Author: beyondforward

High Strangeness was my first graphic novel self-published in 1999 under my Webs Best Comics label. Like all of my work, it was a massive undertaking that took several years to complete. Although in web comic form, it had critical success and garnered attention from some high profile media outlets such as SyFy (then called SciFi channel) and USA Today online. However, the book never got the proper print treatment. At the time, I had moved to Wyoming and was starting a family. I was struggling to make ends meet, so I sold my original pages to help cover all of the expenses I was facing at that time. Unfortunately, I didn’t have access to either a high res scanner or photocopier that could handle 11″ x 17″ sized art, so my digital files ended up being sub-par. Not to get too far into the technical weeds, but without my original pages, I was left with files that were only 200dpi and physical photocopies that had been reduced to 8″x11″. This is fine for the web in 1999, but for print, the line work appeared a bit grainy. And even my digital files are now mostly unusable for the web because screen resolutions have dramatically increased in the past 20-plus years.

I wasn’t happy with these results, but accepted that there was really no solution to the problem unless I re-inked and re-lettered all 110 pages. That wasn’t something I was interested in doing, so I was resigned to the fact that High Strangeness would remain an interesting web comic experiment. I moved on to other projects. But this always bothered me. Despite all my creative growing pains, which can be seen in full view throughout this comic, I’m still proud of the book and always wished there was a way to bring it back to life.

Fast forward to now. I bought an iPad Pro last year with the intent of using it as an additional tool for creating comics. I quickly realized that I finally had the means to digitally restore High Strangeness far more efficiently than re-inking and re-lettering the book with traditional methods. Not that this isn’t still a very time-consuming and labor intensive task. But even so, it’s a project that I’ve decided to work on here and there during what little downtime I have. I’ll continue to share bits and pieces of this project here as it takes shape.

Set your reminder for Thursday May 2 at 10:30 AM for my first Patreon-exclusive live-stream! I’ll be sharing my creative process live as I’m working on current comic book projects. See you there!

It’s been a minute since I’ve been here. Actually, it’s been about 2 years! A lot of amazing things have happened since then:

1. Landed a publishing deal with CEX Comics, who published a reformatted and highly successful Saga of A Doomed Universe in 2022-2023. The series included about a dozen cover art variants and I unveiled the whole thing at C2E2.

2. Got an end-credit in Marvel Studio’s Antman & The Wasp: Quantumania, and walked the red carpet at the Hollywood premiere in 2023.

3. Making more comics in 2024! A planned sequel to Saga of a Doomed Universe is now underway, and you’ll get to see works-in-progress and other exclusive content about that.

4. Working on a digital restoration of my first graphic novel from 1999, High Strangeness! You’ll see that project taking shape here.

Anyway, it’s good to be back on Patreon and I hope you’ll stick around for what’s in store. As you can see, I’ve re-engineered the entire page, with all new rewards. My comic mini-series Hark had once been the central focus here, but since I’ve put that project on pause for the time being, I’ve decided to shift all of the work I typically publish via my site and social media channels to this page only. I’ll still be offering glimpses elsewhere, but the good stuff will be on this Patreon page, just for you!

Best,

Scott

Here’s a big double page spread for you this week. As for issue 3, things are a little nebulous right now, because I may be shifting gears in 2023 to write and draw a prequel to Saga of a Doomed Universe. The publisher is onboard and currently, I’m working through a first draft of the scripts. I expect to make a final decision on whether or not to move forward with it based on how I feel about the quality of the story itself. Right now I’m feeling pretty great about it, it’s shaping up into what I think is an exciting, stand on it’s own kind of mini-series. But I also would like to continue the momentum with Hark, especially since issue #3 is going to be mind-blowing. The first two issues are intentionally a bit of a slow burn, so I’m looking forward to drawing the next issue. So, it’s a wait and see kind of situation and in the meantime I’ll still be posting new pages from issue 2. I think by the time all pages are up on Patreon, I’ll have my ducks in a row and a solid game plan for what’s next.

Scott

Halloween is just around the corner, and I’ve been streaming old horror movies this week in the studio while chugging along on Hark #3. I’m selecting films that I haven’t seen, for the most part. This morning, it’s the original House on Haunted Hill and Children of the Corn. I’m not really a huge horror buff, but it’s fun to have this stuff playing in the background while I’m working, it’s become kind of an October tradition for the past couple of years. As for comic projects, Hark #3 script is completed, I’m just getting started on preliminary layouts and hope to have those to share with you soon. Also moving along at a decent pace on writing the sequel to Saga of a Doomed Universe. It’s way too early for me to divulge much more about that, but I hope to have actual news to share soon.

Scott