Hey, readers of "Dave & Terrence"! There's this story with a couple of crowd scenes I'm working on, and instead of coming up with dozens of faces from scratch - why not draw some from reference?

Post a link to your ref below and you might make a cameo in a panel or two! (But don't be mad if you don't make it! 😅)

Alternatively, you can post a picture directly as a reply to my post on Bluesky.

I haven't uploaded anything to this place since... *checks*... February?? Geez. That's an actual record of mine. Not for the last of pieces, however. There's some stuff that I did manage to do here and there, some of it is even finished, cough cough, but it's been just a very busy period, I suppose. I just never find the time or urge to hit that post button.

Gonna do something about that in the coming days, however. So expect a floodgate or two to open. There's the remainder of "Switch" that still needs to go up here, as well as a batch of cogs here and there. It'll be neat. (I hope, hoho.)

A little over two years ago I posted this journal entry about my plans for "Jolson & Jones". I figure you noticed that not much came out of it. A few more pages were completed - but never posted, at least not here on FA. The last one I put up were was... *clickclickscroll* ...#154 but my archive goes up to #163, so there's still some in a state that it actually presentable on the main gallery. ;) As for #164 to #200 it's another story. They're all just rough sketches with text, but I think they're serviceable enough for everyone who wants to know how the thing actually ends.

So, to wrap this thing up, once and for all, I decided to pull a "Tintin and Alph-Art" and upload everything that remains of this unfinished project. The finished pages will go to the main gallery, the rest will appear in the scraps section. All I need to do is just thumbnail a few panels that don't have a visual representation yet, replace my scribbly pencil handwriting that isn't readable for anyone but me with fonts - and then, as you read those pages, you may let your mind run free and imaging what the completed pages visually may have looked like. ;) Just give me a couple of days, because it's still a lot of work.

Either way! All four or five of you that still care: You'll finally get closure to the story! :D

See ya!

...one day I finally have something to upload again.

It appears that the site is actually getting some traction now - which does make it a successor to Tumblr after all?

Either way, let's follow each other over there, hop hop!

https://www.pillowfort.social/KaoruGreendrake

But you can slap them so they finally wake.

I GUESS

(Please try. Gwwwf. Snore.)

I drew the last pages of my comic in late 2018 (November? I think?) and then work on "Jolson & Jones" came to a screeching halt. Whoops.

There are a couple of reasons why it happened. The work on "Pico" isn't entirely to blame here, although it played a large part in it. Even though the "Dave & Terrence" stories in the magazines are relatively short, they somehow take longer to do overall, possibly because of the start/stop nature. There isn't a flow in it like with the comic about the wolves where I could go straight from page to page. Here I am forced to take breaks so I can edit the books, as well as cut and staple every copy. And once an issue is done, I usually have to start working on the next one right away. In the meantime, I made it a point to finally finally finally finish the work on the second chapter for "The King's Dragons", which was overdue years ago. Overall, I gave myself very little time to even waste a thought on "Jolson & Jones". At least thoughts that were tied to actively working on it.

On the other hand, I must admit that there are sections in the comic that, with the increasing passing of time, really rub me the wrong way and just seem like very stupid (if not even bad) takes on a topic. I tried to "course-correct" them later on and reuploaded pages with revised dialogue sections to make them a little less "Eh.", but the result still wasn't anything that I was particularly proud of. Here's a lesson. folks! No matter how much you cut around the edges, the tone will remain the same! And since these sections in question were important for the comic's storyline and mythology, they were impossible to dispose of without making of the comic incomprehensible in the long run. Basically, the thought of them being out in the wild for everyone to discover phyisically hurt me.

Also there was the issue of where the themes and storylines were heading towards. I had most of them mapped out in my head years ago, and thus had set them all up across the first 90 pages or so - and then, you know, Trump happened. And a lot of things that seemed funny to me at the time suddenly weren't funny anymore, because they did indeed become reality, or at the very least threatening to become one. Continuing down that path would have really bummed me out, and probably would have taken a toll on my sanity.

(And then there was the instance of topical jokes. Boy, did some of them date quickly. Sometimes they did before the page in question was out, I kid you not. Here's my recommendation: Never make a comic with commentary on the topics of the day. It becomes incomprehensible to everyone in at least five years time, if not even earlier.)

So what followed was that I, some time in 2019, I simply took the site offline and removed the links to it on basically all of my accounts, basically burying it.

But soon I had to discover that this action bothered me quite a bit in the long run. It occupied a large chunk of the "unfinished business"-part of my brain. The thing wasn't just that I aborted the comic while it was right in the middle of a long ongoing storyline, there were also many jokes and events that I had set up that never were allowed to see a payoff. This was something that increasingly clouded my mind and distracted me whenever I was working on something else - and/or something new. I was mentally unable to move on. The few stray Jolson & Jones single strips that I put up here (removed from the continuity of the big story) sure were my methadone - but still they couldn't replace the real thing.

So dang it, whatever, I'm giving in after all - and finish the darn thing.

However!

I decided to cut the last third of the initially planned story that would have included lots of material that would only have depressed me. So instead of ending it on page #300something, I will be doing it now on #200something, providing an ending that is far more positive and much less cynical than the original one. Luckily it's something that the story can get away with without looking "false", because all the seeds for that new ending are already there. Heh. Clever Kaoru! It's almost as if you know what would happen... (Even though you really didn't.)

So there! The comic's site will finally be back online - and new pages will come.... soon...ish. Because, here's the thing. I am still working on "Pico" after all, and that magazine won't go anywhere anytime soon, so I can't devote my whole free time to do the last 60 to 70 Jolson & Jones pages even if I wanted to. Meaning, I'll be creating a fair amount of backlog until I begin to release them. I really don't want to have big breaks between pages again as it used to be the case in 2017 and 2018. I'd rather have an uninterrupted run as much as possible.

Nevertheless, if you are curious and really can't wait to see how things continue, I'll be putting them up on my Patreon whenever they're finished. And don't worry, I'm cheap. You can see them for as much as a Dollar per month. ;) (As well as all the Dave & Terrence stories that, so far, can only be read in print.) The link to it is on my profile.

Anyway, that would be it! The last word on "Jolson & Jones" wasn't spoken after all! Who would have thought?

Yeah, I do have one! ;) For a longer while even. So announcing it yet again is anything but news... but hey - why not draw attention to it one more time?

https://discord.gg/Ucnm6p7

Join the gang if you enjoy talking comics, strips, cartoons - and maybe even my own work. ;)

See you there!

Remember the story I wrote a few years back? The King's Dragons? It was supposed to be the first chapter in a series, and I expected the second one to be ready a few months later. But what happened was quite the opposite. It wasn't just the writing that lingered on and on and on, I also had to fight uphill battles against such as corrupted files and lost USB sticks.

But hey, I finally managed to finish writing this beast, and that's what counts, I suppose. Even though I'm not sure if anyone here still is waiting for the sequel, but at least it's technically done.

Only technically? Well, yes. The problem is, I'm no native English speaker, so it's all written in a second language. (Which was one of the reasons why there were periods in which I struggled hard getting on with writing it.) So chances aren't exactly low that there's the occasional wonky sentence in it, nevermind unsound grammar here and there, let alone choices of words that are off.

Hence! I need someone to check the text for stuff like that, and (best case scenario) corrects mistakes and slips on the spot. However, we're talking about a very very long text here. This chapter clocks at almost 68.000 words. (Hey, this is why it took me so long!) For comparison: The first chapter had about 25.000, so it is more than twice as long. Yikes. So it's hardly a single evening's work.

Thus my question to you! Who of you would be interested in doing that?

In case someone of you is, we could negotiate something there. We could frame it as a commission... or even as a trade, in which would offer an art piece or whatever in return. ;)

Hope to hear back from you!

Aye! After spending years and years of saying "I should probably open a Patreon. One of these days." I finally went ahead and did it after all. ;)

https://www.patreon.com/KaoruGreendrake

And yep, it'll be the usual deal like with every other art person out there. You'll get to see finished pieces earlier than everyone else, WIPs and so forth and so on.

BUT! You'll also get the chance of actually getting a book! Customized, printed, signed! Something for the shelves, as opposed to for your tablet and computer screen! :)

Thanks to everyone who's backing! :D

Remember that comic book I was doing with  dingensen and  gonechoo ? Yep, that's still a thing! It's going into a second round this month, but  bakertoons has stepped in for Dingsbums, who had to take a break to study for university exams.

Anyway, if you want to grab a copy - subscribe to us on Patreon!
https://www.patreon.com/PicoComic

It's not a monthly pledge, btw - only for every time we complete a new book, so don't worry about getting poor over us. ;) Unfortunately this is the only way to get a copy for the time being, but the more time passes, the more we'll figure out solutions to distribute it in a better way. (We may have found one alley, albeit a limited one - but nothing is set in stone yet. However it is quite possible you may see our book on some con tables here and there. We'll let know in case it happens!)

Plans for issue #3 are on their way already, btw... but this time it'll be me who has to take a break (editing it notwithstanding). Because ohmygosh, it's so much work. And I have some other work to do after all. Every time I work on Pico I have to put everything else on hold. So in case you were wondering why there weren't any Jolson & Jones updates for a while, this is the reason. Also, I'd reallyreallyreally like to finally finish the second chapter of "The King's Dragons" for good (There really isn't that much writing left to do, btw), so I need to make some time to do that.

...as well as some other tiny things here and there. One needs variety in their life after all.

Anyway - those are the plans! These are the days my friends and these are the days my friends!

You might or not have been aware of „Pico“, a comic anthology magazine I’m doing together with  Gonechoo and  Dingensen . And we will continue to work on it (in fact, we’re so far ahead that work already has begun on the third issue!), so expect more to come!

Either way, we’ll be closing the store for a couple of weeks at the end of the 28th of December. The reason is that we want to revamp it a little to make it a little more prettier – but also we need to sort out some other stuff, such as that wonky (and quite stressful) new German shipping law that comes to effect by January the 1st! So if you have been on fence of buying a copy until now (Hey, it’s only a couple of bucks, so what’s keeping you? ;) ), this might be a good time to do so! And also to contact us if your order still hasn’t arrived for some reason.

For now though you can still order “Pico” here: https://hattedbirdpress.bigcartel.com/

And the Twitter account to follow would be this one: https://twitter.com/ComicPico

You miiiight want to be doing that anyway, because we have some exciting news to share over time! (Well, they’re exciting to *us* that is! :D )

---

On another note…

This is probably only interesting to my German watchers, but what the heck:
I wrote this year’s Christmas story for the German Doctor Who podcast. Or rather, I did that about two years ago, when Peter Capaldi was still the Doctor and Clara still the companion (sort of), so that’s why they’re the characters in this story instead of Jodie Whittaker and her pack. It had to be delayed two times because of the podcaster’s illness that always hit him just before Christmas, so he could never finish the sound design in time.

Hearing it now, two years later, I wish I could rewrite a few paragraphs here and there and make the dialogue a little snappier in places, but what the heck, I’m totally fine with the result. And I personally feel that I wrote the better Amazon episode of the year. ;)

https://www.whocast.de/2018/12/25/w.....ter-des-todes/

This tweet here...

https://twitter.com/Draakaoru/statu.....21202440916992

...is spilling a few more beans, but not the full story yet. We'll get there, we'll get there! :)

As this tweet right here explains I'm in the mood for doing some commissions! All ink on paper in black and white of course, because that's the only thing I can do, simple and plain!

A character in full body like this one (Example) is 15€, two characters (Example) is 25$.

If you want a background, like here or here or even here that would be +15$!

Reply here or sent me a PM or whatever if you're interested!

...absolutely nothing to say in these journals ever. And yet I fell compelled to write one. What shall I do, what shall I do? With all of the drunken sailors?

Offer them cake? (And if so, which one? And are there wrong answers?)

Because my telegram group isn't enough, I suppose...

...I created a Discord server for even further chatting, WIPs, things I probably won't upload to galleries, general chat, messing around, this and that!

https://discord.gg/Ucnm6p7

Join the talk, if you talk! =)

It's a bit of a slow Tuesday here, so let's play interviewer and interviewee!

So I opened a Telegram group!

https://t.me/joinchat/A7f2OxDvWinwnWgq2svOqA

At first I thought about doing "just" a channel where I could post some art, doodles, WIP, sketches and things that I probably won't upload anywhere. But to be honest... I rather have a place to hang out and to talk with people. ;) So it will be a mix of this and that.

But apart from being a place to just say "Hi everyone, how's your day?", I'll also announce streams (something I don't tend to do very often on FA or Twitter because I'm lazy) and ask for refs or something when I'm in the mood for a random doodle/picture/headshot or whatever. So you might actually even get some art out of this thing, who knows. ;)

So for everyone who wants to join and take at least a look around: See you there!

No, not for a song. Well, at least not a recorded one.

But there's an upcoming page in "Jolson & Jones" that has the characters singing and dancing - and stupid second language me is really struggling come up with proper rhymes and finding the right words.

Is anyone here who would want to help out? Or anyone who knows someone who would help out? (And who would lead me out of my despair?)

Not that I don't have more than enough to work on already, but there's this script for a gay werewolf story I have been sitting on for a relatively long while now, and I haven't done anything with it so far. And yes, I'd really love to pull it out of the world of abstract pencil sketches and bring it into full existence, but I'm not quite sure if the script is as strong as it could be. I'm pleased with the first two thirds of it, but it's the final act that is bugging me - and effectively fully going forward with this project. I feel that the ending drags and goes on for far too long, but I can't quite decide what to cut from it... or if I just shouldn't even cut it from the story altogether. And this is, I guess, where I need other people's opinion.

Is anyone of you interested in taking a look at and tell me what you think? In its current incarnation it's 42 pages, written in pencil, accompanied with aforementioned pencil blobs that are sometimes more, sometimes less elaborate. But always elaborate enough to know what's going on.

I have the following things to say:

- I just tasted kumquats for the first time ever in my life - and I'm thoroughly fascinated. Look at me raising my eyeridge in a Leonard Nimoy style! I never would have noticed them or even given them a second thought if it hadn't been for Eega Beeva in the Mickey Mouse strips. What a culinary education those comics are!

- At work we've been entering the third month of "Almost all of the colleagues are sick foreeeveeeer!". I'm not quite sure which side won here. Is it physical or mental exhaustion? Both teams might go head to head in this, I'm afraid. And I better should stop tweeting from crappy nightshifts. Or else I make myself look like a worse crank than I actually am.

- There's a section in "Jolson & Jones" that makes me feel rather embarrassed, and I wish I never had done it in the first place. And the more time passes on the more I actively resent it. So much that I sometimes seriously consider burying the entire thing. Yes, it's that bad.

- On a somewhat related note: You know what I enjoy drawing the most? Other people's characters. Been realizing it once more of the recent slew of sketches (and that one picture I am working on). I'll probably do more of that. Randomly. Unasked. You might get a picture completely out of nowhere, just because I felt for doing so. Maybe not. But if you happen to get one: Don't be bewildered - I just simply did it because I felt for doing so!

- I recently learned that Gary Oldman is about two weeks younger than Gary Numan. My mind has been blown.

- What blowed your mind recently?

THE BIG TO-DO LIST!!

- Yeah, there was this BIG THING with all the people, wasn't there? The one I was asking your refs for? I'm working on it, I'm working on it. It's just a little more elaborate to do than I hoped it would be, so it's taking a lot of time. But well. Soon, sooooon it shall arise.

- The second chapter of "The King's Dragons" is in progress... still. After I got the picture mentioned above in the can, working on it will be the main priority. I really, really, really finally want to see it out, and the sooner the better. (If anyone is actually still waiting for it beside me, that is. Ahem.) If I can't get it done this summer I'll be raging mad about myself. Gwearlaraahagh!!

- I'm also writing the Jolson & Jones pages following #114, but I won't be drawing them before I got the prose thing mentioned above done. Priorities, priorities!

And now some hot chocolate cake.

Eeep. Well, that was a bit of a bummer. Not the show itself, but rather the sudden cancellation of it. Granted, it wasn't a *total* surprise, just a little unexpected. Until now almost pretty much everything on Netflix got renewed like there was no tomorrow (There's going to be a second season of "Flaked", and I bet almost no one knows that this show even exists), but I guess these days are long gone now, since it wasn't the only show in recent days on that service that faced a premature end. And it has to be said: Sense8 was a very expensive show to make and there were not that many people watching it. At least I hardly knew of any who did. I hardly saw any discussions about it on social media. I never saw any gifs of episodes that created a meme. There never was any real *buzz*, at least not on the scale of "Stranger Things". On the other hand it has to be said that it never got the big promotion that "House of Cards" and "Orange is the New Black" received. Would more people have watched if there had been posters all over town and ad banners on every website? We'll never know. All I know is that I only knew that the second season was online because it popped up in my queue. And in hindsight this probably was the first sign that Netflix had already given up on the show by then.

Ahwell, anyway. I'm going to miss this show's corny butt. The mixture of upright sincerity and in-your-face messages. The touching speeches and the lines that even George Lucas would have considered to be too cheesy. The loveable characters and the over the top actors that would project every emotion on a 200% level. On a superficial level it reminded me of the early seasons of "Torchwood" - with the notable difference that this show was actually executed *well*.

My biggest point of annoyance however is that the series was just in the middle of hitting its stride. The mythology got deep, the storylines were expanding and coerced with others - and this literally on a global scale. And we merely got to see the tip of the iceberg; so seeing it ending the way it does is rather... anticlamactic. But well, what can you do. In the end it was a pleasant surprise to see "my" Doctor Sylvester McCoy having a recurring part in Season 2, and there were visual moments that I'll probably never forget. That one fight scene in which Wolfgang was up against Lila with both of them having their cluster behind them, mimicking their movements in unison, certain was something you had never seen before (and I wish it had been longer).

Since the chances that another service (let alone even a network) would pick this show up are 100 below zero, we'll probably get a comic book that attempts to conclude the story (but will most likely get cancelled in the long or even short run due to low sales). Nope, it didn't read this somewhere, this is just my own little guesswork.

I personally wonder though if cancellation like these, shows with a long continuing storylines, won't hurt Netflix image in the long run. Because until now it something of a "safe haven". It was the service that would take over cancelled shows from networks and conclude them properly or even give them the resources that it didn't get elsewhere. "Black Mirror" springs to mind especially. But now you learn that even here you have to face the threat of a show facing a sudden dead end. (And when Netflix has passed on you you have nowhere to go. Which network or other service would pick you up? But the actual tricky thing about this is: You as a fan would never even know that the show you love and invested in was ever in danger because we never get to hear the viewing figures. So the axing will always come out of the blue and out of utter leftfield. And there will never be the time for a fandom to organize and start a "Save our show!"-campaign.) So in the end this means that Netflix is "just like all the others" and doesn't treat its shows any better then, say, FOX does. (In a way you're probably even better off on a network, at least from a certain perspective. You very well might have less creative freedom, but at least you'll get a chance to conclude your story properly when you see the numbers coming in and therefore the "writing on the wall".) So... um... well. You probably wouldn't want to pay a monthly fee to a subscription service if it keeps cancelling your shows, you know what I mean? And I have to say, the majority of "Netflix biggies" like the aforementioned "Orange is the New Black" or "House of Cards" are something that I have no interest in. I can't say that I'm seriously considering cancelling my subscription yet, but events like these cause some mental cogs turning.

So, in the end, "Sense8" probably wasn't on my personal list of favourite shows of all time, at least it wasn't *yet* at this stage anyway, so I may sound a little more invested here than I actually am. (In fact, I was about to write a journal about the shows I've been watching lately, and wanted to give the second season of "Sense8" a short mention.) But I do find the mechanics behind the cancellation and its implications for the future rather disheartening.

Yep! Refs of your character, please!

Not promising anything... but there's a chance you might appear in a THING!

...one day, some day. Depending on when I finish it. Ho-hum.

*mysterious dragonhand rubbing*

---

Closed now!

Now you just have to wait and see! :)

Draw a hot'n pretty shirtless wolf guy wearing nothing but jeans and I'll be your biggest fan until the end of time.

You read it here first!!