about Von AllanVon Allan's artVon Allan's comic booksabout Von AllanShop page for Von Allan StudioEssays by Von AllanInterview links by Von Allancontact Von AllanLinks to the I Am Still Your Child documentary film featuring Von Allan  rss feeds for vonallan.com

Short Story - Bushido Bob!


UPDATE! While you can always read the short story below, I have decided to start making my comics freely available to all for easier digital reading. Please visit https://www.vonallan.com/p/pirate-von.html for more information and download links!

Bushido Bob Page 1 Written and Illustrated by Von Allan

Bushido Bob Page 2 Written and Illustrated by Von Allan

Bushido Bob Page 3 Written and Illustrated by Von Allan

Bushido Bob Page 4 Written and Illustrated by Von Allan

Bushido Bob Page 5 Written and Illustrated by Von Allan

Bushido Bob Page 6 Written and Illustrated by Von Allan

Bushido Bob Page 7 Written and Illustrated by Von Allan


Bushido Bob is a short story I originally drew in 2015. While I certainly would do a few things differently now, the main reason I haven't shared it before was that there was actually problems with the colours. This is a similar situation to another short story I did in the same year titled "When I Find You Again, It Will Be In Mountains."

To put it as simply as I can (Warning! Technical details ahead!), there were a few problems:

First, the colour palette I used was not optimized for SWOP (Specifications for Web Offset Publications); actually, even that's not totally true. SWOP uses an ink limit restraint of 300%, but the print specifications I need to use have a total ink limit of 240%. I needed to fix that.

Second, the way I approached digital colouring was to primarily do it in Photoshop but use the Brush Tool. While you can create certain beautiful effects with the Brush Tool, the problem is that it doesn't allow much editing. Colouring with the Pencil Tool does. Since I had moved on to other problems, tweaking certain effects that I had originally done with the Brush Tool was going to be a headache to fix. Fortunately, I recently figured out a short cut that allowed very quick editing and that allowed me to tweak the colours simply. The above is the result.

As I noted, I think I've grown quite a bit as a draftsman and artist since I did this story (see my recent work on WOLF'S HEAD), but it's neat to finally get this story online. And I still like the spirit of it, too.

This story first saw print in the comic book titled STORIES! 2015 TO 2019 back in 2019. Unfortunately, the print edition is out of print (though you might be able to find a copy using Bookfinder). But! This story — as well as a boatload of others — were collected into a beautiful hardcover edition titled LOVE, LAUGHTER, AND LOSS: A COMICS COLLECTION. More information about that edition can be found right here.

In addition, there is also a digital comic book version of STORIES! 2015 TO 2019 on Kindle that can be read anywhere in the world. That edition is available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089QX5LJC.

For more of my comic short stories, please visit my archive of comic books and webcomics.

Wolf's Head by Von Allan

Link to Von Allan's Wolf's Head comic book series

Email Subscription

If you'd like to receive email updates from Von Allan Studio, please subscribe using the form below.
* indicates required field

Please note: You can unsubscribe from email updates at any time.

City of Ottawa Grant Support

Von Allan Studio gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the City of Ottawa.

City of Ottawa logo

Creative Commons License

I Am Still Your Child Trailer

Documentary Film Excerpt