The Strip:

Welcome to Inc.'ed.  This is the continuing story of Meg, Holly, Matt, and Rusty as they live and work the everyday lives of comic strip characters both on and off the 'panel'.  Whether it's dealing with recycled jokes, oversaturated cross-marketing campaigns, or deciding whether or not you can count the character you play as a dependant, find out just how different life is like being chained to a fictional identity (or how familiar it is).  

One of the conceits of the idea behind Inc.'ed is that the so-called "funny animal" characters do not have any behavior quirks that would distinguish them as anything but human.  Therefore when Meg is required to perform 'in character', from her perspective it's no different than asking you or I to act like a dog.  For most actors this wouldn't be a problem, and anyone who has watched improv comedy has likely seen some examples of animal imitation, but because of Meg's physical characteristics it's the only role she will likely ever get.  Frustrating, no?

This brings me to announce the only stylistic convention you will likely need to understand to fully 'get' the strip.  When the characters are playing thier parts 'in character', the panels will be stylized in the halftone effect as seen in the first two panels below.  

The last panel takes place 'off camera' so the halftone effect is absent.

The Process:

It starts with an idea, or at least the germ of one.  It doesn't have to be complete or in it's finished form yet as long as there is enough there to get the idea of how many panels will be needed and a general sense of what the characters are feeling when they're speaking.  I often don't finalize the text of the joke until just before I'm ready to upload and publish.

The sketch.  Where the beginning of the hard work starts.  Shots and perspectives are worked out, as well as composition of each frame.

Then, the sketches are scanned into the computer and the images placed into an Adobe Illustrator document, with pre existing panels and the title has already been added.  The drawings are digitally painted over using a vector brush.

Coloring is done by exporting the Illustrator file to a Photoshop document where solid colors are added one area at a time.

Still in Photoshop, but on a separate layer, shading is added using a watercolor style brush and setting the layer to multiply color values.  Sometimes highlights are added using a similar process on another separate layer.

Finally, if there are any walls or backgrounds that require texture, another layer is added and modified using lighting effects to cast shadows over textured surfaces.  These layers are often also blurred in order to imply depth.

The Credits:

All due credit must be given to the people who aided in the construction and inspiration of this site and this project, without whom you wouldn't be reading this let alone my comics.  I would like to personally thank the efforts of Beckham Squared for their generosity and for aiding in finding solutions to stubborn problems.  

Also to the creators of Comikaze comic manager a big shout out of thanks for making what is probably the most versatile and customizable comic strip management engine I could find in much searching of the web.  

Lastly, I would like to thank all my friends and family for providing their unwitting inspiration for my own unique sense of humor.[]