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Where
did the concept for “Blue Canary” come from?
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Ever hear of
They
Might be Giants? Get their album, Flood and listen to the second track,
“Birdhouse in Your Soul.” One day I was listening to it and the idea just
grabbed me and wouldn't let go!
Why
do you sign your work "ryn"?
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They are the
last 3 letters of my name, the part everyone misspells. They will ask for
a "K" or a "C" but assume the ending is "erine." Ug. I guess it's my rant.
That and it looked cool.
Is
“Blue Canary” available anywhere else?
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Not currently.
It did run in the Herald, the campus
paper of Arkansas State University, located in Jonesboro, AR, while I was
at college. I graduated in December, 2001 and that ended Blue Canary's
run there. They should have those past strips their website. Go to http://herald.astate.edu
, click on archives and look through the for the Fall 2000 semester, then
look in the“opinions”section. The first strip began on September 1, 2000.
You'll have to search through the issues to find the rest of them and they
didn't run in every issue. Those archives can be a bugger to go through,
which is why I have a website for my comic. Good Luck searching for them
if you go that route, but as those strips were the same as the ones I later
put in my archives, I don't see why'd you bother.
What
programs do you use to make your comic and what type of computer do you
use?
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I have used both
Macintosh and Windows platforms, but mainly use Windows because that is
what I have at home. I loved the G4s in the Graphic Design lab on campus,
but I did gradutate and that restricts my use of those Macs and I can't
afford one as of yet. I scan the comic in, sans dialogue and speech and
thought balloons, with a Umax scanner. I did have a Microtek, but the bulb
went out on it. From there I use either Adobe Photoshop (5.5) or Corel
Photopaint (9.0) (depending whether I'm at school or home,) and do touch
ups and add gray-tones with my Wacom tablet. I have been known to use Painter
7 to do colors and gray-tones since I got said Wacom tablet. I then
export it into Adobe Illustrator (8.0) for better control of placing the
text and balloons. Finally, if it's for print, I export that as a TIFF,
like I did for the Herald. For the
web, I take that and turn it into a GIF or JPEG depending on which is smaller.
Whew! Lots o’ work for one little comic! I'm thinking of making the images
all PNG files in the future for faster loading. Downside is, you'll need
the newest version of your web browser to view it.
What
art supplies do you use?
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11” x 17” 110
lb. Cardstock (Wausau Exact Index, I believe,) is the paper I use. I have
a small triangle and a metal ruler to help draw the panels. I did use Sakura
Micron Pigma pens, but when the local art store stopped carrying them I
switched to those by Zig Memory System. I use the point sizes: 08, 05,
03, 01, 005. My next goal is to learn to ink with a brush. Right now, I'm
experimenting with brush pens to better get the feel of it.
How
do you come up with ideas?
Oh,
boy. This is the question is so hard to answer and have it explain the
process adequately. Sometimes they hit me at random or songs or pop culture
just transforms itself into a joke. Other times, it's like the characters
are living in my head and I'm only a camera documenting their bizarre life.
Usually, though, I run ideas by my boyfriend who tells me which ones are
good, gives suggestions and helps me tweak punchlines to their funniest.
For some reason, I think up my best stuff when he's around.
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