Early Strips
On this page are some earlier incarnations of the comic strip. "Dennis N' Me" is the strip that would eventually become "Autumn Lake." Here you can get an idea of the evolution of the comic over the years. Although meant to be black and white, I've purposely scanned these for you in color, so you can see the raw work warts and all. First is one of the few surviving examples of the comic from the mid-80's.
Here's a typical installment of the updated version of the comic from 1994, when I first took a stab at trying to get it syndicated. You can no doubt see why I got so many rejection letters. Some of the strips were actually quite embarrassingly bad, looking back. Leonard and the balance of the cast were added to round out the available characters and inject more variety into the strip. From this point on, the cast was complete. They have remained pretty much the same personality-wise, as you can tell from this bit of Leonard humor. I also decided on a four-panel design for the strip, giving me more space to build up punchlines. The forest background was, of course, inspired by the work of Bill Watterson. You'll note that the title and copyright on the comic were pasted on by hand. Back then, I had no access to Photoshop, and even if I did, my crappy 286 or 386 PC would never have handled it. You can also make out the blue ruled lines for the lettering. Blue pencil didn't show up as much when photocopying. These strips were drawn on Bristol paper at about 5" x 16".
Lindy used to wear her magician's outfit everywhere she went. It's kind of based on Zatanna, from the DC Comics Universe. When I revamped the comic in 2005, it just didn't seem all that practical to have her cavorting around in the tux-with-shorts. Zatanna cast her spells by reciting words backwards, though Lindy doesn't actually have any spell-casting powers. Of course, Sherm isn't quite sure here, hence his call to 911. You can probably just make out some of the white-out I had to use to cover up errors. I was still using pen & ink, and maybe markers for large areas of black. I started with the typewriter stuff that came out of those little white bottles, but eventually found a product made by Pentel that came in pen form. That was handy for stars, white lettering, etc., but the whole white-out process was such a pain! If I covered up an error, it was easy to make the same goof again. Eventually, so much white-out would build up on the page, no matter what I did, I still got crooked lines. Agony! Thank goodness for Photoshop!
Mark used to have a big crush on Christine. In fact, he was so persistent in chasing her down, it bordered on stalking! Why she never called the cops on him, I don't know. Naturally, I had to tone that element down for the current version of the strip. Chris used to be quite a bit meaner, too, as you can tell. I still like this joke, as it's a bit Schutzian, and I could easily imagine Charlie Brown saying it. You can see the aforementioned pain of white-out on display in panel one. You can also see why I like using a computer font for my lettering these days. I've always said that the hand-lettering I did looked like a drunken crab had stepped in a puddle of ink and staggered across the paper!
I like this gag, too. Here you can see the original version of Dannette. Her hair was supposed to be sort of bobbed, like flappers used to wear in the 20's, with those pointy ends on the side. Unfortunately, as you can tell, it was a real pain to draw. Oddly enough, the characters' eyes are bigger dots than you see today, part of the penalty for using pen & ink. The girls tended to have half-closed eyes most of the time, too, just to show off their lashes!
1985-87
1994-96
2005
When I relaunched the strip in 2005, I made a few changes to the comic. The tone and the characters were more refined, although for several months, the artwork was a bit ragged, as you can see. Still, thanks to Photoshop, lettering and error corrections became much easier. Gone were the days of white-out and lettering by drunken crab! The comic was renamed "Autumn Lake," after the characters' home town, which went along with the broadening of the comic's scope. The webcomic version was first launched in March of 2005 on MySpace. The advantage was that I didn't have to build an actual website until I felt the comic was worth the investment, while at the same time, I could build an audience using the social networking tools MySpace was famous for. After about a year, I put the MySpace version on hiatus while I tried to set up a dedicated site for the strip. The comic reappeared on autumnlake.com May 2, 2006. This sample was still drawn using pen & ink, something I've never mastered even after all these years. For the current version of the strip, I favor Pigma Micron .08 markers. The new size of the raw art is 5 1/2" x 18".
2006
Here's the latest version of the comic strip. One of the things I'm proudest of is the improvement in the artwork, especially in the hats Mark and Sherm wear. The art has gotten much cleaner, and more refined. You can also see the new Christine here. She's probably the character that has changed the most from the 1994 version. She's still a bit snooty and mean, but also a bit more of an airhead, and Mark doesn't hassle her nearly as much. The design of the strip has improved as well. These days, I may choose to do a simplistic "empty" panel technique, which you see here, go borderless for some or all of the panels, alternate shading, mixing dialogue balloons with simple "stick" pointers, and other tricks just to break up the day to day look and feel of the strip, and (hopefully), enhance the buildup to the punchlines.
My usual modus operandi in the early days was to draw three panels on the 8 1/2" end of a piece of cartridge paper (photocopier paper), using a fine-point marker. The area below the strip was usually left blank. Kinda wasteful, now that I look back on it. Although unfinished (also a trait I tended to have back then), you can probably get a feel for the rhythm of the comic. In those days, the strip was very primitive, and the humor reflected that protozoic quality. You'll note that Mark's hat has the slogan "Kiss Off" on it. I dropped this in favor of the more newspaper-friendly "Me" later on. I have no idea what Computer Biology Tri-Metrics is, but I remember running out of brainy-sounding subjects for Dennis to read, and that's what I came up with. This comic was drawn for the Upward Bound By-Line, a monthly newsletter put out by Dan Ladner, the director of our chapter. Dan appears here as the bearded character in the suit. You may also make out in the second panel that both characters had their hands behind their back, a trick I used so I wouldn't actually have to draw them. I also felt it gave the characters a sort of philosophical stance. You'll also note that Mark is seen in panel one in a full, side-on profile. You almost never see that in the modern version of "Autumn Lake," as it tends to make the eyes of the characters who wear glasses harder see.
Here's another early strip for the I made for the By-Line. Here, Dennis moons over a photo of a cute chick in a book he found, and his friend Mark helps him to meet the "girl of his dreams." Of course, it doesn't go so well for Dennis, and Mark has a good horselaugh at Dennis' expense. Poor Dennis usually got the short end of the stick, and Mark could be quite the conniver sometimes, which you'll see in the samples below. Note Dennis' words of encouragement, which he so thoughtfully inscribed underneath this particular comic when he found it on my desk.
