College Follies #3 Creator's Commentary Video is up!

Creator's Commentary for College Follies #3, the Power Ranger parody issue, is now up on YouTube. If you already own the comic, let me know and I'll shoot you a link to the behind-the-scenes commentary video, made exclusively for readers who bought the issue. If you don't already own it, what are you waiting for? It's available both as a digital comic and in print, here.

College Follies #3 is out now on Comixology!

College Follies #3, the Power Ranger parody issue, came out yesterday on ComiXology and you can get it here!

The issue was inspired by the 20th anniversary of  Power Rangers and the big anniversary season wraps up this Saturday with a finale featuring almost a dozen returning actors (including Jason David Frank as Tommy) and all 120+ rangers appearing in one big battle. There is no more perfect week that this issue could be released!!!

ComiXology responds to College Follies #3 and #4!

I just got two emails from ComiXology this morning on College Folllies #3 and #4....they've both been approved!

So others who submitted to ComiXology had experienced a significant acceleration in turnaround time on subsequent issues of their series and apparently that's finally happening for me! It took 6 months to get issue one approved and more than three months to get issue two approved. Issue three was submitted three months, so that's only a slight improvement. But issue four was submitted less than three weeks ago, so it was approved in under a  month!!!

This is great news since issue three, a Power Ranger parody, should come out in November, which is when the final episodes of the current 20th anniversary season of Power Rangers are being shown. And issue four, in which Psychoboy runs for Congress, should be out before year's end on ComiXology!

College Follies #3 Is Out!!!

College Follies #3, the Power Ranger parody issue, is out! Flip on your TV and adjust your rabbit ears, as Stickboy and Psychoboy transform and kick butt! Chatty monsters, oddly shaped giant robots, colorful costumes, inexplicable scenery changes...this one has it all! It's out as a digital comic on Amusedom and a downloadable PDF on DriveThruComics. It's 13 pages of comedic action, plus an exclusive essay featuring my thought on the Power Ranger franchise, which just turned 21 a few days ago. All that for only $1.99!  

It's been submitted to Comixology but I'm still waiting for them to approve issue two, so it may be a little bit before they get issue three up. It will be available in print at conventions for $3, the next one being Winston-Salem Comic Con on Sept. 13. I'll variant cover done by the weekend and up on Amusedom and hopefully printed in time for the convention.

So anyway, stop reading and click on the links below to get the issue already!

     

                   

Issue Four, Page Two Done! The Many Firings of Psychoboy!

Here's the page with commentary below... 

 

 

Panel 1- The color scheme and uniforms are based on Mooby's in Kevin Smith's movies (most notably it was used as the setting for Clerks 2), again with the idea that my characters occasionally wander into the View Askew universe.

 

Panel 2- I kept trying to think of inappropriate bands/musicians for a Catholic church when Marilyn Manson popped in my head. I chuckled and that's usually when I know a gag works for me.

 

Panel 3- It was a real thrill drawing Green Ranger here. Obviously this is Psycho getting fired from his position as Lavender Ranger in Super Rangers (as seen in issue three). The kitten orphanage was the worst possible thing I could think of he could have stepped on with his zord.

 

Panel 4- Who could resist a Miley Cyrus VMA gag?

 

Panel 5- I love this monologue.

 

Next up, page three and Stickboy!

Issue Four, Page Two Colors...Purple Bears and Green Rangers

Here's the colors on page two.  You can probably tell who Psychoboy is getting fired by in most of the panels by now. I'll be lettering and finishing up the page today hopefully.

 

Issue Three: The Lessons Learned

With issue three, it's the first comic I've done from scratch in 14 years and a very different sort of story for the series, so I learned a few things...

Writing- Planning is key. Designing the characters before the story helped me visualize the scenes. Penciling in rough layouts for pages as I scripted was vital for a story with this complex of a panel layout. That way I knew the page layout, panel composition and word balloon placement would work for what I'm writing.

Pencils- Again, tight pencils are key. Sloppy pencils might be quick, but you'll end up losing more time than you gain when you get to the inks.

Inks- Replicating  repeated parts of a panel, whether it's a face, part of a character's body, etc. really helped cut down the time on this one, especially with all the little inset panels inside the Bots.

Colors- Being my first color action comic, I got to learn a lot about how to color explosions and crackling energy effects. Brushes with feathered edges and multi-layered gradients can look really cool and it turns out I have a totally irrational love for coloring lightening effects.

Letters- Having been a huge fan of Jim Shooter's comics in the 1990s, which used practically no sound effects, I almost never used them in mine. But since sound effects were part of the DNA of Power Rangers, I used a lot of them here and I think they really do add to the story and humor. 

I also got to experiment with show text over the panels and singing overlapping the action in certain scenes. This was a ton of fun and pretty effective. A rule of thumb I discovered for all non-dialog lettering overlapping the action is to remember the reader will probably read it where it falls in the panel so you don't want to break up dialog in a bad way. You can never read over your panels enough for stuff like that.

So that's it until September for issue three when it'll be early released. There is the matter of doing a variant cover for it, which if all goes well, I'll be doing just before the release. Once you see it, you'll know why I waited to do it.

Anyway, next up, issue four in which Psychoboy runs for office! Start feeling dread...now! 

It's Talking Time! Here's a Video On Issue Three!

Been trying to get this video out for a couple weeks. I decided to not put random movements on the panels to make them easier to look at and read. Let me know what you guys think.



I'm currently wrapping up issue three. I'm still proofing, making corrections and working on the letter column. Normally this is a fast process but I have a) unfinished stuff to promote issue one I need to do b) I have to get issue two ready for early release c) I have a con on Saturday and d) I've got to get ready to work on issue four. I'm doing all this at the same time. It's kinda crazy but I should knock all of it out in the next week or so.

Page Eleven Ready!!! It's Talking Time!

Page eleven is done. It's the post-battle talking scene at the end of the episode!

 

 

Our heroes discuss the traumatic psychological and emotional effects of killing a monster every day to protect humanity. It's Power Ranger PTSD!

 

Just kidding. But the page is a really good gag and that's about all I can show you without giving it away.

 

It's a page of Stickboy and Psychoboy talking in their usual civilian outfits, which is familiar territory for the series and an especially appropriate way to end the story as that's where we're going next issue.

 

So all that's left for the issue is a one page gag to wrap up the story and the letter column. I expect to have both done next week. Get the fireworks ready and que up the Van Halen music, I'm almost done!

 

Page 10 Ready! That's a Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Win!

Page ten is done! And this is literally all I can show without spoiling the ending of issue three...

 

 

Hey, it's not a spoiler that the good guys win, it's getting there that's the fun. Only two more pages left in the issue!

Page Nine...Ready! Killamari cannot be harmed by the weapons of man!

Page nine is done! Only three pages to go in issue three!

 

I can't show you much without spoiling the ending but here's one panel that I think won't give away too much...

 

Hm. Yeah, it always turns out well for the monster after they say something like that...

Tonight, I'll be submitting issue one for early release  on DriveThruComics and Amusedom within  the week and then... on to page ten!

Page Eight...Ready! Robot Fish Beatdown!

So page eight is done. So as not to spoil the ending of the comic before it's released, I'll only be posting exerts from the last five pages. Here's a couple of cool panels that shouldn't give the whole thing away...

 

Next up, page nine, as the action continues!

Page Seven....Ready! Robot Fish Go!

Page seven with commentary below...

So this page continues the action from the hair missiles and Lavender Ranger's theme song from last page.

And then...it's the Aqua Blue Fishbot to the rescue! The idea is that Stickboy here gets the most useless zords imaginable. A fish was the most useless one I could think of. I later found out the show actually topped me one season, giving Blue Ranger a Dolphin Zord...a freaking dolphin! I can't compete with that.

It was fun designing the Fishbot. With Psychobot, figuring out where to put his joints so he could bend was easy. With a fish I had to be a little more creative, using a segmented body and ball joined fins to allow movement. I sort of had in mind how it would look and function as a toy and I'd totally love to see one made.

I'm more than half way through issue three! Next up, page eight!

Page Six...Ready!!! Trash Talk, Theme Songs and Hair Missiles!

So page six is done...

Pretty traditional Power Rangers monster battle stuff here. The Rangers and monster exchange smack talk in the form of even more bad puns. The monster charges at the Rangers while yelling. And then the Rangers attack, here with hair missiles, which are awesome.

One gag that was added in the dialog was the bit about the Lavender Ranger theme song. The original sixth ranger, Tommy (played by Jason David Frank) had theme songs as both the Green and White Ranger. Arguments on online groups about who would win between two rangers usually have Tommy beating his opponent. In one such debate, between the original Green Ranger and a later White Ranger named Trent, someone posted something to the effect of "Talk to me when Trent has his own theme song."

Best thing ever. This gag just popped in my head, where Psycho's comeback against in the monster would that argument and I could add his theme song (sung to the tune of the original Green Ranger theme) over the action. I think it was the perfect touch. Life is more awesome when you have your own theme song.

So next up...Stickboy's zord!

Page Five Ready!!! We All Love Gaint Robots!

Here's page five with commentary below...

Panel One- Here we introduce the Psychobot. Power Rangers has had zords that are giant robots of automobiles, construction equipment, planes, trains, animals, monsters, dinosaurs, mystical creatures, samurai warriors...but there's never been one of just a dude, just a giant robotic version of an ordinary human. So that's Psycho's zord, a giant robot of himself.

It was easy to design, just add some joins and turn his skin to the metal color the Megazord's face is and...I kept trying to figure out someplace to put his ranger color (lavender) which ended up being his purple pants.

Another thing to note is that the setting is now completely different and the colors are slightly darker. This is a homage to the difference between the American and Japanese footage in the show, which you could tell from the change in contrast and settings during the scenes. The idea is that, like it's real life counterpart, Super Rangers switches to Japanese footage when they get in their bots. The idea of some Japanese guy with Psychoboy's hair makes me smile.

Panel Two- Finishing up the gag from last page on the flailing your arms around to summon a zord.  "Epileptic Cheerleader" Heh.

Page Three- Bad puns are part of the requirement for being a Ranger, look it up, it's in their contract.

Panel Four- Like the transformation panel I added in the morph on page two, I felt I needed a panel to establish him jumping up the zord to get in it for the scene to read correctly in comic form.

Page Five- The cockpit has gone through some changes since I planned the story. At first, I was going to do some Kibry-esque complex wires and gadgetry in the background. but as I drew it I decided to go with a more Spartan approach like in the show. But as I was looking up color references, I realized I'd made it a little too plain and threw in the iconic glowing zord emblem in the background like have on the show, which I really like.

Red was one of the dominate colors in Psychoboy's room in issue one so I went with it for the cockpit. The duel joysticks to drive his bot are inspired by the arcade game Robotron because...well, why not?

And I love Psychoboy's line here. If that doesn't set the mood for the rest of the issue nothing will.

So next up...page six as we begin the unspeakable violence!

Page Four Ready! Bad Puns and Zord Summoning!

Lots of Ranger-on-Ranger dialog on page four here...

 

 

The first panel wraps up the gag from last page on how Stickboy knew who the "mysterious" Lavender Ranger was.

 

The second panel has another God awful pun in the same vein that the Rangers and monsters tended to toss around on the show.

 

And then the bottom half of  the page is the zord summoning gag.

 

Now most of the time the Rangers don't do a lot to summon their zords, just throwing your arm up and calling them is usually enough. But the second season, at the height of the franchise's popularity, was different. The Rangers would do these very strange martial arts/aerobic routines while summoning their zords. It looked ridiculous (even in the context of the show) and was something I always joked about back in the day.

 

Curiously enough I never figured out why it was like that until I was watching some episodes as reference for this comic. I watched the ending of Green With Evil, which ended with all the Rangers (including the newly joined Green Ranger) doing melodramatic martial arts routines while giving speeches about how awesome they are. It's not uncommon to do stuff like that to add melodrama in anime.

 

And next I watched them summoning zords in season two...and it's the exact same sequence! They just took them flailing their arms around while making a speech and dubbed the zord  summoning dialog over it! The motions they use had absolutely no significance to summoning anything, it was just footage reused out of context. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is early Power Rangers in a nutshell.

 

So anyway, next up is page five when we finally get to see a giant freaking robot!

Page Three Ready! Never Stand Behind A Power Ranger Doing Something Dramatic!

Here's page three for issue three with commentary below...

So this is a pretty straight forward page introducing Psychoboy as Lavender Ranger. 

We start with a series of quick close ups building up to his introduction shot. This is a pretty common technique used in Power Rangers and in anime too to build up tension for the reveal of a character. It seemed like appropriate melodrama here.

The explosion when he says his name is something that sometimes happens on the show. Sometimes it happens on introductions, morphs or when a bunch rangers get together in a team-up episode. In some episodes, background explosions seem to happen just randomly during fight scenes. It's an odd technique to emphasis dramatic moments on the show. It's so much fun to make light of there's even been jokes about in the series itself. 

So Psychoboy is the team's special, super powerful sixth ranger who always joins the team later in the season. His outfit is, of course, modeled after Tommy the Green Ranger, Power Ranger's original sixth ranger and I got to say that shield he wears can make pretty much anyone look bad ass.

So this page is done and will be on display in my little art book at my table at Winston-Salem Comic-Con on Saturday.  I'll be wrapping up my con prep this week and actually get back to my regular schedule on churning out issue three after the convention.

Until I wish everyone happy background explosions!

Super Rangers, Font Replacement Is Ours!

Since I now know Comixology will not except pages with comic sans as the font, I'm using a new font from here on out on new pages. 

But that also means redoing the ones I'd already finished on issue three. Being an action oriented Power Ranger parody, the dialog is more sparse so this was quick and merciful to do. It also gave me the chance to go back and correct something that was bothering me on the early pages. 

When I originally was trying to do the "show text" for the title and credits for the "episode" of Super Rangers in the issue, I couldn't find how to do drop shadows on the text. The outlines I used instead on the white text didn't look that great and were hard to read. So after some researched I discovered how to do drop shadows. Not only is the text more legible, but it's also a dead ringer for the text used on the show, which makes me all kinds of happy. 

For those who've been keeping track, I am supposed to be working on convention stuff for this Saturday and that's exactly what this is, since I plan to have the cover, title page and first three pages of issue three for people to browse through. 

And now...on to page three!

Issue Three Cover Ready! Don't Touch That Dial!

So because of time restraints, I wasn't going to do an actual cover for issue three. I was just going to grab an image from the interior and blow it up and maybe use the Super Rangers logo for a little "Featuring Super Rangers" blurb.

 

But while I was writing the script with my taping of the original showing of "Green with Evil" playing from the first season of Power Rangers, I kept seeing the couple second-long "up next" filler commercials between shows.

 

And thus the cover below popped into my head... 

 

 

It's still reused art taken from Aqua Blue Ranger's intro panel on page two and Lavender Ranger's intro on page three, but obviously using photos to put them on TV required quite a bit of work.

 

Fox Kids Network (on Fox) originally aired the first season, hence the joke there. The photo is my own old TV combined with a pic of some old rabbit ears, which just seemed like the perfect touch.

 

The cover is meant to work with the rest of the comic, kind of acting as it's first panel (like in the covers of the original Watchmen miniseries). You see the "up next" message on the cover then go into the "Today on Super Rangers" narration on the inside cover, followed by the show opening, and then the episode begins on page one. Hopefully, this captures the feel of watching the show back in the day. It certainly was a lot of fun to do, at the very least.

 

Next, I'm going try to do a quick variant cover and get more work on done page three.

Title Page Ready! Sing Along Kids!

The title page is done! Commentary is below...

 

 

This isn't quite as much work as a story page but it comes pretty damn close. It was put together piecemeal, but laid out on paper to make sure it could work before I even created the file.

 

We start with the world's laziest show narrator. Opening narration giving you a summary of what you were about to watch was the way Power Rangers originally opened when it aired. "Today on Power Rangers..." became as synonymous with the show as them yelling "It's morphing time!" It kinda sucks that it's not on the Netflix version of the episodes. There's no substitute for actually being there, kids. 

 

Anyway, since they showed footage from the episode as the narrator did the introduction, I pulled an unlettered image from the first page for the first panel here.

 

The rest is basically just imitating the show's opening, complete with theme song. If you've never seen it, search YouTube for "Power Rangers opening." You'll have more fun with this page if you can sing along.

 

I suppose one thing worth noting is that this is the only appearance of Lavender Ranger's weapon: the Chainsaw of Justice. Again, I think we need to petition Bandai to make it. Laser guns are bad influences on kids, so wouldn't we much rather have them play with brightly colored toy chainsaws instead? 

 

So next up with be more Lavender Ranger with page three and the cover!