UPDATE

I've kept this page here for historic sake. The modern comics are over at NapkinComics.com.

Enjoy!
-wls

About the Comic Collection

I've been interested in cartooning for as long as I can remember. Though it took Dan Fahs to teach me that there was a difference between cartooning and comics.

That started a long quest to learn how to illustrate, however that required knowing how to sketch, and that required knowing how to observe, and that required study and practice.

Then it turns out if you want to letter your panels, you have to learn a whole new suite of tools, techniques, and styles.

This area simply chronicles my progression so that hopefully I'll stay motivated by seeing progress.

Timebox Cafe

Perhaps you've heard the old expression: "Good, Fast, and Cheap -- Pick Any Two." As a software engineer, a good portion of my job is knowing how to make the right trade offs. The objective usually is to get the most functionality and quality while keeping cost under control.

There's another methodology that focuses on delivery time as being the most important: timeboxing. The idea is simple. List all the things you want at each milestone in the project, prioritize them, have the developers give a level of effort, and they draw a line of commitment to tell how many things can get done in the alloted time. If finished early, the customer gets more features. If finshed late, ideally you have a minimal set of required features. If that target is missed or there are defects, well, then you got to adjust the plan.

But what happens if the developers don't know how to estimate? What if the customer doesn't he is asking for the world? What if critical features are missed? What if defects aren't corrected? ...what would the fast food industry be like according to these rules?

Sunday, Augest 3rd, 2003

Notes:
This comic was actually an excercise in laying out text. I had just learned how to make those nifty text bubbles in a clean, quick, automated manner. While I should have done the art by hand, it was 1:00am and I whiped something out via a mouse.

The Palms

In college I wrote a multi-user bulletin board called HDG. In 2003, I started writing a similar package, only with a web interface. Rather than document the system, I had intended to do so with comics.

Monday, February 18, 2003

Notes:
This was the first comic I ever produced using a real process of laying out the frames, hand drawing the cartoon, scanning it, and using the computer to ink. It took hours. It was also the first time I was able to draw a female character that looked... female.

Tuesday, February 19, 2003

Notes:
The process worked out so well, I attempted to do it again, relying more on the computer. I hoped to jam more detail and make better use of perspective. As for the clerk, this comic goes out of it's way to not show anything -- but surprisingly, the less that's drawn is the more comments I get.

Passing Glances

Two guys sitting in a boring meeting, one draws the first panel of a comic strip and covertly slides it to the other to add on to. This is Passing Glances.

Panel 1 - 7-Aug-2003


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Walt Stoneburner - wls@wwco.com, ICQ #5368391 [Home] This page last updated 08-Sep-2009 15:48:57.