ChatGPT generated this image, too… Hello, Unsung Superheroes Fans! Yesterday, I had a rare day off work, where I had ALSO managed to complete all my other tasks like my correspondence with couples whose weddings I’m DJing and a bunch of housework, before the day started. So, I spent all day fully immersing myself in what I’ve been chipping away at piecemeal for the past few weeks; restructuring and rewriting the Robert Smalls graphic novel. Strap in: it’s a long read! TL;DR I spent yesterday continuing to restructure the Robert Smalls graphic novel, realising I need to significantly condense t ..read more

This is what ChatGPT thinks I look like! What’s happening is I’m not currently drawing. After the last page, I looked through my plan for the entire graphic novel. I haven’t scripted it all, but I realised that as it stands, everything I wanted to include would have the project running to hundreds if not thousands of pages. I won’t live long enough to finish it at this rate!! So, before I draw another page, I want to do some judicious and ruthless editing. I need to reshape the story, maybe give it a bit more of an angle and choose parts of Smalls’ life from the massive amount of research I’ve ..read more

Page 17 – Coloured using a watercolour effect Hmmm…. I’m not sure how happy I am with this page.  Lydia is telling the story of how her family were brought to America. I wanted the panels showing the story she’s telling to look a little different to the main story panels, but after thinking about some ideas about how I would do that, I had some ideas that I really liked the idea of. The idea that caught my imagination the most was drawing the figures in the story to look like smoke. However, I didn’t think I could pull off any of the effects I was thinking of well… yet. There was, of cour ..read more

Page 11 In page 11, the story jumps forward a couple of years, though that’s not specifically important. The next few pages are going to give insight into Robert’s daily life as a house slave to the McKee family, starting with his early rising with the other house slaves. This page was entirely compiled in Clip Studio Paint, though as mentioned before, the first panel is a reworking of an earlier one created in Photoshop. I’m still loving Clip Studio as it is just so much more geared up for creating this sort of project than Photoshop is, and it is much more tablet-friendly too. This page is p ..read more

Here is page 10 of my Robert Smalls graphic novel! Page 10 You can view all the other pages to date on my Homepage. My “Progressive Superhero” Patrons can view the Hi-Res version of this and all other pages at this page on my website. All my patrons can already see the next page, page 11 ahead of its general release. This page shows the last of the “quarterlies” that Reverend Richard Fuller held at Beaufort Baptist church, and which I spoke a little more about here. Fuller was a former lawyer who abandoned his law practice to fulfill what he felt was his calling as a pastor. By all accounts, h ..read more

Robert Smalls: A Life Reclaimed – Page 9 Robert Smalls: A Life Reclaimed – Page 9! This page!! This darned page!!! Good things first: There’s a Spotify code at the top of the page. If you open Spotify on your device, go to “Search”, then tap the camera icon next to the search bar and point your device’s camera at the code, you’ll hear a version of the song being sung by the worshipers as they file into the church, as you read the page! It’s a feature I mentioned I wanted to implement months ago and I’m glad I have managed to include it here! Reading the comic digitally, it does require you to ..read more

You, my Patrons, get to see page 10 of “Robert Smalls: A Life Reclaimed” ahead of anyone else in the world!  I know I was going to post some WIP pics, but I just kind of blitzed it and finished it faster than I thought I would so here it is! You can view all the other pages to date on my Homepage. My “Progressive Superhero” Patrons can view the Hi-Res version of this and all other pages at this page on my website. I will be posting more WIP shots over the coming days. This page shows the last of the “quarterlies” that Reverend Richard Fuller held at Beaufort Baptist church, and which I s ..read more

I am now offering Robert Smalls merch! Since Patreon has added the ability for me to offer merchandise as a perk to Patrons, I thought I’d give a few of these a go and see how I get on. So now, my “Maskless Superheroes” Patrons on my £7 tier will receive a mini-print after 3 months of patronage. Mini-Print My “Sung Superheroes” Patrons on my highest tier will receive a neck gaiter/face-covering, a poster, a mug, and a t-shirt – one every three months for their first year of patronage. Visit www.unsungsuperheroes.com/patreon for more details on how to get this Robert Smalls Merch! Don’t f ..read more

For years now, I have taken commissions of vector portraits of people. (You can see examples of them here, and commission one here. Well, it seemed only right that I do a vector portrait of Robert Smalls and so I have. The Unsung Superheroes logo watermark isn’t part of the actual product! It’s now available as a print as a benefit to subscribers to my “Sung Superheroes” tier. (The actual print won’t have the Unsung Superheroes logo watermark). Sign up as a “Sung Superhero” for at least three months to receive yours! Alternatively, you can order one here. And to find out more about Robert Sma ..read more

Here’s my latest Patron; pun’kin, a singer/songwriter and all-round great person! Thanks for signing up to Unsung Superheroes! It is very much appreciated! pun’kin has a new album planned for later this month – “Pseudo Terrestrial” which I’m excited to hear, so stay tuned to her for details on that! Here are her essential links: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/punkin.singer.songwriter/ Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/_pun_kin YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCcs_x0uPu-YkpY9xy3u2oTQ Soundcloud: https://m.soundcloud.com/pun_kin WordPress: https://puddingtroll.wordpress.com/ Unsung ..read more