While publishing my last post about Brian Fies’s discovery of a Kids say the Darndest Thing book illustrated by Charles Schulz, it reminded me I had a miss-fired blog post that never went live a couple of months ago about Brian’s latest endeavor, a web comic called The Last Mechanical Monster. Very much worthy your time.
Here’s my original post:
Brian Fies, the creator of the Eisner award winning comic Mom’s Cancer, has launched another online comic called “The Last Mechanical Monster“. The comic is about an old and bitter inventor of flying robots. It’s an interesting take – the main character first appeared in an 1941 Superman animated feature. Brian has picked up the story after the inventor is released from prison in the present day – 60 or so years later.
Brian says he’s creating this webcomic as an experiment. He’s 50 or so pages ahead of the time he posts live, so he’s got enough material to get through April, according to his blog post.
More from his blog:
Readers really like the Inventor’s penchant for making lists. It’s a character trait I created and love myself but I’m surprised so many people mentioned it. That’s good information I can use going forward.
Yesterday I had lunch with a writer friend who’d seen the webcomic and asked me some questions that indicated (at least some) readers are catching what I want them to catch and I’m doing some proper foreshadowing. That’s gratifying.
Some incidental info on process: before I launched The Last Mechanical Monster, I built up a backlog of 50 fully completed pages. I really wanted to avoid the common webcartoonists’ trap of making promises I couldn’t keep. If I never put ink to paper again, I have enough story already done to last through April. Of course my goal is to create at least two new pages per week to keep up with the rate of posting and maintain my cushion.
Alan, many thanks for this mention, and the other on Linkletter and Schulz as well. I just posted Page 52 of the webcomic today and still have a couple months’ lead (though it’s not as long as it used to be). It’s a work in progress; part of the point is to receive and apply feedback. The story’s been stuck in my head for several years now, and this webcomic is my best chance of exorcising it. Thanks again.
Beautiful stuff! I thought I’d take a quick peek, then couldn’t stop reading. Brian’s storytelling is so solid; he really knows this medium. All the best from a common webcartoonist! 🙂
Just wanted you to know I saw your comment, Eddie, and appreciate it very much. Many congratulations on your NCS Division Award nomination! Red’s Planet is terrific.