Cura Te Ipsum – A Digital Comic by Neal Bailey and Dexter Wee

This morning, I got my first glance of page 11. For those of you keeping track at home, I’m asking Dex to produce 3 pages a week, it’s been two weeks, and I have 11 pages. The man’s a MACHINE.

I did my first sound effect today. “K-KHIK!” Once I figured how to warp and goof with letters (after about a million online tutorials), it started getting easier. Now I have to figure out how to center a layer in a custom field, copy-paste, and do another sound effect 11 distinctive times. Why? Well, find out on page 9.

I also got to see the first splash page, which was incredible, because it’s such a poignant moment, thanks to Dex. You always start out thinking “Oh, this is how it will look.” in your head, and sometimes, you get the artist who doesn’t get the vibe at all, and then you get artists like Dex, who take your stuff and improve it, and that’s always a great feeling.

Truth be told, I am bursting to share all of this with you. I want to, for instance, take the sixth panel of page four, reduce it, and just put it here, because it’s such a beautiful moment he’s captured. But I can’t! I have to wait. That sucks. It’s making me re-think my buffer. I’m letting it shrink in my head, both because of Dexter’s obvious speed and talent, and because of my own desire to get this going (I am, after all, 84 pages into the script already).

Given Dexter’s speed, and his drive, I’m probably going to start this baby up once the website is finalized and we have 1-1.5 month’s worth of buffer. That is seeming more and more practical.

Sion, my buddy, and the man who put together this website for me, is dropping down south for a convention… in his spare minutes, I’m going to see if he can’t help me install Comicpress on the new URL. It’s essentially the engine that runs Dr. McNinja (I may have mentioned it already), and it will help me get this thing rolling.

Until then, check out another sketch of Charlie… one of the earlier ones, it went with the first one I showed you:

And I’s watching too much Raising Arizona.

I have several sketches I could show you for today’s regular update/preview, but I’m gonna go with the one that intrigues ME the most of what I have right now. It’s hot off Dexter’s pencil, and it features two other main characters… part of the “other” camp, as we say when we’re trying to believe our villain’s motivations are sincere. (They usually are, even if they’re ultimately dicks.)

We’ll call these guys “The Traveller” and “Weapons.” That’s what they are in the script, too, but for different reasons than you’re probably thinking:

(Click to Embiggen)

You’ll note I’ve again scratched out bits of names. This too, will make sense in time.

As for a progress update, there are now six pages in the can and more incoming. I want at least a two month lead, so we’re never missing an update, so when I have 24 pages (or nearabouts), you’ll hear an announcement of the first comic’s date. Until then, I’ll keep teasing, and long before then, you’ll see a finished website, so keep coming back… Monday, Wednesday, Friday….

I’m at page 77 now, and I feel like I could keep cranking this out forever… I haven’t even gotten past the essential big, blasting opening moves, so I have some real faith in this baby.

Tell some friends.