Little Guyz Entertainment

This is the first issue of “Behind The Cemetery,” a series that is a commentary, behind the scenes view of each issue of Valley View Cemetery. Here, the creators of the series will tell their bewitching stories about creating the comic and some tips and tricks for other comic creators based on their trial and error (but mostly error as you can see in the misspelling of our first cover that had to be corrected).

Be prepared, on this Journey with the Valley View Coven, we have laughed, we have cried, we’ve been frustrated, but it’s given us a hell of a story to tell so far…

A.C. – I wanted to do Behind The Cemetery, because there is a lot I want to say about the comics that the reader’s probably have no idea about. I wanted to tell the story how from the point where Fester get’s his head stuck into a pumpkin to now. We have power hungry squirrels, side characters such as Santa and Krampus that have now become friends with The Coven. A lot of these side characters are based on friends and life experience, and I want to tell that story. A lot of the times they are very funny stories that we can look back at and laugh about.

Jim – Behind The Cemetery is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, but I think I was making it too big. I wanted to make it either a video series or podcast, something like that, but it’s just too much work. This is a better format because our readers already read. I just wanted to tell people more about the comics because we have things in there that are of a deeper meaning than just for laughs. I also wanted to show people the things I’ve learned while creating web-comics so they try it out if they want or get over any hurdles they might encounter.

Most of our work has been inspired by music, movies, theology and life experience. The Valley View Coven is not an exception to this rule. For a few years before Valley View was even a thought in our minds, we listened to a band called Creature Feature, a fun and ghoulish rock band. Their music made the images of black cats dancing in a cemetery, on Halloween night, manifest in our minds.

A.C. – We were listening to Creature Feature while we were drawing the first issue. I know we have mentioned that band already, but they were a huge inspiration to us. I was so happy to see these little cats come to life. A huge smile came to my face every time I looked up at them. I look back and see they don’t look as nice as they do now, but back then I didn’t care. Hahaha! So it was written so let it be done. I feel like that’s what Lanore would say about it.

We thought the idea was funny and cute, and we always wanted to make our own comics, as to what the other comics that we wanted to write about, that’s for us to know and you to find out.

We waited to find a good artist after working with several that did not work out. We decided to stop waiting for this artist that we have yet to find. Then we moved forward with these dancing black cats, that we’ve been picturing, to good use.

Jim Steel was mainly running the business side and trying to find artists. Well, he just got sick of it and decided to start drawing himself until something better comes along, which has yet to happen.

Jim – I just started dedicating all my free hours to art and drawing the cats. I was practicing fundamentals and drawing the comic. I just did my best with the comic and it came out fine, I think. The more I drew the comic, the better I got. I felt that I shouldn’t be afraid to put my stuff out there. There are always going to be haters, but there will be lovers too. I still draw the comics more than I actually draw anything else, but It’s all good, because there are so many things you can draw in a comic panel that help you become a better artist.

It all began the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, 2016, slightly before the election results were in. We went to a local coffee shop to discuss the plot, names, and personalities of The Coven that you now know.  Originally The Coven were not all related to each other. Only Little Bela and Endora were mother and son. 

Wednesday night, we worked out character design. Endora with her purple hat and neck charm. Lanore with her mask. Fester with his crossed eyes. Misery with her apron. Little Bela with his signature bow tie and Midnight with his different colored eyes. We designed these characters without any basic concepts of design. Later we realized that they follow a pretty good rule of design, meaning, you could make a silhouette of each cat and just know who they are. All the eye colors and accessories are just more aspects of that design process.

Jim – Art-wise, this was new territory for me. I mean all of it was. I didn’t really draw before creating these comics. I especially never drew with a digital tablet. I mean, I’ve drawn before, but nothing like a production atmosphere like sequential art. I really had no business doing it, but what were we going to do? We worked well together and we couldn’t find an artist that was dedicated enough to draw with us for fun and we couldn’t afford to pay one.

A.C – I was really excited about doing this project. I went in knowing we wont make any money off of it, but I just wanted to have fun. The idea about a group of cats living in a cemetery and throwing a Halloween party once a year sounded fun to me, so I just went with it.

Here are some earlier concepts when we first started:

After that, we were ready to start working on our first issue, which happened to be the one where Fester gets his head stuck in the pumpkin. CLICK HERE to read Issue # 1: Fester’s Stuck.

On Thanksgiving day, we worked on the comic for most of the day and night. Since this was the first comic we’ve ever made, it took us days longer than it typically does to make a comic today. We finished the comic on a Saturday night and we released it Sunday morning. From that point on, the Valley View Coven existed.

Jim – I don’t know how we got that issue done so quickly at that point in the comic. I mean, it was our first issue and neither of us had any experience in any of this web-comic stuff before. I think it had something to do with us buying this new fangled Ninja Coffee Bar (we’re not paid to say this, buy it if you want or not), so we had a lot of coffee available, because we were excited to use it. I’m not going to bore you, right now, with all of the details of creating a website and uploading a web-comic, but yeah, we had to figure all of that out too from Thursday to Sunday. We set a deadline and we were going to keep it from now, on. For the most part we did, but we had some set backs.

A.C. – While we worked on the first issue we decided we would have Halloween special and a Dia De Los Muertos special every year. We were talking about how we would release one comic every Sunday. We only talked about the comic for that whole rest of that week.

We look forward to sharing more of our stories, tips and tricks with all of our readers. This has been a fun journey so far, and we look forward to the future as we expand the Little Guyz Universe.

In the end, we want a trust set up to keep our website active long after we’re gone. This will be our legacy. Thank you for reading!