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We have arrived at a new scene! I altered the colors to portray the fickle weather of New England; that afternoon was bright and sunny, but once Maggie got out of school it became overcast and a little dreary. I am now more than half way through the first issue and look forward to reaching the home stretch.

I apologize that it’s been a few days since the last page, but I have great news! I have landed a full time job as an artist for a company that is currently producing some games. I had my first day yesterday and it really is one of the most amazing feelings to know that all my hard work and these years in college haven’t gone to waste and my talent is needed. I’m pretty sure I’m one of the luckiest people in the world, and the support I’ve received from friends and family in wishing me luck and celebrating the good news really means a lot. Something even crazier than getting a job before I even graduate in my field: my best friend Vanessa got a position, as well, and we’ll be working together. So awesome!

Fortunately I’ve accomplished a good amount of my comic before full time work came in the picture and am not too concerned about my productivity being interrupted, it just may be a bit slower. Considering I started exactly a month ago and have already produced a full website, done a good deal of networking with other cartoonists and have completed 17 page (at 3-4 hours each that’s about 60 hours of work in 30 days), I believe I am in pretty good shape.

This past Thursday I organized a Maine Cartoonists Roundtable and we had a great turnout! A couple fellows from the Trees and Hills collective out of New Hampshire/Vermont were in the area, and we had some new faces as well. I look forward to the next one. Thanks to Coast City Comics for lending us their space, and thank you to the people who showed up! I look forward to the next one.

And thanks to anyone who reads this thing, too. : )

With the posting of page 13, I am officially halfway through Chapter I of Under the Apple Tree. Since Drunk Duck’s page uploader is down until tomorrow I figured I’d mention it here, as well as some historical tidbits about the comic so far. I’ll post the page up there once everything’s available again.

The current scene features Kennebunk High School, where Maggie is the newest student. The building was built in 1938 so it would still be pretty shiny and new when she came to town in 1943. Back then there were only a few hundred kids so the main brick building was enough, but by the time I attended in 2001 there were two larger additions added on that make it look quite different than it should in the comic.

The main building is what you see in the comic, and that extension in the back was added much later. There is also a large wing behind the original that extends far out to the opposite side. As I have no references of what the school grounds looked like before those were added, I kind of had to make up what it looked like. I assumed there was much more green and trees.

I did four pages of the comic this week and updated some of the materials on the website. On top of that, I registered it with Comic Rank so I can keep track of the number of readers I have, as well as Comic Space for further networking. I am still seeking votes on Top Web Comics, my goal is to be in the top 100 someday!

I found it rather difficult to get new readers to the official website, so I created a mirror at Drunk Duck where I will also be posting the new pages. By being a part of a site like that I have the support of a comics community as well as the handiness of the option to comment on each of the pages and other nifty features. I still redirect anyone looking for character descriptions, etc to those pages on my personal website.

At this point I’m in the networking/gaining readers stage, and I’d say I’ve been pretty productive. That amount of work with four pages at probably three hours a piece puts me at a pretty high production level this past week. Let’s see if I can keep this up!

My final semester at SMCC is about to begin, as well as my senior capstone project. In an effort to force myself to actually finish something I have made the graphic novel I’ve been working on my official project, and now if I don’t finish and do it well I will get a very bad grade! I figured with the pressure I’ll finally get it done.

Now, don’t think that I haven’t been working on it at all… as a matter of fact, I’ve done SEVEN versions of the first page alone (see above, click image for larger version). It’s ridiculous, really. From its earliest incarnation in the summer of 2007 to the current (and better), I have gotten stuck in the first few pages.

And it is time to end that trend! Wish me luck!