7 29635

ICECUBES in Japanese!
Posted on October 6, 2025 by Leroy Brown
Dear friends, I recently went on a surprise trip to Japan. It has to be said that Japan is the land of comics and cartoons, except they call them manga and anime. Did you know that manga and anime are one of Japan's biggest exports? It's amazing to see all the billboards, signs, TV shows and even subways full of cartoons and cartoon characters. To celebrate our great visit to Japan, I made an ICECUBES strip in Japanese! Accordingly, it is read from right to left and from top to bottom.

    Mini contest!

The first person to translate this strip in the comments below will get a free download of ICECUBES vol. 2 in pdf format. Leave the comment right here:

7 thoughts on “ICECUBES in Japanese!”

  1. Owen wooff

    Peckinpaw: “It’s difficult!”
    Freeze: “please draw it!”

    1. Leroy Brown

      Leroy Brown

      Congrats, you did it! Although it reads right to left, so Freeze first says: “Draw please!” and then Peckinpaw says “It’s difficult!”. Freeze is trying to get Peckinpaw out of his slump and wants him to draw another comic strip. We’ll see if he does… In the meantime you just won a free digital download of ICECUBES Vol. 2!

    2. Leroy Brown

      The link was sent to the email you provided when commenting. Thank you for being an ICECUBES reader!

      1. Owen wooff

        The link didn’t work

        1. Leroy Brown

          Hi Owen, I sent you a new link.

  2. J.P. Keslensky

    Very glad you had a wonderful trip to Japan. Very exciting. Love to hear more about your visit.

    1. Leroy Brown

      Thank you so much! I’ll make a post about it. It was quite the adventure.

Leave a Reply to Owen wooff Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

How To Draw Comics. Tracing & Transfers: Part 3.

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Leroy Brown
See Part 1 and Part 2 to catch up. This is the back side of your tracing. ©Leroy Brown Once you have blacked the back of your tracing paper, you are now ready to transfer your drawing. Remember, you only need to black the area that corresponds to your drawing. ©Leroy Brown Now you can flip the tracing over and start transferring your drawing! Place your tracing in the exact spot on your strip were you want the drawing to appear. Now trace your drawing, paying close attention to the lines that you want to capture. A lot of times you don’t need to put in a lot of detail. In my case I was just after the gesture and proportions of my original sketch. tracing8 Presto! There is your original drawing, exactly where you want it on the page! It’s a great trick and I use it when I feel the need for speed! Looks great doesn’t it? Be sure you don’t dig in too much with your pencil just in case you need to erase and reposition your drawing. tracing6 I don’t consider this cheating by the way, since I drew the original drawing. It’s just that I drew it on my sketch pad and wanted to place it at the right spot inside my comic strip. Here are some examples of drawings I transferred recently. tracing11

How To Draw Comics. Tracing & Transfers: Part 2.

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Leroy Brown
So you have selected the drawing you want to transfer. The next step is to trace it. © Leroy Brown Note the tracing paper and original drawing are taped to the table to prevent slipping (orange arrow). Now carefully trace your drawing using a soft pencil. Do not make deep lines or dig into the paper, you just want a nice outline. © Leroy Brown Once the tracing is done, it’s time to prepare the transfer. Turn the tracing over. Using a very soft pencil (3B or more) apply lead to the underside of your tracing. The best way is to use the flat of your lead (using charcoal is fine too). © Leroy Brown Tomorrow we’ll do the transfer! Stay tuned. 🙂 Read Part 1 here! Read Part 3 here!

How To Draw Comics. Tracing & Transfers, part 1.

Posted on September 19, 2011 by Leroy Brown
As mentioned last week, here’s a cool trick to use when trying to copy or transfer a drawing. Often you will practice a drawing a few times to get it right, a lot like a musician practices a riff to get the ‘swing’ of it. When you get that drawing right, you can keep practicing it to memorize it, or if you are on a tight deadline (like I often am) you can transfer it. ©Leroy Brown Here is a practice sheet of Freeze walking. After several attempts I got a drawing I liked (circled in blue). In part 2 I will show you how to trace it then transfer it to your comic. Tune in tomorrow for part 2.

Working on the Book!

Posted on August 19, 2011 by Leroy Brown
©ICECUBES
©ICECUBES

So after dreaming for years about making a real ink and paper book of ICECUBES the comic strip and finally being just about ready to pull the trigger, guess what happens? Border’s goes bust and closes all its stores, the book business crashes, printers stop printing books, paper mills close and stop making paper and generally speaking people stop reading books! What a time to put out a book. 🙁 But I remain optimistic that there is an audience out there that would like to hold the real thing in their hands, share it with their friends and enjoy having it on their bookshelves as a nice well crafted collectors item. That’s why even though printing a book has become ever harder and expensive, in complete contradiction to the laws of supply and demand by the way, I’m still hard at work on the first ICECUBES book. Of course those of you who follow ICECUBES know that Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 are available exclusively on the Kindle. So stay tuned and get ready to pre-order your limited edition, real ink and paper, signed and numbered collector’s edition of ICECUBES the Book! Leroy Brown

I Eats Me Spinach!

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Leroy Brown
popeye-can I ate a can of this last night and I needed it too! What with managing my databases spread over 4 computers and 10 hard drives, troubleshooting extension conflicts on my Macs, trying to revive a dead laptop and cleaning the gears of my printer, I’m totally immersed in geek hell. If only I also knew php… but I digress. As you can see, I am hard at work, fighting to bring you the best comic strip experience ever! Oh yeah and I gotta draw sometimes too…!