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Sorry I’ve been quiet on the news front but here’s something to keep the ball rolling, Corporate Skull will be appearing in The Guardian (in their Guide supplement), every fourth Saturday in the month. A glorious blast of technicolour Corporate Skull, starting TODAY. In today’s edition! So please do check it out, it’s fun exploring Skull in this new medium while the webcomic is paused.
Thought it was about time I checked in here, i know some people check the site and for that i am incredibly humbled!
Firstly, Happy Christmas! I hope you have a bloody stonking one.
Secondly, yes I do still very much want to see Skull through. This christmas picture is the first time I’ve properly drawn him in over a year probably, and wow it felt fun. Like slipping on an old pair of blood-filled shoes. Corporate Skull (like ‘Bear’ before it) was something I created partly as a break from the family-friendly work I do. It was my release. And the last year or two all I have done is family-friendly work, which I love don’t get me wrong, but I’ve missed the release of working on something grubbier like Skull.
I had planned to start work on issue 8 over Christmas. Book myself two weeks off, I thought, get it written and a chunk of it drawn up. Then in Autumn, I got commissioned to do two new children’s books by March 2015. Which, as an illustrator, isn’t something you can turn down, and the books are based on one of my ideas I’ve long been dying to work on, so unfortunately it all shunted Skull to the side.
And around that there’s… well, I guess I sound like I’m defending myself, which I shouldn’t do. My point is Skull has always been a side-project, and recently there’s just been no room. If I could make it pay, then it could be more priority. I considered Patreon or Kickstarter, but with the new VAT rules coming in on digital work, that puts paid to those ideas. Personally I’d prefer to find a publisher, make these actual books, have actual deadlines to sweat towards. I wonder if I’d be better off spending spare time working on that than issue 8, if it meant a future for the comic as a whole.
So, anyway, that’s where I’m at. Still keen. Still waiting for a chance. Thank you, if you’ve stuck with me this long, it is very appreciated despite my long silences. Do keep checking in now and then, one day I’m going to post up the ‘issue 8 coming soon’ and I can’t tell you how excited I’ll be about that.
So, have a great Christmas, and hopefully see you in the new year!
Jx
Hello everyone. I owe you massive massive apologies for being so quiet for so long, I’m truly sorry. I see Skull is still getting pretty regular site views which is awesome (is that new visitors? I dunno), so i’m long overdue to explain what’s going on.
Skull is still happening. Of course it is. Of COURSE. There’s still book two to finish, and then the next four books to complete. There’s still so much story to tell, and I’m so excited to tell it.
Time is not being kind right now though. I had actually planned to take a week off over Christmas to start writing more Skull, but it just never happened. And it still hasn’t happened yet. Most of my week is taken up with drawing weekly comics for The Beano and The Phoenix, and I’m on deadlines for those so can’t mess about. Alongside it I’ve been trying to launch this new children’s comic, to breathe a little more life into the kids comics scene, called Moose Kid. And it’s so close to being ready, we have maybe 35 artists involved (and really, genuinely, flipping brilliant ones), just waiting for the last few to send their work in. Then finally we can launch. I need that to happen before I can get back to Skull, especially since the artists have been good enough to contribute their work to it.
Around that I finally completed edits on my first novel, which has taken about 3 years to do all in all. So, like Moose Kid, it’s been something I’ve needed to get done before I can go back to Skull. And I’m sorry to say Skull can’t take priority in my workload, it’s something I do for fun, not profit or future rewards. I’m interested in finding a publisher for it, but haven’t massively pursued that yet. There’s just this huge to-do pile, and doing that is just one of many ideas on there.
So, that’s where I’m at. Basically saying if you can wait a little longer, I’d really appreciate that. I’d hope we can start Skull issue 8 by summer, I just need to find some time, somewhere, and right now I can’t find any.
But thank you again SO much for sticking with Skull, it means a ton to me. And if you want to hear first when I’ve started on it again, i’ll blather about it on twitter @jamiesmart
Thank you!
Hey! Hi! HEYYYYY. So here we are at the end of Corporate Skull issue 7, always feels great to have concluded an issue, and to begin planning out the next one. Thank you to everyone who’s been following, reading and sharing Corporate Skull, it is appreciated x1000!
So there’s good news and there’s bad news. The GOOD news is issue 8 is going to be a skull-kicker of an issue. Though I enjoyed working on issue 7, i felt it was a bit more story than action, so I’m determined to make issue 8 just a balls to the wall UMPH of excitement. The bad news is it may take me a little while to get it done. There are a coupla reasons for this. One is, as usual, work is crazy. I mean crrrrazy. Which is great, but it starts to squeeze things like Skull to the side, because Skull doesn’t really have deadlines. There’s my regular kids comic work (incidentally, anyone who’s followed me from my Bear days, do check out The Phoenix, in digital or print, this Friday as it features a 4-page LOOSHKIN comic!), as well as this book i’ve been writing and Moose Kid Comics, my attempt to bring a load of amazing artists together to make a brand new kids comic. As often happens, this stuff begins to all pile up towards the end of the year, so it might be a coupla months before i can even think about Skull. I’m hoping to take a week off over Christmas to start writing it, but I guess I’ll have to see how that pans out.
Secondly, my motivation has been slightly slowing down. You’d kinda expect that after 175 or so pages, the initial buzz can carry you through so long. And people’s responses to the strip so far have been such a boost, they really help when you’re drawing webcomics. The thing that keeps me going on Skull is knowing what’s going to happen at the end of this book, or at the end of the next book, or what the grand finale to it all is going to be. THAT is what makes me really excited about Skull still, and wanting to keep drawing it, there’s a ton of story left to tell. So don’t worry, this’ll carry on until we reach the end of book six or i’ve gone mad trying. It’s just recently drawing Skull hasn’t been the 100% fun it once was, and I’ve felt like the pages haven’t been as great as they could have been.
As I say, all natural feelings I guess, and another good reason for me to take a bit of time out. Then I can come back completely psyched about it all again.
So thanks again all, and follow me on twitter HERE to hear the latest on when Skull will be back!
HELLO. Argh sorry i really try not to do this, but there’ll be no Corporate Skull today as i’ve been a bit ill recently and got really behind on the schedule. I will try and get this week’s page done and up either tomorrow or wednesday, then hopefully back to normal schedule next week.
Again, sorry. But thank you for sticking with it!
j
