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jbwarner86 — Off The Deep End - Pilot Page
#anjelica #bubbles #danielle #jamie #kyle #spencer #underwater #offthedeepend
Published: 2016-11-17 16:58:47 +0000 UTC; Views: 20385; Favourites: 146; Downloads: 193
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So in weighing the pros and cons of switching my creative focus from Nineteen-Ninety-Something to Off the Deep End for a while, I wanted to dive right back in (no pun intended...okay, maybe a little) to this series' universe and quickly dashed off this plotless little three-page scene, so I could get the hang of bouncing these characters' personalities off each other again. But I also presented myself with a challenge I've always wanted to try - setting an entire scene underwater from beginning to end. I pushed myself to come up with unique swimmy poses for everyone, I wanted a sense of floaty dynamic action all the time so it never felt static, and of course, I went back to bubble-talk, which I think I've actually got a pretty readable method of writing that now, so hopefully dialogue legibility isn't an issue.However, just putting this three-page piece together, I found a new issue I hadn't previously considered - one page of Off the Deep End takes two to four times longer to color than a Nineteen-Ninety-Something strip. Even if I only did three pages a week, I think I'd be looking at way more time expended on my artwork than what I'm doing now, and given that one of the reasons for my hiatus would be to provide myself with more free time, that may not work as well as I'd hoped. So we'll see what happens, but for now, what do you guys think?
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Comments: 34
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I’m way late to this party, but man, how am I just now seeing this? This is so bubbly, fun and well written! 
👍: 2 ⏩: 0
Don't know. This was a test run for doing Off the Deep End as a regular ongoing series - I wanted to see what it'd be like to commit to a weekly schedule of three pages per week. A few things became apparent to me, though. One, like I mentioned above, these take way way longer to produce than Nineteen-Ninety-Something does, which sort of defeats the purpose of doing a different series to give myself some more free time.
And two, I still don't have a good source of conflict for this series. The Sheridan family just does their weird and creative underwater shoots, they invite their friends to model with them...and that's pretty much it. I created Off the Deep End as something I could draw to cheer myself up when I'm in a crummy mood, but in doing so, I think I kinda made it too perfect. There are no antagonists in this series; everyone likes and supports each other. The only flawed character is Jamie, who I wrote to be an anxious bundle of nerves who keeps giving herself panic attacks by overthinking everything in her life - and I tend to draw Spencer a lot more, because he's a much more fun-loving character. Jamie's less enthusiastic about everything, and it's hard for me to get excited about a character like that.
Plus, I was thinking of doing Off the Deep End as a series set in the present so I could comment on current events, instead of the events of 25 years ago like I do with Nineteen-Ninety-Something. But really, so much of what I write in Nineteen-Ninety-Something is still extremely relevant to today's social and political climate - it's all about the generation gap, terrified Baby Boomers trying to resist the wild changes happening in the world around them, and their creative and forward-thinking Generation X children embracing those changes with open arms, and the sparks that fly as they butt heads about it. That's still happening today, just with Millennials instead of Gen-X'ers, and it's the driving force behind nearly all the conflict going on in America right now. Issues like war and partisan politics and religious freedom and sexual harassment are just as prevalent in 2016 as they were in 1991. So really, I don't need to do a series set in the present to talk about this stuff. I already have been.
👍: 1 ⏩: 2
i just thought of something instead of having a long comic like this why not cut it into a page per page every week kind of thing just an idea
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Well, this is actually three pages edited together into one. But even if I did just one page a week, I still don't have any good stories for this series. I have concepts in mind, sure, but generating conflict within them is proving to be a big stumbling block for me. I feel like I'm better off sticking to Nineteen-Ninety-Something for now, since I have a definitive plan for that series and I'm so far into it already.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
oh o.k
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I like it! Though what about it takes more time, if I may ask? Is it doing the clothing movement underwater, or other parts of it?
👍: 1 ⏩: 1
A little bit of everything, really. The pages are larger, and I did shading and light refractions to make it look more underwater-y - and plus, I had to self-ink all the bubbles. Also, I have to type bubble-talk more carefully to make sure it's readable. Where I place the "bl" in a word can affect whether or not the reader can tell what word is supposed to be.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Maybe just putting their words in parentheses when underwater would be better than trying to realistically do it.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
That's a good idea.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I know that your main thing is 1990 something but I would like to see off the deep end evolve into a full series, I love the characters and I want to see them expand and grow and I would also love more stories based around the family and their underwater hobbies.
I also have a few things I'd like to ask like how did the Jamie and Spencer talk their friends into underwater photography, how did Spencer and Jamie first react to swimming in clothes, and how long can they each hold their breathes.
thank you and keep up the awesome work.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
you should do jamies first underwater shoot ever. her younger and struggling to stay down, keeping her air in and wearing a mask
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yeah, I agree, I want origin stories not just for Jamie but for spencer, the mom, and all of their friends.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
You ought to put this on Kickstarter to hire voice actors for the audio.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Looks awesome, but the bubble speak gets wearying to read when there's so much of it.
"You got the couch down here".....like from the living room? It won't be usable again....
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Their old couch. I figure whenever Danielle buys a new piece of furniture, she sends the old one off by using it as a prop in a photo shoot
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
The underwater dialogue is a little fuzzy getting through (got the gist)but otherwise this is a great start! I almost forgot about these guys!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Love seeing Jamie and Angie in the water together a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶t̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶i̶m̶a̶g̶i̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶i̶l̶ ̶t̶o̶g̶e̶t̶h̶e̶r̶
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I like this a lot, please consider doing more in the future.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I like it, but I think it'll be best if you made these in a more like Sunday strip format replacing the NNS Sunday strips. That way, you only need to update it once a week, pick a fun topical subject to satarize. Best of all, Sunday strips can be formatted in either 1 panel or a traditional 6 panels or more!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I like it. Just a small technical note. Scuba tanks are not filled with oxygen. They are filled with just plain old altered air. Even in deep, deep dives were a special air mixture is needed, they just add helium to the nitrogen / oxygen mix.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I agree in full, beautiful and full of passion underwater
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I like very much, I love the first scene with Jamie's face in the foreground ^^
I also enjoy the underwater dialogues! Continues to draw these fabulous strip! ^^ (Either enter Heather? I'd like her to have a strip of this kind, maybe could participate in his family to an underwater photography session)
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
