2004 Comics: Bermuda Triangle, part 3

Last but not least, this final Bermuda Triangle book I made. It was a completely silent comic, no words or sound effects, all told visually. This had the same character of Judith but told a different story about her on Earth: a neglected child that meets a weirdo who trains her and leads her to the Bermuda Triangle.

It was done in ink and screentones, all of the architecture was painstakingly (for me) done with measurement and rulers in proper perspective. It was not fun to create but I enjoy looking at it. She's wearing my infamous BATS shirt that I bought at salvation army for $1. Some of the pages she looks waaay too much like me, but overall it was a good effort.

I printed out 20 copies at school and had them tape bound at Staples. I brought them to NY Comic Con and gave them out. I was dressed as Charlie Chaplin and was allowed to enter for free. I came in 2nd in the costume contest, an injustice since I lost to a little kid wearing an out of the box star wars costume. Another injustice was I was supposed to receive a year of free passes to comic con and I never got them. I gave one to ECW wrestler Sandman and he proceeded to draw in his own dialogue bubbles throughout the book, he created his own bizarre storyline about how Judith missed her boyfriend the Sandman. It was hilarious but I couldn't laugh lest I break character.

Around this time, I visited my good friend and amazing artist Jade Kuei at Cosmic Comics in midtown Manhattan, and her boss was kind enough to buy 6 copies from me! It was the first time I was paid in cash bills for my art, I was so happy.

I kept that money in a separate bank because that money was special to me. Alas, the end of that year I was so poor that I had to spend it on groceries :(

I told all of my friends my comic was being sold in the "Independents" section of Cosmic Comics and a bunch of them came through and bought copies, I specifically remember Rachel bought one, I think Jessica bought one too. They ALL sold! It was awesome.

2004 Comics: Bermuda Triangle, part 2

In 2004, I continued making comics set in the Bermuda Triangle. This one centered around 3 characters: Judith, Samuel, and Stephen. They were a pirate gang that lives in the Triangle until they cross paths with Bonnie and Clyde. They are sent to the outside world to find B+C's daughter Vera, but end up battling villains named Clarence and Jameson (me). It reads right to left (traditional japanese manga style) because I intended to submit it to Shonen Jump's call for submissions and that was their guideline.

I never heard back from Shonen Jump, but Tokyo Pop came to FIT and reviewed my 31 page creation. They were very surprised I did the whole thing myself, but told me I had too many panels per page for a manga and did not like my design layout for the type (not shown here because it was that bad). I kept in touch and showed my work to them again at NY Comic con, they were very happy to see me but nothing came of it work wise. I look at these pages now and I'm very happy with them, there's a lot of technique.

It ended with a huge fight scene, a lot of hand drawn action lines a la Dragon Ball, I'm proud of myself.

I did another BT comic that year; taking tokyopop's suggestions of doing my book left to right, having less panels per page, and doing all of the screentones as a pattern in photoshop.

This book was much weirder, it had Judith and Stephen taking a drug called "Swipe" and battling each other while they were out of their minds, ending with a huge Ladybug installation falling and Judith catching it. All of the lines done with ink and ruler. The characters were a little too posed, but there's some good stuff in here.

2001 Comics: The Bermuda Triangle

In 1998, I began drawing mini comics that took place in the Bermuda Triangle. This one I drew in 2001, at that time I was working at a bank and thoroughly disgusted by how creepy the male customers would act towards my female coworkers. This comic, done in ballpoint pen, features me and my friends Will, Rachel and Mignon, I give you: It's NOT a Man's World...

My whole life I've refused to play along as "one of the guys", whenever "guy talk" reared its ugly head I would shut it down. As a result, I was shunned by almost every guy I met and looked at as a spoilsport and trouble maker... and darn proud of it!