Announcements!

Every week seems to turn into a month where I’m wishing I had produced more – but after a month, looking back gives me a better perspective that I did get a fair amount out for you.

This last month, I’ve been focusing on what I call the Luggash and Felk “parachute sequence” of More Doris Danger Giant Monster Adventures’ “Alps” storyline! (The parachuting began at page 02-04 – Published, but “The Idea” with the sequence was to expand on a very brief one-page HINT of a story I introduced in Monstrosis (Doris’s second volume) – which I’ve posted HERE – page 123 – Published, and which I decided should be related to a second Monstrosis two-page sequence which  may APPEAR to be completely unrelated (page 156 – Published), and which has now become a MAJOR recurring storyline for the bulk of More Doris Danger Giant Monster Adventures!

So here at the web comic, I’ve begun constructing the series of sequences leading to Felk and Luggash getting stranded in the Alps, and how they escaped. The first sequence, chronologically, is page 07-03 – Published – and the story will be playing out from there – but not chronologically… UNLESS you click the icons for:

THE ALPS

If you peek your way through page 02-04 – Published through page 02-09 – Published (which include a couple Patreon $1 “exciting all-text” pages), you will find some THOROUGH COMMENTARY pages (which are ALSO for YOU kind $1 Patrons), describing how the sequence came about, samples of all the original Jack Kirby “parachute” artwork that I swiped, and how the sequence progressed from a few panels to a four page sequence with an additional four pages of EXCITING ALL-TEXT supplemental material.  (For example, on page 02-07 – Pre-Edits, I shared emails between colorist Ricky Sprague and I as we formulated how the pages in question should be colored!) AND THEN I posted SCRIPT pages (also for YOU kind $1 Patrons, with either scripts of the sequences or brainstorms of what the scripts developed from)! And THEN I ALSO posted a bunch of original scans of the artwork, so you can compare how they looked pre-colors and even sometimes with different text before I edited it (for YOU kind $4 Patrons!)!

Then finally, for those who prefer not to read and to watch Youtube videos instead, I posted this informative page 02-08 – Commentary Video – Parachute Sequence for YOU kind $7 Patreon patrons!

[NOTE: If you’re NOT a Patron at my Patreon.com/ChrisWisniaArts, don’t beat yourself up!  You can read THIS (short) explanation of all that’s going on: page 02-06 and 2-07 – navigation]

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While posting all this work, I realized I have never posted the page 000 Cover – Published of Monstrosis, so now it’s up, WITH a link (for YOU super-sweet $4 Patrons) to a FULL COLOR HIGH RES printable of it!

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For YOU kind $7 Patrons, my fantastic editor for “Diary of a Struggling Comics Artist” and I went through and figured out who our most popular videos have been, and then we found more clips of those artists.  Here are the videos we posted this last month for your enjoyment:

44. ADAM HUGHES (approx. 4:00) DIARY OF A STRUGGLING COMICS ARTIST
Difference between “rewarding” and “fun”

45. LEE BERMEJO (approx. 3:20)- DIARY OF A STRUGGLING COMICS ARTIST
Lee Bermejo describes how he worked his way into the comics industry, through the nurturing guidance of Wildstorm Comics.

46. SAM KIETH (approx. 2:05) DIARY OF A STRUGGLING COMICS ARTIST
Sam Kieth discusses the difference between working on a character he created and characters he’s been hired to work on.

AND THAT’S NOT ALL!  ONLY for $7 Patrons, and not with any plans for posting to the public, this BONUS ORIGIN STORY:

47. BILL SIENKIEWICZ – (approx. 6:50) DIARY OF A STRUGGLING COMICS ARTIST
EXCITING ORIGIN EPISODE! Bill Sienkiewicz shares how he got into comics.

Keep popping over HERE to the blog to see what’s new, or I’ll let you know what I’m up to “next week!”

Thanks, sincerely, as always,
Chris

 

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written to say hello (it’s been a month since my last “weekly reckoning!”).  Even if I haven’t reached out directly with my “daily reckonings,” you can always see what’s new at my chriswisniaarts.com/blog.  My excuse for silence is two-fold:

1. I’ve really got my head down, working at breakneck speed to complete the 160 page third volume of Doris Danger, “More Doris Danger Giant Monster Adventures!”

I wouldn’t say I’m getting close, but I WOULD say the finish line is in sight! I’ve been scripting the final (roughly) 30-40 pages, ONTO THE PAGES.  I’ve got about six pages to go, and then I MIGHT do an extra eight giant monster splashes.  Then all that’s left is the drawing – and it’s the HAND LETTERING that slows me down so much! (Isn’t that crazy?? But you’ve seen how much text is on each page!) Once THAT’S complete, the drawings are actually the fastest part, largely because there’s so little space left, so the drawings are tiny!

Enjoy 20 pages of this new, terrifying, realistic, unpublished horror comic – NOW! (with more to come) – chriswisniaarts.com/blog/archives/749

2. I’ve been frantically trying to get my taxes together. As a struggling self-employed artist, whose profession is in the entertainment media arts, that means any “entertainment” that I enjoy becomes a write off – any concert I see, music I purchase, movies or museums I go to, tv I watch, books or comics I pick up… they’re all “research”, and that means A LOT of receipts to sort through at this time of year!  I hope to be done with this grueling and hateful annual task shortly, and back to “crankin’ mode”!

All this said, I’ve still been putting up A LOT of material for everyone to enjoy, and EVEN MORE for YOU kind, kind Patreon supporters! I am so grateful to you all!  Here’s a run-down of some of the features I’ve been posting since last time I checked in:

As mentioned above, The DORIS DANGER web-comic has a lot of new pages, including a few hidden gems in “easter-egg” hiding spots! You can find links to a new commentary video ($7 Patrons), some “original scans” of artwork before I cleaned it up or altered panels (look for “PRE-EDITS” links, $4 Patrons!), some new high res pages ($4 Patrons), text features ($1 Patrons), AND…

Page 064 – Published (and click “NEXT” to finish the sequence) is a flashback of Army “G” Division Commander Luke Luggash back in his days in boot camp, and how he learned the importance of 1. Following Orders and 2. Not Asking Questions if you want to advance in the army’s ranks!:

Also included is Page 07-02 – Published and page 07-03 – Published, which features a flashback to the beginning of the whole “Alps” storyline! This is a complicated plotline, that begins with the building of a fake giant monster, climaxes with Felk and Luggash winding up stranded in the Alps and in danger of freezing to death, and ends with what happens to them and how!  DO THEY SURVIVE?? I don’t want you to get too upset! So the answer is, Yes! They survive!

I also posted GIANT MONSTER pin-ups by my best friends, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, and Mario Hernandez, creators of the number one rated indie comic of all time (by Rolling Stone), Love and Rockets!  If you click the COMMENTARY links on each of their pages, you can also read about how I met the Hernandez Brothers, and how I got pin-ups from them!  These pages are FREE FOR ALL TO VIEW!

For YOU kind, kind $7 Patreon Patrons, there have been a few video postings (but don’t forget that if you’re NOT a $7 Patron, we post TONS of videos FREE at https://chriswisniaarts.com/blog/archives/1150). The new vids (for you kind Patrons) are:

Thanks for continuing to check in, fans!

Since I titled this weekly reckoning “Doris Danger,” let’s start with the Diary of a Struggling Comics Artist additions to Tabloia:

HERE is a master list of all the videos we’ve posted so far (“Patron-only” as well as publicly posted), or you can go to our Youtube channel where we’re up to THIRTY publicly viewable videos!

New videos since last reckoning (for our kind $7 Patrons):

37. JOSHUA DYSART (video, approx. 5:20,  $7 Patrons)

38. OUR DAILY ROUTINE – (video, approx. 4:00,  $7 Patrons)

39. THE VALLEY OF TORMENT (video, approx. 4:30,  $7 Patrons)

 

And now for all this DORIS DANGER business!

Two web comic stories have been posted, Chapter 31 and Chapter 32. Chapter 32 was my first attempt at drawing a Steve Ditko style Doris Danger story, because I had these new ideas for a new “romantic” style of story telling, and I decided it would be a good idea to portray them in a different art style.  This created problems in continuity, however, and so it required time figuring out how to handle this discrepancy.  What I came up with was THIS:

Doris Danger… From “Golden” Age to Silver “Age”!

– a page dedicated to letting the reader choose which continuity “path” they’d like to follow.

And THAT got me thinking about how so many of my characters, if I were to put them in COMPLETELY CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER with their stories… their “first” story has often not been published yet! (Because I haven’t gotten around to it yet! But I know what that “first story” is GOING to be.) And in the current state of linking to characters’ FIRST appearances, it means that when I DO post their stories, I’m going to need to go back and change the “first appearance” link on EVERY PAGE OF THAT CHARACTER!  So I realized a better solution would be to create “place holder pages,” that I can swap out later, and not have to change every link!

And so I’ve been creating A LOT of place holder pages!  Here are a couple examples, right below this drawing by the nephew of a Tabloia Employee:

The shocking and ground-breaking first appearance of FELK!

Earliest “Fezzie” Documentation!

First appearance of “ORIGIN” of the Hillbillies!

Mr. Peters and the Tabloia Offices!

The Shocking FIRST APPEARANCE of Doris Danger’s boyfriend, STEVE!

That’s right! … The Shocking FIRST APPEARANCE of Doris Danger’s boyfriend, STEVE!

The TRAPPED… UNDERGROUND! storyline!

And then for good measure, I threw in a “Pre-Edit” page of the cover of More DORIS DANGER GIANT MONSTER Adventures, showing the artwork in various stages, with or without Doris, the monster, and the text.

Hope that keeps ya busy ’til next time!
Sincerely,
Chris

I wanted to take a minute to let you know everything I’ve posted since my last “Weekly Reckoning.”

First of all, for all of YOU, my much appreciated $1 Patreon Patrons, I’ve created PDF’s of all the chapters that are so far posted over at my Doris Danger semi-interactive web comic!  You can get them at Patreon.com/ChrisWisniaArts, OR, at the web comic, on the first page of each chapter (you can begin at Chapter One), right below the splash page, you will see a link to download.  Then click the next chapter (“Chpt. 2,” then go to Chpt. 2 and click “Chpt. 3,” and so on) and repeat.

Next up, and again for YOU kind $1 Patrons… YOU can now read the ENTIRE six-chapter saga, “The Lump,” beginning HERE. (The first chapter is free to everyone!)

The Lump is the first comic I wrote, produced, and published.  It began serialization in 2004, as the lead story in my pseudo-anthology, “Tabloia Weekly Magazine #572.”  It’s a self-conscious noir/horror mystery of a body that was found on the freeway, run over so many times it’s in pieces.  The story examines our culture’s fascination with body mutilation.

Next up (for YOU kind $4 Patrons), I uploaded a couple chapters of audio commentary, where I talk at tediously thorough length about the creation of my “Spider Twins” encyclopedia!  You can listen to those here:

Spider Twins Commentary, track 3. Chapter Two
Spider Twins Commentary, track 4. Chapter Three

If you want to listen to the first two tracks, or read some Spider Twins entries, you can check it all out HERE!  Notice that EIGHTEEN (!!) encyclopedic entries are posted, and six of them are free to the public to view (for better or worse!)

Next up, I wanted to give something really special this week to YOU kind $4 Patrons, so I compiled a PDF of the early Doris Danger’s GIANT MONSTER splash pages – ONLY the splashes! – from my Doris Danger comics!  I hope you enjoy them!

Last of all, for YOU kind $7 Patrons, you can see:

36. KELLEY JONES (approx. 7:45) – DIARY OF A STRUGGLING COMICS ARTIST

There’s a master list of all the videos we’ve posted HERE (“Patron-only” as well as publicly posted), or you can go to our Youtube channel to stream all (27, currently) of the publicly posted videos!

Enjoy!  And Happy New Year!  I’m looking forward to sharing A  LOT more work with you in 2019!
-Chris

Hope everyone is having a good holiday!

As usual, with the vacation in full swing, I haven’t managed to get as much accomplished as I’d like here at Tabloia, HOWEVER…

Since my last recorded weekly accounting for myself and my creative progress, I’ve posted the following “Diary of A Struggling Comics Artist” documentary video clips, for all YOU kind $7 Patreon patrons:

32. SAM KIETH (approx. 6:00) – DIARY OF A STRUGGLING COMICS ARTIST
Sam Kieth discusses having Chris Wisnia help draw his Ojo comic for Oni Press.

33. BILL SIENKIEWICZ (approx. 3:55) – DIARY OF A STRUGGLING COMICS ARTIST
Bill Sienkiewicz explains how he began to develop his own artistic style

34. OSCAR and BORIS – The School Drop-Off (approx. 3:30) – DIARY OF A STRUGGLING COMICS ARTIST
Comics creator Chris Wisnia shares his kids’ daily pre-school drop-off routine.

NON-$7 Patrons – DON’T WORRY!  A new free video is posted every week!  Check out this amazing list of interviews available to you!

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All YOU kind $1/month Patrons at my Patreon.com/ChrisWisniaArts can now enjoy THE LUMP here at the website, beginning HERE.  The entire story except the last half of the last chapter is posted, and I hope to get those last few pages posted shortly.  If you’re NOT a $1/month Patron, there’s an 8-page sample of the covers and inside covers AND the first six pages of actual comics story, FREE TO ALL!

The Lump was my first published comics effort (originally published in serial form in my tabloid pseudo-anthology, Tabloia Weekly Magazine.  It’s a film noir/mad scientist/ tabloid horror mystery of a body found in pieces on the freeway, and the cops, coroner, private detective, tattoo artist, and drug dealer who got involved!

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In addition, I’ve begun incorporating the BRAND-NEW, FULL-COLOR, not-yet-published pages of “Doris Danger volume 3: More Doris Danger Adventures” into the Doris Danger web comic.  Volume Three starts with four pages of intro HERE, and then the first seven-page story is HERE ! There are also a couple more new splash pages thrown in there as well, and if you click the “FIRST” Monster Liberation Army tab, you’ll “flash back” to a flashback of their leader’s earliest remembrance of forming the M.L.A.*!

(*M.L.A. is an a “acronym” **, fans! – Rob Oder, Editor!)
(** An “acronym” is commonly mistaken for genital warts, or scabies – according to my Google search, fans!  I don’t even know what that means, but clearly people are typing it in to search for that!  “An acronym is commonly mistaken for genital warts!” “An acronym is commonly mistaken for scabies!”  THESE are the searches my Google is trying to finish my sentences as! – Rob Oder, Editor!)

Enjoy the New Year, and I look foward to checking in with everyone in 2019! Egads! – Chris

Hope you’re well this holiday season!

I have been asked to contribute to another benefit anthology:

The Good Fight, a Kickstarter-funded book that is live for seven more days:

(www.kickstarter.com/projects/1256237609/the-good-fight-a-peaceful-stand-against-bigotry-an)

40 plus stories (260 pages) from an all-star roster of comics creators united against hatred, bigotry and racism. I am drawing a dark, shadowy, slightly German Expressionist, but sincerely sweet, eight-page story written by Talia Hershewe. I hope you have a chance to check out the above link. All creators donated their time and talents to the book, and proceeds will be donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

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In lighter news:

DORIS DANGER: The Semi-Interactive Web-Comic is up and running at my website, https://chriswisniaarts.com/blog/archives/407

As a parody of The X-Files and conspiracy theory beliefs, you may have noticed that Doris Danger’s stories are non-chronological, and intricately, absurdly, (hilariously?) COMPLEX. NOW, you can click through the stories in their published order, OR follow a particular character or story-line through its SEQUENTIAL thread, AND look at the page’s original pencils or page edits, read my original scripts and brainstorming notes AND creator’s commentaries on the creation of the pages, AND even watch videos of me talking about concepts and execution of the project in exotic settings all over America.

(The conceit of Doris Danger’s comics is that they are “old issues” from a series that has been running a long time, and that you, reader, have managed to get your hands on it here and there, but not chronologically. This is a “pre-Netflix binge-watching sequentially in order” era. One week you pick up an issue at a super market. Then your friend gives you an old issue. Then you pick another new issue up, a few months later. There are holes in your continuity, and you slowly fill in those holes as you go to a back-issue store and pick up a few more, while continuing to read the new ones you manage to find. I “published” them in this fashion, to remind us of how we used to read comics. But NOW, you can navigate through the stories any way YOU like.)
There are over 50 pages of this Semi-Interactive Web-Comic , and a whole lot of bonus material as well. I’d love for you to check it out and let me know what you think!

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LASTLY…

DIARY OF A STRUGGLING COMICS ARTIST documentary

We have published a couple dozen FREE-TO-VIEW, GREAT interview clips of some of the biggest names in the comics industry, as they share their various struggles for my upcoming “Diary of a Struggling Comics Artist” documentary. We have an official YOUTUBE page (please subscribe!): www.youtube.com/channel/UCRY9a1qxVEvMctt84V7xucQ

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Happy holidays, everybody!
Love,
Chris
www.chriswisniaarts.com
Facebook@ChrisWisnia
Twitter@ChrisWisnia
UNSUBSCRIBE? Please shooot a reply “Unsubscribe and Happy Holidays” if you’ve had enough of these mailers.

I apologize I haven’t had as much time this week to really crank out the Doris Danger web comic, as I’d hoped. I have been asked to contribute to another benefit anthology. (The last one was Where We Live to raise funds for the victims of the Las Vegas shooting through the non-profit Route 91 Strong. I wrote, penciled, and lettered a story inked by Bill Sienkiewicz). This new benefit is The Good Fight, a Kickstarter-funded book that is live now (click the link), if you’d care to read more about it, or support).

 

This NEW BENEFIT will contain 40 plus stories (260 pages) from an ANOTHER all-star roster of comics creators united against hatred, bigotry and racism. I am drawing an eight page story written by Talia Hershewe.  As a thank you for the support of ALL YOU kind Patreon folks, I’ve posted an extra-special sneak-peek (Sh! Don’t tell anyone you’ve seen it), RIGHT HERE at my Patreon site.

Last week, for Diary of a Struggling Comics Artist, I posted a new clip of me taking my sons to pre-school. And as usual, if YOU aren’t a $7 Patreon patron, I make one clip available for free viewing every week. YOU can consult the Diary menu to see all the great vids that are up, and AT LEAST TWENTY are free for the public. I’ll be posting another new one this week, if you check in on that above menu.

This week, (again, apologies that I haven’t had more time), I posted (for YOU kind $4 Patons) three high res posters AND a screen saver of the giant hand grabbing the army commando. On that page, YOU can also link to an animated image of the scene, by Ricky Sprague.

Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone, and those of you in California, I’m thinking of you all, suffering these awful fires and smoke. -Chris

 

I’ve been once again focusing my time on the Doris Danger semi-interactive web-comic this week. In particular, Doris’s origin story. I’ve put together her first published origin story. Chapter 6 from volume 1. Then I jumped ahead and posted her abduction story (Chapter 16) from Monstrosis (vol. 2). Then I included an exciting “Tabloia offices all-dialogue sequence,” page 70-71 from Monstrosis where Doris meets her boyfriend, Steve.

Hope you’re having a good week, leading up to Halloween!  I’ve been posting A LOT of my favorite spooky movies, books, and museum art, at my Facebook/ChrisWisnia and Twitter/ChrisWisnia, if you care to chime in on some of YOUR favorites!

This week’s $7 “Diary of a Struggling Comics Artist” video is 1990’s fan favorite Spider-Man artist, creator of Spawn, and the man who made kids’ action figures cool by creating his own toy company… Todd McFarlane.

As for my creative endeavors, I’ve been really focusing on the Doris Danger semi-interactive web comic again this week!  I’ve added FREE Chapters Four AND Five AND three beautiful (but FRIGHTENING) giant monster splash pages (beginning HERE, for my kind $4 Patrons)!  ALL these pages contain two to three pages EACH of ($1-4) bonus commentary, colored versions of pages, original pencils and scripts and brainstorms and insights and odd thoughts, and more.

As I’ve had to state weekly, I REALLY APPRECIATE you all hanging in there while I get everything situated!  I have a grand scheme in mind for this Doris Danger web comic.  I tried getting this up and running SEVEN YEARS AGO.  This version is still imperfect, but much improved.  If you’ve had a chance to check it out, you’ll notice that so far, it’s all been old, black-and-white stories, previously published in Doris’s first comics volume.  I plan to post two more chapters of these older Doris Danger stories, and THEN I’ll begin posting the new, full-color stories.  In this semi-interactive format, you will be able to follow a story line or character or setting – CHRONOLOGICALLY – instead of just haphazard and random – and I hope as I continue to post more pages, you will come to realize how fascinating and carefully and well done these stories are, as they interact and blend back and forth between the old and new… more and more mind-bendingly!

I LOVE YOU GUYS!  Thank you for your support! Enjoy!
Chris