Japanese Knotweed

Comics are the japanese knotweed of the brain

[dark-horse76]

Hello!

And welcome to my comics side blog (my main blog is ptork66).

On this blog, I reblog comics-y stuff and also sometimes ramble on about the comics I read.

I'm a comics newbie. I read my very first comic (assuming we're not counting the funny pages comic strips, which I don't) (Namesake) in October 2022. It then took me a little while to start gaining steam; I started reading comics in earnest in March 2023.

I seem to mostly read indie comics - and whatever random things my library has xd.

I'd give you my TBR list, but that's very long xd. Even my 'currently reading list' is pretty long lol. Honestly. It just gets longer and longer lol.

Currently Reading:

Christopher Chaos

Sunstone Vol. 2

The Wicked + The Divine Vol. 3

Monstress

The Fade Out

Fishflies

No Man's Land (novelisation)

Fixin' To Reading (not out yet / haven't picked up yet / haven't started yet but will be reading imminently):

Ask for Mercy

The Deviant

Batman City of Madness

Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood

Houses of the Unholy

And honourable mentions (I've read the first volumes and will be reading more but technically have not actually started the next volumes yet and they've somehow managed to get pushed down my reading list):

Namesake Vol. 2

Sandman Vol. 2

Like all Batman back reading but I'm definitely certainly without a doubt picking back up with it again at the end of the month (I think)

FAQ (AKA: Answers to Questions You Didn't Have and Never Asked! :D)

My Username

My dark-horse76 username is not at all related to the comics publisher Dark Horse. dark_horse76 was probably my very first internet username, from back in the Stone Ages (1999 / 2000), and is what I used before I settled on a username (ptork66). It comes from the George Harrison song, Dark Horse (it's a really good song and is one of my favourite GH songs), which was on the compilation album I had that was released in 1976. Keep meaning to find out if the comics place also borrowed that reference. Not only that, but I didn't know there was a comics publisher called Dark Horse at the time I made my side blog xd.

...Japanese Knotweed?

In case you've never heard of Japanese Knotweed, it's (where I live) an extremely fast-growing, invasive species that comes in, takes over, and won't leave - exactly like comics xd.

[alternis]

[sisaloofafump]

The Superman style studies had also culminated in a video! Very fun to showcase my favourite artists

[dark-horse76]

Decided I want to learn how to flat, if I can, so I started actually trying it out today.

*Noooooo* idea if I'm on the right track, but hey, at least it's not super messy (I don't think). Or at least, it's less messy than I thought it might be. And I learned some other helpful things!

May need to invest in a desk. Doing this on my lap on the sofa is super awkward xd. It's also very hard to keep my hand from touching the screen and fucking everything up 😂

It's far easier and faster to do things right the first time xd rather than having to spend a truly ungodly amount of time cleaning things up after

This may be *waaaaaaaay* too much fun xd

(The line art is, of course, not mine. It was included with the tutorial I was doing, which is Learn Digital Coloring with Clip Studio Paint by Color with Kurt.)

[dark-horse76]

Decided to do the rest of my tutorial despite the rest being about rendering (aka things I know 0 about lol). Oh. My god. My arms are dead and my brain is broken after having so much info dumped on me 😂 So. Have my wonky guy and his extra wonky glowy cat xd

I may never be able to read a comic that's coloured like this again 'cause I'll be too busy staring at it, admiring the amount of time, effort, and skill that went into it. Not that they don't all have that, but. OMG. Pretty sure I'm just as tired after that as I would be if I'd gone skating for...however long it's been. 4.5 hours or something lol I am so dead right now lol. What even are colours 😂😂😂

[thunderstruck9]

Cyril Power (British, 1872-1951), The Tube Staircase, 1929. Linocut printed in yellow, cobalt blue and black on thin oriental laid paper, block: 444 x 258 mm.; sheet: 532 x 320 mm. Numbered 30/50

[dark-horse76]

Decided I want to learn how to flat, if I can, so I started actually trying it out today.

*Noooooo* idea if I'm on the right track, but hey, at least it's not super messy (I don't think). Or at least, it's less messy than I thought it might be. And I learned some other helpful things!

May need to invest in a desk. Doing this on my lap on the sofa is super awkward xd. It's also very hard to keep my hand from touching the screen and fucking everything up 😂

It's far easier and faster to do things right the first time xd rather than having to spend a truly ungodly amount of time cleaning things up after

This may be *waaaaaaaay* too much fun xd

(The line art is, of course, not mine. It was included with the tutorial I was doing, which is Learn Digital Coloring with Clip Studio Paint by Color with Kurt.)

[ptork66]

[dark-horse76]

It's the "reading unknown not-comics fandom fic" to "must read and make comics" pipeline xd

[dark-horse76]

This thing I'm working on has a couple of pages in it that will be painted, and I've been going back and forth trying to figure out how to hand letter something that's painted and also not having much luck finding information on the topic. For some reason, it makes sense to me (or at least, I know how I'll do it / how I have done it) if the drawing is either just pen/ink or coloured with markers, but paint doesn't make sense xd

So I asked The Internet Void, and some lovely people on the other twitter had some suggestions. One I'm not sure I'll be able to do, 'cause I think it needs software, but I'm going to try with like GIMP or something, see if that can do it.

The other options are doing the letters during pencilling, then covering it with tape or masking fluid or something for painting and finishing it after OR doing the lettering separately and pasting it onto (a copy of) the art.

I can't decide which way might end up looking best (and, more importantly for this particular project, be easiest xd), so I've decided to give them all a go with some test pages.

So today, I drew/painted this. Going to test the computer and pasting methods with it. :D (Sadly not until Friday, though, as I won't have access to a scanner until then. Boo xd)

I don't know how I managed to mess up the union flag 😂 I guess I had the wrong angle or something IDK

I should've mixed the black to make it watery/grey before painting, but I didn't realise until after I started that I didn't want a very thick, opaque black.

It was a little bit painting by...letter xd I was getting very lost with which lines were which part of the flag lol

Every time I paint, I end up putting too much paint on the palette, but I hate wasting the paint - especially since right now I'm mostly using my set of professional-grade acrylic gouache - so I always try to make another painting just to use it up. This is what I did today:

I like the way the purple ended up, especially when I mixed it with some of the white.

[dark-horse76]

I know I talk about Enfield a lot (so obviously that means I needed to make some cartoons making fun of it ehehe) xd

[dark-horse76]

Eeee! Y'all! I'm so excited! I'm makin' things! :D (Calling this thumbnails 'cause that's technically its purpose at the moment, I am not actually trying to draw - not that my actual is much better/different ROFL but still)

LKDF;jkadf;jkadslf;ldsjfsk weeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[dark-horse76]

Drew an Enfield that is so bloody Cursed I may have to burn the paper and pretend it didn't happen 😂

OR hang it up and die laughing every time I look at it - I am laughing so much right now that I can't breathe 😂😂😂

At least I have an idea (though extremely vague) of what's gone wrong😂

[traddmoore]

The Enfield Gang Massacre Issue 6 Variant Cover (2023) by Tradd Moore Series by Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips Published by Image Comics

[comicsiswild]

The Enfield Gang Massacre (2023) #3

[dark-horse76]

God, I love this book. I swear I love it more with every read. Could there possibly be a better comic book? I don't think so. Issue six especially is just. Perfection.

The 'dream' sequence.

The Texas Record pulling it all together.

This bit. Was like a punch to the gut. I cried.

[dark-horse76]

First pass of Enfield notes is done!

The book has gained a few dogears and scribbles xd

Gonna dive in more deeply next and see what I can learn.

[nyxqueen97]

Siegfried (2007-2011) by Alex Alice

[dark-horse76]

I love weeping willows but don't understand how one might draw them.

But I got tired of not even trying to draw one, so I tried xd

Probably need to go find a willow (been nearly 30 years since I last actually saw one) and supposedly they exist in this country but IDK where never seen one here lol