Creepy Newsletter of Margo Maloo #4

~ A newsletter from cartoonist Drew Weing, the creator of the Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo series. ~

Howdy! I'm dusting this newsletter off again. Turns out the capsizing over at Twitter is good for something after all. I’m done with it, I think. A friendly wave, if you're coming over from there! Let's watch it sink from this seaworthy (for now) lifeboat. Do I really have 500 subscribers to this newsletter now? Substack tells me so!

It's been a busy fall of making Margo stuff in the beautiful Tucson afternoons (in the morning I feed the 3-year-old breakfast burritos and read him Nancy comic strips). I’m trying to re-learn how to feel optimistic.

The first thing I made: a 5-page standalone Margo story for the newest issue of Bezoar.

Bezoar's a zine out of the Athens, GA comics scene, that's usually monster-themed. Since the passing of Patrick Dean, a pillar of the Athens comics community, we've started devoting the anthology to raising funds for ALS research. You can pick up a physical copy here, or a digital one here. Thanks to David Mack for spearheading this one. Here's a little preview of my story:

I’m just now realizing this is the first Margo story I’ve done for black and white. I’ll color it eventually, but it’s nice looking at images made of raw ink once in a while. While I was working on that, I was also scripting and thumbnailing out the next Margo book. I don't have a name for it yet, that comes later and usually after way too much agonizing. But what a relief to finally have a game plan for volume 4.

For me, writing a script is figuring out the major beats of the story and crafting dialogue. I've tried so many different writing apps over the years - thinking that this or that app will finally crack the nut and make writing easy. But it always comes back to me planting my butt in front of a simple text document and just hammering away at it.

Since I'm not writing for another artist, I hardly mention the visuals at this stage - that's for the thumbnailing stage. Here's an example of what a script looks like from book 2:

With the words figured out, I start thinking about the pictures. Here's that same section of book, in thumb form:

I'll be honest, I always go too tight with my thumbnails. This causes me great pain and sadness when I have to re-do or entirely cut pages later on. Take my hard-learned advice, draw your thumbs as quickly and shoddily as you can until you’re ready to commit!

After scripting and thumbing, actually drawing the thing is a cakewalk.

So here's one thumbnail panel from the upcoming book. Check back in a year or so to see how close to this the final art actually came out

Reader Corner: Questions and fan art from readers!

Send yours to weing.drew@gmail.com

How is Halloween already three weeks ago? Sigh. Here's an awesome Fyo costume sent in by reader Claire!

Life in the Desert

Danny’s been in preschool three days a week since the end of summer. On the plus side, Eleanor and I have had a little bit of time to ourselves for the first time in three years. On the minus side, we’ve come down with a family cold every couple weeks since he started. No covid - though I assume that’s coming, as careful and indoor-masked as we remain to this day. Arizona afternoons are finally bearable, and I’m trying to re-learn how to feel optimistic. Leaving Twitter might be the best thing for my brain in years. I’ll need to find new ways to stay connected to the comics community… but for now, maybe I’ll just enjoy the silence.

And that's all for now! I’ll try to be a little more prompt with the next one. How have you been coping?

Find me over at drewweing.com or on instagram.