Welcome to the new site!  It’s exciting to finally have all these stories up in their entirety on the web.  We’re looking forward to hearing your reactions to them.  Random Ink is the first comic we published back in 2005, and it’s great to have this anthology where we can do any style of comics we want.  Hopefully, you enjoy the variety, too!

Be sure to poke around the site.  The stories page will give you a quick overview of the different tales on here.  You can check some character sketches and pin-ups, as well as download some free wallpapers and even bookmarks.  And remember… if you want to have our comics in print you can get them in our store.

And here’s the big news… every Tuesday for the next six weeks we will be posting a new complete story right here. Currently you can read all the stories from Random Ink #1, but starting next week you will begin to see the ones from #2.  And they’re all in full-color!  So be sure to check back then (or subscribe to our RSS feed), because we’ve got a lot more to show you!

Just a quick note to let you know that Elton and I are both on Twitter now. Elton mainly posts about his Life, the Universe and Sci-Fi blog, while I’ll be keeping everyone up to date on the progress of our comics. Feel free to follow us if you want updates even more frequently than this blog!

Elton on Twitter

Seth on Twitter

(When my dad heard I was on there, he asked if this meant that I was “twitterpated.” See where I get my witty sense of humor?)

The year was 1991. Elton was in 8th grade, and I was in 7th… but we had study hall together in our little school up in Kalispell, Montana. It was there that we discovered our mutual nerdiness and began crafting attempting comics. Our first ever comic was a 87-page monstrosity called Featured Comics which Elton wrote and I drew. We came up with an incredibly unique story… a band of heroes defend the world from an alien threat. Amazingly, even selling it at 50¢ to mostly relatives, we moved very few copies. But hey, it was our first book. And thankfully the first of many.

While we were putting Random Ink #2 together for print, I decided it would be fun to revisit our first comic. So I redrew the cover. I tried to stay true to the original and not redesign anything… just draw everything better. Then I added color and computer lettering (two luxuries we couldn’t dream of back in junior high). The results are still pretty goofy, but it was great fun to do. Elton and I both have poster versions of it hanging up now.

We hope you like it.

(By the way, if for some reason you want to see more of the original comic… you can here. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya, though.)

We have some fresh fan art for you.  Dakotah Gilmore created these fun renditions of the Martian and his returning enemy.  It looks like he had fun creating some new weaponry for both of them!

So, for quite a while now I’ve been wanting to share with you what we have in the works, but I wanted to wait until things were closer to completion. Well, we’re getting pretty close now, so here goes…

We’re gearing up for our usual two conventions (HurleyCon and Planet Comicon) in March, and preparing at least two new books for release then. Random Ink #3 is going to be coming out, featuring stories by all four of us. The preview image above shows some random panels from my main story in the book, “Useless Words.” It tells the story of a man who just found out that the moon is falling to the earth and has to deal with the panic of knowing the world is about to end. This was originally made for a comics anthology that was to feature stories all set in the same situation.  I’m glad it’s finally going to see print!

Here you can see two random pages (minus dialogue) from the longest story in Random Ink #3, “First Impressions.”  It was written by Elton and me and drawn by Matt.  It picks up immediately where the Sir Knight story in Random Ink #1 left off.  He has been taken from the past to the future and given a mission in the present.  Unfortunately, his first experience in modern day is not a peaceful one.

Matt is really coming into his own with his art on this story, kicking it up a notch in both detail and action.  It’s been a blast to see his take on our characters!  I know you all are going to enjoy it.

Remember, we’ll be premiering this issue at both HurleyCon (in Joplin on March 6) and Planet Comicon (in Kansas City on March 27 & 28).

Here you can see pages from the third story from this issue.  Dusty has been planning his Pixie Pirates story for quite a while, and this six-pager is a prologue that sets up the tale to follow.  Why are they called the Pixie Pirates?  Well, you will see soon enough…

The exciting thing about this issue is it is truly the first time all four of us have contributed fairly evenly to an issue!  Hopefully that will be the case more often than not.

Random Ink #3 and Sketchings #3 have both been sent to the printer.  You can pick one up from us at HurleyCon and Planet Comicon.  The Random Ink stories will be posted to that site starting very soon.  You’ll also be able to order them at the Indy Planet store… we’ll let you know when they’re available on there.

Stay tuned!