Hey guys, sorry for the couple weeks you had to wait for this one. It’s going to be a rough month ahead, but I’ll try to stay on task here.

I had fun with this week’s page for a couple reasons. One, I’m taking a note out of Jeff Smith’s Bone, where even in the middle of plot and story development (or even while running away from something), the characters have time to engage in silly banter or philosophical discussions… that lead to silly banter. Max could be the smartest of the three here… though I’m shocked to see the Professa may have revealed some insecurities and hurt feelings. I also enjoyed the heavier use of inks on the page. I enjoy coloring in Photoshop, but lately I’ve really been admiring the work of ink and brush artists such as Lucy Knisley and Frederik Peeters. Shading during the inking process also tends to shave quite a bit of time off during the coloring process, which caters well to my upcoming schedule.

Hope you enjoy!

I had a lot of fun with this page, thanks to Grandpa. Remember him? He was in Flight 6! I had a great time drawing him back then, and I’ve been wanting to introduce him within the Swoopiverse for a while. Of course, now it’s time to check in on our other characters, which we’ll be doing next week…. so I’ll have to hold off on drawing more Grandpa for a while longer.

By the way guys, did you see last week’s blog about the new video my brother made of me drawing a comic page? I’ll be playing with the menu at some point to include a Videos section, but for now, you can watch the latest here. Enjoy, and have a great weekend!

One Swoop Fell - Pot. Kettle. from David Dutton on Vimeo.

Pot calling the kettle black.

And speaking of distractions, notice how long it took Topo to realize the sky around him is… well… sky? And blue? When he should be in a room? At night? He’s a slow-ish bear.  Once again, explanations will be forthcoming very soon. This will mean some heavier dialogue pages, which means less backgrounds and such…. I realize there have been three big “scenery reveals” in just the past few pages, so I want to stick to one place for a bit… somewhat of a challenge since, as Topo pointed out, Mari and Rico haven’t a clue what’s going on. I’m sure the situation will figure itself out.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Hello Everyone, we’re back! I’m very sorry about the long delay between today’s page and the last one. Imagine where our friends could be in the story by now if I kept to a regular schedule… :/ That said, the show must (and will) go on, and despite my busy work schedule, I will be updating regularly again. Probably weekly more than strictly Wednesdays (I’ll have to update the header yet again).

In other news, nothing much to report. I’m in limbo with the whole job thing (which, for some reason, everyone assumed was Google based on my hint… are there no other companies out there that are both nouns and verbs? Xerox? Twitter? Um, great guess though…). Hopefully I’ll hear something soon.

In the meantime, thanks for the support, encouragement, and the slight kick in the seat of my pants to get this comic going again. I needed it.