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!