Sorry for the delay in posting Strip 7. I tried a bit of an experiment for this strip. Instead of doing all 4 panels as one image, treating the strip as one continuous entity, I did each panel as a completely separate image then assembled them to a strip. It’s an experiment I will not be repeating. It was disastrously inefficient. It took so much longer to do the strip as a whole because it caused a terrible disconnect between the panels that caused a great deal of reworking… and still I’m not very happy with the result.

Still much learning to do with this craft.

This one was a ball to draw. Even though neither Paul nor Spoonmonkey move much until panel 4, I had to change subtle things on both of them. Paul’s fingers and mouth change. Spoonmonkey’s entire facial expression changes, and the positioning of his hands and tail. It was a lot of fun drawing what he was doing with his face, despite his being quiet.

Panel 4 was also a great deal of fun, and introduces the Time Travel effect.

Laying out Strip 7 now, and it’s looking to be double sized. Will be working on it for 24 hour comic day.

My single favorite strip so far. I like the way the coloring worked out, and I think this is a more fitting intro to Spoonmonkey.

Strip 4 was a bit more ambitious than my current capabilities allowed for. I made no less than 3 versions of this comic, and I still was not really satisfied with the final result.

Breaking down panel for panel, the beam station’s ok, but the beam effect stunk. Those are my epic fail at Kirby Dots. Yeah…

Panel 2 features more fail from Kirby dots, and the building didn’t work as well as I wanted.

Panel 3 features my least effective Airscreen.

Panel 4, introduces Spoonmonkey, and is my least favorite picture of the guy.

So, Strip 4 was a learning experience, but not a 100% effective one.

More of Paul at work. This one was a little bit of personal business for me. You see, right before I started drawing TGV I was fired from a job I was really good at, simply because the manager didn’t like me. He used the letter of the rules to justify his decision, even though he didn’t hold any of my coworkers to the same standard.

So, this is a little bit of snark, directed his way, via Paul bickering with the Automated Logical EXaminer.

Strip Two shows a little of Paul’s life as a Tech Support rep for the ubiquitous Maynard Beck Corporation, and how he compares to his coworkers. The idea here was to show how much of a dreamer Paul is, and how poor he is at being a cog in a corporate machine. Did I succeed? That’s for you to decide.

Personal highlights for me are the city scape in panel 1, which features a number of things to be built on in future tales, and the Beck Airscreens in the remaining panels.

And here’s where it begins, where all stories do… in the middle.

When you think about it, all tales show a life in progress, and I like the idea of starting a time travel tale with the characters already in the center of their own storyline… a storyline I’ll have to build to just to get them back here.

This strip was the first sequential art I ever did.  It took me a solid 24 hours to make it, mainly due to my having to learn a number of things about stripmaking that I hadn’t yet known.  Overall, I like how it turned out. Oddly, though, it’ll only make as much sense to the reader as it does to me once the strip is established.

Consider this site a preview, or a soft launch.  A place for you to get the lowdown on TGV while the story builds.

Comics to come.  Each gets it’s own post.