Project Week

I always come back from my monthly sojourn to Birmingham feeling energised and eager to get back to producing some pages but I hit a delay this month when the Jock pages I'm due to draw heavily feature a bandstand. Now, this can be fudged but a working model is always preferable for that added verisimiltude: as a result, I borrowed Rol's Dead Zone DVD a while back to get some reference but had apparently lost the file on my PC last week.

With Tone mentioning that PCs tend to go on the fritz after five years (and mine coming up to its fourth birthday), I decided to take advantage of this temporary halt in producing artwork to clear my PC down. Added with the possibilities provided by Lulu and Ka-Blam (NOT Thai hookers, as you may have heard) and have set myself a number of projects to clear this week before resuming pencilling at the weekend:

1. Clear down files from my PC. I have already deleted tons of files and rediscovered not only the bandstand (huzzah!!) but some forgotten art files, including character designs for Rol, artwork done for the local council and a few other bits. I have also burned off downloaded files that may be helpful if I ever need a new PC.

2. Burn off the miscellaneous music on my PC onto disc. I did this last night, just need to do the case (I save clip art from Previews and magazines to use as CD covers) and track listing now.

3. Sort through my old PC discs and organise them better (well, AT ALL really...)

5. Burn off ALL my photos: family pics, Xmas pics and trips to France and New York, all now burned safely to CD.

6. Sort out some artwork: I want to print some comics but have nothing to print so I might produce some gallery editions of whatever I can bear to look at. Make a list, see what can be done.

As an aside, I want to print that damned book (which is now as finished as it'll ever be, minor margin and print-size checks aside), print these gallery issues, print the Jock, EVENTUALLY publish the Jock tpb and ULTIMATELY--and this involves more work and a bit of expense but will be worth it--print a fully coloured hardcover deluxe edition of the tpb. Colouring will take ages, as will the art but currently each copy would cost around £14 to produce so splashing out on a few copies could be fun.

However, creating the necessary PDFs for the above projects will be a nightmare as I don't have the necessary software or knowledge. I get the impression that I may take advantage of Dave's kind offer and slip him a few pennies to create a few PDFs for me. Tone's been checking my word formatting but I'll have to appease him with scribbled computer game tie-in comics instead. Or cheese.

Those are my projects for the week.