Dec15

Delays!

by Peggy on December 15, 2011 at 6:55 am
Posted In: Blog

Sorry to vanish for a few weeks. Things have been… complicated. Another project demanded all my time for a week, then I went down to New Orleans to visit my mom for a week and a half. While I was there I had less room to work than I was expecting to… and more disruptively, I got the news that an old friend in the animation industry died abruptly.

I’m back in Seattle right now, but only for a day – I’m going down to LA for the funeral this weekend.

There’s been progress on Rita but it’s all been behind the scenes. I’m really not a fan of putting up “sorry no comic today” updates, especially ones with art – those tend to take the limited time and energy one has available to allocate to the comic and spend it on a blind alley. I’ve got the next several pages of Dragon Rita’s story scripted and partially roughed out, and am filling in the other narratives in fits and starts. The next page is about 1/3 done.

I’m really looking forwards to getting back into the studio and resuming this story. Barring any other crises, the only real distraction I have planned is maybe throwing a modest new year’s or solstice party; I’m getting close to wrapping up one of the other projects that’s been fighting Rita for my time. I know where I’m going on this comic, and I’m really looking forwards to taking all of you along for the ride again!

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Nov06

A brief interruption: Marking an ending.

by Peggy on November 6, 2011 at 11:49 pm
Posted In: Blog

click for full size

Today I went to catch up on the stuff at Dumm Comics, a comics collective consisting of some folks I knew in the Hollywood animation scene and their friends. And I got a surprise: Ricky Garduno’s comic 1930 Nightmare Theatre has ended, due to an impending bout of heavy soul-searching.

I met Ricky in animation school. He, my roomie Gabe, and myself, bonded over a love of… anarchy, I suppose. Everyone else in school was aiming for Disney. We were more down with WB, UPA, and Fleischer stuff. When one of us got in trouble, we all got in trouble, because we were always hanging out doing crazy drawings. We were also the ones who stayed late working like crazy on our projects; funny how that happened. I got kicked out of school near the end, Gabe left when his Spümcø internship turned serious. Ricky stuck it out, but barely. I think.

Gabe’s a bigshot show-runner now, Ricky’s doing boards on “Family Guy” last I heard. I kinda lost touch with ‘em both when I burnt out on Flash 5 and left Hollywood. I keep on intending to make a visit down that way sometime now that I’m on the West Coast again and catch up in person; until then we just send random bits of e-mail every year or so.

Good luck sorting out what needs sorting out, dude. Here’s hoping I see you doing something new and cheerier soon.

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Oct20

Spacetrawler

by Peggy on October 20, 2011 at 2:11 am
Posted In: Blog

Tonight I was looking at the Piperka page for Decrypting Rita. And noticed the “related” links on the right side. The highest score was to a cut-n-paste comic about guinea pigs, the second highest score lead to a domain squatter. “A Distant Soil”, okay now we’re getting somewhere, I never tried reading it but I’ve heard good things about it, Amara’s sister Raina’s “SMILE”, then something called “Spacetrawler“.

Which I just read. In its entirety. All 178 pages. And stuck in my LJ friends list (<lj-user=”spacetrawler”> for those of you who are also still using LJ as their main feed consumption method). So much for trying to get to sleep at a reasonable time. If you haven’t discovered it yet, then go check it out – it’s a pretty nice piece of smart, comedic SF.

(Spacetrawler‘s not the reason you’re reading this instead of seeing a new page of Rita; I decided that I needed a vacation, and didn’t touch a pen, stylus, or brush at all today. It is however the reason I’m going to bed at 2AM instead of midnightish…)

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Oct13

the lure of the virtual

by Peggy on October 13, 2011 at 5:41 pm
Posted In: Blog

Here’s a nice little take on some of the same themes as Rita.

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Oct04

a cover concept

by Peggy on October 4, 2011 at 3:04 pm
Posted In: Blog

I drew a possible cover for the eventual collected volume.

The idea is to use UV-reactive or phosphorescent ink; in the dark or under black light you’d see the mostly-black image. If you think that’s not related to the story so far then I urge you to go back to the beginning and look more closely.

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