This was a tortured comic to get out. It spent a month penciled on my desk, then a month inked on my desk. I don’t know why it took so long. No step took much time, it just got shelved for so many other projects. Still, I should have been able to knock it out.
Well, whatever. It’s here now. Enjoy!
I like this deputy.
If you think the second panel’s not finished, well, it wasn’t. I had to get this strip off my desk, so it went as-is. Things I would have finished are the room and I would have tweaked the characters a bit more. But, that’s pretty much always the case. I hit a point where I have to move forward. This is one of the strips where the break is relatively evident, but I always want to go further. I think if I didn’t set aside a certain amount of time for each step a comic could go on forever. In general, though, I try to spread my time better amongst the tasks to keep the seams a little neater.
Of course there’s a “system”, because it drags people into it! I was digging through my notes on my desk, and saw a good, short story that I can run through that is relatively unencumbered. Just a few quick gags with no heavy character growth.
I had originally planned to have a server rack in the last panel, and had written it various ways, but I found it visually distracting in the thumbnails and it put too much importance on something I wasn’t really planning on revisiting. So, I tweaked it to be just another conspiracy theory.
And this wraps up the BiteyFish storyline. Just about everyone got a piece of the action in this one, which is pretty satisfying. It took forever to finish, but you can’t win them all.
Middle management is not a fate I would wish on anyone, but if there’s a character capable of bending the world to her will it’s Mary. Well, the female lead does a pretty good job at it, too, but she was already there five years ago. That story happened before the strip ever started.
I have a few stories I want to fire off in rapid succession, but I’m not sure exactly how I’ll do it yet. I’ll have to figure it out soon, though, because I don’t want to waste time on interstitials if I can avoid it. I enjoy doing them, but I want to keep the head of steam rolling for a while longer. All I can promise is that there will be more comics.
The surest rumors are the ones management denies the most. You could take that to the bank, if the bank dealt in rumors. So, really, you could take that to Wall Street. I think it’d be called insider trading.
I wanted to use the word defenestrate, because how often do you get the opportunity? But I wanted shareholders and board members throwing themselves out of windows, not being thrown. It’s not a malevolent, murderous thing. Autodefenestration showed up as recent slang in Merriam-Webster. Slang doesn’t excite me, because often it’s not necessary. It’s color. But autodefenestration satisfies my desire to use existing words coupled with well-known affixes. It does dampen the meaning a bit, but how much time can you spend honestly considering a word? I guess if you’re a writer, a long time. But I have a hard enough time keeping comics rolling, so I have to just trust my gut and analyze it to death later in the commentary.
Also, I’m not normally one to make fun of suicide, but the imagery was too much to pass up. Plus, severe injury is the minimum you should expect from defenestration of any kind. So, in for a penny, in for a pound.
This story will wrap up around comic 400. I cut some things, but I may add a few back. Who knows after that! It’s madness, I tell you! MADNESS!
Ted looks confused as to what’s happening here. I think I am, too. It looks like the Lobster can be a good guy when he wants to, but don’t be confused: he hasn’t forgotten his grudge. He’s working behind the scenes so far for both Mary and the main character, so it’s safe to say he’s pretty well integrated into the family at this point.
I’m not sure the disguise is fooling Ted, though.
This comic took me a bit of time to clean up. There’s a fair amount of corrective fluid and some stray marks on the original. It’s a very interesting original from a process perspective. Lots to compare.
Here, the MC finally gets it. Appearances never fooled his boss. This is the first time he’s confronted Ted without a tie on, and finally it’s sunk in. We’ll see if the MC can finally get his act together, though, and grow up. If so, most of that can be glossed over. Acting like an adult is boring, soul-crushing work and not worthy of comic space.
I don’t know. Seriously, sometimes I just don’t know. Go with your gut.
I’m not a big believer in failure. Well, that’s not fair. I believe in it. I just believe that people may be using the wrong metric too often. The progress of humanity is marked with failures, way more failures than successes. But it’s often what we learn from the failures that pushes us forward. This part is my more pessimistic side talking, obviously. Either I think failure is overused, or that failure is an acceptable thing.
Ted is an interesting character to me. As I was coloring this, I realized there’s many ways the last panel could be taken. I see him as saying that he failed to live up to his dream, that as his company grew it became unmanageable. When he let the main character get hired, he knew he was smart. But smart does not equal motivated. Maybe that’s part of his failure, too. He wanted the MC to succeed. I think he’s more disappointed than anyone about the situation.
In a way, I understand. I have seen people locked into positions that they were too important to promote, even though they had a wealth of skills going to waste. Usually the same thing happens in the end, they realize they have to leave and go on to do great things for another organization. It’s kind of sad, but that’s the world we live in.
I have a few more comics I want to do to set the mood, but we’ll be back to gag-a-day and wacky hijinks before you know it!
Sorry, guys, sometimes I just have stories to tell. I promise not to do it too often.
I think Mary’s still waiting to see if it sinks in.
This is the first post in quite a while. They say lead off with your strongest material. Hope you guys like vile bodily functions!
An unexpected coup! This story is pretty much wrapped up.
The boss-lady is Sophia. She’s the director of the library system at which Mary and Joelle work. She’s also very perceptive, though perhaps a bit slow to act. She knows a bit more than she lets on. I often ask myself, “how crazy should I let this comic get?” I tend to hold back and lean on a comical realism in many cases, as the real world is funny enough. Sometimes, though, my mind goes on a fantastic bender and I just want to reach beyond the stars. Comic realism is hard enough to tell a story in at my pace, though, so I tend to scale down simply to make headway.
When I retire, telling all these stories in pictures will be one heck of a hobby. You know, provided the comics are still around.
If you were wondering why the desk looked a bit different and had different computer equipment in the last strip, here’s the reason why. Data were planted in the BiteyFish logs which are managed by IT. Nobody called me on it, so I don’t think anyone noticed the details in the last strip. That’s a nice thing, because it means I can get away with being a bit lazy from time to time. The only thing better than committing a crime is to not get caught.
This part of the story is just about wrapped up, and soon we’ll be following other characters again. Hang tight! Thanks for letting this one run a bit longer than usual without giving up on me.
Thanks for indulging my string of comics without dialog. All will become clear in the next installment, of course. It’s been a fun bunch of strips, trying to communicate everything in picture only and still deliver on the occasional gag. Normally I’d wrap something like this up in a panel or two of talk. It gets the point across quickly, which keeps the comic moving, but so much of this rich detail gets lost when I do that.
And thanks to those who turn out for comic broadcasting. It’s quite entertaining for me as well.
Unfortunately, everything through the window is out of proportion: It should be pretty far away if that is actual size. Also, Mr. Fuzzybuns is out of proportion to the items on the desk (considering he’s a kitten). Oops. It conveyed what I wanted to convey in the space I had, so I did it. In retrospect, I probably should have designed around it in a different way, but it’s done now.
Making mistakes is how you learn. At the rate I make mistakes, I’m going to be the next oracle.
There should only be one more strip without words, unless I decide to go back to my earlier pacing and put two more in. I think I have it cut down to one strip, though, without losing important parts of the story. It’s always a balancing act: tell more story at the risk of boring people to death at the pace.
This comic was done completely on my new Macbook Pro. It took me a few days to get everything set up the way it was on my desktop, and it is still different because of the widescreen format (which works much better). I’m still not totally comfortable with the process, but I must say that the Apple track pad coupled with the Wacom tablet makes it really easy to zip around the file.
The next few comics will be wordless, so I hope I can convey what I’m trying to with pictures instead of text. That is, really, the idea of comics. If you’re telling the story entirely with words, you might as well write a short story. This is something I know I need to work on, so you get to suffer along with me.
I spent a lot of time agonizing over the color choices in this one. The choices in colors for the lobster’s outfit are of greater importance to convey what’s going on because the animal characters don’t speak. I also spent a good bit of time picking the background shade. I wanted to pick a color that would make the lobster stand out but be a bit more subdued against the infiltration outfit and Mr. Fuzzybuns. I didn’t want to entirely lose the contrast with the dark shades of gray, though, and it took me a while (and a lot of re-colorings) to be happy with it. In the end, I’m not sure all that time amounted to much in this comic but I got a good bit from the exercise.
It’s back! The comic is back! It turns out that having a dozen people in your house for most of a week then going out of town for another week is terrible for keeping schedules. Too much to do! But I am back and hopefully will be regularly updating for at least January. Let’s find out together, shall we?
I’m not really happy with how the last panel came out, and I wish I had done something to indicate the dramatic shift in time (and place) between panels 2 and 3 better, but live and learn.
I’ve kept Joelle’s hair color changing throughout the strip. I think it helps to characterize her, even if it makes the character less instantly recognizable. So, pros and cons. Time will tell what is right.
One of the things I’ve done differently this strip is give her a base hair color and “streak” it pink. I’ve been doing this by playing with brush opacity and hardness in Photoshop Elements*. This has been pretty interesting, and it may start working its way into the rest of my coloring process. As with most changes, it’ll probably be subtle but with other changes will make quite a difference in a hundred strips or so.
* — I originally typed Photoshop LE in there, which I haven’t used in years. Man, I’ve been doing this too long.
I have a personal issue with web filters: it implies a distrust of the filtered, a presumption of guilt instead of innocence. If an employer does not trust an employee to do the job at hand, I’d much rather see a passive monitoring and follow-up than to simply assume traffic is evil without any evidence to the contrary besides the word of some third party who doesn’t make clear their criteria.
All of that gets away from the central issue, that is, trust (or the lack thereof). Joelle’s arguments here are only applicable to certain spheres and do have counter-arguments. I won’t tackle the issue of trust in the comic, because frankly, it’s intractable.
Hey, I loves me some Internet. Lowering the barrier to entry of immediate, worldwide, limitless, flawless replication of ideas is an amazing thing. In contrast, the World War II museum sent people out to canvas the country and interview men and women who were involved in the war effort. A lot of time and money were invested in gathering relatively few stories. It scares me to think of it sometimes, but this generation of digital-savvy people will provide a greater breadth and depth of social commentary than any before it strictly from its Internet droppings. The ability and willingness to share so much of our lives digitally, to have so many records so readily transferable.
Well, the idea leaves me at a loss to describe it.
Mary and Joelle are probably my favorite characters in the strip. Every character is a bit of me, exaggerated, and baked into people I know. Joelle has a good bit of the prescriptivist in me, and the urge to make systems run smoothly by forcing logic upon them. Mary loves to be the Devil’s advocate. I wish I could make points as succinctly and as entertainingly as she seems to be able to do. I guess if I spent a half hour over a few days scripting my responses, then I would be able to.
I have watched many a TED talk, seen many RSA Animate videos, and read a fair amount about the modern workplace, and why it is lagging (not just here in the United States, either). Recently I re-watched Jason Fried’s TED talk, which you can watch at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XD2kNopsUs. I’ve wondered a lot about what it is that drives people, and why different sized companies and companies with different levels of success are correlated with different employment styles.
I don’t know what the solution is, but I do know that the current system of offices, managers and meetings is not conducive to creative productivity. It may work for some types of productivity, but one size does not fit all and it has serious consequences. Employers, managers, please do more research in to these topics and make sure you are supporting your employees, not managing them. Help them be more successful, and not only will you get more productive work but you’ll get better quality work and happier employees, all without costing you much if anything. Heck, you might even save money!
If it helps, tell your bosses or corporate governance committees that I’m a highly-skilled consultant and that you paid me a lot of money to come to those conclusions. I can fake some invoices.
What kind of reception did he expect with a store-bought pie? That he bought on Thanksgiving? I’m pretty sure all the decent pie stores are shut down on major holidays. Of course, if he left that part out, it looks like the Lobster might have been warming up to him…
Spoiler alert! It turns out that the Major was considering whether or not to eat Sergeant Claw before the operation on which they were ambushed. Now that the brainwashing is gone…Look out!
I think that wraps up everything I wanted to try with this story, so probably back to normal comics soon. Perhaps? Maybe there’s a special Thanksgiving banner in the works for Thursday. I can’t honestly say, because I haven’t thought that far ahead. Panic!
The female main character’s pose, her reaction, in the last panel is quite wrong. It was what I had, so I ran with it, but it’s not right. Of course, I don’t know how one SHOULD respond to a lobster taking a baseball bat to someone’s knees. So, maybe it’s not so wrong after all?
I had a little fun with the third panel, breaking the border with the bat but nothing else and throwing in a “crack!” in a widened gutter. I like it: it gives visual heft to the bat as a key item and the crack, being in the gutter with the same slope as the bat, connects the bat to the action and anchors that action between panels 3 and 4. It sets up the timeline, connecting the two events and identifying the agent of action. Perhaps I put too much behind it, but I like the results.
Not much to say here, except I can’t seem to carve out a contiguous block of time to work on the comic. Every time I tame one issue, another two pop up, and the simple solution is never sufficient. Plus, I can’t help but feel like a failure at my job because I’m incapable of doing some of the basic work I was hired to do.
Now, this has more to do with a woefully inefficient system which can’t get me the one piece of software I need to do my job than it does with me. I’m genuinely excited about what I could do at this job, but the pace at which things are moving here is frustratingly slow. Also, forget about getting useful support software: I have to build a bunch of stuff from the ground up.
I think I figured out why the United States of America is/are floundering: innovation is a liability.
Of course, there’s good things going on, too: I’m helping out with some innovative projects which are really exciting, and I’m getting to develop some new systems by reverse-engineering closed ones. This is very satisfying to my creative side. Still, I like to do a good job and it almost seems like people are out to sabotage that very drive. I’m probably paranoid.
I don’t know what this has to do with the comic, but I originally added these posts to talk about the comic and what was going on in my life so I could see if there was any correlation. I haven’t been posting much about me lately, so I figure this is as good a start as any.
This is another example of where my inking didn’t live up to my penciling. I can certainly see that inks are my weak point right now, and I need to focus a lot on that.
This story line is coming to a close real soon. If you haven’t watched the original Manchurian Candidate yet, well, it’s been out over fifty years. It doesn’t count as a spoiler any more.
This one was kind of a quickie, but I think it actually served to set the pacing up the way I want to. I’m trying to push for resolution, and by going back to the main character waking from another nightmare we are setting the comic up to open to a new day. Well, I’m setting it up, you’re enjoying it. I’m not usually one to pick nits, but in this case I couldn’t help my simian heritage. It’s probably just me being punchier than usual. Good night.
I don’t think my inking has caught up to my penciling, which makes sense: over the past month when I haven’t been updating regularly, I’ve done a lot of pencil sketching and little inking. That’s going to change, as I plan on getting out the watercolors and markers as I establish a regular posting schedule. First things first, though, so the comic must consistently go up twice a week. Then, it’s more finished products done for fun.
I know the book came out well after the movie, which came out well after the time it was supposed to have taken place. Still, I couldn’t pass up the title.
I really like this one. I don’t necessarily think it’s my best work yet, but it has a wide variety of things going on. Primarily, by looking through the Lobster’s eyes the perspective was very different than normal. I like the idea that we are seeing things through his perspective while he is under suggestion. Readers kept him in the comic, so it is only fitting that we see through his eyes when we command him to do our bidding: comic entertainment.
Also, clearly the Lobster has corrected vision. 20/20. How convenient.
Ahh, Cassandra: given the gift of prophecy coupled with the disbelief of all who hear it. I had more to say at one point, but it’s slipped my mind.
In case you’re wondering, yes, that’s the female main character in the chair. You may not recognize her with the short hair. It’s a choice I made to fit the style of the movie. I also had given her earrings in the pencils, but they didn’t make it through to inks or color. I’m just forgetful at times.
I’m not too happy with how this one turned out, but I stuck with it and pushed it out anyway. It’s been a month since my last update, and I just couldn’t wait any longer. My tools showed their lack of use through obstinacy, and though I’ve been drawing I haven’t been practicing my characters and everyone’s kinda off-model. You know, off enough that they just don’t look right, but not too off to look ridiculous. That “uncanny valley” discrepancy that makes them look alien to me.
All things considered, though, I’m glad I made myself power through and put up what I had. This comic is, after all, a big canvas. It was always intended for practice. An update, even a poor one, is better than none at all.
I decided to go in a different direction. I liked the idea of revisiting the Lobster’s hatred of the guy, but it is simply a primal response to almost being cooked. Several ideas have percolated through my head, and since then I decided I wanted to run through a parody of The Manchurian Candidate. I even decided to do it in grays and mimic some shots from the original film. I don’t know how well this experiment will go, but we’ll see. If nothing else, it may give more depth in a non-canonical fashion to their history.
Also, I cheated: There is actually a full-color comic put together, which I then converted to all grays. It actually looks better this way, believe it or not. Color composition has never been my strong suit, so that doesn’t really surprise me. The reason I cheated was because I wanted to use my original color palette so everything would look consistent. Unfortunately, none of my filters worked. In retrospect, I guess I could have put everything in color, used my filters, then dropped it back to grayscale, but the results would have been the same either way.
I need to shade this, but I also need to go to sleep. I powered through the coloring tonight so you’d have something to look at. I wouldn’t expect it to be perfect too early tomorrow, because I need to fix a recurring problem with my truck. At least it runs, and I can get around with it if I have to.
I figured with this strip I should reintroduce the basic history of the guy and the lobster (http://www.yawcomic.com/2007/03/02/043/). It’s only been 300 comics, but it’s been over three years. Speaking of which, wow, that art is old. If I could be a professional cartoonist, redoing all the early strips would be item four on my to-do list. One would be to update, in color, five days a week. Two would be to do all the character stuff I should do (proper models, lineups, etc.) for consistency. Three would be all the upgrades I want to make to my drawing table. Then, fix the original strips. If I were a professional, I’d have time to do it. Then I could sell books with nice art in them.
The “tackses” pun isn’t that great, I admit. But, it is what it is. I like bad puns. The linework doesn’t totally offend my eyes, so that’s a plus.
The comic makes it look like he’s sitting in a corner. I’m not sure why I did that, except for the fact that everything was floating earlier (no walls, floors, etc.) and it looked too “disconnected”. I thought it grounded the comic, even though it’s probably not a common seating configuration. It looked better than no wall. The perspective was weird (and still not quite right) because it’s supposed to be looking up from Lobster-level. That made the lack of walls even more disorienting. I probably could have made better decisions if I had more time, but this was a rush to production. All in all, I’m not unhappy with it.
Man, I have not been good about posting. Sure, I’ve been busy, but this is just embarrassing. It’s certainly not a lack of ideas. Perhaps I have too many, and it’s crippling? Perhaps I’m just lazy. That’s probably the case, because this one is obviously rushed.
I look at comics like this, and think that the guy and the girl must have a relationship, at least when it comes to the lobster’s attempts on his life, like Dib and Gaz from Invader Zim. Clearly Dib is fighting Zim in a struggle of terrestrial incompetence vs. extraterrestrial incompetence. However, incompetence is incompetence, and an inconvenience to her either way. In a similar way, I get the feeling that when stupid stuff happens she’s not looking for an explanation, she’s just upset that stupid stuff is inconveniencing her life and busting up her house.
Of course, this is coming from a guy who has a lobster with what appears to be a combustion-powered messenger bag launcher in his comic. Perhaps the whys aren’t that important in this case. Maybe sometimes I just want to draw an elaborate yet incompetent sequence of violence. Perhaps I watched too many Road Runner cartoons growing up.
I just realized SA Johnson’s new head is basically Homestar Runner’s head. There are a few differences, of course, but it’s very similar. I’ve tried to really make the jaw more expressive, and I think that is why I first saw it. Now that I see it, though, I can’t get it out of my head. Every sentence out of his mouth sounds mushy, uttered with a heavy tongue and rounded, w sounds.
Now that I’ve planted the seed, do you guys and gals see the same thing? Can you forget I mentioned it?
This is the end of the story line. I wanted to do more, but this has been dragging on too long and it has been too wordy. I need to fall back to simpler stories that I can tell in picture. I liked what I was able to do with the story, but I felt it was just a bunch of talking heads. Talking heads can be fine for a while if done well, but I don’t really do them that well and it’s been quite a while. Expect humor, expect simple, but just how far will the pendulum swing back? (That’s rhetorical, of course, otherwise I would accept sin(θ))
Sometimes, people look at my love of digital books and my general disregard for online music distribution and think they’re at odds. I do think the discussions are parallel, but personal preference is important. I’m not one to listen to a lot of music, and I don’t feel I need another set of accounts (Pandora, iTunes, etc.) or a fleet of gadgets to supply it to me. Sure, I’ve ripped a few of my CDs, but usually they just sit there, bits ignored on a vast hard drive.
Some people think that’s nuts. Music gadgets are small and cheap, and anyone who hasn’t made the leap is just incapable of understanding the benefits of a digital library. Perhaps. I’d like to think I do get the arguments, though, as I really love my Nook and digital book distribution. I just happen to want access to books a lot more than I want access to music.
SA Johnson leads a home life devoid of gadgets. It’s not a hip life, but a CD bought at the store now and then serves his needs. He may have missed the argument entirely, though, and be unenlightened; He’s a savage on the periphery of a digital society.
Special Agent Johnson is back! Yay! I’m still going to tweak his model, as I’m not fully satisfied with it, but it’s getting better.
I’m still dialing in a lot of changes from the move to Photoshop Elements 8. It’s a pretty slick piece of software, above and beyond my 3 days, though that is to be expected. I don’t know if I’ll be jumping on Elements 9 the day it comes out, but I look forward to 13.
One thing I’m trying to get a better handle on is just how big my readership is. Facebook really screws with the numbers, because I can’t tell who’s reading and who’s just following. Also, it’s something else to break.
To the Facebook users who get this feed: Is this actually useful to you? If I don’t get much interest, I’m thinking of cancelling the account and posting instructions for getting the feed yourselves. The differences will be minor, but it will free me from an account I don’t use and help me get a better hold on my numbers. If you guys really like the account, though, I don’t really have a problem keeping it. Just say so.
Sonny Records may be worth a lot on paper, but how much of it is actual paper? Who wants to liquidate a closet full of swag? Some stuff, like production contracts, probably hold their value better than an office supply room full of gel pens and fancy pads. Besides, Mr. Market changes his mind on what most large companies are worth daily. Sometimes I wonder just how much a company is truly worth if it were liquidated.
How that translates into a funny comic, I don’t know. This is all I have to give.
Speaking of giving this, I just started using my new computer for coloring. I have changed my process a lot, though most of my actual technique is still the same, so I don’t really know how much change to expect. I’m still tweaking it, so we’ll see. I can’t pass judgment myself until a day passes and I see it with fresh eyes, so I hope it’s good enough for a free comic.
I figured out why last strip was short: It was an error in cutting my paper. Oops. Oh, well.
I never get tired of how these guys rationalize things. They’re really good at finding blame elsewhere. If they allowed a bad product to get out there, it’s because people asked for it.
Really, can you blame them? As big shareholders in Sonny Records (yes, a huge conflict of interest) they’re just looking for profits to go up. Every indulgence we allow ourselves, some marketer somewhere is watching. If there’s a market, there’s bound to be products and salesmen. Every time you watch a reality show? They know. Well, they don’t know, really, but they statistically model. They know in a the-Force-hey-a-planet-just-blew-up-maybe feeling, not in a Big Brother, point of fact way.
It’s a rare person who is a true individual, and odds are they aren’t reading comics on the web. We as a society have done this to ourselves.
I like the new face for Vance. I tweaked Lance as well, who will show up soon, but I really put a lot of work in to Vance. I think his (second to) last appearance was in this strip, and clearly things have changed a bit. For some reason, I missed my guide lines today and the comic isn’t as tall as usual. I’m not sure why that is, but I’m not going to draw it again. Also, I feel so bad for the main character! He tries really hard but his wife is a no-nonsense gal. Sure, she loves him, but someone that forward is bound to hurt some feelings. It may have been bad, but still, he tried.
You know, I’m always frustrated with my work but looking back I’ve made a lot of progress. To anyone who wants to try their hands at comics, just remember that you have to start somewhere, but you should always be improving. Be your own worst critic. You know, unless you’re Ryan North. In that case, just add some more t-shirts and don’t rock the boat. If you’re not reading Dinosaur Comics, well…give it a try or something. You might find where I steal the half of my jokes that I don’t steal from Garfield.
Inking simply isn’t my strong suit. At least, not traditional inking. I can make my lines sort of resemble my sketches when I work digitally, but there’s a lot going for me inside the computer as opposed to on paper.
Of course, I feel like if I stop inking on paper, then I’ve given up doing it just for me. I like having a comic when I am done, a work on Bristol I can hold. One thing is for sure: if I wanted to do this professionally, it would undoubtedly have to be inked and lettered digitally.
I’m back! I have done a lot with sketching, and I only realized tonight as I sat down to ink that I haven’t picked up an ink tool in nearly two months. All the work I’ve done probably doesn’t show up at all in this strip, because it’s the inking that always shows through. The Pentel pocket brush is still proving to be more than I can handle (first panel), but I’m trying, darn it! I like how my fountain pen rendered the third and fourth panels, though, so I’m not terribly displeased with the results.
The third panel had a lot going on today. I started with some perspective lines from a point that was too close to the paper. I was going to redraw them, but really liked how they made the buildings almost explode upwards. I threw the antenna tower on the building in as a free-hand curve, which I later regretted but was too lazy to fix. I’m pretty happy with it, especially compared to my last rendering of the Sonny building. I also wanted to have a “HI-FIVE!” in the upper-left portion. I wanted to somehow visually throw it in as a “Hi-Fi” pun. I couldn’t figure out how to make the pun visually work and fit in with the panel as a whole, though, so that got cut. Every time I tried, it robbed from the explosive upward movement. It wasn’t that funny anyway.
This was scripted as a three-panel comic. I added the fourth panel when I sat down to pencil it. I didn’t have a punch line, but I figured this way I could tie in new readers (and remind old readers). For those who don’t know or remember, Lance and Vance are two RIAA lawyers who work closely with the Sonny corporation to come up with all sorts of crazy revenue-generating schemes. They’re some of my favorite side characters, and they usually drag in another side character I like even more.
I hope you guys get back in to the swing of things, I hope I do as well. Who knows…if my readership grows out of the dozens and in to the hundreds, I might even consider picking up the pace and looking at things like books. I do have 353 comics and lots of “bonus content” scattered across my drawing table. To a better comic, every day!
I thought the billboard might be a bit racy for some of my normal readers, but it’s nothing that you won’t see along many Interstates in the U.S. Since we’re a bunch of prudes compared to most of the world, I felt that it was perfectly kid-safe. If you disagree, don’t take your kids to Disney World.
That being said, I just don’t know that this is funny. I enjoyed the pun when I came up with it in the car, but I don’t think it made a good comic. Also, the art in this one is terrible. I even tried to use perspective, though my attempt clearly went off half-cocked. I’ve been really busy lately, which makes me resent drawing sometimes. This makes the comic take longer to do than normal and turn out worse, which puts me in an even worse mood and further behind in the daily stuff I have to do. I’m seriously considering a change in format to break this rut, but I’m not sure what it is I need yet. I’ll be thinking over the next few days what, if anything, will happen.
After all, it could just be an artist in a rut. Maybe I’ll snap out and things will return to normal.
I am not happy with the art for this one, which is kind of sad in a way. This comic closes a month-long story arc, and I hate going out with a whimper. I’m just not in the right frame of mind this week to do good linework, and that ruins the rest. I also kind of slacked on the coloring. I’m really busy at work this week, and I think that’s part of the problem. As a result, instead of rushing to get another late comic out this week I will not post again until next Monday. Sorry, guys. I’d like to get another one in, but I need time to recharge to put out better quality stuff. Frankly, I’d do this over if I were a professional. Being as I’m an amateur, and bad enough about posting as it is, I cut my losses (in terms of time) and posted it when it was “good enough”.
That being said, I tried turning up the intensity of the background texture. I like it better, the rough backgrounds make the foreground things look a bit cleaner and give them more prominence, more depth. At least, I seem to think so. As always, comments are encouraged.
I’m wrapping up the story line, and there are just a few things left to clean up. For example: did BigCorp install the can light in her office for dramatic effect? Some answers will never be given, but rest assured that we’ll wrap up this story soon and start on another, with possibly a brief stopover in one-offville. As to our main character’s fate? Stay tuned for the next update. The punishment shall fit the pre-crime.
I really wanted to explore the acronym cult more in these comics, and I wanted to give the executives who are members of the cult a fair shake. While I think irresponsible fiscal policy driven by unsustainable growth is a major culprit, I certainly wouldn’t want to be the guy responsible for growing less than average. Shareholders can actually sue you if you don’t run your company into the ground in the pursuit of profits. It’s crazy! That’s why I don’t want anything to do with management. I’m a good soldier, and at the bottom of the ladder is where I’d like to stay.
I also don’t believe that executives enjoy laying off staff, cutting benefits or the like. I think they sleep well at night on their silken mattresses stuffed with cash, cash that could have been used to pay salaries, but I doubt they really get pleasure from making the lives of their staff harder. I do wish they would realize that the cost of living marches nigh inexorably upward, and any time they freeze pay, ask us to share more of the costs of insurance or reduce benefits it does indeed come out of our pockets and is in essence a pay cut. I think if they thought of it that way, they could at least be more honest with us about how the company is doing. But if nothing else, I’m sure it makes them feel better about doing it to frame it their way.
This is one of those cases where people will call or e-mail and ask what jobs my company is sending overseas and if my job is safe. While I would never consider a job “safe” these days, I would like to remind everyone that this comic is fiction. My company does not and does not appear to have any inclination toward sending jobs overseas or using shoddy products. In fact, I’m trying to think of the products we use and for the ones I can source they’re American-made. So, remember: the comic is fiction, and is not a representation of my life.
I do rip liberally from the lives of me and my friends, of course, and the notion of a buzzword-obsessed cult of executives plotting to keep the economy from totally collapsing while running unsustainable shell games is definitely the kind of thing we would joke about.
You know, if I weren’t reporting the unvarnished truth.
The thought of a secret and incompetent cabal of people running the government and major corporations makes me laugh. Then, it makes me cry when I think it’s quite plausible. The only thing worse than a military-industrial complex is a poorly-run military-industrial complex.
And the thought that these people have pot lucks and evening theme dinners? They might as well, since they’re clearly spending a lot of time coming up with crazy schemes that manipulate people the way Rube Goldberg graphically manipulated simple machines.
Comic 222: http://www.yawcomic.com/2008/10/26/222/
Comic 223: http://www.yawcomic.com/2008/10/28/223/
Wow, my art has come a long way.
I’ve noticed the walls in office buildings are, as they say, paper-thin. I imagine it has to do with a cheap, low-grade drywall hung on barely-there metal studs, at least partly. That, and the plenum above the drop-ceilings generally is not separated between offices. I guess there’s not much you can do about that, except keep the evil cackling to a minimum.
I have two comics that are already up to color, and I have another to complete for Thursday. Lots of stuff is going on this week at work, and there’s projects around the home lying in pieces. I’m not proud of the work I did on this comic today, but I’m proud that I was able to shoehorn an update in to the time I had. It’s a real lesson in time-management, and accepting imperfection. I can see lots of things I’d like to fix, but if I had fixed them I would have had to skip an update. It’s a weird feeling, being happy with something with which I’m not happy.
My workplace is fortunately not so oppressive, though I do wonder about dress codes. I have some theories, which I may explore in the upcoming strips (depending on how my scripting and timing works out). I have often wondered what it would be like to work for an employer who cares only about the amount and quality of work you accomplish, and not whether or not your shirt has buttons. Well, that and the fact that you’re wearing a shirt of sorts. Gotta cover the naughty bits to avoid legal action.
I’ll admit it, I kinda phoned this one in. I really did try hard to make something you guys would enjoy, but I had a limited amount of time to work and thought you would prefer a so-so strip to none at all. I will need to color this later, maybe this weekend. I know that has been a recurring theme in my posts lately, but roof and food come first. If someone has a six-figure nine-to-five job with my name on it, perhaps things will change. Hint hint.
Notice the paranormal detective Mary is in the first three panels. I really like drawing that character, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to squeeze her in. I rushed to get ahead of myself tonight, so instead of getting this comic colored I set myself up for the next comic. I will come back and fill in the color as soon as possible, but I will be crazy-busy over the next few weeks and I’m trying my best to at least post updates.
That being said, would y’all prefer for me to post more comics, or post at the same rate but go through and color them? I can probably hack out three or possibly even four black and white comics a week, but I definitely can’t do more than two colors (and even that’s stretching it lately). Let me know what’s better: color or more comics.
This isn’t based on my work experience at all. A more accurate portrayal would be someone from HR telling my boss:
“No.”
I imagine there’s a reason they spell out time off in schedules based on pay grade and such, but it normalizes the entire population. There’s no more Bell curve, no more star employees. Every employee is the same, they get the same benefits, they’re equally valuable. That’s kind of depressing. Corporate America thinks you are simply a cog: a commodity part that is identical to every other and is easily replaceable.
Also, it seems like “we never had it before” is a terrible excuse to give to not move forward. I will explore this theme a bit more in the next comic. The schedule for the rest of the month will be regrettably “bumpy”, as things are crazy-busy around here. Crazy-busy. Do the kids still say that? Some kids used to, back when I was a young man and we kept dinosaurs as domesticated pets. Back when we grew trilobites instead of Sea Monkeys, and let me tell you, our trilobites could kick your Sea Monkeys’ asses.
Where was I? Oh, yes. I’m keeping crazy-busy with work and such, and the schedule may be bumpy for the next few weeks. Sorry, guys, I wish this were my day job (or even one of my night jobs) but roof and food are priorities.
I could rant for quite a while about how corporations in the U.S. have rearranged families, and how two weeks of vacation time is just enough to spend time with both sides of a family. I could keep going on about how the value of benefits in the U.S. has consistently decreased over the decades, and all the while corporations are patting themselves on the back for controlling costs and continuing to provide “greater cost-conscious employee programs”.
Fortunately, it’s not one of those nights. Also, I currently live near my family and actually get to use some of my vacation time for vacation. Some of it, at least. I also feel weird writing these workplace strips as it is. Since we’re in the middle of something that feels like a crushing recession to the average Joe, I feel like these stories aren’t really in touch with the current state of the U.S. (which is where I live and where I base my comic). I don’t want to go in to that in the comic, though, because I want it to be an escape from all that. I don’t want you to come to the comic and be reminded of how bad things are out there. Honestly, then I wouldn’t have much to separate me from, say, CNN.com. Well, that and the lack of celebrity gossip on my site.
This upcoming story, to me, is more about the general attitude of corporations in the U.S. towards their employees and how it has changed in the past six decades. I’ll see how it comes across to y’all, since I have to keep things very streamlined for the medium. Suffice it to say, this is not based on my real-life experience with vacation time but is more a piece of social commentary. It is my opinion that corporations despise their employees and would see them all fired if it weren’t for the fact that someone has to do the actual work that keeps a company afloat.
I’d also like to point out that it was a lot more fun to crack jokes at Canada’s expense when the Canadian dollar was well below the U.S. dollar. Now that we’re roughly at parity, and for a while were on the down side, I kind of feel that in some ways the U.S. has earned a spot as the Newfoundland of Canadian jokes.
That’s going to wrap up this story line. Thanks! I’ll let everyone know on Twitter when the comic comes back from hiatus. It shouldn’t be more than a month or so, just need to earn some extra cash for more art supplies.
For those who were available to tune in to the comic drawing on USteam, I talked for a good half an hour on all of the background to this story. I won’t put it all in here, but this is the gist:
If you were wondering why there was no paradox, seeing as the guy went on to invent time travel just to go back in time to prevent himself from doing so, then you’ve overlooked the lobster. It turns out, he was fundamental in pointing the guy to the breakthrough necessary to make time travel work.
If it still seems like it doesn’t work, well, I went in to some rampant speculation about how a time-like curve might be non-orientable (like a Moebius strip) and even if you go around the whole time curve, you might end up with left being right, up being down, and different events providing the same key future progression. I don’t know, I’m no expert on General Relativity. It’s time travel. Just accept it.
This does point out some very important things about the lobster. He’s smart. Very smart. Smart enough to figure out how to interface with a femtoSD card (thanks, Lisa!)? Maybe. It’s just as likely he’ll wait twenty years until you can pick up a USB 6.0 femtoSD card reader on NewNewEgg for $15 plus shipping. I think it’s fair to assume the secrets to time travel are on that card, or at least the information he’ll need to make it work.
Of course, a comic has limited space, and I can produce a limited number of comics, so it’s something that will never be visited. These questions and answers are not important to driving the comic forward, and as such, I cannot give up precious comic space to answer them just for the answers’ sakes. If we do decide that we’re going to make time travel a device, we’ll pin down what we have to and nothing more. Notice that I did say “we”. You, dear reader, do have a voice in that you can let me know how you feel by e-mail. Heck, the only reason the lobster became a recurring character was because y’all made a big stink about keeping him around. If you have opinions on what loose ends you’d like to see explored in a future story line, well, fire away.
I had some things to say about this comic, but I’m at a complete loss for any of it.
Oh, I remember part of it now! I’m not sure what direction I want to go with this comic. Normally, I run outlandish stories either in parallel universes (say, Mary and Joelle: Paranormal Detectives) or I let the lobster carry the story, since he’s an oddity anyway. Here, I’ve introduced something commonly accepted as impossible (time travel) and woven it in to the common story. There’s plenty of ways to avoid having to deal with it in the future, but I am more interested in what it means for future story lines. Do I continue to run odd stories in parallel, or do I let the strip itself break natural laws and keep everything in one narrative? So far I’ve kept the strip subject to the common interpretation of how the world works (taking a few legal liberties), and I always thought I’d do that. Now, who knows…
Of course, it’s really not an important question. Not by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just an example of the things I think about.
What exactly did happen here? Don’t worry, I will drop hints in upcoming strips to clarify. Since I’m probably the only one who catches that kind of stuff, I’ll also put what’s going on in the commentary. I don’t want to write myself into a a corner, but I also don’t want to leave you guys hanging.
On another note, I chose the word “subatomic” because I thought it fit nicely in the space. ”quantum” also was a consideration, but in the end it was purely an aesthetic choice. I wanted to hint at the micro. Yes, I’m aware that General Relativity has room for the possibility of closed timelike curves, but that’s not really the same thing as what I think about when I think of travelling back in time (though for a proper space-time topology, it’s functionally identical and a moot point).
My point is, I wanted to invoke the micro because there seems to be this common thought that newer theories replace older theories; that somehow because subatomic particles behave as wave functions we can no longer speak of Newtonian principles when discussing macro objects. That’s ridiculous — It’s not that we can no longer ask the questions of where and how fast something is, it’s that for certain classes of problems we don’t need to ask the questions because in those certain classes the questions make no sense. In some way, I hoped that people would read this last panel and consider what they thought of physics and science in general. But that’s probably asking too much of one word in a comic strip.
Philosophy, literally translated, is lover of wisdom (philo-: friendly, virtuous love, soph: wisdom, plus some implied declension for possession). It is common to hear philosophy referred to as the pursuit of truth. If that is true, then physics is the pursuit of a perfect model: A deterministic truth of the Universe. Just as we don’t throw out all previous philosophy when we find a new field (such as the philosophy of government or economy), we are best served to remember not to throw out established physics models at one scale just because a model at another scale explains something new, or parts of the old model in a more accurate and/or precise way.
Anyway, you’re probably all waiting for me to click the Publish button so you can read the comic. Well, hang on, I’m going to click it right after I finish this sentence.
I’m doing a few things different now. I’m tweaking my shading work to better reflect form, but that’s not much more than some minor improvement over time. I’ve made extensive use of mask layers (I think that’s the right term) in Photoshop, which has allowed me to do many things faster than before. For example, I have a high-resolution scan of some sketchbook paper which I now make into a clipping mask over my background to give it that hint of texture. I may do more of that in the future. I’ve also started to experiment with different brushes, though nothing is evident here (I wasn’t happy with what I had). I’ve tried a few new tools, too, like BPelt Flatten and Multi-Fill. Multi-Fill is pretty neat, but Flatten doesn’t work for me and without that the whole package doesn’t give me good color coverage under the line work. It probably doesn’t work because I’m using Photoshop LE 3, but regardless of the reason I can’t use it with my current setup.
I want to address a few things for the observant. Yes, this is the same time line I showed earlier. The dashed line indicates a high probability of the end of the user’s existence (time travel deals in probability spaces, not in discrete values). Also, the text is always legible to the reader, in this case the woman and the audience. This is intentional: These displays are designed to put their information up in any orientation the operator desires. This allows the operator to give presentations or adapt to any other situation as necessary. You’ll also notice the huge size of the old guy’s arm computer. I had originally written a joke about the size of computers getting smaller but his eyes getting worse, so he couldn’t see the buttons. If this computer were a cell phone, it would be the Jitterbug.
For all his effort and dedication to the cause, well, he’s still the same guy inside. In a future where people are more relaxed in areas not related to our ability to perform work (I’d like to see us younger people eventually reach a critical mass of power and influence), he still chooses to wear something “futuristic” when he comes back in time for effect.
I was going to have the twenty years away comment in the first panel be a punchline all its own, but since I’m doing two strips a week I need to keep the pacing brisk. I felt bad about throwing that away, though, because I liked it. That’s why I wrote it in to the first panel. It seems the future is always twenty years away: Fusion because it’s not as easy in practice as people want to believe, and flying cars because…well, lots of reasons, but would you want today’s drivers behind FLYING VEHICLES? Better start building your bomb shelter/house now.
I was originally going to call it an “eye strain inducing high definition screen”, but I cut the text for clarity and pacing. I also dropped the words “from fifty years in [the future]” from the last panel to save space. While sometimes I really get wordy and I think it can be appropriate, I don’t think it helped anything in this particular case and I’d rather have the writing be concise to not distract from the art.
I also axed a strip where the guy was confused as to how to operate the coffee maker. Though a drip coffee maker is a pretty simplistic device, I felt it was in character for him. I axed it because, quite simply, how many “I’m from the future, things are so different in the past!” jokes can you make? I plan on making a few, and I thought it was the weakest one, so I cut it out.
There’s a lot going on in this comic, or at least a lot that went through my mind. I tightened up the writing by leaving out an exchange which affirmed that the guy here is, indeed, the main character. I thought it was obvious from context, both written and graphical, and it saved me a good two panels. The second panel shows the guy working out theory on a white board. I actually had some equations and data picked out to slap in, but I felt that it would have overcomplicated the panel and, frankly, distracted from the pseudoscience. Both are significant concerns when telling a story in a box 800 pixels wide by 300 pixels tall. In that second panel, you’ll also notice the coffee is not steaming. This is the only time I have intentionally shown a cool coffee cup, and it is there to be a subtle reminder that the guy is engrossed in his work. The wall behind the board, what little is exposed, is painted the same color as their bedroom. He has converted the bedroom to a research lab, so he can spend nearly his whole life in one place, working. A lot happens in those fifty years, and I’ll touch up on the high points in the coming strips. If I have to cut out material, you know where to find it: In the comments of the strips.
On another note, I have the main characterette (MCL for Main Character-Lady, as the astute will remember) wearing a pink shirt. When I was originally doing the character designs, I insisted that she would never wear a pink shirt. I wanted her to be a modern-day independent woman, one who would never wear that girlie pink. As I thought about it, I decided that was pretty dumb. Why wouldn’t she wear pink, unless she actually didn’t like the color? An independent woman can wear whatever she likes, doggone it! I decided that pink would be in her wardrobe, but it would not be common. Stereotypes exist for a reason: They make it easier to convey ideas in comics. Well, I gave in when coloring the very first strip, and from then forward pink was canon. There’s a lot I regret about the first dozen or so strips, so much that I set up and now can’t take back (reasonably), but in a way it’s neat to look back and think about some of the decisions I made over three years ago.
If nothing else, it makes for fun pieces of trivia that my devoted fans can cling to tenaciously.
Not only will I be bringing back the more lighthearted side of the comic, I will be bringing in the lobster more and weaving through a short story arc as well! A happy confluence of chance occurrences gave me a few good ideas, and with barely a moment to spare. I’m actually glad I missed the Sunday update, because I was ready to execute a poor comic just to get one up.
I’m playing with how I do backgrounds and painting color more, thanks to Rob Lundy over at http://www.consolehopping.com. His tutorials are at http://www.youtube.com/user/ArtOfRawb (amongst other places) and if you have any technical curiosity you should definitely check them out. I played with the smoke today, but I want to start applying this to backgrounds in general. Let me know what you think as I start tying it in.
This wraps up the Baby Talk story line. I left things pretty wide open, because I’m having a huge creative block that’s been sticking around for almost a month. I don’t know what’s going to come up on Sunday, so hopefully we’ll all be pleasantly surprised.
One more comic in this story line, then on to some one-offs and more lobster. Things are a bit disappointing here, but the next comic will leave this story with hope. Clearly I will not be introducing a baby for the time being, though I may revisit the guy’s inner dialog with the daughter he imagines he will have. It is a great mechanism for exploring his maturity.
I have come to the inescapable conclusion that companies can become too big for their own good. Also, with the way many large companies treat the public and their employees, is it any wonder that distrust is so infectious and pervasive that it seems to be an epidemic? If you’re reading this and are in a position to make changes at your company (ha!) you may want to check how you deal with the public and with your employees. Make sure it is fair not only with respect to the letter of the law, but to the spirit of the law as well. Whether or not you are part of the problem, the collective image is very negative right now. A little bit will go a long way.
Individuals, we should deal with each other fairly in letter and in spirit, too. First, companies are made up of individuals. This might help. Second, we as individuals can’t expect lofty ethical standards of corporations if we don’t hold ourselves to the same. Lead by example (and vote with your wallet).
It’s good to be back in the swing of things! Unfortunately I started on a more serious arc when I backed off the updates, but I’ll bring the comic back to a lighthearted tone for a while after this.
“Yes” but No will be explained in the upcoming comic. Suffice it to say, at this time, it looks as if the baby talk has hit an impasse.
I’m not sure how I wanted the second panel to look, but I did still want him to be unsure about things until just now. I hope you guys are enjoying this story, which is rapidly coming to its conclusion. For a while, I want to go back to gag-a-day strips and bring the lobster back to the forefront.
This is the card I sent out this year. Sorry I posted it after Christmas, I had a lot of driving to do and then a lot of chores to finish up when I got back.
I really can’t think of anything to say for this one, but I feel obligated to say something. It’s an odd feeling, really. In the context of the story so far, this strip is what it is.
I’m really trying to experiment with the brushes in Photoshop to learn coloring much better. Rob Lundy of Console Hopping has some excellent video tutorials/working companions on his process, and not only is it fun to watch but he actually gives useful information about how he gets his results. It occurs to me that I really need to review those now that I have a better grasp on Photoshop. There was a lot I knew I missed the first (few) times through, and I think I’m ready to get a lot more out of them now. If I can get my act together, expect lots of coloring experiments through the next few updates. As always, opinions are welcome. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail or converse with me in 140 characters or less through Twitter!
I went back and fixed the girl’s eye color in the previous strip: She has her father’s eyes. Of course, you can’t really tell that yesterday without squinting, but it was bothering me. She carries most of her mother’s traits, I felt it was an important detail.
Kids in comics generally seem to have one heck of a vocabulary, a fact I have always found endearing. The little girl here will endeavor to do the same, though her efforts will be frustrated by my writing. I’m one man with a full-time job and several hobbies, so I beg your forgiveness if my efforts here are a bit slack.
I have experimented with using children to convey things, but mostly it’s been showing the childish side of the main characters. I didn’t like the way it worked out, so I haven’t done it in a while. By introducing the main character’s potential daughter, I get to have the variety of perspective without committing to a new character. If it doesn’t work out, she doesn’t have to come back. If it does, maybe it’ll be a recurring theme. That would be nice, because it’s something I’ve missed but haven’t yet found a way to execute well.
If it’s not clear in this strip, the main character is falling asleep. Yes, this is a dream. I’m not really giving away any spoilers, because the setup for the joke in the next strip makes it painfully clear.
I wish I had more time to spend so I could shade this comic, but I pretty much always have something I wish there were more time to throw at. I’m actually excited about the inking in this one. It finally feels like it’s loosening up a bit for me, which is important: I’m not an mechanical draftsman, after all. I’ve noticed huge improvements in my pencils, but I’m still having a hard time translating that in to huge improvements in my inks, so it’s hard to show that progress to y’all. Perhaps I should resume fixing the gallery code and making more gallery posts?
Perhaps that’s a project for the holiday break, if I get much of one. I have burned through my vacation time at work, so I won’t be off much this month, and I have to burn through whatever overtime I can to get everything squared away for the year. It’ll be a long two weeks or so coming up, but stick with me: I will finish this story line in some way, shape or form.
I’m not sure about the future of the strip, but I have had this story line in mind for a while. I don’t have it scripted out yet, but I know that I want to finish it before I finally hang up my hat. I hope you enjoy the upcoming few weeks as much as you have the past three years.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, the strip’s third anniversary was 23 October 2009. Three years! Congratulations!
I went back to my Pentel brush last night, and I should not have. I can’t keep a flood of ink from pouring out of the brush, which is really counter-productive when I’m trying to do most of my line work. It’s not the end of the world, of course, but it does cause inconsistency in my work. Given I only update twice weekly as it is, that’s not a great thing.
Speaking of which, I’m watching my traffic numbers slowly die. I never sallied forth to set the world on fire, but it’s pretty clear that this strip just isn’t catching on. It’s a shame, because I know who my loyal readers are and I know you really dig it, but it’s just not going beyond that. I have so many creative endeavors I wish to pursue, and only so little time to do so. I’m considering ending the strip as we know it today. I’m not sure if I will continue, but with less spit and polish (perhaps rough pencils, maybe just black and white?), if it will go on a long hiatus or if I will just kill it off, but over the next month I’m going to seriously consider the future of this strip and what I could do with the free time (and there’d be a lot of it) if I were to cut back or cut it out entirely.
All comments are, as always, quite welcome. If I didn’t want to hear from you, I wouldn’t put it up on the web in the first place. That’s what sketchbooks are for.
Gotta love that term: Two-bit hussy.
I don’t like the first panel at all, among other things the fist is completely wrong. The fist is wrong in the fourth panel as well, but it’s smaller and less noticeable. My favorite panel is the second one. All in all, though, I like how this strip flows. Everybody gets to react individually.
There’s lots of fun things that go on here, too. We see the guy stand up for himself. He doesn’t need to make any lame excuses and run away, or have the girl run in and save him. This point will be developed a bit more in the next strip.
I also got to play with some word balloon techniques. I am not really happy with how they came out, but doing is how you learn. Heck, this whole strip is essentially one big sketch book for me.
And isn’t it funny that Eve disappeared before the girl saw her? I’m not saying she doesn’t exist, that she’s a figment of anyone’s imagination, but there’s definitely not room for both Eve and the girl in his life at once. Maybe I’ll explore that later.
I’m not sure this was the best layout for this comic, but it’s what I have. I took this strip as an excuse to do some perspective work, but it occurs to me that I should have done the same behind Eve in panel 3. Oh, well. That’s how you learn, I guess.
I like this exchange. He’s, of course, suspicious, and he’s looking outside as if he wants to be elsewhere, but he just can’t walk away. Eve’s got a hold on him for some reason, and I’m not totally sure why. She clearly treats him quite poorly.
I wanted to explore the history of the guy and Eve when I first introduced her, but that story was more about the lobster: How he has adopted some of the features of human life, and how he is between worlds. Over the next few strips, I am going to give more insight into the relationship Eve and the guy have, and how that will play out in the future. You can consider that a promise if you wish, because I definitely intend to bring her back for more after this story. She’s just too good a character to send off into the sunset. My only regret is not having more time to draw so that I can do more stories, and spend more time on each one.
Hey everybody, it’s Eve! Y’all remember Eve, right? (Hint: she’s from a story arc around the 180-185 mark). The Evil Ex, we’ll see how things play out now that she has cornered her quarry.
For those who have followed the strip for a while, you probably have the inkling that he’s not in to fishing and she’s not in to shopping. I tried to structure the joke so it worked with the characters but at the same time stood alone, so anyone who came in with stereotypical roles would still find it funny. I’m not sure how it worked, but this is what I have.
As far as the backgrounds go, I tried a new technique. I set the background flats, then took a textured brush at 50% opacity and applied colors on either side of the flats (about 15% saturation either way). The texture and the opacity kept a good bit of the background color showing through. Then, I took the airbrush tool and blended it all together. The airbrush tool is pretty cool, but it’s obvious it’s going to take me a while to get used to. The biggest issue I’d like to solve is that it will blend with colors in other layers (or white, if there are no active colors). For the background, I’d like to not have the edges bleed white. The technique will take some time to get used to, but I hope you enjoy it.
I don’t think they realize the lobster is a criminal, or else they would be quite offended. I think at this point, they just accept his presence without really thinking about it. He can easily grab some cash while they’re discussing something else, and for some reason it’s just taken as a given that he has money. I imagine it’s how children manage to get into trouble even when their parents are generally vigilant.
If you wanted to read in to it, I imagine his larceny during conversation may stem from his communication frustrations, but I wouldn’t read too far in to it. The guy’s (lobster’s?) a jerk.
I am certainly not intending to make light of alcoholism here. This is a comic, and I am doing the reader a disservice if I don’t have a joke at hand. It’s a balancing act, and we will go deeper into the rabbit hole together as this story plays out. It is a tale of frustration in the face of honest effort told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
As I’m sure you’re tired of hearing, I never intended to keep the lobster around. He was such a hit, though, I couldn’t get rid of him. Since then, he’s become a way for me to explore my satisfaction with my art technique. The lobster cannot speak, and he’s not really capable of writing. His frustration with his inability to communicate mirrors my frustration with the limits of my ability. I really feel for the guy. Even as people start to get accustomed to some of his semaphores and moods, he will always be behind the curve and he will always want to have a richer communication. In a similar way, even as my art improves I will always be frustrated at my limits and at how much more I would like to convey to you, my readers.
Of course, that seems to be a very common trait in animals, humans included: We all want more.
My original thought when I scripted this piece was that it was funny. Then, I thought it through and decided that since lobsters lack a central nervous system they’re probably safe from most of the intoxicating effects of alcohol. I did some “research”, but a simple Google search (and re-search) did not return any conclusive work on lobster drunkenness.
It turns out lobsters have opiate receptors, which are a critical piece of the puzzle in many addictive chemicals such as alcohol. My limited understanding is that alcohol triggers other processes in humans which lead to opiate receptor activation, so lobsters may be able to exhibit some of the effects of alcohol we see in humans, especially dependence, but that’s for people smarter than me with huge government grants to determine.
If nobody’s on this, then I want all local, State and Federal government research grant organizations to know that I will gladly study the intoxicating effects of alcohol on lobsters and compare them to a control group of humans. This will require research assistants, lab equipment, and tons of experimental ethanol, not to mention half of the take must go to bribing…er, “buying association with”…er, overhead at a research university. As such, I expect the research to take at least three years, with two one-year extensions if the work shows promise, and cost a million dollars each year. I am willing to forego university affiliation for 500 grand a year.
Please get in touch: These are answers the world needs to have to questions nobody has thought to ask.
After nearly a month of faffing about, I finally got back to drawing comics. I completely dropped the previous story line to start something new. At the time I posted this comic, there was a hole of four strips which I intend to backfill. I had major motivation issues and a lot of things to take care of which kept me either too busy or too lazy to post. You can figure out which caused which.
I am trying something slightly different with the mouths now, and I may make some small character model changes in the coming weeks. I may also be adjusting my tools, or using new ones, because my pen is not giving me good, solid lines anymore and that doesn’t make me happy. I’ll be trying a few things to improve line quality, and if I can’t I’ll be using a different pen for the line art.
I like this one. It has a parade of characters and a general insanity around it. I wish I could tie things up like this more often.
I was originally going to do an extra few comics in this series, and explore some more craziness in legislation. I have become a strong advocate of mercilessly editing your own work, removing unnecessary pieces and where possible replacing words with pictures (these are comics, after all). However, I think in this case I cut too much and the message gets confusing.
Rep. Hassleblapp looks like he’s contradicting himself here, but this was designed to be him talking out of both sides of his mouth, depending on his audience. The bill was engineered for controversy. That was in a bunch of panels that I cut. Sometimes I think I edited this too heavily, but other times I remember that the reason I skipped these strips was because I felt it had bogged down too much because of all the dialog that wasn’t moving the main characters forward.
I think this is the most cynical set of comics I have yet done. At least, the most obviously cynical.
304-307 were added in two years (TWO YEARS!) after the fact. I had meant to go back and fill them in, and totally forgot until I was putting the books together. So, awesome! Lost comics!
Does it bother anyone else that legal language is archaic? I understand the need for precise language, but I can’t remember the last time I saw “Be it heretofore resolved” in a technical document. I really do feel like legal professionals subscribe to the theory that if they could find enough monkeys banging away at enough typewriters, some day the monkey room will turn out a document that will go down in legal history. I hear there are capuchin monkeys in South America that routinely use tools to dig for roots and break open nuts: These nut-busting simians would be perfect for the job.
I thought it would be funny to take a few humorous jabs at the men and women who serve us in Congress. Don’t worry too much about making jokes at their expense: They’ll simply expense it to the tax payer, which may very well be you. Really, this series of strips indirectly pokes fun at most U.S. citizens, and indirectly indirectly (indirectly squared?) pokes fun at many citizens of other countries who do business with (or fail trying to do business with) U.S. companies. I hope you enjoy.
I’m curious as to Mr. Fuzzybuns’ history: This is clearly not his first victory over humanity, even for his young age. I don’t imagine his previous victories relied on allergies, either, at least not all of them. I doubt we’ll ever visit his history because his future has much more potential.
I have at times portrayed the two animals in this strip (the lobster and Mr. Fuzzybuns, the kitten) as spiteful, malicious beings. I find it humorous when someone says that humans are the only animals who are malicious, or kill for fun. One merely needs to watch a housecat stalk its prey, or jilt a devoted dog and come home late to find a remote corner of the house sprayed to see otherwise. Perhaps it’s less prevalent in non-humans, but if that’s true I believe that’s more due to the fact that so much energy has to be put into surviving that so little is left over to hold grudges.
I once watched a hummingbird feed from a feeder outside a store. There were easily a dozen feeders, all of different shapes and sizes, all full of food. When another hummingbird came along, the first hummingbird left his perch and chased off the newcomer. This dance went on for a good five minutes before the second hummingbird gave up and left for good. I also remember, growing up, when some fledglings fell from a blue jay’s nest outside our house. My cat, being cuirous as her kind are, went to inspect the ground dwellers. I have no doubt in my mind that she was going to determine their tastiness in as thorough a fashion as possible, and the mother blue jay apparently had no doubt as well. She not only chased my cat away, she dive-bombed anyone who came out of that house for two months. My cat was a hunter who ate what she came across, and the blue jay was of course defending her children as any mother would do. Classifying her two-month reign of terror over the whole household, however, can only be seen as spiteful. I can’t say I blame her for being spitfeul, of course; rather, I see it as only natural that animals are just as capable of being jerks as humans are in their own ways.
I also wish to point out that the animals represented in this strip also have their redeeming traits and moments. They’re not always jerks.
Currently in the United States of America there is a huge debate on health care reform. I don’t know what the solution is, but I do know it’s not giving everyone the health insurance the majority of citizens currently enjoy. As much as I enjoy having coverage, I wouldn’t wish Blue Cross insurance on my worst enemy. Amongst other things, they can give you a quote on what they will cover which has no bearing on what they will actually cover, they can say they will cover things and then not cover them, and they can decide to charge you for conditions based on medications you take, even if you don’t have the condition. Basically, they can diagnose you without any expert knowledge for billing purposes. This makes it extremely unreasonable to go the individual insurance route.
Of course, we brought this on ourselves. Employer-based insurance was a benefit that really gained traction as a result of the price and wage freezes after World War 2. It was a really progressive thing, relatively speaking, it’s just outdated. Remember, that was 60 years ago. Think of the things you’ve had in your family for 60 years, and think of all the things you currently have. Most things don’t last 60 years. Now, this is a policy, not an object, but it’s a policy based on consumption (medical service, medicine, use of / depreciation of expensive medical equipment). In addition, while you might argue the United States have been around over 230 years, take snapshots of it every 50 years. Notice the dramatic changes in Federal vs. State powers, of laws, of policies, of Constitutional amendments. It may be the same government, but it has evolved dramatically. While health insurance has evolved, it hasn’t kept pace.
I don’t know what the answer is, and frankly I don’t think that something that can be managed like a cat allergy really needs full coverage, but I welcome well-considered change.
Of course, I’ll be pleasantly surprised if we get that. We’ll probably get some miserably considered compromise that lines the pockets of politicians and those who line their pockets.
Every story has several possible endings, which is why I enjoy drawing these strips. Of course, this strip is a humorous one, so it is reasonable to assume that it will not end badly. Even still, there’s a whole host of potential for this story, potential that will never be released. Strips like these hint towards the darker endings, the endings which occur in life and we generally try to escape in the funny pages. Some comics, especially in comic book form, deal with these endings, of course. It’s not my desire to deal with them here, but these strips remind me that they are there, and that there are manifold stories left to tell in different contexts.
Two updates on schedule? In a row? I know, you guys must be the luckiest fans in the world! Things are starting to slow down in my life, so I’m finally close to catching up on everything that’s backed up around the house. Hopefully, there will be no additional delays on the part of the comic.
I had this in my sketchbook, with roughs for all the characters and the script scribbled in. I even wrote, “Watters0n-style word balloons”. I didn’t go with that in the end, I did freehand balloons which I don’t particularly like. It’s odd that when I am thinking of a specific thing, I’ll refer to another artist’s style. It’s just easier that way.
The observant of you will notice that Watterson’s balloon style is set inside closed panel borders, where I leave my panel borders open in the text balloons to tie together the white space. Clearly, I was referring to a “half-Watterson.” Great. Now I’m inventing terms. Comic illustrating: The new skateboarding?
I used my fountain pen on the outer panels, and my Pentel brush on the inner panel where the shot was more close-in. The only other thing is that I did the rough pencils and scripting beforehand, which made things move a lot faster. Pencils, ink, scanning and painting took roughly an hour and a half as opposed to two to three hours. I highly recommend it.
I experimented with the lighting. I know it’s not consistent: That was intentional. Sorry if it disturbs the nitpickers, you can always send me a scathing e-mail if it makes you feel better.
This strip kicks off a new story line. I’m excited to see where it goes! Also, I like how things turned out in the first two panels. I’m not so happy with the inks in the third panel, and I don’t know that they have improved, but I am more comfortable with them. That’s a huge victory, even if it’s not a visible one.
I liked this one, particularly the neutron saying “meh” in the last panel. The electron gets excited in the second panel, and falls back to a normal state in the last panel, throwing off excess energy in the form of light. None of this is terribly accurate, of course, just one artist’s illustration for the sake of humor, not accuracy.
Yeesh…Yeah, I know, I’m working my way back to good, creative comics. I’ve been having a case of the blahs lately, and it has had a significantly negative impact upon my work. I’m coming around, slowly but surely, so stay tuned.
Sir Isaac Newton, translated by Andrew Motte. The original Latin is below (according to answers.com, not a copy of the book). I know I could have gone with the objects in motion tend to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force, but I find his particular phrasing far more poetic. Newton wrote his famed three laws in The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, which shows that he considered his work, at least in part, philosophy. It shares many traits of classical philosophy and mathematics, including the use of the word Axiom in the original text. It’s quite evocative if you appreciate science and math literature. For normal people, it’s just an unnecessarily obtuse passage.
Lex I: Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo quiescendi vel movendi uniformiter in directum, nisi quatenus a viribus impressis cogitur statum illum mutare.
I actually like kids: They are inquisitive and show the spark of future scientists. To those young adults reading this comic, understand this: It is your classmates who frustrate you that frighten me awake, screaming, in a cold sweat when I think they will be building and staffing my nursing home. In general, though, people are alright until they get to around college age. Then, it’s all downhill. I am really the butt of this joke, the old curmudgeon.
I hope you enjoy a a few laws of physics illustrated with humor. Maybe that will help you remember them in a pinch. Odds are not, but hey, a man can dream.
The first step to realizing you have lost your mind is to admit it is lost. Paradoxically, this requires a mind. I think that’s why people find ways to dig themselves deeper and deeper into holes: They lack the sense to realize they don’t have the sense they need.
I tried a few different things today, but I also rushed this comic. I used my Pentel brush for a lot of the linework, which I keep forgetting is a mistake. I would much rather have more fountain pens with varying nib sizes for this type of work. The brush has its uses, of course, but this was a poor choice. Also, I tried some different things with the coloring, and I’m not sure I like it yet. Keep an eye open, because I will be experimenting in the coming weeks.
I have also tagged the lobster in this comic, even though he’s hidden. I figure, what the heck. Correct me if I’m wrong in doing so. I’m new to your Internet and am not familiar with the customs.
I wanted to put the Lobster in a comic, because he’s been distressingly absent. I thought this was a great visual, so I was excited about it. I’m a bit disappointed in how I rendered Mary, though. I wanted to give the impression she was looking down at the plant, but I’m not so sure I did her justice. Oh, well.
I tried something new with the background. A long time ago I had scanned in part of a sheet of sketchbook paper at 600 dpi to digitize some stuff I had scribbled. I noticed the paper tooth was quite evident in grayscale mode. Since then, I have wanted to use it as a multiply layer to add texture to things. I happened to have a small patch of “unsketched” notebook paper from a scan, and I borrowed it for the background. Instead of multiply, I used the “Soft Light” layer mode. I felt it did a better job of softening the background color intensity so it would detract less from the foreground. Please let me know what you think of it. I’ll probably play with it a little more before I make any decisions, but input is always appreciated.
Extra-Holy water is Holy water blessed directly by a Pope. It gets more sanctified as more Popes succeed him. Mary had water blessed under Pope Paul III, who opened the Council of Trent. How she got her hands on Holy water from a 16th-Century Pope is another question; Yet another question is, how will she get MORE Extra-Holy water?
I hope you enjoyed my detour. It’s a nice way to break out of my routines and let my creativity loose. A downside is that it really limits how much exposition I can give. I have a limited number of panels as it is, and every time I fork the story I reduce the amount of attention I can give to any one piece. It’s frustrating, but that just means I have something to come back to some day.
Paranormal detectives will be on the shelf for quite a while, but I do hope to come back and explore this more.
Enter Catthulhu! We wrap up very shortly, then it’s back to the main character opining on the American workplace. What fun!
Some have noticed that Mary wields her gun left-handed. When I did the original concept sketches for Joelle and Mary as paranormal detectives, Mary held a large book under her right arm where she kept her paranormal notes. The more I thought about it, I decided she should write right-handed but shoot left-handed. That way, she can navigate her research while holding off abominations from beyond the veil. I’ll have to remember to publish those concept sketches at some point.
Also, I’ve spent a few comics and several hours with my new fountain pen, and I can’t believe I’ve gone this long without one. It’s great for fine linework, and even better for lettering! Plus, mine has a refillable ink chamber, so it’s less wasteful than the technical pens of which I am so fond. It’s a bit more maintenance work, but it’s a nice piece of equipment, and I highly recommend them to anyone who inks by hand.
I could spend several days, ten to twelve hours a day, working on some strips and never be happy with them. I am always looking for something light-years ahead of my ability, and keep dickering around with my work to try and achieve it. This is one of those cases where I had to stop and say, “Good enough.” I’m not a professional, and I have no professional aspirations at this point. Sometimes good enough is good enough.
On to the finer points of this strip. The second panel is chock full of little jokes. For those not familiar with the Cthulhu mythos, “Cthulhu fhtagn” is the short version of a chant. Its translation is supposed to mean, “Cthulhu waits” or, “Cthulhu sleeps”. “Catthulhu has fangs” is a pun on that, which directly ties in to the joke about Catthulhu sleeping on the world’s largest wireless station. Why is that a joke? The world’s largest wireless station would undoubtedly, in the early 1900s, be one of the warmest man-made devices. Its heat would be a Siren’s call to any cat.
The antenna is a bit atypical of the time, at least as far as I know. It is inspired by an antenna I see on I-78 in Eastern Pennsylvania. Anachronisms aside, I thought it looked neat. I even have considered the possibility that either Marconi or Tesla were members of the Cult of Catthulhu, but I doubt I’ll ever have time to explore that avenue.
We’re wrapping up soon. I envision two more Catthulhu strips, and one or two with modern-day Mary and Joelle to tie things up neatly.
The middle panel was a case of decent penciling, rushed inking, and even more rushed coloring. I got ambitious at the last minute, and it made me stay up late to turn out something I’m not proud of. This should be a lesson: Get ambitious when you have a buffer. You have more time to sketch stuff out, practice drawing, practice coloring, so you know you’ll get what you want. It also helps to have the story line planned far enough ahead that, even if you run the ragged edge of updates, you still can practice scene ideas you have. It didn’t help me here, but keep those sketchbooks going. They make a huge difference.
We’ll be getting to the action soon, but I wanted to point out why more people don’t play the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, but why a certain breed of people should: Library research is a whole set of skills. Yes, a whole set. It’s not uncommon to spend most of an adventure journeying from research site to research site, trying to determine how best to deal with the unspeakable horror of the day.
And yes, that is the hobo’s bindle on Joelle’s back.
I always wanted to have an editor’s note. I feel it lends an air of legitimacy to an otherwise amateur work.
I don’t know why, but Mary going up, poking the cop and calling him Officer Stereotype had me in stitches. And by that, I mean I was laughing.
Does anyone know where “had me in stitches” came from? Being stitched up (or worse, the next few weeks with those stitches) is pretty far from funny in my book. I can think of a few things further from funny, but they are far outweighed in quantity by those which are closer to funny. If events were normally distributed around the mean of funny, we’re talking 4, maybe 5-sigma territory.
But back to the business at hand: Anyone who can explain the origins of the saying to me gets the right to find a cookie and eat it. Found cookie!
UPDATE: Valued friend and entertained reader* Robbie C. sent me this:
Lou,
A stitch is a term for a pain in one's side; so the idiom, "in
stitches," to denote a condition of extreme amusement suggests
laughing to the point of pain. I'll start looking for cookies now.
Of course! Stitches! How could I possibly have forgotten that? It just goes to show you that even the best of us mess up; The worst of us just do it more often. Thanks, Robbie! good luck finding that cookie!
* – Your definition of “entertained” may differ from mine, which most likely differs from the definition given by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. Your mileage may vary.
Paranormal detectives, all Cthulhu-esque!
If you’re not familiar with the works of H.P. Lovecraft, you are not acquainted with the father of 20th-century horror. I suggest you read up, as most if not all of his works are freely available. True, he does take some cheap outs, such as describing the Dread Cthulhu as “indescribable,” but frankly, how DOES one describe the sum of terror? I don’t have the answer, so instead our paranormal detectives Mary and Joelle will battle lesser star-born abominations in the twilight of the Edwardian era.
Hopefully, it will build their characters and allow me a bit of artistic leg-stretching. As always, feedback is welcome: Hit me with your best shot.
I really enjoyed the idea for this strip, but had to rush it today to remain on time. It’s frustrating when you have an idea you like but you can’t really exercise it fully.
The terrible green couch is a product of their destitute living conditions and the wealth of hand-me-downs in a college town. It’s not all caviar and champagne as a grad student.
To stir things up a bit, I decided to focus on Mary and Joelle, roommates who are fighting their way through graduate school. The addition of the kitten will bring out their interactions (i.e. give them something to fight over).
I told myself I wouldn’t do any comics about the economic downturn; That everyone is already bummed enough, and I did not need to bring it up. However, once I came across this gem of a statement, I couldn’t resist. To all of you big-wigs out there, here’s some free advice: If you want to comfort your employees, let them know you have cash and revenue sources to cover their salaries for two years.
I really enjoyed this strip, though that’s probably due to the preponderance of pernicious puns.
The second panel takes some of my techniques and really throws them for a loop. I shaded everything in the foreground by my usual 15% opacity black shade layer, then erased the edges. I desaturated the background and then used a light filter (not a lens flare) to give the impression of a projector. To give a hint of…womanness…I added another 15% opacity shade layer to add an extra level of shading to Joelle.
I’m still using the softer brush for shading. It definitely has limits to its utility, but I’m learning a bit more about it.
The big difference for today is that I reduced the saturation of my background colors. Actually, I put the background in a separate layer then reduced the opacity. Since the background was white (full RGB), it had the effect of “adding white” to the colors, reducing their saturation. I settled on 50%, but I tried lots of levels and I’m not convinced it’s perfect.
I think I’ll do another reason or two before I roll into another story, but rest assured, I’m going to start up another story soon.
More fun, and some new painting techniques. I’ve alternated brightness up and down over a flat wash for the floor, and drew straight lines with the brush by holding Shift. The wall was a flat color with a darker color spread over it with a sparse brush.
The big change is that I shaded today with a soft-edged brush as opposed to a hard-edged brush. I think it looks really nice, but I can also see advantages to the hard brush depending on the lighting.
I think I may do a few more of these, give the lobster some face time.
Something I’ll probably throw in from time to time: Reasons why lobsters are good pets. Of course, these hold no bearing on reality. They wander aimlessly through a fanciful forest where trees bear whimsical fruit. The choice of forty-two was by design, and I positioned the lobster as an analogue to The Guide. Clearly it’s not a perfect analogy, but stuff it, I had a lot of fun putting this one together. Plus, more lobster. This is a win-win situation.
I tried something new with this, using some different brushes to give the whole thing a bit of texture. Frankly, it was probably a bad choice because it didn’t fit the theme, but I do like the results for a first try.
Does anybody else smell crayons or colored pencils when y’all are looking at this?
To the nitpickers out there, the equation was an aesthetic choice. If other than that you still think I’m mixing my maths, you need to review your math history.
For the vast majority of you non-dork humans, the guy gets hit with a bunch of sandbags. That’s the gag here: There’s no hidden math gags. Classic comedy.
I tried to get a bit heavier on the linework again for the dark panels, but I’ve realized that it’s completely unnecessary for color work. Yeah, I know, I should have known that, but now I can clearly see why. Also, I forgot the lobster again. Crackers.
Originally I wanted to do a story line where the power went out, and I had started to flesh out the idea when I found out my grandmother was in the hospital. For new readers, my grandmother passed away while we were in the area visiting her. As far as those things go, it went as well as possible, but it was still tough. When I came back, I was ready to tackle the story and to use the power outage as an analogue for loss in the main character. The fact that it was a loss so transient softened the blow and, I think, made it funny in a ridiculous way.
Unfortunately, not all loss is temporary. I wanted to do one more strip, where they celebrate the return of electricity and then the main character does something inane, to show he has already forgotten his lessons. I spent days trying to do it justice without success. In the end, I decided to leave it here. The light being on is comforting to the main character, because it shows that power is restored, and he can sleep happily. In my story, the analogy clearly breaks here; It is the lamp itself which is important to me. In this way, I think I’ve been able to weave a part of myself into this story but still maintain an upbeat comic atmosphere. I hope it was entertaining and satisfying.
I’m still not satisfied with this one, but I’m so far behind on all my projects right now that I’m settling for rushed work. I was hoping I’d be in the middle of an art restructuring, that I’d be moving forward, but lately I feel like I’m standing still. Hopefully I’ll bust through this wall soon.
I am not unhappy with the shading, at least. I feel the writing is really bad, though, and I’ll explain that when I wrap up the story. I had a story planned ahead, then changed it to fit a new theme, then totally forgot the changes I made and winged it on a strip by strip basis. Bad move. I need to go back to my collection of sticky notes, arranged and rearranged as needed.
It took me a long time to be satisfied with the pacing in this one, and satisfied may be too strong a word. Let’s pretend I went with “accept” instead of “satisfied with”. I do like how the middle and especially last panels came out, most particularly the linework on the house. I’ve started adding some flourishes when using the brush, and I’m finally getting a sense of how to properly adjust the ink in the reservoir. There’s still a lot to learn there, but it’s helping make the linework better reflect what I’m trying to convey.
However, I did intend to throw the lobster in at the foot of the bed, and just forgot. Repeatedly. I’ll see if I can’t sneak him in soon.
I apologize for the title…I couldn’t help myself.
I really had fun with the highlights in this one. To effect the darkness, I use a blanket layer of 25% opacity black across all color areas. Yesterday, I used shading like I normally do; A layer of 15% opacity and a black brush applied as necessary. Today, I used shading and I also used the eraser tool to remove areas of the 25% opacity blanket black to show highlights and indicate where the candle light falls. The combination of highlights and shading is rudimentary (this is pretty much my first rodeo, here) but I find it satisfactory.
And again, I’m really sorry that I couldn’t help myself…But the title just screamed at me like a heartless banshee which found me at her star-crossed lover’s tomb at midnight on the anniversary of their poison pact. Perhaps that’s a bit extreme, but I had to get the idea out somehow.
It’s nice to have all my art supplies back. I never realized how heavily I relied on my brush until I had to use technical pens and Pitt brushes. The horror! Peace, my friends. Let there be no more weeping and gnashing of teeth; Let there be no more beating of breasts.
I balanced the dark and the light here for visual appeal. I tried leaving the third panel lit, thinking it would really draw attention to the last panel, but it was too unbalanced.
Originally, the last panel was intended to have the Main Character yelling, panicking. I had designed the letters to be large and italic, with a starburst word balloon. The more I thought about it, I really wanted to drive home the sense of loss. This offsets the second panel, where he says he would have been ready for the power outage and makes it a point that he realizes he’s not ready. When he was panicking, it seemed more like a knee-jerk reaction, not really a loss. I made the letters a bit smaller, gave them a generous word balloon and drew some “rainy” balloon accents to reinforce the mood. I also mirrored the second panel in writing, with minimal words in the last panel and three full sentences in the second. Both ended in the word, “ready”.
Most of my important drawing implements (for example, my Pentel brush and my Wacom tablet) are inaccessible at the moment, so I had to do everything with improvised tools. That’s why there’s no shading today. I also changed up some little things, such as which “I”s get serifs and leader placement. I felt it was important to keep the leaders out of the characters’ faces.
I’ve wanted to do this story line for nearly a month now, but it wasn’t until yesterday that I finally put all the pieces together. I hope you enjoy!
It’s amazing how historical events can get “shanghaied” by corporations, people, or even the cultures who should know better and turned into mass-commercial marketing events. It took me many years to realize that the good Saint Patrick wasn’t known for turning beer green. I still don’t know what the remembrance of martyred Christians has to do with racy greeting cards and scarfing down chocolates in heart-shaped boxes. The current celebrations seem quite incongruous with the original events, and even though I rail against it whenever I get the chance I still follow the piper out of town, dancing along whatever crazy path he should wander.
Humanity is doomed.
I really enjoyed this experiment. Originally, it was to be a much longer run and the Main Character was supposed to be the bad guy. He figured it out at the very end when he confronted the Lobster, who was known to drive men insane. Instead of insanity, the Lobster brought clarity of thought, and revealed to the Main Character that he was indeed the perpetrator. Because of life events, I had to cut back on my posting schedule and retool the strip. I still wanted the MC to be guilty, but the more I cut the less sense it made. I came up with framing him for the Thursday strip, and it’s a decision I am really happy with.
I hope you enjoyed this detour as much as I did. It’s over, and I will return to the normal course of comicking in the next installment.
I said I’d use the red to tie things together, so I used it to bring the dress and the lobster’s claws to the same level. This is not how I planned the story originally: I’ll talk about alternate stories on Sunday. The story line is essentially done, but I will be tying it up in the magical world of color on Sunday.
I tried to leave a lot of blank space in this one, to play around with it. It’s okay, but I like the previous strip better.
Today’s strip was all inked by hand. Every last bit. The color int he last panel, of course, was digitally painted, but all those black fills I did with a brush. I really like the way this one turned out. I felt last strip was too dark. It would probably hold up well side by side with a bunch of strips in similar style, say if it were compiled into book form at some point, but on its own it really seemed to drag the page down. The next installment will also involve quite a few fills, but I think it will look really good.
I felt a lot more comfortable with my inks this strip. I did a lot of the area fills by hand. After a few of them, I realized I was comfortable but stupid: The computer can do the fills much faster than I can! I left out the ones that just needed the magic wand, and it was a lot quicker. If I ever display or sell these originals, I’ll have to go back and fill them in to deliver the full effect. I’ll worry about that if and when the time arrives.
I’m really excited about this story line! I’m also really digging the chance to try something new. I’ll be using the red that’s present to unify some themes and make certain things stand out, so don’t worry: It won’t be showing up in every strip.
This is an example of how a story can just jump into my mind, fully-formed. I desperately try to scribble down every little thought that coalesces before it disappears, fleshing out notes wherever possible, and hoping I get enough to work with. The idea is fleeting, and too soon I’m left with just a pile of barely coherent notes. I spend the next few hours or days reconstructing what I can, as flashed come back to me.
I can’t help but look at the word “sake” and not think of Japanese sake, which allows for a lot of creativity when interpreting sentences which involve it.
This one’s just some fun I had, no reference images. I wanted to continue with the established characters, but I needed a (relatively) quick throwaway strip since I skipped one update and I needed the extra time to work on other projects. I have a lot going on over the next two weeks, including a whole new way of presenting my comics, and I needed the extra two hours.
This comic is a response to Jamie’s ad for a day-long date at http://www.daniellecorsetto.com/archive.php?today=645&comic=644. Jamie’s from Girls With Slingshots by Danielle Corsetto, a talented artist and a sweetheart who always answers all of my questions about cartooning thoroughly and honestly. I can’t say enough nice things about Danielle, so please send her an e-mail telling her how awesome she is and tell all your friends to try her strip.
Yay, Chris is back! You may remember him from #72 (I like the joke there). I originally intended to have the main characters be dating, but I nixed that and had them married because with their history it made more sense. So, Chris was supposed to be the guy’s best friend and a swinging bachelor, doing all the fun stuff single guys can do but usually don’t. I’m glad to bring him back, and hopefully he’ll appear more often.
I had a hard time balancing the photos in this. I wanted enough elements to tell an interesting story, but I was again in a rush and had to draw the line somewhere. Also, I really should have used my straightedge more in this. I thought a more organic line would look more natural, but I’m still too shaky and the lines went everywhere. I used freehanding for the lettering and inside the pictures, but framing the pictures with straight edges helped them stand out as photographs. I need to remember to use my straightedge more, especially since I paid for the stupid thing.
This one was an example of plain ol’ fun to draw. I learned a lot about perspective doing this, something I would have been able to apply to the comic had I done sketches first. However, I’m usually doing these strips last minute, so if I want to do something I haven’t done before I pretty much end up inking the rough draft. Far from ideal, but it’s very time efficient. The downside is I put up strips where the windows don’t line up, doors are too tall and the left and right side of the streets don’t match, amongst other things.
Why didn’t I play around with brushes earlier? Oh, right, it was already taking me several hours to digitally work a strip. Shading by coloring black at 15% opacity is great, but it doesn’t allow for texturing with color like on the flannel shirt. I have to add another layer for the texture colors, but it’s still faster. plus, the brushes allow for the neat dirt effects. I played with a lot of other things, to give a painterly background to the second panel, but I need more practice with that.
Well, let me get this out of the way…250 strips! Thanks to all of you, because it wouldn’t have gotten this far otherwise. There, I said it. Now get outta here.
A couple of references. Night Terrors, Ma’am is from the Simpsons episode where Bart and Homer are handcuffed together by court order, and “There, I said it. Now get outta here” is from one of those 80s Garfield specials. Christmas, I think, though it’s probably from more than one. You might wonder why I still remember that. Like I’ve said in the past, I am a huge Garfield fan.
This joke took some working out, but I’m happy with the results. Best part is, the idea was pretty much given to me! No muss, no fuss!
the big news for this strip is I have changed the way I do my shading. I had the brilliant idea a while ago to create a layer, set its transparency to 15% and shade with a 100% black brush. The idea was that I reduced the saturation on my colors by 15% (usually) to do a general shade, and this should have the same effect in most cases. Well, it does, but somewhere along the way I lost the idea and desaturated each color individually. This new method shouldn’t change the shading you see, but it’s a heck of a lot quicker than constantly changing colors and panning back and forth, so it will give me more time to mess around with new techniques. That should mean an improvement in general over the next few weeks. Stay tuned.
I’ll admit, first off, I’m not proud of the joke. I think it’s funny, but that may just be my sense of humor and regardless it’s definitely not something I would consider “A” material.
That out of the way, I really like how this one turned out. First, the composition worked really well. The tree line is pretty abrupt, but it would have been distracting had it gone beyond the word balloon. The balloon needed space to command to show it was carrying weight.
Also, I used space to hint at some other things. The woman is up on the deck, an ordered, man-built structure. The guy is out there running a wood chipper with trees to his back, brush at his side and chips in front. I tried to convey a progression of order and comfort from the woods at the upper right and the guy’s work clothes to the structure of the deck and the everyday clothes of the woman.
Finally, I really played with brushes today. I tried to do cool stuff with the trees, and got some neat texture with a stipple-style brush. The big surprise, though, was the grass. The secret is that it’s a brush that’s standard with Photoshop. Elements. 3. I imagine it’s still standard, but I wanted to make sure nobody was pulling their hair out running the latest version of CS4 if they happened to drop this one. You can’t miss it: The brush preview looks like grass. I used the one that was a single blade instead of a clump.
That’s why HDMI has so many gotchas, like HDCP. It would make men obsolete if it were designed for full-house HD video / surround-sound audio distribution. Thankfully those engineers at Scratchmoore Industries know what they’re doing. Maybe we’ll see them again sometime.
Though frankly, I’m still surprised women keep men around what with insect sprays and all-in-one TV/DVD players…
These are definitely two competing parts of my personality. I’ve got lots of ideas I think are great, and instead of failing in execution I just fail to execute entirely. Ideas aren’t worth the bar napkin they’re sketched on. On which they’re sketched. Point being, any sci-fi fan (or scientist) worth his (or her) salt knows people have had ideas that are, quite truly, decades to centuries ahead of their time.
If you have a good idea, go out there and try it out. It doesn’t have to be a world-changing scientific breakthrough. Even simple things, like having the idea to do a comic, can put a smile on a face. Even if it doesn’t work out it’s worth failing in execution. Call it a deferred success if it sounds better, but don’t be too afraid (or lazy) to give it a shot.
And for reference, Amazon is selling “Highest Grade” sea salt for $3.95 per pound. Not including shipping, a 160-pound scientist (we’ll assume they’re tall and gangly) would be worth $632.00 in salt, not including tax and shipping.
I’m trying new shading, trying to convey an evening feeling. I’m not sure it came across, but I’m not entirely dissatisfied with the results. I guess that’s good? I put the lobster back in his Hawaiian shirt because I thought it was pretty funny. I get a kick out of drawing the lobster in different clothes, and I got to play with two outfits this arc.
Unfortunately, my art is getting stale. I’ve been on the express train to Talking Headville lately (that’s a metaphor) and I need to do something to jazz that up. Not sure what yet, but I’ll figure it out eventually. Really, I’m improvising this whole thing as I go along, and I’ve managed to make it 246 installments.
I’m experimenting with different background colors to express different emotions. I’m not happy yet, but I’m still learning. I hope it’s evident that they’re sitting in the car. I didn’t want to draw it twice, especially in 1/4 of the strip space. Also, notice that the grass and sky colors are partially desaturated in the rear-view mirror. I did that to hint at the mirror, and it makes the lobster on his bike pop out. I also darkened his jacket so it didn’t blend in with the road as much, though I could probably do better if I played with it more.
I’m laughing a lot, but of course there are lots of questions this whole story raises: How does the lobster reach the pedals? Where does he keep those coins? I leave these up to the reader, as I’m sure you’re more creative than I am. I would like to remind y’all that lobsters are basically bottomfeeding scavengers, so he’s probably pretty good at finding coins on an as-needed basis in all sorts of nooks and crannies.
I got a watercolor set over Christmas break and have yet to complete anything with it. I have stuff in progress though. I really need to get back to it. What little I’ve learned so far, though, I’ve been able to start applying to my comic landscapes. The blue highlights in the cloud aren’t quite right, and the tone fading into the foreground for the grass isn’t quite there yet, but my perspective is better. When I get something finished, I’ll be sure to put it in the gallery.
I’m really digging the old guy. I wish I could use these other characters more often, but seeing as I can’t muster 12 panels most weeks (3 updates, 4 panels at best) I don’t know how I’m supposed to do that. I considered today starting blogs for some of the characters. That’d be nice and easy, comparatively: Log in to a pre-built site, dash out the part of the story line you can’t see from the characters’ perspectives, post it. That’d be MUCH quicker than drawing up a few measly panels, and I’d get to use all the stuff I write that I end up dropping to meet (read: run over) my deadlines. Plus, I may be able to do that more often, and if I’m rushed (read: I’m watching 24) I can still post something.
I’ve also toyed with black and white. On the one hand, this is great coloring practice, and I’ve been doing it so long (242 strips, give or take a few uncolored ones) that it would look weird. On the other hand…More updates! It’s a tough call.
Of particular interest in today’s strip, the three ovals are all slightly different, enough to be quite noticeable but not enough (I think) to totally stand out. I did this intentionally. I’m experimenting with different positions/sizes to see what I like. If you have any comments, as always, please speak up. E-mail link is above and I do read (and usually respond, at this point) to every e-mail I get.
I like the old guy. I’ll have to write him in at some point in the future.
I also like the lobster in his Hawaiian shirt and baseball cap. It just seems fitting that he should be dressed up to go out in public. It’s a pretty common theme in surreal comics where animals, aliens, etc. walk around in broad daylight and nobody is the wiser. It’s a stock humor idea, I know, but I enjoy it.
Yeah, the title is a line from Forrest Gump (as I remember it).
I had a lot of fun drawing this one. I screwed up the perspective on the building (windows and door), but perspective is something I’ve been working on, so even though I don’t like the result I don’t feel bad about screwing it up. some of the proportions aren’t quite right (the car seems a bit small), but again, I don’t feel terrible about it.
The graduated background is one big gradient with several color stops and blends. It isn’t exactly what I wanted, but I’m pretty happy with the result. I got watercolor equipment for Christmas, and I really like it. I don’t know how to translate the appearance to digital yet, but I’d really like to figure it out, and that’s where I was trying to go with that. It’s a bit flat. The building brick was textured with the film grain texture in Photoshop, a 4 on the grain slider if I recall. Four whats, I do not know. Units.
As far as the choice to do a long horizontal panel, I am pleased. I really like how it came out, and it really gives that sense of urgency and haste I was trying to convey. The guy’s poses are something I’m really pleased with as well. I think they clearly convey that he has to go. This panel also sets apart the lobster and gives the impression that he is not part of this supply run, which is reinforced by the last panel where he’s trying to get someone’s attention. Presumably he wants another drink.
I am pretty pleased with this one, which is good — That keeps me motivated. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some video game animations to get on and some sleeping to…uh…sleep?
This is a nice joke, but it’s here as a setup as well. Hope things work out. It was a real rush job, I put this strip together last minute. A lot of my usual finishing touches aren’t here, and the writing’s so-so. I like where I was going with this, but I look back at strip 209 (rush job, no link) and I notice all the little things that are missing. Oh, well.
Gasoline is a great solvent, but I would REALLY not recommend cleaning with it. Unstable vapors, and all.
Merry Christmas! Here`s the Christmas Card for this year. It was received really well. Get it? I mailed them, so they were “received”. It`s another pun!
You know what? Just go spend more time with your family.
I really need to get into some other characters, bring back the lobster, go back to drawing backgrounds…lots of stuff. I feel like I wrote myself into a corner with this vacation stuff, though. I couldn`t come up with anything. I was about to sit down with my one-off ideas to stall for time, then I came up with this. The guy`s got nothing to say, but he talks anyway so people will hear him. This strip was, in a way, my way of filling dead air. Why not just say nothing? Well, for one I`ve skipped a lot of strips lately.
But primarily, if I don`t speak, how will everyone hear me?
The great thing about strips like these is I get to draw a bunch of poses and see where I`m improving and where I really need to work harder. Clearly the head-on shot (#4) needs a lot more work, as do my hands. The third shot I`m actually really happy with, as I thought it would turn out much worse. I had to push myself to draw these, which is always good, so I skimped a bit on the coloring.
Writing on this one was tough, too: I wanted to keep it moving, but I really wanted to rant as well. In the end, I cut the dialog down a lot. What the characters say is really important, but comics are a graphic medium, and if I want to read a novel I go pick up a novel. No sense in bogging down the reader once you convey your point.
I had this joke written a lot of different ways, and originally it was going to be a flyer. When I started blocking it all out, I had to have an excuse to swap places to really streamline the writing. I used the computer so the guy could lean over the girl, allowing me to trim the word count. I feel this gave the punchline more “punch”.
I wasn`t sure what to do with the background in the montage scenes, so I made it a flat color. I probably should have done something fancy, but I didn`t think I could pull anything off. Now I missed the chance to figure out how to do something cool, or at least learn what doesn`t work.
This comic was actually envisioned as a one-liner. I saw the guy saying, “This is all one big misunderstanding!” I decided that was too much, so I retooled it many ways (one of my favorites: “AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”) before I realized that this strip would be best served without speech. Understatement is key. Besides, what is the guy doing with a live turkey anyway? Again, understatement, which permits whimsy.
Coloring this one was a lot of fun. I`m not overly excited about how it came out, but I am pleased, which is a rare occurrence. I am a harsh critic of my own work, but if I`m not then I`ll never seek to improve. So, having fun and pleased makes for a feeling of temporary satisfaction.
Check out the shading on the tail…I added a “shade effect” layer, 10% opacity, and used a black brush to give the silhouette of the wing. Actually, it`s subtle enough that you won`t notice it if you don`t look for it, but it`s a favored technique of mine, so the practice was good.
This is a return to the theme of comic #68, What?!?. That was one of my favorites for a long time. The style has changed a lot since then, but I was really proud of it at the time. Wow, things are sure a lot different now a year and a fourth later.
David Reddick does Legend of Bill in greyscale most days, so I thought I would be clever and do the whole comic by hand, including greys. Instead of testing everything out beforehand, however, I jumped right in with some grey Pitt brushes. Big mistake. The background is nowhere near even, and it`s way too dark. I seriously messed this one up. Oh, well, live and learn, right? I learned I really need to test my tools before diving in to a technique I know nothing about. At least this time I did character models first, which I will scan and show off this week sometime.
UPDATE: I pulled out all the backgrounds and replaced them with a flat grey in Photoshop. Man, that`s MUCH better!
1080p: Way more “p”s than normal, brah.
Normally I try to avoid political humor, as all it serves to do is alienate, and I`m here to entertain as many people as possible…But I couldn`t help myself. When I inked it, I wasn`t sure of the outcome…Call it a lucky guess.
Ironically, I worked a pretty good bit on this one. It didn`t take as long as four-panel strips do, but I certainly didn`t phone in this one. I wanted focus on the guy and his candy consumption, so I kept the legs thin and the feet small, exaggerating their proportions. I went too far, however, and they look to small. I didn`t realize the magnitude of the error until it was colored. Oh, well, lesson learned. I like that he`s claiming he has a cold. Not sure why I found this funny, so I hope it strikes your funny bones as well.
I tried a few different angles on the characters and played with the background a bit. I need to get back into drawing backgrounds, but since I do everything by hand it`s kind of a pain. I COULD digitally add backgrounds that I hand draw in layers, but it just seems wrong if it`s not on my original. It`s a personal oddity, and that`s why artists who embrace the digital can be so much more efficient.
Dental Plan! Lisa Needs Braces! That`s a little Simpsons reference for those of you not hopped up on Nyquil and coffee.
I cut this story line short because I didn`t like where it was going. Well, I liked the potential, but I needed a diferent format, and I`m not ready to switch things up that drastically yet. Instead, I`ve been looking at some more subtle things, like checking my writing and, in today`s comic, trying something new with hands. It`s subtle, but I`m simplifying them and so far I like what I`ve sketched (and done with the second panel here). I`ll probably stick with four fingers, but don`t be surprised if your favorite characters lose a pair of digits.
I like this one, it has two jokes rolled together. The first one is a bit subtle, and does require you to be familiar with the guy`s job…He`s on the bottom rung, so when he says “hold my calls”, he`s talking to the phone. That one cracks me up for some reason, so I hope everyone else enjoyed it. The next is the exaggeration of the girl`s importance in creating a new buzzword. These mysterious people even have a cult and a secret meeting place in which to worship her!
For a change of pace, I decided to see how the guy responds to this new ManagementSpeak ™ (c) (etc) in his office. The answer? Not well…
I was out of ideas and had a bunch of strips half-scripted. I needed some filler to buy some time…and as is usually the case, I ended up really liking what I came up with! I still think it`s kind of cheating, even though everyone does it, but not only do I usually like the results of a quick n` dirty strip, but I usually get the most feedback from them. Isn`t that weird?
Plus, Professor Lobster! He`s my caricature character, of sorts, and I like putting him in different stereotypical roles.
I`ve tried to keep the angles and shots varied to help with pacing and emphasis. In today`s strip, I actually used two shots and made the strip as a whole symmetrical. I played with the background colors a bit, just to be playful. The joke I`ve had kicking around for years, and it actually predates the strip, but I finally remembered/got to use it here. Of course, in the second panel, I should have emphasized thoughts, not outside…but oh well.
This one was a bit tough, but a lot of fun, the third panel in particular. I inked the train and the silhouette, being sure that the two had whitespace between them. I filled in the silhouette with my brush, then I colored the train (again leaving whitespace). On top of that, I threw a layer of dark and faded the edges with the eraser tool. Finally, I threw a gradient on top of it all, starting at solid white and fading in opacity, not color, which gave the oversaturation of the headlamps. Lots of fun.
I like how the linework came out on this one. I had more bold plans for coloring, much like the Krazy Kat or Spaceman Spiff (Calvin and Hobbes) scenes, but a few things (including time) stopped me, one of which was Dave Kellett`s (Sheldon) homage to Krazy Kat this past Sunday. That`s what I get for taking a week and a half off…I would have beaten him to the punch by a whole week! Oh, well. Can`t wait until Thursday…
Paul Southworth of Ugly Hill* is starting a new story line, and Dead Baron is a band that will appear this Tuesday (I presume it`s because new albums generally come out on Tuesdays). Make double sure to visit on Monday and Tuesday to check out the new storyline, and while you`re there, read through some of the archives. Ugly Hill is awesome. Tell Paul he rocks, too.
* – Paul Southworth is now on Not Invented Here.
I`m not happy with this one. The writing is loose, the art is bad (especially in panel 2) and I was really pressed for time, so I ended up using something that I think could have been a good idea on a bad strip. Of course, if experience says anything, I`ll actually get several e-mails about how much everyone likes it. It`s odd how things work like that.
That is, of course, one advantage of this format — You get everything, warts and all. Syndicated artists get a whole bunch of strips rejected by their editors, so you`re missing out. Upon further reflection, I`m not sure that`s a bad thing…
The title is a not so clever pun on the name of the first chapter of Half-Life 2, Point Insertion. The comic shares nothing with HL2, I just wanted to use the name.
This is probably going to be one of those strips that few find funny. I had a blast with it. Normally, I add small things to my strips; a background detail here, a particular wording there, that has particular meaning to me. In this case, I`m commandeering a whole comic. Y`all are going to have to accept that this is one of those occasional strips that is totally self-indulgent in its entirety, and though I`ll explain the joke here in my commentary by explaining it I`ll rob it of all its humor. Play along, anyway, it might be insightful.
First off, the big joke here is that self-insertion cartoonist characters, especially those who break the fourth wall, are doomed to failure. By show of hands, how many are familiar with a strip called Garfield? In the first strip, Jon Arbuckle accomplishes all of this. Garfield has gone on to be one of the most successful comics of all time. So, apparently, it can`t guarantee death.
However, this joke is a big one for me, because as I look back on my work on Yet Another Web Comic, I see myself making all the same mistakes (with the exception of breaking the fourth wall, correct me if I`m wrong). The further along I got, the more I regretted each cheap, amateur move I made. This appears to be a common thread among cartoonists, but there`s certainly a learning curve. Just like anything else, you have to make mistakes to learn. For me, I don`t even recognize why something is a mistake in cartooning until its way too late.
All of this is in the context of all the `branching out` I have either done or been trying to do lately with art. I`m hoping to make some big mistakes in the coming weeks, and lots of them. I probably won`t recognize them until months from now, and hopefully they won`t all be in the strip (to spare you, dear reader), but here`s to learning.
Oh, and put your hands down. You`re probably all alone in front of your computer, where nobody can see you. I`ll bet you look ridiculous.
I can`t remember right now, but I think I`ve used A Modest Proposal before…
I had a lot of fun coloring this first panel. Usually I look at coloring as a chore. It limits the amount of comics I can do in a week and makes those comics take longer. I also feel like I can never assemble a good color pallete.
I`ve been reading a lot more books on newspaper comics, mostly those that have lots of samples, and I realize that color selection is always really simplistic. My imagination filled in a lot of the blanks. That`s not to say that Bill Watterson didn`t do a better job coloring his strips, of course, but I realize that I`m a lot better off than I thought, and to get better, I need to actually simplify, not complicate.
This explains how comic artists can do ten or more strips a week, at least one in color (several are rejected by the syndicate).
I picked up a set of French curves on clearance at Wal-Mart and I really like them so far, but they`re taking quite a bit of adjustment to not make my curves look so disconnected and out of place. I inked Sunday`s comic today, and I can already see an improvement. In a few weeks, the word balloons should look a lot better.
I have repeatedly said that the characters in this strip share little more than names with their real-life counterparts. However, I really like writing for Mary, and I`d like to think that a good bit of her real-world counterpart shines through in the character. At least, I hope so…her real world analogue kicks ass.
–Two years later (one year and 50 weeks, actually) I still think this is one of my favorite jokes.
Unfortunately, I tried to do a lot today and color this strip at the last minute, and a layer mistake set me back a half hour, so the colors will be flat. Fortunately, part of those other things include scanning some samples from my sketchbook for the gallery page, so be on the lookout for that in the coming days.
The mark of an amateur is putting your friends in your strip. Sure, it makes everyone happy to see themselves in a comic, but then you`re stuck in a writing corner. I`ve often told everyone that the characters in my strip share name and some characteristics, but nobody is a carbon copy. This still leads to awkward moments…Like Joelle being a grammar Nazi, which is two steps beyond a grammar vigilante. Sorry. Understand the character is not you. To those aspiring cartoonists, I strongly encourage you to come up with characters not inspired by your friends. If you can`t help it, at least change names to protect the innocent. People will see themselves or others in your characters anyway, and they will be based on your experiences, so you can`t escape it entirely, but it`s a real n00b thing to do it this explicitly. I would know, being a huge n00b when I started this.
I like the conflicting personalities here, and I`m glad to be writing for some other characters and exploring them further. I also like the lobster riding on Joelle`s head…that`s totally awesome.
And by the way, I realize there`s a bit of irony in a man with middling grammar to write for a grammar nazi, so forgive that up front. If you must correct me, you can write an e-mail, but I`ll probably never correct it. I have too much to do to go back, but going forward I`ll try to pay attention if it`s not too unabsorbent for my thick head to ingest.
There`s a lot to say for this one. First the title, Atlas Shrugged, merely refers to the use of the word “shoulder” in the comic. It in no way refers to the particular piece of claptrap written by one Ayn Rand, though I could make some kind of remote connection as to the selfishness of the truck driver seizing the road from the more deserving “men (and women) of the mind”, or in this metaphor, our main characters who hold up the world that is the strip. Actually, that`s not half bad…
But I (often) digress. I again focused on the cars to improve my drawing, and as usual made extensive use of Google image search. The car is of no particular make or model, it`s just one of a million mass-produced, uninspired four door sedans that litter our roads. I used a different angle in every panel to force myself to pay attention to the different body details that are apparent and to proportion. I think it`s much improved over my previous work.
Also, I expanded my usual nature drawing. I`m trying to get into rocks, bare earth, and that`s real tough. I added the winding mountain road in the last panel as a technical challenge, and since I have several strips worth penciled already, I can tell you that it helped really improve an upcoming strip. I think you`ll really be pleased. Part of the issue is bare earth, and part is again that nasty perspective, and how differently things look as they get further away.
I also have gotten into the details of the “how”s as well. The roadway was, in parts, blown out of the side of the mountain. The curve in the last panel is one of those parts, and if you were to extend the portion below the road upwards it would eventually come to rest near the word bubbles with the edge of the mountain that still exists today. Just goes to show what can be accomplished with the proper use of explosives. Of course, there`s no way anyone would know that from looking at the strip. I decided it halfway through the rough penciling, went back and made some changes, and the strip looked much better for it. Attention to detail is important, which is difficult to convey in a comic strip which is (at least the past thirty years or so) almost simplistic in nature. Though the detail itself isn`t conveyed, it makes an almost palpable difference in the end product, where something can almost be grasped that was once flat and disconnected.
I wrote the dialog first, and thought it was funny, but the illustration insisted that I attempt to make it the star. I hope that doesn`t rob from the joke. Also, I`d like to point out that it wasn`t intended to be an examination of the attitude of entitlement…But what would happen if the main characters went on strike? Perhaps there`s more Rand in here than I give credit.
I`ll be doing a lot more outdoor scenes and car shots in the coming strips, because that`s where the story`s going to take me. I need to do more auto drawing and I like doing outdoor shots, so it should be interesting.
I`m not happy with the word balloons in the last panel, though. I knew better than to position them that way. The rightmost one comes first, and I tried to convey that by making it higher. It just didn`t work, and I knew it wouldn`t but sometimes we make dumb choices. Oh, well, it`s good enough.
The title comes from a memorable episode of How I Met Your Mother, a show which I will actually half-watch while I am hacking away poorly-colored comics in the evening.
I`m not happy with the joke construction on this one, and now I`m going to have to back myself out of the hole I`ve written myself into later (more on that as it develops), but I`m not totally upset with the result. I particularly like how mine linework and shading turned out today, especially the background. I tried to make it interesting since I didn`t fill it with stuff, and I ripped off Danielle Corsetto`s technique (Girls With Slingshots). She`s been awesome to me lately, really inspirational, so I figured who better to rip off?
The joke was my favorite part of this. I realize, however, I still can`t draw vehicles. That`s something I`ll need to remedy.
I put the lobster in her lap to get him into the strip. I never intended to have a lobster long-term, much less have him be so popular. In all honesty, it still amazes me today.
Hey, check out Girls With Slingshots by Danielle Corsetto. McPedro the Cactus has lost his moustache (or rather, the moustache that had taken up residence on McPedro decided to take a world tour). I`ve given him a temporary home here, on the lobster, because it was fun to draw. Danielle is a fantastic artist (check her personal and Etsy sites while you`re there if you doubt me) and she`s also trying to do art professionally…So if you see something cool, buy it! I`m an amateur hack with a day job, this awesome gal`s got real talent and deserves to put pen/cil to paper for a living. Also, let her know there`s a
moustache sighting!
As for the comic itself, I tried to force the perspective in the middle panel, to indicate the characters were leaning in. Instead, they look tremendously out of proportion. Crap. The shading isn`t bad, but I really didn`t ink any of the folds in, and on a close-up like that I really should have spent more time on such things. The mariachi lobster was fun to draw, and he looks pretty darn good, so I hope that`s what people notice.
Oh, and Danielle, if you`re reading this…Maybe I`m not aware of it, but you need a GWS domain name. Something short. I went through a lot of White-Out (brand name!) to get that URL in there…
I had this one figured out for a year. You may recall I set this up after last year`s Dragon*Con. Yeah, that far back. I thought, hey, this is a pretty cool idea. Plus, I can throw a bone to the furry community. They`re a bunch of people who do what they love. Personally, I`m not about fur. I`m especially not about any of the more scandalous activities committed by a subset of the community. Gross. However, they`re consenting adults who aren`t hurting anyone, and they get a lot of crap from the web community at large and in the nerd hierarchy. I figured I`d throw them a bone.
Of course, that jerk Randall Munroe of xkcd beat me to the punch. In fact, if I had put this one up on time, we would have gotten there on the same day…The cad. Plus, he wrote it better than I did. That`s the advantage of having so much room to work with. Anyway, furries, I just wanted to say that I have no interest in what you do, but you`re not hurting anyone, and you get the short end of the stick for it.
Give that jerk what-for! And by that, I mean tell him you adore his comic. It`s good stuff.
I tried some different background shading techniques here, and tried to vary how I handled the lighting, but just a little bit. The light in the last panel comes from the far left. It`s getting there, but it`s still new territory for me. I like the silhouette in the second panel and may use that more to spice up blank backgrounds.
You know, I should probably mention my knock on Wikipedia. I`m a big fan of peer review. Academia, however, has it wrong right now. Peer review shouldn`t take over a year, shouldn`t be so political, and shouldn`t be the measure of a career. It should simply be a filter, a filter of experience and know-how. It helps separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. That doesn`t mean everything that gets through is good, or everything that fails is bad, but it`s one way to find good avenues to pursue.
Which is where Wikipedia falls in — they should collect the wheat that ends up on the threshing floor, ready to be burned. I like where they`re going. It should work, in theory. You know, like Communism. The problem is that in reality, you get a bunch of jerks who ruin everything. To prevent this, they had administrators, automated analysis, and other tools to help monitor work on Wikipedia and “revert changes” (a.k.a. “set it straight”) based on the administrator`s whims. Basically, it`s a peer review system for a site that prides itself on its lack of peer review, the place that is supposed to buck the system. It`s an impractical system which is brought up to speed by false assumptions.
It`s a great place to get some casual information that is of no relevance, but if you need something important, I`d suggest peer-reviewed sources. If you can`t wait 24 hours for a peer review, you should probably be calling 911 anyway. It`s a fun casual exercise, but I certainly wouldn`t settle a bet with Wikipedinformation (I just made that up).
Here`s a short story to fill the time before Dragon*Con, which will be followed by a few comics of what I saw there through the eyes of the main character. I like his unaccustomed and naive take on Dragon*Con. It`s also an exercise in adding detail. Her costume is relatively unadorned, but I had to stop somewhere. I can only ink so small.
Sometimes, I open the paper and say, “Man, the Russkies are up to their old tricks again!” Then I say, “That means WE`LL be up to OUR old tricks again.” Then I wonder if it`s totally reprehensible (from a moral standpoint, of course) to buy stock in Boeing on the anticipation that we`ll be sending Cruise Missiles somewhere…
So far, no Boeing stock.
Wow, 200…I never thought I`d make it this far. I usually give up on things pretty quickly. Turns out I may actually enjoy drawing. Go figure!
Thus ends the lobsterette storyline. I wouldn`t expect to see her back. Eve may pop up from time to time, however. She`s too fun to draw NOT to give our protagonist grief.
The soup can is a crude and incorrectly rendered Warhol parody. I went generic intentionally, but swung further than I had intended to. Should have checked the reference material first. I chose Warhol because he also did paintings of comic strips. So, it`s a comic of a painting by a comic-painting artist. For those of you familiar with The Soup, it`s a Keith Olbermann / Joel McHale mashup all over again. If not…Get familiar. Best show on TV currently. I will actually excuse myself of my no TV policy for The Soup…even though, since I don`t watch TV, I constantly have to ask what`s going on.
I really phoned in the coloring job on this one. I`m behind and trying to get other stuff done, so I skipped pretty much all the shading and did a real quick job on the rest. Sorry. At least there`s a comic.
I`m also kind of disappointed in the writing on this one. I had a better idea…I think…but it`s gone now. I think it gets the point across, but it could have been better.
I know some people are…well, sad`s too strong a word, but slightly disappointed in today`s comic. You didn`t think I`d have two lobsters running around, did you? That wouldn`t be sustainable. Of course, I never planned on having ONE lobster until I saw companies advertising live lobsters for Valentine`s Day, and I never intended on keeping him around. It`s amazing how stupid little things stick. Greatest accident of the comic.
Well, time is very much at a premium this week, but that hasn`t stopped me from putting in more time than I probably should working on these strips. I thought this one was going to be phoning this one in, but I spent a lot of time working on the color here. I think I`ll be doing more landscapes and possibly sunsets, because I really think I can improve based on what I have learned today. There`s the color layer, a haze layer of 95% white set to multiply, a red multiply layer to give the sun tinge, a layer for the sun and its shading effects that I put in by hand (purple in clouds, for example), and erasures in the above layers to bring out wave highlights. More experience using a combination of tools and techniques…Phew!
I guess I never aged past 12…I still think this joke is funny, especially on tasteless postcards.
The joke was supposed to be, “The weather is beautiful / Wish you were her” and it was supposed to be the lobster surrounded by babes. There`d be an arrow from the word “her” to one of the bombshells. Time conspires against me this week, though, so I had to phone this one in.
Really…This is just some fanservice. That, and I didn`t get anywhere near as much work done today as I wanted. I really need a day to dedicate to catching up…on comics and sleep. Until then…fanservice and good comics! You still win!
I`m not sure what`s up with the brunette…Maybe she`s drunk?
I was really excited about doing this one. I made every panel different (composition and framing) to keep a sense of action even though it`s a heavily text-driven joke. I`m happy with the results. In addition to the shading practice (I`m really getting to like the results) there`s lots of background and some specialty sun effects in the first and fourth panels. Of course, only the shadows really stand out…the subtle yellows cast from the sun don`t really show up very well, especially once it`s downsized for the web. But, now I know to work more on the shadows and less on the subtle effects. Perhaps I should have done highlights instead, though I don`t think that would have done much better.
Now that I think about it, I`ll probably do a filter over the whole panel of yellow next time, drop it to 5%ish opacity, and then wipe it from the shadows and darken them with a 10-15% opacity like I normally do for whole-panel shadows. Probably look pretty good and be a lot quicker. I`ll keep you posted.
I wondered why she wasn`t there in any of the recent strips…Apparently she stayed home. But why? That`s a great question! Hence, a strip! Or two! Plus, she`s mad! Bonus!
Shading has been my current subject of experimentation, and it`s getting better. I totally forgot to shade the couch…oops! Mary`s shirt says “HIPPIES use side door”.
Lobsters again!
I thought this one was really funny, but I wanted to keep it…well, I wouldn`t call this subtle, but perhaps subdued. Writing was the tough one here. No, there are no plans for lobster babies.
Special thanks to Robbie Richardson for the idea to use this quote. I had discounted it, then was reminded that it`s got good context. Thanks a bunch, man! Really made me think (see below).
(The full text of this letter can be found at http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/96oct/obrien/blood.htm) We will return to the lobster saga soon. Probably next update, in fact. I have to say, though, I`ve really enjoyed these past two strips. The caricatures, reading classic American literature…It`s great.
On May 4th, 1970, a group of riotous protesting students, ill-trained National Guardsmen and three days of tension resulted in bloodshed. On the grounds of Kent State University, four students lay dead and several others wounded, some of whom were reportedly not even part of the protest. This sparked nationwide strife, brought many major higher education institutions to a halt and was a keystone event leading to proper training in appropriate violence of action, among many other things.
But honestly? I remember being a student. There`s a lot of naive beliefs young people hold. There`s a lot of bravado, boldness. Many of these protesters, I`d bet, were nowhere near as well informed as they thought they were. I`d wager money on it.
And that`s exactly why they should hold the title of patriots, at least according to Thomas Jefferson.
When Thomas Jefferson wrote this letter, the Boston Tea Party was a pretty big thing. A bunch of young (and older) rabble-rousers, not really understanding the full scope of events, not really considering the repercussions of their actions, staged an open revolt against unrepresented taxation. Keep in mind, this event was the culmination of attacks on traders and warehouses — An angry populous acting out.
Thomas Jefferson said basically two things about this event in his letter: Its motives were founded in ignorance, not wickedness, and if the perpetrators had done nothing, it would herald the death of public liberty. He compares liberty to a tree which must occasionally be fertilized, “…with the blood of patriots & tyrants,” and says, “God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion.” The idea is not to rebel, but to set the rebels right, “as to facts, pardon & pacify them.”
The Tree of Liberty was watered on May 4th, 1970, with the blood of people I`m sure never intended to go out and get shot that day, and it was a tragedy. Thomas Jefferson, though, would say, “What signify a few lives lost in a century or two,” undoubtedly considering the alternative being liberty lost. It`s a sobering thought, and a scary one. If 20 years is the rough guideline, are we lethargic or just severely overdue?
I wonder all this as I sit on my couch, typing up my thoughts and sketching out future strips. Clearly I`ve taken up arms and marched on to set things right, I say sarcastically.
For whatever reason, airport strips are my favorite. I like Special Agent Johnson, I like the main character always getting arrested because his seemingly innocent mind wanderings turn into huge social upheavals…So just accept it, okay? Sweet.
We`re all familiar with the famous Benjamin Franklin quote. Apparently, he used it often. I am familiar with it being used in his memoirs. I don`t know if it`s his earliest use, and I won`t claim it is, but perhaps someone can point me in the right direction.
In his memoirs, he speaks specifically about the Boston Tea Party, and proposes (among other things) that Boston should make good on the tea destroyed, but that England should open the port of Boston to trade again and repeal the tea-duty act. Mr. Franklin also calls for all trade duties on the colonies to benefit the colonies.
Why would he ask for all trade duties to benefit the colonies if he earlier asks for duties to be repealed? In his memoirs, he remarks (in summary form) the quote above. Basically, he says that though he thinks the duties are wrong, they won`t be repealed. This is along the lines of the more radical “No Taxation without Representation!” rally we all probably remember from grade school. He is asking that, if duties must be collected, they at least benefit the colonies.
He doesn`t stop there, however — He continues to say that if a, “thorough and hearty reconciliation is wished … strict justice [must] be done”. To that end, Boston should repay for the tea and England should make good on its damages by opening and repairing the port of Boston and repealing all duties.
Then, he calls on Massachusetts to, “suffer all the hazards and mischiefs of war, rather than admit the alteration of their charters and laws by parliament,” closing with his famous words above.
Every time I stand in an airport, and see masses of people afraid of carrying anything suspicious-looking, afraid of acting “weird”, afraid of joking or even speaking their mind, all I can think is that we as a people have compromised with our own government for the sake of preventing those present bloodsheds and mischiefs of war. I don`t know what a thorough and hearty reconciliation would be in our case, but sometimes I feel like we the people are replacing an overseas, physically distant sovereignty with a socioeconomically distant sovereignty in our own capital. Instead, we should accept the consequences and seek a long-term solution.
But don`t trust me. Read for yourself. I`m probably way off base anyway. What do I know, right? I`m a cartoonist.
All will be addressed in the next few weeks, but don`t worry…I`m not writing the lobster out. I know that`s been a big concern.
I`ve been out in Seattle and Colorado on business for the past nearly two weeks…That means, since I`ve been on time with the past six strips, that I actually had them all done AHEAD of time! Now I`m back to day-of work, but I hope to get ahead by a few weeks over the next month again, as that was great. Of course, with all that travel, we`re going to get another airport strip. Or two.
With apologies to the late Robert Frost.
This story has come to mean a lot to me. It is just an analogy for every ex-girlfriend and, even more broadly, every major life choice: Do I take this job, do I move to that city, do I look for some other option? Clearly the lobsters are not together (Apparently they don`t mate for life…It`s true! Ask the unassailable Wikipedia!). They took different paths, and are now different lobsters.
Over this past week, though, I`ve really come to see just how divergent they really are. They were together, but now their separation is no mere break-up: It`s a whole life experience. We all have different job skills, different hobbies, different friends becuase of our choices, and we can never be the people that we were, or the people we imagined ourselves being under different circumstances.
But you know what? We are the people we are now, and we can choose which road to take from here on out. We`ll probably never get the same choices again, but we do get to choose.
And that has made all the difference.
This is just one I wanted to do…How do you give the age-old chicken joke a new spin? Well, better than this if you`re a better artist, but I work with the tools I have. I really like this one.
I don`t know why, but this one really tickles me.
I just aged 50 years by using a bridge joke. Seriously, it couldn`t have been Rock Band?
Notice I`ve been playing around with the backgrounds? I like it better than the gradient fill for panels where I`m not trying to indicate any depth. It`s not visually engaging but it helps frame the action and lead the eyes to the characters.
I just had fun drawing this guy. That`s pretty much all this comic is.
Fun fact…In my original concept layout for these strips, the name of his ex was Jezebel. I ended up going with Eve, short for evil, because I imagine her as a one-dimensional character we won`t see too often. It could have been influenced by Wall-E, but honestly, Eve was far more original than Jezebel…I was going to call her Jessie for short, which is straight out of Caves of Steel (1st book in Asimov`s Robot series). Better some originality than none…And I like Eve better.
Wow…I HATE her.
I had a lot of fun drawing this one. Coloring…Well, as always, coloring is something I don`t enjoy as much. Nothing ever really looks right. However, I`d be remiss to deny that coloring doesn`t allow me to add a lot of depth to my strips. I just wish I could do it better…Which, of course, is why I do comics three times a week! To improve! Anyway, I like this and I hope this story really “nails it”.
Eve is the main character`s ex-girlfriend. She`s…well…I`ll let her introduce herself over the next few days. I wouldn`t expect to see her often, she`s really more of a setup for the story to come. That doesn`t mean you shouuld expect her not to be fleshed out, or not to appear in the future…Just not a lot. The comic`s not about his past.
This flow chart indicates that the project cannot be done with a hammer, so HammerBot won`t be able to figure out what to do. I guess.
It`s done, but it`s not what I wanted. Here`s an example of a great idea wrecked by terrible writing. Oh, well, I still liked drawing the robot. Expect a little more, then a nice little story line where the guy plays the sad sack. That and the lucky sonofagun are his strengths.
From long ago, I`ve always wanted to look at the workplace though my comic with different eyes, always adapting. Now, let me take time to point out yet again — I like my job. The comic workplace has nothing to do with my workplace, and I am making jabs at generic jobs from horror stories I get from friends, family, newspapers and imagination. That`s why I wanted a different perspective on workplace humor.
My first attempt at this was actually a panel back in comic #12 (please excuse my early artwork). A zombie-employee stalks money, rasping, “Gaaaaames…” I thought it would be funny to have the main character imagine he`s a zombie at work, but I ran out of ideas quickly. Actually, I ran out of ways to keep his co-workers from thinking he`s insane, but regardless, I couldn`t make it work. I thought of doing a slice-of-life zombie worker drone comic for the local freelance paper, where zombification is reality, but I could barely keep a schedule with YAWC. So, instead of a recurring character, he died on the sketchbook page, barely making a cameo.
I`ve picked on work here and there, but it eventually developed into a “can`t win” scenario for the guy, where the student he gives a card to ends up being his boss (Percy). However, I did eventually come back around. While I do love my job, there`s a lot of data management, and when the papers pile up I can feel like a real automaton, working as hard as possible to move papers from pile “A” to pile “”B via keyboard and mouse digitization. The idea stewed in my mind for awhile, and intersected a desire to draw more fanciful things. One fateful page of sketches later, and I had a robot cast ready to deploy in the workplace.
Today`s comic was supposed to be that introduction, the idea that the robot revolution has already happened, but instead of metal it is made of meat. We work so hard for fear of losing our jobs, and we do highly repetitive tasks that computers either aren`t ready for, are too expensive to replace humans, or are cheap enough to replace humans, but don`t have the “extensive knowledge capital” (also known as compromising pictures of the Vice President at the last Christmas party). The robot is the main character, a simplistic-looking robot model stuck entering data and rerunning the cost-benefit scenarios for the company to upgrade to the next model. Being a robot, this is done every 2.1 seconds to make sure he`s one of the first to know. The new model, of course, could do the calculation twice a second.
But I digress. Notice the robot`s output is paper-based. It`s actually a continuous feed sheet version of a punch card. Also, he talks in flow charts. I wanted him to be robotic, but not rip off the things I`ve seen lately (Curse you, Ramon Perez and your Kukuburi! Curse your use of electonic schematic symbols!). The flow charts made sense, and they can actually communicate frustrations.
In this strip, the robot looks down, and says that his life is a repeating cycle. His choices (branches), though present, have only one possible functional outcome. If you will, it`s the illusion of choice of going to work every day. Notice he`s separated from the working robot, different background color, too — That`s why he`s speaking about his life in general. In the second panel, he is surprised to see that, even at work, the choices he makes are counteracted by other forces, and no matter what he does the end result is the same. Plus, due to a floating point error, it looks like he was due to be replaced .3 seconds ago. Poor guy.
But, alas, I couldn`t convey that in the strip. Chalk it up to poor writing.
I was really excited about drawing this first panel. This is one of those cases where the image popped in to my head, and I had to write a comic around it. I think the shading is getting better, and I am happier with the darkness/highlight effect in the first panel than I thought I would be. I`m even more excited about my idea for tomorrow, but I`ll get back to the lobster as soon as possible. I know that`s why you come here.
Try it. It`s a totally different experience as an adult.
I`m trying to describe volume better with shading, and I like where it`s going. More practice, of course, is required.
A brief story: I originally thought of this strip and didn`t want to draw a whole restaurant, so I decided they would be sitting next to a window and looking out on a nearly-empty parking lot. When it came time to draw, though, I was short on time and didn`t want to put that much detail in the background. I threw around a bunch of ideas, including a hilly scene and a glass pane that`s mostly reflective, then it hit me — Wall! It`s a cop-out, but it gets a comic out on time and if I didn`t say so, I`d be willing to be nobody would have noticed.
First off — The title is a line from a great Robert Redford movie, Spy Game. Yes, I rip things off left and right. Check yesterday`s comic again…I pretty much rolled out my Jim Davis model, no changes. A little idol worship never hurt anyone, right…Right?
There`s been a big theme at play the past few comics: The issue of roles and success. We all know the guy is coasting along in an entry-level position while the girl is quite successful in the corporate world. Here, they are trying to step outside of their comfort zones, and they are meeting failure. The guy can`t seem to climb the corporate ladder (he gets perks, like an office and a raise, to keep him happy) and she`s met a string of failures in being domestic.
The second panel here is the last I`ll run in this theme, at least for now — They are willing to return back to their roles. He assumes the domestic burden and she`s paying because she has much more earning power. His solution, dinner out, is a bit of a cop-out, but he`s never been portrayed as a really good cook anyway and I`m sure they`re really hungry. Notice also that he drops his work bag — He`s relinquishing the role of corporate success to his wife.
I tried to tie it all up in a nice neat package, but it`s a huge story that y`all probably never even realized was taking place. Three strips a week is not enough, but I can`t possibly provide more. That`s why I provide comments form time to time — I fill in the details behind my motivaiton.
I can also point out some artsy stuff — This is one of the few times, and definitely the best, I have been looking over the shoulder of a character. Shading helps define direction here, but I still need work on things like the hands. The second panel is a bold new example of shading for me, where I`m really trying to define the depth of the actors. It`s definitely a start, one I`m very proud of. I think overall that today`s comic is an indication that I`m going to start trying new things again. Keep checking back to see the good (and the bad).
I decided it was time to play with some different panel formats again. I`m still not quite sure what I think of this type. I think it`s not quite tall enough, but it gets the point across.
I also wanted to do something with SA Johnson again…I really like him. Lance and Vance from the RIAA are good foils, but how often can my characters run afoul of them?
This was one of those spur-of-the-moment dealies that I churned around for quite awhile before putting pen to paper. It was essentially a one-liner, but I wanted to play with it a bit. Notice the veep (Veep?) sleeps with his shirt, tie and jacket on, ready to go. Also, I like the turkey on the headboard (trust me, it`s a turkey). That was a contender for national bird. Plus, it`s got a great connotation for the Veep (veep?).
If he had a few letters behind his name, though, or a certificate or two…
Yes, yes, another pun comic.
I highly recommend Jonathan Coulton. On his download page, anything with a smiley face is gratis. I recommend hearing his resampling titled “W`s Duty,” regardless of your political leanings. It`s fun for the whole family. Of course, all of his work is good, but Chiron Beta Prime, for example, didn`t inspire this comic.
Hehe, duty…
Well, this entire comic was based on a pun. In fact, shoeflies might come back. They probably shouldn`t…but I`m a sucker for beating dead horses, or whatever the PC, non-animal-cruelty phrase is.
Kids, don`t drink underage. And once you come of age, don`t drink too much. Adults…well, you`re kids who have come of age, so take heed. Alcohol can do plenty of damage on its own and it can wreak havoc on other bodily systems that you will pay for later in life.
But of course, I`d be remiss if I ignored its comedic potential.
I had this idea in my mind, but wasn`t sure how I would get the proportions quite right between the panels. It`s not too bad. I sketched it in my sketchbook and drew a box around the guy`s head to frame the first panel. It really helped keep things in perspective.
Had a great time at a reception. That`s why we`re up a day late. To be fair, I never had five bottles of beer in my hand at once, though I did see someone with two flutes of champagne and two bottles of beer. I wonder why they call them flutes?
Here`s a double-length day for you. On time. Congratulations. You`ve earned it.
I would like to say that I did not see the movie or anything more than previews before I designed this comic. I pulled the craziest ideas I could think of (and Cate Blanchett`s character) into what I thought would be an interesting composition. It kinda works.
Also, I saw the new Indiana Jones movie today (opening day!). No spoilers here, I promise.
First things first: clearly it is a showcase for ILM. Lucas made sure the movie was half an Indiana Jones movie and half a computerized special effects showcase. With that out of the way, If you are a fan of Henry Jr., you`ll want to see the movie, especially the first half. The opening sequence is your standard pulp action fun, spiced up with some nearly seamless effects. Then, you settle in and there`s some good development. Next? Cue the shark-jumping.
I`m a big pulp action fan, so the movie was everything I expected it to be. If you`re a Jones purist, and thought Raiders was the only good movie, don`t waste your time. If you`re looking for some good, over-the-top fun, this should be on your list.
I got this idea from the third panel. Parents. The Last Crusade is still probably my favorite movie of the three (give me a break, alright?), and one of my favorite scenes is when Sean Connery tells Harrison Ford, “I think those men are trying to kill us.” I know, dad. If that`s a spoiler, you`re 20 years too late: I can`t help you. Anyway, that`s what`s going on there if you`re not familiar with the scene. The other two top panels should be pretty self-explanatory.
You may notice that none of these panels (save the first) actually occur anywhere. They almost do, but not quite. I had to recompose them to be interesting. They`re definitely in the spirit of the film, but that`s an advantage of film over comic: They get 24 (?) images every second. I had to pull the key elements and put them together in one frame. I think the composition was done pretty well for these shots.
Let`s not forget that I`m working with a lobster, too. That poses some unique challenges that Mr. Ford was capable of overcoming.
I`d like to say something about my choice of “Jump the Shark”. I picked it because I thought it was funny, not that I felt the movie was forced. Plus, it gave me a great center image of Maine Lobster (Indiana Jones? Get it? Bah, whatev). A lobster jumping a shark on a motorbike with a sidecar? I just HAD to draw that.
I admit, I phoned this one in. It`s not up to the usual standards I try to hold myself to, but I am in kind of a rush. Work is picking up pace again, I have a busy weekend planned and I have an awesome strip idea I`ve been trying to get ahead of (unsuccessfully). I apologize, but it`s still a far leap forward from Day 1…
Alright, alright. I promise that I`m done with the outdoor shots for awhile. I like playing with formats, and this extra-wide one posed some composition problems for me…especially since I`m still learning the trade. I`ve got some good ideas for strips coming up, so I should have some good practice with composition coming up.
I admit it: I did this comic because I wanted to draw the last panel. I spent too much time considering the last panel, however, and screwed up the third panel pretty badly. Oh, well. I guess you could say I couldn`t see the forest for the rest of the comic…though that`s nowhere near as elegant as the phrase I butchered.
In an amazing departure from my normal method, I know the entire story line already, and I even have a few comics ahead inked. They`re not ready for prime-time, but now it won`t be a series of last-second rushes. I like it. I think I`m going to try to stay ahead. We`ll see how that works out.
I can`t be the only one this bothers. So many times I have been sitting at my computer, thinking, “Man…If only I could acquire some 15m satellite imagery at 15m satellite imagery prices and turn it into 50cm imagery with magic software. The proof that this technology doesn`t exist? Every imaging laboratory in the world would own a copy and everyone would be getting traditional X-Rays instead of CAT scans. Oh, and spy satellites wouldn`t have to be able to see which face of a coin is up or read license plates…If you can see what appears to be a vehicle, hey, just run it through the enhancer and determine what kind of fly is on the license plate.
While we`re at it, we can tap the expertise of a bugologist* to determine that the fly is a very specific fly that only lives in one apartment of one particular apartment building, which happens to be the apartment of a mole who insists he`ll never tell our spyhunters anything then gives it all up five seconds later. But, that`s for another day…
* – Yes, yes, entomologist…
I`m a sucker for attempting landscapes, especially when there are trees involved. Anytime I can justify it, I like to stick something in the background. I decided against a reflection, though I did do one in the past. Laziness is today`s excuse, that and not being ahead of schedule.
I`ve had this one kicking around on the back burner for awhile. I was in a bad way for ideas for tonight, so I went to my sticky-note pile, and this one caught my attention. I really should revisit that pile more often.
Line weight is everything. Notice how the first panel looks darker than the second? Particularly the lady character? That`s because my hand was heavy and the line stroked too wide. That`s the downside of doing the work by hand — It`s not a simple button-click to undo (I have the left button on my Wacom tablet set to undo). I have White-Out (name brand, yes!) and it does a pretty good cover-up job, but then I have to wait and while it takes pigment from my technical pens well it doesn`t take ink very well at all. So, I end up fixing things with technical marker. I don`t think you can tell in the digitized product, but I can tell when I do it, and it feels like a real hack thing to do.
On a side note, I really liked doing this one and like the results. And yes, I know someone with a workspace which has a window like that.
Wow. Big thanks to Tracy Butler of http://www.lackadaisycats.com/. She`s got a series of art process pages which don`t go into great detail but have helped me tremendously. Seriously, setting my linework layer mode to “multiply” instead of “normal” has made a huge difference. Oh, and her art just simply blows me away. Plus, I like the era and the story style. I can`t recommend her work enough — It has helped me realize quite a few things, which I will be working on improving. Go today. Send her an e-mail and tell her that her work is awesome.
I originally wanted to take this to the female character feeling like she was trapped in the house playing games all day, so work was to give her purpose beyond the house. It was a tie-in to a few days back when I pulled that Thoreau quote (one of maybe half a dozen out-of-context quotes I use) out of my…brown paper bag of out-of-context quotes. I couldn`t tie it together, so I went this way. Hopefully it was a cheap laugh. It`s not what I wanted, and I set this arc up for this, but it`ll work. I hope I covered up my lack of writing ability pretty well.
I like the “He Said / She Said” style comics, but I wanted to do something I hadn`t seen before. I hope this is a new, or at least uncommon, style for you as well. It was a lot of fun to do, but I`m still getting the hang of basic brush work and I had a bit too much ink for this one.
I`m actually glad the first panel came out this well. I am kind of surprised, honestly, I wasn`t expecting to really nail what I had imagined. I guess I should start dreaming bigger. The rest of the coloring, I`ll admit, was a bit phoned in. I also messed up on the guy`s shirt on paper — It was long-sleeved in the first shot and short-sleeved in the second. If his arm looks a bit off, I fudged a fix in digital. Neat, huh?
By the way, 150!
Thoreau also said our houses have become so unwieldy we are often imprisoned by them rather than sheltered.
Honestly? I really phoned this one in. I was going to make the couch panel really dramatic, but I`m so far behind on so many things I just gave in to the path of least resistance. I hope its minimalist flavor pleases you.
On another note, I noticed that I`ve actually developed a story arc in the middle of an “interestitial” run. I figured I`d have a few throwaways, but this story took on a life of its own and ran off. I`ll have to correct that in the archives. Oh, yeah, and update my archive page.
The face paint on the lobster for this strip and yesterday cracked me up. People seem to have noticed other things (Joelle “poking” the lobster yesterday, for example) but the face paint was my favorite. I like the khakhi uniform and corncob pipe on Macarthurette, too.
I had a lot of fun drawing this one. The story line is fun, it`s a new (to me) take on an old saw, and I get to bring some other characters into the mix. I want to see the other characters more often.
Also, I`ve been using the lobster as a background character more often, and I will continue to do so. He`s a lot of fun, very expressive despite the fact that he doesn`t talk, and gives a sense of depth to the characters` lives. Something is going on while they live their lives, which makes the world seem more populated.
Or maybe I overthink everything.
I`m also trying to work on making all of the elements of a scene, and overall in the comic, connect and make sense. I believe the technical word is composition. I left the middle slightly off-center because it made sense to me, but I can`t explain why. But, hopefully, I`ll get better at this and scenes will flow better (visually).
It`s weird seeing this colored and put up for the first time today — I`ve had this drawn for five days and inked for three. I`m used to being barely on time, so it`s weird to have known about this strip for close to a week. Usually I have ideas floating around, but ideas and sketches are not the same as even a penciled strip. I feel like this is old news, but I keep forgetting this is new to you. Enjoy.
Brush work is getting better, but it`s still rough.
In honor of my 135th strip (rather, since I haven`t bought any new art toys in a while) I got a new Pentel Brush. This thing is AWESOME, but man it puts down a lot of ink fast. Sorry if the linework is thick and jumpy, I`m still learning, but I think the strip from first panel to last is proof enough that I should have it under control soon. I look forward to learning more about how to effectively use it. In the mean time, I have to find a way to compensate for the fact that the ink stays wet for quite awhile and leaves black puddles on my scanner. They wipe up just fine, but I`d rather not have to clean up after myself in the first place.
As I was sitting down to do a simple comic, I realized I have had a heavy hand lately and needed to reinforce that the characters are very much in love. I used the same young-character technique I have used before (ripped off, of course, from Michael Jantze of The Norm fame. I recommend the Normathon and the Know-It-Alls, and the Gocomics link takes you to his strips. Otherwise, it`s pretty content-light, but while you`re over there tell Mr. Jantze I sent you and that I was a HUGE fan of his work. Don`t tell him I steal his ideas. Or Jim Davis, for that matter.
Anyway, I wanted the guy`s childishness to be one of the reasons she fell in love with him in the first place. Playing in the mud is neato, innocent fun. If you`ve forgotten, try it some time. It ranks up there with dancing (or in my case, acting like a goofball) in the rain. For her, he`s a constant light rainfall or mud puddle. Sometimes, all it takes is a new perspective, and what was once dirty shoes and suit cuffs become a geological expedition. And yes, I just said neato.
As an interesting side note, the inkwork was lighter on the left side of the mud pit, and when I scanned the original it was not as shaded as the right side. That dictated the lighting for that scene. It was a coincidence, and it actually made my job easier. Win-win! I also tied in the backgrounds from the third and fourth scenes with some gradient work. All in all, I`m much happier with this than I thought I would be.
I`m also thinking about going to the traditional dot-for-eyes you usually find in comics (like the lobster has). Just a thought.
I was tired of working on it, so it`s so-so today, but I like the middle panels – The transition from countryside to more urban area with the switching equipment in the middle. I wish I had done more with the first panel, and the last panel doesn`t look quite right, but all in all I think it gets the point across. Plus, that`s a punchline I really like.
I needed an idea, and I wanted it to be simple. Again, I got really in to it, but it gave me some follow-up ideas and I still managed to finish it in the time frame I wanted. That didn`t leave me time to sketch out the next comic like I had hoped, but I still chuckle at this one every time I see it. Four hours later, that`s good: Usually I`m sick of the joke by now.
I have a lot to say about this comic, but it`s late (for me at least) so I`ll try to be brief:
This comic was very late (Saturday`s comic posted on Tuesday), so at first I was in a real rush to finish. But, the more I looked at the comic, the more I went back, making changes and filling in little details. First, I really like the action split across the first two panels, with the wall as the divider. I used the horizontal lines on the walls in the second panel to draw the eye there. That, when contrasted with the vertical lines dripping from the word bubble in the third panel and the dark colors (one with color, one without) dmake those panels “heavy” but also distinguish them. The border of the third panel is also a heavier line (it`s true, look closely), giving it a darker feel and enforcing this heaviness in the middle. I wish, in retrospect, I hadn`t leaned so heavily on that so the first panel was easier to get to visually, but frankly, I`m learning this stuff as I go along. It`s kind of hard to predict effects you don`t know about.
There`s a few fonts here, too. Some bold, some italics, a few sizes…all mixed together to try and draw attention to not only specific words but to pacing and flow. I was afraid I overdid it at first, but I think it`s pretty good.
Speaking of drawing attention to things, I hope you noticed that the door is smacking the female main character as the guy enters. Again, in retrospect, people will probably draw some weird sexual thing from this. Nothing of the sort was intended — It`s simple slapstick. Haha, someone got hit with something. I used the bottom action line to draw attention to that, as between the two action lines it has far more weight. The *smack* seems to totally be lost in the line-heavy second panel, though. So much for that.
I also tried to use size in the third panel — The guy being small and the girl filling the foreground. They each get half of the panel, but the empty space around the guy is supposed to make things a bit more dramatic…but I still wanted that comedy, so the guy`s shaking. Frankly, I`m not quite sure if it worked yet…I`ll have to re-evaluate tomorrow.
And, of course, in the last panel the lobster is in time-out. For attempting to drop a bag of flour on the guy as he came home. The panel is really sparse, no shading, and the lobster is on the right of center — This is supposed to separate the lobster from everything else and drive that time-out thing home. It is the only panel not tied together with the others using some technique, and I think it stands off pretty well, but I`d like it to stand off more or have the first panel tie in better.
All in all, I tried to shove a lot in to this comic, because the more I looked at it the more I said I really need to do this. Perhaps there`s too much going on, but I really wanted it to be engaging. Comics take a few hours each to do. This one was way more than average. Hours of work for fifteen seconds of enjoyment. I hope this one was worth it. As I`m looking at it right now, I`m still chuckling, but I`d better like my own work, right?
I am often hard on my artwork. It is not a lack of appreciation for the good parts, but a careful scrutiny of the bad parts. I dissect the lines, the colors, the paint strokes. I routinely examine my techniques and look for improvements, both in quality and efficiency, and I tear in to any comic artist how-to I find online. Method videos fascinate me. It`s not that I think I suck and need to quit: It`s that I know I need to constantly improve, and good enough is only good enough for now. Great is the enemy of good, but complacency is the enemy of study. I hear Chairman Mao said that. Regardless, I always want to improve. I don`t have to be great today (obviously), but “good enough” will be a higher bar down the road, so I try to prepare. Any time you see something you`d like to comment on, positive or negative, please feel free (but be constructive, or you`re no help).
Growing up, I always wanted to draw a comic about an animal that speaks. It seems every strip had one (at least, every strip I really liked). Then, when I got older, I realized — Lots of strips already had talking/thinking animals.
When I originally wrote in the lobster, he was a one-shot gag. On a side note, man, the art has REALLY improved. Anyway, after a large response I decided to keep him around. But what to do about his communication ability?
We already know he can write, which was kind of an oversight on my part, but something I`m going to stick with. He probably writes very slowly. Beyond that, however, I`m keeping his ability to communicate on a short leash. This gives him added depth, since he is clearly quite intelligent but unable to convey that. It`s understandably frustrating, and that gives cause to his mean streaks. I`ll reveal more about how I see him later.
I never dreamed I would have gotten this kind of mileage out of the character, not to mention a lot of fun drawing to boot.
I`m about to wrap this story line up, so don`t get too concerned that this is going nowhere or that it`s going to be yet another arrest story. The news story in the background is just for flavor and sensationalism.
I also found the Expand Selection tool in Photoshop Elements 3.0, and man, it makes laying color sooo much easier, but it`s so many more clicks and there`s no shortcut! My tunnel is really carpaling right now.
I kind of lost my way on this one, and I was over deadline, so I had to put up what I had. I thought this format would be pretty neat, but instead it is too cramped and I have too much of the same…lines. You, the Internet population in general, are quite educated and don`t need to see six separate lines. I tried to mix it up, and now I have an array of small, disconnected panels. In the future, I`d use fewer, larger panels and change up the layout to break flow and draw attention to each separate point (perhaps vertically staggering the panels). Anyway, enjoy.
Originally, I planned this to be the woman talking to the lobster, wondering how he was doing, then he would show up yelling, “I`m going to Disney World!”. The pacing was all wrong, and I couldn`t write it the way I wanted to. Instead, I did this, which used the same format as the day before. I felt kind of weird about that, but I really liked this joke, so here it is.
I am of course referring to the following quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”. You may be more familiar with its bastardized form where “Essential Liberty” is replaced with “anything in any way inconvenient”, which is commonly bandied around the Internet. It is especially common among those who anthropomorphize data, describing them as having the will to be free. But I digress.
The program Cutsies here is clearly in reference to the program Clear, as seen at www.flyclear.com*. For a $128 annual fee and unique personally identifying information (iris scan AND fingerprint) they will let you cut ahead in the security line. This bothers me for several reasons:
This company has no compelling reason NOT to turn over this information to the federal government.
All you get is cutsies. Frankly, I`d rather have known terrorists skip the line and go straight to screening — Then I won`t be standing next to them in line. And shouldn`t they need screening the most?
The federal government is implicitly saying that, by paying this fee ($28 of which is a TSA vetting fee) they are okay with you skipping the security line. They`re endorsing a classed society, separate and unequal.
There`s more to it than that, but frankly I`m a comic strip artist, not a political commentator, so I`ll let you draw your own conclusions.
In terms of the comic, I`m really impressed with how the crowd in the first panel turned out. coloring has always been my big problem, and I really think I`ve been making large strides in that lately. I`m getting better with hair highlights, too, see panels two and three. Plus, I`ve tried the hair going over the shoulder. You may see some character model changes soon, but I have to sketch more first.
* — Since posting this, Clear has died and been resurrected. The new URL is https://clearme.com/
This is the first time I have really gone out on a limb with different text styles, including the dripping word bubble. I think I`ll be doing this more. Also, I changed the way I color things. It takes a little longer, but it looks like it may yield better results. I used to have two copies of the line art, in the linework and paint layers. Now, I am painting on a blank layer using selections from the linework layer. Though it wasn`t colored, I really like the third panel in this, though the more I look at it the more confusing I think it is. Ignore the terrible perspective in the first panel.
A simple idea kicked off a bunch of strip ideas for lampooning airports. Easy targets? Yes, but I hope to be treading territory that is relatively uncharted. Maybe you`ll see some funny new twists on it, maybe it`s been done to death and I just don`t know about it. Stay tuned.
I like playing with formats, because the traditional panel is so formal. I have to go back and read more Calvin and Hobbes, because Bill Watterson broke format fairly often. In this strip, the lower-right snapshot captures his fear that someone will grab the last donut of the batch, and he will only get donuts twice. The horror!
It`s a creepy song.
Phenylalanine is actually an essential amino acid, and it exists in a lot of protein-bearing foods. Phenylketonurics are people who are allergic to too much phenylalanine (something about their ability to metabolize it). So, it`s actually fine unless you`re a phenylketonuric.
I also just realized the comic says, “Warning: contains phenylketonurics.” I wonder how they put all those people in that little cup? That was an example of a lack of proofreading before I inked it. I`ll fix that at some point. (ed.: Two and a half years later, it’s still wrong.)
I went directly to the Writers Guild of America (West) to get the skinny: No apostrophe. If the Writers Guild of America — The authority not only on themselves, but presumably on writing, put it in digital ink on their own site, that`s good enough for me.
Isn`t what I have to look forward to great? I can`t wait.
This was just to make myself draw a cityscape.
I think she will have many run-ins with Vance and Lance, the RIAA lawyers with a large share of Sonny Records stock. Actually, I didn`t know they owned any Sonny Records stock until now. Conflict of interest? Possibly.
There`s a lot to talk about today. First off — Cheap Photoshop Trick for the win! Lens flare! I thought I`d never stoop to it, but it was exactly what I wanted and it was easy. Oh, well. I`m falling into the cheap Photoshop tricks of 13-year olds. Next comic: Page curls! Yet Another Web Comic: Now with 60% more Photoshop filters!
I really liked drawing and writing Eddie Vedder. I had a lot of reference shots of him, and listened to / read a bunch of interviews. I know I can`t produce his response to a situation like this, but I wanted to remain as faithful as possible to his style of speaking. He`s pretty well spoken, if you`ve ever heard him. Not overly verbose, not large words, so he doesn`t sound pretentious, but he really is quite well spoken.
This little series is actually a response to the Webcomics Weekly Podcast, episode 20. Dave Kellett of Sheldon Comics said that, when asked for criticism by artists at a convention, he always tells them their work is good. He says it`s dishonest, but it`s okay, because nothing he says will make a difference, and he quotes Charles Schulz as saying if you can`t recognize the faults in your own work, you shouldn`t be doing it.
To be fair, I`ll bet he gets a lot of people who are just looking for kind words from an artist they respect, or want him to say it`s great whether or not it is. He`s probably used to people who would ignore criticism, later blogging, “Who does Dave Kellett think he is?” (The obvious answer to the rhetorical question being a very successful webcomic artist). Also, it`s not Mr. Kellett`s job to help out other artists. It`s great that he does things like the Webcomics Weekly podcast, but he`s under no obligation.
However, my experience with conventions is that established artists can not only point out what`s wrong with your work (you probably can already see it), but they`ll give you advice and even explain WHY artists do things the way they do. Years of experience tell us, in pretty much every field, that we usually do things a certain way for a reason. You need to know what the rules are, and why, before you can go breaking them successfully. Otherwise, you`re just reinventing the wheel.
When Dave Kellett said that, it really made me think. I was going to attend several cons this year and get advice. I`ve decided to cut back on soliciting criticism that way and look to some other venues as well, and now I`ve moved art classes more towards the top of my priority list. I still disagree that criticism isn`t helpful, and you need to know how to fix your own work. However, I think I get part of what he`s saying, and I agree — You do need to see what needs improvement, and you need to be ready to hear your work is crap. That`s part of the process.
Oh, and you need to stay away from Dave Kellett if you want to show off your work. It sounds like he`s not interested in seeing it. At all. But he still does a cool comic (hint http://www.sheldoncomics.com/ and seems to be a genuinely nice guy.
In a past Webcomics Weekly podcast, one of the artists said about being successful that you need at least 200 comics, and each one, “has to be better than the last.” Fortunately, success is not my metric here: I`m just sharing. However, I hate this comic. In fact, I think the appropriate word is despise. The writing is horrible and nowhere near what I wanted, the strip has poor linework, a bunch of art smudged and had to be cleaned up with correction fluid and some computer work, the text is too thick and dirty, and the backgrounds are…well, nonexistant. The art is pretty poor, too.
I didn`t want to post this, I thought about skipping today and rewriting the strips to just bail out of this idea. However, I hope those of you out there who want to go out there and do something creative on your own can learn from this: You have off days, and sometimes no matter how hard you work at it you just can`t get things right. It`s okay to fail. Besides, by Thursday night, I won`t have to see this one again.
I hate those hands, but I`m just glad to get this out there. I hope you all don`t mind a brief story. I promise I`ll tie it up quickly. This one was just on my mind and I had to get it out.
Nothing to say, really — I just read an article on superheated water and somehow belly button lint popped in to my head. If I can say anything, it`s that NOTHING is worthless in your quest for ideas. Take in everything you can. You never know where a bad idea will come from.
I fell really short on the middle panel, but I had to draw it. I had this in mind and I was really excited about it. I want to do more landscapes and I want to push my skills with shading and color mixing. I learned a lot in doing this, of course, and it was fun, but it still looks terrible. Plus, it makes the bookend panels look even worse.
Happy New Year! I originally wanted to draw this twice as tall, with the top row being a door five times, getting larger and larger, all angles, as it someone was running towards it in a panic. Then I decided I would do it digitally — That`s a lot of black ink to drop on paper and I don`t have a way to do that conveniently. Then, I decided the strip stood on its own. Which is good, because it`s getting late and I have to work tomorrow.
This will be a short story line, probably just one more day, then I`ll do some one-shots. Thanks for indulging my story line desires. I want to do more landscapes — I really enjoyed drawing and coloring the fourth panel today.
I`ve noticed that my file sizes are creeping up. I have taken measures to reduce them. Please, in the name of all that is good and holy tell me if it doesn`t look right. There are far too many browsers / OSes / et ceteras for me to know. If it looks bad now, it`ll probably look bad forever. I`ll never know.
Besides, since I`m moving to three comics a week, and I provide everything for free, the least you can do is my visual legwork. Think of it as giving back. I guess I`m trying to say testing these things out is crap work, and I don`t feel like doing that. I`d rather YOU do it.
Yes, this is the same image from the 2007 Christmas card. I know it may not be a big deal for those of you who got the card, but I really like this one, especially since it was all done by hand (including the coloring, with colored pencil). To me, it totally earns the slot of 100th comic. I hope you enjoy it as well.
This also allows me to have some valuable extra time over this holiday season, which brings me to the surprise I promised in the News: I am going to attempt three days a week again! Expect a Tuesday / Thursday / Saturday schedule. If it doesn`t work out this week, then next week for sure, but I hope to have a new comic up in two days. Merry Christmas.
The lobster is classically flawed: Despite his best efforts and grand plans, he is quite simplistic and thus frustrates his own efforts. Here, he wanted to win at a video game, but he went over the top to put the main character to sleep. When things went off the reservation (I changed the story to point out the CIA`s foibles) the lobster panicked and set fire to the shredded documents. Apparently, the lobster spent a lot of time planning, and didn`t think about lighting a fire in the house. Every step along the way, things get worse and worse and the lobster continues to make poor choices. He is his own worst enemy.
Of course, perhaps I think too much about these things.
Oh, and not that I`ve been keeping track…But Christmas is comic 100. It was a little over a year ago I was excited to get to comic 10, and now we`re hitting the next large milestone. I`ll have to pick up the pace, but let`s see if we can`t make the next big milestone, 250, by next Christmas! You keep reading (and writing), I`ll keep drawing.
I had to re-write the story line to get those last two news-related strips in. I`m not quite sure how I`m going to tie this up now, but I have some ideas. It will be done before Christmas…Even if I have a poor (quality) ending.
Ahhh, finally. I`m starting to get the hang of this thing. Plus, I have some neat ink and blue-line super-sized originals to look at. And the Leslie Nielsen joke? Go watch Airplane again. But on to the rant.
I feel like it`s the late 60`s / early 70`s. The CIA is doing things that are generally agreed that it should not do, it`s taking turns between telling outright lies and downplaying it with a cavalier attitude, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is asleep at the wheel or worse. We all know that this tortue thing is going to either be swept under the rug (MK-ULTRA / MK-SEARCH, the Iran-Contra scandal) or blown open, turned in to a silent purging “of those responsible” and forgotten. Who`s going to take it in the neck? The new guys. You get them in, talk about moral gray areas and the call to a higher good, that it`s unpleasant but necessary and they`re going to be protected, and then when it hits the fan tell the public about the new guys being cowboys and how you`ll make sure the persons responsible (the new guys) are fired. A token older guy or two will resign, but they were probably going to retire soon anyway.
And the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence? Don`t get me started on THAT debacle (that`s the “Don`t get me started” in the comic, incidentally). It`s chaired by Senator Jay Rockefeller, West Virginia, a 70 year old senator who is also on the Subcommittees on Communication and Science, Technology and Space. Seriously. A guy who probably had to have someone use a typewriter for him. He`s nominally a Democrat, but it seems he is related to the Rockefellers (a staunchly Republican family, if anyone is not familiar with the oil tycoon) and a quick look at his sponsored bills (at THOMAS) paint a different picture. Plus, you know, seeing as he`s the chairman he must have known about the waterboarding for over FIVE YEARS.
So, you have an agency that will be hiring officers looking for scapegoats. If you`re not willing to do torture, you won`t have much of a career. If you are, you may have a very short career served with public humiliation. The CIA says they want America`s best and brightest to apply, and if we need an intelligence agency, I certainly want the best and brightest making those tough calls. However, if they are truly “best” and “brightest”, why would they want to put themselves in this position? Yeah, there`s always going to be tough calls and questionable or even outright illegal things going on. That`s the nature of espionage. But anyone who`s smart enough to look at this situation should see a lot more risk than usual. Any question about whether or not people are expendable should be answered by the 90`s downsizing after the fall of the Soviet Union and the Valerie Plame incident.
Am I being ridiculous? Probably. Do I know what I`m talking about? No: I`m a desk jockey who hacks together an amateur web comic twice a week on his good weeks. I`m not exactly qualified to speak on matters of national intelligence. But does anyone out there honestly see this as implausible?
Sorry it`s incomplete, I will color it in tomorrow. I`m in a rush tonight to jump from place to place. As far as the CIA thing goes, it`s true: Head over to your favorite news source to verify it. I`ll rant about it tomorrow, probably.
I`m going to leave my big brush for awhile to work with smaller width pens, especially around the borders surrounding text. Also, I have one more panel at the current original size, then I`m going to try drawing a little bigger. I like my brush-tipped pen, but the lines are so thick that I`m still not quite happy. So, expect to see line widths in general decrease over the next two strips.
Okay, big changes. First, notice my aspect ratio has changed. It`s a small thing, but I think it will help me use my space better. A bigger thing is that pretty much the only things I do digitally at this point are paint and the name/date at the bottom. Even my boxes are hand-drawn. This has changed a lot of things for me procedurally, but nothing should really be that different stylistically. The text is still taking some time to fine-tune, I`m doing my best.
I`m jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, jumping from one story line right to the next and almsot tying them together. Originally I was going to explicitly tie them together and have the lobster make dinner to make up for the file sharing trouble, but I couldn`t squeeze it in (stupid two comics a week). Instead, I left it implicit. That`s why he`s cooking.
Actually, truth be told, he`s cooking because I was in a bar one night doodling, and I drew a picture of him cooking on a bar napkin. Basically, it was yesterday`s last panel, and I said, “this is great!” I added the chef`s hat to seal the deal, and I knew I had to squeeze it in somehow.
I admit the text looks awful. I`m trying to figure out how I can letter by hand. I prefer it, but I have to figure out how to make it work with the rest of my drawing. For the next few comics, be patient as I figure out if I can do this or if I need to settle for a custom font. Patience on my part is required, as well, which might be my problem.
I hope I look back at this one and really enjoy it. The setup and punchline are really kind of weak, but I think I like the middle panel. I`ll have to check in later and let the results soak in.
The whole story line was actually inspired by the image in the middle, which was suggested to me. I didn`t even come up with this, and one image gave birth to a whole story line. And possibly some recurring characters. It`s amazing how sometimes the simplest things can be so inspirational. Now if only I could write and pace to do it justice…
I am trying a freeware font for right now. I just got my new scanner and will make my own font. The work`s done, I just have to scan it and have it fontilized. Fontified? Fontificated? Whatever. Anyway, I`m experimenting with this freeware font in the meantime, and changing my word balloons. I like the results, but it takes a lot longer to do them. I`ll have to find a way to streamline the process, but I`m sure I can.
As you can see, I changed my word balloons. I don`t know if they`ll stick. I do have another surprise coming up…I`m making a custom font! I`ll let you in on the details once I get them. It will require the new scanner, though, as my current scanner is too noisy and I can`t get a sharp image of my lettering. I should be using the new font within a week.
This isn`t really what I wanted out of this comic, and I tried to cram too much content in. Pacing is killing me, because with only two strips a week I have to be really picky. Everything has to move at a pretty snappy pace. If I want ten strips, you have to suffer along for a month. Daily artists get that in a little over a week. I am very jealous. If I am lucky, I can get up to a three-per-week schedule, that would help flesh the stories out more. Otherwise…It`s more of this.
I did buy a Pitt pen with a brush tip today…Best linework investment yet. Seriously, it was less than $3 for the pen but it is amazing. It`s like having a thin brush and India ink, but without all the hassles of brushes. I won`t be giving up my Micron pens (I used a .8 for the linework in the mirror) but the Pitt brush is so versatile, considering it is a pen.
I`m trying to ink by hand again. I used too heavy a line, though, so the linework looks overbearing. I`ll move down to a smaller pen for the next run and see how that works. I`m going to try it for awhile to see what happens, so bear with me over the next few days. I would like to move towards doing more by hand, but I`m having several issues, one of many is my scanner. It is too noisy and doesn`t register well at the high resolutions (300+ dpi) I use when I scan linework for production. This may work, but I may have to put it off until I improve my scanner situation. So, again, bear with me.
Here`s an example of creative editing in action. I notice that I always draw characterss with very small mugs. Comically small, you might say. I was thinking of just drawing his mug a lot larger the next time I had to, but then I said to myself, “Comically small…In a comic…”. At that point, this comic pretty much wrote itself.
So, I took a major error and made it a comic punch line. I think that`s the big secret of comic strip artists: Turn your mess-ups in to comic exaggerations. I also gave the guy on the right a short and wide tie, though it`s not as dramatic as the mug and it was intentional.
Some people recycle their artwork over and over. Actually, most people do. I do, especially sketchwork and sometimes inks and even paints if I`m short on time. Others, though, take that to the extreme. Ryan North of Dinosaur comics is a great example of that: High-quality writing (if you enjoy random musings mixed with cheap jokes and puns) and minimal graphic effort. I highly recommend you try a good twenty comics and see if it takes. One of the nice things about that: He updates almost every day. I would love to get up to three a week, but that would be pretty much everything I do outside of work and keeping up my home and friendships.
I wanted to do a cutaway showing the different phases. Alas, my Photoshop skills were not up to the task, but I got close to my desired result, and a little bit of fudging made it acceptable to me.
I “ink” the final lines over my sketch layer: These lines are the lines you see in the final product. When complete, this layer gets copied to a layer I name “paint” and moved below the ink layer. I can use the paint bucket and other sloppy tools, since any poor edges will be hidden under the unmolested inks. For some smaller stuff (eyes, for example) I use the select tools to contain the paint bucket. This is analogous to animation painters painting on the back of cels: The linework remains sharp, and paint edges remain hidden.
The nice thing about Photoshop is I get unlimited layers, not two. So, Shading is done on a layer between ink and paint. That way, I can make changes without disturbing my paint layer. If I don`t like the result, I can always just delete the shading and still have a good product ready to go. Animation painters would have killed for that — They had to shade THEN paint, and it was not easy to “undo”.
Text is annoying, because in Photoshop Elements 3.0 every text box is its own layer, or at least that`s true with my skill level. This creates a lot of unecessary layers, but that`s only relevant when I`m working. There`s no evidence of that in the finished product. I put them over the balloons, and the balloons go over the matte. This way, dialog can go into the gutters. I have a bunch of ovals and draw in the leaders as necessary. I have some stock circle for thought bubbles, too.
The matte is painted white outside the panels. This hides all my sketch, ink, paint, etc. that falls outside the panels. This is like using drafting tape to make sharp edges, except I don`t lose the original work, I only hide it. Clearly, I did not cover up the work here: I did that for illustrative purposes.
I have a tag that`s part of my layout, which I usually finish first, and then I save the whole thing. I do my work at 3200×1400. This gives me plenty of resolution to work with, and I can resample in even multiples for common sizes which maintains image fidelity. For reference, my standard comic size is now 800×350. I package that in a nice .png form and it`s ready for popular consumption. Well, consumption at least.
I hope you enjoyed this session of “How It`s Made”. I wanted to do a how-to page, and figured, what the heck, might as well do it right. It was fun doing it, and made me think a lot about how I developed my processes. Coming soon: A new story line!
Layout and Writing are made a lot easier in the digital world. This is a good thing: Before the ability to resize and move, it was a real pain to rearrange anything. Liquid paper, scratching paper away, cutting out sections and taping in new ones, it was a real chore. It was of paramount importance to have your layout set at the beginning. This didn`t leave a lot of flexibility to do things like set your dialog after you finished drawing. You needed to know beforehand what kind of space you would need. Sure, there was flexibility, but not a lot.
Also, setting the text is real simple. I use the Comic font provided with Windows. I debated writing out my own alphabet and making a custom font, but then even though my letters would be more unique they would still all be uniform. I lose the uniqueness of hand-lettering, but it`s a lot faster. Frankly, it allows me to do the two comics a week I do. Otherwise, even that would not happen.
One could debate the value of that, however. Does the comic strip world really need amateur hacks like me? I sidestep that whole argument by doing this for fun.
I have two paths for doing my comics: Analog-Digital and Digital. When I start out in analog, I usually just do the sketch with a .3 mil mechanical pencil and regular leads as they erase easily, have high contrast (are easier to see) and scan well. Then, I ink digitally. I am looking for non-repro blue leads for my mechanical pencil, because I currently use non-repro Prsimacolor pencils if I intend to ink by hand and it`s a pain to sharpen them every two lines. Then I can scan in the inking without the sketchwork.
Lately I`ve been totally digital, sketching directly on my standard comic layout with my Wacom tablet. Despite the fourth panel, I sketched this comic by hand and I think I will move more towards sketching by hand. I like sketching by hand better, but having a digital canvas allows me to resize, drag, add canvas and erase instantly and on the fly. Those are some compelling reasons for digital sketching. Plus, once I have my inks the sketches are for all practical puroses irrelevant. I keep them around because I like looking at them, but they serve no further production purpose.
I have a lot of respect for Jim Davis. Garfield has had an amazing run. It seems that most cartoonists of this generation have picked up a Garfield collection when they were young and were instantly enchanted (For me: Garfield At Large). That`s one heck of an endorsement, no matter how simple or “lowest common denominator” some people may feel the strip is. Garfield gets picked on a lot, and I think that`s telling as well.
Seriously, some comics start off with something that was said or done, but they never end that way. The majority of my ideas actually come to me when I`m doing something mindless: Showering, watching television and the like. Sometimes I get a one-shot idea, sometimes I get an idea for a story arc I want to pursue, and sometimes I get a real jem of an idea that gives me several comics and sometimes they can be organized in to a story arc. The upshot is, I can`t think of a single comic I`ve done off the top of my head which wasn`t jazzed up a bit, though sometimes jazzing up means making it sound like the characters are serious in the comic when they were joking in real life. Some comics are word for word, just dramatized.
I organize my ideas on sticky notes: For generic ideas, I write a sentence or two, sometimes a punchline, sometimes something I want to draw. Several of these go on a single note. For full ideas, I draw/write a small storyboard and each idea then gets one sticky note. If I have a string of inspiration, I get a stack of notes and scratch out a bunch of ideas. I use sticky notes because I keep them all over the place, and when I get an idea, I have to write it down immediately or it is gone. Plus, it`s easy to keep track of what I want to do and I can see and rework my ideas in a neat pile.
I just checked. Oddly enough, I use the real McCoy: Post-It brand sticky notes. I don`t think that`s important to my creative process, however.
I liked the original Ghost Recon. It made a lot of sense, it was a lot of fun…Now, it`s just a bunch of hoopla. The controls were alright, but I did not buy the story at all. I had an easier time getting in to Rainbow Six: Vegas, and I was only riding that train for the excellent cover system. This is simply getting ridiculous now. Tom Clancy, why can`t you just admit you got really lucky with the Jack Ryan series and stop there? Please? We`ll let you take a mulligan and keep your freighterloads of cash. Oh, and the Splinter Cell games can stick around. Just the games.
I`m not as happy with this one as I would like to be. I just don`t think the shading and such came out as well as in “What?”. However, I tried a bunch of different things here, and I lost a lot of space to the rambling text, so this is a totally different beast. Plus, the third panel is pretty good. The glow doesn`t look right at all, but I`m done with it. Not finished, necessarily, but done. Overall, it`s okay.
Uh-oh…What`s going on here? I may explore this avenue at a later time, provided there`s interest. It may forever live as a throwaway panel. I was, of course, “recruited” for the USCM, and at first I thought it was a bit much for me, but they have some pretty cool costumes, and they make “interactive” models that light up, “sound” up, have working switches, ammo counters, etc. And we all know that I`m a sucker for flashing things. This time next year, I may have participated in an alien hunt. Don`t be surprised.
I didn`t even shade this one, so it looks pretty weird, very minimalist compared to what I normally produce. I`ve been so busy catching up with everything from being out of town that coloring is simply unreasonable. For posterity`s sake, I am posting this Sunday, two whole days later than scheduled. As cool as I think this one would have turned out, I just can`t afford to take more time. Especially with Tuesday rapidly approaching. I think I may experiment more with grayscales to see if that`s any easier than color. If that works, I might move away from coloring all the time, which would help keep me on schedule.
Dragon*Con was amazing, as always. There are many things the eyes simply will never unsee, but overall it is worth it. I will touch on the highlights in the panels and try to keep them related to the paragraphs. Maybe that will explain some of the jokes. Frankly, I hate it when reality comics do that inside joke thing, where they put up some punchline from a weekend of hanging out with their friends, and everyone else is left in the dark. Now, I`m that guy. So, without further adieu, here`s the inside of the inside jokes:
It may surprise some of you, but I really like the comics. The comic strip has always been my favorite version, but the “graphic novel” is high up there. So, I spent a lot of time in the Comic Artist`s Alley(s). I met lots of really cool artists, and got to shake a bunch of hands (and spend too much money on comics). The winner of the show, however, is Ms. Jennie Breeden of The Devil`s Panties fame (It`s not Satanic porn…Honest!). She was a sweetheart who didn`t mind talking nonstop with anyone who would show up and was super-friendly the whole time. Also, she participated in this kilt-hunting tradition where people chase Kiltsmen (the Utilikilt is popular around Dragon*Con) with leafblowers. I missed that one, and it might not have been accidental. Anyway, not only is she super-awesome, but I really like her artwork. Great comic strip form.
So, anyway, the inside joke — Apparently I know someone who was at a Ren-Fest once and who made their presence quite noticeable. Apparently Ms. Breeden was also there, and my loquacious friend was the inspiration for something in the background of one of her comics. That was one talking point we discussed, though our conversation did not give that sense of creepiness I implied. I just figured that was more fitting the character.
The second panel was from a game of “Are you a Werewolf?” It`s pretty simple: Everyone who plays gets one of three jobs: Peasant, Werewolf, Seer. The peasants are just peasants, and their sole job is not to die. The werewolves are just as simply motivated to kill non-werewolves. Every “night” (turn), the players all put their heads down, close their eyes, and make noise by slapping/stomping the floor, slapping their leg, etc., leaving one hand free. The werewolves are called to “awaken” (open their eyes) first and pick a victim. They go back to “sleeping”. The seer awakens next, picks a victim, and the referee tells them if that person is a werewolf or not. Then the seer goes back to sleep, then the whole town awakens (unless you play with crack-addled rules which add a bunch of jobs). The mauled victim is removed from the game, and the rest of the villagers get to lynch one person if they choose. Play proceeds until only one non-werewolf remains.
The werewolf part of the comic, now that you know the rules, should be pretty much self-explanatory. Apparently this game echoes the concept of a game called “Mafia” which I have never heard of, and because of that similarity, my excited recounting of the rules was met with apathy. Just because I`ve never been exposed to Mafia doesn`t mean the game is any less interesting…
The last panel is also pretty self-explanatory…I did see a Stormtrooper with a sack full of toys. A Santa Trooper. I did say, “That`s what I`m talking about. You never hear about Rebel Scum doing this sort of thing.” The trooper replied that someone had to deliver toys to all the children, even those of Rebel sympathizers. I told him and the officer who was nearby that the Empire got such a terrible rap, and that`s a shame. Plus, I think the Rebels are terrorists. They agreed with my assessment. Damn Rebel scum.
The somethingorother Galactic Union of Death Star workers was there as well…I guess the ones that managed to escape. Rebel terrorist scum.
As you all know (starting now, if not already) Dragon*Con is again upon us, prompting the question: Why the asterisk? I shall be off for a weekend of pointing and laughing, mostly at the prices the stars choose to charge for autographs, and a good bit of fun hanging out with comic artists, playing games, and seeing some old friends.
In the spirit of web comic business surrounding a con (though I am not a guest) I have set today aside for a guest comic, and next Tuesday shall likely be a pretty weak comic (or another guest comic if one is offered up). Thank Sharla (thank you, Sharla!) for today`s strip, especially since it allowed me skip out on a couple of hours of artwork.
This one is my favorite so far. Everything just seemed to come out right: Linework, coloring, shading, gradients, I used lots of new tools…Plus, I think it`s really funny. Home Run.
Age-old wisdom.
He may not like it, but I`d take that suit. It looks snazzy. The glasses aren`t bad, either. I think he`s just got bad taste.
Okay, the last panel has NOTHING to do with my life. Not at all. Quit looking at me like that, I`m serious. At least, I won`t admit it…
Since I`m stuck with this, I`m going to make the best of it. There`s a huge boatload of potential stories, and though I don`t plan to explore them all (there`s simply not enough time) I have lots of room to have fun.
This one will probably go down as one of my personal favorites. The writing`s a bit blah, but all in all I think it`s got a nice fast pace and it connects pretty well. Of course, I am biased, seeing as it`s my creation.
I backed myself in to a corner early on, in the first strip, even, when I said they were together eight years. Now they`re married and all sorts of things. It`s not that I didn`t want that, but I lost the flexibility: Other characters will have to do dating jokes, etc, and at two strips a week (the current rate) I can`t really do a lot of character development, so I don`t want a big cast. I should have learned from, well pretty much every other cartoonist. I am particularly thinking of Bill Watterson and the early strip showing Calvin snaring Hobbes with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
If I had kept it ambiguous, I would have had so much more room to play. I took the cheap laugh as eagerly as I would have the PBJ sandwich.
Cartoonists are stupid that way.
It`s like, to the airline industry, the average American has not changed substantially since 1940. Say what you want about the obesity “epidemic”, the fact still remains that Americans are larger than they used to be, taller and what have you, and it`s about time the airlines caught up. I`m willing to cut some slack, seeing as airplanes tend to run for 20 or so years and refurbishments are expensive, but with the new planes coming out over the next few years, let`s hope the airlines are doing their part and requesting larger seats to make the passengers more comfortable.
Don`t hold your breath, of course. What little I`ve seen on them seem to indicate it`s the same old size seats. What a joke.
My presentation was met with your standard presentation`s reception: Cold indifference. I met plenty of people later who really liked my work, but in general people have a hard enough time staying awake through four or five papers in a row. Maybe that`s why they can be so mean
This one is full of experiments. The coats of the wolves (yes, that`s what they`re supposed to be) is a base of gray, with a darker gray airbrushed over using the tablet sensitivity to judge opacity, not size. I also used a gray with some brown in it for another coat, which had the hue jitter set all the way up. Then I applied the highlight coat with soft edges but the rest of the brush set to “normal”. I like the result, though I`m sure with more practice I could do better. That`s why I threw in the extra one in the last panel, though it also kind of shows how the protagonist views the moderator and audience.
There is shading all over the place, and I made sure to get everything I could think of. I spent a lot of time erasing things I didn`t like, but I`m not too displeased with the results here. The center “panel” gets a dark tint to make it look more foreboding. Boring subject matter? Just add a dash of drama!
I really did see this happen to a young woman, though not quite as badly. Part of it was “her fault”, as she didn`t have the proper slides for her presentation. At least, she didn`t think she did. Part of it, though, was unavoidable, and frankly, it was clear that English wasn`t her first language, though she spoke pretty well. I`d like to see anyone who grilled her have to sit through her presentation in her native tongue then have to answer a test. Say, ten questions.
To make it sporting, for every question they get wrong, they should be hit with a cattle prod. That may not be commensurate to what they did to her, but it would drive the point home.
Again, didn`t happen to me. But it could have if I had picked an interesting topic on which to work.
No, this did not happen to me. I did like the idea, though, and I wouldn`t put it past some of the conference organizers/volunteers. The past three days or so have been totally done digitally. My skills with the pen are improving, but it`s still a long way from “good”. I did notice that my strokes flow better, but I think I may try a thinner brush over the next few days. I really liked doing the four-panel thing, and having the two in the center be “free-form”. I may use that more often when I want to get “dialogue-y”
This is a take-off on some Delta ads I saw on their in-flight entertainment on the way back from the conference.
First off, what? Advertisements for Delta on one of their airplanes? I`ve already paid my fare…What? There`s something to be said for a captive audience, but they already had my money! Sure, I guess it didn`t cost them anything to put it there, but if the practice of advertising to customers who have already purchased your product wasn`t so prevalent I`d lose a lot of respect for them.
Second, shouldn`t those kinds of ads be, oh, I don`t know, anywhere but on the airplane on which you are currently flying? I`m in the seat, for crying out loud, I know the quality of the ride. That made-up dude who`s all comfy and chillaxin`*, yeah, not happening. At least not in coach. Perhaps they got their fare classes mixed up when they set their in-flight ads. Perhaps such words as “cramp” and “stench” and “commiserate” would be more appropriate.
To be fair, the flight attendants both ways were very nice. However, who are they kidding with these ads? I`m sure they`ll really piss you off if you get a chance to see them. In your cramped seat. With 4 ounces of tap water in a plastic bottle. And no leg room. And whatever that smell is, which you are sure you`ve smelled before but you can`t quite place.
Oh, and about the comic, since this is why I put a commentary block in here to begin with: I played with a lot of things. Lots of fancy effects in the first panel, including transparencies, highlighting and gradations in color. That`s where I spent most of my time. You may not be able to tell, but I also put a haze in the second panel. The seats are actually the same color, so you may be able to tell there. I tried to make it look that much more dreary. In the ad, the colors hopefully “pop” more, and the highlights add volume and brightness. The haze skewed the “normal” results to an even more bleak version. I like the effects, but I wish I were better at usign them and had the time to use those highlights in more comics.
* — Do the kids still say that? Chillaxin`? Back in my day we just started to invent language, so we were kind of stuck with grunts, crude gestures and cave paintings to confer “coolness”, or “graaaugh” as it were.
Often I get the question, “Hey, how much of this is based on your real life? Seriously?” I know it may come as a shock (seeing as how the guy can be a bumbling moron totally divested from reality) but most of this is either made-up or a composite of stories and such. While some comics may or may not have been ripped off, wholesale, from my life, in many cases they`re at best composites of experiences of mine and my friends, or at worst wholesale Garfield rip-offs.
In this case, this is NOTHING like my life. In fact, most of this conference storyline is made up (though a few things, such as the price tag, are quite real).
I bring this up because my company is very pleasant to work for, and doesn`t make things like this an ordeal. Seriously. Oh, and my workstation is much more…ergonomic…than his. I am thankful to have a company that takes such good care of its employees.
Oh, and in a rare (1st time ever) occurence, I have retroactivelyrewritten a comic from a few days ago. I think you will agree that the flow is better. It reflects my original writing (which I though I had lost) and which I like a lot better, because it conveys a solid pacing and ties the strips together. Pacing is something I`m still getting used to, seeing as I have nine panels a week, and if my pacing doesn`t carry the jokes I lose at least three to setup. I think my writing and pacing are improving.
Yes, I did go to a conference that cost $535 (I`m sure it`s all discoverable in Google). No, I did not get a discount for presenting. Or for offering to moderate (which I ended up not able to do because of scheduling issues).
I think that, right there, is one big thing that`s wrong with academia.
Man, I really need to practice more.
Though, I feel I must add, 50!!!
I forgot how much I miss drawing…Even when I`m not happy with the results.
Nothing to say today. Maybe when I revisit this one later…
Suspension of disbelief. That`s why people can believe dogs and cats can talk and lobsters can play cards. And be really good at it.
It`s why shows like 24 work: An organization that`s supposed to be sorta like the DoD, FBI and CIA all put together, an organization that can “retask” satellites in a few minutes, invent all sorts of networking parlance to make their computers work and disrespect the sovereignty of other countries? We don`t care…Give us more Jack Bauer.
I fear they`re trying to go too far with CTU, though. What`s all this “The Rookie” crap? Who cares? CTU goes far beyond a sustainable suspension of disbelief, and it only succeeds because we want our Jack Bauer fix. No Jack, no way. Do they honestly think they can spin this off, create a huge franchise? Who is willing to go along with this?
I mean, you know, because lobsters that can do corporate accounting…
Some days are just simply better than others. Today is one of those days. It didn`t start out well, and it didn`t look too promising as the day wore on, but I played with some shading today and I am really excited about the results. I`m also using one of those artist`s models, you know, those wooden figure things? Helps keep things in their proper raito and helps a ton with perspective.
Anyway, I`m really happy with the work I produced today in terms of the progess I feel I`ve made. More shading awaits, I am sure. Of course, this takes more time, but I feel the details make all the difference. Go ahead: Compare to yesterday.
And there`s plenty left to be explained…
Oh, and notice there are no legs behind the table in the last panel. I simply forgot to put them in. It was supposed to be cleverly placed, but instead it`s simply forgotten. I may fix it another day…but I wouldn`t bet on it.
This actually spawned from how I thought a potential Valentine`s Day could go down if I were to visit a live lobster site, such as Livelob.com. Needless to say, I have a bunch of latitude in a comic strip that I wouldn`t have in real life. Would I cook the lobster? Who knows…I`m too cheap to buy one.
I am much happier with the techniques I learned the other day. Still taking a lot of practice and reworking, but I think I could get used to an all digital process.
The idea of a lobster working on a computer, honestly (and oddly), is something I`ve toyed with for awhile. Now that I`m drawing, I can actually bring it out.
This is much better than yesterday`s comic. Many thanks to Jeph Jacques, creator of Questionable Content and a great tutorial specifically on inking for comic strips! It also deals with coloring, but I had that much figured out.
Thank you so much, sir. It has made all the difference. Of course, I also realize now just how useful a larger tablet would be…if I actually worked at a proper desk, as well. But one thing at a time: First I have to get a good, steady hand and pressure control for the tablet pen. It`s quite different than a pencil.
I am pretty much fed up with my tablet and PS. It’s likely I’ll be back to pencil and paper sketches. The past few days give a horrible indication of what I am capable.
I have determined that my PS skills are not up to the task of illustrating and coloring three comics a week while maintaining my sanity. I detest the coloring results I am getting, but I insist on learning the software since everyone swears by it.
As a result, I have decided to try black and white comics for a few weeks while I play with coloring. I need more experience, a lot more, and whenever I try to publish a colored comic like today I hate the results and spend hours trying to tweak it. Invariably, since I feel rushed to meet deadlines, I end up frustrated instead of educated. So, I`ll just illustrate my black and whites, publish them, and try coloring on my own time. Since I won`t feel obligated to push a good product, or at least a product I am satisified with, hopefully that will lead to a better grasp of the program.
Besides, I think this series will stand on its own.
And so our hero`s adventures come to an end. Unfortunately, he`s not drawn well. This tablet is still getting the best of me, and it`s very frustrating. It`s not a pencil, and Photoshop is not cooperating either.
I hope you all enjoyed this distraction. I must admit I was ready to kill it off from the get-go if it didn`t go over well. It was actually received, from what I have heard so far, better than I expected. I hope you all enjoy what follows, as we`ll be shifting gears a bit.
Perhaps all puns are bad by definition. These, however, are some of the worst I could come up with. Believe me, I tried.
Against my better judgement I went out of my way to watch “Lost” this week. Did anyone else instantly see the guy who offered Juliette the job and think “G-Man” from the Half-Life series? It`s like all of a sudden “Lost” has returned to its season one roots of oddness and posing intriguing questions. The downside is, at that point, I pretty much saw the rest of the episode coming with the clarity and sharpness of 20/15 vision, or at least what I imagine that would be like.
Oh, well. It`s better than watching another episode that sucks.
He`s almost “home”, but he`s got one last obstacle to face.
Oh, and I have to pick on New Jersey again. You know, because it`s there. Low-hanging fruit and all.
He`s big, he`s tripping, and he`s got a score to settle. Think “Crank,” except good. And 8-bit.
To be fair, I never did see “Crank.” It may very well be an excellent, thought-provoking piece.
I hope you all are enjoying this as much as I am.
Now, I provide context for yesterday`s disappointing setback, a filler comic if you will. After his struggles, our protagonist finally discovers his true power. Protagonist, pssh. I for one call him a hero, though some might call him a Hero. Others, of course, might call him HERO!!Z0r!!, but that`s becuase we`re on the Internet and people are stupid.
That being said, we`re moving and shaking now.
I hope, if any of you were in the market for a new computer, you got your machine while they came with XP. Today (well, the 30th as I write) is the official launch day for Vista for us average consumers. It`s pretty much established that you won`t get a machine from a major builder with XP at this point. It remains to be seen what the actual retail price of Vista will be, but preliminary appearances of OEM versions of Ultimate from reputable eBay sellers and second-string retailers, presumably bundled with garbage hardware to satisfy the term “OEM”, indicate you might not have to spend a lot to pick up a license.
However, all is not well in Mudville: A cursory look at www.dell.com shows an increase of, very roughly, $70 in computer costs for computers with Home Premium, but it`s always hard to judge what a computer goes for from Dell with all their rebate, prebates, free upgrades and other confusions.
One thing`s for sure: For better or for worse, the future of Windows is here. I am a slight bit jealous of my friends who now own Macs and laptops shipped with soem flavor of Linux.
Alright, I promise, last shot at Jersey for a while. One comic at least.
I`m sure I could have found many other things to say about Jersey, most of them not as nice. I`ll just take the cheap shots and move on, though.
Don`t forget to take your credit for the Federal Excise Tax on phone use. That`s a free $30-$60, just for being an American. Make room in your pocketbook for the $15,000 across-the-board health care deduction that may be coming your way, too.
The first product, rushed, with the charcters inked on the tablet. The rest was done with a mouse in Photochop Elements. I seriously missed the boat when I didn`t get some Photoshop training over the New Year`s Even mass pilgrimage of friends. The inking went pretty well, but it was all sorts of wrong when I moved it to the comic itself. I have learned a lot already, but I can see we`ll be moving back to the hours upon hours for each comic again. *sigh*
Also, Windows Vista does not seem to like Pen mode on my Wacom Graphire 4. Mouse mode only, which can make things a bit odd.
A gift of Guitar Hero 2 found its way to my Playstation 2. A mixed blessing, to be sure: I really don`t need another hobby, but its absorbing decadence is so disarming. Let`s say it`s easy not to notice how much time one spends playing (or attempting to play) such “classics” as Trogdor! Instead, I could probably learn to play a real instrument, and play it really well…But instead, I shall strum away on my plastic Les Paul.
Merry Christmas!
Sorry. With things what they are, you won`t be seeing a colored comic today. If things calm down around here, hopefully, for Christmas (it`s a Monday, so…). However, I wouldn`t expect much. Coloring is not really my favorite part anyway, it`s something I`m really learning, so it`s taking me a while. Again, I have it on good authority I wil be receiving a Wacom tablet for Christmas, so I`m really not willing to put a lot of effort into the coloring steps anyway until I get that to play with. Part laziness, part too much going on to invest the time.
I also apologize for the poor quality scan. I didn`t ink it, and this is the best I could do with the lines being what they are and level adjustments. I could also use a decent scanner if I insist on hand-sketching…but we`ll see if the tablet can obviate the need for scanning (for the most part) and eliminate the noise that I get otherwise when I do use scans. You know, since I`ll be “inking” from the noise, instead of introducing noise into my inked work. Or maybe you don`t know. Or maybe you do know the subject, but I don`t know. Whichever it is, trust me.
Oh, and “think to myself” is in there intentionally. It really bothers someone. RAS Syndrome, and all that jazz.
Cobras! The Simpsons is such a great show.
I am not very happy with the results for today, but here they are. I haven`t been drawing as much this month as I would like (which is to say, barely enough to get a comic out the door). But with the holiday season, a bit of overtime at work and some other real-life “intrusions”, I simply can`t make drawing a high enough priority right now. Besides, I have it on good authority that I am getting a tablet for Christmas, so I don`t feel motivated to get ahead of myself.
I must say, I do so enjoy the comments on Slashdot. Half the crowd is illiterate (and I don`t mean they misspel the occasional word or have some minor grammatical issues) and half of them think they know far more than they do. The best is when the two groups intersect. Hi-larious. This is not to say I know enough about half of the topics that come up to make a coherent argument, but the flip side of that coin is you don`t see me posting. Slashdot, I don`t read you for the “news”. I read you for the depths of the Internet which you dredge onto your filthy, public fora.
Apparently, the current games only use half of the PS3`s power. I don`t think anyone is surprised that the first games for a console aren`t quite showing the console`s full potential, but here`s a bit of shocking news:
“No one will use 100% of the PS3. Ever.” Was that meant literally? If so, duh — The games would run too slowly in intense parts, and it still wouldn`t use 100% in the slack parts. If it`s figurative, well, sure, it has a lot of potential with firmware updates. Potentially, it could be used as an ignition source. Potentially. I didn`t actually try to verify that last one, but we`re just spitballing here. The point is, sure, you`ll probably ALWAYS find another way to make it better. Maybe in a decade it will be able to properly render CSS 3.0. It will probably beat all the PC browsers to that feat, since CSS turned 10 today and most browsers still barely get 1.0 right. The point is you can pretty much always update it. Again, even if it`s figurative, it`s still a “duh” statement. Heck, even the Nintendo Entertainment System has a small following, and the old Ataris have even more amateur (and I`m sure, in some cases, professional) engineers tinkering with them.
I am quite underwhelmed.
Though, in Wii news, the forecast channel was released today, and we`re getting the Opera browser, for free until March, on Friday. I fear that, with all the excitement, next Monday`s Virtual Console release will be even more underwhelming than usual.
A contest attempt for VG Cats. This one took forever. It wasn`t that it was long, but rather that I put a lot of effort into it. It still didn`t come out quite as well as it appeared in my head, and the writing suffered from my abbreviated timeline. Dramatically. That`s OK, it`s good for me to work under pressure. If nothing else I`ll learn to start on things like this earlier.
The Wii Shop continues to disappoint this week. At least it`s consistent.
This is, of course, NOT based on a true story…
Speaking of a true story, Microsoft released its XNA Game Studio Express two days ago. I haven`t checked it out myself, as I have enough things going on right now, but it appears to be a neat package for amateur game programmers who want to worry more about gameplay and logic than workign with DirectX to make everything appear. Apparently it will even abstract networking for PCs. Why mention for PCs? Because, apparently, it will allow you to develop, with minor changes in code (or the proper use of compiler directives), for the XBox 360! Now, there are some catches: You have to pay $100 to use your work on your XBox 360, and anyone with whom you want to share it must not only pay the $100 but have a complete copy of your code, or so it seems. Also, no commercial development, and Microsoft gets final say if you want to seriously distribute it (even freeware, as I understand it)
Personally? I think this is great. How else would you get your code onto an XBox 360? Sure, you have to pay for the privelege, but not $10,000, and you don`t have to “prove” you are a “competent” game studio. I use quotes because I find the definitions of these words in this context very flexible, but the point remains the same, and that is that for a small fee you can compile and run your code on your own console with not only the manufacturer`s blessing but their assistance? Yes, there are several homebrew efforts and you can “hack” your PS2/3 to gain access to Linux, but they don`t have a huge developer`s network with tons of sample code which they will provide to you.
That`s $100 well placed if you ask me, and even though I much prefer free to any cost, even a penny, I can`t imagine honestly finding this a bad deal if you wanted to get into your 360`s processing guts with Microsoft`s blessing. No warranties are voided here, friends. You`d have to have some truly dark spectacles to be so blind.
Plus, let`s not forget the PC side…It seems pretty much geared to distribute your finished projects. I don`t know if licensing issues apply here as well, but it will handle everything up to networking. Great place for the amateur code hack who wants to see how their game logic/ideas pan out quickly. Sure, it won`t build optimized code, but coders do have to learn to crawl before they walk, metaphorically speaking. After brief review, these appear to be great tools. And again, the PC side is free.
However, I could be wrong, so I remain skeptical. I`ll wait to see how this pans out for others first. Maybe in a few months I`ll have some disposable income and can drop some cash on it. I`d really like to. Right now, though, I have a Wii and several games in my queue. Plus, the holidays are always busy. I`m not a big fan of C# (Oh, right, you use C#, a compiler for which is available for free as well) but we can learn to get along.
Well, the good news is the high estimate of what I heard is apparently true: 4 new Virtual Console titles on Monday. The downside? Alien Crush, Dr. Robotnik`s Mean Bean Machine, Gunstar Heroes and Ice Hockey.
It`s not that I think these are BAD titles, but they`re not exactly good. Mean Bean Machine? A bad version of Tetris. Gunstar Heroes? Meh. Ever heard of Alien Crush? I hadn`t. It`s a Turbo Grafx 16 pinball game, apparently. Its claim to fame? You can “bump” the machine. Apparently, it will tilt if you bump it too far. Ooooh. Ice Hockey? That was a decent NES game. $5 is a bit high, though, and it`s NOT SUPER MARIO BROTHERS! Plus, it took me nearly ten minute to find out what the new games were through the Wii Shop channel this afternoon. I`m not sure if it`s the nebulous wireless security problems Wii connectivity is reported to have, or if its their servers, but either way it is highly disappointing.
Still no word on the Child`s Play contest.
This will bring an end to this story line. Having had the Wii for almost a week, I`d like to say a few things. The motion-sensing is great, the pointer is well-executed in some games (Twilight Princess) and not in others (it`s so-so in the menu as well), and the channel system is underwhelming. The forecast and news channels are not working, and there`s no indication of when they will come online.
Perhaps a disturbing sign is the Wii Shop channel, where you can buy Virtual Console titles: It`s almost always glacially slow. This is quite surprising, considering how lackluster the launch selections are. It`s not that the games are bad so much as they`re not, in general, what I think of when I think Nintendo or Sega (With the exceptions of Zelda and Sonic). Mario 64? Mario Brothers? What about Super Mario Brothers? What about Link to the Past? Super Mario World was great, too. Sega is better represented with Sonic and Golden Axe, but what about Phantasy Star? Shinobi? No, we get Ecco the Dolphin.
It`s not that these games are bad, but they`re just not the all-star lineup I had expected. And, the really disturbing thing is the speed. Updates can take forever as well, as there have already been two, and depending on when you run them they can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 30 minutes, where they promptly stall halfway through the process. Is the Nintendo network this much over capacity, or is this a symptom of the security-enabled wireless network troubles we`ve been hearing about? Either way, it would be quite disappointing if the news and forecast channels were delayed because of network scale issues. I`m wondering if the Virtual Console launch choices weren`t picked for those reasons as well.
The console is great, truly, though it does have its limits. I`m afraid that the popularity of the product may have outpaced even Nintendo`s dreams, and as a result they`re going to have to play catch-up with their online component, whether through updates and/or server upgrades and acquisitions. The online component feels like it wasn`t even planned to be active at launch, and it still needs a lot of work.
As an aside, is this 1984, Twilight Princess? What`s up with the only three save slots? This would have been a great application for Miis: Give each Mii a 3 save slot log, so everyone in the family can play and guests can take a swing at it, so to speak. This is pretty much inexcusable, and there is no simple solution. SD cards can work, if you have at least two and you are careful about your saving and deleting. One forum member, of which forum I don`t recall, gave the simple answer to a five-member household: Buy more Wiis. Yes, that`s my solution to the save slot problem. Just throw $250 at it. You know, because I am flush with spare cash and Wiis are as easy to come by as peanuts at your local grocer.
This is probably one of those guys who put his remote through his TV. Moron.
The comic for today is not yet ready. There was a contest for two seats at the Child`s Play charity dinner/auction next week, so I decided to enter. The requirements were pretty slack: The strip must contain meat, a cat, the Child`s Play 2006 logo and a city in which one of the partner hospitals resides. Does a building really reside? I`ll have to think about that later.
I will certainly keep you posted on what happens. I know the dinner is in Washington (yes, as in the state) and that is not exactly nearby, but if I can figure out a way to get a day or two off of work, I can spring for a plane ticket. Since the contest is only one day long, I figure I`d better enter it now and figure out how to get there later. If I can`t make it work tomorrow and I do happen to win, I will gladly step aside for another worthy artist…But that won`t have to happen, because I`ll figure out a way to make it work.
For your edification: (warning, .pdf!) I`ll have my crack team of physicists check up on all this for me. I must admit I had a good idea of where I wanted to go, and when I tried to execute it realized (1) I don`t remember much physics from what little I had and (2) I never was much good at it in the first place. So, hopefully, nothing was blatantly abused here. I seem to remember that angular momentum is conserved unless a torque is applied, and elliptical motions are even more special cases. Anyway, the point is pretty simple here…
DON`T SWING THE STUPID REMOTE SO HARD!
I guarantee you that the accelerometers aren`t really appreciating all that juiced-up muscle you put behind that last home run, so get off the `roids while you still have your “boys” intact, if you get my drift. You may very well be confusing the poor things, too, causing the game to do unruly and undesired things. Swings that don`t register, register at the wrong time or virtual swings that register even when you didn`t really take a swing are all possible. That, and you`re just asking for all sorts of damage, whether its to yourself or your belongings (or potentially your former friend`s expensive belongings). Don`t worry, the ADXL330 can withstand up to 10,000 “g”s. The remote seems equally sturdy.
Remember that when the opportunity arises to bury one deep inside your doubles partner`s kidneys.
You get a raw comic today. In case you couldn`t tell, there`s a laptop and instant messenger involved in the first two panels.
I may color this in later, backgrounds and stuff…But don`t count on it. There`s still a comic due for Monday, so I have to illustrate, color, “wordify” and “webify” that one as well. And, as you can probably tell, I`m playing with my Wii (heh heh). I may return to this later, but for now, just consider it a…special edition, where you can see my linework and some of my sketch remnants. I personally like the linework better this way, because the programs seem to change (mess up) my careful inking.
Enjoy.
In the category of so obvious it`s profound: HDMI. All your information: Audio and video, in this case, rolled into one cable. I like TOSLink, or whatever it`s called, where you can roll all your audio into one optical cable. Far fewer cables would be great. With component video, it`s three per device. That`s a lot of bulk, and it just handles video. Then there`s audio, power…
And power, that`s another thing. In the same category of so obvious it`s profound: Power centers in entertainment centers. I`m not talking about surge protectors, I`m talking about fully-conditioned AC-DC converters that supply all of your entertainment center`s power. It can be a high-quality filter and converter which will eliminate the need for so many power adapters. Now, there`s all sorts of practical roadblocks: Power requirements, adapter standardization and cost are among the many that spring to mind. I figure something like this would cost several hundred dollars and you wouldn`t necessarily recoup that cost in cheaper A/V equipment. However, some people spend that much on a simple surge protector, so it`s not unprecedented, and it would be real nice to reduce all that clutter and guarantee quality worksmanship — who knows how many wall warts and such that I own were farmed out to the cheapest bidder, waiting to take other electronics out Kamikaze-style.
Furthermore, I`m not much of a TV person, but I have to (very strongly) encourage everyone to check out Heroes. To avoid spoilers, one of my favorite things is Hiro`s comic book: You see, Lost, take notes here. A seemingly extraneous item CAN be used as an effective plot device, and you CAN give away some things and still retain the majority of your mystery. The plot advances, things happen…and they actually mean something, or are explained, or drag you into the story. Remember the Others from Lost? Every word that comes out of their mouth is a lie. No wonder I don`t care about the show anymore: It`s like the Others have this Rube Goldberg device that conducts social experiments. Not only is everything a lie, but it`s some big, convoluted staged thing. Everything`s manipulated, they always come out on top. It`s like the ending of Metal Gear: Solid 2.
“I am the best! I know the secret!” “Nope, I do. This was a test for you.” “Haha, that`s what you think: It`s a computer simulation of your test!” “No, no no! That simulation is actually something else. You don`t understand.” After fifteen minutes it gets old. After two hours?
And it doesn`t end there. I`ll pick on House, but I see this in many shows today. He`s a pompous ass, a brilliant man who messes up a bunch of treatments and almost kills lots of people “practicing” seemingly reckless abandon, he abuses drugs and co-workers, but nobody seems to care. He can`t possibly lose his job, no matter how much people complain. I hear it looks like he`ll be arrested. It`ll never last. The show won`t end with him getting tried, convicted and sentenced to some Federal penitentiary for 25 to life for posession with intent to distribute. As much as I`d like to see that be the season finale, to actually see him receive his comeuppance, I know it just won`t happen.
The first of the undoubtedly many bad puns.
I got in line at the local Best Buy at around 8:45 to be the 36th person waiting for a Wii, the true object of my affection so to speak. Tickets were soon handed out for 30 consoles. The 30th person got in line at between 5:30 and 6:00, as I found out, and that`s when I realized that waiting in lines is pretty ridiculous. There`s always going to be people far more dedicated than I, so I won`t be likely to put any effort in until next Sunday at Best Buy, and I won`t be showing up before a few mintues to 9 again. Even counting that, I`ll still have less time invested in my search than those who waited for four hours for a console. I`m a patient man: I can wait until they`re readily accessible from a store shelf.
Hehehe…He`s in trouble later.
Wiis continue to be elusive here, but PS3s are possible to come by. An odd position, for sure. It sounds like there may be some shipments coming in this weekend, which would be nice, but I`ll get one when they come in.
I made the mistake of attempting to go out to the Toys R Us today, since it was Black Friday and I was told they were getting a whole shipment. I waited outside an hour and a half to be about 15th in line, and watched it grow to what must have been well over two hundred. When the doors opened, the latecomers just went crazy. Oddly enough, the people at the front of the line, some who had been there since midnight (that`s five hours, for those keeping score at home), were the most civil. But there was mobbing, cutting, shoving and all sorts of other ridiculousness. It was also quite disappointing to find this “shipment” ended up involving about a half dozen Wiis. Needless to say, my civility caused me to lose two precious places in line. Walking outside, I found a guy who was trying to auction off his freshly-acquired Wii.
The biggest disappointment of the day, however, was not the anemic shipment (which I feel was really played up by Toys R Us personnel) but the lack of civility and decorum show by the shoppers. It was ridiculous! I thought we were humans, quite separate from the rest of the animal world based on, among other things, our understanding of the presence of a world and existence around us, a cognizance if nothing else of other humans. I think the only thing preventing shoppers from flinging feces at each other that morning is the fact that it would take a minute to squat, and the day that someone tries to stock up in a Ziploc bag the night before there will be a significant devolution. The missing link will then be discovered.
It`s not that I think highly of people in general, especially mobs of people, but I must admit, having been through several other gaming launches I can honestly say that gamers are a far more civil crowd, a band of brothers if I may exaggerate the term. Black Friday shoppers? Thank you, with the exception of a few people I had the advantage of meeting and speaking with: You have destroyed what little faith I had in humanity`s mutual respect for others. I`m afraid to know what would happen if people today had to form their own government, as it seems humanity has slid back to picking and eating nits off of each other`s skin. Class act, all the way.
Owned, as the kids say. I said he`d acquire a Wii before I did, I never said he`d have the chance to use it. Happy Thanksgiving!
pwnt.
To be fair, the stories of violence and crime are relatively few and anecdotal. While I find it terribly sad, it is still a few isolated incidents, and I`d have to guess that the PS3 just happens to be a desirable product with a bunch of easy targets standing in one place, potentially holding a lot of cash, “valuables” such as PSPs, and eventually, possibly a PS3. What upsets me is how poorly this will reflect on gamers in general. I can see the community portrayed as feces-flinging subhumans, chucking around fetid piles of homemade ammunition.
Likewise, a relative lack of inhumanity surrounding the Wii launch is far more understandable. There`s a much lower price, people weren`t waiting nearly as long, and with Nintendo saying they will deliver 4 million units to North America this year (In fact, promising this if I recall) there`s no real eBay frenzy. At this time, there appears to be between a $50 to $100 premium, and I`m being generous at $100, because it usually ships with at least one game. That`s a 33% premium to have it today, where the PS3 has a much higher premium. We won`t know for sure until some of these auctions are completely successful, but even at $1800 that`s a 200% premium.
And let`s be clear, because I`ve heard this too often: People are not paying so much for a PS3, they are paying that much to have a PS3 now. That doesn`t mean the PS3 is worth $4,000, or whatever it will sell for. I can almost guarantee that when a person can pick one up in a store for $600, they will not pay $4,000. That may take quite a few months, but when it happens a person with $4,000 to waste will likely buy a $600 console and $3,400 worth of games and accessories instead of spending $4,000 on the same console with no goodies. Whatever someone will pay on eBay is what they are willing to pay to have it NOW, not what they are willing to pay to have it period.
I did not manage to snag a Wii myself, though our protagonist will obviously be luckier than I was. Instead, I chose to drink some beer and watch the UFC fight with a bunch of the guys. Hughes vs. St. Pierre? Worth not getting a Wii on launch day. Well, there was that and a bunch of other socializing, but like I said: Worth it. I have plenty of friends with Wiis, it`s not like I can`t experience it by taking a ten minute drive.
Oh, and Greg Dean at Real Life Comics appears real familiar. Let`s just say the phrase, “Come home with a Wii or don`t come home at all” may have been thrown around. I presume jokingly, since I am here updating the site today.
I will be waiting for the next shipment, though. No sense taking risks.
Consider this an open letter to Sony Computer Entertainment. I have been a raving PlayStation fan since the first one hit the shelves. Despite the hardware problems from both generations (which, thankfully, I have never experienced in all my hours of console abuse), the lack of all kinds of support and catering to consumer desires, and Sony`s plain old arrogance, I have staunchly stood by them, handing over my hard-earned cash as if Sony were my wife. It was a devoted love, and I had no desire to cheat. Ever.
It ends here. It started to die when the PS3 got pushed back. And the XBox 360 actually looked cool. And I had to admit that, despite the hardware issues, it was more reliable than the PS2 at launch. More delays. Awesome games hit XBox 360. Price fears. Wiimotes get playtime. Greater price fears. Outright arrogance as Ken Kutaragi tells consumers what they want, and that they`ll work overtime to get it. Features I can`t afford to exercise, especially after dropping such bank on the PS3. Outdated computer. More free time and no way to play new games. More delays.
And I must say, I`m no Microsoft fanboy, but their 360 is a solid system. I raved hardcore about how bad it would be for so long, but it`s really good. And at $400, it happened to be at the top of my interactive entertainment price range. More than that, and I`m in the range of a new computer…A machine which will do so many things that playing games seems to be an afterthought. Oh, and it`ll be upgradeable.
Now, I eagerly anticipate the release of the Wii. I can hit the back catalog of games, and play them with sound: A backwards compatibility feature that our good friend Kenny seems to think is overrated and unnecessary for some gamers. Probably true…I`m sure the deaf do game. I wouldn`t want to make that my target market, though. Seems a bit…niche.
But of all the things, I eagerly anticipate the Wiimote. Yes, I know that`s what everyone who`s interested is looking at, but I am really genuinely psyched about a new way to interact with the computer. I haven`t been this excited about an innovation in gaming since point-and-click verbiage in the Sierra adventure games, which was only more exciting than the context-based actions they introduced to follow it. Seriously. Yes, I`m that pathetic. The truth is, I haven`t felt there has been a true innovation in terms of interaction in a loooong time. I enjoy the FPS genre as much as the next person, but there hasn`t really been a true innovation since the analog joystick (which was actually a callback, but I digress) or the mouse/keyboard combination. Really, since then, all the innovation has been in graphics and…well, really graphics. I have enjoyed the ride, but the car can only remain stylish so long. Fins went out, and it`s time to try something novel.
I don`t know if it`s fair to compare the Wiimote to no fins, but I hope the point is still kinda clear. Less murky, how about that?
Wiimote vs. Sixaxis? Can one even compare the two? The Sixaxis is like the bastard stepchild of the awesomeness the Wiimote will visit upon us all…Especially since it doesn`t have vibration. I honestly wonder why they even bothered.
Since I have waxed and waned…philosophical is probably incorrect, but how about tiresome? Since I have babbled incoherently this long, I would like to grant everyone reprieve. Sony? Not gonna happen. Your arrogance and ridiculously high pedestal upon which your golden calf sits have divested me of my interest in your brand of “interactive electronic entertainment” (that`s what we`re calling it now). I`d like to say I`m sorry for jumping ship and cheating on you with both Microsoft and Nintendo…But honestly? I`m not. You did this to yourself. Don`t let the door hit you on the way out.
I eagerly await the Wii. I`m still really upset at myself for missing the pre-orders. D`oh! But that`s alright: With all the units that are planned to arrive on retailers` shelves, I`m sure I`ll snag one before too long. Maybe not Sunday, if I am lazy, but soon.
Well, we`re up to 10 now. The big ten. Next milestone is perhaps one month, then it`s 100 comics…almost a year. Pop the champagne, it`ll be awhile. I`ve noticed improvements in my work over the past three weeks, and I plan on investing in more equipment to see how much better I can do. This, of course, will be a long-term project, so I hope you can be more patient with my work than I can.
I know at least one other person spent an hour massaging the perfect visage from the extensive control panel only to find the one slider that screws up the whole face in one fell swoop. Furthermore, no matter what you do with that slider, you can never get it back to where it was. They really need to just label a few of them, “Screw up your face irreversibly, moron. That`ll teach you to spend an hour in the character generator instead of playing our game.” Though, I can see why they preferred more nebulous descriptions — They fit into a much smaller space.
Oh, and I really do love Oblivion. I haven`t played in a while because I`ve been involved in getting all this stuff set up for the comic and, admittedly, I`ve been tied up in Splinter Cell (which I haven`t done justice yet). The Splinter Cell series happens to be one of my favorites, so I`ve been…indisposed towards Oblivion. Plus, the Wii hits stores in ten days. I`ll be a bit too busy to finish the main quest any time soon. I guess that`s my fault for getting into the game so late in the year. Oh, well.
Of course, I made a promise that I would not curse unless it was necessary to really drive the joke home. Not only did I blow that, but I used some nice off-color humor as well. But hey, the way I think of it, porn is fair game — It`s even big in popular culture. Remember the episode of Friends with the free porn? If network TV can get away with it, I don`t feel bad.
Is there anyone out there who wasn`t sidetracked by the depth of this character generator? Seriously?
I know this sounds like I`m bashing the game…Not at all. However, let`s face it, no one person should ever dedicate the time required to complete all of the side quests. It`s ridiculous at best, and I must tip my hat to those brave, intrepid men and women who put all of this content in the game. Bravo.
Oh, and we make up words now. “Prettify”. Yeah, we do that here. In the immortal words of Calvin, as set by Bill Watterson, “Verbing weirds language.” I might as well do my part to make the Internet the modern cesspool of the English language.
I actually had a guy once tell me that I was wrong in using Grand Theft Auto to describe Saints Row. I insisted there must be some common ground, thinking perhaps I misunderstood. Nope, two totally different games. I asked about platforms…Both can be played on an XBox 360, right? Still not enough, as the GTA series can be played on the PS2. Saints Row is a one-platform pony. Seriously.
Sure, I`m no connoisseur of the genre (sorry, obviously I should say genres). In fact, some quick fact-checking reveals I “apostrophized” Saints Row incorrectly (at least to match the game`s title). I`ll have to fix that. It`s clear this isn`t exactly the game I dropped everything to play. However, I have to take it as blind fanboyish ignorance to not recognize that there are some similarities between the two. Frankly, I enjoyed all those games. Same genre does not equal bad.
I`ve had this idea kicking around for about two months now. Actually, about two and a half months…Since I got an XBox 360. I wanted to see it in print, then got the idea for this site. Of course, Greg Dean beat me to it. I, of course, was lost in the XBox Live Marketplace, and I dare say the ability to increase one`s gamer score through “tiny purchases” is very tempting. Very tempting, indeed…
Bribery at its best. Plus, it`s true love. Everyone wins.
They do run hot. I`m convinced that many of the early failures were in large part due to improper cooling. Sure, the machine throws a mettriccke arsetonne of heat (whose units are in some kilokelvin pascals per cubic decameter or something), but if you keep the heated air tucked tightly around the console, yes, it is going to get hot. One could argue that better heat managemment on Microsoft`s part couldn`t hurt, and I agree, but when I (frequently) smash my finger with my hammer I don`t blame Lowe`s for not wrapping it in multiple layers of bubble wrap.
I experimented with “effects”, which most people might consider a block of dark color whose opacity is not 100%. I was proud of it, no matter how trivial most people think it would be. I started getting the hang of the software at this point…which was good, because I was spending a very long time on every comic. Now I was getting work done in a reasonable amount of time, leaving me plenty of time to experiment. That would pay dividends in quality, and continues to do so to this day.
Well, come on. The top XBox 360 system? As a surprise present? What would you think?
Witness the introduction of the decorated callouts. Notice that they will be visually separated from the word bubbles for awhile. The simple process of joining them took me a while to figure out.
I really like this one. Truth is stranger than fiction, and though this isn`t quite what happened I didn`t exactly have to stretch things a whole lot. I think this happens to be funnier, of course, but I would…I penned it. I also started to really get a hand on the digitizing process in this one. I still consider myself quite the n00b, because I am, but there are several things I like about the art in this comic…even if it is still quite rough.
I also was still insisting on pupils here, something which I quickly stopped. I find it too distracting, and that`s funny, because I originally thought it would be too distracting without pupils.
First comic ever…published on the Internet. Also, pretty lame. I hadn`t “standardized” my final size, the look, digitizing procedures, etc. I`m still not very happy with the results, but it is what it is and I`m going to let it stand for now. That way, I can see how much I`ve learned about the process so far. I do happen to find the idea really funny, so I feel it`s a pretty good first shot.
