This project has taken me longer than I anticipated. But here we are, the store page where you can buy mini comic versions of The Ghost of Jupiter is live. If you want to support my art, I would appreciate it.

The comics themselves are remastered versions of the pages I have posted online. As part of the process of getting them set up for print it made sense to adjust the brightness and contrast of some pages, and also re-do the lettering digitally to match the newest pages that I've been doing.

A couple of the two-page spreads I made didn't quite translate, but that's fine, now I know going forward and I have the formatting in mind while drawing (or even plotting and conceptualizing) the pages going forward. I still think these first two issues came out awesome though. I'm happy with them.

I now also have a system in place, and some infrastructure, and a handle on processing orders. So, going forward, I will keep releasing pages online as I finish drawing them, and then release a mini comic for every 8 pages completed. Effectively everything happening in the comic will be planed out in 8-page increments, though, I still have an overarching story in my mind that is being told. I haven't decided on how many blocks of 8 pages, or issues, that's going to be... yet.

Shout out to all the people that I've encountered online while searching for information and instruction on putting together these mini comics, the inspiration they provided, and the enthusiasm that the independent and “alt comix” community has.

This tutorial from “Marsh Lee” was very valuable, and was sort of the main video I used to figure out my own setup:

Also, Blood Desert Comix / Small Press Express / Adam Yeater has done a series of videos on “Mini Comics from Around the World.” Being able to see so many entries in this category of comic was a massive boost to my own self-esteem and confidence. Being able to see so many people putting out their stories and art and in this format is just immensely encouraging.

Lastly, my condolences to Michael Poe's family. One of the first and only webcomics that I ever got into was one called Exploitation Now. Right now the page is up as a memorial for his passing back in March, but the site does state that it will eventually revert back to the webcomic.

If you're interested in supporting my art, please buy a copy of the mini comics. More issues coming soon, and holographic covers as soon as I can reliably fulfill those orders in a consistent manner.

Click the Logo to read the comic or visit the store:

Think of this as the “Director's Cut” for the comic that I've been working on the past few months. If you've noticed, I haven't been doing regular blog updates, it's because I've been working on this comic that I call “The Ghost of Jupiter.” You can read it in its entirety on my Deviant Art account, and in the original resolution (very high quality). Deviant Art isn't the best site for hosting a web comic, but it is a great site for hosting original artwork.

So, what is the “Ghost of Jupiter” comic?

It's part Film Noir and part Atomic Age Sci-Fi. My personal interpretation of David D. Friedman's vision of what a true anarcho-capitalist society would look like. Set in the not so distance future, the entire solar system is colonized, but this story in particular takes place on Enceledus. It's a world where various rights enforcement agencies are crossing paths, so what are the conflicts that they are dealing with? And even though space travel is commonplace, there still appears to be a need for a good gumshoe... Or, two, or three, or several.

Of course, every gumshoe needs to be an alcoholic. I call him “The Ghost of Jupiter”, it's an incarnation of another character that I've played around with in some of my short stories. However, when those short stories take place the character wasn't known as “Ghost,” he was only known as Kai Zarrison. Eventually I'll share why that is, but only when it becomes important to the story.

No home... Just the foul, the funk, and the forgotten. Cast aside on city streets or deep within alleys. Between the concrete cracks, we are the roaches, the tarnished, and the human trash.

You might be able to tell... I just started drawing pages, one at a time. The first drawing I did was back in August, with the most recent pages being completed just the other week. So it has taken me about 4 months (give or take, because of the holidays), to finish ~13 pages, or ~24 panels, complete with text (narration and dialog).

Whatever happens to strike my fancy is what comes next. That being said, the last 4 months have taught me that planning out a few pages in advance isn't a bad thing, so I'm always thinking about that while I draw. The general story is already in my head, and I know where I want it to go, but page to page I draw them a bit like people play jazz. I'm just tryin to riff on my emotions in the moment but still tell a coherent story.

Hopefully you can see some improvement as the pages have gone on... I've always sketched and doodled, ever since I was a little kid, but these days I'm rusty. I actively gave up art for a long period of my life. So, the discipline is coming back slowly, it's like working a muscle that hasn't been used in 20 years.

Comics are as much about the entire page as they are the individual panels. So the layout is important. It has to be visually interesting, but it still needs to tell a story.

I can remember my art classes from Junior and Senior High as being very enjoyable and memorable moments in my life. I was lucky and had some really amazing art teachers when I was younger.

Somewhere around when I drew the pages above (008-009), I had made the decision that I wanted to do some type of a romance or love story as well as capitalize on a noir aesthetic or feel. But instead of the traditional murder mystery (which quite a few noir films have), I'm going to focus more on the comic being a commentary, with romance and action going on in the background.

Yes... Ghost is the main character, and he will never show his face entirely. Wearing a mask and having a secret identity is such a major aspect of both super heroes and villains. With anti-heroes being vulnerable individuals who maybe don't make the right choice, but they do it for the right reasons.

Ghost is the hero, but Lisa will be his anti-hero foil as well as love interest. I think female anti-heroes tend to tread in mostly comedic waters, so there are missed opportunities for story telling if you do a female anti-hero who isn't always making fun of themselves and the world.

So this is where I'm at. I feel like my art is evolving, and I'm expanding my mediums even. I still want to do traditional art, because I feel that's when my drawing looks its best, but I also want to start incorporating alcohol markers. Sharpie are the most notable brand, but there are markers made just for artists; Cali Art and Ohuhu are the two brands that come up most often. I opted for Cali Art, even though I have more experience using Sharpies, and have had some success using them in my drawings.

What I have not done before is mix fountain pen ink with alcohol markers... My workflow thus far has been sketch, and then ink. Well, I did that this last time, and then tried to lay down some markers and realized that alcohol is what you use to get fountain pen ink off of your hands or on a surface, etc. So I had to stop trying to color the page that I was working on and just leave it as is. Going forward I'll be penciling, coloring, and then layering the inks on top of all that. I think it'll work just fine. However, I may have to let the marker sit over night to dry before putting the inks down.

Ghost of Jupiter has it's own website: jupitercomic.com.

Feel free to also follow me on Instagram and Youtube.