BadMouth is a really special project of mine with about as many struggles at VVV Trilogy had, which is quite fitting considering they are both stories from the same universe.
So what is BadMouth exactly? Well it certainly was a webcomic once and that part of this story went a little bit like this:
The project sprouted from my brain after having read and caught up on The Sanity Circus (the webcomic my partner currently works on), and thought that webcomics were absolutely insane and amazing…
And I VERY MUCH wanted to be a part of that scene.
So I started sketching it, doodling the characters, getting used to the look and feel, this was about end of 2014, early 2015 so I was just about to graduate from University with a sparkly new animation degree and I needed to give myself a project that I, personally, had 100% control over. I maybe drew the first 8 pages on 11 x 14 inch paper, freaked out a little as to how long it was taking me and scrapped this version very early on…. some folks might remember it as my ‘teaser’ when I was initially posting on Tapastic (now known as Tapas).
It was pretty great. I was getting some pretty positive feedback, people were reading my work. I started fresh at page sizes half that size… very literally half that size as I tend to fold these papers and rip them in half. Its very cathartic I promise you. I finished the first 20-some-odd pages of BadMouth for SPX in 2016 as a teaser to invite folks to read my comic. This was only achieved, of course, with my partner: Tasha Mukanik who did all of the colours for these pages (and the many pages after the fact). You might know her a little bit for The Sanity Circus (and various dinosaur & prehistoric paraphernalia at our W & W show tables).
Unfortunately, that year we (my sister, friend, partner and I) were stopped at the border and turned around before we could even make it to the show. Nonetheless, I persisted. I continued drawing pages for the comic, posting them up online until I finally had my first volume: BadMouth: Ouverture in time for TCAF 2017 where I gave away my SPX teasers and was able to nearly sell out of the first volume.
The shows after this BadMouth was really successful in. I consistently sold more copies than I could have imagined selling of my own original work (as, the VVV Trilogyhad not been completed yet to compare it to). By the end of this year I was also approached by various comics platforms hoping to recruit my story but, admittedly I was a bit leery of them. You may recognize BadMouth from its brief stint with Tabulit which was a locally-based comic platform with big dreams of helping artists showcase their work in various settings.
Unfortunately, while some of these platforms had good intentions, a lot of them soured my own vision and I was forced to remove BadMouth from its audience. Some of the people following my comic followed me on my social networks after my pull from both Tapas and Tabulit, but sadly a great portion of my following disappeared.
Rolling up on mid-2019 BadMouth is on its second arc, however the project has hit a stumble where the story doesn’t seem to be gaining much interest or traction. With the down-spiral wherein the audience slowly disappeared from the project, I find myself at a loss and rethinking what my initial intent for the project was and if it is worth continuing in its current form, or shifting into something different (perhaps the inclusion of prose to counterbalance the struggle illustrating this entire story)?
Only time will tell. But if you want to encourage my efforts on this front (any and all words of wisdom are welcomed and appreciated) you can feel free to reply to this post. You may also support efforts for BadMouth by checking out these following links:
[BadMouth is a project that is still ongoing, however it is currently on an indefinite hiatus. This page will continue to be updated as the project progresses in real time].