The wrath of text

(Again, I hate sharing the examples from the actual strip. My hope was that it would reduce small enough to make the text unreadable, but to get that point was to make my cute Jacob drawings too tiny. My solution was to cut out panel four and the punchline, even if said punchline is fairly easy to figure out.)

It's official: Text-heavy strips take longer than art-heavy strips.

Granted it is mostly mental, but morale plays a large part in art. Complex drawing is ART, so it is worth the time invested. Doing my best to write legibly while trying to keep my pen from smearing due to my left-handedness is a CHORE, so any time spent on it sucks by definition.

Another factor is how I prefer to work. For art, I am best when I've got a DVD going. TV on DVD is the greatest thing ever. So much of my art has been produced with Lost, Rome or Grey's Anatomy in the background. I avoid most comedies, as they are either too engaging or not striking enough to occupy my stray thoughts. Futurama is the exception, as it's amazingly rich *and* I've seen every episode so many times I can easily tune it out if I need to focus on art. Re-watching stuff is key, since the DVD is a distraction and not my main focus. (When watching things for the first time, I work in my sketchbook instead of on the *real* art.) I don't need quality programming either - the almost-good Babylon 5 works, as does a reality TV marathon. Sports I don't give a fuck about are awesome as well. I loved the World Cup, even though I hate soccer. I also have a reason to watch college sports, even though I find them sick, amoral and cheap. On the flip side, I can't work on Sundays during the football season because I'm a NERVOUS WRECK!

My recent spurt of productivity has come from the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Battlestar Galactica. Well, LOTR mostly. Galactica is a bit too engaging, which means I hit my sketchbook instead of the drafting table. Even worse, all my text duties happen at the light table - meaning I can't look up at the TV whenever the music indicates I have to *watch* something. Instead of working by the show, I found myself pausing it and going off to do the text work because I was scared I'd miss something. Drawing during BSG is a piece of cake... but I'm fragging monologing instead!

Maybe it's the option to watch that makes all the difference. Working to music is a deadly folly for me. I'm fanatical about my music and I easily get lost in it. I can listen to a play list repeating for hours and not notice the passage of time at all. Maybe it's the time frame. With a movie or TV show, I have to make the conscious decision to stop working and watch for an extended period of time. With music, it's easy to say, "I love this song... what's four more minutes?" over and over and over...

Alright, enough time wasting. I'm not really so self-absorbed that I'd think anyone would find this interesting. I'm just typing until my sleep med kicks in. Although, if anyone is still reading at this point, I appreciate it. A good friend sits and listens even when a friend is being a bore. I'D DO IT FOR YOU! Hey, just be glad you didn't have to sit through this in person. (Uh...again.) Ahh, blogs: Places to talk about things that would ruin verbal discussions. THERE IS NO SHAME ON THE INTERNET!

Man, maybe I should have tried to get a worthy post to keep up my daily trend. Whatevs. Chances are my *big* plan won't get done in a day, so filler is the only solution. No, I am not adding a "filler" label. At least not yet. I don't want to have to make that "Is this filler?" call every time I write something. It'd be hell on the self-esteem. The "Fail" tag already causes enough hardship.

Oh, and this rambling, text-heavy post is ALSO reinforcement of the post's original premise that text-heavy stuff is less fun than pretty pictures. THIS POST IS META! SURPRISE!