DROWSE -- a new lo-fi supernatural crime webcomic

Flip the switch. It’s time to wake the world.

I'm pleased to announce the launch of [I]DROWSE[/I], a free, (relatively) monthly lo-fi sci-fi crime webcomic brought to you by myself, Frank Verano, my longtime writing partner Nick Klinger, the incomparable Jaime Huxtable on art, and Taylor Esposito on letters. The project is edited by Kev Ketner.

[I]DROWSE[/I] is the story of private detective Paul Caine, who spent decades pushing his mind to its absolute limits in pursuit of esoteric knowledge and rites beyond the veil of the conscious mind.

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He barely survived.

Now Caine lives with devastating reminders of his unorthodox lifestyle — psychic trauma, compulsive behavior, and fractured personal relationships. He scrapes together a living using the only tools at his disposal — a sidekick husky named Ben Franklin and a singular set of detection methods rooted in urban mysticism that fail him more often than not.

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As the year turns to 1969, Caine witnesses the declining harbor town of Fairhaven fall victim to record unemployment and a brutal crime wave. While he struggles to keep his practice afloat, a dangerous new movement called the People’s Project works to exploit Fairhaven’s social unrest for its own ends. A desperate mother’s plea sets a bizarre investigation in motion — one made all the more unpredictable by Caine’s obsessive reliance on an impossible machine.

Read the first issue here: [URL="https://www.drowsecomic.com/chapter/1/"]DROWSE Chapter One[/URL].

We'll also be updating the official [URL="https://www.drowsecomic.com"]DROWSE website[/URL] with regular supplementary content such as entries from Caine's journal, in-world newspaper articles and adverts, process pages, and [I]From Hell[/I]-style annotations.

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Your feedback is much appreciated! We're excited to engage with our readers as the story unfolds here and on [URL="https://twitter.com/drowsecomic"]Twitter[/URL].

Chapter 1 preview:

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As a creator, I'm always interested in seeing others' process work. Here is a process sequence for a given panel in Chapter 1 -- from script to colored/lettered finished page. Note Jaime's decision to reframe the shot between layouts and pencils. When you see the panel in sequence with those that come before and after on the page, I'm sure you'll agree he made the correct storytelling decision.

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Flip the switch and turn on to [URL="https://www.drowsecomic.com/chapter/1/"]DROWSE Chapter One[/URL]. Chapter Two releases in just under two weeks. Teasers coming soon . . .

Coming Wednesday, August 18 -- [I]DROWSE[/I], Chapter 2.

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As always, [I]DROWSE[/I] Chapter 2 will be available for FREE on the official [URL="https://www.drowsecomic.com"]website[/URL]. Three-page preview coming soon!

It's here! I'm excited to announce the publication of [URL="https://www.drowsecomic.com/chapter/2/"][I]DROWSE[/I] Chapter Two[/URL] on the official website. We're pretty proud of this one. That page one is pretty epic, right?

In this chapter, things get weird, to say the least . . .

A preview:

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Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing some process work on this chapter and dropping teasers for the next. In the meantime, connect with us on [URL="https://twitter.com/drowsecomic"]Twitter[/URL]. Your feedback is welcome (encouraged, even!).

A quick peek at process work for Chapter Two. The speech delivered by Joachim Scholz, leader of the populist social movement the People's Project, that runs through the second half of the chapter was worked and reworked literally up to the moment we had to send the chapter to our letterer, Taylor. The development of page 8 is a good example of the collaborative back-and-forth involved in creating comics in a team setting. Once Nick and I saw Jaime's insanely hypnotic art, we knew we couldn't obscure it with an overly-verbose speech, so it forced us to pare the speech down for maximum impact and re-work which parts of the speech took on the transitional "page turn" function. Taylor also collaborated with our editor, Kev, to devise the singular way in which the newspaper quote read by Scholz is presented in panel 1. Compare an early draft of the script to the finished page:

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Catch up on [URL="https://www.drowsecomic.com/chapter/2/"]Chapter Two[/URL] before Chapter Three drops on September 15!

New blog post alert!

Over on the [I]DROWSE[/I] blog, Nick and I dig into the secret origins of book and offer insight on our all-star creative team:


[I]DROWSE has had a long and convoluted genesis. We initially developed the property as a weekly comic strip for a proposed digital comics website curated by longtime friend Rick Ritter in 2011. The site was intended to build upon the creative success of Rick’s Don’t Look! A Horror Comic Anthology (2010) by giving a more expansive platform to many of its creators, including us. Sadly, the site was scuttled for one reason or another, and we paused the development of our own strip shortly thereafter to pursue other career opportunities.

Originally, our then-untitled “occult detective” comic was to be presented as a reprint of a weekly strip that ran in a fictional underground newspaper in the 1950s and was stylistically influenced by Terry and the Pirates and Dick Tracy. An element of self-reflexivity was key to the story as initially envisioned. The detective, over time, would grow aware of being trapped in the strip and would figure his way out, thus transforming the comic, formally, into something new.

Foolishly, in 2013, Frank thought he could revive the story while working on his PhD. For fans of Paul’s sidekick Ben Franklin, you’re welcome, as his addition to the mythos (and some story beats you’ll see around Chapter 14) was about all that came out of this attempted revival.

Until finally…
[/I]
[URL="https://www.drowsecomic.com/updates/"]Continue reading on the [I]DROWSE[/I] blog[/URL]. And watch this space for a preview of Chapter Three -- coming in just a few short days!

The wait is over. [I]DROWSE[/I] #3 drops this Wednesday, September 15. I have a feeling you'll agree this is the best chapter yet. In the meantime, catch up on [URL="https://www.drowsecomic.com/chapter/1/"]Chapter One[/URL] and [URL="https://www.drowsecomic.com/chapter/2/"]Chapter Two[/URL] and our latest [URL="https://www.drowsecomic.com/updates/"]blog post[/URL] on the origins and creative team behind [I]DROWSE[/I].

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It's here! Nick, Jaime, Taylor, Kev and I are extremely proud to bring you [URL="https://www.drowsecomic.com/chapter/3/"][I]DROWSE[/I] #3[/URL] -- now available for FREE on the [URL="https://www.drowsecomic.com"][I]DROWSE[/I] website[/URL]!

This chapter sees many of the threads come together in a way that gives the reader a strong sense of the story moving forward. What weird experiments is Joachim Scholz up to in The Void? Speaking of weird, what does Caine's mystery machine do? And whose gun is that?

As always, connect with us on [URL="https://twitter.com/DrowseComic"]Twitter[/URL] with your feedback!

Three page preview:

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The final sequence of Chapter Three (not counting the one-page epilogue) was one of the most challenging and experimental scenes Nick and I have written for [I]DROWSE[/I] thus far. The short, 12-15 page chapters has given the story a sleek economy, like classical narrative cinema. This sequence, however, in which Caine wanders a section of the city in search of . . . something his esoteric mapping machine, the Infinity Projector, tells him is there, completely disrupts that model. Under that classical narrative model, it's essentially a four-page waste of space that doesn't "go" anywhere; instead, it's concerned with [I]being[/I] somewhere, with mood, and with using the built environment to communicate interior states.

I'm sure it's obvious to some, but the sequence is hugely inspired by the cinema of Michelangelo Antonioni -- in particular, the final scene of [I]L'eclisse[/I], which you can see [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSqhOzdTG-g"]here (beginning at 1:29[/URL]). In his early 1960s work, Antonioni frequently used the built environment (as well as landscape) to express the alienation of everyday life in modernity. He's definitely influenced my own preoccupation with using space and place, surface gestures and objects to express interiority. Here, Caine wanders, lost amid an empty, post-industrial wasteland, under transformation into something more alienating and eerie, until the concrete and brick buildings of. the city itself box him in and weigh upon him.

In addition to the [I]L'eclisse[/I] influence, you might also spot a couple of nods to other Antonioni films, like [I]Red Desert[/I]:

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And [I]La Notte[/I]:

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Read [URL="https://www.drowsecomic.com/chapter/3/"]Chapter Three[/URL] in full for free on the [I]DROWSE[/I] website. And join in the conversation on [URL="https://twitter.com/drowsecomic"]Twitter[/URL].

In addition to this cognitive mapping of Fairhaven, there's also geographical mapping at work here, as this brief tour of these spaces of Late Capitalism set the scene for the social unrest that's about to boil over in Chapter Four . . .

Hey, all! Just wanted to share a few updates in the world of [I]DROWSE[/I]. Firstly, the [URL="https://www.drowsecomic.com/2021/10/26/flipping-the-switch-chapter-one/"][I]DROWSE[/I] blog[/URL] has been updated with the first in a series of behind-the-scenes looks at the production of the comic called "Flipping the Switch":

[I]We know, we know. “Where’s Chapter Four?”

Trust us — it’ll be worth the wait (and you’ll soon see why it’s taking a bit longer than usual). In the meantime, we’re here to introduce a semi-regular feature that will offer insight into the creative process behind each chapter of DROWSE. Today, we’re delving into a process sequence — from script to colored and lettered finished page — for page 9, panel two from Chapter One . . . [/I]

DROWSE also continues to earn critical praise and be featured in comics journalism. Check out this quick but awesome review from [URL="https://twitter.com/Ready4Wednesday/status/1453828689020563467"]Shattered Glass Comic Reviews[/URL] and profile piece over at [URL="https://www.thepullbox.com/2021/10/webcomic-drowse/"]The PullBox[/URL].

Next week, look for teasers for the forthcoming Chapter 4, which is a doozy . . . !

Coming tomorrow!!!

[I]DROWSE[/I] Chapter 4, Part 1! The double-length Chapter 4 is so full of pulpy, brown acid suspense that it's being delivered in two parts. Read Part 1 tomorrow [I]exclusively[/I] at the official [URL="https://www.drowsecomic.com"] [I]DROWSE[/I] website[/URL].

In their advance review, [URL="https://www.youdontreadcomics.com/comics/2022/1/19/drowse-chapter-4-part-1"]You Don't Read Comics [/URL]calls it "an engrossing little thriller . . . one feels like they are peeling an onion while reading it, working along with Paul to decipher just what is going on. Grade: A."

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Now available for [I]free[/I] on the [URL="https://www.drowsecomic.com"]official [I]DROWSE[/I] website[/URL]!

DROWSE Chapter Four Part 1 is [URL="https://www.drowsecomic.com/chapter/4/"]HERE[/URL]!

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