Masked Manor

Q: When did you start drawing cartoons?

A: I started drawing when I was in pre-school. My memory’s a little fuzzy on this, but I think in kindergarten a teacher caught me drawing while I should have been paying attention to something else, and she very graciously bumped me up to first grade. (I think the drawing in question was some kind of spirally dragon thing with a huge mouth.) In middle school I created a silly comic strip called In the Bag, starring me and my classmates. I kept drawing until my early high school years, when I began to get impatient and felt really dissatisfied with the instruction and lack of freedom in art classes, so I drifted away from cartooning in favor of playing bass guitar, singing, writing and recording progressive rock, and — for stable income — web design. It wasn’t until late 2009 that I decided to get back to drawing, and to do it on a regular basis with some discipline.

Q: Which cartoonists have inspired you?

A: Growing up, my favorite comic strip was Garfield, and Jim Davis was a big deal to me. I owned no less than five or six of the Garfield Treasury books. I didn’t think much about comics again until much later on in my college years, when I began reading Scott Kurtz’s PvP and Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik’s Penny Arcade. Since then I’ve also become a fan of Kris Straub’s Starslip (formerly Starslip Crisis), Dave Kellett’s Sheldon, and Brad Guigar’s Evil Inc. Tom Siddell’s Gunnerkrigg Court oozes distinctiveness and just has a killer, mysterious vibe about it. I really dig the suspense and visual style of Steve Ogden’s Moon Town. David Reddick’s Legend of Bill is adventurous, vibrant, goofy, and awesome. And what can I say about Tracy J. Butler’s Lackadaisy? Color me blown away. Love, love, love all these. In addition, there are tons of other comics I’ve read that impress me to no end, but I simply can’t mention them all! My apologies if I’ve left you out!

Q: Do you have any advice for artists looking to improve their craft?

A: Research, research, research, and practice, practice, practice. Photographic and live reference are huge. There are also lots of great art and cartooning books out there, if you take some time to poke around. My best advice is to find someone whose work you admire, and try to learn from what they do. No committed artist ever stops learning from the rest of the community. It’s an ongoing process.

Q: How did you get the idea for Masked Manor?

A: In late 2009 I started bouncing around ideas for a comic strip, and the notion of a bunch of classic movie monsters and horror icons turned on their end started to amuse me. I wanted to create characters that were fun to spend time with, and I liked the idea of thrusting them into dangerous and absurd predicaments together. I also liked the idea of doing a long-form storyline but breaking it up into bite-sized daily pieces. I started drawing up concept sketches with pen and paper, and managed to nail down most of the main character designs within a week or so.

Q: What does the title Masked Manor mean?

A: The actual title of the comic is a reference to a plot idea that was my initial impetus for creating the strip. Strangely enough, when it came time to start writing the individual strips, I realized that I had a really cool origin story for the comic that was too much fun to pass up, so I started with that instead. The plot points that spawned the name actually happen later in the timeline.

Q: What tools do you use to make the strip?

A: The strip is entirely digital. I began using a tablet (a Wacom Bamboo) for the first time ever in late 2009 and have used it since then for everything having to do with Masked Manor. I started with Adobe Photoshop CS3 but near the end of Season One I upgraded to CS5 64-bit, which greatly sped up my workflow due to the increased memory headroom. If you work with large files in an older version of Photoshop and you’re wondering why your tons of RAM isn’t helping (anything over 3GB), I would highly recommend upgrading to a 64-bit version of Photoshop on a 64-bit OS (I’m currently running 64-bit Windows 7 Pro).

Q: What size is your original art?

A: I work at the completely ridiculous overkill resolution of 600 DPI. While I could get away with working at half that resolution, I find that 600 DPI gives me enough wiggle room to scale things up and down as needed and never really lose any detail or make things blurry. Since the final product is almost always going to be scaled down compared to the original (for example, 300 DPI for print), I know the images will always be crisp.

Q: How long does it take you to finish a single strip?

A: It depends. If it’s a simple strip, 3 to 5 hours. If it’s more complicated, closer to 7 or 8 hours. I usually manage to knock out one or two strips between Monday and Friday, and then one or two on the weekend. The schedule doesn’t leave much room for error, since I only have a few hours each night on weeknights.

Q: What’s your favorite part of the comic-making process?

A: My favorite part has to be coloring the comics. It just feels like playtime to me, and the final shape of the strip can come together really quickly. Suddenly things that were flat have depth, temperature, and mood. It’s just great fun. If I had to pick a second-favorite part of the process, it would have to be writing the actual story and dialogue.

Q: How far ahead do you work?

A: This changes all the time. As far as the art goes, I used to have a buffer but over time I decided that the pressure of working closer to deadline actually helped my art improve. At any given time I am usually working on the very next strip that will go up on the site. On the occasions that I find more free time, I may draw ahead as far as a few days. As for the writing part of it, I write dialogue and strip-by-strip pacing two to three weeks ahead of what I’m currently drawing. When it comes to the overall plot arc, I know well in advance what’s going to happen and usually have several months roughly planned out in my head.

Q: Do you do this full-time?

A: No, but I would love to, eventually!

Q: Can I buy prints of your strip on the site?

A: Eventually you’ll be able to. I’m still working on that right now.