(Originally posted Mar. 31, 2011)

Right now, I’m trying to tied up any loose ends before I start pushing on the Draconis project again. I’ve made some nice little changes to the site that I’ve been thinking about for a while. I’ve cleaned up the site banner and the links. Plus there’s some new comic banners on the Urban Underbrush page and the Draconis Wicked page.

In my efforts to make improvements, I’ve broken one of the webcartoonist rules. Webcartoonists are often told not to go back and make adjustments to old work. It takes time and energy that should be devoted to new stuff. But there’s been something bothersome about my old comics that was pretty easy to correct, the dingy backgrounds. When I switched the comics to color, I wanted to keep the background in shades of gray. This would make the characters look more vibrant by contrast. It might have worked if I was using a different art style, but it turns out that this comic looks better with colorful backgrounds. Plus, when I was working on the Grass Roots Blueprints it occurred to me that if all of the former residents were hippies and artists, then I would have an excuse to color all my walls in bright, uncommon colors. In fact, it would be wrong not to have a weird paint job. I started showing hallways with purple walls around comic #45. recently, I’ve gone back and “corrected” all of the backgrounds in the comics that came before #45, so the story has a consistent look, which should make it easier on new readers.

Old Version

New Version

I’m probably going to continue making improvements to the backgrounds in the new comics, but I don’t plan on going back and changing any of the old work again, unless I ever need to make changes for a print version.

Also…

As you may remember, last week I ran the ad for Brock Heasley/Marc Lapierre’s webcomic, The SuperFogeys. Well, it turns out that I won a free autographed comic book from their big give away. So I think I’m just gonna let that poster stay up for another week.

-Marj