Samurai Mushroom Comics Chapter 6 - Cowards Lament

Chapter 6 - Cowards Lament

click on me to enjoy  me at a larger size!!!



Chapter 6, ah chapter 6.  Wordy is the term I have for pages like this and there are a few.  Sometimes there necessary to advance the story and interject a large amount of plot.  I also notice my total lack of backgrounds in most of this page.  How lazy of me. 

Anyway, this is pretty much the end of the first mini arc, the beginning if you will.  Hitchcock said that a story has to have a McGuffin, or plot device that throws the story into motion.  I suppose my McGuffin was the attack on the travelers in Chapter 1.  Although it could be anything even something unrelated to the story.  Thinking back I always wanted a better McGuffin, but what is done is done so here you go.  Now onto probably my favorite mini arch of the story.

Samurai Mushroom Comics Chapter 5 - A Den of Thieves

Chapter 5 - A Den of Thieves

Ah one of my favorite early strips.  Mainly because I took my time and had fun with it.

Kill Bill came out right around the time I wrote and drew the strip and the two middle rows of panels was inspired by the fight seen at the restaurant when the lights go out.  That and I didn't have to add a lot of detail to the panels so they went quicker.



Samurai Mushroom Chapter 4 -

Chapter 4 -  If a Samurai Should Fall......

Back once again.  Here we pretty much have a continuation from Chapter 3.  And sadly I killed off Fugu, or did I, no I did.  At least for now.  This ain't Marvel comics here.   I love fight scenes I just wish I could have drawn this one better.  Again it's pretty much me learning the characters.  One thing you'll notice through out the strip is I never show Tushori's feet.  I couldn't decided if he should have legs or not.  I mean I guess so it would seem silly to have him hop around on a stem but I never did draw legs on him.  Of the 28 or so original strips I got done never once will you see his legs.  But I think if I end up continuing the strip he probably will.  Keep a eye on our main character.  He's evolving much like Garfield did in Jim Davis' strip.  you get more comfortable drawing you characters they tend to simplify and start flowing better.

Samurai Mushroom Chapter 3 - The Harder They Fall

Chapter 3

click me to enlarge all that tiny type.

Welcome back loyal reader. 
Here in Chapter 3 we have a little experiment in panel creativity.  I look at these now and kinda cringe knowing that I could draw the strip so much better now, but it is what it is.  I've enhanced the panel by scanning it in color and then turning it to black and white and using the auto contrast in Photoshop Elements.  I've also cleaned a bunch of stray lines and mistakes.  I've also fixed the bleed through on the word bubbles.  What that is when I was lettering I would print the test on paper then draw a word bubble around it, cut it out and paste it to the panel.  This is incredibly old school, a technique that we used at my high school paper years ago.  And me being poor and lacking any knowledge of computer software just wanted the strip to be legible.  But the paper I used was way to thin and the line art behind it could still be seen.  I tend to write my script and then draw but draw with little concern with word placement.  At least I did early on.  After a while you start to incorporate all of it into you sketches and thumbnails with the plot.  When your the writer and artist of a strip the actual script, which I did write one, doesn't have to be super detailed.  I knew what I wanted to do when I wrote the page so my notes on it are minimal.  I'll try to find a nice example of one of my scripts and post it but for now trust me. 

I think at least in the first minor story arc, here I consider the beginning the first little story arc.  About Chapters 1-7.  I liked Fugu the best, at least to draw.  He was inspired by the hairy monster from all those Bug Bunny cartoons.  Now I'm not going to say that they are awesome plots or that the story is a riveting read.  But remember I started doing this comic on a request and it sort of took off from there.  I had little planning in the beginning and almost zero character development before hand.  But as I went on it got a little better.  I'm no Stan Lee or Jack Kirby.  I will say that I tried to write in spurts doing at least 3 or 4 pages at a time, or my minor story arcs.  If I got a good idea I tried to write it out and then work on it.  

Enjoy Chapter 4 to follow shortly.

Samurai Mushroom Comics Chapter 2

Slowly getting these scanned and doing a little touch up.  You'll notice a fairly consistant layout, with the title, chapter and title, and a recap.  This came about from a college experience of trying to do a weekly strip in the colleg paper with a running story and people who came in at strip 4 or 5 saying they didn't know what was going on.  So I had planned to maybe have this run in a local rag or something never happened but I am putting these out there for the world now.

My technic for layout is fairly simple, I started experiementing in later chapters but decided right away to use computer lettering.  Being fairly poor with out a good computer and not being able to afford Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop I went fairly old school and would print the text, draw word bubbles and glue them to the paper.  You may notice, at least close up, areas around the word bubbles that are yellowed from the rubber cement.



Chapter 2: Into the Lions Den

Most of the character came from doodles and were sketched out later.  I also started writing in blocks of pages so there was a little more consistance in the story arcs.  Hope you enjoy.

Samurai Mushroom Comics Chapter 1

Howdy all,
Where to begin. The Samurai Mushroom, aka Samurai Kinoko, started about 8 years ago.  I had been doodling on some scrap paper and had doodled the samurai mushroom and few other character, tube of toothpaste and the flaming muskrat.  That was the begining of the Legion of Extrodinary Objects, which I've only drawn 1 strip of, and will post it here some time.  Anyway, one of my observer buddies liked the little sketch of the mushroom and said he would commission me to do a strip just featuring the samurai mushroom.  So I said ok and while working as a fisheries observer at a shoreside plant I started to draw the first strip.  I have to say the first strip was a little rough,, judge for yourself it's posted below.  Needless to say as I started writing and drawing the strip I realized I wasn't really drawing a funny strip it started taking on a more serious tone and I ran with it.  Needless to say I never got paid for the strip but over the years I've kept drawing them and just found my stash.  I also just got a copy of Photoshop Elements and a large format scanner so I did a little clean up to the strip.  Here is Chapter 1 enjoy.

Top Ten Sandwiches of the Year

Its the end of the year and you know what that means resolutions and Top Ten Lists.  I hate top ten lists, unless they're being read aloud by David Letterman.  I mean my Top Ten movies of the year probably will in no way be similar to yours, or books I've read, or whatever. 

So that being said I wanted to do my own top ten list.  I thought what could it be about.  My top ten favorite Packer players who got hurt this year, nah. My top ten favorite pairs of socks, hmm closer.  My top ten favorite stupid things said on Fox News this year, who could decided?  So sandwiches it is.  The top ten sandwiches I've eaten this year.  I love me a good sandwich.  I think my all time favorite sandwich that I've ever had was from a little stand in the Mexican town of Barra de Navidad.  Hands down the best, but that was years ago so it didn't make the list.

Here we go....

Number 10, the Open faced Roast beef sandwich at Gwennies Old Alaska Restaurant.

Not actual sandwich but pretty close.

It clogs my arteries just thinking about it.

Number 9, the toasted cheese sandwich with Kraft Mac and Cheese I made for lunch last weekend and the weekend before that.  2 Kraft singles in the middle of that baby.  Go here for all things Grilled Cheese.

This is an actual Toasted Cheese Sandwich also know as a Grilled Cheese, it is not the one I ate though.

Number 8 the Meatloaf sandwich at Snow City Cafe.  If you get a side of there mac and cheese you'll probably go to heaven.

Not actual sandwich, but looks damn tasty.

Number 7.  The Club Paris: Paris Special Fillet Mignon Burger, yep that's right they grind up all of yesterdays steaks to make their lunch burgers.

Again not actual sandwich, I don't take pictures of my food very often.

Number 6.  Humpy's Great Alaskan Alehouse Teriake Chicken Sandwich.  This one's not on the regular menu but should be.

Now imagine on a bun with a slice of pineapple and teriake sauce.

Number 5.  Terra Bella Terra Turkey Avocado Sandwich with a bowl of homemade bean soup.

Actual sandwich.

Number 4. L'Aroma Bakery and Deli I can't remember what exactly I ordered but it was damn good. And homemade soups too.

Penquin sandwich.



Number 3.  Peanut Farm's Panini Prime Rib Sandwich. 

Yummy. Where's my grinder?

Number 2  The turkey sandwich I made for lunch on Monday and then didn't eat it so I ate it on Tuesday.

I also had some Lay's Kettle Style Maui Onion chips with it.  They are awesome.

And number 1. Peppercini's Restivo- The Hot Italian. I wasn't expecting much but this little sandwich shop in a crappy mall was great.  Really I'm not being an asshole here.

I don't have a picture of the sandwich but here's another hot Italian.

Happy New Year's, cheers.

cb out