WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 44: “Time To Talk”

I gotta be honest with you.  Artistically, I didn’t think this strip was my strongest effort, but I did like the Ned’s expression in the final panel. Also, the “we need to talk” line from the typically terse Pastor was a nice pay-off to that first conversation he had with Caroline Belmont and portends a painful fate for Ned. 

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic are posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

  WORLD OF HURT- The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 43: “Hell Hath No Fury”

I wanted Caroline Belmont to return to the strip, mostly to rub metaphorical salt in her husband’s wounds by revealing her affair with the very man who’s trying to kill him.  However, I wasn’t certain how far she should be involved in his ultimate downfall.  Should she be the one to delivery the final blow?  I wasn’t sure, because it would relegae the protagonist, Pastor, to the sidelines.  Ultimately, I decided that at the very least she should have an active hand in thwarting Ned’s plans by stealing the gun from his safe.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomicare posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

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WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 42:  “He’s One Man”

Pastor’s basic fighting strategy is to go for the soft parts and the parts that bend.  If it bends one way, make it bend the other way.  To work out Charles’ dialogue here, I spent a fair amount of time at my desk, reciting dialogue like I had the worst headcold ever.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomicare posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

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WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 41:

See? Dirty fighting.  There’s a little WWE in here, but I thought it was a pretty fun- and painful looking- sequence.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomicare posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

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WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 40: “Queensbury Rules”

I have a confession to make:  I actually enjoy drawing and writing the character stuff a lot more than the action scenes.  Most artists get a huge thrill out of fight scenes, but in WORLD OF HURT, I found that each I approached them with a certain amount of trepidation.  I think it might be due to the comic strip format.  In an adventure strip, the action sequences are the big pay-off for the reader, but with three panels to progress the story each week, I fear that a protracted fight, highly choreographed fight scene might bore readers.  Also, I wanted Pastor to do a little more than deliver roundhouses and haymakers to his opponents.  Creatively, I keep boxing myself into corners, but removing the standard, and most expedient solutions to resolve physical conflicts, like handguns and the standard punch ups.  Therefore, to keep it interesting for myself, the reader, and to stay true to Pastor’s character, you’re going to see a lot of dirty fighting in the strip.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomicare posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

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WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 39: 

Despite the timeframe in which WORLD OF HURT occurs, I didn’t really have a political agenda when I started the strip.  I just wanted to tell a good crime story against a somewhat familiar, but misunderstood, backdrop.  However, as the strip evolved, I came to realize that overall, “The Thrill-Seekers” was a revenge fantasy built around a slave trade metaphor.  The metaphor included the complicity of Black people in the acquisition and sale of their fellow Blacks (i.e. Duke The Pimp) and Alicia Patterson’s own harrowing version of the Middle Passage aboard Charles Bouchier’s yacht. 

Once I recognized that my own…biases (for lack of a better term) were subconsciously finding their way into the strip, I felt more comfortable in inserting some more overt political messages.  In this instance, it is my strong disdain for handguns.  There are so many senseless, cowardly crimes committed with easily concealed handguns, that I didn’t really want to have Pastor glorify their use.  Therefore, I decided to make it a running gag that whenever Pastor used one, or attempted to use one, things would go horribly wrong for him.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomicare posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

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WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 38 – “Straight Right”

It wasn’t until I posted this strip that I realized how much the final panel reminded me of  Kevin Maguire’s classic “ONE PUNCH!” panel from Justice League International.  It wasn’t intended as an homage, and certainly not a swipe, but when I was going for an impactful image of Ned being laid out with a punch to the face, even I after nearly 30 years of reading comics, I can understand how that shot bubbled into my head:

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomicare posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

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WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 37 – “You Are My Number One Guy”

I was so much happier with the pencil version than I was with the final inks.  It was during this time that I significantly changed my working method from what I was doing when I first started the strip.  Originally, I was pencilling on a custom blue line template that I printed onto Bristol board.  Each 11″ X 17 ” sheet had room for two strips.  As time went on, I stopped using the templates, and would just pencil on a large sheet of Bristol.  I thought I would take advantage of the capacity to digitally reproduce fine lines and more detailed work  that my newsprint forebears lacked.   As a result, the panels got larger and larger, until it reached this critical mass, where I was only able to put two panels on each sheet of Bristol.  I would then digitally crop and composite all three panels in Photoshop.  Since I also wasn’t paying much attention to panel dimensions,  I wound up with really flat, pedestrian panel compositions like you see here, particularly in the final panel, and I felt that although individual panels might be solid (like panel one), some strips didn’t have an overall cohesive feel.  Sometime around Episode 40 or 41, I started to pare back and return to a version of my old working method.   As a result, my speed has increased a bit, and I’m a lot happier with how the strips hold together as a unit.

Incidentally, today is the one year anniversary of the day WORLD OF HURT first went online.  I knew it would be another week before the first strip was posted, so I opened the site with a countdown to the inaugural episode.

Remember, new strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomicare posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

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WORLD OF HURT - The Thrill-Seekers - Episode 36 – “Good Help”

This was a fun strip to do, because I got to design some henchmen for Ned.  As has been my standard MO for the strip, I designed them pretty much on the fly.  I wasn’t completely happy with my final rendering of Danny  The Fringe-Jacketed Thug, but his look was a big hit with the readers.  He was a little bit Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider and a little bit Dr. Johnny Fever from WKRP In Cincinnati.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic are posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 35: “Fire and Desire”

It’s good to be back on the brand-spanking new Blog@Newsarama!  You may not see the changes from your end, but let me tell, you dear reader, the upgrades they made behind the scenes are hotter than fish grease.

I was pretty nervous about the response I would get to this one, but the feedback was all quite positive.  It’s a common lament, but culturally, I think we’ve become more accustomed to depictions of violence than sex.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomicare posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

Editor’s Note: This “issue” of WORLD OF HURT is NSFW and can be found after the jump.

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WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 34: “Revival Tent”

Love, love, love the dialogue in this episode!  When I was working up the concept for WORLD OF HURT, I decided to thumbnail a few scenes, completely devoid of context, just to get a handle on the characters.  I also didn’t think about where, or if, they would fit into any larger story, it was just a writing exercise.  Next,  just to get a feel for the voices, particularly Pastor’s, I scripted some dialogue for what I had thumbnailed.  This was one of those scenes that I thumbnailed: it featured a lovely blonde sitting by the pool, amused and intrigued by Pastor forcing his way into a large, private estate.  However, when I decided on my basic plot for The Thrill-Seekers, that scene was nowhere to be found.  Once I decided that Ned Belmont would be the first to face Pastor’s wrath, I pulled the scene out of mothballs and tweaked it a little for The Thrill-Seekers.  So, largely what you see here is the first thing that I ever wrote for WORLD OF HURT. 

Pastor’s rap is disarming in its down home folksiness, but just dripping with raw innuendo, and bordering on sacrilege.  I ran the risk that the moment might turn into a real groaner, but I thought it turned out both sexy and funny as hell.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic are posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 33: “Inside Scoop”

The night before I posted it, I completely redid the first panel of this strip.  I came over to my fiance’s for dinner that night, and as she was preparing a lovely repast, I was furiously drawing a new panel on a scrap of copy paper to ink.  I thought I did a pretty good job with the fish, especially the scales, but if you look closely, I think I left off its pectoral fin.  Oops!

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic are posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

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WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 32: “…And Then I’m Gonna Kill ‘Im”

I really thought I was firing on all cylinders with this strip, but the response far surpassed by expectations. This was by far one of the most popular episodes in the series’ run.  There was a whole lot going on in this episode and, in hindsight, it was one of the rare moments where the balls labeled Plot, Art, Characterization that you’re juggling all stay suspended in the air in one beautiful moment.  Some of it is pure happenstance and good fortune.  We get a nice peek into Pastor’s past, a bit of humor, some tough guy dialogue, backstory for Ned Belmont, and a dramatic reveal by the lovely Mrs. Belmont all in the span of three panels.  The line “…And then I’m going to kill i’m,” wasn’t the original line of dialogue.  I forgot what I originally had, but I remember changing it at the last minute.  I’m glad that I did, because readers absolutely loved that line, and I still get comments about it today.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic are posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

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WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 31: “The Third Mrs. Belmont”

I’ve been remiss in my blogging duties here at Blog@Newsarama, but thanks for tuning in.  I always try to add a bit of personal or process insight into the strips that I post here that I may not have mentioned when I first ran them at my own site.

I created two versions of the dialogue for this particular episode.  One without the French dialogue and the other with it.  My fiancee has a longtime college friend named Marye Dahlman.  She and her husband, Carl, are wonderful friends and were early supporters of the strip.  Marye is remarkably fluent in French and even teaches it at the college level.

On a wild hair, I thought it might be interesting to show some of Pastor’s depth, so I thought it might be fun to have him be equally fluent in French.  (Besides, it would allow me to introduce an important element about Pastor’s past in the next episode.)  At the last minute, I asked Marye if she would be willing to translate some of the dialogue, and she happily obliged.  I loved how Mrs. Belmont’s icy reserve melts as soon as Pastor displays his linguistic skills, and realizes he’s a lot more than what he appears to be.  I would make a joke about Pastor being a “cunning linguist,” but we’ll see some of that soon enough.

Also, for some reason, this is one of my favorite episode titles.  There’s something decidedly blue-blood and patrician about the title, “The Third Mrs. Belmont,” and for Pastor to step into this upper crust world and still be in total control was really fun.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic are posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

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WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 30: “Storming the Gates”

Pastor takes the fight directly to Ned’s front door!  To show you how committed I am to this, my Mac crashed two nights before I was supposed to post this strip.  Thankfully, I ink the old fashioned way, but I still letter using Adobe Illustrator.  Thankfully, my pal Stephen Lindsay, the prolific writer of Jesus Hates Zombies and The Frightful Fetus, among others, came to my rescue and supplied the lettering for this one.  However, when I scanned the inks, I accidentally sent him a truncated version of the strip.  Nonetheless, I kinda dug the way it was cropped.  In my original inked version, the first panel actually features a more panoramic shot of stately Belmont manor.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomicare posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

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WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 29: “Feeling the Heat”

I was glad for an opportunity to shift the scene after the long mini-arc of “Tell The Truth, Shame The Devil….”  Pastor still remains an enigmatic phantom to the Thrill-Seekers at this point, but Charles is sensible enough to review him as a legitimate threat.  I enjoy setting up Ned for the big fall (but not in the same sense as Duke) that is to come.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic are posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

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WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 28: “An Abrupt Departure”

This episode was cathartic from a storytelling standpoint.  The upshot of the building with Duke represented as a tiny figure against the sky as he hurtled to his death was understated, yet powerful, and I am extremely proud of it.  Having Pastor standing there passively to survey his handiwork, instead of making some smart-ass quip, cemented the notion of him as a no-nonsense tough guy and underscored my desire to make WORLD OF HURT a serious, dramatic work exploration of Blaxploitation.

Yeah, I was pretty happy with this one.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomicare posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

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WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 27: “Time to Go”

Like I said before, Duke is reduced to a quivering bowl of Jell-o from the tough guy posturing he assumed when we first saw him.  In my original pencil drawing of the final panel, he looked a lot like Edward Blake before he was sent down to the pavement below and turned into “human bean” juice.  If you don’t get that reference, you probably are on the wrong website. If you do, you probably know what’s coming next…

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomicare posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

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WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 26: “Tell The Truth, Shame The Devil – Part 6”

Duke knew he was sending Alicia to a horrific fate to a horrific fate of torture and sexual assault.  However, the twist that Duke’s callous, unforgivable actions would have been in vain if not for her accidental death, is particularly heartrending.  The coda in the final panel is chilling, and is one of my favorite bits of writing in the series, to date.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic are posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

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WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 25: “Tell The Truth, Shame The Devil – Part 5”

Once I decided that Duke was going to cross this line, I knew I couldn’t redeem him.  He did more than just set the wheels in motion for whatever Charles, Ned, and Tuck ultimately did to her, he was complicit in her death.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic are posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP