I'm one half of a creative duo that goes by the name "Peppertop Comics". We've been creating cartoons and comic strips for over 25 years, and for the past decade we've put our creations online under Creative Commons licences - usually including the Inkscape source files for anyone to download and examine. We have three main series:
The Greys - individual one-shot cartoons based on classic "grey" aliens. Humour, parody and satire with a focus on sci-fi and cult TV and films. 100% drawn in Inkscape, with extra Easter eggs hidden in the source files.
Elvie - Individual one-shot cartoons following the adventures of the eponymous heroine. This appears monthly in Linux (Pro) Magazine so, as you might imagine, the jokes centre around Linux, computers, Free Software and other related topics. The imagery is created using MyPaint, with the speech bubbles and additional features drawn using Inkscape.
Monsters, Inked - A series of humorous cartoons focusing on a family of classic movie monsters. This previously appeared as a weekly newspaper strip. The outlinesare hand drawn then scanned; after that they're traced, coloured, assembled and lettered using Inkscape.
That's interesting... I wasn't expecting the forum to display my real name so prominently - it kinda defeats the point of having a username. Oh well, I guess I'll have to lie in my personal profile if I'm to have the same 'name' as people have come to know me by on the old forum 😉
hi Xav, I never knew your name was Mark! At least I recognized your avi! I was also surprised at the username not showing, and I'm thinking of fudging as well, got to be the flamingolady you know. I didn't know you did comics other than the alien ones that I love so much. Hope you start posting them here.
Martin, it would be awesome if we had a choice at some point, I vote for that!
Yeah, if a website wants 2 names, I always give both the same name, because you never know which one they're going to use where. Actually I don't get the purpose of having 2 names, anyway. It's so confusing. I only recently realized someone I thought were 2 people is actually the same person!
@flamingolady I never posted the other comics themselves to the previous forum because they were more limited in their use of Inkscape. Although it plays a part in all of them, The Greys is the only one that's 100% created with Inkscape. Here are some more details about the other two:
"Elvie" is our main strip at the moment - mostly because it pays enough to keep our website up and running. It initially appeared in "Linux Voice" magazine then, when that was subsumed into "Linux (Pro) Magazine" it continued there. We've produced over nearly 70 Elvie strips, but there's a lag before we put them on our website, so only the first 55 or so are available there. Both magazines have been happy for us to put them online, provided there's a delay to let subscribers get their printed copies first. They've also been good enough to let us use a Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license, so they're free for anyone else to use and modify. We even make the MyPaint and Inkscape source files available via GitHub (those MyPaint files are too big for us to host ourselves), in case anyone finds them useful. As you might imagine for a Linux magazine, the jokes are sometimes rather technical - but there's a good selection of general computer and technology jokes as well.
"Monsters, Inked" used to appear as a weekly strip in our local newspaper, but a change of editor ushered in a change of style for the paper, and the comic was dropped. The (to date) complete series of 45 strips are available on our site. Although each strip carries a stand-alone joke, they do build to form a series: we had plans for an over-arching plot, but never got far enough for it to really take hold. We do hope to pick it up again one day, but that all relies on finding enough free time. This strip is far more Inkscape based. The outlines are hand drawn, but from then on it's Inkscape all the way. I might write some more about that process in future. Once again the newspaper was good enough to let us use a CC-BY-SA license, but the source files aren't available due to our use of a commercial font. I hope to rework the strips at some point to remove that restriction, but again that all takes time. This strip even made it to a printed collection which was on sale at our local comic book shop for a while.
This year is something of an anniversary for us. We started creating comics using Corel Draw back in 1994. We revisited them several times over the years, but it took until 2009 before we re-worked some of the Greys strips in Inkscape and put them online. So not only is this the 25th anniversary of our first comic attempts, but it's the tenth anniversary of our website. In the past decade we've put well over 200 cartoons online for free download, most of them with the source files as well.
Now for the blatant plug: we've decided to launch on Patreon. Don't worry, we won't start producing patron-only cartoons, or restricting access to our source files. Instead we see this as a way for people to support the work we do, and get a bit of bonus content to boot. If anyone's interested, here's our amateurish pitch video:
We do also post longer-form content to Patreon that isn't really suited to Twitter or Facebook, but which is also open to non-patrons. If you want to support us, or just take a look at the stuff we post, here's the address: https://www.patreon.com/peppertop
We're re-posting our old Greys cartoons to promote our Patreon page: this is 'Yeti Boots' from 2009 (but originally from 1994). Patrons can also access a file containing details about the Easter egg we've hidden in the strip.
We've posted Elvie #056 to our website. This is the first of a trio of cartoons about Elvie's new VR rig, which first appeared in @linux_pro magazine last year.
http://peppertop.com/elvie/comic/elvie-056/
The image was drawn using MyPaint, with the layout, speech bubbles and lettering (including that on the boxes and invoice) all done in Inkscape.
This one is also online now ( http://peppertop.com/elvie/comic/elvie-059/ ), and originally appeared in the magazine shortly after a new Code of Conduct was announced for the Linux kernel.
Last, but not least, Elvie #60 ( http://peppertop.com/elvie/comic/elvie-060/ ). This represents a full five years of our cartoons appearing in print every month, so we did a self-referential strip to celebrate.
Good luck for the Patreon campaign! I think today is an awesome thing to have a service like that, and fortunately, more people are starting to trust it ( and donating that "famous" one dollar from -if anyone would give one..- )
Good luck for the Patreon campaign! I think today is an awesome thing to have a service like that, and fortunately, more people are starting to trust it ( and donating that "famous" one dollar from -if anyone would give one..- )
Thanks for the kind words. Unfortunately the Patreon side of things hasn't yielded very much, as yet. We'll persevere for a while longer, but it looks like another dead duck (just like Flattr, Paypal, bitcoin, trying to sell merchandise, and other initiatives). I've come to the conclusion that, although we've successfully had our comics appear in several magazines, and even a museum exhibit, people just aren't inclined to support us via direct payment. Not a complaint, just a fact of life.
I can relate to this so much, as I tried this sort of "business" and the first thing I learnt is to never give up: you'll never know what will come tomorrow; some projects need to reach 100 people to have one donation, others need 1000 and so on [ imagine those that need 10000! all projects are different ] The only suggestion I can give is to keep the campaign as a side project if you can't afford time to make it grow; but make sure to always mention it and to let people know!
I can relate to this so much, as I tried this sort of "business" and the first thing I learnt is to never give up
We've been creating comics since 1994. For the past decade we've used Inkscape, and posted them online (there are over 250 on our site now - most with the source files available for download). So I don't think 'give up' is in our vocabulary 😉
The bigger problem is how long to persevere with each new thing that comes along. A decade ago we posted to our website, and that was it. Now I have to post to at least our website, Twitter (@PeppertopComics), Facebook (@PeppertopComics) and Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/peppertop). That's without including the time taken to tidy up the source files, commit them to a local Git repository, push that to GitHub, and so on. All of which eats into the time we have for actually creating comics.
At the moment Patreon is the least effective use of my time. I'll persevere with it a while longer, but unless it starts to take off I think I'll be adding it to the long tail of other sites, schemes and services we've tried and abandoned.
Anyway, in other news, here's Elvie #61. Although it was created a year ago it's oddly topical, given that Microsoft's new version of Edge - based on Google's rendering engine - became generally available this week.
Share Finished Artwork Peppertop Comics
Inkscape.org
I'm one half of a creative duo that goes by the name "Peppertop Comics". We've been creating cartoons and comic strips for over 25 years, and for the past decade we've put our creations online under Creative Commons licences - usually including the Inkscape source files for anyone to download and examine. We have three main series:
In addition I've also been writing a monthly Inkscape tutorial series in Full Circle Magazine for over 7 years! (free downloads).
I've also got a Youtube channel where I've been uploading the old Heathenx Inkscape videos (with permission), so they don't get lost to history.
I'll use this topic to post updates and news about our comics, my tutorials, or other things we do which are directly related to Inkscape.
Welcome Mark!
That's interesting... I wasn't expecting the forum to display my real name so prominently - it kinda defeats the point of having a username. Oh well, I guess I'll have to lie in my personal profile if I'm to have the same 'name' as people have come to know me by on the old forum 😉
@Xav Perhaps an option can be created for what to display, if you want the system to know your real name?
hi Xav, I never knew your name was Mark! At least I recognized your avi! I was also surprised at the username not showing, and I'm thinking of fudging as well, got to be the flamingolady you know. I didn't know you did comics other than the alien ones that I love so much. Hope you start posting them here.
Martin, it would be awesome if we had a choice at some point, I vote for that!
Yeah, if a website wants 2 names, I always give both the same name, because you never know which one they're going to use where. Actually I don't get the purpose of having 2 names, anyway. It's so confusing. I only recently realized someone I thought were 2 people is actually the same person!
@flamingolady I never posted the other comics themselves to the previous forum because they were more limited in their use of Inkscape. Although it plays a part in all of them, The Greys is the only one that's 100% created with Inkscape. Here are some more details about the other two:
"Elvie" is our main strip at the moment - mostly because it pays enough to keep our website up and running. It initially appeared in "Linux Voice" magazine then, when that was subsumed into "Linux (Pro) Magazine" it continued there. We've produced over nearly 70 Elvie strips, but there's a lag before we put them on our website, so only the first 55 or so are available there. Both magazines have been happy for us to put them online, provided there's a delay to let subscribers get their printed copies first. They've also been good enough to let us use a Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license, so they're free for anyone else to use and modify. We even make the MyPaint and Inkscape source files available via GitHub (those MyPaint files are too big for us to host ourselves), in case anyone finds them useful. As you might imagine for a Linux magazine, the jokes are sometimes rather technical - but there's a good selection of general computer and technology jokes as well.
"Monsters, Inked" used to appear as a weekly strip in our local newspaper, but a change of editor ushered in a change of style for the paper, and the comic was dropped. The (to date) complete series of 45 strips are available on our site. Although each strip carries a stand-alone joke, they do build to form a series: we had plans for an over-arching plot, but never got far enough for it to really take hold. We do hope to pick it up again one day, but that all relies on finding enough free time. This strip is far more Inkscape based. The outlines are hand drawn, but from then on it's Inkscape all the way. I might write some more about that process in future. Once again the newspaper was good enough to let us use a CC-BY-SA license, but the source files aren't available due to our use of a commercial font. I hope to rework the strips at some point to remove that restriction, but again that all takes time. This strip even made it to a printed collection which was on sale at our local comic book shop for a while.
Xav, interesting, you two are so talented, love your work and look forward to seeing more of it! keep it coming!
This year is something of an anniversary for us. We started creating comics using Corel Draw back in 1994. We revisited them several times over the years, but it took until 2009 before we re-worked some of the Greys strips in Inkscape and put them online. So not only is this the 25th anniversary of our first comic attempts, but it's the tenth anniversary of our website. In the past decade we've put well over 200 cartoons online for free download, most of them with the source files as well.
Now for the blatant plug: we've decided to launch on Patreon. Don't worry, we won't start producing patron-only cartoons, or restricting access to our source files. Instead we see this as a way for people to support the work we do, and get a bit of bonus content to boot. If anyone's interested, here's our amateurish pitch video:
We do also post longer-form content to Patreon that isn't really suited to Twitter or Facebook, but which is also open to non-patrons. If you want to support us, or just take a look at the stuff we post, here's the address: https://www.patreon.com/peppertop
Congrats on your launching at Paetron! and on your anniversaries, quite an accomplishment! Nice site.
We've posted a new cartoon to our site to celebrate International Thunderbirds Day (that's a thing, apparently).
You can find the full commentary on our website: http://www.peppertop.com/greys/comic/the-lady-is-a-tramp/
A little bit of catch up. The following two Elvie strips are on our website (http://peppertop.com/elvie/comic/elvie-057/ and http://peppertop.com/elvie/comic/elvie-058/ ) and are the second and third parts of our virtual reality trilogy:
This one is also online now ( http://peppertop.com/elvie/comic/elvie-059/ ), and originally appeared in the magazine shortly after a new Code of Conduct was announced for the Linux kernel.
Last, but not least, Elvie #60 ( http://peppertop.com/elvie/comic/elvie-060/ ). This represents a full five years of our cartoons appearing in print every month, so we did a self-referential strip to celebrate.
VR Therapy!! Very clever!
Good luck for the Patreon campaign! I think today is an awesome thing to have a service like that, and fortunately, more people are starting to trust it ( and donating that "famous" one dollar from -if anyone would give one..- )
Thanks for the kind words. Unfortunately the Patreon side of things hasn't yielded very much, as yet. We'll persevere for a while longer, but it looks like another dead duck (just like Flattr, Paypal, bitcoin, trying to sell merchandise, and other initiatives). I've come to the conclusion that, although we've successfully had our comics appear in several magazines, and even a museum exhibit, people just aren't inclined to support us via direct payment. Not a complaint, just a fact of life.
I can relate to this so much, as I tried this sort of "business" and the first thing I learnt is to never give up: you'll never know what will come tomorrow; some projects need to reach 100 people to have one donation, others need 1000 and so on [ imagine those that need 10000! all projects are different ] The only suggestion I can give is to keep the campaign as a side project if you can't afford time to make it grow; but make sure to always mention it and to let people know!
We've been creating comics since 1994. For the past decade we've used Inkscape, and posted them online (there are over 250 on our site now - most with the source files available for download). So I don't think 'give up' is in our vocabulary 😉
The bigger problem is how long to persevere with each new thing that comes along. A decade ago we posted to our website, and that was it. Now I have to post to at least our website, Twitter (@PeppertopComics), Facebook (@PeppertopComics) and Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/peppertop). That's without including the time taken to tidy up the source files, commit them to a local Git repository, push that to GitHub, and so on. All of which eats into the time we have for actually creating comics.
At the moment Patreon is the least effective use of my time. I'll persevere with it a while longer, but unless it starts to take off I think I'll be adding it to the long tail of other sites, schemes and services we've tried and abandoned.
Anyway, in other news, here's Elvie #61. Although it was created a year ago it's oddly topical, given that Microsoft's new version of Edge - based on Google's rendering engine - became generally available this week.
http://peppertop.com/elvie/comic/elvie-061/