I feel a little like Dylan when he went electric in '65. Anyway, I've decided to go digital. The main reason is quality. I'm finding that I can achieve a better quality line in adobe illustrator, and I'm able to get a better sense of depth than before. I've dabble with drawing comics in illustrator for a couple of years, so this isn't all that radical. The other reason for this change of tools is that this digital process is so far saving me about 3 hours per page, reducing the number of steps between erasing the bristol and having the scanned and prepped digital file ready to color. What this boils down to is a change in how I'm drawing comics, and that goal of reaching a better quality end result.

Now, for the original art. I'm printing full size original artwork on 11" x 17" bristol, and it will be nearly indistinguishable from traditional comic art pages. I've even gone the extra step of including the underlying non-photo blue lines and comic board template in the prints. Printing the originals is the one time-consuming step in all this, so I won't be printing more than 1 of each page. So in essence, the original art is still the original art. You can see an example of how the 'originals' will appear in the attached.

I'm penciling a new page tonight, here's a screen capture. This is issue #3 of Redneck Red for Fierce Comics. I expect to have the art finished on all 4 issues by mid-August, just in time for me to relaunch websbestcomics.com and declare myself free and clear of all comic commissions. For the time-being, I'll be using this blogspot as my main location on the web, while I get my ducks in a row.