Shredmore and his droogs (shown here are his second pack of droogs, actually) are some characters that I first started thinking about maybe two years ago (although the genesis of the name 'Shredmore' goes back a bit further) before the popular culture had been completely saturated with pirate bullshit.

Initially, Shredmore and his Galaxy Raiders were dreamt up as a thrash metal gang of jackbooters in deep-space, and my intention was to record some hot-and-heavy guitar rock that the cartoon group would front (I had something like 6 cartoon bands in the works at one point or another). I met difficulty writing the kind of music that I could imagine Shredmore and his boys playing, so I sorta shelved the idea and awaited inspiration (the fate of 16/17ths of my projects).

Working on some new tunes during winter got me thinking again about bringing Shredmore out of retirement, although the stuff I was writing was decidedly not buccaneering thrash metal, so the group had to be changed to reflect the new sound. I imagined the music was the product of an older/wiser Shredmore; one who had retired from the pirate trade, and I took a little time to dream up some new bandmates, and a little bit of back-story. Having fleshed out The New Frontiersmen in my mind, I started thinking about how I would debut them as a comic.

I decided the economical choice (or, slackers' choice if you prefer) would be to draw a short vignette, a sort-of "day in the life of..." piece that briefly introduced the band and what they were all about. In March, after a couple drafts, I settled on the very short script which appears above. I had the first page done in three days. In another five, I had the second page drawn, inked, and half-colored, and the third page half-penciled. Then I had to go out of town for some family crap and... well, that sort of derailed the train.

I did get five pages done. That's not too bad. But my interest in this particular comic (not in The New Frontiersmen/Galaxy Raiders in general) has atrophied to a debilitating level. The pages that appear here have been done for a couple months, I just never posted them because I was still holding on to the idea that I'd finish it eventually. I no longer hold such an idea.