Greetings all.

I am Miguel Chaves and I am the one to blame.

This is the first instalment of Robomeks. A series about robot malfunctions, EMP rays, broken limbs and teenage love. The story is divided in several chapters and the dose will be delivered in weekly chunks of 6 pages (one extra for the cover of a new chapter, like this time). That makes 4 parts for each chapter (or if you prefer it this way: 4 weeks).  The release day will be Wednesdays.

Apart from the comic I’m also working on the site, so in the following weeks the design and programming of this place will change. Maybe it’ll even improve. 

Oh, and excuse my English from now on.  It’s not my mother language. I could fool you if you just ask me questions that I can answer with monosyllables, though. And, yes, I just searched for “monosyllable” in wordreference.com. Sue me.

See you next Wednesday.

Well, just the site, actually.

I’ve found some hours after the second instalment of Robomeks to tweak the look and way this site is browsed. You’ll notice that the comic pages in the home page are gone now. That’s something I wanted to get rid of since the start. Now you are shown two options when you load this site: keep reading from the last instalment or start from the beginning, so everything is easier for everybody. Returning readers will be able to read the story in the way it was meant to be from the start: page by page. And new readers have the chance to go directly where they probably want: the beginning of the story.

(more…)

This week’s new episode is out. That means 6 new pages and just an episode left for the end of the first chapter.

You’ll see that things are getting a bit rough for the enthusiastic Robomeks. The demolition bot (demobot) hasn’t reacted to the EMP rays as expected and their brand new van was destroyed. Maybe a bit too much for Robomeks’ first job? Probably. They won’t admit it, though. And it’s not a bad thing, anyway. Unless you’re thrown to a deadly free fall or you’re trapped inside a giant robot that is about to self-destroy. But, hey, a robot mechanic’s life is hard. While it lasts.

Will they survive the titan? Check next wednesday. And bring some flowers just in case.

Robomeks changes its periodicity from weekly to daily.

Yes, one full color page a day, 6 days a week. Am I nuts? Certainly. But what’s actually happening is that instead of waiting for Wednesdays to publish the whole 6 pages I just deliver them day by day. It shouldn’t have any big impact on my working pace. Which is pretty insane, as you may guess.

So, there you have it. Robomeks goes daily from next Monday on. It’s the exact day the second chapter starts. Yes, in case you haven’t noticed todays “episode” was the last from chapter 1. That’s 24 pages (plus cover) drawn and colored in 4 weeks. That means the chapter being published on schedule. So, well, I’m a bit proud about it.

Just let me repeat it again:

ROBOMEKS GOES DAILY FROM MONDAY 27TH, OCTOBER 2008.

Enjoy and see you next… week… day? Now I’m confused. Reset me, please.

So, it has happened. Robomeks are working the whole week, with just barely one day off.

From now on the series will be published from Monday to Saturday. That’s still 6 pages a week but in a daily dose. Those of you who still prefer to read in “chunks” can wait until the weekend to have what was previously called “episodes”.

Today is also the beginning of a new chapter (the cover was published yesterday). And it’s a very interesting, if a bit unusual one. A bit less action and a bit more conversation. And a bit more dramatic. From the whole series this is one of the “darkest” chapters (until we get to chapter 6, which is quite darky too). I wonder how you will react once it’s finished, to be honest. But you action junkies don’t have anything to worry about. Robomeks’ life isn’t an easy one, so you’ll get your physical (virtual?) action moments too.

There’s also a slight change in art direction (does that exist in webcomics anyway?). I’m using more blacks than in the first chapter to fit the tone. It also makes the bare inked pages less dependent on color (and brings the art back to my usual style – I love black and white). I’m also using wacky brush textures as backgrounds in most panels. In fact, I’m going to use this technique from now on. It has a very interesting impact on the way pages and particular panels work, both from a visual and a storytelling point of view.

Oh, and I dropped Illustrator for the “inking”. I’m sticking with SAI now, both for pencils and inks. Inking now feels way more organic and extremely close to what I’d do with a real brush. That means more fluidity and less good looking circular shapes (heh, my pulse has always sucked). But you can’t have it all, can you?

All in all I think you’ll like where the story is going. You’ll get to know the characters a bit more and how’s the world they live in.  And you’ll have some suspense, action and drama too. Even  thrillery moments. And TRON-like moments. Now I feel like a movie writer trying to sell a script to a producer: “You have these kids, right? And they go FLASH- KZZT to broken robots. It’s like ‘I, Robot’ meets ‘TRON’ spiced with ‘Silence of the Lambs’ touches in a ‘Blade Runner’ world with a ‘Spy Kids’ tone. It’s a sure winner!”. But don’t worry. It all makes sense. Just read it. You’ll enjoy it. If you can stand my poor English.

See you.

Robomeks will rest a bit this month, reducing the periodicity to half: from 6 pages a week to 3. So, while this hibernation lasts the pages will be published on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The reason? Several. But they can be concentrated in one concept: lack of time. Lack of free time. Lack of time to get the final storyboards. Lack of time to redesign the site, set up a store, etc, etc. No surprise, though. Six full color pages a week is a bit overkill to almost anybody. I’m honestly surprised I’ve been working at that pace for two full chapters. Now it’s time to rest a bit. To rest and work in other aspects of Robomeks, to be more precise.

So, well, I hope you don’t mind this temporary change. It’ll last until the first week of January. Approximately. Anyway, once Robomeks offer their services daily again they’ll get a full weekend off, not only Sundays. So there will be 5 pages a week instead of 6, which is still a damn fast pace if you ask me.

I hope you don’t mind this temporary slow down.

See you.

This week there won’t be any update. Merry Christmas and see you next week!