Electric Team

Hey, folks! I haven’t written any blog posts in the last few weeks, partly because I had a light case of pneumonia, which interfered with my doing everything except reading Krazy Kat and napping. I highly recommend Krazy Kat, but not pneumonia. I’m doing much better now, thanks for asking. I’ve gone back to work, and am currently working to become a productive member of society again.

Fortunately, I had already written the first six pages of Chapter 6 before I got sick, so Sam was able to continue on, while I was incapacitated, and keep updating the comic. And, wow, she sure is doing a great job with those pages, isn’t she? We wanted Chapter 6 to be a Great Jumping-On Point for New Readers, so on the first two pages we gave a quick overview of the setting, background, premise, and characters, then jumped right into the action, and got caught up on what our heroes are doing. Now, on page 149, we’re checking in on the evil fairy Leaf Stone, last seen at the end of Chapter 3.

Who’s Leaf Stone talking to on the radio, and what does that person want? At least one of these questions will be answered on Friday.

It’s a hectic time of year, so our hard-working artist Sam Albert is taking a well-deserved break until the new year. Once 2017 rolls around, Sam will explode back into action with Electric Team Chapter Six, and it’s gonna BLOW YOUR MIND. In the meantime, though, we wanted to give you offer you some sort of comics entertainment here in the final weeks of 2016. So Abi and I, the other two-thirds of The Electric Team team, decided to collaborate on a comic.

Today sees the debut of the first page of our comic,  “Crocus in: Winter Festival!”. Abi and I basically worked “Marvel Method” on this. The Marvel Method was created by Stan Lee and his artists (Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Don Heck, etc.) in the 60s, when Stan didn’t have time to write out full scripts, and he knew he could rely on his phenomenally talented artists to do most of the storytelling work. But you knew that already.

First, Abi and I discussed ideas together, and figured out what we wanted the story to be about. I suggested doing a Crocus story; Abi wanted to make it a Christmas story; I reminded her that they didn’t have Christmas, per se, in the world of the Electric Team; and so on. Once we knew what the story would be, Abi planned out how she was going to break the story down into panels. Unlike Stan Lee in the classic Marvel Method, I drew the panels for her.

Abi drew everything in pencil, then carefully traced the figures in ink, making sure to leave room for the words.

Once she had the figures drawn, I wrote the words and, unlike Stan, lettered them onto the page. We’re almost finished with page 2, which will debut in just two days, on Friday, December 23. Watch for it!

In the meantime, be sure to check out our HOLIDAY SALE BONANZA, which is still going on, but not for much longer.