I haven’t done this kind of thing before, planned a comic so big it contains actual story-arcs and plots. Normally what i do is whimsical and immediate, mainly because my own concentration is so poor i can’t drag a story past a handful of pages. But in the last few years I’ve become a lot more fascinated with actual storytelling, and have been quietly working on a few different projects to construct some tall tales. Corporate Skull is the first to see light.
Which is my way of saying, yeah I know there isn’t much actual Skull in these opening pages. But as a character, I need to explain how he is created, and what he’s created from, so I had to resist my urge to cut to the face-slapping action and do a little character work first. Also, to lay the clues. Where this story is going to go, I hope no one will be able to guess, but there will be trails hidden all along the way.
See this was intended to be a big comic. 600 pages. And it’s all been worked out – i know what i want to happen, how it all turns out, what appears where (y’know, almost as if i knew what i was doing). I’ve never spent so long working on something BEFORE actually drawing it, in this case it’s been two years of filling up notebooks with the plans. And trying to draw in a style I felt comfortable, Corporate Skull has gone through a lot of changes to end up looking like it does now, a LOT. My impulse is normally to rush into things, I’m really impatient, so it was a challenge to find some self-restraint and not start this comic until it was absolutely ready.
My concern is that I won’t make it to the end. I know I can get distracted and dedicating yourself to big projects like this is daunting. Personally I look at drawing these pages as my time-off from working on children’s books, giving my head a little profane release, and so hopefully that will carry me along. But like any webcomic, it really thrives off feedback, support and comments. So if you like it, dislike it, whatever, please do comment. Lets be honest, knowing you’re doing something people enjoy can often be the spur you need to keep doing it.
I’ll post up all of issue one over time (probably a new page every week, maybe a couple a week, I don’t want to start any schedules I can’t keep so it may be sporadic, but just follow me on twitter if you want to see when new ones appear). Once issue one is done i’ll go a bit quiet, get issue two into shape, and then so on.
Enjoy!

jx

ps. comicpress seems to be a proper glitchy tit at the moment, so just refresh the page if anything isn’t showing. sorry, hope it calms down.