Fast forward many years and I am driving concrete mixing trucks for a big company. I’m making more money then I have ever before, but working 60 plus hours a week. I was unhappy and I decided that I did not want to do this for the rest of my life. I put my two week notice in and got part-time work. I was trying to make movies with my best friend Maxx Weston. Maxx is a brilliant writer, musician, and had a script for a tv series he titled “Welcome to Bluewater”. We learned quickly that making a movie or TV series had a million moving parts and required a lot of people to work. Just getting everyone together was impossible.

So we decided to make comics. I was a comic book fan since I was little and always wanted to make a comic. I tried a couple times in high school and when I served in the United States Army, but lack of confidence and the size of the task made me quit. This time though, with Maxx’s push and support, I took the plunge and decided I was going to make a comic.

I have never written a story before so its easy to get overwhelmed by the massive size of task of creating a full complete story. So I brought back the Cig and Joe characters and started to plot a story for them. At first I was going to do a satire of pop culture. I came up with some humorous little one issue stories of Cig and Joe fighting Twilight fans and stuff. I wasn’t passionate about the stories, and the amount of work I taking on to make this a reality, I needed to do something different. Something I would want to put in the 100s of hours to complete.

Maxx had told me to write about what you know, and at first I wasn’t sure what that meant, not fully. I am a big time 90s action and sci-fi fan, I love anthropomorphic characters like Aqua Teen Hunger Force and TMNT, and I love comics like the Goon by Eric Powell, and the TV series Firefly. The Goon and Firefly had comedy on the fringe of parody, but also had serious stakes and drama mixed in. So with that in mind I started to create the WasteCan, a small moon inhabited by mining colonies, controlled by the evil D.A.B. corporation, and the puppet government the Federal Alliance of Planets.

I created a cast of these crazy looking characters and threw them into a real and nasty world. During the development of the characters I started to fully understand what “write what you know meant”. I put little pieces of myself and my experiences into each character. Cig and Joe are different parts of myself. They became more of there own selves as they developed, but the base was an aspect of myself. U-Turn is influenced by my grandfather. A man with a troubled past that wants his kids to be better then he was. Even though the character designs are silly, I wanted everything else to be grounded to a point.

During the development, I started to to get stuck. I had a layout for the entire series. I knew essentially where the story was going and I started to flesh out the first story arc. My problem was getting lost in the weeds of world building and I was trying to make everything perfect. It was always the problem that kept me from pulling the trigger and making the book. So I said the hell with it and just started making issue 1. I need to get something on paper. I told myself even it sucked I would get this first issue done and just learn as I go. I made 56 pages of the Cig and Joe comic book. I was releasing them on Webtoons, so I would make regular western comic pages and convert them to the scrolling Webtoons format. I always planned to print them so I wanted to make sure they were comic book formatted.

I learned A LOT from doing those 56 pages. I learned that doing character designs before you start is very important, and helps with consistency and work flow. I learned that having a completed script is really helpful when creating layouts and building the pages. I learned that you have to make sure there is room for the dialog. That was a painful but important lesson to learn. When I started to format the pages for printing I discovered I left no room for dialog. I did this because I did not have the script done when I made the pages. I generally knew what was going to be said and happen, but none of it was fleshed out. with the webtoons format I was able to put dialog outside of a panel, and I was finishing as I formatted the pages for Webtoons. So when I started to letter the original pages there was no room for dialog.

At that point I decided to start over. The lettering mistake and problems I had with story flow was not worth the fix. Taking what I learned I rewrote the first issue and that turned into issue 1 and 2. I changed how I was drawing the book and switched to cell shading. I had switched to Clip Studio for the art, and did more prep work before I started the layouts. I had a mostly completed script for issue 1 and I completely the script for issues 2 and 3 before I started to do the layouts. I did character design sheets for all the characters before I started issue 3. All of these extra steps really improved my consistency and work flow.

Its hard to relay the joy I felt when I finished issue 1 and got a printed copy in my hand. It was the proudest moment in my life so far. It’s not perfect but it represents the growth and the leap I took that brought me to the point I am at now. The next goal is to get the 4 issue arc complete. I learned the hard way, but it was what I needed to learn. Sometimes you have to just take that leap and get into the trenches to learn how to do something right. To learn the how and the why. To show yourself it can be done.

Currently I have issue 1 and 2 done and 75% of issue 3 complete. Issue 4 is in scripting stage and I plan to have it complete by the end of the year. I have a AP Superverse planned with Cig and Joe going on a adventure wit Pengu the trusty sidekick of Ben Dunn’s character Penquina. I am going to submit Cig and Joe to AP for publication if they accept it.

I also have The Adventures of Cig and Joe Issue 1 Kickstarter campaign running right now. We funded in the first 8 hours, and have 19 days left. There is original art, variant covers, stickers, custom hand drawn issue 1 sketch covers, and much more available in the campaign.

Hit this link to join the fun

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cigandjoe/the-adventures-of-cig-and-joe-issue-1?ref=c96ppg

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I had the pleasure to be part of a short story submission for the Penguina anthology series for Antarctic Press. This is the second issue of the series called Penguina Adelie, each issue will be named after different types of penguins.

Penguina is a Ben Dunn (Ninja Highschool, Tomorrow Girl, Warrior Nun) creation, set in the Ninja Highschool Universe.

The story I am part of is called Penguina vs. The Paisley Goblin

Written by Max Devill and Johnnie Reed

Pencils by Warren Brown( that’s me)

Inks By Peat Vazquez

Colors by Phil Leon

Letters by Es Kay

Our story follows Penguina and her sidekick Pengu as they try to save famous comic book creator Tom Nick Farlan from the clutches of the evil menace The Paisley Goblin.

Penguina Adelie is out now at your LCS and online.

I have 3 Sketch cover variants available for sale.

Each cover is going to get a custom drawing by me. I will post the finished covers on my social media accounts.

Find all my social media accounts here.

https://linktr.ee/lunchboxcomics

Now lets get to the progress updates for my series The Adventures of Cig and Joe.

Issue 1:

I am preparing issue 1 for print currently, and prepping for a Kickstarter campaign early next year. I added 5 new pages to the beginning of the book to help better explain the story and help the flow. I decided to do this after I received multiple reviews that were incredibly helpful, and helped me make my series better. Currently my good friend Maxx Weston (Welcome to Bluewater, Wavelite) is lettering the new pages and helping me get the print file ready. Maxx also serves as editor on my series.

Here is a couple of the pages unlettered

Issue 2:

The book is almost ready. All of the art and lettering are done, the only left is getting together everything ready for print.

Here are a couple unlettered pages.

Issue 3:

I am currently in the inking stage of the book, and I am working to have all the art done by the end of the year. Here are some of the inked pages.

I am currently partnering up with my best friend Maxx Weston to form Daily Grind Press.

Here will be the one stop for everything Maxx and myself are working on. Commissions, News, prints, merchandise, physical copies of our work, and much more. Maxx is hard at work making us a website, and we are excited to show you all.

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Last thing here is some art I have made in the last week or so

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Welcome to the LunchBox Comics Substack. My name is Warren Brown and I am a independent comic book creator from the Pacific Northwest Area. I am the writer/artist for the series The Adventures of Cig and Joe and The Day the Realm Stood Still

The Adventures of Cig and Joe is a sci-fi action comedy about two brothers. Cig a wise cracking, gun toting cigarette, and Joe a hard sitting, no nonsense coffee cup, taking on the evil D.A.B corporation to save the innocent citizens of the mining moon called The Waste Can.

The Day the Realm Stood Still is a sci-fi fantasy adventure that follows the protector knight Stewart Ironclaw as he defends his realm from an army of space invaders.

So here is my plan for this Substack. I will be posting at least once a month with

• News and updates to everything I have currently going on, as well as future news.

• Lots of art, production art, unlettered pages in different stages of production, any other art I’m working on like fanart, commissions, etc.

• Behind the scene look at my comic book making process.

• Updates on my live art streams, con appearances, videos, or show appearances.

• Reviews and recommendations of movies, Tv, and comics.

• Shout outs to indie comic creators I’m currently reading.

• Articles on my thought on the community and the comic book making process.

I am only going to have the free part for now, but I plan to add on a paid tier and offer free Pdfs of series as I finish them. That will come later down the road as I set up more of my infrastructure.

Thanks for taking the time to look over my page. I hope you hit that subscribe button and join me on my journey.

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