Jake & Leon> Best Of Year Sixteen

The very first comic. However mediocre my art may be, I’ve gotten better than this.

For those of you new here, this started with a fun bit of art practice. Inspired by some webcomics I was reading that was probably borrowing ideas from The Simpsons, I drew a character that would later be known as Jake. Numerous attempts to redo it was not working out and I was getting frustrated. So I stopped and came back to it the next day. I was able to get it right again, and decided to give him a friend. I named him Leroy but when I went to show it off I wrote “Leon”, and that typo turned out to be a better name.

At the time I was doing weekly comic reviews of the comics I picked up that week but was running out of ways to make the intro interesting each week. So I dropped a comic with these two in there. When the comics went daily I went for a weekly article link, but just decided to let Jake & Leon officially hold the spot with site updates. Today is their anniversary, which is why I did the site update on it’s own earlier today (unless I forgot) and instead of a new comic, I’m going to take a look back at all of the comics I did for year 16 before starting year 17. That makes this the longest running comic I’ve ever done, though illness, writer’s block, and other life events have kept it from being consistently every week. All I can do is work to get it out on time and hope it was interesting. I don’t even know if anyone actually reads this comic, but for whatever reason the below comics are the ones I’m most proud of this round.

I mean, we know it won’t…

This was experimental. The first panel used a Clip Studio asset due to time, the manga lines in the second panel was me trying to capture his dread at what was coming, and the third was the dark shadow of the current House Of Mouse methods of reshooting things after changing the script…again…more often than you usually expect. I don’t think the experiment paid off, but I’m proud of me for at least trying to do new things. That’s kind of what this comic has become for me, a chance to experiment as well as making sure I keep creative in both writing and drawing instead of just reviews and commentaries.

Considering how often they get a movie, you’d think it would be movie alchemy.

I couldn’t think of a good background for this. Apparently Pedro Pascal won because he’s been featured more often than Idris Elba in everything lately.

Presenting my most lazy comic in a long time.

This isn’t so much to praise it as to say…still not impressed. If anything it only got worse from there. I also ended up doing a Captain Yuletide arc for this year’s comic because I couldn’t get their comic going. It was an okay bit, but only because it still got me doing the Christmas superhero characters on a nice, quite Christmas.

There’s a reason the culture war is a minor discussion topic on this storytelling discussion site.

This was good commentary, though. I’m all for opposing the culture war ruining storytelling, but let’s not pretend it’s the only problem lately.

Batman doesn’t specialize in anything, including preparation.

I’m starting to experiment more with the lighting and shading. I still need work, but that’s what the experimenting is for. It’s also the counterpoint to the rising “Batman can beat anyone with prep time” nonsense. Batman is great at preparing for numerous threats, but Bane broke his back, broke his almost-marriage to Catwoman, and is the only Bat-villain to not only know his identity but use it without letting the other villains in on it.

Guess we don’t need Access to keep them apart anymore.

Still doing that lights/shadows experimenting, and making fun of all the reboots DC has had versus Marvel as we have new crossovers after decades.

We’ve all had that happen at least once.

Anyone who uses multiple devices and programs at the same time knows how that goes.

The most excitement came when Ant-Man got a tiny chair.

Seriously, who at Marvel Studios thought that was a brilliant idea? Or a good idea? Or anything other than stupid?

I hope pun comes out correctly.

The real Krypto should be remembered before James Gunn killed him. Also, Ace is here as a callback to my League Of Super Pets commentary.

And I have a lot to forgive.

I missed a few comics between my own stuff and helping my dad get through his surgery this year. He’s basically back to normal now, thank God.

If you get the reference, you get the title.

Sometimes the simplest gags amuse me. Sadly, live-action Gargoyles isn’t a joke. Also not sure how you do a Darkwing Duck crossover, but apparently the comics that aren’t Disney-owned Marvel is doing it. I really don’t understand what goes through the heads of the people at Dynamite Comics.

Some heroes seem more inspired to action by the villain.

Too many writers are so anxious to write a certain joke or moment that they’ll force an entire story to exist for that purpose alone. Doing it in a short comic like this gets the dumb but fun ideas out of your system.

Making plans is easy. Following through on them is the hard part.

Another of my torments, but I can’t blame technology on it.

Considering the rest of the week, I want better victories.

My dad’s all better and I managed to at least come up with a work process that kept me from missing even more posts than I did. That’s something, I guess.

Of course we were back to normal the next day.

This would happen with two more articles. Numbers are back to normal, but maybe some of you came from there? Hi. And to those of you who came from elsewhere, also hi.

At least we both got a happy ending.

I was worried about him going in, having gone through the same issue in 2016. Thankfully he was in better shape and didn’t need a colostomy bag for half a year, was taken so very well he was happy (still happy to be home, but he brought the nurses a cheesecake based on my grandmother’s recipe…if you ever tasted it you know that’s a big thank you), and is now recovered enough to resume his normal life. At least I had this site to distract me.

Then again, do we know this king is noble?

I’m not against subverting expectations but you have to do it the right way.

Don’t worry. The honey pot is empty.

I did an article about it, but sometimes the comic is the actual catharsis.

Introducing BW Prose, the newest archive.

Posting this mostly to promote the new BW Prose section. Links in the header tab.

I don’t know if anyone has a favorite I missed, doesn’t care about the comic, or just doesn’t like my choices. These are thes I’m happiest about for various reasons. And next week we properly begin Year 17 of Jake & Leon. It gets me creating, improving, and experimenting, which is how this whole thing got started, plus a way to end the weekend without an angry rant. Now to prepare for the anniversary of the site itself.