OTR DOODLES

On the road in Minnesota for the holidays, I didn't forget to pack a page of doodles for this week's offering. 

Someone pointed out that I have a lot of werewolf drawings in this blog.  Guilty as charged, I guess... but at least the one here is happy and full of youthful exuberance.

I'LL HAVE A (NYPD) BLUE CHRISTMAS WITHOUT YOU...

Back in the late nineties, the cop drama NYPD BLUE, while popular, was constantly adding and losing actors.  I drew this holiday card reflecting what cast additions the yuletide season might bring about.  As I recall the inside of the card read: "Don't make me bring in Sergeant Rudolph... 'he's not half as pleasant as I am..."

HO, HO, HO-ly Partridge in a Pear Tree, it's December!

WOW...A PAGE FROM 12 o'CLOCK SOMEWHERE!!

At long last, a complete page from the opus.  But jeez, putting a comic together via computer IS NOT easy. 

When I was a kid, I'd grab typing paper (or buy some -- my mom charged me half a penny for each sheet as we had plenty of scratch paper and typing paper cost money)and off I'd go, careful not to use markers that bled through the page.  

Flash forward to now and, hey, computers are fun to do comics with but there is lots of grunt work involved.  For this single page, I drew the pictures and colored them (the fun part) and then I used Word to size 'em and add the word balloons and dialogue.  THEN I had to save the panels individually as PDFs so that I could use Photoshop Elements to collect and arrange each of the panels on a page, drop in a black background and publish it.

Whew.

I admit I am not the most computer savvy, especially in using my PC for this sorta thing, so if you have any tips as how I can remove a step or two from the above process, your advice would be greatly appreciated.