New Copper Road + Story Notes

Quick programming note first, because 90% of you will tune out after/during this paragraph because you are MONSTERS. While working in my scripting files, I had two stories that were proving difficult to trim down so they'd fit into a week-long block. Rather than overwork myself with extra double-sized comics and deleting more scenes than I'd like, I did the math and realized if they were both overgrown *together* I could neatly fit them into three weeks and the scheduling would still be nice and neat. So nobody panic when a new story starts mid-week. I know some of you are delicate flowers, but it'll all be OK. (When combined, the stories totaled 20 days, so I had to add back in a silly extra gag I'd written. If there's one comic during this stretch you don't like as much as the others, assume that one was it.)

And NOW we're onto a spring-ish Copper Road! Vote here to see the latest comic! This is another one of those "It'd be a journal comic if I were any good at drawing a cartoon version of me" entries. Granted, most Copper Roads are rooted in life observation, so nothing new there. I went out to fill the bird feeder, and realized something was missing. So there's my proof of climate change! And Kaitlyn isn't joking. I used the timestamp on a photo I took last year:

Jerky aside: I saw a heat map going around showing that the eastern US is the only landmass on the planet that didn't get scorched in 2014 - and cold makes my health condition worse. I can only conclude all of humanity's ecological crimes were done with specific malice towards me. "Sir, all that smoke in the air from the factory can't be good." "Oh, lad, it isn't. But in 150 years this guy named Chrispy will be around - AND I WANT HIM TO SUFFER!"

Chrispy's kitties

I was asked if I'd do a commission of my cats drawn as Precocious characters - and it kinda threw me at first. My cats can certainly inspire GREAT characters, and I would love writing a comic use such characters - be it them or someone based on them - but I do have an aversion writing real-life associates into comics.  What if the comic is popular and runs for a few years - and what if something happens to one of my kitties. I'm not sure what I could do with the cat-inspired characters then. It'd be weird.

Well, I'm coming around. Maybe not a full-Precocizing, but I think drawing them as actual kitties might work. Anyway, none of those comicking issues matter for a one-shot commission. The thing holding that one up was me wondering if it would be weird or difficult to pull off.  But once that idea got in my head, I could NOT abandon it. I love these thought exercises, and I had to see it through!

So here are my kitties in the Precocious style.  I'll explain them all shortly.  They look different ages here, but the point of this sketchbook page was to find their look, not settle on a drawing concept or design. I can age or de-age them as needed.  I mean, it's not like it's all in sync. Root's the biggest one, but he's the second youngest.  If you're wondering, Cleo is around 10 (may be older, I'm not sure), Penny is 8, Root's about 5 and Little Stuff's coming up to a year and half old. Anyway, on to the kitties and my thoughts on them.

Cleo - She had a rough childhood, spending much of it as a loner, and even though she's had it calm and cushy for a while, she's still very skittish and distrustful.  She's smart, but also cynical.  Even when she wants to cuddle and be sweet, she's not entirely sure how. Get close to her and she's growl and hiss to scare you off - although she's not mean at all, and won't hurt you.  She's vulnerable and sweet when she lets her guard down. (She actually doesn't growl/hiss nearly as much as before - except to Root, but that's with good cause.) For her character, I had to scale back the darkness in her. She's all black, so I have to get creative.  I decided to depict her as the mopey one, wearing baggy clothes and telling most who get near her to leave her alone.

Penny - This *my* cat. I raised her, and I broke her. Penny is like looking in a feline mirror sometimes, as she's intensely neurotic and self-destructive. She has major anxiety issues and freaks out when anything changes, or someone she doesn't trust is around.  When she came out of the box at Animal Allies, everyone in the room gasped at how beautiful she was - but we were warned she LOVED to eat. They did not lie. This cat is all about food, and she's a copper-colored basketball. (Ok, not *that* bad - but that's the joke we use.)  For her design, I made her a neurotic nerdy type. She's merely chubby here, because cats can handle a lot of extra weight before they cease to be totally adorable - and I'd rather preserve her cuteness with huggable curves. I drew her short, but she's the size of a regular cat - maybe even a bit above average - it's just that Cleo and Root are giants.  Penny has tiny paws and a slightly shorter tail proportionately that the rest.  I should note that this one, the most damaged of all cats, is the one everyone in this house fights over. We have shared custody. I get Penny during the week. The tenant's son gets to care for her during the weekend.

Root - He wasn't always the jerkwad he is now. Well, he was always a jerk, but also used to have a loving side. Then my brother decided to start letting Root outside, about three years ago, and somehow the cat transformed. He started spraying after that, despite being neutered very early on, and he's become far meaner. He annoys Cleo (who could probably kick his butt if she wanted) and picks on helpless Penny. He rarely cuddles now, choosing instead to raise hell (or spray) until let outside again. Root kinda sucks, and he's affirmed my stance on not adopting male cats if given the choice. (Root was a rescue from an about-to-be-torn-down cat colony. We saved him because he was stupid and fell asleep in the open, even though he knew I was there as I'd already tried to grab him twice.) For his look, I decided to go the bully jock route. I'm not sure I'm sold on the jersey colors, but that's easy enough to switch around. He has big boy cat paws and that squinty lion stare to him at times.

Little Stuff - Whenever we adopt a kitten, mom calls it "Little Stuff." This time, the name stuck around. Fortunately, she has remained smaller than the rest. Again, this means's she's regular size - but Cleo and Root skew perspective. She's the baby of the house - another rescue, by the way - and a total kitten. Her favorite thing is to do acrobatics on her cat tower. She runs around the house for no reason, wants to play with everyone and is intensely curious. She's also brings out the only redeeming quality in Root, as he'll play with her, while Cleo and Penny want no part of it. She's a sweetheart too, and a total delight to have around.  So, yay, we have an undamaged cat. FINALLY! Mom, thank you for fighting off that other lady on the side of the road who wanted Little Stuff instead.  (My mother keeps a can of wet cat food in he car JUST IN CASE this stuff happens.) Little Stuff was easy to design. She is a young child - must be younger than the rest - and I gave her a cute and innocent look. (She gives you those big-eyed "What? Me?" looks every time after she causes some destruction.)

Hi, Hi Hu, who are you?

This entry was supposed to announce a new Copper Road, but I haven't thought of an idea that I like and I'm willing to draw yet. (Soon!) So instead I'll talk about this Hiram dude!

Copper Road has evolved to be more a general riff on things that tickle my fancy than something entirely character-driven, like Precocious. This is good, because I can tell jokes I can't get away with in Precocious. This is bad, because it requires me to pay attention to the world and be somewhat active in it so I can get inspired. (Or is that also good, since I really should be doing that stuff anyway?) Point is, the characters have to be a bit less defined and more flexible. We don't really go into the depths of the supporting cast because that's not the point of the comic. But sometimes I want to go there anyway!

In brainstorming for Copper Road, I got to a big thing I've avoided up to this point: What exactly does Hiram do for a living? He must make enough to support his family, as Shii Ann doesn't seem to work full time. He tends to dress very casual, but that may just be his off-duty self. He's proven to have some flexible hours and the potential to set his own schedule. What does this man DO?

The default idea that's been in my head the longest is that he owns/manages a liquor store. I liked that it's an unconventional approach, but I know my audience can bristle when I talk of anything that could be seen as not being kid-friendly. It's fun to joke about, but that job probably won't stick.

What that job CAN do, however, is be adapted to something more tasteful: He runs a specialty market! It has organic produce, fancy foodstuffs and, yes, a nice selection of alcoholic beverages. Such a job could also tie in nicely with Shii Ann's cooking/baking enthusiasm. She could even work part time at the place if she wants to! There's also a potential Bud sighting, but that would conflict with Bud's claim to have never seen Hiram before when they met in Party Crashers. I guess that's a strike against this idea. (You can explain it as Bud doing the "pretend no one outside my world exists" thing, but I'm pretty sure Bud would give respect to his fancy food supplier.)

There's also the potential to make Hi an absent-minded professor at the university - purely to milk a "Doctor Hu" joke from it. The idea of him being a trusted source of education would be both silly and sad. I wonder what his discipline is? This would also give him a connection with Soren, although I doubt Soren would be thrilled with that.

Making Hi a general office manager guy isn't an option. At best he'd be another Michael Scott from The Office. At worst, he'd be covering the same territory Gene Et covers - and Gene does it better! Hi is a hard worker, so boring him in a corporate office is a waste.

It was suggested to me that he could run a movie theater, and that idea would have potential, but I've made a movie comic already and it doesn't mesh well with Hi being a theater man.

So right now the market idea is in the lead, but I won't commit to it until I'm sure it's the correct path. Nothing is canon until it makes it into the comic. Who knows what I'll have decided on by the time I show Hi at work?

The swatch project!

As the few souls that have tried to color Precocious strips know, I'm an idiot. The swatches I've used for the last FOREVER have been in jpeg format, also known as "let's scramble color just because!" files. This is why characters sometimes subtly shift in color. (That, and I'm really lazy about checking my work.)

But this can change! In doing my book work, I discovered a treasure trove of old hi-res files I though I had lost. Among them... THE ORIGINAL SWATCHES! Download it here. (TIFF format.)

The problem now... this file was made in 2009! I have likely updated some colors since then! Off the top of my head, Deirdre got lighter in the most recent strip she appeared in, and Yvette got darker in her most recent appearances. (The first was on purpose. The second was an accident, but I like it.) Oh yeah, and Tiff's hair became more vibrant when I realized the old color was too close to the yellow of Autumn's house. Those changes are NOT in the new swatch file... yet.

There are other colors missing too, like typical clothing colors for adults, house colors and the CURRENT house interior colors. I think all houses by Bud's got tweaked over time. The task that stands in front of us, fellow colorists, is to update the damn swatches! Do I use the same color for all sidewalks/grass/trees/skies? Find and add it! (Or choose one to be the new standard.) There are dozens of numbered spots on the swatch file that need some colors thrown in!

Yes, I know I'm talking about this as a "we" thing, but we all know it's actually a "me" thing. I need to be more attentive when coloring and update the swatches as I go. I need to hunt down my changes and make sure they're in there. I need to eventually redo the whole thing for more clarity. Problem is, that's all I can do for a long time, as I'm going to be super busy.* Swatch upkeep will have to go on the "when I get to it" list.

But, hey, at least you colorists out there have a better file to work with now! (And I can provide other formats if needed. Just email me.)

*Here's the estimated busy schedule, for the curious:

This week:

1. Get all book files to the publisher.

2. Try to get myself back up to a week ahead in final strips, so I can do this next week stuff...

Next week:

1. Open up for commissions. (If you want one, be sure to set aside $25 for that.)

2. Begin writing commentary for the book.

3. Finish the Birthday Bashing outline, so I can start planning strip 1000.

Whenever I get time:

1. Work on the bonus story for the book.

2. Do the swatches thing.

3. Finish the 24-hour comic day work.

4. Set up for the last week of October incentives.

5. Start some art auctions, assuming the other auction isn't happening.

6. That thing I was just thinking of that went out of my head.

And, of course, keep Precocious (and Copper Road, after October ends) going the whole time. So. Yeah. Busy.

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!

An editor's agony

(Image unrelated. I made it for fun!)

I've been reading through some Get Fuzzy collections recently, and I haven't exactly enjoyed it. I know it's generally considered one of the few good newspaper comics left, but I found the collections I read to be more miss than hit. Some of it comes from its tendency to fall back on gross-out humor and that not being my thing, but a lot of the misses felt more like half-baked jokes. Darby Conley was phoning it in.

That is the big consequence of doing a daily comic: The time restrictions mean you can't possibly sit around and nurture all ideas until they blossom into greatness. Sometimes you have to force things to meet your deadline. Every daily cartoonist is allowed the occasional misfire, as a return to glory is always only a day away. The problem is when you fall into constant, "well, of course it's rushed! It's a daily!" mentality. What I perceived in these Get Fuzzy books was the work of a creator who was throwing EVERY idea he had out there to fill space until he could hit upon a new story that would inspire him.

For example, there was one Sunday strip where Satchel brought a friend back from one of his dog support groups, a police dog. The police dog spent most of the strip being overly officious, spouting regulations. Then he saw a cat and shuddered, because he has a problem chasing them. The end. There's no flow at all. He created a character, made the character do things and tacked on an ending unrelated to build-up. (I can give him credit and say he was *trying* to show a strong character had a weakness, but that's not how it read.) The strip feels like he got an idea, started fleshing it out and hit a brick wall - but ran it anyway.

I notice this stuff because it's a trap I've certainly fallen into before. I rationalize that I can always right the wrongs the next day and run strips not made with the care they deserved. I was at my worst probably when SCAD was taking up all my time, and my readers certainly were not pleased with it. My low point probably came with strips #621 and #622 - when I chose not to draw the interior of Kaitlyn's house because it was too much work, result in kids wandering through a blank panel and me just telling you what had happened in the titles and alt text. Lazy. Lazy. Lazy.

And that's just the pitfalls on the art side. Another downfall of a daily cartoonist, which I saw often in the Get Fuzzy books, is the reluctance to reject strip ideas. Deadlines always loom, and the idea of scrapping one strip, much less entire stories, is incredibly risky if one doesn't have more ideas to use as replacements. Telling every little detail is great for the cartoonist, as it keeps the material flowing, but it can easily turn to arc fatigue for the readers. Again, I certainly stretched some stories out in this way to keep pace with the daily demand. A lot of times you can even get away with it - but do it too much and you risk losing an already highly-fickle readership.

Recently, I've tried to edit myself a lot more than usual. After two very long arcs, I set myself a goal of telling stories over the course of one week. It's harder than you'd think to tell something from start to finish in seven daily strips. You can't stray too far from the point, and most detours have to be excised. I have no idea how successful I was at this venture, but it was certainly a good experience for me. Almost all of the week-long stories could have stretched out a week or two longer - and sometimes readers got angry that I didn't expand on things - but I'm glad I stuck to my guns.

The current "Compensated Endorsers" arc was originally meant to be another week-long story, but I decided enough time had passed that I could indulge myself in expanding it. Even so, the first of the arc can easily stand on its own separate from the rest. In fact, I originally planned on breaking up the story and inserting a random week-long story between them. (Maybe I should have gone through with it?)

With the decision to expand the story into an arc, I started planning things out and jotting down ideas. I mapped out motives, plot, characters and all the fun stuff. I looked at the natural progression of things and got a good sense of the story. Then I took a chainsaw to everything, and I couldn't be happier about it.

I looked at editing this current story from the approach of editing a 45-minute TV show. A show of that length is long enough to run something of substance - but maybe not long enough to run it with as much detail and depth as a writer would like. I think of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series DVDs, where watching deleted scenes suddenly gave otherwise random scenes some context. With the time limit, some edits are brutal. Minor plots that made it into the shooting script are hacked away for time. It can bug you a little, but the sacrifice was made so the MAIN story could be told. I'm not saying it's a GOOD thing, as ideally you write concisely to get it ALL in, but I'm proud of myself for making the tough cuts when I needed to make them.

Why did Dionne act friendly with Bud? We never really find out, because plot points related to her motives were axed. (You can ask me about it after the arc is finished if you want.) Shouldn't the casting guy get a proper introduction and name? Maybe, but the plot doesn't suffer at all with me cutting right to the chase. There were WEEKS of material I could have covered dealing with the other kids angling for the role and the owner of the bakery - but all those characters were wiped away. They were distractions to the story, and thus not important enough. The end result is a 22-strip story in place of one that could have run for 50 instead. It's tighter. It's stronger. It's better. (And, for the record, the 22nd strip is only there because I edited the next week's scripts down to only six days of material.) I'm not sure this arc will ever enter into the top tier of Precocious stories, but I'm proud of it anyway.

This is still an evolving process, and I'm sure I'll be annoyed that I didn't fine-tune the strips further after a few months. I'm still making mistakes due to the time crunch. I'm still not always as sharp with my writing as I'd like to be. I still struggle with backgrounds and complex scenes, often resulting in me reverting to a cheap close-up that takes much less time to draw and color. Some days I have no choice but to show a bunch of talking heads against a background void. I have a long way to go. Point is, I'm learning from my mistakes and I care about getting better. I have no intention of coasting through my updates just to get them done. Precocious is my life right now, and I want to make it as good as it can be. Editing myself means I'm far more rushed at the moment that I could be, but my archives should be a much nicer place because of it.

(Yes, folks, I'm aware of the irony in writing a long, rambling blog post about how vital it is to edit long, rambling stories.)

Scriptpocalypse!

The past few days have been full of upheaval in regards to Precocious' direction. After a lot of thinking, I've decided to scrap a full month's worth of scripts - and that scares me! It wasn't that the scripts were bad - I quite liked them - but I couldn't shake the feeling that it was best to move in a new direction.

As planned, the current Uncle Mike saga was supposed to break into three parts. What I've done is excise part three, choosing to jump straight to the conclusion. This means a few big losses for me. Gone are the running gags of Jacob's V encyclopedia and Mike giving the kids coffee. Gone is a twist I had planned to set up over a few weeks. The big casualty of the change, however, is poor Sydney. Since she spends half of her time in the city, managing her apartment buildings and doing general businesswoman hobnobbing, this was my opportunity to drop in on her and show how she lives when away from family.

But here's the thing: Just because you CAN, doesn't mean you SHOULD. Bringing Sydney in would mean extending the city trip for dozens of strips - which is risky for a story that's already running long. Looking over the scripts, while I was having fun with her, it was clear Sydney's involvement ended up having zero impact on the story as a whole. No events depended on her triggering them, and she actually delayed some payoffs if I think about it that way. She's simply a fun character to write for and I wanted to use her.

My preferred method of writing is to set up a scenario and sit on it, letting its potential play out. This can easily lead to a "too much of a good thing" effect. I may write 20 good gags about the kids and Mike in a museum, but running them all risks joke fatigue. There's also the problem of pacing, should I devote a strip to every little silly detail just because I though I was clever for thinking of it. It's my nature to really be indulgent and revel in my stories, but this time I felt editing was the best option - especially considering all the indulgence I'd already placed in this story!

Now the questions is... what will fill that gap? I've had a story, set during summer break, that I could do. The timing would be right for it, and it will eventually rotate a few characters back into the spotlight. The downside to that direction is that I'll be subjecting the readers a long, drawn-out story again without giving them a gag-a-day break to cool off.

A second idea to fill the space is to create a series of one to two week vignettes that focus on some of the supporting cast, and ride those short stories through the summer. Those might be easier on the readers, but I'm not as prepared on my end to run them. At this point, I only have one solid vignette idea. There's also the problem of this idea bumping the summer story mentioned above to next year. (Which might not be a bad thing, in regards to long-term pacing.)

Clearly, I have to whip out my giant Word file of ideas and get some inspiration going again. The end of the Mike stories will come sooner than expected, and I must be prepared to move on!

*sings* Raindrops keep falling on my bed...

Unlike most stories that involve a wet spot on one's bed, this one isn't about personal shame and embarrassment - which makes it a unique entry for this blog as well!

That wet spot appeared a few weeks ago, prompting me to completely flip out. It is not supposed to rain indoors! My feeble mind couldn't process it! What followed was chaos, as I dragged everyone around me into a panic as well.

My poor upstairs neighbor was dragged home from a social outing because the obvious guess was something in his apartment was leaking. He couldn't find anything, and suggested it was condensation in my AC vent. Ok, so all I had to do was turn off the AC for a while and wait for the handyman to arrive and fix it. Not hard, until I realized I now live in the south, which spends half the year actively on fire.

But I did it. I survived until the repair crew arrived. In my bedroom. At 9am. On my day off. With me still asleep. Since I hadn't answered the door, the building's maintenance man assumed I wasn't in and used his key. Awkward situation for everyone! Still, the fixing was happening. Yay! Life was perfect again!

So, yeah, it started leaking again. Harder than before. (Good thing I hadn't moved my bed back into position yet.) This time the maintenance guy cut a hole in my ceiling to get a look at the cause. It was definitely not my AC that was the culprit, so cool air resumed! The water was coming from up above. Once again my upstairs neighbor got questioned. Once again, no leak was found. I was left with a hole in my ceiling and a ladder in my bedroom, so I could get up in there the next time a leak started and see what was going down. That... that was kinda cool. I kinda looked forward to the next leak.

Last night, the water began to flow again. Once again, pans had to be laid out to collect water. At his point, my one pan had grown to three needed to catch all the drips. As it was the middle of the night, I wasn't about to call anyone. I slept on my couch - again - knowing I was gonna have to ruin someone's Mothers Day in the morning.

Woke up late. Checked the room. Didn't look like any new water. Took a shower. Emerged to a DELUGE! Water was coming down fast and furious. Three pans could only handle the main leak. New dripping spots were forming elsewhere on the ceiling, so this became a full-on five-pan leak!

I sent a tentative text to the maintenance guy. He was out of town, as expected. Texted my upstairs neighbor again, asking if anything new was going on. He was baffled that this was still going on, again asking if it was my AC. I told him the hole in the ceiling proved that wasn't the cause, and that promptly brought him down for a look. I think he was impressed by the calamity!

Seeing how the water was dripping down from high up, he returned to his apartment to make one more check for a cause. This time... guess what? He spotted a cold water pipe that was leaking like crazy. WE FOUND THE CAUSE! He shut off the water. The dripping stopped. Plans for repair are now underway. Life is good. All things now return to normal.

Well, not all things...

Your webcartoonist has evolved!

When writing the most recent news post in the site, I wrote the line in the title. I quickly deleted it, but the thought got in my head. "What kind of Pokemon would I be?" I had to find out!

And so began a sage of putting too much thought into something silly! The sketchbook came out and the ideas started flowing. As an intense Pokemon player and insane nerd, I put a lot of care into all the little details. The result...

Meet Pokemon Chrispy!



The first step in Pokemon creation was choosing my type. I quickly settled on dark, as it both fits with my sense of humor and reflects on my tendency to harp on the negative.

Next up, I needed to figure out what form my Pokemon would take. I figured a kitty pokemon fit best because I wuv kitties, I draw kitties and, well, it meant my evolution could be based on a Savannah cat! (See below.) It all fits!

And now the over-analysis begins. I got conceptual. What kind of Pokemon role player would I be? Well, I'm a impulsive type who can do wonders when I get going - but I'm hardly durable. Hitting me back hard makes me crumble. It seems obvious to me - a glass cannon Special attack sweeper! I hit the battlefield, throw everything I have at the opponent and hope to hell they don't survive it, because one good hit will do me in.

Now for some details. Every pokemon gets a nature and special ability. For nature, I chose to go with timid. Not only is that me, but in-game, that means I get increased speed at the cost of physical strength - it's the most common nature of actual special attack sweepers! For ability, I knew this one going in: Defeatist. Not a positive reflection of me, but recently accurate. In-game, this a pokemon with a defeatist ability is a juggernaut - right up until things get difficult. If their HP gets reduced below halfway, the pokemon "gives up" and only fights half as hard. A pokemon can also carry a held item. I could pessimist here and give myself a ring target, which means every attack always hits me, but I'm going to highlight my potential and give myself some wise glasses, which slightly powers up my attacks. (Plus, yanno, I'm wearing glasses.)

What moves would I have for the unevolved Chrispy? He's a dark type, so he needs a dark move. Night Daze seemed the best fit, due to the general sleep cycle of a cartoonist. I also threw in Nasty Plot for good measure, which is perfect for the wannabe looking to break through to top tiers. I'm an artist, so it seems only right I get to use the move Sketch. (The bonus here being that, in competitive pokemon battling, me having sketch and decent base stats would make me highly sought after! It's nice to be desired!) Finally, I had to go with the move I use the most in real life: Withdraw. Withdraw boosts one's defense up one level - which is useless for a defeatist pokemon as all it means is that the opponent gets one free turn to disable you. So, yeah, it fits.

But this isn't all about sadness and sucking. I SAID I EVOLVED, DAMMIT! I've become new! I've become better! I've become... Chrisperior!

This grand evolution adds on a new type: Fire! Because I'm on fire! Get it? Get it? Uh... moving on.

I get new moves! Energy Ball not only symbolizes my new productivity, but it is a GREAT move for a dark/fire type pokemon! Overheat utilizes the new fire typing and hints at how easily I could burn myself out if I push too hard too fast, as the move sharply reduces my stats after I use it. Focus blast is another great competitive move that can also represent my struggle with ADHD. Focus blast gets the job done great... when it hits. It's, unfortunately, not that reliable. Yeah, that fits.

It's time upgrade my held item from one set of glasses to another. Enter the choice specs, which limits you to one move but makes that move super-powerful. Let's face it, that's my best-case scenario as a cartoonist. I'm not that versatile. If I can make sure the one thing I *can* do is done well, that's a win for me.

I'll let the defeatist nature stay for now, as the threat of relapse constantly looms. Knowing how quickly things can turn south, even when one is the Mary Sue of the Pokemon world, can hopefully keep alert. The second I start slacking off and taking things for granted, the bad habits get back in. There is another ability options, should a dream world Chrispy appear: Moody. Moody means I'd have wild mood (stat) swings every turn. Good for painting me as unstable, yet functional, but it's also a WAY overpowered ability in the long run when game play is concerned. I'm not that conceited to give myself any credit like that quite yet.

So, yeah, I put in WAY too much thought here and spent WAY too much time on this one gag. Whatever, man. It was a fun thought exercise and I'm quite pleased with the results.

The points system

It takes a certain brand of crazy to attempt the daily cartooning route. The need to constantly produce - and produce work of quality - brings with it quite a bit of stress. All it takes is one bad day to throw a daily cartoonist into the downward spiral of schedule slip, and I'd been tempting that fate for a long time.

I had gotten into a bad habit. Instead of running a healthy comic buffer, I left script problems bog me down and reduce me to day-to-day cartooning. For most of the past month, it was not uncommon for me to START drawing the comic at 9pm for a 12am deadline. I can think of at least two times when I made it with less than five minutes to spare, one time my internet went out on me at 11:30pm without my comic uploaded and, of course, the times I had to put out an uncolored comic at midnight. Not only was that method of production risky, but the constant working without a net led to stress and a few rush jobs that were not fully developed.

But this is the new, productive Chrispy at work now! I'm making a conscious effort to restore myself to old glory and push even farther into awesomeness. It's time to bring order back to the chaos that my production process had become.

The problem with doing a comic start-to-finish every day is that you have to work on all comic levels at the same time, and that's usually not how artistic types work. We are moody folk. Sometimes we are full of ideas, so we should spend our time scripting and not wasting that momentum in the tedium of drawing layouts. Conversely, sometimes the brain is full of static and doing a less-creative task like lettering or inking is best to restore order. Sometimes all you want to do is draw for hours with nothing else dragging you down. Sometimes the thought of coloring a comic seems unbearable because it means moving to the computer in the bedroom and not being able to watch playoff hockey during that time. All cartoonist have that problem.

My solution of the moment is to introduce a point system. I break down the comic process into four steps: Scripting, penciling, inking and coloring. Every time I accomplish one of those steps, I give myself a point. Four points equals one successful comic made. Every additional point means the building of the buffer that is vital to this process' success!

The second I have a buffer, I have given myself the flexibility and breathing room to use the system properly. If I don't have to complete a comic that day, I can focus on whatever my strength of the moment is.

For example, Tuesday was a penciling day. I penciled four comics and did the layouts for four others. Monday the goal was coloring the three strips I had inked on Sunday. All this was set up by a massive scripting/drawing session on Saturday. On my desk right now are three inked strips ready for coloring, one strip ready for inking and four strips ready for penciling. There is a text file forever open on each of my computers to catch all script ideas I have. I have options! It's been MONTHS since I had options!

The best part about having options is having less stress. I don't stop at four points anymore. When doing a full comic a day, the final posting seemed like the end of the job. I would go off and do something else, sick of cartooning for the day. By working on what I want to work on, I keep pressing on. I did my four points of penciling today and pressed on with inking the strips because I was excited about the process.

The more points you get, the more everyone wins. I'm trying to keep this momentum as long as I can, because if I can get it fed the glory of the past shall be reclaimed. The more buffer produced with Precocious, the more side projects I can pursue, the more focus I can give to positive things like catching up on my reading and writing inane blog posts that go on forever while proclaiming the obvious as if it was something just invented!

Like I said, everyone wins.

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 first bit of progress!

Before you get all excited: I did not actually do all these today. I *finished* work I had previously started. Even better, these are re-dos of work I had already done, so it's bonus work and no real progress has been made. Still, I'm happy to show it off! Feedback is greatly appreciated, as I will be turning these into finished pencils and at least one into a final inked page.

This assignment was the "fun" one of our Visual Storytelling class! We were tasked with designing two covers and we were allowed to use our own projects! I think everyone put extra oomph into their work for this one, because it was the first project that was fully theirs. I intend to oomph it up as well! You may not care about the backstories to the images, but I'm giving them to you anyway! (Click the images for a bigger version.)



I think every creative person has one massive epic tale in their head, and mine is Maquette. The story is a rumination on power, as it follows the leaders of a rapidly-modernizing (fantasy) society as they deal with a prophecy that claims the end of the world is at hand. The story gets its title because of the odd situation of the society. It exists in the only fertile area on an otherwise inhospitable planet. With a tradition of written history only going back a few generations, it's as if Maquette sprang out of the ground fully formed. To top it off, their holy scriptures contains a disputed note that may indicate the great saints used their massive power to create their own model society. Is that what Maquette is?

Anyway, I've put way too much time into this idea. As it sits now, I have 44 "episodes" outlined, with room to grow even further. For this project, I settled on episode 36, which centers around my favorite character, Annelise Ellen Rose. She's a ruthless bitch who will not let anything get between her and her goals, and this is a prime example. At this point in the story she has basically come back from the dead thanks to fortunate plot devices. (And magic!) She's been battered and bruised, has been robbed of most of her possessions and just found out she's the most wanted person in Maquette after her role in the so-called Witches Guild was outed. Being the badass she is, her reaction is to storm into the local police station and dare them to try and arrest her. That's where the cover scene comes in.

The changes between this cover and the original I drew are minimal. I increased the figure to break the border of the masthead, and cleaned up the way I drew the gears. I remain not the greatest at anatomy and figure drawing, so I'm not that satisfied with Annelise's depiction, but I'm slowly learning. Oh yeah, and for those not in the biz, the X's in the background indicate that area is black. Using them saves my finger some wear and tear at this stage.

While cover #1 was supposed to have a central figure, cover #2 was anything goes. For this one I decided to present my take on the whole superhero thing. (You might be surprised at this, but superheros are BIG in sequential art!) I give to you: The Utopians!

The story here is that we have a world in which supers are known to exist and they pop up here and there, with some time periods having flare ups in super activity. One of those flares took place in the mid-late 1970's, which peaked when a group of villains did a legion of doom sort of thing. The world cried out for saving, and, lo and behold, the Utopians appeared in a burst of clever marketing. Their promotional material made the claim that they were the 12 strongest supers to ever exist, and they certainly did wonders with cleaning up the villain mess - although people rarely saw Utopians in action. Supervillains were defeated. Organized crime was quashed. The Utopians were doing a great job... but that's about when they started killing politicians for corruption. Very quickly they went from saviors to holding the western world hostage. They were too strong and they weren't afraid to make examples out of people who crossed them. Eventually, a deal was struck and, for a great (and undisclosed) price, the Utopians agreed to go away forever. What followed was a dark age for supers, as either few existed or most kept their abilities secret out of fear of reaction from a snake-bitten public. Now, in the present, we focus on a man who is trying to bring back the superhero group with a cast of mildly-powered supers. Can he be successful, or will the legacy of The Utopians prove too much? (And did the Utopians *really* go away forever?)

For this cover, I wanted to show a splattering of the Utopian illustrated trading cards that were distributed. I went so far as to design each card on a separate page, so I knew what I could plug in when I arranged the falling pattern just right. I'm actually quite pleased with how this is coming out. The only big mistake is that I put in Hazel's card twice. One of the tiny cards should be a generic Utopian logo. There are a few tweaks to be made, like with spacing in the logo and tightening of some card designs, but I like where this is going.

Did you actually read through all that? If so, kudos to you! What do you think of my almost-progress? What should I change before it's too late?

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!)

The apartment tour

Wow, I totally spaced on getting this post up. I apologize. For those who care, enjoy the before and after photos of my new apartment. I'll *try* to do a grad school first impression post either tomorrow or Thursday.

But anyway, enjoy the tour!

I'll start by giving a basic layout, as best as I can explain. (I should have sketched a floor plan, but whatever.) When you enter, you are in the skinny, teeny kitchen, which is the hall the connects everything.



I don't have a "before" shot of this, because how much difference is there really? Do note the brand new fridge, obtained after the first two were duds. I love it muchly! Fridge aside, there's nothing too fancy here.

Moving on! Upon entering my apartment, if you look to the left you will see... the master bedroom! It's the biggest room in the joint:



Oooh. Ahhh. But, yanno what? I don't want it to be my bedroom! It's right next to the hall and you can hear every bit of movement. My goal for having this spiffy place so close to the Sequential Art building is for it to become a bit of a place to hang out. Thus, I declare this room to be the ENTERTAINMENT ROOM!





...and the studio, since I quickly found out that the original studio room was devoid of entertainment. I need something on TV to distract the stupid part of my brain while I work, so in goes the drafting table and lightbox!

These photos are already dated, as I have since hooked up my video games (to never be used!) and installed a futon, WHICH WAS THE HARDEST THING EVER TO DO THAT WASN'T GRAD SCHOOL RELATED.

Anyway, this entertainment room is off on its own, so we walk back to the kitchen and follow the path to the LIVING ROOM!



This was originally the studio, but that window proved less than entertaining. So what was I to do with it?





Welcome to the I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS room! It contains my library, the closet I constructed (as the apartment came closet-free) and the beloved sexagon coffee table. It will still fill its original studio role for when I (finally) get back to painting.

Anyway, once in this room, if you hang a left you reach what was meant to be the second bedroom - but I've bumped it up to number one!


How could I resist the lone shelf in the place? A BED MUST GO BENEATH IT!



Ta-dah! The bedroom has proven nice and cozy. The only downside is if I play music (softly, so as not to disturb anyone upstairs), I might not be able to hear anyone knocking on the front door. Eh, if they need me they'll knock louder. I *like* my bedroom.

And, finally, if you had taken a right in the whatever-it-is room, you would reach my tiny bathroom. It is a bathroom, and I probably shouldn't have ended my tour with it, but HERE WE ARE!

There, you now have experienced my apartment life in pictures. Your life is better for it.

Portfolio brainstorming

I apologize for clogging the internet with this, but this is the sum of my day! I had to come up with a portfolio of 20 strips to submit for my grad school application, and using the blog's preview function proved to be the best sorting option. As I have nothing else to show, here is what I came up with. These are the 20 strips *I* think sell myself the best. Why, yes, I *am* consumed with crippling self-doubt over my choices! How could I not be?

The first thing I was looking for was quality art. This is where I feel I am at a disadvantage, as the newspaper-style daily strip format tends to be rather simple in design. It's the nature of the beast. Any comic in which I had a chance to show off my artistic chops was automatically in. Next was, of course, humor. Again, my format gets in the way. I tell character driven stories. Many of my strongest strips are dependent on context. Those reviewing my portfolio will not have that context, so the strips I choose must be able to speak for themselves. That means no bake sale or school revolution strips, which is a shame. Those were funny STORIES, not funny standalone strips. The result is that I mined my gag-a-day theme weeks pretty heavily, with a lot of the early introduction strips as well. Finally, I threw in some Copper Roads for variety.

I'm proud of Precocious and I'm proud of these strips. They should be a nice taste, and clearly establish the kind of cartoonist I am. This is what I do, and I do it quite well. As long as there's still a place for classic-style strips in the world, then I should have a place in grad school!

Now comes to the agonizing task of arranging the strips so they flow nicely. Going in numerical order *almost* works, but I want to start with one of my grabber strips, like Rule #4 or Unrestrained Creativity. Ahh, it'll get done. It'd better! I have to submit this stuff tonight! (The numbers by the strips are for quick reference as I upload everything.)

98
107
111
131
139

143
145
162
169
185

191
197
199
200
288

309
312
463

Where have I been?

If you couldn't figure it out from the last post, I have arrived in DC and taken part in the massive birthday fest that is the fun side of my family. My birthday was the 24th. My grandmother's is the 5th. My aunt's is the 20th. About this time every year we all get together to massively celebrate. It's EXHAUSTING! But also much fun!

As is the case with most of my DC visits, blogging is going sporadic. All this family time means all my free time has to go directly to Precocious and making sure next week has strips ready to go.

Today was bonus Precocious work too, as my colorist was busy. Do you know how long it's been since I colored a Sunday? What a chore! I was so spoiled. A consequence of me coloring: Instead of every panel getting a background, only one does! Sorry, folks, but I'm just not fast enough to crank it out in time. If I go through with my threat and purchase a Waccom tablet, that may change. Those things are magic, I hear. While I don't ever see ditching traditional inking - I love having originals to hold AND SELL - many of my side projects would be made easier with a tablet. Once I learn how to use said tablet. Once I finally get around to buying said tablet. ONE DAY SOON! I SWEAR!

Tonight, all effort is going into inking.... whenever I get up the nerve to do it. I so want to nap instead. Bah! I will only allow myself to forgo inking if I can do something even more productive, like making a Copper Road or something. That's another thing that may go on hold for a week while I'm down here, but I'll make one if inspiration strikes. Anyway, I refuse to sleep until I've kicked the day's ass. That is all.

Prepare to celebrate!

I have two big occasions coming up next week. On Tuesday, Precocious' 500th strip will run. On Wednesday, I turn 30! So.... what do I do to commemorate such events? Hell if I know! All I can say for certain is that you are encouraged to give gifts. ;-)

Every year, I use my birthday as an excuse to splurge on something needed. On year I got the light table, which is infinitely valuable to me! Another year I bought a TV to use as a monitor, which is also fully beloved. Another splurge of this kind was in getting my giant scanner, which CHANGED MY LIFE it was such an improvement! This year... what to get?

I've been thinking of giving in and buying a wacom tablet, which would allow me to draw digitally. While the comic would remain traditional, being able to work digital would help a lot in commissions, wallpaper designs and merchandising. Assuming I learn how to use the damn thing. If I go this route, I'll go for the low-end model, like the bamboo, and learn from there.

But then there's the issue of what to digitally draw IN? My copy of Photoshop is so painfully old, I don't have many features modern incarnations have. Problem is, I don't have $600 or whatnot to shell out for CS4 (or whatever the current version is). Even worse, I really don't have any more to purchase Illustrator, which is vector-drawing deliciousness. (Manga Studio may also work for this, but I know next to nothing of the project.) Now, my Photoshop 7 works well enough for now... but if going digital causes some problems, I may have to take drastic measures to procure an Adobe product: Donation drives! Ahh, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Not that a donation drive would be a bad thing. The art supplies that go into Precocious aren't free, and a daily strip blows through them like nobody's business! Add in drafts and Copper Roads and sketchbooks... it adds up! The problem with a donation drive is that I feel like I'd have to give something back, be it a wallpaper or some signed prints or hand-printed cards, and I need the time to get those suckers into production. Another problem: Who would donate? I may have a lot of readers, but most of them are the *casual* variety. They love me because I'm a lot of content for free. The second I make something difficult to get to (like, say, voting to see a Copper Road) the readers evaporate! Darn those lazy people!

Another problem: I think I need a better printer to do the signed print thing. (Is there a market for that?) A REAL nice printer would cost me as much as those out-of-reach computer programs I want, so that's also out for now. My current printer's quality is fine, but it's so old that I can't rely on it. Since it's also hodgepodged into working with Vista, I have no fine tuning control over documents. They just print at whatever default the printer has.

I don't know what would benefit me the most. The tablet is the likely choice, if only for cost. Besides, that could open up new frontiers, which is good news. I wish I could have it all! Why must I be so desperately poor?

(This counts as an on-time blog post because it was started before midnight, ok?)

More mental sabotage!

This day was over before it started, thanks to my bored, meandering brain. Yes, I was derailed by a dream! LAME!

Yesterday I woke up refreshed and ready to kick life's ass! And I totally did. BAM! Today... I woke up after a dream of the perils of air travel. Not cool, brain!

Oh, this dream had everything: The waiting, the tension and the mishaps. I get through my lines, past security and board the plane. Once aboard, everything is uneasy and tense. The passengers are suspicious, nobody is friendly and the pilot is a jerk. Yeah, the pilot was hangin' with us. Dream logic! As we go on, the plane moves closer to the ground and starts swerving around. I am sick to my stomach and starting to freak out.

Eventually, the plane is right by the ground, going up and down hills. (Must have been San Francisco.) We went through an underpass and I wondered how we did that with the plane's wingspan. That's when it hit me. This was not the plane. This was a bus. I wasn't flying to my destination, I WAS STILL ON THE WAY TO THE AIRPORT!

Yes, the dream began again! This time, the tedium went up a notch. We had to stick with the bus. We had to follow the driver's instructions. And everything was still swerving wildly, making me pukey. So naturally we were forced to stop at McDonalds before making the flight!

This was an airport McDonalds, so it worked differently. We moved in one slow, somber line. Everything was blank faced and robotic. Instead of ordering off the menu, you pressed a button corresponding to various meals. This allowed the workers to instantly hand you the meal in one dull box. Payment was a swipe of the card and we were back on our way.

Of course, we were running late so tension was high. I looked up to the big airport board to see if I was going to make my flight. I was! And there was the schedule. Depart at (whatever time) and arrive at - wait, what? We were scheduled to CRASH. In TEXAS. Good of them to warn me. GET ME OUT!

And that is how I started my day. No momentum, lots of weariness. I'm only now starting to get motoring again. The night is young, and the ink is plentiful! The goal is to get some comics done to justify my existence. This boring dream post isn't helping keep the gods from hitting that delete button...