Ursa Major Awards + Conventions!

So I got a surprising bit of news yesterday. It seems Precocious is a finalist for Best Comic Strip with the Ursa Major Awards. What an honor!  This award is determined by fan voting, so it's up to you all to help me out! Voting runs until May 15th, so expect periodic reminders.  (And no time like the present?) You have to sign up to vote, but aren't I worth it? *Bambi eyes*  And be sure to vote for as many categories as you can on that ballot. They need your contributions!

Convention season is about to start up, so let's provide you guys with updates!

Fur the 'More, in Baltimore, is right around the corner, April 5-7! I will be there, even though I'm still broken, so please stop by and make me happy! To keep myself from facesploding too much, I'll probably only be around on Saturday and Sunday. Keep watch on my Twitter feed that weekend for updates. (That goes for any con weekend, though.)

The next conventions for me are the big boys:  I will be at Anthrocon! (July 4-7.) It's the big one for the furries, and a lot of fun! Just like at Midwest FurFest, Mat of Badly Drawn Kitties should be my booth babe. Bonus: I am next to Bill Holbrook this year, which means I get to bask in his awesome glory the whole weekend!

And here's a surprise:  I should be at Connecticon too! TWO BIG CONS IN TWO WEEKS! I'm really looking forward to taking on something more mainstream, and I get chances to see a lot of my New England friends, who really need to live closer to the convention center! Where's my free place to crash, people? Show mercy!

The other cons for the year:
Intervention, Bethesda, MD - August 23-25 - Confirmed!
Small Press Expo, Bethesda, MD as well! - September 14-15 - I've applied, but we shall see!

These two aren't open for sign-up yet, but I'll try for 'em:
FurFright, Cromwell, CT - October 25-27
Midwest FurFest, Rosemont, IL - November 22-24

Do you find me charming?

I've considered the idea of Precocious charms as luxury merchandise. I have no idea how my readership overlaps with those who charm it up, so I have no clue if I could earn back the expense it would take to create them. Still, if I want to make charms, I have to decide soon, as the window closes at the end of the month. Thing is, I am *awful* at coming up with proper merchandise ideas.

My vanity says people should desire to show off my cute characters alone, as that is enough. My brain says, haha, no. I'm so very far away from that kind of popularity.  I'd do better with something clever and fun - that serve as conversation pieces and be likable to those who don't know Precocious.  More logic says such a marriage of ideas is impossible in tiny charm form, but whatever. We're speculating now. Besides, I prefer a dreamy optimistic post to be atop the news section.

So what do we have?  Well, these would be a set of four.  Doll versions of the main four would be easy as a set, but purely for Precocious readers.  To go even deeper into my vanity, I'd love people to desire comic in-jokes such as the Muffin of Doom, Pingoball and Chrisp-Cola can.

It depends on you guys to tell me if I want to keep sketching ideas, refine ideas or let the luxury item go. I can play with this project, or go back to random sketches when I have the time and energy. I don't consider this a likely success, but what the heck? I felt like sketching tonight, so I did! (There are more merch ideas that will come later in the year, so no one has to hitch themselves to this particular fancy.)

Precocious across the world!

Behold! A ego-tastical posting for today!

I can send off all my commissions and donation packages, but it doesn't become real to me that SOMEONE ACTUALLY WANTED MY STUFF until I see photo proof!



Look at this! THOSE ARE FRAMES! My work was frameable! All three Tiffany watercolors hanging together! Oh my heck! (I'll forgive him for making Ginger's Bread the centerpiece, since I outnumber it four to one.)



Since I got permission to post his pictures, here is my Skull Mountain commission with the awesome reader who set the plan in motion! (Note the Team Jacob shirt too. Bonus points!)



I'm even excited to see my magnets in action. This is not just a refrigerator, people. It's a refrigerator IN RUSSIA! Tiffany is demanding attention on another continent! That amazes me!

I've been fighting to keep pace with all my work lately, and it's treats like these photos that keep me pushing forward. Sure, the money is nice for allowing me to eat and stuff - but it's the ego boosts that come from selling art that keeps me going. Thanks to everyone who has supported me. Love to you all!

It's a Precocious party!

The Skull Mountain commission did its job and made it to the DC area in time to join in the closing festivities! I hope some joy was brought into the world via my cartoon critters and the good will of the man behind the commission.

I want to give mad props to this guy and his brother (who did the Downfall parody on the Precocious home page), who are making a bid for the ultimate Precocious fans. That's right, all you other ultimate fans. You have competition! The only solution is to keep one-upping each other, making my smile grow ever larger. (I'm worth it!) That, or group hug in exceedingly cute fashion. Both options are good.

A good Precocite is an active fan! The comic needs to grow in order to become a sustainable thing, so every time you spread the world you are helping to ensure the strip will keep going strong. Seriously, I am absolutely amazed every single day when I think about all you guys have done for me. Don't ever change, you wonderful people!

Oh yeah, and if a good Precocite gets something from me, I want to see photos! Show off your shirts! Show me where you're displaying Precocious art! (Bonus points for super-creepy shrines.) Where are you sticking your magnets? I'll probably whip up a blog post if I get some good shots. If not, you're still helping my self-esteem - and isn't that the most important thing of all?

So now that we're all feeling good about ourselves, are we ready to party some more? Despite no one seeming to care except me, I want Bonus Comics Day to be fun for all. Since I'll be doing an update every hour, my plan for tomorrow is to glue myself to the computer for scripting and coloring - and hopefully lots of hanging out in the comments section!

Merry Chrispmas!

That's right, folks, it's the holiday season and Chrispmas cheer is in the air! What is Chrispmas, you ask? Chrispmas is a gift-giving holiday for those who are lazy, tired of stress and want to focus on the good. It's the Chrispian way!

Chrispmas actually started on the 8th, but it took me a while to whip up the image. See, Chrispmas is a holiday that lasts MONTHS! No more pressure to give gifts on one damn day! It runs from December 8th to March 24th, giving you a huge window in which to give gifts! Give when you get the right gift, at the right time. If you don't have a gift by March 24th - which is my birthday, by the way - then you really are hopelessly lazy, aren't you?

Isn't this holiday fun? We're not big on traditions in Chrispianity - I don't even set up my parody tree anymore - so you may celebrate as you please. Play along with the others if you want. Have fun!

And you if want to know, here's my Chrispmas list. ;-)

There's no time for swirly colors!

I have a comic to do, dammit! Oh, whatevs. THE ARTIST'S SOUL MUST BE SATISFIED!

I tried a new trick with this painting: I turned to twitter for inspiration! Twitter IGNORED MY PLEAS! Go to hell, everyone on twitter! New painting idea: Everyone on Twitter sucks! I'm all alone in a vast uncaring universe because people are too infatuated with themselves to lend a hand! Wait, that's stupid and cliche. New new painting idea: I'm paranoid and whiny because I don't get enough attention. All I can do is thrive on my own and make everyone else look the fool for not acknowledging my supremely obvious awesomeness! Vengeance shall be mine!

Well. vengeance shall be mine in a bit. A good friend is coming to visit this weekend and that means I need to get the comic far enough ahead that I don't have to worry about it. That means I have to get my Sunday strip knocked out TODAY. Ack! At least it should be relatively simple. It's only three panels! Bonus: It contains a joke I've been trying to fit in for over a year! Yay!

Not a people person

I'll try not to get too "emotions and stuff" here, but I have a blog and I have some frustration - IT IS THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS!

Today I posted my 300th strip. That's kinda a big deal, even though it fell in just about the worst place. I'm on the second-to-last page of the current story, meaning any curious new reader is not likely to stick around and give a crap. Readers are profoundly lazy beings, and there's no way to change that. The burden falls to me to MAKE THEM CARE. Today's 300th strip was a wasted opportunity.

I'm absurdly lucky to have the fan base I have now, because I thoroughly suck at cultivating it. Precocious lacks a solid HOOK to get the easy readers. (Unless you count the artwork as furry - and I don't know how effective that would be as I don't cover an furry topics in the strip.) I don't pander to a target group. I don't do T&A or more adult humor. That's an issue, since that stuff is what the internet is all about! We go online to find groups of like-minded people, so we WANT to find comics that fit our interests. The average internet user is more sharp-tongued and edgy with their humor, so comics with that voice naturally attract a large readership. All I have to offer is funny. That's a LOT OF PRESSURE!

It falls to me to make people care enough to stick around - and once they stick around, I have to make them want to help Precocious thrive! That's hard to do with my personality. Unfortunately, I'm far more the artist than the advertiser. Doing the social things, like tweeting around, hanging out on message boards and being proactive in audience interaction are hard for me. All I want to do is work on my comic! I've got all my eggs in the quality basket!

I'm frustrated with myself right now. Precocious may be ahead of the curve in the readership to comic age ratio, but it's not where it COULD be - and that's all on me. Not only have I not actively cultivated a readership, but I've done a lot to distance those who put forth the effort to reach out to me. I do my best, but I'm an awful communicator. (I'm two weeks behind in my email, and feeling reeaaaallly guilty about it.) Of course, I knew this going in. That's why I went daily. That's why I do all my extras. I need quality to make up for my poor social skills. But quality will only take me so far.

I'm sorta lacking direction here, so I apologize. I'm having a hard time communicating about having a hard time communicating!

See, the problem is my ego is at work here. I have a WONDERFUL group of dedicated readers, and I want MORE. This post is not a knock on them, as I mentioned they stuck around despite me doing NOTHING to win them over. They are amazing, and reading their feedback is what keeps me putting in the massive amount of hours that are needed to produce a daily. And do I tell them how awesome they are? No, I whine about how I'm not satisfied.

I look at the numbers by Precocious for ranking sites and I cringe. I produce a new comic every week as a vote incentive, yet a really small fraction of my readers bother to vote. IT'S A NEW COMIC! I can't do any more to get them to care! Problem is, they don't even care enough to READ MY NEWS POSTS about it, so they don't know! I'll keep trying to get their attention, but you can understand how that frustrates me. I put a lot of work into Copper Road, dammit! On the ad side, my revenue has been dropping recently. I am making no profit at all, which bugs me to no end. The numbers say highly visible ads on a site with as much traffic as mine should be making far more than they do. I look at sites with half the readers and they're making twice as much per day, if not more. My ego is not pleased to see stuff like that! I'm worthy of more people caring, dammit!

Anyway, forgive this little outburst. A lot of crazy when in to messing up my day, and I'm taking it out on the few people who do read this blog. I'll try to bring the awesome back tomorrow. Actually, scratch that. Tomorrow I'll be in full panic mode to get Sunday's comic done. I'll just have to be awesome in the strip, and hope that balance out my utter lack of entertainment over here!

Fear and Loathing in the Basement

I couldn't figure out what to share today, so I stared at this blog in despair. Then I started sketching my face. Do I do the ego and cartoonify the Chrispy? (That's right, THE Chrispy!) I don't exactly sit around doodling myself that often, so my Chrispy drawing is primative and raw.

Anyway, this is not a story about doodle Chrispy, this is a story about a near disaster that would have wrecked my life and destroyed my faith in the universe. My DVD player went on the fritz!

This might not seem like a disaster to you, but I only work in two ways: With sports in the background, and while playing DVDs. I need stuff in my TV to distract the stupid part of my brain so the productive part can get things done! Without it, I am lost. Music puts me into a trance, where I sit for hours doing one thing. Stuff on the TV has a finite lifespan, and the constant shifting keeps me moving along. DVDs with me: Serious business. My DVD player is the only one that can satisfy me: A 5-disc darling that was built to sync with my Sony Bravia HDTV! It was perfect for me. During a productive streak, I can burn through TV on DVD discs like no one's business, and it's much more preferrable to do it with a few clicks of a remote than constant disc shuffling.

Last night, put in Tropic Thunder and got out what I needed to ink some comics. BAD HAPPENED. It would skip a bit, the audio would cut out and at one point it was just static. Um. Next disc? Same thing. I pulled out the discs, turned off the player, let it sit, then tried again. NOTHING. All it would do would shudder and blink helplessly. No inking was done that night. Panic and despair took over instead. I had to watch Tropic Thunder on my computer, and all joy was drained from it.

The player was under warranty, but it would still cost me $33 plus time and effort to get it replaced with a refurbished model. Y'know, a machine that already sucked once enough to fail. I was not pleased.

Today I was resigned to suck it up and try to hook in the Bose speaker/dvd system I "borrowed" from my family. This meant lots of switching out cords, and my brain has no desire to do technical stuff like that. So I gave the player another shot. Nothing but that blinking light. The HDMI light. Hmm. I have a spare HDMI cable lying around, maybe I'll try swapping that...

And the light stayed on! I watched a movie! It was the blasted CABLE! A $4 solution is far greater than a $120 solution.

Anyway, this isn't remotely interesting, but I SHARED, DAMMIT!

The Model City

So I figured out how to get my blog to post on Facebook. (I think.) Feast on the annoyance, people! Also, feast upon the painting I have completed: The Model City.

Since I know you are lazy, I'm going to bring all the pictures together and show you the evolution of a painting:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4:

Final (click image for larger version):

I'm quite pleased with the outcome, as it only took two days of working to get it done. (Day being defined as the time from when I wake up to when I pass out. Screw you, midnight! You mean NOTHING to me!) My biggest regret is that my aunt bought a crappy camera that is hardly worth stealing. I've going to use it in DC from now on, as my aunt won't miss her camera while my mother is likely getting angrier by the day over her missing awesome camera. In the end, I can see in person how awesome I am. You get cruddy pictures and have to take it on faith. I have to assume you all understand that I don't actually paint jpeg artifacts into my paintings, although that would be a nice subversive art project...

It's GO TIME

The goal today is FINISH THE PAINTING! Should I be able to complete a giant painting in only two days' or work (I didn't touch if after the first post until 90 minutes ago) would be awesome. I work so slow and meticulous with every other medium, but painting is GO TIME!

This last step was to tighten up and fill in the periwinkle color, so the image is going to be a bit intense in that regard. (Also, I've stolen another digital camera, which does change how it's photographed.) Next step is to bring back the browns. Then it's black and white line time. Then the background color. Then denial about any changes that need to be made. Then it will be time in which I dance around and IN YOUR FACE everyone who doubted me. Fool! I shall destroy you all! Look on my paintings, ye mighty, and DESPAIR!

So, yeah, I can finish the painting or take a nap. Either one's good, really.

It's GO NIGHT NIGHT TIME! *thud*

Edit: Only the background remains! This will be done tonight.

Also, this new camera is crappy, but it *did* give me a poor photo with slightly more accurate colors.

He who has the coolest stuff wins

This is a selfish post in which I dance around and brag. Read on at your own risk.



My DeviantArt Precocious mug came in! The quality is highly excellent, so I suggest going out and buying Precocious stuff for yourself, you friends and you family. (My flower paintings are also in there, if you want prints of those.) I make, like, two cents profit each time. Woah, my visit back to DeviantArt also revealed that I had some watchers! Wow! Now... now I have performance anxiety.

Also up for bragging: Check out the nifty 3D print paperweight my brother made me for Chrispmas! As I have no desk space, it sits on display with all my other treasures. Unfortunately, those luscious bottle, just like me, are mostly-to-completely empty inside. I just can't bear to throw them out, since it would reveal my liquor collection was down to rarely-usable stuff and bum wine bottles added as a joke. I miss my croranges. (Grand Marnier + cranberry juice.) *sigh*


Also up for bragging is my brand new GOD OF ALL MONITORS! With the transition to my laptop, which is twice as fast and ten times as reliable as my old desktop, my computer situation has significantly improved. I am now able to have GIANT photoshop files open for DAYS at a time - and do tons of other photoshop projects on top of that. Woo!

You can also get a sexy look into my workspace. The light table in the background has turned into a movable drawing table, so I'm there a lot. That and the new monitor are both birthday gifts to myself, and both are so far huge successes. Do I know me or what? That would be The Pre-History of the Far Side which is functioning as a mouse pad. (Gee, guess why I had *that* out.) My addiction to caffeine-free diet Pepsi is on certainly on display, making the "COKE!" graffiti in the first pic even more absurd. (You had to be there.) On the walls we have posters and clippings for my music loves, including REM, The B-52's, Natalie Merchant, Bjork, Tori Amos and... Kurt Vonnegut? So it goes. The painting is a self-portrait my father made when he was in high school. I'm not actually sentimental at all - rather, I hung it there to get it out of the way while I waited for idiot bro to take it. Anyway, my art would be hanging above the scanner.

Alright, I'm rambled so much even I'm bored with myself, and talking about myself is my favorite thing, so you must be in excruciating agony. Good, you should feel bad because MY STUFF IS COOLER THAN YOURS! (Note: that is not a challenge. Please don't burst my bubble.)

The past is a grotesque animal

I went looking through old sketchbooks tonight. From a brief review, this appears to be the second group drawing I ever did. I didn't date my sketchbooks at this stage, but from the class notes it appears to be from early 2007. What you see was by far the best stuff in that book. It's shocking to think this was less than two years ago. I've come a looooooong way.

Looking through that book was fascinating. This sketchbook is where the characters really started to form. I had them in my head by then, but this is when their looks became standardized. Max aside, what you see here are the characters as they exist today.... just drawn in a very, very primitive way. Even though I had almost no control over the form, I was getting competent enough to start planning the strip. Here is where rough sketches of some of the parents began to appear, as well early layouts of the Sapphire Lake neighborhood and Bud's clubhouse. I was so ambitious!

The reason I dove into my old sketchbook pile is because I wanted to find a good visual of how damn raw I was at that point. I had a rambling ready to go, and I figured a visual was needed.

Tonight I went back and read all the Precocious archives. You know what... It's not that bad. Strips I was *so* embarrassed of just two days ago don't look as weak with a bit of objective detachment. Even the drawing style has turned from "inept and incompetent" to "adorably rough." For now, at least. I may change my mind tomorrow.

There are loads of mistakes, of course. Two strips accidentally omit periods in dialog, with Jacob the victim each time. Tiffany remains the character most likely to cause a mistake, as two strips result in her body parts disappearing after they pass behind something in the foreground. Lots of strips fall short layout-wise, but I've already covered that. (I'm still upset at myself for choking on strip 24.) There's also a lot of places where I know I made mistakes, but chose to keep going rather than lose my mind over details I wasn't skilled enough to handle anyway. Stray lines, poor lettering, bad proportions, ineffective gestures... whatever. Rookie mistakes. Forgiveness is divine?

But do all those mistakes add up to a reader (or worse, a syndicate) losing faith in my potential? Ever since I put it online, I was certain my early work would doom me. Tonight... maybe not?

My first art was well-crafted, even if it was clunky at points. I introduced all main characters (as well as the parents most likely to appear) and gave them face time in proportion to their importance. I touch on some themes I want to handle in the strip - which is where I am at my worst, unfortunately - and I certainly do my best to make the tone of the strip apparent.

The first strip does its job. The clubhouse is featured, giving the setting. Bud speaks while Tiffany sits in the background, indicating Bud is the more central character. Autumn's story about sneaking out shows she is both new *and* a strong characters. Bud telling her she fit in, as she threatens violence over beverage selection, tells the reader what to expect with tone and humor. Not bad. It also nicely contrasts with Jacob's introduction in the next strip.

On the character front, I really like how I handled things. The goal was to simplify the kids a bit in order to make their personalities easier to identify for a new reader. Autumn is overly aggressive. Jacob is the sweet pushover who is constantly injured or manipulated. Tiffany is aggressively spacey, to the point of narcolepsy. All of that, for the most part, works.

Then there's Bud. He's the hardest to nail down, as his role is to be the central character. Bud is best defined in how he interacts with each character. With Autumn, he asserts himself as a central character with a leadership role. Bud contrasts with Autumn in that he takes a more playful approach than she does. With Jacob, he becomes the clear leader to Jacob's naive henchman. Here we see Bud at his manipulative best, down to the callous dismissal when Jacob indicates they are "best" friends. With Tiffany, he is able to interact with her casually without her drifting away. Their interaction is limited in this storyline, but it will be made cleared when the parents arc appears. With Dionne, Bud meets his foil. As long as Dionne is around to make Bud look foolish, the reader is shown that Bud is just a good kid who can talk a big game. In the end, I am not sure how much of that really comes across, but I am hopeful his personality is defined enough. The parents arc is when a lot of Bud's idiosyncrasies appear, so I am not too worried if he's not fully defined yet. It's coming.

What does make Bud shine is not in how others define him, but how he defines the others. When Bud says something, the reader is meant to take it as fact. While Autumn gets lots of face time because the story is based around he being the new girl, Bud is clearly the central figure. Bud is the one who tells us Autumn's hater attitude fits right in. He's the one who implies that Jacob's whole family is wholesome and innocent. He redefines Autumn's narrow villain definition, and later explains to Jacob the difference between a regular villain and a SUPERvillain. He initiates the gender war and explains why Autumn is so aggressive, indicating acceptance and forgiveness for a character that might seem too mean otherwise. He repeats how there is no one to recruit, hinting at the group being so insular that they ignore non-genius kids. He lets the reader know that Max being a normal, nice kid is extremely atypical for the Poppinstock bunch. He is the one who sets the rules for the war. He is the one who explains why the kids seem to enjoy arguing semantics and setting rules rather than just hitting each other with water balloons as normal people would. If there's any doubt as to who is the strip's central character, Bud defeats Autumn in the end. The arc begins with Bud in the clubhouse, and it goes out with all other characters leaving (or being banished from) HIS clubhouse.

I do enjoy the early arcs because I get to show Autumn adjusting to a setting where she is no longer the clearly dominant figure, but rather an equal who fits in perfectly. Unfortunately for her, this means she eats a lot of humble pie. Autumn tries to recruit normal kids, only to be thwarted by them being horribly normal. The more strategy Autumn plans, the quicker it is undone by teammates who clearly have no interest in being loyal followers. In the end, the established kids defeat her and Autumn settles in as one of the group. I do worry Autumn isn't likable enough, but I tried to show over and over that this behavior is just what the kids do. Autumn just has to take her licks in the first few arcs as she learns the game.

While the two main characters are dominant from beginning to end, the rest are all given their time in the sun and then shuffled out of the way for the final confrontation. This is what I love most about the arc.

Max, being useless in a war story, only gets three strip appearances. We learn he's the biggest and strongest, but his gentle and caring nature could never work with a evil story like this! We know he's there. His personality is clearly defined. He is tossed aside, having done his part.

Suzette enters as the incendiary figure that spurs the rising action. She's a fun character because she's always contentious, but she's not as complex as the rest. Suzette is self-righteous, often in a hypocritical manner. Suzette is aggressive. Suzette is always marginalized, which just fuels her fire. She burns hot, but she burns fast. Once her flame is doused, she's gone from the story.

Dionne is vital to the arc, as she is the face of TRUE evil. Without Dionne reducing both Autumn and Bud to a weakly pointing at her as she dismisses them with a "tah," the war could look far more mean-spirited than it is. As Dionne has no soul, that means everyone else does. The kids are just having fun, and they are not prepared for when the real gamer appears. Dionne is mean to be Bud's foil, which may seem odd considering she aids him in the end. Just remember: Dionne had Bud dead to rights after joining the girls squad. After that, she turned her focus to thwarting everyone else! Dionne is a dangerous character because she takes over whenever she appears, but I felt she was vital for the first arc. Any extra bit to show my strip is not pure evil and unlikable is a good thing.

While Jacob and Tiffany are clearly main characters, the first arc made it clear their roles are secondary. Most of the time, they served as sidekicks to Bud and Autumn, but they did get their time to shine. I loved the part where Jacob went off on his own, because I could show how carried away gets in these situations. Jacob's attempt to be a badass is easily disarmed by Tiffany wanted to play her own game. Tiffany always sat back to toss in some spacey line to silly up a conversation or knock a character off-balance, but she shows her competence when facing off against Jacob. In the end, the sidekicks take each other out so the story can return to where it began: Bud verses Autumn.

If you're still reading at this point, good job! I'm almost done!

In the end, no one can say the first arc of Precocious wasn't conceptually brilliant. I knew what I wanted and I did a darn good job of putting that plan in motion. The execution might not have been great at times, but the idea was solid. I'm proud of what I've done and, I had to brag about it. Isn't a long, happy and enthusiastic post WAY better than me beating myself up over and over?

I just had to do this...

I have 32 strips to finish and upload. 32 strips that are progressing nicely. I have free time here, but not enough to start inking again. What to do....

It's shameless showboating, but I just *had* to lay them out in a big block! I had to use the webcam to take the shot, but it was so worth it. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair! Click on the image below to see a large, and therefore more in charge, version.

It's Chrispmastime again!

Oh, the pun is pain! I was tempted to save this sketch for the sketchbook postmortem post (probably coming tomorrow) but I needed to kill some time. See, it's hard to watch an insanely complex show with a bajillion characters while a drill constantly runs above your head. I have to wait until they're gone. Also, this gives me a chance to preach about personal theology, so yay!

Technically, this announcement is a week late. Chrispmas runs from December 8th to March 24th. (Or, my mother's birthday to my birthday.) Epic holiday, eh? The idea is to reduce stress by giving folks a large window for gift delivery. Sure you can stress over a gift and do a cheap buy to have something before the 25th, OR you could wait for inspiration to strike and give a great gift when the opportunity presents itself. Similarly, if you're stocking up for a gift-giving blitzkrieg on the 25th, mellow out! Why not give a gift when you have it? In my world, holding onto a gift because it's not close enough to Christmas is a *great* way to ensure the future giftee will acquire the same item for themselves. Whoopsy doopsy!

I like gifts to have a personal flair to them. You find something that is tied to an old in-joke or fills a need you know your friend/relative has. Those gifts are as fun to give as they are to receive! (I still love my Darkwing Duck shirt, Dana!) Problem with that, of course, is that you need a level of familiarity to figure out what the perfect gift shall be. The friends I gift to have been busy and largely unavailable - and my epic stays in DC just makes it worse. It's awful, but I have no idea what to give people for Chrispmas. I just haven't had the face time these past few months that is needed to gague gift need. Thankfully, religion comes to the rescue! Chrispianity: The laziest of all major religions. (Why, most followers have no clue they're Chrispians at all!)

For the record, I make no promises for epic gifting. Little things can bring the most joy! Picking up the tab for a nice meal brings with it good fun and great conversation. (Cooking a fun meal for/with friends can also work.) Grabbing that video game someone talks about wanting by never seems to go buy is kind act of enabling courtesy. Sure, the *best* gifts are ones that fill a need the giftee didn't know they had, but those winners can't come every year like clockwork. For me, I'd much prefer the generic Amazon.com gift card to a forced gift. I hate leaving my house so buying goods online is fun times. Most Chrispians should be of like mind.

Cash is still not an option, however. While the "get it yourself" apathy is nice and Chrispian, the giving part comes in procurement. Even gift cards means the gifter chose a suitable store for the giftee. Cash only works as a gift when it's a gift from a family member to one of a younger generation or when it's a company's holiday bonus.

The noise seems to have died down (for now) so I'm going to stop proselytizing and get back to The Wire.

Trapped in Limbo

With the change of schedule, my convenient return home for a dentist appointment became not so much convenient. With the crappy weather and a worried mother, I am not in Winchester for tonight only. With my aunt scheduling several appointments in Delaware *next* because she wasn't aware my schedule had changed to allow her to go up there *this* week, I'll likely be in DC until... hell if I know.

Just to add to the cheer, I got home to find my mother's laptop all wonky and in need of fixing. After punching in a few times, it rebooted a few times and that seemed to do it. Yay! Then I moved to my computer to burn some CDs for my aunt, thinking I was heading home tonight. My computer decided to crash instead. Instead of restarting, Microsoft thought that would be the perfect time for an update! (Or, more likely, this is why computer crashed in the first place.) It has been flashing, "Installing update 1 of 1, do not reset or pull the plug!" for about four hours now. I'm sure rebooting mid-update can only have good outcomes. Hey, at least I got the other computer working!

So now I am in Winchester, while my working computer and art supplies are in DC. What the heck do I do to justify a blog post?

I FUCK WITH A WEBCAM OF COURSE!

First I capped the sketches I did here, but I can't do any Photoshopping as that program is being held hostage by Microsoft. With the ART out of the way, the only thing I could do was make funny face. It just had to be done.


Ok, I may be pale as a ghost - yet my scary factor leaves much to be desired.

JAZZHANDS!


Check out the BREEZY look! There should be a beach scene behind me.

Uh... I just wanted to see what capping did if I wiggled my fingers.



Just what am I doing to this cat?

Hey, it was either stupid pictures of me or ANOTHER LONG ESSAY! What would you have preferred?

Artistic Victory!

Tonight, my lovely grandmother and I were chatting and joking around as we sorted through the many thousands of pill bottles years of living has thrust upon the family. She excused herself to go give my grandfather his pills, but returned because he was sleeping peacefully. I, meanwhile, had gathered up my laptop (which was upstairs because we had entertained my grandfather with a live steam featuring puppies) and was about to head downstairs for the evening. Since she was back, I put down the laptop and sat down across from her on the couch to chat some more.

And my heart swelled with pride.

My grandmother had leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs and curled her one arm up to her shoulder. Directly behind her on the wall was my monoprint, "The Furnace," which was done with her as the inspiration. Her pose perfectly mirrored the composition, with the jacket behind her further adding to the impact with it's bold red. It was absolutely stunning to see everything I had put into the piece sitting live and vibrant in front of me. "The Furnace" is about a strong matriarch whose brilliant soul carries her amazing nature through generations. Anyone who knows my grandmother knows that she has a power in here that is magnetic and inspiring.

I had to get a photo - but I had no camera. Oh. WAIT! Webcam to the rescue! Did you know I can set a different resolution for my webcam? Suddenly I could take a decent photo with it! While the uneven lighting (and my inability to hold the laptop in the proper position without collapsing) wouldn't allow me to show her mirroring the pose, I still wanted to capture her with the art she inspired in the background.

Seeing what I saw tonight reaffirmed why I am an artist. Everything I wanted to say with the artwork successfully came forth. This piece was always a gem, though. When I first put it on display, my grandmother was immediately drawn to it. She knew she had to have it and commented to my aunt that she didn't exactly know why. My aunt, the artist, immediately saw the connection. I had not told them the piece was about my grandmother, but they knew it was meant for them!

I've succeeded. I'm a real artist!

The View From the Ivory Tower

This post was supposed to show up yesterday. (In fact, I can leave it with its original time stamp for the 29th if I so desire... which I ended up doing because I forgot to fix the time stamp before hitting the post button. Whoops.) Problem is, I'm stealing the internet! He who lives by pirated wi-fi, dies by pirated wi-fi. No connection meant no posting.

The other delay came from my grandmother and aunt playing against type and shopping lightning fast. These two are grand masters of social shopping. "Talking to the wonderful people in line is half the fun!" said my grandmother. (I'm paraphrasing, of course, but trying to be as accurate as memory will allow.) Thinking they would be gone for hours, I sat down to write an essay and have a long chat with my aunt's partner, a kindred spirit in the anti-shopping mindset. Thinking I had hours to meander around before getting to my point, I launched into a back story for context. Didn't even finish with that before the shoppers were back. How rude! Anyway, by the time I got back to the laptop, wi-fi was dead.

And now... LOTS OF WORDS AND NO PICTURES!

One criticism I am sure to face when I unleash Precocious on the populace will be the justified accusation that it's all just too negative. Another will be that the strip is unbearably elitist. This would be when I giggle.

An artist can't help but project themselves into their work, and Precocious is very much the dark and twisted workings of my head on display. I like my humor like I like my coffee - intensely dark, then corrected with cream and sugar!

My characters are mean, violent, snotty, inconsiderate and foolish. The nice and redeemable characters either have their good natures abused or are treated like an outright enemy! What is wrong with me? People, please! Conflict is funny.

Precocious was created when I was around 11, and the underlying theme remains the same: It's all about classism. Not only do we have clear divides among economic brackets in the elitist-sounding Gemstone Estates, but we have intellectual elitism on display with the children attending the incredibly elitist-sounding Poppinstock Academy. Who are the worst enablers of this? My main characters! They outright ignore those not like them, down to pretending the other side of their classroom doesn't exist!

That would be the intensely dark coffee mentioned before. The cream comes in the form of the treatment. I'm making fun of myself via proxy with this strip. As much as I like to let my pride prop me up, doing so means I miss so much in life. If you take me out to a bar, I'd likely embarrass myself because I've always dismissed bars as being a home for the base elements. No, in reality the bar is just another social gathering place for all types! I think Dana's amazing story of love and happiness can prove I'm a damned fool.

The reason my kids come off as negative is because their attitudes are foolish. Autumn keeps getting her comeuppance for her competitive streak. Bud is decidedly warped because of his tendency to isolate himself. Jacob's desire to be a part of some grand design often ends with him spending energy on pointless endeavors. Tiffany's space cadet nature can also be seen as a consequence of pure self-indulgence. If I had made my children sweeter, that would imply their intellectual isolation was a *good* thing. These kids satirize the faults intellectuals can have. Intelligence is a wonderful thing. Knowledge as a weapon (the tagline of my strip) cuts both ways.

The character of Max is vital to Precocious. He's a saint and, aside from some blind optimism that strays from realism, he has no personality flaws. My official character biography calls him "history's greatest villain." Max is the control character that needs to pop in every so often to confirm that it's *my* kids are whacked. Later on, the other side of the classroom will also contribute. Kaitlyn Hu is fully sane and perceptive; she's the good Bud. Vincent Iddenstein and Yvette Nutely have their quirks, but they're also good at heart - it's Tiffany and Jacob with creamy souls! Quincy Wozwax is overly competitive, like Autumn, but even he's remarkably social with his nerdy world.

Now for the sugar in this equation. While my characters are often seen as irredeemably evil, there's no way a strip like that can persist without suffocating under its own darkness. The main kids *are* redeemable and they do have souls. Their elitism is the tragic flaw that causes their downfall time and time again; not something that will doom them to a lifetime of evil. They talk big and talk bad, but it's more dark humor than pure evil. They are "haters" that bandy about insults and harsh words freely - but it's not so bad because they all understand the rules of the hater's game. As I've always put it, they hug by hitting! They're normal, but this version of normal is skewed into the darkness.

A Calvin and Hobbes strip once had Calvin remarking how a little bit of antagonism could make any boring conversation into something exciting. The final panel had Calvin beaten into the ground, claiming his point was proven. That's what I'm going for!

For this pilot episode, I've done my best to throw in subtle clues to this. Bud remarks that their conflict is the "current" war, implying they do this all the time. The kids spend more time arguing semantics (and writing official documents) than actually fighting, because the challenge in building a grand scheme is more important than the negative fighting. When it's all over, they walk off content, wondering what they should do for fun the next day. In the end, they just wanted a water balloon fight - but they had to set it up in their way. Just like me, they can't tackle a normal task without doing something foolish to turn it into an epic event.

Even so, the redeemable aspects of my main kids might be *too* subtle. This is where Dionne, Suzette and Roddy enter the fray. If I have Max and Kaitlyn on one end, showing the contrast between my kids and well-adjusted people, I need to have some negatives on the other end to prove my children have sweetness and innocence in them as well.

Dionne is wonderful for that. She is fully aware than my kids talk a good game, but could never fully devote themselves to the path of evil, and she is delightfully malicious in exposing it! Dionne plays the evil game better than anyone, and she'll always win.

Suzette is the big red "Do Not Touch" button personified, always a risk to fly off the handle. She may have *small* point in claiming she's a victim of circumstance, but when she gets worked up her fire burns bright and hot. Again, while my kids scream at each other all the time, none can match the fury of Suzette.

Roddy's role as the outsider helps put my kids' quirks into perspective. He is usually right in pointing out how their attitudes and behavior are unhealthy and unkind, but his bitterness over the whole thing constantly makes him look worse. Roddy doesn't understand the "hater" mindset is another way to have fun, so he's eternally frustrated. Roddy is also my concession that this strip is far from normal. His frustration is fully justified, but he'll never be able to win until he understands of the insular bubble created by the Sapphire Lake kids.

I like my coffee as the intense dark roast, with double cream and one sugar. Get it?

You can't handle the hotness!

If the video was not clear: I am wondering if the video I am trying to post is working. Is it working? IS IT WORK-

GODDAMMIT, webcam! Or unreliable hijacked internet connection. Or blogger. Or me. Whatever. Fail all around.

Anyway, I remembered I have a webcam on my laptop. What's more obnoxious than a blog? A VLOG! Total douche: Blogging with vlogs! (Or, I can try to take grainy still shots...)

Oh, I am *so* going to do a self-important video about my sketchbook in badly out of sync audio now. It's why my friends invite me to parties with their other friends. MY PERSONALITY IS ADORABLE!

One bonus: My voice doesn't sound nearly as annoying on video as it does in my head.

Two bonus: Here's an ultra-sexy and not-at-all-psychotic still taken from the webcam:

Where the magic happens

I'm going to try and keep this daily posting trend going as long as I can! (I give this one more day before I fail.) The consequences of the trend: GLORIOUS FILLER!

I don't want to share the actual strips as they are completed, since they'll (hopefully) all be online in a few weeks, so when I'm being productive it means I have no stupid sketches to share.

Therefore, being the attention whore I am, I took photos of my work areas. Think of it this way: When I am rich and famous and awesome, you can all come back and look at the pathetic origins of Precocious. See, people one day might care! I'm sure of it! It's blogger solipsism plus artist arrogance! MY EGO IS OUT OF CONTROL!

Seriously, I spent a half hour earlier today Googling myself. I'm link #5 when searching for "Chris Paulsen" and #1 with "Christopher Paulsen." Woohoo! I'm also pleased that an image search for "Bud Oven" hits this blog as result #1. I'M #1! I'M #1! ROCK ROCK ROCK!

Anyway, on to the magical mystery tour...



My drafting table is located at the foot of my bed. If I was a hard worker, I could say I wake up, slide over and start working. In reality, I sit down to work, grow frustrated, slide over and cry myself to sleep. It's awesome in reverse!

While it normally isn't covered in comics laid out in an attention-whoring manner, the thing is always cluttered. The right side is the "staging area" - with templates, drawing supplies, my trusty ruler, a cutting mat and various knives. (This is an upgrade, as I used to keep my knife on the floor by my feet. No, really.)

I use a mechanical pencil for my drawing. It's whatever brand was offered at Costco. It's not top quality, but I'm used to its feel at this point. If you look at the comics, you can see some were done with red pencil lead and some with a blue. This is my damned if you do, damned if you don't situation...

The red lead is easy to find and I have a setting on my scanner allowing me to filter it out. This makes scanning a breeze! Problem is... the templates are no-copy BLUE, so I'd have to draw out my own templates. Also, the red doesn't erase, which is a BIG problem for someone still in the early stages of comic drawing. I don't even know how to draw my characters WALKING yet. If this last strip - with three characters walking in a line - was done in red, it would likely be an unsalvageable mess.

The blue lead is imported from Japan, since America has no use for STANDARD NO-COPY BLUE in mechanical pencils. I have several traditional no-copy pencils, but the constant sharpening drives me crazy. The problems with the blue is the cost and, uh, my scanner's complete failure to filter out THE UNIVERSAL NO-COPY COLOR! Still, a simple "select color range" in Photoshop easily bypasses that issue; and, most importantly, I can *erase* the blue! Despite all the hoops I must jump through to use it, erasing is enough to keep me a solid blue user now that I have it. I'm sure this story was very interesting to you.

If you look closely, you can see my attempt at drawing the comic in a block format in the pile. This format is the only way to fit the entire strip on my scanner at once. Drawbacks here mostly revolve around tracing errors. For that strip, I made the bottom panels too tall *and* managed to trace the template about one degree crooked. What that means is I spend the same amount of time correcting my shortcut as I would scanning the properly-sized templates twice. Yeehaw.

I also tried to fit two of the block templates on a sheet of Bristol board, only to learn I'm about a half-inch shy of the margins I need. The leftover from the sheet I used became a scratch pad for a few illustrations shared on this blog. If you examine the photo, you can see how my "For Sparky" illustration was made in parts and pieced together in Photoshop later. Only an artist would think this is cool enough to share. For everyone else: Doesn't it suck to learn that the magic is all man-behind-the-curtain lameness?



The light table - a brilliant birthday splurge for myself a while back - is where the lettering takes place. Using lines on the templates I bought as a guide, and splashing in some good ol' math, I came to the conclusion that my comic should have room for 14 lines of dialog space. I checked it out by analyzing an Ozy and Millie book and found... 14 lines of dialog space! Win!

With my standard set, I printed out a sheet with guide lines. Come lettering time, I throw the sheet under the comic, turn on the light table and it keeps my pen from straying. With the printed script at my side, I first do my lettering in pencil to see if it will fit. If it doesn't, I'll try to re-write the dialog or cut some lines on the spot. I do my letting with a .08 technical pen. Never one with any handwriting talent, this is still my weakest area. I can only assume I will gain skill through repetition.

For inking, I use a pen I found in a box of my father's art supplies from the 60's. As I am not an expert, my nib of choice is Hunt Globe 513 EF - which is a very adaptable nib, allowing for good control on thick and thin lines. I had used my dad's for years before I stabbed myself with it and broke it. (It was an accident, I swear!) It took months and several rejects before I found my model again. The company that produced the nibs had long since ceased to exist... as it had been gobbled up by pen giant Speedball. Turns out I can find my nibs hanging on a rack in friggin' Michaels now. It's convenient, but it just doesn't feel as special as it once did.

So there's my low-rent operation as it stands. One day I will have a real studio, with proper lighting. One day I will have a professional scanner, which can filter out the no-copy blue. One day I will have an assistant, whose job will be to create block templates correctly and scan my work so I can focus on being purely creative. (I hope.) One day I will be able to switch between nibs with ease - maybe even switching to using a brush like the pros - allowing me more depth in drawing. One day I'll be over my newbie jitters, with muscle memory and enough skill to produce better quality strips in a fraction of the time. One day, Precocious might actually be a real friggin' strip and not just a silly gleam in my eye.

Man, I hope that day gets here soon.

A justification for navel-gazing essays

A forum like this, read by *maybe* four people - most of them forced by my needling or through guilt of ignoring me - is still a nice thing to have.

I think about the ezboard universe (now Yuku), where the bigger board personalities would create their own forum and posters would bounce between each newly-created in-group. What started as the internet cesspool that was/is Survivor Sucks - a collection of unwashed, unapproved and barely-moderated reality TV fans, either too stupid or too late to get into the exclusive Plant Sucks board membership - eventually exploded because the use of ezboard was so easy and the board was so open. Unlike the quality controlled land of Planet Sucks (my origin, and inspiration for the Realiiity.com message board I ran), everyone on ezboard knew the forum was for spillover - so they treated it as such. I've seen accounts describe the insanity and inanity as that of the old Wild West.

As with any community, personalities began to emerge as the major posters became familiar with each other. Around the, Sucks became *the* place to go for irreverent reality riffs - at least for those not early/awesome enough to get into the quality places. Once it grew big enough to have its share of board wars and cliques, something very strange happened: It began to splinter. Each board personality would go off and create their own ezboard, populated by the poster's friends, admirers, well-wishes and the occasional assailant. Sucks was *too* big and it required far more patience that I'd ever have to sort through it and get to the good stuff. By creating a splinterboard, you could invite the posters you liked and ban anyone you wished. Over and over this happened, until it was sort of a rite of passage. You get big on a board, you fork over $30 to get the "Gold" features needed and you get your own board for six months! Dozens of these boards existed, with their own rules, language and logic.

I was happy running my own kingdom at Realiiity, and had no desire to dumpster dive into the Sucks land - but not all of my friends felt the same. Eventually I was dragged into the mix to take part in what could be called the Survivor off-season Olympics: Spoofs! It was mostly a contest to out-funny and out-in-joke the other teams, making filtered and hand-picked talent from my group highly valued.

During this time Riii was having server issues, so I bit the bullet and created my own ezboard, flatly titled "Riii's Down Again." When the next Survivor off season arrived - a time when the show was off the air and boards had nothing to do except implode - I imported a crew to the "trash board" and claimed it was a splinterboard to get into Spoofs. We naturally crushed the competition, getting second only because we took two challenges off thanks to some board drama. (It's inevitable online - someone is always good enough to get through even the best bullshit filters, and all it takes is one of these crazies to bring a board down.) More importantly, we established a new board identity: Woeful House. As a frequent Waffle House patron in those days, I had used the diner to create a jokey team identity.

At the end of this spoofs, Woeful was getting visitors from the splinterverse and we were enjoying a fair amount of respect for our wit. To explain how a board of people who had never once posted on Sucks could be part of the splinterverse, I made my infamous remark: "If you have a huge ego, a mental condition and $30, you probably run a splinterboard."

Nowadays, we nutcakes blog. This circumvents the need to actually have followers or enough friends to sustain conversation. It's you and your ego, allowed to run wild! On message boards, you were only interesting if people replied to you. With blogs, you can be the entire fucking universe!

It's why I resisted blogging for so long. No one really cares about the emotions and stuff of other people unless there is a personal connection or the content is especially well-written. I wasn't going to blog just blog about myself. It's sickening! There had to be a reason for me to be interesting, which began to emerge as I fixed my head and got back into art. Still, it wasn't until I was tasked with learning how to stylize one of these blogs that I started this thing. It gave me a place to practice and a location where future fans could find me. While I'm of no interest to anyone at the moment, should I ever win over people with my art or cartooning, I thought it would be cool for them to see me as I was just starting out.

I was blogging, intentionally, to no one. With Precocious, I want my 60-strip archive done before I began with my daily publishing because new readers need to see enough to justify a return visit. If I go advertising myself around, and interested parties come to see only three strips on the site, what is there to tell them the strip will continue? The internet is littered with webcomics that didn't even last a month. I have to show the audience I am serious and professional. I want to confirm to everyone that I am the new badass on the scene! The same principle is at work on this blog. You don't advertise something without a product being it! (If you have a soul, that is.) By creating blog archives, I'm proving my determination to achieve eventual awesomeness. I blog for the future.

It's not always pretty. For every artistic update with insightful commentary, there is another post full of navel gazing, emotions and desperate attempts to be interesting. It's weak, but it's something. I'm a temperamental artist who tends to work in inspired bursts. That's great, but they are unpredictable. If weeks or months go by before I do a big update on my website, then people will only check it every few months - if they even remember I exist! The blog is proof I am trying, whether I am active or not. Sketches prove I am doing lots of conceptual work on my projects, even if the final result gets postponed. Even if the post is the most self-indulgent garbage out there, it's something to read and an indication I'm alive.

To think that some future person would spend and afternoon going through this blog to see all my old sketches is comforting. Before, I would hide or destroy my old stuff, because my skills were not as strong and it was embarrassing. Now I see the value in showing the process. I love reading other artist's commentaries on their work, and I hope people will enjoy reading mine. I'll assume they'll skip the essays that don't have pretty pictures with them, which is generally a good thing. The only thing worse than blog emotion is AGED blog emotion. Lame!