Welcome to Addictive Comics & The Rookie Blog. Let’s Talk About the First Five Pages!

First post? Looking good so far, particularly for a set of pages that require so much background exposition. Some of the panels feel a bit overly “busy” making it harder to work out what’s going on in the game, but I think at this point that’s less important that the textual content of what’s happening.

Looking forward to seeing how it develops.

Ohhh-yeee-aah!

Bring it!

BRING IT!

Krack-ens! Krack-ens!

Damn, guys. This looks AWESOME. I’m looking forward to the next segment…dammit…and…getting…you know…sHaKy…bastards.

Hi there!

Logging in from Denmark, I’m probably one of the first OJs to see the first Rookie comic installment - sweeet

Great that you start off with 5 pages *plus* the extra intro to Barnes psycking up before the game - I think it’s just about right to get new readers hooked.

I like the style and tone - and so far you have made a very good job condensing the original story down to the comic book format.

I’m looking forward to seeing more of the Rookie!

Cheers
Jesper

I am so jazzed about what I have seen so far! The football action art is a great scene-setter, and the first looks of everyone are top-notch (barring one very minor point of criticism - Greedok’s bodyguard [I assume it is Virak the Mean] visually interferes with the first look we get of the Quyth leader - I would have preferred to see him faded into the shadows, or barring that removed from that shot altogether, as the splash reveal of the Quyth woulld have more impact and clarity). On the whole, this is haping up to be all i could have hoped for as a Rookie fan. I love what you guys are doing, and cannot WAIT to see more.

Any plans to put this out in print form?

Also… ANCESTOR? Magnus? Locked in mortal combat? I count at least three kinds of awesome.

First off — Thank you to everyone for the comments and…

Sorry they haven’t been appearing instantly. I have them set for moderation somehow. I will figure it out. (UPDATE — Got it - I think. All comments should appear instantly.)

But please — WE ARE GETTING THEM and I will put them up as soon as I can.

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Mr. Ben,

Yes, I think you might have been the First. Thank you.

Thanks for the kind word and the concern. Yes, we did move rather quickly. We’re considering this as we would a graphic novel and see it as maybe 150 or so pages. To get the entire Rookie in to that many will require a bit of cut and compress.

Having said that — we are totally new at this and there may be better ways of doing things. That’s why we WELCOME all the comments. Thank you.

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Robin,

Krakens? This is “Your PNFL Micovi Raiders!” Don’t know what book you’re reading.

Thanks.

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Mr. Cowboy,

Thank you.

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Jasper,

Yes you may be the First and so far only reader from Denmark. We are big in Finland, though for some reason. Help us get the word out to your fellows.

We thought it would be a good thing to open all the stories with multi-pages. Naturally a short story like Black Jack Justice may only have 2 — but for The Rookie we really wanted to get to the Quyth. That’s the first real indication this is NOT the NFL. Glad you liked it.

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Nightshade

Hey, Buddy. Glad you could make it so early.

You are Spot On with the critique of the Quyth shot. If I had to do it over (and I might) I will probably change it. Of course, we have color planned for this series (watch this blog for a sneak peak in a few days) so Brad may be able to “fade him into the back” a bit with color. We’ll see.

Also this is a good point to bring up that this is EXACTLY the kind of talk that we artist love to do. If you have ANY comments along this line — good or bad — I (Mark) and Sami (over at Black Jack Justice) would love to hear them.

Keep you eyes open for a couple of new blogs featuring “Art Talk” starting in the new year.

Print — Well, YES!

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Nightshade,

Didn’t I just talk to you?

Thanks. I loved doing that picture. Especially the teeth through the hands.

Can’t you just hear Magnus? “I’m coming for you next, Colding!”

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Please keep the comments coming,

Mark

Yes!!!!!!!! I am so stoked. I loved the podcast and have been looking forward to this ever since it was announced.

I agree that sometimes the panels are a bit “busy” but the text helps out the readers who don’t know the story. Artwork is phenomenal especially considering the level of difficulty this includes. Looking forward to future installments.

Go Krakens!

Well the first 5 pages are great and well done to all of you involved with the launch of addictive comics and as a british OJ more sigler and other content can only be a good thing!

I have a question? are you and scott planning on doing a comic version of Earthcore and/or Mt Fitzroy when that has been podcast in the near future and i think rocktopie would be awesome!!!

keep up the great suff and a quick ty to general siglerisimo for the new unreleased quentin barnes goodness above in this blogg

Regards

Scottsiglerjunkie AKA Kenneth

Kenneth,

Thank you for the Kind Words. Glad to have you on board.

We will definitely be looking to do all of Scott’s stories and properties (except Infected — Can’t comment on that at this time. Sorry.) including Earthcore and Mt. Fitz. It would be wonderful if we could do it alongside the Podcast.

Right now we are looking for artists. A Novel is a HUGE undertaking and we need to get the right people in place.

Thanks for commenting on the “Unreleased” Opening. When I first read The Rookie script, I immediately told Scott that we HAD to get that out to you guys. It tells us so much about Quenton right up front. I wish it had been in the Podcast.

Mark

First off, I think Scott and Mark you are off to a really strong start. Mark’s art is good, the pacing of the pages are nicely done. Any improvements in storytelling I could suggest will improve over time. That’s the nature of sequential work. More pages, the better it becomes.

Secondly, however, I have some comments that aren’t as positive. As much as I appreciate the artwork I think it could be bumped up a notch if it were tweaked a bit in photoshop. The blacks are inconsistent and some of the lines aren’t as sharp as I assume the originals were. If you are going to do spot blacks make them black. This will also help down the road when you compile the pages for hopefully printed graphic novel.

The problem I had the most with was the lettering and fontography, which I notice is a problem that carries over to other comic. The balloon work is very inconsistent the and off balanced. The font varies in size. I really didn’t like the use of the black caption boxes and the font used for the alien voice is a bit hard to read in places. The kerning (space between letters) and leading (space between lines) need work. On one line the word invasion was inv asion.

I know lettering is often overlooked and shrugged off as good enough, however good lettering is invisible and bad lettering sticks out bringing good art down.

That said I think it is a strong start, the art has a great foundation, just needs some after scan tweaking for line consistency and solid blacks. Lettering is a skillset so I’d recommend finding a letterer or practice practice practice.

Couple places to check out:

http://www.ninjalettering.com - some really good tutorials, both video and walk thrus.

http://www.digitalwebbing.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=17 - This is lettering forum that a few notable letterers hang out. Included Nate Piekos who provided the fonts for this comic.

Best of luck. I’ll be here to watch this comic grow and improve. Thanks for a fun read and nice art.

-Ron

Ron,

Thank you for the kind words and hints. You make some really good points.

Thank you for the kind words on the artwork. I do believe that the art will get better as I go along also. I’m actually using a slightly different, more gritty style for The Rookie than I normally draw with (the Cover Page drawing of Quenton and the Flying Squirrel drawing on Black Jack Justice Blog are closer to my natural style.) Scott and I developed this “look” for The Rookie through experimentation several months back and I’m already getting more comfortable with it. We should see it evolve a bit more.

Thank you for the well-thoughtout critiques — you are spot on with every one of them.

I am doing the scanning and I do very little tweaking in Photoshop. Part of that was due to time and part to the fact that I am still learning to use the program. All of the graphics on all of the sites (headers, inhouse ads, logos) were done by me in Photoshop and/or Illustrator, but I still have a long ways to go to be proficient with either of them.

I think also that the art may be helped with a better scanner. The one I am using ain’t much.

I am also doing the lettering on both comics — more out of necessity than desire or talent. I won’t go into each point you made — because they are all correct and speak for themselves.

I will hopefully get better at the lettering too as I do it more (the first page on Black Jack Justice IS the VERY first time I had ever even tried computer lettering about 4 months ago.) Notes like yours and the websites you recommend are a big help.

However, what might be a bigger help to the lettering is when we get someone in who knows what they are doing and I can stop completely. I am enjoying doing the lettering of each page as a break from my other stuff, but I wouldn’t hesitate to give it to someone who is good at it. In these early days — for me — unfortunately, contrary to what you noted, “good enough IS good enough.” It has to be.

One VERY COOL thing I can do and PROBABLY WILL do — that is unique to webcomics — is go back and tweak the pages as I get better at all the skills — drawing, lettering, post-production. I may even decide to redraw panels or entire pages. I’ve actually already done this a couple of times leading up to the launch with pages Scott and I didn’t like. And I even made a couple of small changes to the wording last night (read today’s Addictive Comics Blog Post for more info.) Missed the space in “in vaders” though. Thank you.

One last note — the one downside to starting with these very well-known stories is that I don’t think most people really read the text or notice the story-telling — not in a “need to understand” kind of way. Most of them already know the words and stories. Some of them better than we do! So when Addictive Comics does our first “Comic-Original Story” (The answer to the question you’re asking right now is “yes” Now the answer is “soon”) I think we’ll find out more about the lettering, the storytelling, the “flow” and such.

Thoughts? Anyone?

Mark

I suspect that you have a point - for many of us junkies, the plot and dialogue are a “given”, and more will get shaken out in a totally original piece.

I have to say, I take it as a sign of your professionalism as an artist that you are not only courteous to people offering criticism (and it seems to be offered with sincere motives), but that you take it on board. That can do nothing but improve your work to our mutual benefit.

Also, I was pimping the comic and the story generally to some folks today and got myself all worked up. I had to read these pages AGAIN, and I think I might re-listen to the audio book (after having finished my second full run through about 6 months ago). GO KRAKENS!

Night

Thanks.

Scott and Mark have made a pact (promise?) not to change or delete any comments no matter what they have to say.

Except — obviously — in the case of Spam, offensive content or flames toward anyone but us. We WILL NOT tolerate or allow that even a little!

We WELCOME and ENCOURAGE any and all comments — especially during our “soft launch.” You guys are our audience and our friends.

Let us know what you think.

As for Ron’s comments above — that was an easy “no brainer” — he was sincere and he was right.

Mark & Scott

Hey Scott and Mark,

Just wanted to let you know I love the comic book format. Can’t wait to get my weekly fix!

Great work so far guys!

I almost want to print the pages for my kids to color…

My only critique was about the fonts as well but Ron pretty much covered that. Is there a way to see it in a larger format?

And one paradox:
The Rookie Artist, Mark Hester doesn’t seem like a “rookie artist”.

Another fan from Denmark her, so yu have atleast 2
Loving the comic so far The Rookie is my favorite Sigler story so i am happy you picked that one

Hey Geoff,

Thank you for the kind words.

In answer to your question about getting the pages larger — Yes, No and Maybe.

Yes — we can offer this pretty easily,

No — we have no plans to do so at this time,

So Maybe — If that’s what the readers want we will definitely do it.

Since you mentioned the art and the fonts, let me ask you — Are you wanting it bigger to read easier or for the artwork?

See, we already have a couple of new blogs in the works (one for each comic) which will deal specifically with all areas of the Art. These would be the best places to put a larger Art Page (without the word balloons, even) or a Downloadable PDF or the page (good for coloring.)

If it’s just the font — we are discussing that. We have several ideas — from the very simple (change the font) to more Web 2.0 options (such as clickable popups with bigger easier to read font.)

Let us know your thoughts.

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Henrik,

Cool. If we get enough maybe we can do a book tour of Denmark. I have ALWAYS wanted to go to Denmark.

Thanks,

Mark

Very cool. I agree with the comments on larger size. A click to zoom feature (harder) or to get to an alternative larger page size (easy) would definitely do the great art work a bit more justice. Keep those pages coming! My son and I will be at the Contagious signing in January (San Mateo or SF)

Best Regards

Greg B.

Hey, you might wanna fix the next page link on page 5 - it’s jumping straight to page 7 instead of page 6