Well, it’s official. My years-in-the-making webcomic, Team D.U.D.E., has finally, officially launched. It’s kind of scary to think about! These first few strips are old and imperfect, but I hope you enjoy them anyway. It gets better with time, trust me.
Here’s to many years, many stories and many characters! I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do!
Well well well, seems like we’re finally getting somewhere, doesn’t it? The last of my ancient ‘07 comics has come and gone, and we’re finally to the new stuff! This is it, boys & girls! All art from here on in is new, done in ‘09 (and hopefully beyond), and with any luck it and the writing will continue to improve and knock your collective socks off! The introductory chapter of TD is just past half-over, and will round out at an even 60 pages in the end. So much cool stuff coming in future chapters, I can hardly wait to draw the pages!
I’ve also been busy tweaking & retooling the site a bit, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed. Hopefully the ads aren’t too jarring! Go ahead and advertise your own webcomic if you’ve got one, or just click away if you’re feelin’ nice. Or just read the comic and then go eat a sammich! You’re the boss here.
The Cast page will finally be updated next week, along with more bits and pieces around the site. And then, who knows? The sky’s the limit with this comic and website! Thanks to all who’ve been following me so far, and I hope you keep on doing so. This party’s just getting started!
-Sheana
Now, I know some of you have been following my art and ideas on other websites for quite a while now. Thanks for sticking around to see TD unfold! However, this means that some of you are also privy to a few spoilers. I’ve had to delete a few comments on the last page, because people were discussing said spoilers already!
So I’m making a request: if you know something that other people may not (i.e. anything that hasn’t happened yet), please don’t talk about it in the comments sections or elsewhere on this site! Leave the surprises for new people to discover, and delight privately and quietly in the fact that you know things other people don’t. I’d really appreciate it! :)
Well, here we are. The end of Chapter One. Holy crap, I can’t believe I managed to complete a sixty page story without missing a single update. I mean it helped that the first half of the story was drawn two frickin’ years ago, and it was touch and go there at the end a bit, but still! Woo! I finally started Team D.U.D.E., and kept it running for nearly seven months with no missed deadlines or calamities or anything! It’s a hell of an accomplishment for me and I’m feeling more than a little pleased with myself, if I may be so bold. I already hate a lot of it, all the ancient art and writing and many mistakes I made along the way, right to the end, but there are parts I’m fond of and I’m glad I did it, and you can really see the progress from start to finish! And not just in the two year art-jump!
And now, the announcement part. I’m doing things a bit differently from now on. The main point: I am no longer updating TD on a fixed weekly schedule.
Wait, don’t leave! I’m not done yet!
TD won’t be on a fixed schedule anymore, but neither will it be one page at a time. See, it all comes down to the fact that Team D.U.D.E. is a long-format comic with big story arcs divided into specific chapters. Regular 3-4 panel strips, which also tend to be B&W, they’re a whole lot easier to bang out on a schedule. But full-color, full-page comics written with the big picture in mind? Especially when the artist in question is a bit of an obsessive perfectionist and kinda slow? Those take a hell of a lot of time, and the twice-a-week schedule was really starting to reveal itself as damaging to the comic. It got to be where all I was thinking of was the deadline, rushing through things with no joy to make sure there was something online on some arbitrary date. Is that any way to enjoy making art? Not really. Not to mention the fact that long-format doesn’t read too well one-page-at-a-time, for the most part.
So here’s what I’m going to do! TD is continuing, but there won’t be anymore Tue/Thu updates. I will be updating at my own pace, putting up multiple pages at a time (no less than four) as I finish them. This way I won’t feel stressed and like I’m speeding through my work and I can put more effort into the comic, and there’ll be multiple pages to read at once to give the story a better flow and hopefully come off better to you the reader! There’s several great webcomics out there that operate in this fashion, and they’re none the worse for it. It’ll be better for us all around!
There won’t be just big long chapters, either. No matter what my progress on writing/drawing each one, between every chapter will be several one-off comics, maybe even several-page shorts. These’ll be B&W, little for-fun things, a chance to enjoy the characters and maybe get in some development that wouldn’t fit right in a normal story. Maybe I’ll even throw in some illustrations, too. Just because I’m no longer on a specific schedule doesn’t mean I’m giving up on the comic, far from it! There’s multiple options for following the comic too, from this site’s RSS feed to my Twitter account!
To summarize:
I love TD, and it isn’t going anywhere. I’ve got so many more characters I want you to meet and stories I want to tell! If all goes well, this comic will keep me busy for years (and yes, TD will end one day)! This is all to benefit me as a growing writer/artist, and to benefit you the reader with superior product! Chapter Two is already fully outlined and half-written, and it’s already light years ahead of Chapter One in quality.
Do stick around. It’s going to be fun!
Hey y’all, remember me? That chick who did that comic thing? S’up.
Sorry it’s been so quiet for a while! Just checking in to let you know I’m not dead, nor am I lazing around doing nothing. It’s been a busy few months as I finally got a job and took care of a number of personal things, and I’m finally feeling like I’m getting back in the groove with my art projects. There’s a new comic today, and there should hopefully be several more comics coming with much, much less time between them than these last two had. Chapter Two is nearly finished being written, and will shortly be thumbnailed. Heck, I was so inspired the other day I even wrote the opening of Chapter Three!
Stay tuned, kiddies. This ain’t a ghost site yet.