 |
March 25th Alrighty, it's monday, and there is no new comic posted. Why is this you ask? Well, despite my high expectations for this week end, I was still busy, so I didn't get the comics all the way finished. The good news is that they are completely drawn, they just need to be scanned, lettered, and uploaded to the server. Thank you for bearing with us, the Underground shall not be silenced! Anyway, enough of that, the comics will be up by tonight, or tomorrow morning at the latest. By wednesday, expect to be on the new M/W/F schedule. Thanks once more for your support. Oh, and in case you want to email me, my email address has changed from blak_joker@yahoo.com to blak_joker@HotPOP.com because yahoo ceased to offer a key service that I wanted. Post in the forums! -Jeff Important News Bulletin Again (March 21st) Hey there, sorry for the lack of comics this week, here's the deal. Both Matt and I are the kind of stupid kids that take AP classes and honors classes and do activities and all of that stupid stuff. Therefore, both of us are very, very busy, and thinking up/drawing a comic takes time. So, we've decided to go ahead and switch to a m/w/f program until the end of the school year. This summer time should be more plentiful, and with luck I'll get a surplus going for the school year (I can dream, can't I?). Anyhow, as for this week, it has been especially crunching, so I will post comics this weekend, hopefully three (to get us rollin on the m/w/f format) but I can't gaurantee that, unfortunately. Tomorrow is the first level of competition for the play that I have currently given myself to use for whatever ill purposes it likes. Wish me luck, and wish matt luck with his short story contest he's entering. Wanna see some work by him on the site? Let us know! chances are, you'll get it eventually anyway, but if you really really don't want it (and if you do, you're stupid, or at least very confused, Matt's a great writer. If you enjoy the comic, then you already enjoy his writing) Please, we crave attention! This is our cry out to be heard, so hear us and let us hear you! or something like that, at least. -Jeff Important News Bulletin (March 18th) Well, apparently a friend of mine who liked the strip is talking to a friend about some "connections" that he has and getting advertising for the Underground at various places about the web. If you got here from one of those ads, hope you enjoy it, and they must be working. However, apparently some of these ads will be of a pop up nature, and we at the Underground just wanted to say that we do not support or condone the use of pop up advertising. We have no control over these advertisers, and we appreciate the extra exposure, but I wouldn't have a dog in my yard named pop up. Oh, and in case you're wondering, no money is being had by us or granted for the ads. Should you wish to support the Underground in a pecuniary fashion, just leave a post in the forum (remember, if you register, you can post on any Keenspace forum out there) or send us an email. I'm currently contemplating selling prints of artwork and/or doing commission work. Also, Keenspace is working on setting up a store service, and when that comes online, Underground related merchandise should be available. If you're interested in any of this, or have any other great ideas you wanna share with us, or even hate mail, send it our way. -Jeff March 18th As you can no doubt see, mondays' comic is still lacking. It's on it's way, but I stayed up way too late last night, and I can't do that again if I want to keep functioning. I'm considering moving to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday format for posting, but I'd prefer to stay daily. I would need to discuss it with Matt of course, but if you have thoughts on the matter, post in the forum, or send us an email. We want to hear from you, really we do! Also, I doubt tomorrow will be a day of catching up because I'll be damn busy, but I'll see what I can pull off. Also, the faerie picture I posted the sketch of is now available. I'm rather pleased with the result, but Matt layed down the constructive criticism hard ;) It was actually quite useful, just not as nice for the ego as "oooh, how nice!" I'll add it to the artwork page shortly, but for now, you can see it here. Thanks for stickin with us, and the regular comic action will return soon! -Jeff Correction to the March 16th Newspost: -Matt
March 16th Well, so much for being back on schedule : ) Matt was far too busy to have time to come up with scripts, and I was far too lazy to make filler art in time, so blame me, and please accept my apologies. Anyhow, you'll notice a repeat of the "got news?" image for Thursday, and that's because yet again I have filler art, and it doesn't fit into the strip size. It can be found here, for your enjoyment. This continues the fantasy theme, but don't you worry, as I said, that's just a temporary departure. This pic sort of formed itself in my head a few evenings ago, and I roughed it out in pencil, then spent the next day finishing up, and then last night I inked most of the background, except for the small detail (I'm using new metal nibbed dip pens, and they're pretty cool, I just didn't wanna mess up the focus of the drawing through inexperience with the medium). Anyway, once I finish it (I'm going to ink and color it) I'll post that in the artwork section. Also, I plan on sending it by Tony Diterlizzi, who apparently does critiques of art sent to him, if you're willing to wait for him to fit it into his schedule (and oh boy am I!). For those who don't know, a few of you may know him and not realize it. Anyone with experience in the gaming community probably knows him as "The Planescape Guy" as he was the exclusive artist on the first few years of Planescape. Before that he did much of the art for the Ad&d 2nd edition monstrous manual, and after that he also did art for Changeling the Dreaming by White Wolf Games. He's done Magic: The Gathering cards, and he is now endeavoring to write, illustrate, and publish his own children's stories. More power to him, as he is my favorite modern artist. Follow the hyperlink I put for his name to check out some of his work (It's his official website). He also said he's happy to autograph anything sent to him with a self addressed stamped envelope, so I just might send in one of my planescape books. What a nerd I am. Also, cast pics of Arthur and Spence have been added to the cast page. I drew one of Hiryoko, but it turned out absolutely frightening, so I refused to ink or scan it, and I'll add one later. That was one of the major goals this spring break, to get cast pics, so I'm happy with that. Anyhow, friday's strip will hopefully be up before the end of the weekend, and until then, enjoy! -Jeff March 13th Ok, today's strip is now up, so if I can get tomorrow's strip done tonight, we'll be right back on schedule. Hehe, I'm really pleased with the way today's comic turned out, maybe I should do a fantasy webcomic :D Anyhow, we should be returning to your regularly scheduled wacky teenage hijinks shortly. Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention it in the earlier post, but monday's strip is now in the archives for monday, so if you don't wanna miss out on the story line, check that out. I think it turned out well too, it even has some color! gasp! March 13th Alrighty, I'm slowly catching up with the comic, as the scanner/network problem is now fully resolved. Also, I updated the links page to include some new stuff I've found, and I also made the artwork page much faster loading by taking the pictures themselves off of the artwork page and replacing them with links to the pictures, keeping the description there so you can decide to look at the pic or not. Also, in the same artwork section you can now find the piece of fanart I mentioned in yesterday's post. Anyway, enjoy! -Jeff
March 12th Well, the promised comic did not in fact arrive on time, and I apologize for that. You see, I was busy sleeping. Sleep you say? but what about our comic? Well, I hadn't gotten a decent night's sleep for a week or two, so when I got on spring break, sleep was a big priority (he said as he writes a newspost before bed at 5 in the morning). Anyhow, the scanner's working fine, but our local area network doesn't seem to want to connect my computer and the downstairs one, so if I want to get files that I've scanned to this computer, I have to email them to myself, which is a big pain. Anyway, here's the deal, until I get the real strip up, check out a piece of fanart I did for The Circleweave both because I might win me a free lifetime membership to Moderntales, which is a new subscribtion based webcomic service, and because I really love the comic and its artwork. Very cool stuff, check it out. While I heartily enjoy free comics, and would like them to continue to be so, I definitely understand a desire to make money doing what you love, so more power to em. Anyway, until I get the comic up, check out the fanart here. With luck, monday's comic will be up by the end of the day, as well as todays, with the fanart serving as tuesday's. Sorry about the erratic updating everyone, we're aiming to fix that -Jeff
March 8th Sorry folks, today's comic won't be up till sunday, due to scanner problems, and I'm going out of town. -Jeff March 7th Hello everyone, exciting news. As you may have noticed, there now seems to be a banner at the top of the newsbox (At least, it should be there). What is this craziness you say? That craziness my friend is UG spreading out its web of contacts. The Underground has joined the new "Turbocool Webcomics Conglomerate" which is pretty much a fancy name for a webcomic ring :D It offers a dropdown of member comics, as well as a banner exchange for member comics (you put a code in, such as the one at the top of this box, and it randomly loads one of the cartoons banners, the hope being that people will see one comic and visit all of the others) So, help support this crazy shindig, and check out some of the member comics. Believe me, non-established webcomics need all the help they can get to get going. Speaking of which, the forums are eerily quiet. Now, you know as well as I do that everyone likes to express their views whenever they can on the web, and there's a free opportunity right there, just click on the forums button. Or, if you're too shy to share with everyone, you can always send mail to myself or matt (blak_joker@yahoo.com or greeksandwichpirate@lycos.com). Please, we crave feedback, we need to know that the comic is reaching out to people in one way or another. Because, that's pretty much the reason we're doing this, is to share something with other people, same reason both of us enjoy writing and why I like to draw, to try and convey a story or image to someone, it's a pretty powerful drive. We sure as hell aren't getting paid for this (though, soon there will hopefully be a store, should you feel inclined to quite literally wear your support for the Underground on your sleeve) so please, if you enjoy the strip (or if you hate it!), if you have any sort of reaction at all, let us know, we need the hook up, and you gots it. Anyway, this next week is spring break, so expect some additions to the site in the form of new artwork and hopefully some cast pictures. Also I'd like to update the links page to an extent, to include some new comics that I've found recently and want to share the joy in. Oh, and, just want to give notice that Fans!, one of my personal favorite webcomics ever, has recently joined the prestigious Keenspot, after a long stint on Keenspace, the very hosting service the UG is on. Alright, it's far too late, I'm out -Jeff March 4th Alrighty everyone, here's the deal: I wasn't able to accomplish the mammoth task of catching up that I intended over the weekend, but I did manage to get what would be a reasonable amount done if I were on time, so what I'm going to do is pretend that last week didn't happen, and start posting comics daily again today. So, in other words, last week has been skipped. If you happen to check the archives though, I went ahead and uploaded the pencil versions of two pics I plan on inking and coloring before I add them to the artwork section, and they are in the archives as last monday and last friday's strips. I realize I'm falling down on the job, but being sick on Monday and Tuesday really threw me off, so I once again apologize. If you're pissed that the Underground didn't update, let me know! I crave any sort of feedback, even the negative time, just knowing anyone cares enough to say something helps. It might keep me from letting myself get behind. Anyway, expect daily comics this week, as I'm about to start inking Tuesday's strip, and it's only Sunday night! What is this craziness, updating on time? Only time will tell, and to hear the answer, you'll just have to check back often. -Jeff March 1st As you can see, the February News has been archived, which is available through the Archive page, just like the comics. Also, there is some very exciting news for the Underground! No, I haven't gotten off my duff and caught the comic up, but it's still exciting, I promise. At least if you're me. Anyway, the exciting news is that not only has the Underground become part of the "Keenschool" dropdown, which you can see to the right of the comic (and help support the dropdown, visit some of the other sites on it if high school comics are your thing) it has also gained it's very own forum! Yes indeedy! No, unfortunately there are no fancy customized interfaces or what have you, and if I had it my way I'd run it from the site itself using some programs I've found, but Keenspace prefers that its users use their forum system. It can be found at The Underground Forum, and please visit and start building the online Underground community! Have a chance to tell all those future whippersnappers that you've been around as long as the forum. Feed my hunger for attention and praise! Ok, or attention and flames, if you like, but attention none the less! Yes, I'm a pitiful subject, why don't you discuss it on the forum? Think that this shameless plug is going to far? Talk about it on the forum. Don't wanna talk about anything on the forum? Tell the world, using the forum. Ok, I'm done now, but do please post any and all feedback on the forum, though emails are still most appreciated. Now that the site has it's major updates, I'm gonna go see about, you know, actually drawing a comic to put on the site. -Jeff |
|
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
