It might have been helpful to announce this ahead of time.

Beginning today, projecting through Friday and culminating on Monday, we will offer you one page "treatments" of three comics which differ radically from our usual output. Next week, we'll get a poll up to determine which one you'd like to see us investigate further. Then, later this summer - during the San Diego Comic Con would be my guess - we'll upload a storyline based on what the metamind has chosen.

Today's offering is Lookouts, and if you're curious about the conversation that accompanied its manufacture, we've uploaded a podcast that covers some (but not all) of it. The podcast, too, is different from what we usually offer: this writing process is the one we use for longer form, more serious projects, where the art duties are so substantial that we must forego our typical hybrid system for something more specialized and industrial. As a result, since the writing is taking place in the moist, dark cavern of my skull, it's not something you can actually record. Or, you could record it, but it's not audible. In any case, as is usual, my goal is to "accompany" what he is doing, in he musical sense. I'm aware that every word I write must necessarily obliterate comic art, and so I try to make this trade come out even.

On Friday, I expect we will deliver Automata: film noir, during the Prohibition on Machine Intellect. Monday should see a vehicle for Jim Darkmagic (of the New Hampshire Darkmagics). I like writing Penny Arcade, but I also crave the exertion of creating entire worlds and sustaining them in my mind. My goal, my ultimate goal, is to build a universe that doesn't fall apart two days later. It is my hope that one of these strange creatures will endure.

(CW)TB out.  

in the empty coats of men

Wow, the response to Lookouts has been overwhelming so far. I've got people begging for Lookouts merit badges and a Lookouts patch.  I have to give a fuck ton of credit to Kiko for absolutely killing the logo. I've also had people asking for more information about the Lookouts.

The world of the Lookouts is a wild one. The majority of it is covered in a dense magical forest called the Eyrewood. Human settlements are few and far between. Learning to navigate and live alongside the forest is a necessity. Men must protect the few roads they have through the woods and as the Lookouts' creed says, "What men must know a boy must learn." Young boys in this world join the Lookouts and are taught the ways of the forest.

You can listen to the podcast and hear how we fleshed out the idea and specifically nailed down the hook for this page. While Tycho was working on the creed and the rest of the dialogue I went to work on designing the Lookouts themsleves. Here is my rough sketch for the troop.

I've had a lot of requests to see the artwork at a highr res. I pulled out one of the panels here:

Click on it for a larger version.


Thanks for all of the great comments. I'm really glad you guys seem to like the Lookouts as much as we do. I think Kiko is working on a Wallpaper of the logo. I'll post it here once he's done.

-Gabe out

I have to thank a reader for giving us the name of the Girl Scout equivalent to the Lookouts. Girls in this world could join the Daughters of the Eyrewood. Tycho and I have been talking about what might happen when both groups go off to camp. The boys and girls split perhaps by some haunted lake. I want to draw more stories in this world!

-Gabe out

Kiko thought you guys might like one of these:

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(CW)TB

I could not help myself.