– Red the Mermaid Assassin created by Ashley Grenstone!
– So I’m back after a week off for dental surgery. It was grueling. I had 7 teeth removed! All 4 of my wisdom teeth, which had been cracked and deteriorating for over 10 years and really needed to be removed since they were a source of constant pain. plus three of my very front top teeth, which were badly damaged in a skateboarding accident when I was a kid. Right now I have a temporary prosthetic that keeps me from looking like someone knocked all my teeth out. That will be replaced with a full permanent bridge in about a month after I have time to heal. So it was pretty extensive work. The surgery was quick but awful. There was no pain, but the sensation of having teeth ripped from my head is not something I’ll ever forget. Even with the drugs my mouth and jaw have been sore all week, and I haven’t eaten anything solid since Tuesday. I have a check up tomorrow and I’m hoping they’ll tell me that everything looks good, because the first thing I want to do after that is eat a sandwich. Anyway, thank you all for your patience. Being out of the studio for this long was hard, but I’m eager to get back to work!
– So apparently my friend Kyle was working on a guest comic for me, but was having a specific problem drawing Medusa. So my other friend Micah (I only have two friends in this story) did this comic about Kyle’s struggle to make a comic.
– We’ll be releasing the 3rd issue of Combine (finally!) this Weds (the 6th)! The issue features new chapters of Ghost Kiss and Shutter Valley Record, plus an super-sized chapter of Devil Spy. It’s our biggest issue to date! You can subscribe to Combine through our Patreon. Digital subscriptions are just $5! Magazine Subscriptions are $12/issue, including shipping. That means that you get the 48 page full color over-sized comic delivered to your door!Become a patron by Weds to start your subscription with the newest issue. Or order back issues here.
Man, I remember getting a tooth pulled a little while ago. It was impacted or something so as they removed it, it kind of fell apart. It was numb so it didn’t hurt but it sounded gross.
What did hurt was the area of my mouth that is apparently immune to being numb so as they put in a filling it still hurt!
That sounds awful!
She’s cutting herself. She may be crazier than Carlos.
This page made me laugh out loud!
Uh-oh.
I remember getting my wisdom teeth removed… Well, actually I don’t, because they knocked me out for that, but when I woke up it felt (and apparently looked) like someone had beaten the crap out of my face. Took all day to be able to talk properly again.
Probably for the best that they knocked me out. Novocaine has never worked properly on me. Face numb? Check. Tounge like a lump of leather? Check. Can’t feel pain? Houston, we have a problem. 🙁
Reminds me of when I had an eye infection. Looked like someone punched me in the eye, it was completely swollen shut.
There’s something I’ve always wondered, Jake. Do you draw and color your comics free hand, then scan it into your comp, or do you use some kind of art program to draw and paint it? If so what program do you use?
Adam, I usually draw all my line art on paper using a non-photo blue drafting pencil and inking with several different pens including a fine tip Pigma Micron. I scan the images into Photshop where I do my coloring, lettering and editing digitally.
Sometimes I draw my lineart digitally in a program called Paint Tool Sai (thats how my Korra comics are drawn) and sometimes I color my work with Copic markers.
Thanks, I have no idea what any of that means. 😛
Sorry! A non-photo blue pencil is a drafting tool. It’s a pencil with blue lead. The benefit is that the marks it leaves don’t show up in photos, scans or copies. So you can make all kinds of mistakes with it, but they’ll remain invisible in the finished drawing. I use it to layout my pages, and once I’ve done that I ink over the blue line art with a black marker. I prefer the Micron because it’s an affordable professional quality marker. I use an image scanner (basically a large flatbed camera, similar to what you see on a photocopy machine) too import the image into an image manipulation program called Photoshop (which I’m sure you’ve heard of). Photoshop allows me to cut and paste my panels into the 4 panel strip format you see on my site (I draw the strips on a 2×2 grid on 8.5 x 11 inch paper) and then “digitally paint” by applying colors to a separate layer under the line art layer. Letters and sound effects are added to a separate layer on top of the line art layer, and then the entire image is flattened into a single layer and loaded onto my website so you can read it.
Thanks for the explanation.
…are there rules of fairness for stealing?
I thought the captain was just being silly, but she responded to it straight. Is there a pirate code?
There’s a pirate code. Lots of rules.
Does she have a neck? She has five.
Isn’t mermaids kind ofs assassins by defaults? I mean, they can has others jobs, an’ all thats, but they was kind ofs originallies created to kills the Prince. >o.o<
Soldiers, actually. They were created as the Deep’s army.