Watch This Space! Discordian Quote Comix Coming Soon

I've been using Bitstrips.com to make comics since March of 2008, and really enjoy the tools available there.  I've used Bitstrips to produce 24 Hour Comics in 2008, 2009 and 2010. I also use Bitstrips to produce Major Spoilers Adventures each week for my friends over at Major Spoilers.

I love the tools at Bitstrips, but find certain limitations with the art frustrating. The character builder is really great, but still leads to a fairly homogeneous style. There are just some things, art-wise (objects or situations) that are more difficult to do in Bitstrips than they'd be to just draw them in pen and ink.

With all that in mind I've come to the realization, in the last year or so, that I really want to do my own comic art, and am working on developing a cartooning style that I like. I've tried developing some characters for a couple of specific concepts, but don't feel I'm consistent (or fast) enough yet to kick off a regular strip.  Still I want to get myself working on a regular cartoon project to get in the habit of drawing daily and having a deadline so I'll be forced to produce.

Since I want to focus on the art aspect I decided to assist myself with concepts from the always amusing Discordian Quotes. My process is simple: I'll find a quote from the site that conjures an amusing image in my head, and then draw it.  That quote will often be the caption for the gag, and the cartoon is done.  I discovered the cartoon can sometimes be made much funnier if I find a different quote that still applies to the situation in the comic and use that quote instead.  This setup allows me to explore lots of different situations, and experiment with art styles and character types, screens, light and shadow, and maybe even color.

Each episode of Discordian Quote Comix will be a single panel gag where something horrible (and hopefully funny) is about to happen, is happening, or has happened.  In the spirit of the Principia Discordia, the great holy book of  Discordianism, I'm releasing the strips under the same copyleft as the Principia:


"Ⓚ All Rites Reversed - reprint what you like"


Seems like the right thing to do given the sources of my inspiration.

As of this writing I have 11 strips done.  Artistically they seem to be heavily influenced by Gary Larson's  The Far Side, and otherwise seem to come from some pretty dark and profane places in me, but I'm having a ball making them so I got that going for me...which in nice.

Watch this space every Wednesday morning starting June 1 for Discordian Quote Comix!