I lost my video game privileges for a couple weeks for this little stunt. Fun times!

I certainly have plans to include this neighbor character in future comics. This was the only time I had a run-in with that particular neighbor in my childhood, but I think she’d make a good antagonist for Peter’s shenanigans. I just need to come up with a good name for her.

Also, this is the first “Hidden Einhorn” in a page of Peter & Company. To those who aren’t in on it, Einhorn is the mascot of the Inking Room webshow. On this page you can see him on one of the rocks that Peter made. I’m going to be sneaking him in to random spots in pages after this, but this will be the only time I actually write about it. You’ll have to keep an eye out to find him for yourself.

Just wanted to let you all know that I’ll be taking this week and next off in anticipation of my upcoming wedding. Whitney and I will be getting married on the 21st, and I have to spend all of the remaining time planning and making sure everything is in place for it. I thought I would have time to produce today’s comic page before the craziness of last-minute wedding stuff kicked in, but things just didn’t work out that way.

So yes! In two weeks (August 30th) I’ll be posting the next page. I will be airing the next broadcast of the Inking Room webshow earlier than that (actually next Monday evening, the 23rd) since I want to produce the page on the show, so be sure to join in there if you’d like to partake.

See you all after the wedding!

-Jonathan

I originally had plans to color this page, but I just didn’t have the time to do so this weekend like I had hoped. I have plans to color one of the upcoming pages to make up for it.

Also, in addition to the new page, I’d like to share one more piece of guest artwork that was given to me before I had started working again. I never got a chance to post it as an official update, so I will post it right here to give it the screen time it deserves. This one came from Garfieldo, a regular viewer of my Inking Room webshow and all around hilarious guy. I just love the look he gave it, with a nice antique texture and feel over the whole piece. Click the thumbnail to view it.

In other news, I’ve been getting myself back up to speed with almost-daily broadcasts of Jonathan’s Inking Room on UStream. Remember that the show airs every night at 8 pm EST (unless otherwise noted on the website). Additionally, you can now watch the show live and even chat through the Inking Room site instead of having to go to the UStream page, which should make things easier and more streamlined. Just click the “Watch the Show” to reach the stream page.

See you all next week!

Also, this marks the first image where Whitney is colored using her new coloring scheme. I originally had made her sort of a Russian Blue coloring, which ended up being too dark and not a good representation of my fair-skinned fiance. With the upcoming launch of the new cast pages, I will be introducing a new coloring scheme for her consisting of light purple fur and darker purple hair, which should hopefully clarify things a bit. I’ll keep her previous appearances in the comic colored their original colors just to preserve the change — plus, I’m not a fan of going back and changing old work to reflect current designs. I like seeing how things evolve over time, y’know?

Again: be sure to stop by Jonathan’s Inking Room on UStream. The show is in full swing every night at 8 pm, and has been a real blast so far with daily drawings and producing the first few pages of the Chronicles of Ademar.

“Right now it’s a scene from Jon’s earlier strips that I found pretty funny. But with his character in my vector style it looks like its a cereal box character LOL. This cereal is Scary Delicious…”

I freakin’ love how it turned out. It’s such a different look for Chelsea, and the fact that Jess pulled the material from one of the earlier strips makes me wonder how the whole comic would look in this style. I’ve never been able to get a well enough handle on vector graphics to experiment with styles like this (nor do I think I’ll ever match Jess’s skill level with it, which makes me love this image even more).

So yes, big news: THE NEW DAILY WEBSHOW HAS LAUNCHED. I am now broadcasting every night on Ustream in Jonathan’s Inking Room, where I’ll be drawing live on cam for various projects and topics. It’s very much viewer-influenced, since I take a lot of direction from the audience in the chat room, so be sure and stop on by the website to check out this week’s schedule and catch the show when it airs. The past week was a test run of things and I think it was a good success (barring a hard drive crash on the Mac which cut off the feed for a few days, but that was an unforeseen circumstance). The show airs Monday - Saturday at 8 pm EST, and Sundays at 6 pm EST, typically running for two hours.

To those who missed it, I also had turned on the Ustream feed earlier tonight (Sunday at 6 pm EST) to crank out some sketches and get some good pencil work done. I ended up foregoing the production of the next page of P&C in favor of making a turnaround for Buckley, seeing as how I hadn’t done any new artwork for the Chronicles of Ademar and everyone in the Ustream room wanted to see some. I like to let the viewers lend a hand in steering the direction of the broadcast a bit — hence why you should tune in every Sunday night, since it really is a blast!!

Also, more Character Development Memes, this time for Seth and Chelsea!

More fun to be had later in the week. Watch my DA/FA journals and my Facebook/Twitter feeds to see when I am about to turn on the Ustream feed. I plan on jumping into inking ASAP to see if my hand is steady enough yet to get some real work done. If all works out, I’ll be turning on the feed on a more regular basis! Heck, maybe I’ll even go for a nightly broadcast of sketching and tomfoolery if there’s enough of an audience for it.

Update 6-16: I’ve decided to go ahead with my plans for turning the Ustream show into a daily broadcast. This Saturday will mark the launch of “Jonathan Ponikvar’s Inking Room,” a webshow that will be streamed Monday-Saturday at 8 pm EST and Sundays at 6 pm. Hop on over to the website and give the details a quick read. I hope you all can tune in, because it’s going to be a TON of fun!!

Okay — technically, I write my 12-year-old experiences into Peter’s character, and I never had to deal with pancreatitis as a kid — but still, the subject matter rings true regardless. Peter just needs some time to recover.

On another side note, some folks have been suggesting that I incorporate this whole experience into a story for Peter, where I make him get sick and go through some sort of childhood hospitalization. I’m not really sure if that story would be a fit for the comic (we already went the “serious” route with the Letters story), but if I can make it more lighthearted then it’s always a possibility.

And a quick update on my recovery — my hands are getting more stable with each day, so it really won’t be too much longer before I can start cranking out material again. I can draw with a pencil just fine, so I’m planning on running the next Ustream show this coming Sunday evening at the scheduled time (6 pm EST), just to do the pencils for the next page. I won’t be able to ink it JUST yet, so this will be more or less a preview a week or two in advance of when the page will actually be posted. I’ll update this site and all my journals/twitter/facebook/etc. a couple hours beforehand to remind everyone when it goes up. Hope to see you there!

Things are certainly turning around for me lately. I got out of the hospital in mid-May and am quickly recovering my strength, but have not yet reached the point where I’m able to put pencil (or inking brush) to paper and resume drawing the next pages of Peter & Company. As such, I have been blessed with the generosity of my readers: several of them have offered to provide guest artwork as update material while I am recharging my batteries. Over the next few weeks, you can expect to see several illustrations and works of sequential art from some very gifted friends of mine who have taken it upon themselves to help me keep my site from sitting stagnant any longer.

This first update is from the one who got the ball rolling, MuddyPaws. He has drawn me several P&C character portraits over the years, but this one by far is the best I’ve seen from him. I’m very honored and thankful that he took the time to put this together for me!

If you have the free time and would like to jump in to share your own guest art, send it to me and I will add it with one of the next updates. I will add any piece sent to me in its own post as way of saying thank-you to anyone who participates. It has absolutely brightened my spirits to find that so many people so far have been willing to offer their artistic abilities to help Peter & Company stay fresh, and it has definitely been helping with the healing and recovery process.

Also, here’s a fun Character Development Meme that’s been circulating the internet the past few days. I’ll be putting a few of these together for the main characters of the comic and linking them on here as they’re done, so keep an eye out for those in the meantime as well.