Hamthology Volume 2

A year ago, I participated in a comic book anthology by a community of amateur artists/writers from around the world. It was called Hamthology, Volume 1: The Quest. The first time round, I submitted a short story about a busker scraping a living in Victorian-era Melbourne.

This year, we have Hamthology, Volume 2: Choices. It’s not exactly out for sale yet but I have just received my complementary copies yesterday! I didn’t draw a comic story this time but I did write one. I had my brother draw the comic instead. It’s about a young Filipino boy wanting to possess the ability to become invisible by acquiring a legendary stone.

I was so excited when I finally got my hands on it. It definitely looked a lot better than the first book. As it should be. It’s good to know that there was an improvement over the first one.

Even though I didn’t actually draw a comic this time, I’m still very proud of our second book. At least I was able to help out in an artistic capacity by adding the shading to our comic.

Update: Hamthology 2 now available for sale!

Below is a quote from Bryan Wong, our editor-in-chief:

Hi everyone!

I would like to announce that Hamthology Volume 2 is now available for online purchase! The collection features seven stories focusing on the choices that people have to make, and the consequences they have to deal with. It also includes many pinup art as well. The whole book was put together by a wide range of artistic and writing talent, all from our own pOnju backyard, including Akira Hasegawa of Tsunami Channel fame and Wish 3’s Sylvia T. Leung!

You can go to lulu directly to purchase the graphic novel.

You may also visit our official website to learn more about the book, the contributors, and see previews.

Tomas and Nilo

As part of my so-called 30-minute daily drawing exercise (which I shorten to Daily 30), I drew this quick sketch of two characters in a story I wrote for a short comic story for a comic book anthology. I was supposed to be the writer while my brother is the artist of the story. However, he is currently very busy with his work that he couldn’t draw much of anything for this project.

So, to sort of help my brother out when he finally gets a chance to draw stuff for our story, I will draw some sketches related to my story myself. At the very least, my drawings might help better communicate the scenes I want in the story to my brother.

As for my Daily 30 exercise, maybe “daily” is a bit too much after all. I’ve already skipped a day since I decided to start doing this because of other more important things I needed to do yesterday evening. Now, instead of daily, it’s down to three times a week. I’ll still be calling it Daily 30 though. Much shorter name.

We Have Hamthology!

I wrote about a little comics project I’m part of called Hamthology a while back. Our complimentary copy of the published graphic anthology was sent to us at around that time. I was even afraid that it might get damaged when it got here to Australia as the postman might try to squeeze the package into our tiny mailbox.

Two weeks later, we got good news and bad news. We got a slip in the mailbox informing us of a package waiting for us at the post office. That’s good news because it meant that our books were still hopefully intact. The bad news was that the post office opens its doors to customers only at hours when we are usually at the office. One way to claim the books was to wait for the post office to open and be late for work. Either that or call in sick. I chose to do the former.

The books came in a thick carton box designed to fit the two books exactly. It was sealed with a lot of tape, too, for added security. Since I was in a rush to drive to the office, I never had the time to open the box.

It wasn’t until Raquel and I got back home in the evening were we able to finally open the box and admire the books we long waited for. I was so happy to see it. It was actually pretty good for our (as in we and our friends at Ponju) first independently published book.

With a modest price tag of US$10, we earnestly hope that it will sell at anime and comics conventions in the US as well as through the online store at Lulu.com. Sell enough books and we’ll be able to get back some of the money we’ve invested in creating it. Or at least have the profits from the first book go towards the publication of the second book which we are already planning for.

PS. To our Pinoy friends: Happy Independence Day!

Hamthology, Out Now!

You may recall that I involved myself in a comics anthology project called Hamthology last year. As a quick recap, here is a description of the project:

The people of the Ponju “Piggy Farm” online community of webcomic artists, writers and fans (of which I’m a member) has recently started a comic book anthology project. The end product is a book the size of most American graphic novels you’d see in Borders nowadays, but maybe thicker. Instead of one long comic book story, it’ll contain a collection of short comics each created by a different team of people who are members of the community. That includes me.

On top of submitting a short comics story about a young busker girl living in Victorian-era Melbourne, I was also taken in as editor for the publication but had to bow out due to an increased work load in the office (my day job as an IT analyst programmer). However, near the date of printing, I resumed my editorial role and helped proof-read the text in the anthology.

And now, after a long wait, our baby is finally finished and available for sale starting this week! As initially planned, my American colleagues will be selling copies of our book at anime and comics conventions across the US. And for those of us who couldn’t buy them at those conventions whether because we don’t go to those or we simply don’t live in the US, we can buy the book direct from the printing press at Lulu.com.

Here is the description of our book as written in Lulu.com:

Everyone undertakes a quest at some point in their lives, whether it be as mundane as fetching groceries from the store or as grand as researching a cure for a deadly illness. In the first Hamthology: The Quest, the artists and writers of The Piggy Farm forums take you on range of quests in ten short comics.

Join a variety of protagonists as they dodge enemy agents to make a contact, prove themselves in wrestling tournaments, and piece together the story of a silent ghost. From the hilarious to the heartfelt, there’s a little something for everyone in here.

Suitable for ages 10 to adult. Contains mild action scenes, mild language, and some mature themes. For more information, visit http://hamthology.ponju.com.

The Hamthology: The Quest (Volume 1) has the size of your typical graphic novel and is 122 pages thick. And all for only US$9.99!

As a contributor, I’d be getting two complimentary copies of the book via post in the next few days. Raquel and I can’t wait to get our hands on it.

GDS Comics Launch

Remember last month when I mentioned that Prey, the short comics I submitted to a publisher got accepted? Well, the Going Down Swinging (GDS) publication that includes my submitted comics will be released this coming December and there’ll be an official launch party here in Melbourne at 7 pm on Thursday December 14 at Fad Gallery, 14 Corrs Lane, Chinatown.

I just got an email from the publisher yesterday regarding the event. According to the email, there’d be “a few drinks, a few performances and a whole lot of fun.” Sounds good to me. There would also be a presentation and a montage of all the comics included in the book. For the artists, there would be a comic jam. What is it? Basically, we artists go and draw there while people look over our shoulders to see what we’re drawing. Sounds fun but am I brave enough? Lastly, there will be a comic art auction for those of us interested in selling our art (just as long as it is properly framed) and attendees interested in buying art from us.

Admission for me is free but any guests I bring along, including Raquel, needs to pay a $5 entry fee (or $10 if you want the book too which would retail at $19.95 in stores). I can’t wait to be there.

Now the downside of all this. Our flight for Manila is at midnight the same night! Actually, it’s more like 1 AM the next day but it’s basically the same night. So, we won’t be able to stay at the launch party for too long if we don’t want to miss our plane.

So, we’ll actually still be coming to work on Thursday. We’ll just bring our luggage along and probably store it in a locker here in the CBD at lunch time (we’re still not sure if there’s a cheaper way to store our luggage away before we leave for the airport). Then after the party (or at around 9:30 pm, whichever comes first), we’ll just pickup our luggage from the locker, hop on the next SkyBus to the airport and catch the plane for the Philippines.

It’s going to be a very hectic day but I wouldn’t miss this launch party for anything!

Just finished “Prey”

First, one cool news regarding my other webcomics, Lovarian Adventures. I’ve only recently discovered that Lovarian Adventures was picked as a Featured Comic in the newly designed Drunk Duck (the people who hosts my Lovarian Adventures webcomics) home page. What a great honour. I so appreciate it, Drunk Duck admins!

Too bad though that the comic has now been bumped off the last five list. Meaning, you don’t see it on the home page anymore. However, you can still see it listed in the Featured Comic archives. So, it’s all good.

Meanwhile, I’ve just finished drawing the 8-page comics short, Prey, last night at around 2 AM. I just came back from the Post Office and had it mailed express post to the magazine editors so that it would reach them for sure on Monday (the deadline).

I was told that it was okay for me to post the comic online just as long as I don’t have it published elsewhere so soon. So, if you are curious to see the actual finished comic, I’ve created a new comic space on Drunk Duck to host the 8-pager. Click Here to read it.

And here is a smaller version of the actual first page of the story:

Now, although I’m officially done with the 8-pager, I still won’t be updating Lovarian Adventures this weekend. I’m just so tired from all the rushed drawing and CG-shading that my eyes, hand and neck hurt. I’ll need a bit of rest from it, I think. I should be able to have a new page ready by next weekend though.

Working on “Prey”

I’ve temporarily stopped updating my weekly serial fantasy webcomic Lovarian Adventures to concentrate on drawing a short 8-page comics story for submission to an Australian literary magazine. The deadline for submission is on October 2 (this coming Monday) and I only really started to work on it last Friday.

Although the actual deadline is still next Monday, I have to finish it by Wednesday so that there’d be time for me to mail my submission via post and get to the publisher by Monday. I could probably extend it a bit and finish the work on Thursday but I’ll have to resort to overnight post on Friday to get it delivered by Monday.

I’ve finished pencilling four pages of the story and I have four more to go. I fully intend to add some computer generated (CG) shading to the pencil lineart. However, that will all depend on whether I still have time to do that kind of fancy stuff.

Originally, we planned to have the comic to have absolutely no dialogue. But now I’ve drawn four pages of it, I’m thinking that adding a little bit of dialogue might add to the overall comic. Again, that will depend on whether I have time left to add the dialogue.

Page 1 (Click to Zoom in)

Click on (more…) below to see the next three pages of the comic.

More Sketching in the Train

I’ve been doing some more quick sketching while on the train to work. I’m not sure if these are any better than the ones I previously posted but here they are anyway. The first three were sketches of actual people on board the train.

Meanwhile, the violinist sketch isn’t a sketch of an actual person. Although, I still sketched that whilst in the train. She is Faith, the lead character in a short comic story I’m developing for an anthology (I know I kept on mentioning this in past posts already). I should draw more of this character as the second deadline for the comics is already drawing near (no pun intended).

As for this last one, well, it’s not exactly a sketch nor is it drawn inside the train. But, I don’t want to add a whole new blog post just for it so I just included it below. It’s a cave scene I used for the first panel of the latest page in my fantasy webcomics serial – Lovarian Adventures. The heroes are trapped in the cave and this narrow cavernous passage way may be their only way out.

Webcomic Artist… Again

If you’ve been following our blog for some time now, you’d come to the conclusion that I have a lot of hobbies and varied interests. And I do realise that I tend to concentrate on only one or two hobbies at a time. It seems like I have hobby phases, as it were. A couple of months ago, I was in my guitar-playing phase and just a week ago, I was still in my gaming console playing phase.

So, what phase am I in this time? It’s back to my comic book creation phase. Yep. After informing the long time loyal readers of my online graphic “novel”, Lovarian Adventures, that I have given up on the it completely, I started drawing the next comic page to the series.

All I intended to do was review my story notes and write up one long summary of the events that was supposed to come after the pages I’ve already drawn. I wanted to at least let those loyal readers know how the story was going to progress and, ultimately, end. Just for the sake of closure. But, while rereading my notes and my script for the unfinished chapter seven in the series, my enthusiasm for the project was rekindled. There were some things I’ve written in my notes that I have long forgotten about that inspired me to once again take up the mantle of artist/writer/creator.

However, this time round, I will no longer be hoping to make a living out of it. I’ve accepted the fact that there are a lot of better webcomics out there and they’d all probably have a better chance of earning something from doing comics. I’ll just stick with telling the story and improving my art. And although I wouldn’t be as concerned about promoting the comics as I did back when I started it in April 2001, I still hope that the comic will begin to attract new readers again.

I don’t think that keeping the series hosted in the Palabok site would help get publicity for it. I wanted to move the comics to another host where it could stay forever (or as long as the host is still in operation). So, I moved Lovarian Adventures to DrunkDuck, a free webcomic hosting company and webcomics community. Emphasis on community. There, just as long as I submit new comic pages, there is a chance that members of the community will know because page update information is posted on their home page.

So, I’ve spent last night uploading all 140+ pages of my archives on my new DrunkDuck home. And tonight, I’ll be uploading a new page I’ve drawing just the other day.

Now, I just wonder how long would I be in this phase before I move on to another phase?

Added the Comics Page

After my recent server hosting woes, I have stripped down my inactive Lovarian Adventures webcomics home page to a bare-bones minimum. That is, it’s just a static home page with links to the actual graphic files that represent each of the pages in the comic series. No navigation control, no nothing.

I had thought of leaving the website as is. After all, I don’t think I would be updating it again with newer pages any time soon. However, I’ve been feeling a slight ressurgence of enthusiasm for making comics recently. But, if I ever decide to draw another page of the Lovarian webcomic, I don’t want its website looking pathetic.

So, I have searched for a webcomic PHP script that I could use that will serve as the navigation control for Lovarian Adventures. After testing a few scripts, I finally decided to use Stuart Robertson’s Comic Gallery 1.2 PHP script. I’m quite pleased with it.

I then used the same script to power my other short webcomic titled I Believe. My plan is that I’ll be making more short 8-pager or 16-pager one-shot webcomics. And I wanted these comics to be linked directly from the Palabok website as these won’t be related to my Lovarian Adventures website.

And so, I have created a Comics page within the Palabok website which would list my current non-Lovarian webcomics. So far, there’s only one comic story in there. I’m hoping to add more.