Murphy's Law as it applies to comics.

You're familiar with Murphy's law, yes? The rule of the universe which dictates that everything that can possibly go wrong will? I think Murphy is deciding to have a little fun with one of my comic book projects. I had this odd but intriguing idea for a comic a few months ago. One of those ideas that just pops into your head out of the blue without any of the usual struggle and hassle you get when you're actually *trying* to have an idea. And with the way the images popped into my head, it was immediately clear to me that it could only be made properly if it were made using scratchboard. Those (if any) who have read my previous posts will know what difficulties I've already been having with locating usable scratchboard. After failing to locate my usual brand in any stores (well, to be fair, I've found the brand in stores quite easily... just not in plain blank black and white. if I wanted to do this comic in black and rainbow or black and copper I would be having no such difficulties), I ordered some scratchboard from Dick Blick and was severely disappointed in the quality. Then my mom bought me a different brand in an art store in New Paltz, which was slightly better quality... but still unworthy of the project at hand (it scrapes pretty smoothly and doesn't flake off in chunks exposing grubby paper like the other stuff, but because of the way the black was applied to the white, it is impossible to get a totally clean white space without light black lines running across it).

So eventually I broke down and ordered the scratchboard I wanted all along from the one place in the US that still seems to stock it in that particular flavor: the official brand website. This morning it came in the mail.

Well, technically, I guess it came in the mail yesterday... During the torrential downpour. And it was left outside of the mailbox. In a paper package. Absolutely no plastic. Completely exposed to the elements. (Despite the fact that with the money I paid for shipping on two packs of it, I could have bought a third one, USPS apparently can't be bothered to provide their workers with cheap plastic bags for delivering priority mail in pouring rain)

So essentially, after all of that, after months of searching for a suitable scratchboard, I finally got exactly what I wanted all along, and it was completely and utterly destroyed before it even made it into my hands. And it costs a dollar a sheet, and I paid out of my own pocket. And I was really excited to get some actual work done on this rare week of freedom from my fulltime job.

So yeah... Apparently Murphy hates comics. Or maybe just scratchboard comics. Who knew?

Engraving Art 2

You remember that rant I had a while back on how hard it is to find Engraving Art scratchboard in anything but rainbow and coloured foil and pre-printed designs and useless (for me) things like that? Well I was searching for it again after disappointing experiments with other brands... and my rant came up in my google search. On the first page. Towards the bottom, but still. That's how hard it is to get a hold of this stuff. You get the official website (with no pictures, so it's hard to know what you're buying, and I'm dubious because white "foil" doesn't sound like what I use), a handful of British websites, and my blog.

Sad.

Engraving Art

Some years ago, I bought a bunch of plain scratchboard from Michaels. Just a blank black coating over a white surface. Same kind of stuff they gave us in art class in junior high. You'd think it would kind of be a standard thing that they'd keep in stock through the years... But no! For some odd reason, over the past few years this stuff has become next to impossible to obtain! Michaels now stocks nothing but pre-printed drawings over black coating over coloured foils or rainbow surfaces. And every art store I go to either doesn't carry scratchboard or else they only carry scratchbord (scratchboard's incredibly expensive cousin, which is a black coating over an actual board you could club someone over the head with). So it's either namby-pamby arts'n'crafts (with the emphasis on crafts) fare which is utterly useless for my purposes, or it's hardcore artist grade I can't afford and would be half-scared to use for fear of fucking it up. After months of searching I found what I thought I was looking for on the Dick Blick website, but what they sent me was thirty sheets of crap. Shiny, oddly textured black surface that flakes more than it scrapes, almost like a thin shell of nail polish, over white paper that just kind of peels at the first touch of the knife and gets all grubby from the black flakes.

I've since figured out the brand name of the decent-enough-for-my-needs board I used to use (Engraving Art). So now I'm trying to hunt it down online, so that at least I'll know what I'm ordering is useable. After far more searching than should be necessary for such a ridiculously basic art supply, I've located it. For roughly twice what I paid for the useless crap from Dick Blick. But I guess it's worth it if it actually lets me do what I need to do. I just resent that such a basic thing has become such a rare commodity. Seriously. It's infinitely easier to find glow-in-the-dark scratchboard than it is to find plain ole black'n'white.

I guess the point of this is... don't buy anything online if you haven't already tested the quality in person.

And buy a ton of black and white scratchboard from Engraving Art before it goes COMPLETELY extinct.