Jaguar, page 06

Well now.

Despite me prattling on about having fallen out of love with the medium, here's a new page. I've done this for several reasons I guess. It's all written is a big one. I'm also hoping that my feelings are temporary, and I can work through them.

I also think I might almost like this page. I'm trying to be a bit experimental with the layout, so the clawed had is the panel frame and the claw and the claw marks. Hopefully it works.

This page is a couple of days ahead of schedule as I've got a very busy period coming up.

Jaguar is ©2014 Jonathan Wyke

Comics and me

I've only been working on my web comic for a little while, but I think it's taught me an important lesson, and that is I'm a bit rubbish at comics.

I mostly think I can draw - or at least I can make a thing look like a thing - and that's fine for static images, but I don't think I seem suited to sequential narrative. I hammer away at it, but I don't think it ever really works. My style has always been a realistic one, or at least I've tried to make it so, as the likes of Frank Bellamy were always my heroes, but that seems to be so out of sync with what's popular now that I seem to be wasting my time on doing these. I've never really understood the style or appeal of the manga-influenced wave of art, and I've always shied away from the Kirby-esque power style of the mainstream US comics, and that has really shown whenever I've tried to work in that style.

This mood could be caused be a few things I guess. It's a rainy Sunday, and that's always bad. I seem to have posted Jaguar on a site where the community is just dreadful and that's disheartening. It could be just one of my periodic 'I can't bloody draw moods'. Whatever it is, I think it's best for my own piece of mind that I scale back on trying to work sequentially.

Pants.

Jaguar, page 05

Here's another page of Jaguar. I'm still posting it first over on its dedicated site here but also here, as I'm able to post the artwork slightly larger here.

For all of these pages, I'm trying hardest to get the pacing and movement right, as I think that's by far my biggest weak point, and in a sequential-narrative medium, that's a pretty big blind spot to have.

Jaguar is ©2014 Jonathan Wyke

Jaguar has a new home

I've moved my webcomic to a new home. I'm using a pretty simple site design at the moment, but I may play with that later.

Jaguar

Jaguar, page 04

Page four of Jaguar.

I'm still trying to do full backgrounds, which is a time-consuming pain in the arse, but I think it's making a difference to how the pages are looking. No text on this page, but added sneaking.

Art and story are ©2014 Jonathan Wyke

Jaguar, Page 3

Here's the third page of my new webcomic thing.

I've developed the art style somewhat with this page. Most significantly I guess, I'm adding full backgrounds where appropriate. This will increase the time I need to do each page, but will also, I hope, look more solid. I've also looked to removing most of the traditional frames. It's something I've been playing about with for a while. I want to take inspiration from the narrative techniques of New Wave directors like Claude Chabrol and Eric Rohmer, rather than traditional (1960s) comic-book sequential narrative storytelling.

As with all of this so far, the voice we're hearing is the narrator's. Time will tell whether he's an honest one or not.

This is very much an experimental work, and should anyone have any comments or thoughts, I'd be very grateful.

Story and art are ©2014 Jonathan Wyke

Jaguar, page 2

Here's page two of Jaguar, when it starts to look like a comic! I'm still in the spit & polish stage really, so am welcoming comments and criticism.

Story and art are ©2014 Jonathan Wyke

Jaguar, a webcomic

I've been thinking for a little while about doing a webcomic, and have finally decided to give it a go.

The story is fully scripted up, and is twelve chapters long, the first of which is called Jaguar.

Story and art is ©2014 Jonathan Wyke