Looking back at my sketchbooks, random bits of paper strewn around (that I have managed to save) and annotations on the margins of other drawings, I’ve been plotting the basic idea for Atomic Laundromat since at least 2004.  It’s kind of scary to think everything I’ve done with my life since that point – moving countries, traveling to the ends of the earth, holding different jobs, changing career paths, issues in my personal life… but a couple of squiggles and chickenscratches of the early Atomic Laundromat managed to survive in my memory through it all, until apparently it was time for them to come to life.

And it would seem that the time is now.

One of the reasons I think I hadn’t been ready to publish was due to the fact that I’m a self-avowed perfectionist.  I wanted to get everything in its place, in its proper order before I dared to push something out for public consumption.  Recently, I realized that the only way to actually get good was by facing the outside world, the public.  I took a look at the early work of my heroes – Adam Warren, Frank Cho, Bill Watterson, Tycho and Gabe, amongst others – and guess what? They all matured into their style and into what I even love about them as time went by.  Early Calvin and Hobbes looks and feels weird.  Early Brandy from Liberty Meadows looks nothing like the obsidian-haired goddess she is in the later volumes (and Cho even remade University2 from his college years).  Original Penny-Arcade looks like it was made in MS Paint.  And the list goes on.

This might seem like a no-brainer to some people – but until recently, it wasn’t as obvious to me.  I think the catalyst for me was both my return to drawing after a long hiatus and the existence of a growing community of webcomics artists.  To paraphrase from Pixar’s Rataouille “Everyone can draw” in this day and age, and I wanted to share what I was doing in the hopes that it resonated with someone else.  An epiphany with friends whilst playing Munchkin (a story for another time) also helped a lot to spark this development.

I’m having a blast drawing Atomic Laundromat.  Yes, to you these are but the first few strips, but I already have a lot in mind that I’m putting to paper.  If I gain nothing else from this venture, the sheer joy I’m getting from the act of creating will suffice.  I only hope that you can catch some of that same fun as you read it, and you feel like joining me in the weird, wonderful world I’m trying to create.

Welcome to the Atomic Laundromat.

It is funny when you start writing little words in ballons coming from squiggles on paper. 

What I’ve been learning is that sometimes I have a hard time separating the dialogue from the way I would say it to the way the characters would say it.  As with my first post, I know this is probably not an eureka moment for anybody who has been doing comics for longer than 2 weeks (unlike myself) but that’s one of the realizations I’ve had during the nights I’ve been struggling with Photoshop.

I have a good friend who’s taking a look at my strips before I post them, and who has been helping out with proofreading and pruning the dialogue.  It’s amazing how a couple of words or inflections can completely change the tone of a character, and how those details can either keep the character consistent or completely change what they stand for.   Professionals make it look so easy, you never notice that – you just believe in the character and get to know them in a very real way. 

My hope is that eventually my characters are able to speak for themselves and find their own voice much more easily.  I think I am slowly getting there with David, Bob and Angela (who you haven’t met).

Now, if I could persuade the characters to also draw themselves, that would be even more awesome (if a bit creepy).