OTHER COMICS: The Vortex Guardian: Fear

A good friend of mine, Leighton Connor, has been working on this sort of magnum opus / casual sci-fi epic comic titled Laser Brigade. The whole thing started some time ago where, paralyzed by self-loathing and a creative block, he stumbled across a small, 4" by 6" spiral bound 24 page sketchbook at an art supply store and immediately began drawing a comic in it. That comic, which grew into Laser Brigade, was based on a drawing of 8 strange characters he had made many years back and was an attempt by Leighton to challenge himself by simply drawing, with no penciling or thumbnailing or even planning, a complete comic story.

What he thought would be a simple 24 page story continued into a second sketchbook, and a third, and onward until it filled 6 complete 24 page sketchbooks. Leighton's created quite a little universe here, and he recently invited some of his friends to contribute additional comics focusing on individual members of the Laser Brigade. The only rules were that we had to create these stories with no real planning, plotting ahead of time, thumbnailing or sketching. In Leighton's word, this is an exercise in creating lines and committing to them. No erasing or endless re-working.

You can see all of Leighton's original Laser Brigade story online starting here, the first side story titled Thoroughly Thurl by Josh Burnett here, the second side story titled Sedgwick again by Leighton right here and finally the first five pages of my story, titled The Vortex Guardian: Fear here. The plan is to post about 5 pages a week, every Wednesday, until the entire 47 page story is complete. Why 47 pages you ask? Because I spilled ink all over one of them and ruined it.

Here's a preview of my first page. Not too bad for simply starting right in with the ink pen and no penciling. Although this is definitely some looser, rougher work for me and a real challenge.