You can order Physical Copies!

I’ve updated my Bigcartel site and you can get back issues (1-4) at discounted prices OR the brand new Trade of the Trust Arc! This first run of the trade is limited to 150 copies and one third of them are already gone! I also posted the current issue which is Number 5! Now that we are through the 4th issue and the Trust Arc is completed, I’ll be taking a couple week break and then I’ll be back to posting spreads of the 5th issue. Thanks for your patience and if you’d like to read the physical versions, this is the best way!! You can even get a little ahead! I’ve listed the trade here first because I’ll also include some postcard prints with it that I won’t be adding once I finally list it on Amazon. I can’t wait til you see where this story is going because it’s only getting better! Here’s some extra links for you too!

Bigcartel site for buying the copies

Support the series and watch as it comes together in real time:

Patreon

The series continues online here on June 14th with issue 5!

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 19-20

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 19-20

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These final pages for the first issue were my first run at ending what would become my first issue! A little adjusting and just leaving the one panel of the drifter hanging out in the forest meant moving the words to the other page which I think worked out much better. Kind of left everything on a nice note and somewhat calming nature..but a suspicious note. He seems to know where he is going, but at the same time its a shady looking place he’s just come upon. The final page layout was a nice trial at trying to change up the panels too. Going from a closeup and zooming out and then zooming out once more to give a sense of this story now getting into a path that this drifter is going down. With his machete…and backpack…and leaving the forest…what will he find now in this

‘Happytown’…

Thanks for coming with me on this journey of the first issue. I’ll be missing next week and then starting the second issue the following Monday. I will put up the page spreads and then do the behind the scenes blogs detailing the work behind them on that following thursday. This journey of mine has really become something amazing and the art and everything is getting much better! I’m now well into working on getting the fourth issue done up. Issue 2 picks up where the first one and finds the drifter in this new place. With one last thing weighing on his mind, is it even worth it to finish this one last thing?! Meeting new people along the way helps, but will it benefit him or hinder him in the long run?

If you like what you are seeing or just want to get ahead of these pages – You can order the issues of “I Never Forgot!” directly from me over here:
http://samuraiox.bigcartel.com/ or the digital version (Redone and better lain out) at Gumroad.com/Samuraiox.

My comic I Never Forgot! #2 is NOW available on @comiXology Submit! Be sure to check it out! #cXSubmit http://bit.ly/1Vb9yqX

My comic I Never Forgot! #3 is NOW available on @comiXology Submit! Be sure to check it out! #cXSubmit http://bit.ly/1FULe6a

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 17-18

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 17-18

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So now with the first issue is winding down and getting ready to get it all published. I started sending out my newsletter and telling them that it was time to move forward with this project! This print was made for the campaign and a few other stretch goals brought the book an expanded and upgraded look! I soon had to find new pages and things to put in it. That’s when the actual book got the sketchbook pages and preview pages for the next comic. This was the first print I did for the comic too. The skull on the wall would become the actual tag for the corner of my comic book. There were only a few more things the book would need and it would be completed! But I feel like I’m getting ahead of myself…

So you can see below that I had an entire page that was still blank in the rough draft. I knew the story still needed something and couldn’t quite figure it out until lightning struck and in the form of a samurai. Well, seven samurai to be exact! A few of the concepts spilled over from the last page of notebook work, but the funeral and seven samurai panel where the big things and the rest of the pages fell together and soon I had a completed Issue. The ways of capturing a zombie was a fun page to make too. I knew I’d need that trap to spike a zombie and remains one of my favorite panels yet!

If you like what you are seeing or just want to get ahead of these pages – You can order the issues of “I Never Forgot!” directly from me over here: http://samuraiox.bigcartel.com/

My comic I Never Forgot! #2 is NOW available on @comiXology Submit! Be sure to check it out! #cXSubmit http://bit.ly/1Vb9yqX

My comic I Never Forgot! #3 is NOW available on @comiXology Submit! Be sure to check it out! #cXSubmit http://bit.ly/1FULe6a

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 15-16

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 15-16

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The transformation of a human into a zombie…unlike most zombies you see that change once they die, this shows the ones contained inside this world become that way. They are made and that terrifying and reassuring at the same time. Because it means its not contagious…but zombies exist now…Headaches lead to them gnawing on their own flesh and making it so they develop a taste for blood and flesh. This also was important to give this illusion of why these puppets have their teeth showing and separating them from the regular human puppets. When I made the zombie spread and expanded those panels, i realized this transformation needed built up too! The headache…and teeth showing through…and then finally attacking another human…

So then it was time to explain how to stop them. I’m not impressed with when people call zombies anything other than zombies. Walkers, deadites, or any other word – they are all a zombie. Why dance around the fact? We’ve seen countless shows and movies that explain how to get dispose of them, but I just wanted to show the ways I would do it! I knew I needed one more way of killing them, but just couldn’t figure it out. It wasn’t until I pitched the idea of the comic to friends that they had the idea of a woodchipper! Who doesn’t love a woodchipper and its brutal destruction of everything!! The blunt force trauma changed from a hammer to a shovel and I think it works better.

If you like what you are seeing or just want to get ahead of these pages – You can order the issues of “I Never Forgot!” directly from me over here: http://samuraiox.bigcartel.com/

My comic I Never Forgot! #3 is NOW available on @comiXology Submit! Be sure to check it out! #cXSubmit http://bit.ly/1FULe6a

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 13-14

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 13-14

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Originally meant to be one page but I realized there was too much going on and it needed to be split to two different pages. The nurse needed to be better proportions and a hospital feel designed to give life to this idea how these zombies were manufactured accidentally. A common idea of trying to prolong life and using medicine to extend this life we’re all given…and that backfiring and us being able to gain our immortality…but not how we expected to utilize it. Still no background to give a sense this was happening everywhere and had already passed. The nurse will be a person who returns in the story a little later…

This is another page out of the sketchbook pages that are in the back of the issues of the book. Inktober has begun again and this design was the second done of this little zombie guy. now with this better shadow design that was a little more modified for my ‘comic publisher’ tag. It was time to give this zombie a feeling of stopping to smell the roses even though he normally might not have actually been able to, the idea of him wanting to expanded this whole idea and theory even more. If you’d like to know more about Jake Parker’s Inktober, you can find his website here and more about Inktober on it’s actual site over HERE!

If you like what you are seeing or just want to get ahead of these pages – You can order the issues of “I Never Forgot!” directly from me over here: http://samuraiox.bigcartel.com/

My comic I Never Forgot! #2 is NOW available on @comiXology Submit! Be sure to check it out! #cXSubmit http://bit.ly/1Vb9yqX

My comic I Never Forgot! #3 is NOW available on @comiXology Submit! Be sure to check it out! #cXSubmit http://bit.ly/1FULe6a

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 11-12

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 11-12

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This page got extended to two pages to show this scene play out. The willingness to deal with what someone needs to and walk away like its no big deal. This was one of the page that reworked to give an expanded scene. I also chose not to do a background. It wasn’t as a issue of laziness but building this world, I wanted this scene to stand on its own because its a common occurrence in this world. It was however an issue of me not trusting myself and abilities not to be up to par on my backgrounds. His machete makes an appearance again and is used as his primary weapon. When I started doing the linework for this issue, I used my new brush pens to line this first zombie that showed up.

If you like what you are seeing or just want to get ahead of these pages – You can order the issues of “I Never Forgot!” directly from me over here: http://samuraiox.bigcartel.com/

My comic I Never Forgot! #2 is NOW available on @comiXology Submit! Be sure to check it out! #cXSubmit http://bit.ly/1Vb9yqX

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 9-10

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 9-10

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The note (that was blacked out in previous posts) describing these “photo spreads”. The lines below and the rough design just looked all kinds of terrible. The perspectives were screwy and nothing really worked. When I moved to linework, the lines got sorted out and fixed too. I was thinking about having the first zombie kill but realized I should have it for the page turn, but didn’t mean I couldn’t tease the attack! A zombie with a broken leg gnawing on another dead person…and the drifter walking up to attack him as well.

This is one of the pages in the sketch book area for the first issue. It was the first zombie puppet design I did. There is a social site warmup exercise called “sketch dailies” and mon-fri they give out a prompt and you do anything with that design or character you want to. A zombie wanting love was one of the first puppets I made and fell in love with the suited up guy! When I had originally uploaded the pic, I posted it with the tag “Even though his heart had stopped, he was bound and determined to share what was left with someone!”

If you like what you are seeing or just want to get ahead of these pages – The first and second issue are available and the third is soon to be too! You can order them directly from me over here: http://samuraiox.bigcartel.com/

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 7-8

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 7-8

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Much like the first spread, this was meant to be just a single picture laying in a sea of black with the words “I used to have friends” in the middle of the opposing page. After I had the first Issue’s linework done, it was back to the drawing board because those spreads weren’t working well enough. Changing up those pages were the biggest improvement and helped to keep the first issue from dragging and getting into building this world I was trying to create!

You can see the spikes he was sharpening in the second spread because the hammock scene was meant to be on the other side from that page. Sometimes you just need to take a moment and relax…even if it IS the zombie apocalypse! I also know that with the last spread I was going to describe how this story evolved but I think I’ll save those for one of the next few spreads because it has to deal with the design of the characters and how they evolved from the very first sketch. I was starting to work with better panel layouts and getting things to line up just enough to help the eyes flow from one panel to the next. I was also trying to show that the picture was way in the past considering how short his mohawk is too.

If you like what you are seeing or just want to get ahead of these pages – The first and second issue are available and the third is soon to be too! You can order them directly from me over here: http://samuraiox.bigcartel.com/

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 5-6

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 5-6

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The start of the panels. The first to paintings of the oil ones I already had done at this point.

So when 2015 began, making my own comic was probably the farthest thing from reality that I could have conceivably gotten. I started with a few goals and everything just sort of sprung to life from there. I had this idea for a story that started working on building itself more and more and eventually it would become this bigger idea. I’ll explain more about that next week as well.

One of the main goals though was to get more comfortable with oil painting. I wanted to use it more and more and I finally had the idea to do a series of rose painting studies. These were to be the centerpiece of my next art show and that soon changed focus after seeing how differently Oil is from Acrylic. It takes forever to dry and while you’re waiting for that ‘forever’, it makes one hell of a mess and KEEPS making that mess!! So I did two of these paintings and shifted gears. If you want to see these first two oil paintings, you can see the first HERE and the Second time lapse HERE. This DID however give birth to this notion of and eventually would become the back covers for the comic. I had intended on them being the front covers but realized that it would be doubtful people would want a comic that just had rose bushes on the front and eventually a zombie coming out of the ground.

I wanted this image of the rose bush to be prevalent because it is and will be shown as a big part of the story! I can’t give much more about it than that and you’ll see it when it happens! These two pages weren’t even in the rough draft or lineart. It was when I was starting coloring the issue that I realized I had forgot this moment and wanted it to be sooner than I had planned for it. I also wanted to give something to highlight for Kathleen Rule (highlighted last spread and you can find links to her work there). She does these gorgeous forest scenes and beautiful foxes! You can see below from the notebook sketches that I made a note to insert them between pages where I felt they would work the best! These are some of the panels Kathleen will be doing once I turn the first 4 issues into a trade (collected into one book). She will also be doing the cover art in her own style too! I can wait to see what she does with it all. This grave will become very important and the roses left behind. Some of these pages are also the same ones shown in the issue to highlight things that helped make this story come to life. It wasn’t until I heard Jake Parker say that an artist just needs to complete a project and stop dragging their feet…and James Gunn state that “Done is better than Good”…and becoming part of the 100’s group and working on my comic everyday for at least a half hour thanks to Kevin Cross. These artists inspired me to dig into that potential that has been waiting to be used and I can’t truly thank them enough for that!

If you like what you are seeing or just want to get ahead of these pages – The first and second issue are available and the third is soon to be too! You can order them directly from me over here: http://samuraiox.bigcartel.com/

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 3-4

“I Never Forgot!” Issue 1, Page 3-4

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Starting the story now and building a world…

These two pages went through a lot of work to get them where they are now. Not only were they reversed in the rough draft and linework, but a few of the panels didn’t even look how they do now. A drifter surviving in this post-apocalyptic world. I think the reveal of the zombie arm was much more useful for the turn page rather than the middle of this spread. You’d think making a straight line would be easy enough but I don’t even think I was using standard measuring methods! I’m pretty sure I was using the edge of my notebook to make the straight lines. I got a set of micron pens and started putting down some lines and making panels. I also had this great note that I had Kathleen Rule in mind to help illustrate a few panels. Walking in the woods seemed to be right in her wheelhouse and she makes some gorgeous and articulated trees that would be at home in this world I started building. You can find her art over here on her Instagram page, facebook art page, or even her own personal website.

Her site was actually one of the first artists I found that I wanted to emulate! It was so fresh, clean, and easy to navigate! I also was able to get one of my favorite pieces of art that still hangs on my wall! (“Devouring Stars” – The trouble with devouring stars, there are always strings attached…”) She is such a talented and wonderful artist that I look forward to releasing the first trade with her artwork included and switched out for some of my panels in this first issue!

Some of the tools the drifter uses are shown off too and especially this machete of his! Getting ready to rest near a campfire is nice, but its the unknown out there in the world that the shadows creep across and hide when you close your eyes. These pages are a little difficult for me to look at just because I see how I’d do things differently now but I also appreciate that this is how this whole wild journey started! My pages are looking better and (with the use of a ruler!) my lines are much straighter and with some different values!

If you like what you are seeing or just want to get ahead of these pages – The first and second issue are available and the third is soon to be too! You can order them directly from me over here: http://samuraiox.bigcartel.com/