Shanime

About the Peons Re-runs: I am re-running The Peons from the beginning since I need to re-post them anyway, hopefully permanently (I am so mad I ruined my last website by doing stupid things. I also blame Godaddy because I can. Btw I’m with Hostgator now.) The Peons need a place to stay regardless of whether I make more or not. I plan on drawing more but I suck so hard at life right now I can’t stick to a schedule. I then decided that if I were to re-run them I should put up extra content for each one. So far this week it hasn’t worked out either! I started drawing a two panel extra scene for this first comic and it’s taking too long. I will finish it and post it later, but for now I think I need to just post the comics every day (not weekends though, I am always out on weekends) and if I have extra content I’ll post it too. I will be re-posting the other comics at some point as well, maybe all at once. For now I have to focus on getting a job, because hopefully I am sane enough to hold one. Then maybe I can go back to school. Otherwise all I want is my ability to make comics back. Dude I lost my mojo =(   I will post any extra content I can think of, like today’s fake “Ask the editor” section. Oh and I have to work on the website itself… I just hate that part.

Notes about this comic: These weren’t the original lines for this comic. I drew the comic for another joke that was just awful, as all my original jokes are. I showed my family the comic and they had no problem telling me it was awful. I was having trouble because it was an introductory comic. I couldn’t just jump in. Needed to set the stage and characters. After some swinging (yes, this was after dropping out of college because of the crazies, so I was like 19 and still enjoyed swinging… and I still do because it is SO relaxing to go out and listen to music in nature on the swing, and my brain works at 10x capacity there. You should try it.)… after some swinging I got this idea, and redeemed myself. I’m sure my family was worried when they saw my first comic, since I couldn’t work or go to school at this point and suddenly I wanted to make comics (which I had never been interested in before, just manga).

That’s how my process worked from then on. I write a terrible joke then I evolve it (sometimes completely abandoning the original idea) until it is almost passable for a joke. Sometimes I would have a punchline and then decide it wasn’t good enough, so I would put that punchline in the second or third frame and then have another one at the end. Then I would have my brother Andy check it (until he passed away–abandoning his duties! now Corey checks them), or if I was having trouble figuring out a punchline I would bounce ideas off them (so they deserve some credit too… here it is! Credit!). And that’s the science of Peons.

Ask the Shan!

From now on I will be answering made up fan mail! Yay! Unless someone asks a question in the comments. Also, since these are realistic made up fan mail, there is an awful lot of the word “faggot,” so I will be using the word “bananas” instead. Everyone loves bananas.

Let’s look and see what mail is in the fake inbox today! Ah, here’s a question from Bunnyman21.

Bunnyman21 asks, “They look like a bunch of emo bananas.”

Shan: Good point, Mr. Bunny! But in fact the Peons are dressed in black and white because those are the official colors of the Antarctica nation, out of respect for the majority of the citizens always wearing black and white. Actually, the “emo” fad or whatever it is wasn’t around when I was in high school, there were only goths. I dressed in fancy slacks and nice shirts. If you had to label me it would be “geek.” Not nerd because those people like science, so says I. Geeks like video games and anime. I think in middle school I was labeled “lesbian” because I loved flannel shirts. I thought they made my boobs look soft and that boys would like that, but I guess it would’ve been more tactful to understand fashion instead of going by what looks and feels good. What was the question? Oh, right, emos. I don’t quite understand what’s going on there but I love a guy in tight jeans. I hate baggy pants on guys because you can’t see their butt. What else is there to notice if not his butt? And so what do the men do? Hide it with bagginess or sagginess. And don’t get me started on emo boys who wear tight pants AND sag them. Or are those skaters…? No, no, it would be dumb to attempt challenging and dangerous tricks on a moving platform in mid-air without your pants secured in place. Good thing they wear helmets.

Other notes for this comic: The art looks better in the first comic than some of the following ones… It’s because I used Photoshop’s “burn” and “dodge” tools to add shadow and highlight. Then I read somewhere that these tools were considered cheap moves in the art world or maybe it ruins the overall quality? But if it looks good it looks good… Now I don’t care either way, but since I do everything in Manga Studio these days I don’t even go to Photoshop.

In the beginning Manga Studio didn’t have a good method of adding word bubbles and text, so I imported the images into Powerpoint, of all things, because of how easy it is to move things around on Powerpoint. God I love Powerpoint. Then I would convert the image into a PDF and then import it into Photoshop to resize and save as a jpg. This is because PDF saves the integrity of the text. Usually it gets all blurry when you resize it. I did all these steps each time for a very long time, and had to wait for two new versions of Manga Studio to come out before they had a worthwhile speech bubble + text system. I could’ve just used Photoshop for everything this whole time but I like doing things the ridiculously complicated way, especially when I find drawing in Manga Studio much more comfortable than Photoshop, and Powerpoint easier to word things (they even have their own speech bubbles).

I’ll make sure to talk about the characters next time <3