Henchemology 101

Every villain worth his salt knows that for a successful plan execution you're only as good as you're weakest link; your henchmen. Henchmen are the expendable adherents of the main villain; always ready to do the master's bidding. Kill or be killed, and often they are. Either by the hero before reaching the master, or by the villain himself as punishment for failure (or just for kicks).

The word henchman, refered originally to one who attended a nobles horse. Henchmen were members of royal court or a noble household. It wasn't until the 1800s, long after Tudor Queen Elizabeth I abolished the royal henchmen, known also as the children of honor, that they became stock characters in many adventure stories as the villain's lackey.

Just to be clear; a villain has henchmen, minions, or lackeys, not sidekicks. While this is partially a convention in terminology, it also reflects that few villains are capable of bonds of friendship and loyalty, which are normal in the relationship between a hero and sidekick. There may be some exceptions to the rule, but generally its a pretty safe bet. Villains don't like to share the spotlight.

It's a fine line between having henchmen that are, competent enough to pull off instructions and henchmen that are ambitious and want to overthrow the master. It's finding that special blend of intelligent and lazy. Most of the time you'll find yourself settling for stupid. Just hope that sheer numbers will prevail.

Blerg King

I love my son, but I'll be damned if he isn't an outbreak monkey. He got sick on Friday, which subsequently means that everyone else in the house got sick. My wife and I have been engaged in vomiting matches for the past few hours, and even as I write this I'm shakily trying to keep down a glass of ginger ale. Ugh. Enough pity party though, I'm gonna get some more sketching done and try not to throw up on my sketch pad.

Until next time, go rub a sick kid on your face.

Pen and Ink

So, I'm torn. As I mentioned in an earlier post, when I draw the comic in Illustartor I use the laptop nipple. However, I've really wanted to get good with the Wacom tablet. I want a pen and ink feel to my art without having to bust out the pen and ink. I want to make the comics in a vector program, like Illustrator, so I can adjust the size of it without loosing any quality. So I've been practicing, and I tried to draw the newest page using the Wacom. I liked it, the results are good. I'm going to keep at it and see if it's worthwhile to continue to use it. I want to follow the Half-Pixel advice: first get good, then get fast, then get good-fast.

Basically I'm struggling with a balance of time.