I am deep in the middle of a "Plastic Babyheads" animated trailer at the moment, and who knows where that's going to go---so I can't promise anything. Certainly I can't go back to the schedule "Jetpack" had before. With everything I'm trying to do (as well as my "full-time +" day-job as Chair of a University Art Department)
that's just not possible. But I'm thinking something more intermittent--a week here, a week there---is probably very do-able. And probably good for me too. In the time away, I've both had time to re-think those issues that were bothering me about the strip, and then-- time away enough to miss the work, the charge of producing something for an audience every other day, the thrill of seeing where the story goes.
To be honest, the changeover from "Plastic Babyheads" seems like a mistake to me now; I robbed Jetpack of his character--as simplistic as he was--and replaced it with an ill-defined non-entity. His costume is nice, but that's about it. So--to satisfy that nagging desire to "GET IT RIGHT", I'm trying one last re-boot, changing the emphasis, and bringing back two of my favorite characters. Check out the re-tooled "Jetpack Jr." just after Thanksgiving. And the next time I say "never" again...
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Meanwhile, I've been inking pages from my unfinished graphic novel, "Nice Work"-begun all the way back in 2006/7 and which ran on the lost and lamented ModernTales.com back in the day.
I was going to say it was interesting to go back to pages I penciled 8 years ago and am just getting around to inking now, but -at least at first--it was merely annoying.
Drawing "Jetpack/PBFOS" for 5 years really cleaned up my style, so that I don't waste so much graphite now--but these old pages-phew! so much eraser dust! Necessity is the mother-of-invention--and I went ahead and borrowed my "layer of vellum" approach on these old pages, and now it's working just fine.
Finally, I am working on the "Plastic Babyheads from Outer Space" trailer---and here's the work in progress:
Plastic Babyheads from Outer Space_work in progress-1 from Geoff Grogan on Vimeo.
I've gotten farther than this--but you get the idea. The kids at Farmingdale High School seemed to get a kick out of it when I visited them in Regina Nicholas' art classes yesterday. I keep plugging away at it--hope I finish it before the decade is over!
That's all for now! See ya on the new GoComics--or on Vimeo!
Cheers--
G
