Gravitas Shortfall posted:

Yeah he could have very easily stuck with the weirdly stiff vector puppet style and gone nowhere.

John A posted:

Every few months there is a page that I find very hard to draw, and it’s never a complex one. I chipped away at this one for ages, redrawing panels and couldn’t make it graceful enough. As I am sure I’ve said before, under these circumstances, one should throw the original rough (and maybe even the script) for the page away and find another way to say the same thing – if it needed saying at all. But by the time I realise I’m in trouble, it’s far too late for a redux.

The nice thing is, as one of hundreds, it skates by the viewer’s eyes. It’s only those fruitless hours working on it where it is the only thing in front of my face that the page truly annoys me.

Saoshyant posted:

Skulker posted:

The miracle of John Allison's work is that he has been Incredibly Horny for 20+ years now but not once has he ever slipped over the line into Too Horny.

Kazinsal posted:

:O

John A posted:

I decided while drawing this page that every time I write the words “ding dong” in Steeple from now on, it will be in gothic script. I get in at least one more before the end.

The Michelin man, or “Bibendum” is one of my favourite character designs in his original form. Here is a film where you can witness his genesis, accompanied by someone playing a barrelhouse version of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody In Blue”. What rich gravy the past was.

John Allison posted:

Everything about "Count My Toes" was thrown together in a panic. I was working on another book and this story became the poor relation.

What saved it from being totally without merit was the fact that i could sit in the garden in the sun and write it. So greatly did I enjoy sitting under my inexpensive canopy that most comics had twice as many words as were strictly necessary.

I realise now that this was a bad example to set the young.

Confessions: the title doesn't mean anything (although I pretended that it did). The plot reprised a few popular characters who had to all intents and purposes been put away because I had nothing left for them to do.

In delivering my warmed-over "greatest hits", Scary Go Round became "the comic where Shelley dies, repeatedly". Of course, in this story, she doesn't die. As any fool can see, she just has a series of rather unpleasant and unfortunate accidents.

And in its original form, the comics were lettered in a way that made them hard to read. But who hasn't made a mistake in their life? I bet you, reader, have made a mistake at least once. It happens! To compound insult and injury, I ended the story on a cliffhanger which I had no intention of ever resolving.

So, in the spirit of reconciliation, I've attempted to mend everything that ailed this tale. I've been through every panel mending rushed art, I've drawn new panels to fix cut corners, and I've written an ending that, if not exactly a satisfying pay off, should let people rest easy at night. [editor's note: you do not get this version. we are chuggin' from the internet archive faucet of SGR here.]

And I've even worked on repairing myself. As I nursed (through the late summer months) a drawing hand that had become little more than a withered claw, I made a decision. All comics would now be drawn by telekinesis (or as I dubbed it, "movey-mind").

John A posted:

Oh no, Lorraine Lumsford, the scourge of Tredregyn Parish. She’s the Bishop’s fixer and she really has it in for Billie and Reverend Penrose. Last appearance: The Silvery Moon.

John A posted:

No good deed goes unpunished, or so I hear.

Saoshyant posted:

Kazinsal posted:

Scary Go Round (May 25-28, 2004)

John A posted:

Brut aftershave is the manliest 1970s British smell. Made from purest champagne wine and creosote, it can strip paint off a Kevin Keegan at 50 paces. Only boxer Henry Cooper was strong enough to wear it as cologne.