I've Fallen And I Can't Get Up!

And so, after ending the year on such a lovely high note as two reunited lovers kissing in the rain, the new year (Year "Two" though this is the third year of Shit Happens) returns to what this comic is really about: jokes about uncomfortable situations that you know you shouldn't laugh at, but you do despite your best efforts to the contrary.

This also marks my first strip as solo writer on the comic, which takes more than a slight adjustment, both in the tone and the weight of the story arcs, not to mention levies heavy amounts of pressure on my tiny shoulders. Now, of course, this isn't the first strip I've written on my own for the comic (I've written more than a few, with my favorites being "The Ninth Circle is a Cold and Lonely Place" and "So Long and Thanks for All the Hot Dogs. Literary allusions abound in my work, apparently.) But with those, it was a find side-project from co-writing a script, and if there were any complaints, I could just let David take on the majority of the writing duties for the next strip while I nursed a wounded ego. (Luckily, there were none.) Now, the pressure is on to make sure I'm supplying David with scripts as frequently as possible to keep him busy with drawing and inking and all the other artistic fun that he so enjoys.

And, of course, taking on writing of Shit Happens full-time comes at exactly the time when I have one-million other Very Important Things (tm) going on in real life. I have the unfinished NaNo novel Red Light Fever which I'm still slowly working on, various stories I need to edit, an actual full-time job, an IgoUgo travel journal, and something called The Project which is an undisclosed, in-development project (ya don't say!) that should be finished sometime in June, give or take a bit. All of which vie for my time on a minute to minute basis.

But enough whining. Let's get back to talking shop: Shit Happens started life as a one-off joke comic written and illustrated by David. Then I came along and plotted out Year One and joined as a co-writer around the time we switched away from joke-based scripts to the more serious, heavy-handed drama that made up the bulk of Year One. Now, in Year Two, we're starting off with humor -- albeit strange, twisted, fucked-up humor -- that's going a bit back to the comic's roots. Don't worry, however, if you're a fan of the serious plots: Year One left a lot of threads that I promise I will tie up, while keeping the tone light but not ridiculous, and by the end of this year, you'll fucking love this comic all over again.

No, no pressure. None at all.

ARGGGGG!

The problem with being just the artist and no longer having any control on the script is that I now have to actually work at things. If you're writing scripts that you'll be drawing, it's pretty much an unconscious instinct to figure out how it will look on the page at the same time as you're writing, so you can edit it according to how you know the panel placement will be. Now I get a bunch of words laid out in script format and have to figure out how to convert that into a comic page without changing bits or cutting dialogue to make it fit (or, indeed, as I used to do, adding dialogue when I had enough room to do so).
It helps that I've created a master grid for laying out the panels -- a fresh comic-sized PotatoShop file with lines laid out dividing it into a 2x2 grid, a 3x3 grid, a 4x4 grid, and a 5x5 grid. Everything is pretty much a combination of those -- I work out where I want the panels to fall and cut away all the panel borders that I don't need. (This is why my panel borders are always a uniform width, as well.)
The awkward bit comes in when you have the panel layout working fine, but you can't figure out how to pose something inside a panel (Shakra trapped in panel six being the prime example). When it gets difficult, you have to keep trying different sketches to see which ones look good and which ones will fit in the panel, and if none of them work you have to go back and mess around with the panel order. Which is, topically enough, a pain in the arse.

Of course, when all else fails, you can just go out and find a large naked man to lie on top of a suitably small person with a beard, and draw them. Which is what I did. Obviously.