Issue 28

While Titan and Phantom have been traveling around the alternate Earths, we look in on the rest of the team...

The team faces a new threat in Monstersaurus, a dinosaur-like creature that the Preventors unleash - as well as a new member of their team, Ox.

Along the way Crossbow meets and fights a clone of hers called Dark Bow.

The mysterious Rainbow Lad flies out of nowhere to help them, although his ability to fire rainbows doesn't really seem to help them much!

To end the battle, the team is assisted by more mysterious First T group, claiming to be from another alternate Earth, but when they return to their base we learn that things might not be what they seem as Power Boi knows who the First T really is as he's part of the Ninth T.

Oh, an unknown creature hovers in the air in front of them before walking off...what could that be?

Issue 26

The Fall of the UltraLine Team!

Back in issue # 7 I introduced that fact that my universe had alternate Earths, certainly not a new notion in comics by any means.  In that issue I had a team of villains that had taken over Earth 3, totally forgetting about DC's Crime Syndicate being on their Earth 3.  Not wanting to think there was an influence, I actually changed the villains to being on Earth 2.  

In this story we learn about the team before the 'day of darkness', a happier time on that Earth where Titan was given his powers by an elder, one-armed god named Diodarius.  One day, Titan snapped and he killed the G'Ion of his world and absorbed his powers. He then killed the Diodarius of that world and absorbed his powers.  

This led to a fracture within the team - some sided with Titan, others realized that he turned evil and wanted to stop him.  This leads to a major battle and several members are killed and two, Mindbender and GeoMancer escape.  

Having called themselves the UltraLine time, as they drew the line against evil, those loyal to Tian changed the name of their team to the Terminators of Evil.   Here is the cover to the issue:

This cover was done using a special effect photo editing ap.  

The nature of this issue is very dark, not like the rest of the issues I've written - there is no humor, there is no happiness to this issue.    There is a reason why the people of this world call it the "day of darkness".

Here is the original artwork for the cover, before the special effect was added:

Here is an alternate I considered, but didn't use for the cover:

In the back up story, Titan and Phantom find themselves on Alternate Earth 6 where the Ultra-Elite Team operates out of Australia.  Here's who makes up that team:

Issue 25

 This issue was focused on Pussywyck, the Elder, and his formation of the Pinnacle Forest.

We also saw the development of a new villain called Raw.

Plus we saw Titan and Phantom's visit to Alternate Earth 5 where they met the African Freedom Union.

Issue 24

Issue 24 had a few things going on, for starters we see Titan and Phantom get to the first of the alternate Earths, # 4, a world full of megafauna where humans never evolved.

We then see date night with Magno and Master Mind before witnessing a battle between Serpent and Mythos against some villains in Mexico who attack near the temple where Serpent was almost killed centuries ago before she was rescued by Magno.

We see Vapor and Electrode arrive in the Pinnacle forest and a young man walking down a street in Florida where he is attacked by dark forces.  Oh, let's also not forget one of the would-be muggers of Crossbow being approached in Jail by Major Hole. 

Also, if you blinked you might have missed it - but there is a bird in China waking up from a nap in one panel, and you just know that is going to play a role. 

There were a couple of deleted images.  The first one is a close up of Phantom's face, I just didn't like how the image came out, so I scraped it.

Lastly, there was another two panels that I did the breakdown of, it was during the fight with Serpent and foes in Mexico, which I also didn't like.

Production, Computer Issues and Fixes

What a journey it has been so far in getting the comic out each month.  When I started the comic, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do in terms of producing the comic.  The writing wasn't a concern, but how I was going to draw it was a bit of a problem.  

At the time I launched the comic in April of 2018, I had a Dell Inspiron Computer from 2008 running Windows Vista and just a mouse (no stylus), but I figured that was what I had to work with, so I better make it work; and I did...for the most part.

Through out my comic, issues 1 to 29, they were always a mix of digital and hand drawn.  For the first few issues I did a pencil on paper breakdown and inked and colored it using the ArcSoft PhotoStudio program and lettered it with that program as well.

But I soon learned that I had a hard time getting things the way I wanted them inking digitally, so starting with issue # 5, I did something different.  I just used a black ink ball point Bic pen and drew the issue directly on paper and then fixed and edited it digitally.  However, there were a few problems with that, sometimes the ink wasn't spread evenly and that was very prone to smudges or spots on the paper and I was spending too much time correcting those errors.  I only did this for numbers 5 and 6.

Starting with issue 7 through 29, I penciled them on paper and then inked them on paper was well, using Sharpie Ultra Fine point markers, sometimes in later issues I would use Razor Point markers from Pilot, these were my markers of choice for inking when I used to do posters for my brother years ago.

Starting with issue # 8, through now I started doing the lettering using the PhotoScape program.  

Things went along quite nicely for several years, but then we got to early May of 2021 and the monitor on my old laptop stopped working.  Luckily for me it has a port where I could hook up another monitor and I was able to keep working, but I knew my time with that laptop would be ending soon.

In early June 2021 my laptop/monitor set up didn't want to work.  I came home on a Friday night ready to finish my work on issue # 29, but I couldn't do anything.  After about 45 minutes of messing with it, I was able to get it working, but knew that was it.  I ordered new Dell Inspiron computer and then spent the weekend setting it up. (I did end up finishing # 29 on the old laptop)

I had to make quite a few adjustments to be able to do what I wanted, but knew also that I needed to evolve with my comic and decided to go completely digital.  I ordered an M708 Graphics Tablet from Ugee and I downloaded the Kitra art program and started to learn that.  Here's the first thing I created on there:

Trust me, I got better after this one!  

Starting with issue # 30, every issue going forward will be completely digital.  

The pro's to me: no more spending time penciling, inking or scanning in the book - I should be able to increase my production and get more material out there.

The con to me: digital drawing just feels weird and I'm not comfortable with it yet. 

Issue 23

Issue 23 was a bit of an interesting issue in that it didn't deal with just one storyline, instead it bounced around between many stories and it also paved the way for future stories that we haven't even gotten to yet.

Some of the stories that we touched on:

We saw that Ice Mistress from Alternate Earth 1 made her way to our world and we also saw how the members of the Ultimate Team learned that she was missing.

We got a hint that Tiger is keeping something from the team.

We saw that Titan and Phantom were bouncing between Alternate Earths.

We saw Moonlight warn Cat about Ebon Wolf.

We saw Serpent and Mythos being confronted by villains in Mexico.

We checked in on a young Semeulke.

We got a hint of what happed to the blue light element (from the first Interlude) in Malta.

We learned that Magno and Master Mind are way more than just friends.

We saw Orb, Power Boi and Dire Wolf's first visit to headquarters.  

We learned that Vapor and Electrode are heading to the Pinnacle Forest.

We learned of the Worioggs, an invasive species invading another planet. 

We saw a mysterious man planning a secret meeting in the ruins of Manhattan on Alternate Earth 2.

We saw the Water Bearer become Water Wonder.

We saw Mr. Roboto meeting with Heam, the builder of the headquarters.

We saw the birth of Dark Bow.

We saw the young woman with the Book That Can't Be Named attacked by shadowy forces in Florida.

We learned that Diodarius still has the Cronus Shard, even though he told the team that he didn't.

We saw Hanu (the cat from Interlude 2) visiting Times Square in New York City.

We saw Italus in Italy investigating reports of weird creatures.

Finally, we finished out the book meeting the mysterious First T team.

Boy, that was a lot crammed into 74 panels!  In time all of these will be touched on again! 

Time, the Tree and Me & Issue 22

We have to go a little back in time for this blog...back in 2012 I had the idea to revive my characters that I had created over twenty years ago and that started me on a bit of a journey to where I am today with the characters, although I didn't really start to work on the art until 2014.

In 2015 Webtoons held a contest to try to get new creators onto to their platform and I decided to take part.  While I wasn't ready to launch my main comic, I did have ideas about another storyline that was going to involve time-travel and be influenced by genealogy; the title was Time, the Tree and Me.

Here's a couple of samples from what I produced then:

It was a black and white series that I never finished, although I did complete several more panels for the series.  Of course I didn't win the contest, but it really was an eye-opener about how to produce a web comic and I learned so much from that experience.    Somewhere out there they are still floating around on Webtoons.

I like the concept though and decided to bring that into my main comic, the Ultra-Elite Team; and really it wasn't hard to do - it was easy enough to make the connection between Cat's human half - Rick King and Brian King, the star of this series.  

In issue 22 of the comic, I finally brought this concept into the main book, but it really was just the introduction, there's a lot more story coming with Brian King in the years to come!

Here are a few panels from issue # 22: