Welcome Back, Cally!
Hey gang! Great to “see” everyone, I hope you had a wonderful holiday break! Everyone here at Team 16 is super stoked to be back for an exciting 2011!
If you happened to swing by yesterday, you probably noticed that there wasn’t a new page up– Over the break we decided to switch over to a Tuesday update schedule for the time being. The big reason for the date move is to give everyone in the production team just a little more breathing room over the weekend. Although we’re still seven days between pages, Saturdays and Sundays (as I’m sure you’re all aware) are a little less stressful in terms of banging out work– so, having an “extra” buffer day with Monday will hopefully alleviate a little stress.
I’m also interested to see if changing to a Tuesday schedule helps out a little with gaining readership. As far as Webcomics are concerned, the general rule of thumb is to update on Mondays and to stay away from “Internet Dead Day” AKA: Friday.
Monday is by far the most popular update day of the week– with both weekly comics and three-a-weeks (MWF)– So I’m curious to see if sliding over to Tuesdays will help cut us through some of the massive Monday traffic.
As we enter 2011, I’m committed to growing Spy6teen as much as I can– and that means trying out some new things. It’s unlikely that every change we implement will work (who knows, maybe we’ll discover that Tuesdays are horrible update days,) but we’re at the point where we’re still small enough to try out some new stuff, so we might as well give it a go!
PROCESS
CAMEOS! What better place to Cameo our favorite Mallrats than at the Mall? Yup, none other than Jay and Silent Bob making their Spy6teen debut!
That’s a total DJ moment there– they weren’t scripted at all, but DJ thought it’d be funny to pop ‘em in the background. It sort of reminds me of how Art Adams used to sneak Gumby into his big crowd shots.
Speaking of DJ, I think he really captured “Happy Cally” on this page– as I mentioned back on Page 4, DJ has really come into “owning” Cally as an artist– simple things like Cally’s expressions in Panels 2 and 3– as well as her body language tell the tale. Heck, there’s nothing in Panel 2 that indicates she’s debating that dress except her expression. That’s great artist storytelling!
Lisa again knocked it out of the park with her colors– I love the “Lighting Particle Effect” (if that’s the term for it,) in Panels 1 and 4– the fact that Lisa uses it around the Credit Card in Panel 3 is subtle, but fantastic gesture that creates a dual meaning to that particular effect.
Lettering and Editorial-wise, Brant was faced with another Text/VoiceOver heavy page, but I think we’ve gotten to the point where were comfortable with what does and doesn’t work from a Word-Weight perspective. I can generally eyeball a script page and know if we need to make cuts.
This page didn’t require too much editing– although DJ Kirkbride suggested one cut in Panel 1 that he felt sounded a little too “guy writing a girl’s perspective”– Brant agreed and after reviewing the line, I totally concurred.
I’d originally suggested that Sears’ “Hey Calhoon” line in panel 4 connect to his appearance in panel 5, but Brant wisely suggested against it, citing Sears’ eyeline.
Brant figured that an Off-Screen tail would work, and looking over the page I have to agree.
WRAP UP/VOTING!
So that’s that for the first page of Spy6teen in 2011! We’ve got some cool stuff coming up on the horizon! Our first digital edition is in the works, as well as a print version of Issue 1. The digital edition in particular will be loaded with some bonus features that I can’t wait for you guys to check out!
In the meantime, as always you can help out Team 16 by spreading the word on Facebook/Twitter and our vote campaign on Top Web Comics:
(just click the link and vote! No signup required!)
The blog is still updating on Thursday, so make sure to swing back then!
Great to be back, gang! Let’s have ourselves a stellar 2011!
