Webcomic Day 2024

Promo image, with the Topaz Comics logo at the top in browns and warm gold tones. Under it reads "Queer comics by a queer duo" and the link topazcomics.com below that are four floating heads with comic titles logos above them. The first is Mikael and JP from Dead City, the second is Jey from Gender Slices, the third is Darumaka from Alola Darumaka, and the last is Jigen from our one-shots.

Happy Webcomic Day!

I’ll be posting throughout the day on social media, but for you here’s the big full post.

Want to read some queer comics written and drawn by some queer folks for free?! I’m Jey Pawlik, and with my spouse Max Parker, we’ve got hundreds of pages in our archive, like the post-apocalyptic gay romance Dead City, the nonbinary autobio series Gender Slices, a 4-koma comedy comic about Darumaka and Lupin III fancomics.

Start reading on Topaz Comics!

Or see sketches, thumbnails, and pages 2 months early on Patreon

The Alola Darumaka Process

Comic page split into four quadrants showing the sketch, inks, colours, and halftone effects on an Alola Darumaka page. The comic itself is four panels done in black line art with four shades of dusty pink. Panel one shows Darumaka sitting and doodling on a piece of paper with an Alolan Meowth napping behind her, Darumaka is humming with a little music note beside her. Panel two, Darumaka is still drawing and another Meowth has appeared behind her and is napping. Panel three, Darumaka has her hands up saying "Hey!" as a Meowth lays down in front of her and on her drawing. Panel four, Darumaka still with her hands up looks angrier saying "Gah!" as she is now surrounded by Meowths napping around her, heat lines coming off her body which just gathers more Meowths to her.

Here’s my process for Alola Darumaka using the ScreentonesCast template showing my traditional sketch, digital inks, colours, and halftone effects.

Alola Darumaka updates every Tuesday btw~

Dead City

The book cover "Dead City", drawn with choppy black line art and coloured with greens, blacks and yellows, showing Mikael and JP kneeling next to one another holding their own backpack straps with a dark Toronto skyline behind them as the sun sets. The bottom reads "Michelle Parker and Jey Pawlik"Comic page done in thick black ink and one solid 50% grey tone. Panel one, Mikael is walking over to the couch and JP asks "Are you okay?" and Mikael responds "Yeah?". Panel two, Mikael has sat down on the couch, wine glass in hand. JP asks "Are you drunk?", and Mikael replies "YESS!" Panel three shows a medium close up of JP saying "Isn't that a bad idea with all the zombies around?" Panel four is a close up of Mikael's drunk but smiling face, he says "You didn't mind last time" a bit seductively. Panel five is a similar shot but a close up of JP's face saying "But-- we should still be careful." Panel six pulls out and shows both boys on the couch together. Mikael saying "It's been ages since we saw one and they're all slow and clumsy now." JP says "Now?" Panel seven shows just Mikael from the waist up holding his wine glass saying "Right, you weren't out at the beginning."

Comic page done in thick black ink and one solid 50% grey tone. Panel one, a flashback to Mikael hunkered down in his dark messy apartment as the TV is the only source of light and narration reads “There used to be a lot and they were fast and violent.” Panel two, present day Mikael and he’s happily saying “But since they’re dead they rot, right?”. Panel three, flashback again to Mikael out in a dark warehouse where he’s searching through boxes. Narration reads “One time I was out looking for food” the sentence is left hanging over panel four, which shows a scared Mikael looking over his shoulder and the sound effect “Wok!” above his head.Comic page done in thick black ink and one solid 50% grey tone. Panel one, a continuation of the previous page’s flashback where Mikael is face to face with a zombie who’s decomposing and slowly meanering passed him, not noticing him at all. The narration reads “and one walked right past me! It didn’t have any eyes.” Panel two, back to the present showing Mikael lounging on the couch with JP next to him. JP asks “So the ones now are all rotted?” and Mikael smiles saying “Right!” Panel three, a close up of JP pouring himself a glass of wine on the coffee table in front of the couch while he says “Alright.”

Dead City is a completed post-apocalypse gay romance comic that focuses more on survival and human connection than the zombie aspect of the genre. Written by Max, this was our first comic project that we started in 2013 and finished in 2020! It’s still available to read online, but a newer fancy version was made into a book last year.

https://topazcomics.com/deadcity/welcome

https://topazcomics.com/shop

Client Project Concept Art: Snake People RPG

Concepts and process in how I did the cover for the RPG “Snake People: A Game of Anticipatory Grief” that was a huge success on Kickstarter!

If you missed the Kickstarter you can still get a copy at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/307277/Snake-People-A-Game-of-Anticipatory-Grief

A Comic Tutorial

 

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January Patreon Tutorial – Larger version can be seen at this link

I work pretty much only traditionally with most of my inks and lines. So my brush settings are actual brushes!

@artemai-draws I’m sorry if this isn’t what you meant when you asked about making comics. I’m not much of a writer unfortunately. If you want to know how to outline and plot comics you should ask my partner and Dead City writer @octokracken! We work together to make Dead City.

If you’re talking about Gender Slices. I do that solo but they’re so simple I’m not sure if it even counts as writing. This is my process for Gender Slices.

I hope this helps! And thanks for asking!

Swatchlife

swatchlife:

Character design prompt:

Pick a colour from this list.

Design a character, anything you can think of! Can be within any sort of time period, style, world. No limits other than using mostly that one colour that you picked.

There’s no limits on colours either. Multiple people can design characters for one colour. This is just a prompt to get your juices flowing.

Be sure to tag your post #swatchlife or submit it to this blog to be sure it shows up here, we want to show off everyone’s characters.

Feel free to connect with other artists as well! In the future we hope to have mini prompts for you like collabs and other fun things!

In the mean time, be creative and design some new characters!