Song of Straygo

The new page is up, as well as a new section on the website. The new cast page is here.

Hey-hey,

Page 42 will be up a little later than usual tomorrow. Not sure when, I'd say the 4-pmish region if you're in U.S. central time.

I'm going to finish lettering the last few pages today. But okay, this strange double-posting (relettered on wcn, latest page here) is starting to weird me out. Here's what I'm going to do: There's a new relettered page for this Saturday, and I have it fixed there will be new relettered pages for pretty much everyday left in april. I'm going to let the relettered pages update until they are out before I post anymore new pages. The new pages will be on wcn on a Saturday (may 3rd), even if the old pages run out on Wednesday.

My apologies to those who have been following the story from the beginning. I do encourage you to check out these new pages, as they are cleaner, easier to read, and the dialogue has been corrected. There's even some new jokes sprinkled here and there.

This whole lettering situation shouldn't happen again. I started the comic creating the digital files in many different ways, some were horrible and bitmappy, others stretched. But now I've devised a method that each page will have somewhat consistent blacks and quality. The only problem is margins... don't get me started on illustrator.

Edit: There are still a few relettered pages left, so those are posting everyday until
they run out, which will be May 9th, and the newest page will be updated May 10th. Thank you for your patience.

worser and worser!

It looks like juliesydor.com was taken off a little sooner than I expected. Now there's a huge gap of pages that aren't on the web at all. I don't like that. I'm going to push to have all the pages lettered by next friday. There's about 14 left.

There is a relettered page for today at the webcomicsnation site, and 39 will be up here later today. Sorry for the missing archives.

Also, Microcon is coming soon! I've asked for sign-up papers, I believe they have some tables left. There's only a little on the site now, but: mncba.com

If I get a table, I'll be selling the minis "A Parent's Guide: Clown Safety" and "If You Make A Crow A Nest...".

And, if I can finish the pages in time, a new mini called "#1 Dad". More on that later.

Edited for update: Looks like micro-con is all out of tables. I'll probably still go, just not as a creator. Also, they now have the list of guests up! mncba.com!

here's this week's page. Sorry it's posted a little later than usual.



This week: So close to the trading post, but have they lost all the sheep?

I'm still all caught up in relettering the old pages. They are maybe 1/3 done, so I better haul butt.
The new site is up! check it out here.




I'm not crazy about the inking this week. Looks like each panel was done by a different people with alternating skill and near-sightedness.

But it does offer a small slice of Kefke doin' a little wilderness tracking.

here's page 36. Hopefully next week's page will be at the new site, along with all the old relettered pages.

We're moving! The Song of Straygo website is changing to wwww.webcomicsnation.com/straygo
I don't know why I didn't look into this site sooner. The layout is easy, and you can upload multiple
series into one account. I'm liking this, as I would like to upload some of the pages from my mini-comics,
such as A Parent's Guide: Clown Safety, and Custard on Chinchilla Island.

The new site is updating slowly, as I rescanned all the pages, readjusting the levels. Everything is getting "remastered", and put in a template so they are more consistent in margin ratios and image size. Even the lettering is getting redone, cleaner and more readable. I am reediting a bit of the dialogue, because I can't resist.

But I'm not going have the updates start over (like a old redone page every week.)I'm going to upload all the old ones at once when their finished, and then start updating new pages from there. Until then, new post will continue at this livejournal spot.

Also, I gotta say, the wheather is so nice right now, sunny and warm with a breeze. Birds cheeping, which they did in the winter, but I just don't notice it as much. Watching the snowbanks melt in the city is uber gross though, watching hundreds of moldy cigarette butts get unearthed by the melting ice.

Here's page 35.

Here are some sketches from my current, ill-fitting the house scanner, sketch book. All are pretty recent, at least, I'm pretty sure they were done sometime this month. posted past to most current, which was drawn like, 4 days ago.

( Read more... )

All of the above were chosen I guess not for their quality, necessarily, or for their recentness (although, I'd like to do that more..) but mostly because they contain some figures with some personality to them, caught up in their own world.

Going on a small hiatus- no updates this week or next.. But I'll try to post some sketches this weekend.

Page thirty-four.

Here's page 33.



There's some semblance of balance between light and dark in this page, instead of blaring wash-out light.
Sometimes I like to blame living in a desert for 13 years for that.

It seems like such a little thing, but I finally have it! The! Internet! It took so much work, and now, I can't even think of what to look up..

Here's page 33.. the battle continues..

Taking Jayme's suggestion to heart, here are some sketches for this week. Well,, sort of. All the following are clean lineart; my actual sketchbook is a funhouse of disembodied faces, floating figures animal and human, sometimes over lapping in humorous fashion. Like a crosshatched torso in ink with a flat pencilled dogface over it, with a baby with a heron head/neck overlooking it all. I don't even realize what happened until Iooking over the pages weeks later. Maybe I'll work up the guts to show those later, but for now..

I'm posting this weeks' and next weeks' comic today, since they were finished early. Hopefully this is the start of some more consistent updating. ( Read more... )

Here's page 29, the beginning of some mutual understanding? ( Read more... )

This week, an alternative protein source. Keep clicking the image to make it bigger.
( Read more... )

Here's page 27 for Song of Straygo.

Some info on the birds that occur in panel 1.

Lower left : Common Chad, usually live in groups of 3-10. Habits and movements are
similar to pigeons, but no head-bobbing thing, and uh, less poop. Eats berries, bugs, and seeds.

Above the Chad: A Shrift. Nocturnal bird (awake now). Eats the same as the Chad, but can also
digest flower pollen through a secondary digestive system that starts in the nasal cavity. Through microscopic filters, they can gain nutrition through tree pollen in the air, so instead of allergies, they get
food. This is only supplemental though, and not a main part of their diet. This process is so far unknown to science in Straygo and Kefke's world.

Top left corner: "Gecko bird".. I'm not sure what their actual name is. They use their four legs to crawl through the trees. Not true birds, they cannot fly and only have vestigial wings. They pry worms from tree bark, and above all love eggs and some smaller mammals and birds to eat.

Top middle: also unnamed, these birds are similar to sparrows, live in packs, and scavenge some meat.

Top right: A Black Emperor. Generationally, these birds alternate between being nocturnal and diurnal
creatures, and their eyes partially metamorphosize. Diurnal Black Emperors have smaller eyes, and can see
some color, Nocturnal ones have larger eyes for seeing at night. All of this type habitually roost up-side down. The bird pictured is a diurnal.

far right: Slivered Cross-beaks. The "sliver" is after a white crescent moon marking on each wing. They mate for life. (Note: cross-billed birds do exist, but are a type of songbird.)

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Happy Thanksgivin'


Went up to visit my folks for Thanksgiving, bringing up my own bitlit of holiday cheer, and I don't just mean the sparkling apple cider. Nope, I got to use my turkey-monster halloween costume for double holiday duty. And yeah.. finally post those pictures.

The history behind the costume is that I found the turkey mask at a magic shop in St. Paul, and it looked just so strange I kept coming back to it, like maybe repaint it as an alien or something, or a bird-like nosferatu. I didn't commit to the idea until I found the perfect bird hands in the same shop, which are
supposed to be Dobby's hands..from Harry Potter... In the movie, aren't his hands, like small, human-like, and uh, orange? .whatever... I brought it together with a leather coat and feather boa from a second hand store, put some fake blood on the mask and ..snuck it into my parent's house snaking out of the shadows, gobbling, at the precise moment they were checking the turkey in the oven. They laughed and were surprised, and broody turkey monster that I was, went upstairs to strangle my younger brother. That helped.

I've dubbed the 'character' of the costume Tripto (short for triptophan? the sleep-chem in turkey? Not that original, I know.) He's just a poor soul tryin' to make it in the monster world. He doesnt' mean no
harm, stranglin' is how he loves.

Anyway, the food was good, the time off was relaxing. Hmm, no page for Straygo this week. I'll try to give more notice on this. I've got the next few pages figured out, as well as the outline for this new chapter, and some more of the new website layout programmed, so hopefully it will be up soon and the site
cleaner and brighter.
( Read more... )