Happy Blog Day Everyone!
Today, as promised, I'm going to talk more about the Comic Tales of Brennan and Riz, now that it's somehow lasted 20 issues, when I normally run out of steam a few weeks in. Which probably would have happened if the frequency was increased...
Anyways!
On to the 20th strip!
The Comic Tales of Brennan and Riz
This one I had the idea for a while ago but never quite got round to doing...and now I've done it, I'm worried what people will think or if I'm going to end up on a list!
There is a lot that can be done with Riz mind, need to figure out a way to get him into pi-rat mode (if you want more information about Riz's days on the high seas, please track down Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 12!).
P.S. the title is a play on a certain Duran Duran song...you know the one!
20th Strip Spectacular!
It feels odd that for the past 20 weeks that I've produced this Comic. While on paper it should have been a breeze to produce a simple 3 panel Comic weekly...This has not been the case for me. I'm far more chaotic with my time keeping than I'd like to admit. Finding the free time to get the strip done (along with everything else I have to do!) has been far harder than I thought, and has eaten into writing time a little bit.
However, that isn't to say this isn't worth doing.
Far from it.
The original concept of me doing a comic is quite old. People who read my blog about Ghost Duty may recall that the first incarnation for those stories was a webcomic that received all of 1 page drawn for it. After that I did a few attempts at doing a Daemon Soul comic of some description (mostly test pages, I'll upload them here at some point). After that came a short lived series (extremely short lived). This one was part of a web site that some friends created and I turned us into 'chibi' exaggerated versions of ourselves. There was three issues drawn and coloured, with a fourth in rough pencils. Again, I'll upload them at a future point when I can access the files. After that imploded (a mixture of friend issues and real life stuff) I didn't dare attempt any Web Comic of any kind for a long while-
Except that was a lie. You see, back in early 2012, before that ill-fated webcomic, I started a highly ambitious project, one that was too ambitious. I adapted the first chapter of Daemon Soul into comic form. I think I did a good job with it but the 2nd chapter had a very long time to wait.
So, there was no comic related activity from 2012 to 2021 when I finally plucked up the courage to do Chapter 2 of Daemon Soul. Again, I will upload them soon, just to people can bask in their awfulness.
This brings us to November 2022, when I was brainstorming ideas for promotion, a subject that doesn't really gel with me. Tik Tok was mentioned in the vein of doing skits with the Riz puppet I own, but I'm still not confident enough to do that. I needed to think of something else: enter this blog. This blog was created back in 2019 on the back of the release of The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz. I tried my best to do regular updates but I failed and the gaps between posts got wider and wider till I stopped (on a Brennan and Riz Exclusive short story no less, one that I don't think anyone cares never got an ending.) Resurrecting the blog was an easy idea, but it wasn't enough, I needed something I could provide, even if I couldn't find much to speak about. Then I remembered the comics.
Over the following Christmas period, I started the design process:
Here you can see I tried a few designs, before settling on the simplified designs you see here now. Though character designs were only the first step as I needed something else: story ideas. Coming up with short story ideas is relatively easy compared to a three panel strip. Why so few panels? Mainly because I was inspired by comics who excel at that form like Penny Arcade and others. With this format, I needed to be quick and concise to the point. This has been harder than drawing for me, I don't think I succeeded half the time. If I'm feeling charitable.
As for the ideas so far, I've gathered them from different sources, some have come from my Brennan and Riz #vss365s others from the short stories themselves. Others just ask simple questions like why would Riz want to learn engineering? Or what would a Riz-apult look like? I should point out that I often do pull the comedy a bit further than I would normally do.
Despite all that, I do have some favourite strips, first one being strip #4, where we see Riz sharing a drink with Mothman. I think it works really well and I love the effect I achieved with Mothmans eyes. Other than that, it would be strip #18 where Riz tries to enlist a cat into his schemes. With obvious results!
Where will the pair go from here though, well, there's a question. I suppose I should do something for the 25th, seeing as it's halfway to 50.
Anyway, I've waffled on for more than enough. I'll leave it there.
Till next time.
Keep on writing!
Peter James Martin
Quick Links
The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz
The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz Book 1: A Boy and A Rat
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