Catchoo

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I never thought I'd have a cat, let alone two cats. Mostly they are adorable, but sometimes they can be... less than adorable. Since September, I've been in Camosun's Comics and Graphic Novels program and so far we've done all our comics with pen and paper. To shake things up, I decided to draw a comic totally digitally for the first time in a while. Let me know if you have a preference between digital or analogue comics in the comments section! 
If you know a cat person who would enjoy this week's comic, please share Smith vs Smith with them!

Have a great week, 

Matt Smith!

Hungry

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Big thanks to everyone who has purchased a copy of "Three Crushes" my 24 Hour Comic! If you haven't read it yet, you can get your copy now! I created the whole 24 page comic in (less than) 24 hours a few weekends ago. It's chock full of gut-wrenching stories of middle school heart break. Fun for everyone!

This week's page was originally an assignment from my life drawing teaching, cartoonist Joan Steacy. Joan tasked us with taking a pose from life drawing and turning it into a "splash page" (one image for a full comic page). I love turning assignments into Smith vs Smith comics, so while my classmates created scenes of samurais fighting monsters, I drew a scene featuring Emma and the cats!

Let me know what you think of the single panel splash page experiment in the comments!

- Matt Smith!
 

Trust

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For the last two weeks, I've been adding behind-the-scenes commentary to the weekly comic. Last week's comic ended up being a huge process, so I hoped this week's comic would be simple. It was not. 

Like last week's "A Summer Hike," this week's comic started as a quick page in a page of "The Blank." 

I wanted to work on my figure drawing and character poses, so I enlisted my sister-in-law and had her take photos of Emma and in similar poses to my sketch page. Then I digitally inked over the reference photos.

 

Film is my first love, and I always wish my comics were more cinematic. So I took the opportunity to use some film language along with the comic language. The comic ends on a reverse of the first panel. Where we started with Emma downstairs looking at me on the stairs and asking me to turn around and go back up, in the last few panels, I am on the ground, looking up at Emma on the stairs asking her to come back down. In film, when characters swap from left to right, it is called "crossing the line." In this case, the fifth panel is the turning point, when the balance of power shifts and the direction of the scene changes. I highlighted the crossing of the line by drawing us in white silhouette against a black panel. 

The page above has good poses, but the realistic proportions look incongruous with the rest of "Smith vs. Smith." Realistic heads are much smaller than I draw them. And we both look... much wider than I like. I have drawn entire pages completely digitally before, but I keep coming back to inking by hand, so I printed this version of the page, and hand drew over certain panels. 

The version of the page above is a Frankenstein's monster of hand drawings and digital. This is the version of the page I showed to a few friends and shared on a Facebook group. Overwhelmingly, people had issues with the last panel. Showing movement in static comics is a challenge, but showing subtle, slow movement is especially challenging. Based on some suggestions, I moved Emma further up the stairs and out of the frame. Angie Coe, a talented cartoonist from the Facebook group (she also does relationship comics so if you like my comics you should check her stuff out) actually drew me a quick sketch to suggest an alternate pose for the last panel. 

Art by Angie Coe. Used with permission.

The new pose makes the action broader and therefore, clearer. I also liked Angie's suggestion that Emma's hand stays where it is, like an anchor. For the final version of the page, I kept my pose the same during the last two panels, only changing my expression. This forces the reader's eye to search for the differences between panels more, allowing the change in Emma's position to stand out more. 

This "simple" page took far more time than I would have expected. If you've made it this far, please leave a comment and let me know what you think and please share with anyone you think has ever been in a similar conversation! 

Cats and Dog

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The last few comics have been about Emma and my summer in Scotland, but this week I felt it was time to show what the cats have been up to. Usually, Neo and Thor spend their summer in a (shockingly expensive) cat hotel, but as Emma and I are moving to Canada, this summer they get to travel. We were worried about their first plane ride, but they handled their British Airways flight quite well (Emma and I had to settle for a KLM flight, but I'm glad the cats were comfy...). 

Our main concern with bringing the cats to Emma's parents' house was the family dog, Maisie. Neo is skittish, but Thor, the smallest pet in the house, is now in charge. The three of them seem to be getting along, which was a huge relief. 

This comic is a bit of a spiritual sequel to the wordless cat comics "Late Night Feeding" and "Thor's Yawn."


This week's comic took much longer than the normal weekly comics take. I really wanted to improve my animal drawing, and since it is a (mostly) silent panel, I wanted to draw the pets in some really animated and exaggerated poses. I originally intended to do more with the backgrounds, letting the pets run across the background through multiple panels, but I could only use two panels in each row because the action is so horizontal. I'm trying to use more black in my comics, but when one of your main characters is a black shaggy cockapoo, the pets got lost in the backgrounds. After staring at the comic for a while, I decided to go back and lighten the background to let the pets POP more. Let me know what you think of the experiments in the comments. And if this comic amused you at all, please share with your friends. Have a great week, 

Matt Smith!

Last Day in Kuwait

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After packing everything up ahead of schedule, we had very little to do in the apartment aside from staring at the wall... Emma and I are both in Scotland for the new two months staying with her parents. Despite being on summer vacation, I'm determined to update the webcomic every Tuesday! I will be making comics soon about our summer! If you can't wait another full week to see some Smith vs Smith content, please follow me on Instagram @smithvssmithcomics

Trail

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When I first started making comics, I never would have guessed how many comics about cats I would be writing... 

Speaking of cats, subscribers should have received my mini-comic "I'm Just Not a Cat Guy." I'd love to hear what you thought about it in the comments! If you haven't subscribed yet, be sure to do so and you can receive cool exclusives like future mini-comics! 

Are you following @smithvssmithcomics on Instagram? I post much more than just the weekly comic. Follow and tell your friends!

Life in Kuwait

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As my time in Kuwait draws to a close, I want to create more comics that show what life is like in Kuwait. The first panel shows our neighbourhood on my walk to school. 
I created this page for an online comics course I'm taking through the California College of the Arts. This week's assignment is to look at how time is used in comics and create a comic that take place over a second, an hour and a day. Check out the one hour comic and check back in next Wednesday for the one second comic!