Ralf the Destroyer

For all of those out there who have been thinking they need to change their desktop wallpaper, you’re in luck! I managed to upload the very same wallpaper I put on my computer featuring Ralf the Destroyer on Webcomic Wallpapers.com. Best of all it’s free!

Yes, even though the purpose of that site is to raise support for hungry cartoonists (honestly, how much soup can one person eat?) I chose to make this first offering a freebie for you guys because I appreciate your readership. It comes formatted in several sizes and no strings attached, so go ahead and download a copy for yourself!

Shop other personalized gifts from Zazzle.

Well I just opened a Zazzle store to see what mischief I could get into. At the time of this post I have some T-shirt designs and a magnet, I’ll be adding a bit more (shortly) as well as adding a store page to this site in the near future. I think the designs came out nicely, hopefully some of you will think so too!
Thanks for your viewership and support.

If you’re like me… (which is unsettling to think about) but if you are like me, then the lack of rocket packs, flying cars and moon condos has left you a bit cynical about many supposed “advancements” in technology. To this end I am always in search of some amazing gadget or theory that may just yet reinvigorate some of my retro-futurist hopes.
Today I ran across this little gem via Science Daily. Now I know this isn’t true anti-gravity, BUT I do think it’s a pretty cool next step (provided they are not pulling our leg. The idea is to use magnetic current flowing through a field of plasma to create swirling vertices of air to generate lift, but the big deal is that there are no moving parts, just solid state electronics. I would like to know what happens with this, the article came out in 2008.
I’m just sayin’…

Hearing that you’re about to be reviewed often stirs a mix of emotions that swirl around “Yea! Someone noticed!” to “Oh no! Someone noticed!”. Fortunately I knew with a Coyote Trax’s review, it would be highly entertaining either way. I have perused the Webcomicscritique.com site before and found it to be generally an encouraging and very lyrical read. While not every review is favorable, it is for the most part a very positively written blog which translates into light hearted and enjoyable to read. This just is an expression of someone who genuinely loves the medium of comics and good sequential story telling.

Well, I was informed by Coyote Trax that Ralf the Destroyer would be on the Tuesday Choice review. I was a bit surprised to garnish a review since my strip is pretty new to the scene. I wasn’t terribly worried about a scathing review since Coyote Trax has historically been fair and balanced and I consider this no exception. I encourage everyone to head on over to the Webcomicscritique.com site and have a look at The Tuesday Choice – Ralf the Destroyer review.

Woohoo! In today’s news, Ralf the Destroyer breaks the Top 100 on Webcomic-Z’s list January 12th 2010 coming in at #97. I think Webcomic-Z uses a combination of stats and votes to rank web comics on their list. So I’d like to thank all the voters and return visitors. I hope Ralf the Destroyer continues to grow and entertain you.

I’m finishing up a side project tentatively called “Ralf the Destroyer: Chronicles of Xyo” Issue #1, it’s a black and white, ashcan comic book (about 8″x 5″) with (hopefully) a color cover.

When I started developing the story of Ralf I wanted to make sure I had enough material to keep up with daily syndication for about 11 years, a daunting task. The reason for this was from Lee Nordling’s book Your Career in Comics where there was a quote saying that comics didn’t become profitable until this point. That was many moons ago and it seems now a days a five year contract is the norm with syndicates and 10 years is more like the life span of many newer comics rather than their jump off point.

Suffice to say I may have OVER planned for my story content, so what to do? Well I am a fan of Jeff Smith’s work ( Bone & Shazam! ) and other black and white pulp comics like TMNT (yes, when I read it, it was black and white on newsprint).

I started thinking maybe I could split the story up a bit as there where two portions of the story; Ralf’s plight with humanity on Earth and The back story of Ralf, his planet and how his decision affects the bigger picture. Ralf’s trials and struggles with humanity (his own and other’s) is a great set up for a daily strip but the back story seemed to need a bit more room to stretch its legs, so I suspect the comic book form would be better suited this part (though there is plenty of over-lap to tie them tightly together). I’ve been working on the comic book form of the story (issue #1) on the side. Posted to the left is the first page, there are a couple of other pages that can be seen on my DeviantART page.

Hey, let me know what you think!

Here’s a sketch of Ralf and an up coming character named Lexi. She’s a character I originally developed for a previous strip called “Solomon Road” (syndicated through DBR Media). I modeled her off of a little girl my son played with at church. I just liked the character so much I brought her over to Ralf the Destroyer, since Solomon Road ended after about a two year run.

She’s a feisty little girl who is carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. I drew this picture to compare the similarities in structure between Ralf and human children. If your browser has a Flash plug-in you can read more about her on the Character Page