Heartache Saloon, the Final Chapter

After undertaking this ambitious scene here I pretty much gave up on the whole enterprise. If I weren't a lazy bastard I might have made it into something worthwhile.

And sorry for the bait and switch--the bloodshed promised in episode 4 happened off-panel.

Next: BLOODSHED!

Here's the penultimate installment (as always, click to enlarge). Soon after this I realized that no one gave a shit about it and I dropped it. Either the style is changing in a natural way or I was putting less effort into it. Still, the final page will be lovely, just wait.

(incidentally, the missing bit in the text box at the bottom should read NEXT: BLOODSHED!)

More Heartache

Chapter three. I remember an old horror comic about a cartoonist who farmed out the writing, penciling and inking of his strip to three different guys, each unaware of the others' existence. All the "cartoonist" was capable of doing was ruling panel borders (he ends up murdering all three, they rise from the dead and slaughter him and finish his last strip in blood instead of ink). Anyway, if only being able to rule panel borders is the definition of incompetent cartooning, then I've crossed that frontier, because as you will see with these strips, I couldn't even manage that.

Nice sexy leg, though, in that last panel.

Heartache Saloon, Chapter Two

(Click to enlarge into semi-legibility)

The plot thickens, though only to the consistency of chicken broth. Rabbit-costumed Doris is modeled after a French woman I was half in love with at the time and never managed to get into the sack. As for the rabbit costume, this was 1990 and I'd never heard of furries, but clearly something in the universal unconscious was operating here.

Some sketches:

I'm an idiot.

Heartache Saloon, Chapter One

(Click to make legible)

This is a scan of a copy of the first installment of Heartache Saloon, a comic I started (and ended) in 1990 when I was living in France. A couple of midwestern alt weeklies and music papers ran it for free (in some cases without even notifying me, having gotten it handed to them samzdat style by a third party). I cringe looking at some elements--particularly the lettering--but mostly it makes me wish I'd kept it up and learned to draw better. Dig the crayzeee perspective in that last panel!

The portrait of Poe is pretty good, though.