Thursday, December 11, 2008

One year on, the corpse is online.

I wrote a post a while back, around a year ago about a Narrative Corpse-type project that a bunch of us were working on, and I'd forgive you for thinking that nothing might come of it because it was a pretty big project, put together for and by the cartoonists themselves.


Those of you who have worked on projects that involve ftp-ing the hi-res files and the lo-res files into the editor, know that all sorts of communication problems can develop even on a small individual project; let alone one on this scale. When you add those problems to the difficulties people often have fitting the actual work into their busy schedules, and around anything else that happens over the course of a year, you can understand why some larger projects just never see the light of day. That this one did survive was a testament to all the cartoonists involved, of course, and to Mister T, who nudged us over the finishing line.

I'd like to post every page here, but then why put it on its own blog, right? So I've chosen of few examples of my favourites pages (except mine which I have to add because it's my blog) from the project, which involved many of my favourite indie cartoonists. I think this list is fairly comprehensive, but if you are looking in and you took part and don't see your name here, drop me a line:

Fufu Frauenwahl


Sean Aaberg

Tobias Tak


T. Avery

Hans Rickheit


Fufu Frauenwahl http://www.fufufrauenwahl.com/
Sean Aaberg http://lambiek.net/artists/a/aaberg_sean-p.htm
Cheese Hasselberger http://www.houseoftwelve.com/
Hans Rickheit http://zeitgeist.numachi.com/chromefetus/
Tobias Tak http://www.tobicomix.co.uk/
WW Craghead http://www.wcraghead.com/weblog/blog.html
Brent Smith
Thayer Bray
Maurizio
Ian Murphy http://www.greathugethings.com/
Alex Buchet
Mark Campos http://lambiek.net/artists/c/campos_mark.htm
Hack http://www.hackcartoons.com/
Levi Jacob Bailey http://www.noeyescabinfever.blogspot.com/
Blaise http://www.slashart.com/
Juniper Tangpuz
Giles O'Dell http://www.zoonbats.com/
Kletz
Peter Rapp http://www.peterrapp.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/index.html
Rod McKie
Shannon Smith http://www.shannonsmith.net/
Michael Canich http://uselessweaponry.blogspot.com/
T. Avery (Ed) http://www.cheatingatsolitaire.net/
Matt Furie http://mattfurie.betternonsequitur.com/
Brian McKenzie http://www.bdmckenzie.blogspot.com/
Zeke Clough http://shoogooble.blogspot.com/
David Paleo http://monsterwithoutacause.blogspot.com/
Dale Martin
Aeron Alfrey http://www.skeletoncave.blogspot.com/
Hunter http://www.webcomicsnation.com/hunter/
Dan Steffan http://lambiek.net/artists/s/steffan_dan.htm
Alejandro Alvarez http://www.mackwhite.com/BushJunta7.html
Chris Pottinger http://chrispottinger.tastysoil.com/
Ray Frenden http://frenden.com/
David Robertson http://berserkotron.piczo.com/?cr=1&rfm=y
Andrei Molotiu http://www.blotcomics.blogspot.com/
Barry Rodges http://www.capeday.com/index.php/site/story/barry_rodges/
Jon Chandler http://bonehousebooks.co.uk/
Christopher Mostyn http://squatthrust.wordpress.com/
Marc Palm http://swellzombie.blogspot.com/
Mat Brinkman http://lambiek.net/artists/b/brinkman_mat.htm
Ian Harker
Eric

Okay, here is the theory, the cartoonist before me sends the Ed (the heroic T. Avery in our case) a rough of his final panel, that final panel-rough is sent to me and I write my page, or pages, based on the events in that final panel. I then send the rough of my final panel into the Ed who sends it along to the next cartoonist. While both the cartoonist that precedes me and I are inking our pages, the next cartoonist writes his narrative following on from my final panel-rough and then sends his or her final panel-rough into the Ed, and on it goes. Here is the sequence that I was in the middle of, sandwiched between Shannon Smith and Peter Rapp:


Shannon Smith


Me

Me again


Peter Rapp (this is a cool page, I think)


Coyright, 2007-2008, all the respective Corpse players.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was waiting to see this after reading the thread on the comics journal board Rod. I don't like all of the pages but the idea is great. Some passages worked much well than others. It is a French idea originally? More comic artists should do this. I will join in on the next one.


Kazuki Yoshimoto 和樹

Matt Buck said...

A personal thanks for getting me involved with the project Rod.
Matt

Rod McKie said...

Hey Matt, I'm hoping you'll sign up for the next project. By the sound of things it'll be structured differently with an eye on publication - I think Fufu has some concrete ideas. This experience, which was surprisingly smooth, will help us tackle the next one.

Mike Lynch said...

Gee whiz, let me know when you round up the next batch of cartoonists. I wanna play Narrative Corpse too!

Rod McKie said...

Hey, it would be great to have you aboard Mike.