Many of you may be wondering what my new comic is about, and this article will try to cover as much as possible without spoiling anything. Of all the comics I’ve created, this one is probably the hardest to nail down in terms of “what it is.” I can say it’s an experiment of sorts, something very fluid and ever changing.
One of my early inspirations for NORMLINGS is a webcomic called DREAMSTUCK by Bill Kloppenburg. In his comic, a character wakes up to a world of absolutely nothingness, just pure white all around. Over time things are revealed and the character discovers new stuff. I loved the idea of creating something from the ground up in every possible sense, so that became the starting point for my comic.
That’s really where the similarities end because in NORMLINGS, the characters know they’re in a comic, they know who I am, and most likely, they hate me for what I put them through. I have tasked Winston, the main character, to start a new community and he has to go through many hardships in order to pull it off. He also has to deal with what I call the “lowest common denominator” type of characters that are around him, and that only fuels his loathing of his creator.
From a technical standpoint, NORMLINGS will be traditionally made. My previous two comics, FRIK and HOLES IN IT were sketched out with pencil and paper, but totally finished digitally in Adobe Illustrator. I LOVE the digital format, but the problem is over time it becomes a crutch because you can instantly and easily correct mistakes. Instead of improving my skills as an artist, I simply “fix it in post”, which is exactly what I was doing. I needed to go back to a more traditional style of art, so this comic kind of freaks me out because you will be seeing it flaws and all. The only thing digital in this comic is the speech bubbles, because I want you to be able to actually read it.
Hopefully this gives you a taste for what is to come. First episode will be shown on my site next week on Tuesday, May 31st and the comic is already at the printer and will be sold online and at my next convention in June!