Watercolor inks! *sniffle*

It took me a full day before I realized I had to actually scan these things if I wanted to share them. I blame illness.

This is how wussy I am. I have the weakest cold known to man, and it's turned me into a whiny and useless baby. It's not the actual feeling bad thing - it's more psychological damage done by three days of "Am I coming down with something? This can't be it. It'll surely either go away or become a real illness come morning. What's with this stupid thing!?" Still, I went to Costco today and I DIDN'T FEEL WELL ENOUGH TO BUY A PIZZA. Do you know what a tragedy that is? Costco pizza is the best and I missed a rare chance to get it! (Rare because I don't go often and I'm too lazy to drive across town just for pizza.) This is a real tragedy. I'm so very lightly sick, but it's enough to wonk out my sense of smell and make eating much less fun. Didn't discover this until last night when I had to triple the seasoning on my chicken to get any flavor across. Thank goodness I wasn't cooking for a group, as was originally planned.

Anyway, on to the watercolor inks. Yes, I wanted them completed earlier, but it doesn't really matter *when* they're finished, because the plan wasn't to ship them until Tuesday anyway. If I wasn't such a whiny baby, I would have done them today. Instead, I'll try to knock them out tomorrow.

Here's the happy Precocized Fenris ink. You get the full body for the final, but not much has chanced. With all watercolor inks, it looks a little weird because the paint will do most of the shading.

And here's Ursula reading in her bedroom. I'm going to have to do a printout of this one and do a few tests before I do any final painting. First I must figure out the best color scheme, then I must make sure I am capable of mixing those colors.  (I've had lots of struggles with getting a nice pink so far.)

I have one more watercolor that needs to be sketched, and then things get quiet. (Note: It's not good when it gets quiet.) Well, I guess I can do convention prep...

MOVING IS TERRIBLE.

I'm just gonna tell my story, with no care in how whiny it is, or if it's entertaining at all. This is venting. Deal with it.

If you've been reading along, you know my move from Savannah to Virginia has been a mess. My original move was ruined when the buddy who had agreed to help me instead disappeared. (He's back now, and working to rectify the situation.) That meant I had to leave my apartment - and, most importantly, my studio equipment - in Savannah, while I drove to VA.

This past weekend was my only opportunity to get it back.  Labor Day traffic be damned, I set off for Savannah with the dude who lives in my basement (Mover2) and a goal of finally ending that chapter of my life.

The trip didn't start well. Even with Mover2 getting off work a bit early, we had to drive in Friday evening, holiday traffic. Griping ensued. At least it gave us some conversation topics. (You're note that Mover2 is not referred to as a "buddy.") We ate a Bojangles for the first time. It was weird, and the food was not worth the wait. You suck, Bojangles. We did have lots of friendly convos with good ol' country boys while waiting for the food, though.

We got in at 11:30, and took a walk around town before bed. Mover2 gave me a running commentary of how he would like to violate every woman he saw, so that was nice. Bedtime. We had to get up at 7 to retrieve our truck from Budget.

The next morning, we were optimistic. We heading over to Budget when it opened to see if we could get the truck early.  In the lot outside the Budget office, we saw a guy angrily screaming at his phone. Uh oh.

Dude behind the Budget counter took me name, typed it in, stared at the computer and shook his head. "We don't have your truck."

What.

I had the email. I had the conformation number. I had the right location. Dude told me there was no record of me. He gave me a number to call.  The number told me, through a recording, (paraphrased) "the in-store representative you were working with will handle it," and hung up on me. I went back inside. The dude didn't even look at me. He sat at the counter, slowly filing papers, hoping I would go away. Mover2 lost his cool and started shouting loud enough that we couldn't be ignored. Counter dude, never changing his expressions, said there was nothing he could do.

That's when the chick beside him actually looked up our information, and told us my reservation WAS there, but it had been CANCELLED.  The heck? Zombie counter dude shrugged, and said the company overbooked, so they just cancelled a bunch of reservations. Didn't I get a call or message about it? NO. No I did not.

So now we had no truck and panic was setting in. We found a nearby location for Uhaul and went to them. The difference between the two companies was night and day.  The Uhaul staff was smart, informed, engaging and very helpful.  Problem is, we weren't the only people screwed over by Budget.  At 8:30am, we were the third crew to come begging, and any spare trucks were gone.  (Mover2 swears the angry guy from the Budget lot got the last one, but I have no visual confirmation.) We got an 800 number to call, and not only did a real person immediately pick up, but he made an effort to search the area for any spare truck they had. He found two, one at the size we needed!  But there was no guarantee yet. These trucks were owned by independent companies, so confirmation was needed. I was told it would take an hour.

I went to get Mover2, who was ranting at everyone about Budget, and we asked the Uhaul manager for advice. She kindly suggested we leave (someone might have been making a scene) and get breakfast while we waited. Her suggestions: IHOP and Golden Corral. Oh, Georgia.

IHOP *was* close, so we went there. The staff was very nice and attentive. The food was IHOP. We picked at our hash browns when the phone rang. We had a truck! It was a much-larger truck than needed, BUT IT WAS A TRUCK! Only problem was that it was 40 minutes away.  Well, not much we could do there. I thanked the Uhaul person, wrote down the information, and called the confirmation number on the subsequent text message Uhaul sent me. (A great feature, by the way.)

The truck owner answered the call, and was completely baffled. In the time it took for my reservation to be processed and move through the system, someone had come into their office and rented the truck. My notification came in during our conversation, and there was nothing I could do about the double booking.  The owner told me he was renting it out for the day, so we could stop by at 5pm and pick it up for our trip.  We obviously weren't thrilled with that, but we told him to keep my name on the book.  If that was the only option, we were taking it.

Back to Uhaul's office! The manager was still lovely, took down my information and said she'd call if there were any cancellations. Nothing left to do, we hopped in the car to drive back to my apartment.

The phone rings.  "Hey, this is Budget. Are you ever gonna pick up your truck?"

WHAT!?

"Your truck was transferred to the Richmond Hill location. Didn't someone tell you about it?"

No. No that was definitely not what we were told.  Good lord. I begged the guy to hold onto the truck, promising we'd be there as soon as possible. Swung by the apartment to grab the GPS, typed in the address and we were on our way.  Turns out it's a half-hour away, BUT WHO CARES WE HAD A TRUCK.

This was new Budget center, stuck at the edge of an impound lot at the back of the field and only a tiny, barely visible sign to point out it existed. It was surrounded by puddles of stagnant water, and thus full of swarms of hungry insects. The office was a run-down shack with some very questionable choices with the electronics. (Dripping AC unit above the power strip? What could go wrong?)

The manager wanted to hurry up the checkout, as he ate something that didn't agree with him and he was about to be sick.  That was the computer system's cue to start throwing out error messages. Over and over. He would click. Computer would throw a fit. He would say he's about to vomit. I slid the trash can over to him and asked him to keep going.

After a long call with Budget tech support, the reservation went through.  I finally paid, and the manager sprinted off to vomit. We got the truck inspected and FINALLY got to drive it off.  Over 5 hours had passed since our scheduled pick-up time.  We were frustrated, angry and ready to drive back to the first Budget center and punch zombie dude in his expressionless face.

Let me make this clear:  While we ended up using Budget, it will never happen again. Uhaul costs more, but they are reliable, helpful and competent. I will always take that over that day of hell. Budget had a failure at every step, from the office people, to the computer system to a useless help network. (Which I had also dealt with during the LAST move, but I didn't know if Budget had failed then, or original moving buddy.)

Those five hours lost were brutal, though, as it meant we *had* to stay another night in Savannah. I like Savannah, but all my friends were out of town and I had a loud, whiny sleazeball I had to take everywhere. We loaded the truck much faster than I'd have preferred, so we had a full evening to kill. At least we agreed to leave well before sunrise in the morning. Early bed = less conversational pain! My twitter follows know a lot more about what I'm implying here. Basically, don't ask that dude about his views on women.

We had a great dinner, followed by a long and excruciating walk.  Let me be clear: I adore walking around Savannah. Aside from my friends, it's what I will miss the most. What I don't like is the horrific running commentary I got.

Next morning we woke up real early, loaded the last of the stuff into my car, dropped off the apartment keys and left. The drive was smooth and uneventual. The arrival was move fun from Mover2, who ranted to me about how evil Budget was for restricting their trucks to a 75mph top speed.  Yes, dude, rant to me about not being able to drive recklessly with a truck full of MY STUFF. We knew going into this that he would be a pain, but I was desperate and he owes my family an irreparable debt. Sometimes you have to go with the due who can't say no, even though everything else he says will be awful.

Forgive the griping, but I felt the need to share. I left out a lot of details, such as discovering the gas station store was also the main liquor store of the area, and the 1970's New York locksmith experience, but I'm tired and this is long enough.

The happy ending is that I'm typing this in my newly set up studio, and it's kinda awesome! (For now... I see wifi issues on the horizon, but I'm gonna rely on the cable box and ignore that.)

I now turn back to drawing tomorrow's comic. First new comic drawn in a while. WILL I REMEMBER WHAT EVERYONE LOOKS LIKE?

The Scanning times

The best thing in the world is having your own book. The worst thing, however, is MAKING that book. See, the problem with making a collection of your early work is that it's likely you had NO IDEA what you were doing at that time.

For me, that means I didn't regularly save hi-res files of my comics until I had over 400 comics to my name. You know what that means? RE-SCANNING ALL THE OLD STUFF! WOOHOO! What you see above is my current progress against the comics that still need scanning. (Hint: The to-scan pile is the one four times the size of the scanned pile.)

Let's take a look at some of my stupidity: I used RED pencil for the first seven strips, meaning my current scanner fought them angrily. I used larger templates for the first 27 strips - that is, when I used templates at all and didn't try drawing my own. (Each time I did it was a disaster.) When I did switch to my current templates, I originally used the small pads of 14 strips. (I now buy them in packs of 100.) Problem with those pads? Turns out THEY WERE ALL MISPRINTED, with the comic area slightly tilted. That is maddening for someone who is used to simply scanning and dropping a comic into the Photoshop template. I also was a mess with my panel sizes. Here's a secret: Currently, my comics are a quarter inch smaller than norm in order for all panels to come out the same size. I figured that math out around strip 40, and it took a while longer before I figured out how to implement it correctly.

And let's not forget that re-scanning means re-fixing all the mistakes I made in the originals! Not only can it be time-consuming, but I have to remember where those fixes happened. I *think* I got 'em all so far, but I can't be sure. Editing shall come. The good news is that a decent amount (less than a hundred - maybe way less) of those strips do exist on my hard drive in hi-res form, so I don't need to rescan those. I just need to locate them on my hard drive and re-number them so I know what I have.

And once I have these comics scanned, I then have to resave them one by one into TIFF format and upload them to the bosses. And then it's on to working on book features, like commentary and the bonus storyline. Oh, and I really should work on actual Precocious at some point too. Yeesh.

But let's not forget this: I AM MAKING A BOOK! A book is the best thing ever, and worth all the pain!

Edited for some clarity: I am *helping* with the book by providing material. The awesome folks over at RCSI are doing the meaty brave stuff. I'm being the ditz who is not enabling them properly to do their job - but I am trying to make up for it the best I can!

Curse you, cartoon animals!

(I'm gonna *try* to get this blog going again, but I make no promises about regular updates yet!)

When I first conceived of what would become Precocious, my characters were all human. They stayed human in my mind in all the years between inception and when I decided to give the strip a go. Then, suddenly, CRITTERS! What made me change?

First, I'd always had an affinity for what I called "philosophizing animal" strips. I thought that adapting animal forms would add a level of cuteness to the strip that would help me out.

Second, and I'm not sure I should admit this, it was a practical choice to get my cartooning earlier. Let the record show I was/am a rather inept cartoonist. I've never had a natural talent for it and I'm only where I am now because passion overrode the shame of poor drawing skills. The thing about cartoon animals - the human eye is WAY more tolerant of them. Think of all the cartoon mice you've seen - they all look completely different from each other, but we readily accept them as mice. Anthropomorphic animals aren't real and we are more likely to accept the artist's vision. When it comes to drawing humans, we all know what humans look like. Looking at humans drawn by an artist with a shaky, unformed style (like me!) draws the eye right to all the inaccuracies and errors. It takes the reader out of the moment and doesn't create a pleasant reading experience. By going with cartoon animals, I was able to launch the strip much earlier in my stylistic development that if I had chosen humans.

Finally, I chose animal forms because it create a separation from real life. It let me craft my own world, with its own rules, in which my characters could play. My goal was to create something universal; something that could be read decades down the road and still be understood. By keeping my universe to itself, I could avoid taking easy shots at topical humor that might not be remembered in the eyes of history. It was a good idea at the time, but it's gotten me into a heap of trouble in practice.

First of all, I clearly haven't avoided topical humor and real life references completely. Ignoring reality completely is a great way to limit one's storytelling potential. So here I am, having my cake and eating it too - praying no one thinks too hard about things. "But if everyone here is an animal, does that mean those famous people being referenced are animals too?" AAAARRRGGGHHH! I fully intend to never address it, but is sweeping it under the rug really an acceptable solution? It *has* to be.

Cheap as it is, I have to go with the "it's just a comic strip" excuse. If I think the gag is good, I invoke the rule of funny and go with it. It's sloppy, but freeing. If I *didn't* rely on this principle, I would be paralyzed. While, ideally, I ably handle both, I'll always focus on humor more than continuity.

Using animal characters just makes things worse for me when it comes to these issues. Sure, I can say over and over they are merely meant to be cutified humans and are thus treated as humans - or point out my choice of dog/cat depiction was mostly an attempted ship-sinking visual cue on character compatibility - but I put that issue out there and I have to deal with the consequences. "Dogs can't eat chocolate!" "They are eating pork! Did they murder an anthro pig?" "Why won't you introduce some bunnies to the strip?" "Why can't a dog marry a cat?"

*head explodes*

For me, the animal thing was just another twist on standard comic surreality. The main characters almost never change their outfits! No one ages, yet they (sometimes) retain memories of past years' events! Little details constantly shift around to best fit the joke! If we can accept that (and, yes, some of us can't) then we should be able to gloss over the animal thing. After all, aside from two regrettable strips acknowledging that they have tails, have they EVER mentioned anything about being animals?

I hope this doesn't sound too much like complaining. It's more of me rambling to get my thoughts out. The reason people ASK these questions is because people CARE about the comic - and that is the most important thing. I will gladly frustrate readers with my animal creations, and suffer the consequences, if it means I have readers! It's also my fault for playing both hard and loose with continuity. Some elements of the strip are locked into place. Others, which I don't deem as important, can change from day to day. That's lazy cartooning on my part, and I apologize for it.

The motivation behind the creation of this essay comes from my struggles with Monday's strip. In this arc, I am taking the kids to the "city." I've never given the city a name, but for all intents and purposes it's Washington DC. I'm struggling with how much reality to allow into a highly fictional comic. Do I include the highly-recognizable monuments? Do I make lots of DC references? Do I name drop the museums they might visit? Every time I add in a real-world reference, I open myself up to the "so... how does this jive with animals?" scrutiny.

I wish I had a good solution, but right now I'm set to cruise forward with a "don't think too hard" message - which kinda conflicts with a comic that (in theory) praises intelligence and intellectual curiosity, doesn't it? I fail. :-(

The past and the future

The quarter has ended, and the plan was to get this blog going again once the first quarter at SCAD ended. Yeah, I had so many glorious plans. Work ahead! Copper Road! Do commissions! Study comics! TAKE OVER THE WORLD!

And then I blew out my finger.

I still have no idea why it happened. I'm a sequential artist! When *haven't* I drawn for hours and hours on end? Did I just draw wrong one day? All I know is that my finger ballooned up to three times its size around midterms, made me delirious with pain and ended up sending me to the emergency room. They took a x-ray, found nothing, decided to throw my finger in a splint, give me anti-inflammatory drugs and send me to a specialist. By the time I got my appointment with the specialist, the swelling had gone down but the finger remained sensitive. The specialist gave me steroids and said we'll wait and see. The finger got slightly better, but was still gimpy enough that I couldn't do my classwork. I'm falling further and further behind. I'm starting to panic. I go back to the specialist for an answer. His expert diagnosis: "I have no idea." God. Dammit.

It's been well over a month now, and my finger remains damaged for no good reason. I had to take an incomplete in all my classes, with the assumption my finger would clear up so I could do the work before the break was over. I've had to scale back Precocious' drawing over and over, and now it looks like I'm going on a guest strip hiatus until I heal. If I ever heal. How did these wonderful SCAD times end up going so wrong? Bah! Bah, I say!

So that's the horrible past - what's the horrible future? I... I'm not really sure.

I've shut my finger down completely, meaning no drawing for at least another week. I hope and pray that stretch of time will be enough for healing, as I have that scary pile of make-up work to do and time is running out! Once I resume activity, the obvious blog solution will be to post my make-up work here as I do it. You can finally see my attempts to be a FOR REALS sequential artist! The only downside is blogging here could cause lots of double-posting to Facebook if I also set up a "critique me and help me get better" work folder there. This could all be avoided if the blog-facebook posting thingy was at all reliable! Bah again! We'll see...

When I start drawing again, I also have a pile of Precocious work to do. I have a long-overdue painting to finish. I have some Precocious art to do. I have to design some prints for a donation drive. I also have to actually DO Precocious comics at some point. *cough* That stuff should mostly be bloggable.

So, yeah... The blog will resume activity soon - somehow! (Just not for another week or so, due to the shutdown finger thing.) I'll have such a massive pile of work to do for the next TWO YEARS that I should have no shortage of things to share. I just need to get in the habit of SHARING my art, not hiding it from the world because IT IS NEVER GOOD ENOUGH. This should be less of a conflict as I improve my skills. In theory. Crud, I hope so.

When blogging resumes, I'll put an announcement up on the Precocious site. Until then, live in a state of anxious limbo. LIKE ME!

(Damn you, finger!)

Family gets in the way of everything

So I'm back in DC again, on short notice and for a short visit, and I am once again shocked at how much time family eats up! I had sketches to do, dammit!

OK so it was good fun and nice bonding. STILL! I was counting on some down time to catch up. If I owe you an email or some sketches, I apologize. Email will have to wait until tomorrow, and the best I could sketch in the small window I had is seen above. (I will do better tomorrow.)

Today has been full of dark omens and miscues. For one, I have been trying to get in contact with my admissions counselor at SCAD. She called me and the message on the machine was simply "call me back." WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!? Freaking out, I call her back. Get her voice mail. I leave a message and try again a few hours later. Voice mail. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I cannot reach this woman who is tormenting me with her elusiveness. AM I IN OR NOT!? Argh, gotta get on the road.

When I tried to shut down my computer so I could get on the road, Microsoft decided that would be the time to do 15 farking updates! While it did its thing, I went to talk to my mother (who was there recovering from a major medical miscue that ruined HER day) to kill time. After a while, I went back to find my computer powered off. Ok, so it's done! I pack up and drive to DC, encountering MAJOR ROADWORK - followed by MORE MAJOR ROADWORK with a chaser of MAJOR ROADWORK! One lane roads 4evah!

I get to my grandparents place and the first thing I see is a pot of dead basil. It seems my bro was trying to care for his girlfriend's plants while she was out of the country. He failed. So dead plants. What a welcome!

I get inside and no one seems to be around. This is a house of elders, so I assumed they were taking naps. I head upstairs to see my grandmother and aunt are no where to be seen. I decide to check on my Alzheimer's grandfather only to walk in on him getting a sponge bath from his nurse. Awesome. You know what, I'm going to skip the introduction and go set up my computer.

Power on. Booting up. KABLAMMO! There is gibberish on my screen instead of the welcome screen. AWW FUDGE! I power it down and start it again. "Windows did not start properly, would you like to run the diagnostic?" Sure. By this time, my grandmother and aunt are back from the store, so I go up and visit for a bit with them. I come back down a few minutes later to see a new error message telling me I am completely screwed and the only solution is to do a system restore. I say no. It again says the error cannot be fixed by Microsoft and my computer is ruined forever. GODDAMMITSOMUCH! Those updates blew up my computer!

So I do what any rational person would do. I refuse to listen to Microsoft and try to reboot again. The screen goes black. I wait. It flickers. I wait. It flickers some more. I get worried.

"Now configuring updates 1 of 3"

*facepalm* So either I mistakenly unplugged and packed up my computer before it was done updating, or Microsoft decided to fail miserably and pile on. At least my computer works now, NO THANKS TO THE DAMN UPDATES!

Relieved my computer actually works, I go back upstairs to listen to my aunt talk about her magical trip to Australia. (Jealousy!) Grandma calls down that a friend of the family is coming over. Yay! Then she comes down to announce another friend of the family is coming. Double yay! Also, overwhelming! We socialize for a while. Bro comes home and replaces one of the friends who had to leave. We party well into the evening before breaking up.

Now I have only two hours and change to get everything done by midnight. Bro then extends the invitation to watch Battlestar Galactica with him. Oh hell, I am not turning that down! I love BSG, and bro bonding is nice. (Here is where I learn that my arrival was very inconvenient for him as he's hosting an all-weekend geekfest in my room. Whoops.) I try to sketch during BSG, but nothing I get is great. It's time for his bed, I break away, and here I am.

I am exhausted!

Sunday, bloody Sunday

Today has been a struggle against the upcoming Sunday's strip, so much that I nearly forgot about my daily dose of inane blogging!

The reason for my troubles: Vincent. He's a fun guy to draw, but it's never easy to do it. That's fine, as long as it's from the standard angles... but what if a scene requires a shot of Vincent from behind? I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE! Oh yeah, and what if this angle is from a distance? Gah! So I have to cop out and find ways around it!

I hope the Sunday comes out ok, with it being clear what is going on... but at moments like these I have my doubts. On the plus side, it's a bonus-sized strip, so there's more awkwardness to LOVE!

Tonight the war begins: Me verses Sunday. It has to go out to the colorist by morning, so this battle must be won! In related news, I have a Red Bull in the fridge. Considering I've had maybe three Red Bulls in my life, it should pack quite a punch if needed.

If the Sunday's ink lines are all shaky... well, now you know why.

What a mother needs

In a family of seven, you can keep your flowers, cards and candy - mommy needs some sleep!

This is a spec sketch related to the mother's day card project. Let me tell you, it's a pain in the rear to draw SEVEN characters together (this is why illustrators charge by the figure!) and get the proportions even somewhat right. What I have here isn't great, but that's what roughs are for - figuring out the basics and going from there. If all goes well, I might have something to sell down the road!

Snowpocalypse 2.0!

Since the plan for today is to knock out some comics, which is not a bloggable thing, I choose to distract you with a snowy picture!

Another boatload of snow has crushed Winchester, and I'm not remotely thrilled with it. This amount is well beyond the manageable stage and into the "oops, there goes your power" area. All I want is a warm stretch and some heavy plowing. Free me!

The worst part of this is that I'm snowed in with the worthless damn dogs. I hate dogs. I really hate dogs. I look down on dog people, as if they are fundamentally flawed. Dogs are stinky, stupid need machines, and the two in this house are some of the worst.

My normal routine when stuck with the dogs is to throw them outside and let them enjoy the yard. I can't do that with TEN THOUSAND FEET OF SNOW OUTSIDE! Today, I had to shovel them a path so they could wander around and do their disgusting things. But the dogs are not content with going out the side door. It's snowy out the side door. Why can't they go in the backyard, where it MUST be sunny and warm! Every time I go upstairs, they clamor to the back door and look at me with hope. This is where I point out that the back doors are GLASS, and anyone with a brain can see the snow has piled up so much that the drift is taller than the dogs! In their small brains, there's some HOPE that it's nice out back!

So I finally gave them what they wanted. I opened the back door and they bounded out - smacking face-first into the wall of snow! They stumbled backwards in complete disbelief. You mean that snow drift that was visible outside is ACTUALLY THERE? Idiots.

So I'm hoping making comics will improve my mood, but I'm sure the situation will get worse before it gets better. That's the cue for our power to go out.

(Please don't go out, power.)

Forecast: 50% Gray

Aww, I missed the midnight deadline. AGAIN. I tried to make it, but I had to move at the pace of paint. (You can still the light glinting off wet paint in the pic.) Oh well, productivity happened and that's what matters.

This painting is aaaallllmmmooosssst done! Just a few touches of white and we're set! As you see. I went with the 50% gray for the background. Good or bad, that's my choice. In an oddity, the painting actually looks much better in person than in the pic, so take my word that it's awesome.

Today was a 50% gray day. Snow kept me from frolicking in the outdoors. Writers block kept me from doing all the important stuff. My wonky sleep schedule caught up to me. Gray. Day. (I did get some comics done, though, but I obviously can't share them here.) Solution: GO TO BED EARLY! Hit the reset button and start anew!

I have a new toy!

Behold: Yet another artist's tool has been added to my inventory! I can has projector! (Thanks goes to Darc of Code Name: Hunter for the recommendation.) Now I can... project things!

First project: Throwing Max and Dionne up on my wall to start on my next commission project! Turns out I have no idea what I'm doing with this thing, but it was cool to have the device anyway! After doing it the inefficient way - this thing doesn't seem to have a focus, so I have to MOVE THE WALL - I got it all to work. Turns out all I need to do was accidentally knock it on the floor and have it fall apart. Oh, *that's* how it works! (Reading the instruction manual never entered into the equation.)

Actual work on the painting begins tomorrow, I assume. I say assume because today I assumed I'd get Sunday's Precocious done. Then I slept past my alarm. SEVEN HOURS past it. Ye gods! I think that's a record. Well, I have nice long night of consciousness ahead of me in which I can catch up...

Comic overload

I've been on a tear this week, with the goal of building up my damn comic buffer. What you see here is the product of the last few days of intense work: 15 pages of comics. (Sadly, only 8 comics total, not including the Copper Road.) I have a whole pile left to ink, but it's still good progress.

The goal is get to myself two weeks ahead, and then use said weeks to get the application process in motion for my eventual grad schooling. That's the goal. We'll see how it plays out. I did get an added bonus in that Matthew Dawson of Sometime Alone has volunteered to do my Sunday coloring. That frees up a lot of time. The coloring itself only takes an hour or two, but I loath it so there's also many hours of griping and procrastination.

Can I do it? Can I get my conic ahead enough to get my life in order? PROBABLY NOT, but I'm gonna try anyway!

Slow motion day

I woke up today and... well... didn't wake up. Despite going to bed early, nothing I could do would get my brain in gear. A few hours later I came to the horrible conclusion: I was sick. Now this is nothing major, friends - in fact, it is the smallest amount of sick one can be to still qualify as sick - but it's enough to make me very, very sluggish.

Everything moved in slow motion today. Coloring the Sunday strip took MANY hours, and work on the next week's stuff was painfully slow. I had been hoping today would get me ahead, but my sniffly head moving like molasses on a cold day was not allowing it. I did get two more strips done, and I've started work on two more. After that, I have to go back to scripting, and that's probably not gonna happen. A soupy brain does not creativity make.

I expect this bug to be out of my system by tomorrow, so maybe all the work can be done then. If it persists, I will be very upset. This is barely enough sick to complain about! Had I been a student or salaryman, I would not have been able to call in sick with this. Give me disease I can rock for pity or, better yet, LET ME BE HEALTHY, DAMMIT!

On the road again

I'm in DC again, and will be for the next 10 days. That means it's time to set up the new studio and get back to work!

I still have a work overload - not the best time to run a extra-large Sunday - but I'll get it done. The big scary monster in the room right now is scripting. I'm four strips and a Copper Road short of where I'd like to be - and ideas aren't coming freely at the moment. No time to sit around and pout, though. Saturday is going to be very hectic, and that's without the Sunday strip construction factored in. This is the hardest test I've had yet to keep Precocious up to date, but I'm up for the challenge!

Build that buffer!

(Picture shrunk to hopefully hide spoilers.)

I'm getting ready to head back down to DC on Sunday, so I have to make sure my comics are done to cover that stay. This means working the proverbial butt until it falls off. Proverbially.

Things are progressing nicely, with the dailies almost done and Copper Road readied for its inking. The one hold up is the blasted Sunday strip again. I am completely out of ideas! Well, good ideas at least.

I know a few of the dailies I'm going to do in my free-form September, but Sundays have been lacking. I have a Sunday for the NEXT week in my head, but this week I am forced to choose between two rather weak ideas. Forgive me if end up going with one of 'em.

I'm looking forward to this DC trip because I'll have no pressure to get the comic done - and I haven't felt that freedom in a while. The plan is to get my butt scripting, so I can look to September with a little more confidence. I don't even have to script September's strips! October is when the next Precocious story begins, and I want to have that bugger knocked out so I know how to fit it into the grand scheme of things. If I touch on some ideas in the October story, I can use the September strips to remind the readers such themes exist. For example: Autumn really hates Max. That's been covered a grand total of ONCE so far. I either have to reintroduce that topic or scrap it from the October tale. (It's a throwaway gag there, not anything important.)

A few good scripting marathons can really give me a peace of mind, provided they are effective. But first, I gotta get this buffer properly built up. I'll be in a panic the second I get home from DC, as my buffer would be only at two days then, so productivity during the trip is vital.

The bad, the ugly and the good

How NOT to take a negative review: A Chrispy Story.

I woke up today to find out WebcomicZ had posted a scathing guest review of my strip. It attacked pretty much everything, from the writing to the characters to the whole concept, and often did so in rather impolite ways. Now, I can take some negative - as a person who is generally unfiltered, I'd be a hypocrite if I had thin skin - but some of that review really threw me off. Dude said my naming sucked because I didn't give my fox character a fox-ish last name! A pingo is a mound of dirt and ice in the polar regions. Autumn was formerly a genius in public school who rose above the others and took a cold view towards the flatness around her. So, yeah, totally not apt at all. I think I like that name a bit more than Foxett McFoxfox. He also said giving my main character the last name of Oven was stupid because he wasn't even a chef. One of Bud Oven's characteristics is that, yes, he's an excellent chef. There was an entire intro arc written around how he got his name!

So, bleary-eyed, I went and did something stupid. I knew WebcomicZ had been looking to run a negative review - and that this was the first review to go up since then - and I expressed that I was shocked to be the one targeted. (I know, I know. Not thinking.) I followed it up by saying I reacted in shock and that the dude was entitled to his opinion - but I did this all publicly on Twitter. In stepped some defenders - whose points were all entirely valid, by the way - and suddenly I've caused an incident by complaining. It was a terrible way to react, and the regret level rose when WebcomicZ CHANGED THE REVIEW to something much shorter. The short review cut out all the pettiness and was more direct in why he didn't like it. I'm perfectly fine with it, since the points are fairly justifiable, but the way that review came about left a bad taste in my mouth. WebcomicZ claims he changed it because the author requested it, not knowing of the twitter debacle. Either way, the original is still up there if you check out Precocious' page on WebcomicZ, so I don't feel AS BAD that it was bumped. So now I've been slammed AND I feel horribly guilty about it. Way to go, me!

Some of the things leftover in the review are apt criticisms of Precocious. Having so many characters does break the rules, and I have to be careful in balancing them. Basing my humor on story and character requires the reader to play along and catch up. (This reviewer explicitly said he had no interest in doing that, which would explain the derision. He wasn't playing by my rules and I wasn't writing to his preconceptions.) My love of complexity can be isolating, and I still haven't learn the lessons of keeping it short term. This, however, is something I can control. It's my bad for no doing so.

Other quibbles are standard rookie fare. Precocious is only 6 months old, and sometimes that shows. I was too verbose in the beginning (and certainly still can be) and my writing isn't always crisp. Unfortunately, this is something I've learned only comes with time. You have to train yourself to *think* in comic form, and it's a slow process. He did hit upon a contradiction between my style and format. Story telling is normally reserved for eternal-punchline Mary Worth and not for humor strips, but I go against the grain. Depending on who you are, it's good or bad. I do it because in the webcomic format I can point readers to the start of a story - and the full archive is right there for you. In a newspaper format, storytelling like that would not be wise. I can understand the conflict of people getting to this strip with wrong expectations.

The same goes with the visual style. My characters do share the same general form. This is no different than the first six months of any other strip of this type. As time goes by, the characters will slowly become more distinguished. It's an organic process and I won't lose any sleep over it. Besides, I think it takes some willful ignorance to not be able to tell the characters apart. They may have similar forms, but each has their distinguishing features. I understand new readers getting a bit confused, but to claim the cast page doesn't help distinguish my kids seems to be more a reviewer problem than mine. (I do need to be better about having the kids call each other by name.)

What I don't regret at all is having the kids fail at evil. The reviewer was upset that the kids bogged themselves down with semantics during the water balloon fight, which it exactly what SHOULD HAPPEN with them. The first arc was about these brats playing evil, but not being able to cut it. I think failed evil offers far more storytelling opportunities than having every punchline be "these kids, oh, they're so bad!" What would be the dream, having every panel four just be an explosion? Granted, that *would* be funny - for about a week. After that, it gets stale. Dragging the characters back to earth gives me far more to work with and allows for a far richer strip.

The same rant goes for the "why is this not a comic about geniuses dealing with a normal world?" Because that's not the point! Ozy and Millie did it well enough, and I wish not to tred any more in DC Simpson's footsteps than I already am. The strip is about the foolishness of elitism, be it monetary or intellectual. These kids have twisted the definition of "interesting" to fit only themelves (and those convinient to them), rendering the rest of the world inconsequential. Also, to say the parents have no commentary on the kids' actions is baffling. There was, again, an entire INTRODUCTION arc written that shows the parents are just as cracked as the children.

I'm going to cut the ranting short now before I get out of hand. Also, it's because there's silver lining GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE! My application for SpiderForest was accepted! This means I have a LOT of work ahead of me to clean up my website's code, but when I do - behold the power of a fully armed and operational webcomic! (If they don't kill me for being a techie moron first.) I'm really excited to be a part of Spider Forest and I think it's the next big step in making my comic a little more awesome.

Kicking and Screaming

Oh, for the sake of momentum! The barely-any-sleep-in-a-week side of me just wants to lay down and play pokemon. The not-a-loser side wants to finish next week's strips. Epic battle ensues!

I *will* get some work done tonight or die trying! It's time for the dreaded tech pens to make their appearances, and such detail work is always a pain. Also, they're getting a little low on ink, so I have, like, concentrate and stuff. Booooo!

Little Miss... Something

Why did I promise to make Sunday strips? WHY!? I could have said "strips on Sunday," but I had to say "color Sundays." Dammit!

I'm not trying to bail on the promise, mind you - by having Sundays it forces me to write more self-contained gags. That's good for me in the long run, because I am perfectly content to write Precocious in issues. While awesome if read in one sitting, it can get irritating at a one-per-day format. Remember, my vow is to make May gag-a-day month! THAT INCLUDES MAKING FUNNY SUNDAYS! What you're seeing here is me freaking the heck out over the pressure. Funny *and* self-contained EVERY DAY? *shudder* (By the way, the vow for May is no continuous gags going for more than two days - just so I can have room for a brief silly tangent, if needed.)

So here I am, in total limbo. (In many ways.) I have April's Sundays scripted, but I lack the will to execute them right now. I have two strips ready for May, one of which is a Sunday featuring Dionne in pageant gear. (Also, the order of Sundays may switch around. Dionne may show up in April if her Sunday gets done first.) It's hard to draw Dionne in that outfit, because pageant outfits are revolting and offensive. I have to find that place where the outfit is ridiculous and satirical. Too conservative mutes the gag; too realistic is REALLY CREEPY.

Why must I challenge myself so? Stupid artistic integrity.

Decidedly unsexy work

I apologize for the lack of sexy sharing recently. I've been all about the work, so play is pushed aside. I'd love to fill a gallery with flashy stuff, but first I have to construct the building!

Today was about the website. Maintaining a website is like being a janitor or sportscaster. You work is meant to be taken for granted. If someone notices you, it's because you've screwed up. Thus, I can spend all day doing minor updates and it looks (and feels) like I did nothing. This is stuff that needs to be done, though, because otherwise people would start to NOTICE I'm lagging behind.

I wanted to ink today. I wanted to finish a bunch of strips! I didn't, because FIRST I have to set myself up for the next week of updates. I need my comics scanned and ready to go.

Doing this gruntwork just saps the energy from a person, too. I have the artist arrogance - I SHOULD CREATE! Doing this tedium means I can't be making amazing art! I am denying the world my gift! Yeah, well, unless a shockingly-gifted and selfless altruist magically appears, I've got to do it all myself. Cherry on top: By getting one task out of the way, you clear the path to see.. a bigger task waiting for you!

I drive myself nuts for a reason, though. I am trying to work as hard as I can in this inopportune time so that I can rock harder when things lighten up. I can bitch and moan all I want - it's healthy purging - but as long I'm keeping productive, even if it's unsexy production, then I'm doing it right.

Do it for SCIENCE!

As predicted, this is my OH GOD HAND LETTERING MAKES MY HAND CRAMP post. Getting back on that horse has been painful, but rewarding. I've only screwed up once in the 11 strips done so far. There is a quality to hand-lettered strips that can't be captured - even with fonts of one's own handwriting - so I'm fighting through the pain and basking in the glory.

I am rather excited about this next storyline. Not only do I get to introduce Kaitlyn earlier than expected, but I get to bring a beloved figure back! Check out this preview and drool over the impending awesome:



I can't wait!