www.the-agencies.com presents The Agencies #22

[Oblesklk]

The Agencies #22 is now available for sale!

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To see The Agencies, along with dozens of other tickle torture comics, go to www.the-agencies.com

There are three issues of The Agencies I am guaranteed to remember until my dying days. The first being Issue #7 where the series really turned a corner in terms of storyline and artwork and became a big step forward for us in the world of tickling comics. The second issue is Issue #13 which is just amazing on several levels. It's the climax of a story arc, it was 20 pages, I worked closely with Dave2112 on its evolution and story, and it resulted in the death of one of our comic universe's main characters, a move still controversial today with our readers. The third issue I'll remember is this one. The reason for this is rather long and I'd like to tell it in this thread over time, as there's a lot to tell.

In summary, this issue has:

• 10 interior color pages
• Includes a color cover
• Issue offered in PDF format
• Lineart by Jose
• Colors by Toonfed
• Written by Oblesklk
• Directed by Oblesklk
• This will be the most anticipated issue we've ever released
• Tiffany's fans will finally get to see what they've waited years to see
• Underarm tickling
• Nylon foot tickling
• Belly button tickling
• Tummy tickling
• Forced laughter through something other than tickling
• Start to see signs of a significant character change
• 3 new encyclopedia entries, detailing the world of The Agencies
• Tickling with tongue, fingers, and feathers
• Sneak peak at our upcoming spring releases
• Costs just $12.95 !

 

[Oblesklk]

The Agencies #22 - Initial Production

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To see The Agencies, along with dozens of other tickle torture comics, go to www.the-agencies.com

So after The Agencies #21 released, we had the script for The Agencies ready to go. We started receiving layout for #22 as early as January 2014. I'm attaching the first such layout in this post. This was from Javier, the line artist for The Agencies #7-9, #14, then #16-21. He was the heart and soul of this comic line, as he gave the characters a fantastic, cartoony edge to them. He was a Disney artist that applied his chops to our world and the result was phenomenal.

Given this, imagine my shock when, after receiving 5 pages of layouts, I get an email from Javier that he can no longer work on our product line. He was trying to simplify his life, and focusing his efforts on one client, while scrapping the rest (our's included).

The above image is taken from The Agencies #16, in which Tiffany's incredibly ticklish best friend is interrogated by Lucy, Karma's lieutenant. Karma is desperately trying to find Tiffany, and to get to her, she's going through Tiffany's friends. This page is a good example of why we were rather bummed that Javier left the series. He has a way in depicting the characters that we truly love. It is a big loss.

From the above, we were also enamored with how he specifically drew Tiffany. Tiffany is Agent Starlight's little sister. Tiffany has ambitions of joining the Academy and eventually the Agency, much like her older sister. But her Academy preparation is derailed when Karma attempts to abduct Tiffany and her two best friends. At any rate, this is Tiffany in a tribute to Return of the Jedi and its wonderful metal bikini. She might not be Princess Leia, but she's a fine substitute 🙂

I'll continue the thread while talking about our lengthy search for a new art team, including a time where we believed we had a successful artist, only to find out the artwork wasn't quite where I wanted it.

 

[spikedpsycho]

R.I.P. Javier. Your not dead, but working for Disney, you may as well be.

 

[Amnesiac]

"Where's Javier?"
"They shipped him off."
"To where?"
"Mouschwitz."
"Ooooh...poor bastard."

 

[Oblesklk]

R.I.P. Javier. Your not dead, but working for Disney, you may as well be.

"Where's Javier?"
"They shipped him off."
"To where?"
"Mouschwitz."
"Ooooh...poor bastard."

Awesome lol. I have kiddos heavily into the whole Disney thing. And their's is certainly a different perspective of the corporate interest than my prior discussions with artists.

I should clarify, Javier "used" to work for Disney. I don't know for sure if his big project is Disney related or not. Even if the project isn't Disney, I have no doubt it comes with all the triumph and tragedy that usually marries itself to traditional corporate engagements.

That aside, he's been one of the most amazing and skilled artists I've seen producing tickling work, and I certainly appreciate his contributions to our little corner of the world.

The holidays are here, thrusting themselves in a non-gentle manner into our household. Long story short: I will try to continue this silly saga when I can, accompanied by images and so forth for those interested.

 

[spikedpsycho]

My distaste for Disney doesn't come from it's lack of work, it's taking offense to other peoples work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_expanded_universe
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014...-chainsaw-to-the-star-wars-expanded-universe/

 

[Oblesklk]

The Agencies #22 - Search for an artist

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To see The Agencies, along with dozens of other tickle torture comics, go to www.the-agencies.com

The search for the perfect Tiffany and company took us a full year to complete. I've never been part of something so exhaustive for the tickling community. Even in my days doing TickleTown and dealing with real models, there wasn't as much recruiting effort into recruiting young women willing to be bound and tickled as there was with this project. We had two major recruiting drives in 2014: one in spring and one in fall. Together, we had over 100 applications we reviewed. The volume of interest was staggering and something of a surprise.

In the past, we had received fair attention to our talent calls. But we had not received the level of quality submissions like we got in our 2014 talent drive. I feel fortunate that I have people to bounce ideas off. This ranges from folks I've worked with in the past/present, to fans of The Agencies that have kept in touch over the years. Between our own grueling scoring system and subjective feedback from folks, we were able to narrow the field down to a handful of finalists. Back when we started Agency Publishing in the comics world, I remember we wanted quality artists, but we didn't really have a great way of paying for them. Deferred compensation is a tough thing to sell when you're a new publisher, as you have no track record of success with any of your lines. Just because we had dabbled in video (TickleTown, Ticklish Teens) didn't mean we knew anything about comics. So we were more open in those days to accepting artists. Now, we have a fairly exhaustive system in place to ensure the high quality bar of artwork is met. It's not good enough for our products to be good, they have to be amazing. So back in the day we may accept 1 out of 3 artists that come our way. Now it really is closer to 1 out of 50. It's interesting to see where we've been and where we're at now. I would never have thought, in those early days, that it would take me a full year to find an artist for our flagship comic The Agencies. But it has. I made a mistake in the past with this very line in replacing Javier when his studio left the line. I went with a series of artists that weren't the best fit. As a result, there are now issues in the line that were released more for keeping up with a schedule. This time we were more patient, and although it substantially delayed released of the next issue, I am comfortable we have our man (men, actually). That's a good feeling, as I don't ever want to shortchange our customers and fans of the line.

The good news is that The Agencies #22 is now inked/colored, and awaits letters for a February 2015 release. After that, hopefully we can see a more steady release schedule for our venerable line (The Ruthless team is kicking so much butt lately they're almost done with The Ruthless #15, they're catching up quickly to The Agencies, which is kind of funny in a way).

Below are different submissions for Tiffany. It is interesting to see people's take on her. Overall, many of the artists did a great job in bringing a new take to the character.

 

[spikedpsycho]

Socked tickling. Which is the absolute best; slowly removing someone's shoes and socks, the act of depriving their last bit of protection as they go insane. More of that please

 

[Spiderdude26]

Great artwork!

 

[detritus]

Oh MAN

This look absolutely fantastic

That set of test drawings for Tiffany are extremely saucy... especially that one right down in bottom left... there is something wicked about that one.. I think it is the shape of her hips... so ticklish looking.. yummy

Thanks for the previews

 

[spikedpsycho]

Love the Bruce Timm homage.....

 

[saruman]

Any updates on Yelena no.9? When will u release it?

 

[Oblesklk]

Any updates on Yelena no.9? When will u release it?

It is available 🙂

I will do my marketing over the weekend. Thanks for keeping me honest, I do need to keep to my schedules! Especially since we haven't released since November. But the good news is wow we have a lot of good books to release in the next couple months. I can't wait.

 

[saruman]

Thanks Oblesklk...tbh I've been waiting for this issue for SUCH a long time...Yelena no.6 and 8 were in my opinion some of the best work I've ever seen. I've been up for the last 3 nights with severe migraine headaches, and the only thing keeping my spirits up is your work 🙂 Thanks so much for maintaining your standards of excellence...you're a trailblazer for the industry 🙂

 

[Oblesklk]

Thanks Oblesklk...tbh I've been waiting for this issue for SUCH a long time...Yelena no.6 and 8 were in my opinion some of the best work I've ever seen. I've been up for the last 3 nights with severe migraine headaches, and the only thing keeping my spirits up is your work 🙂 Thanks so much for maintaining your standards of excellence...you're a trailblazer for the industry 🙂

Thank you, in an effort not to derail this thread, I'm going to answer your question on the newly created Yelena 9 thread 🙂 I hope you don't mind!

http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?259383-www-the-agencies-com-presents-Yelena-9

 

[Oblesklk]

The Agencies #22 - Finding the right colorist

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To see The Agencies, along with dozens of other tickle torture comics, go to www.the-agencies.com

I will go into more detail on line artist selection of people want. Otherwise, I'll spoil the ending and say after a series of tests and submissions, we went with the artist that initially submitted the full body version of Tiffany on the bottom of the "Tiffany Model Test" image above in this thread. I find he brings an innocent sexiness to the characters that I really like to see, especially with this line. A recurring theme in this comic line are young women that have had to grow up too fast. It's difficult to an artist to convey the amount of willpower, strength, sexiness yet hints of innocence to his characters. It's a wonderful thing to behold. And much of that is shown below in the line art submission for the cover art for The Agencies #22.

This submission really caught my eye. I love how Tiffany is depicted here, I like the look The Tickler (right) is giving her, along with the body language of The Tickler putting her arm around Tiffany while casually running a feather up her leg. It's a simple cover, but it really conveys everything that goes on in this issue. Needless to say, I was impressed 🙂

Even though we had our line artist, we next needed to find a colorist whose skills enhance the lines. Every colorist is quite different, and even talented colorists don't necessarily work well with different line art styles. We received fewer submissions on the coloring side since we didn't host an open call for talent. We had different folks give their interpretation of Tiffany and The Tickler. Although I appreciated the flat cell coloring of the middle image, ultimately I fell in love with the third submission. It was little things like texturizing the background doors and ropes, to the way Tiffany's abdomen looks. It was just great. There were some touchup items completed before the piece was finalized (the background lighting drowns out the characters, so needed to tone that down, and there were some specific issues I had with the skin coloring that got revised), but it ended up looking great.

I hope you like this newest entry on the production of The Agencies #22. We have four weeks until a release date; let me know if there's anything else you'd like to see.

 

[Oblesklk]

Socked tickling. Which is the absolute best; slowly removing someone's shoes and socks, the act of depriving their last bit of protection as they go insane. More of that please

Psychological approach. I like it. I would like us to move into this realm more in general, so I'm glad to hear that piece of feedback. I will work that into our scripts a bit more in the coming year.

Great artwork!

Thank you very much 🙂 I'm glad you like it.

 

[Oblesklk]

Oh MAN

This look absolutely fantastic

That set of test drawings for Tiffany are extremely saucy... especially that one right down in bottom left... there is something wicked about that one.. I think it is the shape of her hips... so ticklish looking.. yummy

Thanks for the previews

No problem at all, glad you like them.

I loved the submissions we got for Tiffany, the artists did a great job. The one you're talking about, she looks like a really cute 1980's style cartoon heroine. I do kinda dig that vibe.

 

[StevePerry4Ever]

I don't know about anyone else, but I'd love to see this new artists detail of a bare foot being tickled.

 

[spikedpsycho]

Time to break out the Crayons

 

[Oblesklk]

Love the Bruce Timm homage.....

I really like that one, too. I've been wanting to work with him for years, and his submissions were awesome. Unfortunately, doing sequentials aren't exactly his forte, so it didn't work out. But I'm trying to find alternative projects he can work on because his skills are nothing short of amazing.

 

[Oblesklk]

I don't know about anyone else, but I'd love to see this new artists detail of a bare foot being tickled.

That is a great idea. While there is no examples of bare foot tickling in this issue, there are examples of nylon-clad foot tickling. I will post as we get closer to the release date; that's a great suggestion!

 

[Oblesklk]

View attachment 436084

Time to break out the Crayons

Love the crayon effect, definitely made me smile 🙂 Reminds me of the kids' menu images that show up for the kiddos to color while they wait for food. Although I'm guessing this image won't show up on those kinds of menus...

BTW, almost got to 20 on the dA page. Getting close.

 

[MidnightOyl]

Amazing. Seriously can't wait

 

[spikedpsycho]

If everyone on here requests that The Agencies 22 be released early, then it will happen!! Just need 20 requests! Visit the Deviantart page....
http://agency-publishing.deviantart.com/