Something is happening…
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I’m excited to announce Creeping Me Out Delusions #1, a collected, enhanced take on pages 1-50 of Creeping Me Out is now available from my store at Artithmeric!
Years after the events of the webcomic, Francis visits the campus shrink to try and confront the strange events of his last year in high school. Can he explain everything that happened once Annabel entered his life? The supernatural events of that final term changed everything, but is it truly all behind them?
This framing narrative will act as a springboard for a new era of CMO, while Francis and the crew deal with college, jobs, and the usual weird nonsense.. Eventually.
Specs: 36 pages (40 including the cover..) Full colour. Staple bound. Standard US comic size..
CMO spec: Polished dialogue, remastered art, new panels and entire new pages in certain places. Structurally – a true recreation, this is not a reboot or reimagining, but an act of “finishing” and preservation. So there may be some wonky stuff in there, but it’s trying it’s best!
As for the future of CMO, two more issues of Delusions will follow, then a hardback compendium of all three. (I feel it’s important to be open about that as I wouldn’t want to spring it on anyone who’d rather wait!) Otherwise there’s quite a lot in the works, some game projects, a lot of prints and merchandise I’ll have up shortly (not all CMO related) – I’ll leave those details for another post.
You might’ve noticed a slight site redesign.. I ditched the multi column look as it didn’t play nicely at all with smaller/mobile screens. It still needs a little TLC, but it’s an improvement.
If you’d like to support me and these projects I have a Patreon I’m slowly getting my head around.. COVID-19 quarantine and other stuff has generally slowed me down, but I’m working on creative projects whenever I can and any support is hugely appreciated! You can also come and chat/ask questions on my Discord, where I post work in progress and have rooms for CMO, art, game dev etc!
I hope you’re all keeping well, and see you soon!
Creeping Me Out is transitioning (primarily) to a print based comic rather than the web thing it has been in the past.
The first book I’m releasing is the four issue “remaster” of the original run. This has a lot of tightened up dialogue and timing, some redrawn art where necessary, and a lot of extra panels and connective material to make it work in the new format.
- Issue #1 will be available around Xmas!
- #2 Late February
- #3 April
- #4 June.
- ? Compendium. This should collect all issues into a special hardback edition with bonus material.
Obviously these dates are somewhat fluid as I have a lot going on, but that’s what I’m aiming for.
I could have just shoved the pages into a book and had it printed, and I made a mock-up of that, but it didn’t come close to meeting a standard I’d want for it, or offer any way to really continue in a way that made sense. It just wasn’t a good way of presenting the material.
Why not? Well a lot of early CMO was 3 panel gag strips, or 4 panel squares, neither which translate well to a traditional page layout without serious work. I also had the problem of the first 30 or so pages’ working files (with layers, and editable text) being lost in a hard drive crash around 2005(?), so had to redraw a lot. (Back up your files!) Other things that needed replacing? Some really strange experimental animations that obviously can’t work in print. Issue two also has an odd stint where I used an animation program and vector mannequins thinking it would speed up page creation but it actually made me 10x slower as I had to draw and rig mannequins for every character and design sets.. So I’ve had to redraw those.
There’s something really odd about inserting new material into such old work. In some ways I’d do a lot of things differently if I was approaching it afresh. (As you’ll see, eventually…) Practically though, when it comes to adding characters and details into new panels – that’s relatively straightforward as a more detailed take on things looks fine next to the older ones. The weird part has been where I’ve had to edit characters into old panels. It’s feels very strange to draw “like you used to”, if you’ve been developing steadily. It might not always work 100% but I’m happy with the results. I don’t think it’s jarring in a “Special Editions” kind of way at least.. Some quick examples:
ANYWAY.. The four new issues also tell a new framing narrative, wrapping it all together and offering a couple of jump-off points for further stories, both set during the original run and in the years afterward. (I have started on a few one-shots set during different periods, in a range of tones.. and genres!)
Those Other CMO Books
So a few cmo books are in the pot while I’m working on the remasters.. I’ll see which of them feels best to serve once they’re better cooked. I might slot one between issues 3 and 4 of the remaster. We’ll see. Some of my favourite untold CMO stories are quick little tales that could suit an anthology, or short issues.
The site..
I’m not totally sure what I’ll do with the site. I may redesign it with more modern design practices in mind. It’s up in the air, but it definitely needs some TLC to make it responsive and play nicely with mobile devices.
I’ll have some links to the store soon, as well as an update on what I’m planning in regards to patreon.
Looking forward to showing you more!
– Mixel