adopted. Anyway, they go pretty quick when you spool 'em, and there's something to be said for page turning.
I am really hoping that this strip breaks soon... as of now there are perhaps 70 regular readers, and I think that this can reach more people. I'll keep at it regardless.
JC
You know, webcomic cats all say that the format of current comic/ previous comic / first comic is the way to go. And so it is. As of now, this will be the blog for the site rather than the repository for the strips themselves. Clenchandcheese.com now will hook to http://www.webcomicsnation.com/carrollhach/ . It uses the comics format, as does the free mirror
http://www.drunkduck.com/Clench_and_Cheese .
This site here will be a place for news, related links, etc. I'm going to promote it as such.
Carry on, and I'd love to hear from you.
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