Ben Paddon

Category: Jump Leads

  • ANNOUNCEMENTS!

    There are a few things I want to update you on, gentle reader, so here they are:

    • Five-Dollar Fiction is now on its own dedicated website and is picking up steam, which is pretty spiffy. Feel free to pop over and commission your own micro-story, if you dare!1
    • But, Sir… is back in full since since the British government relaunched their ePetition website. Andrew and I have been maeking poast for almost a week now. It’s good to be back.
    • Nothing is set in stone just yet, but it looks like I’ll be writing and appearing in a web video with a SPECIAL CELEBRITY GUEST. Is that not awesome? I think it’s awesome.
    • Jump Leads will be updating at some point in the near future. I’m sitting on the inks for not one but two pages, and politely waiting for Kris to finish colouring them. Both he and JjAR have a lot of paid work on their hands right now, which is why the comic has been delayed so much. My apologies to the six or seven hardcore Jump Leads fans out there.
    • Somehow my friend and writing collaborator (not to mention Amazon best-selling author) Adam Croft snuck out a second book while no one was looking. It’s called “Guilty as Sin”, and it’s available to buy from Amazon and SmashWords. The non-eBook print editiony thing will be out before the end of September, or so Adam tells me.

    That’s more or less it. I don’t know if I let the world at large know about my personal Tumblr, but there it is for thems what wants to know.

  • CON APPEARANCE: Anaheim Comic-Con – April 29th to May 1st

    In two weeks time I’ll be making my first con appearance in almost two years. I’ll be at the SoulGeek table at this year’s Anaheim Comic-Con at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. Anaheim.

    Unfortunately I won’t have any Jump Leads merch to sell – not unless I can pull something bloody spectacular out of my hat in the next two weeks – but I will be making eBook editions of Jump Leads issues #1, #2 and #3 available for free! Which is quite nice of me, isn’t it?

    Oh, and ask me nicely and I might give you a sneak-peak of my next comic project. Or maybe my next non-comic project. Depends on what sort of mood I’m in at the time.

    Joining me will be J.E. Draft, creator of the occasionally NSFW The Challenges of Zona, who I imagine will likely spend much of the weekend regaling me with equally NSFW stories. Possibly. Probably. Definitely.

    Anaheim.

  • Insert “Jump” Pun Here

    I’ve taken a break from working on that script (as well as transcribing some notes for a friend) to work instead on a rewrite of the next issue of Jump Leads. It’s a page-one rewrite – s0mething I’ve never done before – and to make matters worse it’s a rewrite of one of Andrew’s scripts.

    I’ve seen more of Andrew’s work than has been featured in the comic and, not to diminish Paul or Euan’s work in any way, Andrew is incredibly inventive. What’s more he has a very particular sort of wit that works wonderfully with the characters, possibly (probably) because he essentially is Llewellyn. I’m hesitant to rewrite anything he’s written, but Andrew’s time to devote to such an effort is limited, and with the end of the current story creeping ever-closer, it must be done.

    Rewriting someone else’s work feels… odd. In many ways it feels like a violation, like I’ve torn open the ribcage of the work and set about hacking its organs up. In other ways it feels less like random hacking and more like surgery, with a goal of making Andrew’s story sturdier, more solid, but with that same core of humour.

    And away I go.

  • A pressing desire to save the world

    I’ve been neglecting this blog in favour of its Tumblr cousin, and that simply will not do. I’d like to use this blog to catalogue my creative endeavours – that’s what it’s for, after all – so I’m going to make an effort to do exactly that, right now.

    Firstly, I’ve been writing. Not just Jump Leads, but a couple of things. I’m working on an autobiographical book about growing up in a Pagan household. I wish I could say was my idea but it was actually my dad’s. He suggested I write a fictionalized account but I rather think that getting my actual thoughts, feelings and memories on the page will have more value – for me, at least. Once I vomit it all out I can work on reorganizing it and, if I think there’s a good narrative in there, maybe turning it into something less autobiographical.

    I also wrote a short sketch last week which I’ve been meaning to film for about a week. I’m hoping to actually do that this week. It’s on my Weekly Goal List, along with encouraging myself to use my Ficly account more. My aim is to write three Ficlies this week.

    There are also two Jump Leads scripts that need polishing – one by myself, the other by Andrew. I’m also writing a brief, ten-minute mini-pilot thing which, Glod-willing, someone important will be looking at later this year.

    I’m planning on recording a scratch track for my friend Tealin’s attempt to animate the hanging scene from the start of Terry Pratchett’s “Going Postal” – I’ll be voicing Moist von Lipwig, easily one of my favourite recent additions to the Discworld mythos. I’ve always enjoyed voice work, and I think it’s only my crippling fear of rejection and a worry of “feeling silly” that’s stopping me from pursuing it further. Dino reckons I’d be good at it, so who knows? I guess I just need to get over that insecurity.

    And I want to do more video stuff. And I want to do more acting. And I want to try writing a proper novel. And…

    …oh Glod, so much stuff I’d like to do that I can’t push forward on because of my own petty worries. Blimey, is that who I am now? Is that the guy I’ve become? I need to sort that out.

  • Not Quite Life

    I stopped writing my slice-o’-life webcomic before my artist had even drawn the first strip because, frankly, I found the entire thing boring to write. I couldn’t engage with the characters I’d created, which is perhaps problematic because the central character is basically me. The premise was semi-autobiographical, dealing with a young man who gets out of a serious relationship and tries to reconnect with his former best friend, someone his ex had tried to push out of his life. That happened, and I wanted to tell that story.

    The problem is that I wanted to tell it three years ago. Now I feel like I’ve moved well beyond that point in my life, and revisiting it just to try and tell a not-quite-what-happened version of it for a webcomic doesn’t sit well, especially as I was trying to make it work in a gag-a-day format. So, no. Not interested. Pass.

    This presents an additional problem – I want to work on a gag-a-day comic again. Fried ended in 2006 when, after three years, I realized I was bored with it. Jump Leads exceeded Fried‘s lifespan at the start of this month, not just in duration but in quantity. Jump Leads remains fresh because by its nature it has to. We’re never in the same universe for more than a few months. It keeps things interesting.

    But in a weird sort-of way I want to do something a little more grounded, with characters I can drop into random scenarios and just have fun with. I think I’ve come up with a concept that is grounded enough to work as a gag-a-day, but quirky enough to keep me interested. And funnily enough, it’s based on a short film I wrote back in 2007.

    Last night, for the first time in three years, I sat down to sketch characters. I don’t know if I’ll be doing anything with those sketches – I’m no artist, by any stretch – but that’s also how Jump Leads started way back in 2006. I’d like to take that as a Good Sign.

  • Incompetent Love

    I started the year by re-reading Rob Grant’s “Incompetence” which, as a side-project, I’m adapting into a screenplay. I’ve already started typing up the dialogue for individual scenes but I’ve yet to sew anything together. I’m also trying to work out how to reorder the story – the prologue, for instance, happens between chapters four and five – and how to work the first-person perspective. Do I go for the typical Film Noiresque voiceover approach, or have Harry Salt talk directly to the camera, to the audience High Fidelity style?

    That’s not all, though – with my friend Rene Engström having recently wrapped up her webcomic, Anders Loves Maria, I mentioned on Twitter that I’d been fighting the desire over the last few days to adapt the story into a screenplay. And Rene, Glod bless the poor misguided fool, has given me her blessing. Yikes! I’ve already started making notes! Iv’e got two adaptations on the go at once, not to mention two Jump Leads scripts on the go and a website redesign in the works!

    Considering current events in my personal life, I welcome the distraction. I need it. It’s either work on stuff like this, or waste my day playing Star Trek Online, and that’s something I can easily do at night, when most of civilized society (well, most of American society at least) are asleep. If you play STO, come find me online – Paddon@Squirminator2k.

    Anyway, sigh and lament. I’m off to bed. Far too late, as usual.

  • 1. EXT. FLURRY – DAY

    So after months of work, the script for Jump Leads #10: The Voyage Home is more or less finished. It probably still need a little polishing, but the first collaboration between all four of the Jump Leads writers has been finished. The first Jump Leads script to have more than one writer work on it. The first… oh, I can do this all day. The point is that this script is done, and I feel like a weight has been taken off of my shoulders. This is the absolute closest we’ve come to the wire. Usually the next two or three stories have already been written up by the time the issue you’re reading is on the website, but as I mentioned at the end of last year, I decided to throw out the next two years’ worth of scripts to take the story in a new direction.

    With this script finished, and all the loose ends tied up together, I can’t wait to begin work on #11 (although considering we have a habit of slotting in four-page stories between the major ones, #10 may become #11, and #11 may become #13). It’s called Deus Ex Litterae. You know it’s going to be a good one because the title is in Latin.

    I also had an idea for a film a couple of nights ago – for a romantic comedy, no less – but I’ll probably start work on that next week. I’ve not been very productive the last few days, as my wonderful girlfriend Helen is going to be flying back to Ohio on Saturday and will be staying there indefinitely. My current plan: Find a day job, earn enough to rent a place, and bring her home.

  • Some Thoughts Concerning Webcomics, Procrastination, and Getting Serious About Your Work

    Last year I acknowledged I had a problem with procrastination, and this year I’ve started taking steps to overcome it. In the last two weeks I’ve worked on a Jump Leads script I’d been putting off doing for two months to the point where it’s very nearly finished, I’ve begun working with the rest of the Jump Leads creative team to screw down the details of an upcoming multiple-issue story arc as well as fleshing out a new character who we’ll be introducing at some point in the future, and I’ve redoubled my efforts to find a new dayjob. I’m also looking at ways of raising capital to properly publish the second book as well as to republish the first, having nearly sold out of my own stock, and trying to raise the profile of our little webcomic.

    The Jump Leads stuff is particularly important because last year I realised that if I want to make a career out of writing, specifically out of writing Jump Leads, I need to be about 5,000% more focused than I have been. I need to stop looking at it as a hobby, as something for my portfolio while I wait for something bigger and better to come along and start looking after it properly.

    It’s started to bother me when I see people in the webcomics community – that is, the lower end of the webcomics spectrum where you’ll find people such as myself – who in one breath say that they want to make a living out of webcomicry, and in another mention that they haven’tupdated their webcomic for the last three days running because they’ve been playing Modern Warfare 2. Or re-watching Firefly with the cast commentary. Or, y’know, they just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

    How can you possibly be serious about making a living as a webcartoonist when you don’t even have the discipline or the inclination to get your comic drawn and updated? We’re talking about people who say they’re on, say, a thrice-weekly update schedule but who haven’t updated their comic in a week and a half, and then they wonder why their already small readership is dwindling.

    It’s even worse when their Twitter feed is littered with tweets along the lines of, “Will draw next comic after this game of Assassin’s Creed II.” Then “Whoa, is that the time? I just got sucked into that game! I’ll draw the comic tomorrow.” Then “Gonna jump into Assassin’s Creed II again. Man, that game rocks.” Then ‘Why isn’t anyone reading my webcomic? 🙁 🙁 :(”

    If you want your webcomic to succeed, the first rule is “Make it worth reading,” and the second rule is “Stick to your fucking update schedule.“*

    And while I’m on the subject, let’s discuss the relaunched Webcomics.com, shall we?

    To everyone who has pointed out the apparent “irony” of Halfpixel charging for access to the site now when in How To Make Webcomics they decry paywalls with a passion: You make a webcomic. You want people to read your stuff, and there are millions upon millions of webcomic readers out there. They, conversely, make a niche website. There are probably only thousands of fledgling webcartoonists out there, and probably only a hundred or so of those people who genuinely want to make a living from making webcomics.

    To everyone who has balked at the cost: It’s $30 a year. That’s not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things – a drop in the hat compared to the cost of webhosting, convention table/booth costs, travel and accommodation expenses, book and tee-shirt printing, and so on. Brad’s articles – and they are mostly Brad’s articles – are worth every damned penny, and that the guy has been pouring so much effort into them for over a year for free is, frankly, criminal. Brad deserves some kind of compensation for such sterling work, and I for one don’t mind picking up part of the bill. If you’re serious about making a living as a webcartoonist, it’s completely and utterly worth it.

    To everyone who takes offense to the above: If you feel you don’t need Webcomics.com, if you didn’t use it before or if you’ve never really had much interest in the articles, then that’s fair enough and I wish you luck. If you feel it’s something you want or need to have access to but you object to the idea of throwing a twenty and a ten in Guigar’s direction then you need to seriously reconsider whether you’re willing to put in the effort to making webcartooning your job, because if you aren’t prepared to pay $30 a year for articles that could potentially help you improve the way you go about your business (and what you’re doing is business if you’re taking it seriously) then will you be prepared to shell out for hosting? For marketing? For book-printing and all that other gubbins I mentioned earlier?

    I utterly regret not taking full advantage of the website before they shifted it over to a pay model. I thumbed through it occasionally last year but I didn’t have the time – or, at least, I told myself I didn’t have the time – to read the articles in full. I’m kicking myself now. Absolutely kicking myself.

    I’m going to go to sleep, and I’m going to enjoy my weekend. And Monday morning I’m going to wake up at 8am, have breakfast, and sit in front of my laptop at 9am ready to write, and plan, and prepare for the year ahead. What will you be doing?

    * Yes, I’m aware that there’s a degree of irony in this statement considering Jump Leads’ schedule has been wobbly for the last four or five months. No, I’m not going to discuss it.