My February First: 2009!

February First was hourly comic day. People were invited to make comics for each hour they were awake on that day. Below is my humble submission for that event. It was a bit more challenging than I expected. Color would have helped many of these out, but I don't have that kind of time. I hope you enjoy them. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.
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(Click on Individual Comics for Larger View!)














Fin!

Hourly Comics

If, like me, you enjoy watching the nightly news or reading the paper, then you already know that the printed newspaper business is about as hot as a frozen burrito. Unfortunately, this "particular" burrito is unlikely to be warmed up in any kind of microwave no matter how powerful because everyone, it seems, would much rather get their burritos from the internet.

Funny food analogies aside, I can tell you this: I read a lot of blogs. And my interests what they are, most of those blogs are about comics: from traditional Sunday paper comics like Bizarro and Kevin and Kell, to underground comics like Cat and Girl and Hark! A Vagrant. (Admittedly, there can be overlap here. Categories aren't really my thing.) In any case, I follow about 250 blogs, although a small few of them are like this one - - very infrequent about posting. (Ugh. I stink!)

Anyway, this is where feed readers come in. Most every blog has an RSS feed, a fact which is very much like my saying that most cars have cupholders. Both things are equally likely to make you think, "so what?" Okay, point taken.

The nice thing about RSS feeds is what they can be read by "RSS Feed Aggregators." (No, not alligators! Aggregators!) These aggregators allow you track and collect the new posts of your various favorite blogs so that you have a single place to visit and read them all. One such of these aggregators is Bloglines. That is the one I use, but there are a handful of others.

When you have successfully subscribed to a handful of blogs, you will soon see the similarity they have to newspapers. Both give a daily source of information. In this case, the information is from online blogs as opposed to printed on a dead tree and from a wire service.

All of this is a really, really long way of saying, if you read blogs and haven't yet learned how to subscribe to them through RSS feeds, you're missing out. In fact, you could be subscribing to this very blog! (He says, as he hopes against hope! You won't break my heart if you don't. Really, you won't...I'll just have a good cry, and try to think about happier times... Heh, another joke.)

It is from one of the many blogs that read in my aggregator that I found out about Hourly Comics, my next project! If everything goes according to plan, I will be posting an accounting of my entire Februray 1st, in comic form! (Well, posting all of the waking hours of it anyway.) Soon, you will see here the various highlights, such as they are, of my entire day.

I am not sure how this is going to turn out, but needless to say, I hope good. I've neglected my little blog here for too long, and it is time I get the burrito rolling again. I mean ball...the ball rolling, ahem....take two. It is time I get the ball rolling again. (Not burritos. That would be silly.)

Political Ads on My Site

I have recently discovered that the advertisements that display on the right side and bottom of this blog are now showing ads that advocate for one political viewpoint or another, one ballot issue or another, one candidate or another, etc. Google Adsense manages the content of these ads. I have little or no control over what is shown. I assumed that since this was a comic blog, all of the ads displayed would be related to comics or art. And, for the most part, they have been.

While I encourage everyone to be a good citizen and vote their conscience whenever possible, I am decidedly non-partisan. I do vote as I consider it a duty to do so, but political ads, in my opinion, are inherently divisive. Rather than emphasize our common bonds, they tend to split people into balkanized groups that are often opposed to each other. Politics may have their place, but not on this site.

I will be exploring how to either block or remove these ads altogether, if it comes to that. Let me be very clear: Political Ads are my bottom line. I will not compromise that. I can appreciate people's respective views, but as far as I am concerned, this is MY site and everyone is welcome regardless of their views. I am deeply upset by what Google Adsense has done. Look for changes on this in a week or two.

My Summer Vacation

(click comic for larger view)

In one of my first design classes this term, the instructor asked us to draw a diagram of our summer vacations. Most students drew bar graphs that indicated that they spent two weeks camping, or they made something like a pie chart showing how much time they spent painting the house. As the above chart indicates, I spent a lot of time sitting on my butt all day. (Actually, I did a little more than sit around, but I didn't want to get into boring details with classmates who are, essentially, a bunch of strangers.) Be sure to click on the image to read the percentages of how much time I spent doing what.

Called in to Work

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This is my favorite comic of the bunch of three. I should totally be drawing more, but I am not at the moment because I am still trying to figure out what to write about. Anyway, yes, I did sleep until about 2:00 p.m., and yes, later that day I was driving to the big city about an hour and half away. I had never been to that "Ykia" store before and was impressed by its size. The people behind the counter were nice enough, but no, I didn't have the swedish meatballs. I hear they're not so good anyway from people who have more discriminating tastes than I do. I'd eat just about anything at least once or twice, or more if I was especially hungry. I've always imagined that if I was on one of those reality shows where they made you eat something disgusting, I'd win. No one else would even be close.

Island - Illustration Friday

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This is my first entry for the site Illustration Friday, a site that invites artists to create a little something based on a theme chosen by fellow artists. Like it says on their site, there isn't any pressure on outcome or results (other than internal I suppose) and no deadlines or clients to worry about either. I think I first heard about this site from one of the many art blogs I try to keep up on, and then, last year from one of my art instructors offered extra credit to anyone who submitted to them. But as I was swamped with regular classwork, I never got around to submitting. I am not sure why I decided to submit now. Anyhow, I sketched out an idea, scanned it in the computer, and then played around with it in Adobe's Illustrator program. So, here it is.

Doubts

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Hey, it's the second diary comic that I drew way back when! I only drew three of these, so with the posting of this one, there is only one left. I should draw more of them I know, but my days are so rigorously boring lately that there is nothing really worth drawing. Four panels of me sitting in a chair could be interesting in a "meta" way, but really it's nothing that I have a passion for doing. Maybe one day. Anyway, enjoy!

Welcome Back to Me!

(click comic for larger view)

Well, if anyone still checks this space anymore, the above is evidence that my year long hiatus from this comic blog was somewhat unplanned. The date, May 21st, proves that I was still thinking, even way back then, of posting something here. All I can say is that spammers, while one of the most unpleasant and irritating components of the Internet, were at least responsible for a small boost to my ego because their comment spam proved that at least someone was looking at this space. Of course, I am going to slap down the spam here soon, so legtimate veiwers may not see it, but trust it was there!

Two major things have changed since the last time I posted on this site. The first is that I now have Photoshop and Illustrator! My days of using G.I.M.P. are over, and when I think about it, I admit that part of me is going to miss it. G.I.M.P. was instrumental in helping me express my creativity when I had even less access to the tools I needed than I do now. G.I.M.P., if I can just say one more time, is a pretty good FREE! alternative to the expensive Adobe Suite I now own. Also, I am doing my best to get a "Visual Communication" degree from my community college. In the olden days, visual communication used to be called Graphic Design. So, while I am not claiming one software is better than the other, I am switching over to Photoshop for most of my raster needs because that is the industry standard, and by God, I need a regular job again.

The second major thing that has changed during this past year is that I am moving a little bit away from the Angry Bear storyline to some degree. I ran out of steam and most of my comics began to sound like my blog--a little whiny and pointless. It has been fun to explore my comic chops, as they say, but I have reached a new level so I think I am going to branch out a bit. Zeb and Dana and the rest will probably still show up every now and again, but I am going to start throwing more stuff out here on the blog. For example, aside from the diary comic project that I am planning on, I have one or two more ideas for other comic projects that might show up here over the course of time.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy whatever happens. If you got really inspired and left a comment that would be great! It'd sure be a change of pace from the spam, which is nice in the absence of other comments, but still a little annoying.

True Life Tales - 5 "The Civil War"

(Click comic images to see larger size!)



The "today" mentioned in the first panel was actually yesterday. And, while it may not look like it, I spent a lot of time working on it. It's in two sections because I drew it on two sheets of paper. It didn't line up like I thought it would. Ah well, lesson learned. Next time, I should draw everything bigger on a larger sheet of paper. I keep telling myself to do this, but the lack of a proper working space and a short-term memory gets in the way.

There other thing, which I could have done something about, are those annoying black lines on the sides of the panels. I should have erased them when I did the coloring on the computer. Now that they're uploaded, I'm just going to leave them like they are because to re-upload fixed images would count against my storage limits and they're not that horrible (I hope!).

And, guess what? This is the 100th post! It's hard to believe that there are that many posts here, especially since I've had such a hard time posting with any kind of regularity. But, this is it. I actually did go to a civil war re-enactment, and while it was interesting, it was deeply weird not just for the reason I stated above. With any luck, there'll be another post soon!

True Life Tales - 4

My favorite panel is the last one because it reads well close up and far away. I also should have tried to put myself in this comic somehow because people are more interesting than things, but I did manage to get the kid who took my car for the joyride but it doesn't really count because he is too small.

Anyhow, thinking about things after my last post, I did remember that I wrote down my experiences with my car getting stolen for the first time. More recently, I wrote about my trip to court when I got that one (unfair, of course) speeding ticket. So, those are two great experiences that I may be able farm a comic script out of somehow. Of course, more overall drawing practice is also in order, but I don't think it will come in the next few days because I am finishing up finals. Maybe another comic this weekend?

True Life Tales - 3

(click on comic for larger view)

Making comics has not really been my priority during the last few months as I'm sure you can already tell by how often I update. Still, I am committed into keeping this going. The above comic is the result of wanting to do something for myself only and not for school or work. One of the things I have discovered through this comic experiment is that I am having a hard time coming up with ideas to turn into comics. I might be too critical and shooting down ideas before I even try them out. Oh well.

The above really happened to me. I fell down on the street in front of a bus station just three days ago. For some reason, my ankle went out on me and was weak for the rest of the day. The funny thing is that me falling down in public wasn't even the most memorable part of my day. For instance, I later went on a mini-hike nearby some waterfalls in the forest and encountered a man taking his "cat" for a walk on a rope leash! It is not often you see that sort of thing. Dogs, yes. Cats, no. Anyway, after my fall, I did buy a few art supplies that I have already used at work. More comics should be forthcoming as summer break is around the corner and that means more time to draw. I also want to get much better at this comic thing, so I definitely need to keep practicing.

Support

(click comic for larger view)
I probably should have worked on my graphic design homework, but instead, I drew this comic. I'm mostly caught up on that homework anyway. But, I am having a block as far as what I want to write about story-wise. In any case, I think that this little beach trip is going to end soon. I am not much of a gag writer, and I don't really want to rehash all of the lame jokes that everyone has seen or heard a million times before. I mean, what about airline food? Am I right? Anyone? Eventually, I will work on a good storyline, probably about the same time when heck freezes over. But, on the plus side, two comics on two mondays in a row is quite the accomplishment. I will try to continue the trend.

Decisions

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Been awhile since I last posted, hasn't it? I suppose the biggest reason is that I have been busy with art projects in school and so I've already used up my creative energy there. And of course, I've really been needing to take the time to write a script rather than do this thing by the seat of my pants, but I haven't managed to find the time for that. I told myself that I need to write before I draw, and then I didn't do either. I am not sure why or how I found the energy to do the one you see above. In any case, I think it works moderately well as a drawing. I especially like the crab I drew--it looks real graphic, in the graphic design sense. More comics when I find the time. Seeing as how it is still early in the term and all my homework is caught up on, I may do another one soon.

Reflection

(Click comic for larger view)

Okay, so it has been so long since I have posted a comic here, I missed a step I normally take. I forgot to darken the lines in the GIMP before I started adding in all of the color, and the result, which is completely obvious for anyone to see, is that the comic looks washed out especially when compared to the others. For example, Zeb's outlines, which were done with .05 micron pen instead of a brush pen, look super grey and not black, which they should be instead. I was able, using the lasso tool, to select the text and darken that, but overall, I would have to give this comic a C- in visual execution. I am a bit rusty from lack of practice.

Anyhow, this comic also continues the storyline started from a few posts earlier. I spent a bit more time thinking about the story, but I am still at somewhat of a loss to figure out where I should go from here. I am still working it out in my head. My creative ideas want to head in a completely new direction, but I am stuck in this one : a dead end more or less.

Because school takes most of my creative energy with art assignments and the like, I haven't posted here as much as I originally planned, but I think I will be able to post more often than I have been. I totally missed the months of January and February, but I am fairly certain that I can do much better than that, even with a ton of school work. The proof, of course, will be in the pudding so to speak. As of now, I am planning to have the next comic up in a week or two. I might also redo this one to get it to look more like the others. As always, comments are more than welcome.

True Tales - Finals

(click comic for larger view)


This comic tells the story. To be honest, I haven't done much blogging at all, let alone had the time to do this comic. This comic took me about three hours to do start to finish; and of course, it is not as developed as I would have liked it to be. About every comic I work on takes at least that long. In fact, the better Angry Bear comics are ones that I work on over a period of a couple of days instead of just one sitting, so they can even have as many as five or so hours put into them.

Still, I felt that the need to get back to drawing for fun. Too often, I spend so much time worry about what I haven't done, rather than actually just doing something. I might have also been plain burnt out. What with my design classes, the reading of all the illustrator blogs I subscribe too, the reading of the illustrator books and literary comics I bought, I filled up on too much and simply ran out of motivation. I am hoping this comic represents a return of the drawing muses and spirits.