Stuff we talked about:

I’m exhibiting at Mid-Ohio Con October 22-23. I’ll post my artist alley table info once I get it. Visit the convention’s site for more info.

I showed them a fun computer game I’d recently heard about, Kerbal Space Program. We discussed our love of BMAR which has sadly been on hiatus lately. We also expressed our love for synchtube and for Kolchak the Night Stalker (including a weird scene in the 2005 reboot where the original Carl Kolchak is digitally inserted into a scene with his modern counterpart) and the Russian Winnie the Pooh.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We also have a chuckle over some videos by Rob Liefeld. One where he’s talking about an infamous drawing he did of Captain America and another where he’s drawing while driving.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

EDIT: MP3 quality changed to reduce file size

Films reviewed: Hercules (1983)

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The Adventures of Hercules (1985)

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Sinbad and the Seven Seas (1989)

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Episode Transcript:

Episode One

Day One: I appear on the bank of some body of water. I have no idea where I am or what awaits me. My first instinct is to build a shelter, to dig, collecting sand and dirt to fashion into walls of some sort of structure. As I work this chilling yet somehow comforting music begins to play from… somewhere. Strangely sand falls to the ground while the earth does not. I cut down a tree to find the leaves hover over me strangely. What strange sort of world is this? I hear chickens and cows in the distance. I refine the wood and use it to make a door, a work bench, and a pickaxe I use to collect stone. With that stone I make a stronger, better pick axe.

The sun begins to set as it turns into my first night. I don’t know what to expect but I just knowing something will come. Darkness quickly fills the house. All I can do now is stand by the door and wait for daylight to break again. I see something moving in the distance! I hear groaning and growling outside my home. Brains? Is that what it’s saying? Is… is that a jumping green scrotum I see outside? Amongst the mumbling and gurgling noises comes a lilting piano. And synth? What strange land is this?

Day Two: The sun is rising just as I hear some sort of serpentine hiss outside. I see a skeleton walking across the water. I continue to hear moaning outside. I make a window and see the sun is up. Has my house suddenly become my tomb? I feel the urge to rush out my door and escape whatever foul beasts have surrounded me. But that is madness. A green monster appears at my window! I swing my pick axe and do battle! After several hits it falls never to come up again. I quickly dart outside and back through my window to retrieve the strange item the creature dropped. I continue to hollow out my shelter, constantly hearing footsteps, hisses, and groans coming from above me. How do I escape this before the daylight is expired? I start adding windows on one side to let in more light and to afford me the best view of the outside world as possible. Realizing the floor beneath me is made of stone, I decide to attempt to tunnel underneath the sand outside my house. Hopefully whatever monsters await me won’t be expecting such a maneuver. Drat! The sand caves in! I must tunnel deeper! What’s this? A cave? I dare not explore it in the dark. Oh no. The sun is setting already.

Darkness comes quickly as I peer through my windows. As I listen to the disgusting hiss outside I resolve to escape this prison once the sun finally rises. I see the glowing eyes of a giant spider floating in the water outside. How will I ever survive this? A spider is outside my window! Ouch! It wants a fight, does it? I grab my pick axe and prepare to do battle! I have defeated the spider and now I wait for my savior daylight. Now I must destroy a green monster. Now a second spider appears outside my window and needs destroying. At long last, sunlight!

Day Three: Holy crap, I see a skeleton on fire! Two green monsters appear outside my window. I destroy them both. Will this madness never end? I can take it no longer, I make a mad dash out my window, growing weaker as I’m attacked by a giant spider and constantly falling. I pick arrows up off the ground as I try to heal myself. I collect a small deposit of coal and some wood while trying to avoid the green scrotum monsters. I’ll call them creepers. I kill a pig and eat it’s ham replenishing some of my strength. Safe inside my house again I construct a large chest in which to hold the items I’ve been collecting. I make torches and build a furnace. I explore the tunnel I’d been digging earlier. It leads out the mouth of a small cave just outside my house. As the sun sets I make stairs to access my new back door more easily.

The night begins by slaughtering another pig that climbed in through my window. I cook it in the furnace as I put a proper wooden door on my tunnel. I’m almost to full health again as I hear the familiar growling outside. I decide to spend my time expanding the lower floor of my house. By torch light I tunnel down, step by step, until I reach iron ore. This will certainly come in handy. All the while the moaning and groaning of the monsters outside continues. I thought I heard the sound of bones clanking around outside! I narrowly avoid getting struck by an arrow in my attempt to climb the stairs! As the sun rises outside I can hear the skeleton collapsing.

Day Four: I stow away the iron I mined and kill a creeper outside my window. Now that I have torches to keep my home lit I seal the windows up. They’re much too dangerous to leave open. I step out to explore the other sides of my house. Outside I find more arrows, a feather, and another piece of iron. I cut down trees and collect low-hanging branches. I need to find more coal. I foolishly venture across the water to gather reeds as the sun sets. I make it inside just before dark.

I return to tunneling out my basement. I stumble upon a vein of coal.

Ben and Kyle review more movies. This time it’s The Time Machine (1960)

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The Time Machine (2002)

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and Time After Time (1979)

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Hi, I’m Ben. I draw cartoons. You could say I’m a bit of a Toonhead. I’ve been reading/watching/loving cartoons as far back as I can remember.

I’ve been drawing webcomics since 2002. I decided to start a podcast as something of a production diary. I’d like to get people involved as I write and illustrate books and other projects. I want to get feedback from people who like what I do and I’d like to get some dialog going with other creators. And plenty of non-creators like to peek behind the scenes and see how things run so I thought, why not? Some of these will just be me giving away some tips and tricks I’ve picked up over the years, or earnestly asking questions of myself and to anybody listening. My brother Frank’s going to be on a few of them with me, as well as my buddy Kyle. Hopefully once things get going I can talk some of my other friends onto a few episodes, maybe get some interviews from other creators.

Right now I’m focusing on smaller collections of books. One-offs and possibly some ongoing series. (… serieses? serii?) After spending like 7 years with the same characters I think it’s time I just spent a couple weeks or so on individual ideas and see where it takes me. Setting that end goal of a finished book is very important. There’s the over-all goal of having a bunch of books to sell at cons but having the week-by-week breakdown is going to be important of feeling like I’ve accomplished something. In so many weeks I can say I finished a book. Then in so many months a series. I also consider myself something of an animator so I’m going to try my hand at things like flip-books and animated shorts. Those are probably going to be more long-term, though. Animating by yourself takes a lot of planning and laying stuff out. That’s why I got into comics – I could come up with an idea for a strip and post it online by the end of the day. It’s going to be interesting doing these self-contained stories.

When I made webcomics, it was usually about the strip for the day. Even if there was some over-arcing story the mind has to be focused on getting that day’s update done and posted. Making a book of that was usually selecting a chunk of story that could function by itself. And even then there’s going to be some overlap where the first couple of pages have to have some backstory on where the characters came from or how they got to that particular adventure, or something gets alluded to that only people visiting the site can understand. Even if your site only updates a couple times a week, putting comics on the web is a real grind and you have to have something there for people to see that day. When you get in that “strip-a -day” or whatever mindset it gets hard to work ahead and build a buffer and I find it creeps into the writing. Of course, when your strip doesn’t have a template and changes day by day it’s not particularly as solid, can be harder to follow, and you run the risk of having trouble printing it later. I think it’s probably best to have a page template – a certain aspect ratio you always use that will fit into books – but the actual panels can change depending on the story. Doing 3-4 panel comics can get you stuck in that particular rhythm. Thanks for listening to Episode Zero. Stay tuned for future episodes where I’ll talk about webcomics, stuff I’ve done, how to get started in webcomics, and other fun tips.