This page was really fun to do, experimenting with how to continue Curly’s dialogue while transferring the scene to Kaz. It is very easy to get caught up with talking heads without any visual interesting actions, so I am trying to up my game on that department. To do that, I have been reading a lot of old Ghost Rider and Punisher comics. Most often, they have some very impressive framing and interesting angles.
Welcome to the world of Pascal the Rascal! It is so much fun to draw in this rubber hose style, I can understand how the creators of Cuphead might have enjoyed themselves working on their spectacular game!
Credit is where credits due: The wonderful forest background was made by the talented BonesWolbach, a fantastic artist over at DeviantArt who creates and shares some very impressive background art with the community. I usually do my own background art, but due to health issues and time concerns, I decided to use and edit a pre-existing one.
I hope everyone is enjoying the last days of summer before school, work and daycare steal your time again! I am still making comics and other stuff, so head on over and continue to read the latest crazy chapter of Curly the cursed con man!
Finally, we have arrived at the main event! To be honest, I was not sure that I could pull off an old-timey rubber hose look, but after studying old cartoons and comics for a long time and taking some inspiration from newer additions such as the cool but cruel game Cuphead, I think it looks good! It is very fun to draw in this style, but a little weird to ignore joints and my usual proportions and instead use these flabby floppy arms and legs, and draw in an ever more cartoony style than usual. At the same time, it is very liberating and fun! I hope that you all will enjoy looking at it as much as I enjoy drawing in this style.
As a kid, I often wished that I could get sucked into the pages of a comic book. I wanted to go on imaginary escapades with Calving & Hobbes, get superpowers, and experience adventures with Spider-Man, the X-Men, and Batman. When I got older, I wished for the same thing but with dirty magazines instead, and the less said about that, the better. Now Curly gets dragged into a classic comic. It may not be his favorite one (Les Adventures de Inspector Rou Rou!) or an action hero comic (Colonel Meltdown!) but no less a visit to the funny pages.
I finally got my hands on a copy of Chrystal Dynamics action title Marvel’s Avengers and have been fooling around with the campaign. I absolutely love their portrayal of Kamala Khan and how they have created a very likable Bruce Banner. She is an adorable fangirl who can hold her own in a fight and pushes the story forward, while Banner is the awkward science nerd that contrasts well with big green. I recently unlocked the Iron Man himself, Tony Stark and they have done a decent portrayal there as well, however, he is no RDJ. There is a ton of stuff to do and some cool cosmetics to unlock, sadly many of the cooler skins and costumes are locked behind a pretty pricey paywall. I think Insomniac did that much better, having all costumes unlockable ingame when it comes to both Spider-Man titles and their Ratchet & Clank series. When I buy a game, I do not want to spend money on suits and skins, if I am going to pay for extras, it better be quality DLC with worthwhile content that adds to the game in more ways than one.
I think this is the first real look we have gotten of Arioch since he first appeared on the last page of chapter 1: The Lonesome Ghost. Originally, he was not even this story when I wrote it. And it was a whole other comic book that Curly found, but in an effort to build up both the world, story, and lore a bit I tried to tighten the writing. Who is Arioch for Curly? Why is he after him? What’s up with the hand coming out of the pages of this magnificent comic? Not all questions will have answers in this chapter, but some will be answered. All I hope is that you all enjoy the ride, so you better faster your seatbelts because it is going to be a bumpy one!
Looks like ol’ Arioch finally caught up to poor Curly. Arioch is an actual angel in the old testament, mentioned in the Book of Genesis as the King of Ellasar, who participated in the battle of the Vale of Siddim together with three other kings against the five kings of Canaan. He also appears in John Milton’s epic Paradise Lost as one of the angels who rebelled against heaven together with Lucifer. There he was known as the fierce lion of heaven before being defeated. Later grimoires, theological manuscripts, and demonology writings, he is known as a lord of hell and an archdemon of revenge.
That concludes today’s theological lesson, now for something completely else! Here is a closer look at the Pascal the Rascal comic book, where I tried to capture the fun-loving energy of comics from days past. Gosh, I love that old-timey rubber hose style!
When I lived in Spain for a year as a teenager, I was tremendously lonely. I was being homeschooled by my mother who could not even teach a narcoleptic sloth how to take an unexpected nap. Then one day when I was out roaming the streets, I found a thoroughly trashed X-Men comic book. It was dirty, torn, and had all kinds of stains, but I still picked it up because I had not read X-men since we left Sweden. Of course, it was in Spanish, so I did not understand a word but just looking at those panels gave me comfort. I wished that I could just be sucked into the pages and go on adventures with Wolverine, Beast, Phoenix, and the others. Of course, my mother threw it away when she found it a few days later since it looked and smelled like trash!
I love coffee, I even use the hashtag #needcoffee on everything and anything that I actually tag with a hash. Curly? Not so much, he prefers his green tea if he against all odds indulge in a non-alcoholic beverage. Khazal and her family instead come from a long tradition of coffee lovers and as Muslims they do not partake in drinking alcohol of any kind. Gotta keep it halal. Me? I keep to my coffee and Whiskey, thank you very much!
If this website stops updating, it is because I have died of a heart attack playing Alien: Isolation, since first-person horror games are so much worse than third-person titles. Games like Until Dawn, Resident Evil 2 Remake, and even some Silent Hill titles are okay, they get my heart pumping and stains my undies brown and green, but I still manage. But the Resident Evil 7 demo scared the bejeebers out of me! Wish me luck or send your condolences to my wife and kids.
Omar is a fun character to draw, with his tall and lanky design. It is especially fun to draw him next to Curly since they are so different in height, the body builds, and appearance but still have some vague resemblance to each other (the dark eyes, big noses, etc.) In my first version of the manuscript, none of Kaz’s family shows up. Curly just dropped her off and unceremonial drove away, something that did not feel right when I went over the script. I think this is better, I like the Malik family and they have some fun, challenging aesthetics to incorporate.
Summer is here in full force, and both I and the dog are close to overheating in my home office. Needless to say, I have spent a lot of time sketching new pages under the cool of the air conditioner rather than having my bacon cooked in front of the computer. Also, I stumbled upon a “remaster” of Stubbs the Zombie on PSN, not that it actually does remaster anything else than some of the old wonky controls, but damn that game still looks fun a decade and a half after initial release. It is old school in every way, but it kinda makes me wish that they had taken the remake route of Destroy All Humans rather than just re-releasing the title with old graphics, semi-empty levels, and the crooked feel of first half gameplay versus the late half gameplay. It still looks fun though, might grab it anyway. Because who can resist a zombie salesman?
