Okay! So a day late, but there's a very good reason for all this.
DAVE IS BACK!
Just for now though, don't get too excited. :3
Last night I was at the karaoke bar, working on the inking of the 5th page of Brilliant Black Starres. I decided to check facebook on my phone, because I'm the ever distractable, non-diligent cartoonist stereotype, and I happened to see a post from a friend commemorating the 4th anniversary of Michael Jackson's death.
Now rewind 4 years ago. I was still working at the record joint, and MJ's death caused an explosion in MJ record sales. His label wasted no time in pumping out a series of poorly remastered special editions of all his main albums, complete with a slapped together collection of B-sides and "Bonus DVDs" with whatever music videos came form that era.
They sold like fuckin' hotcakes.
THAT'S not the issue here, as much as rushed remasters are a cancerous boil living on the underbelly of the music industry, what got to me most was the cascade of ... well.. I guess there's no nice way of saying it... POSERS, who once they heard the news of the King of Pop's passing, decided that NOW was the time to fill their record collections with his prolific career.
I can't articulate it any better than Dave does on the page, so just read that. I won't lecture you about how stupid music fans are ;-)
So yeah, I originally did this comic about 4 years ago, but this was back when Dave still looked like a mountain of fluff, and he hadn't really gotten his "character" down yet.
As a result, that page never saw print, it enjoyed a week long spotlight on my old website, and was then promptly forgotten about. Upon remembering this auspicious anniversary, I set my BBS page aside, and started work on a new Dave, which I'd been meaning/wanting to do for awhile now.
Where will this go from here? I haven't decided yet. I have some ideas.
I really wanna keep going with Brilliant Black Starres next week, but I'll be working on Dave on the side. Rest assured a new book IS on it's way. you have the proof right in front of you on your monitor.
Something I forgot about doing Dave comics everyday. MOST of the time spent doing them lies in the lettering. Dave talks a LOT! and his font is so specific. I spent probably three quarters of the time i spent making this whole page JUST on Dave's monologue.
When I started Brilliant Black Starres and TransCat, I was kinda at first amazed at my productivity (I'm on my 17th page of TransCat, wooo). But now I'm realizing it's because those characters don't talk NEARLY as much! Heck, Brilliant Black Starres goes 6 pages without any talking at all! And TransCat's dialogue is so much shorter and snappier than Dave's diatribes. That's because Dave talks like I talk, I'm a very wordy person.
BBS and TransCat however are written based on conversations I've had and heard. No one I know or talk to is as long winded as me. So I did my best to show that in those conversations. Hence I'm producing 17 pages in a couple weeks as opposed to a page a week in the case of Dave.
I would say I was gonna try and make Dave less wordy... but we all know that's not gonna happen ;-)
If this first page is any indicator.
Anywho, tune in next week for more Brilliant Black Starres.
Until then? Courage.
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