Xorph has now been immortalized in (blasphemy and) ink, pixels, three dee, cookie dough, human flesh, hot glass (still can’t believe that), and now, thanks to Maria, a pumpakin. I have the greatest fans ever! There should be a grant for this kind of thing.
Category: Toons
I want the Cubs to win the pennant an awful lot. I think I’m becoming a Cubs fan, and it’s all my grandmother’s fault! Plus I tend to like things that lose.
Yeah, I got nothing. Boring weekend.
Update 2337 hrs: No! Not boring! I forgot about seeing Lisa yesterday, and comic shopping, and picking up my first Powers collection, and finding it one of my favorite things ever. Permit me to dork out for a moment, but Brian Michael Bendis is fast becoming my favorite comics writer. Okay, out-dorking complete.
Also finally got a couple of secret projects up to date. One of these you may well already know about, as it’s not terribly hard to find. The other you probably don’t!
And I have health insurance now. Just in case you were wondering.
Today I am terse.
Could’ve saved a line if he’d written it in C++.
Update 1636 hrs: Or five lines, in PHP.
Update 10.5.03 1745 hrs: And Leonard points out that unless he puts a newline character in at the end there, it won’t look right at all.
Yeah, this didn’t actually turn out all that terse.
Also! Webcomics are maybe the one source of content with the biggest conflict between proposed and actual posting schedule, which makes them PERFECT for RSS feeds… except nobody has one. Okay, Penny Arcade does, but they never miss a day anyway. Even Keenspot and Keenspace, the people who get probably half of all webcomic traffic in the world (and write the software that implements probably 80% of all webcomics), don’t have any kind of update feed.
So they should, basically, is what I’m saying. It’s called Really Simple Syndication, you know, it can’t be that hard to add in.
(Yes, I realize that my comic probably needs it more than anyone’s. I do plan to add one, once I have the time to rewrite my entire site apparatus. But again: I’m lazy.)
Audrey and Drew. It’s all their fault. If not for their meddling influences, I could have gone to the craft store with Maria and (Illinoisan entomologist) Annie and spent a mere $20 on new Microns. Ta da! The end!
Except the aforementioned two have talked lots about inking with metal-nib pens and brushes, respectively, and I saw some of that stuff at Michael’s and got all excited and WHOOPS there goes all the money I had next month.
I’m calling it an “investment.” That makes it okay to shave a little bit off the future-budget for, oh, as long as I’m alive.
Anyway, at least I’ll be trying new art stuff. Expect to see shaky new black-and-white things in the Chalkboard as I get my… ink-legs. I guess.
Now: Kruskal’s algorithm!
I hated “Too Little Too Late” for a long time. After he picked up the album at Sam Goody in what, September?, Jon left it in his stereo most days; since it doubled as an alarm clock, we’d both wake up to that raucous opening riff every morning, puffy and tired and grouchy. I really resented that guitar, and even though I loved the album, I had to skip the first track to listen to it.
That was the Autumn of Sleepovers, when everyone in our little accidental clique ended up in bed together in some kind of combination. It was all very innocent, except when it wasn’t. And it was all very intimate, and a little desperate, in ways we couldn’t see at the time.
We never had any intention of becoming as self-involved as we did, but that’s the way structures function in small, overeducated, post-adolescent Western society. It tightened until it snapped, and after that we were both more free and more disparate.
I never had any intention of going through an experience like that, either, but I did. I learned a lot when I didn’t think I had much left to learn. I came out the other side still angsty, of course, but I’d grown; I’d also learned how to express myself in cartoons and small sentences. A year later I started this journal, in the small warm shelter of a dorm room shared with Jon and Amanda and sometimes Ken, and the urge to write had some of its origin in the fall of 2000.
I listened to Maroon for the first time in months today, which maybe wasn’t the wisest idea. I’m still at the office, and it’s all very vivid now: nostalgia, unfulfillment and ache.
Amanda, Tara, Lauren, Alison, Rachel, Darren, Ken, and most of all Jon: Forgive me this outburst. I miss you. Come back.
Today’s Doonesbury, even though it’s the “Summer Daydream,” implies that Mike is interested in someone other than Kim. The original (1998?) Mike-and-Kim story, including both major arcs, is collectively my favorite Doonesburies ever. If Mike is tired of Kim, Mike needs to die.
Speaking of great comic storylines, Checkerboard Nightmare just wrapped up (I presume) probably my favorite continuous run of strips in its history; Wednesday’s edition packs more great lines into four panels than the fire marshal really allows. I talk about Checkerboard Nightmare a lot, and I still don’t talk about it enough. I was going through the archives a while back and noticed that Mr. Straub produced these three strips all within one week. Those are some of the most perfect one-shots ever committed to pixel. I can’t stand it!
The LeonardR writes:
“I made a doob-doob (http://www.crummy.com/2002/09/03/1) rendition of Xorph. I’d give you a picture, but I have no way of getting it to you.”
First, that makes me feel bad, since I haven’t updated Xorph in a long, long time. Well, no, first it makes me feel all tingly and flushed, as happens every time someone cool talks about my comic. Second it makes me feel bad. Third: Leonard has made fan art for Xorph; the fan art is made of paper; I have never seen this fan art; I have also never seen most things made of paper. The question this poses, obviously, is are all paper things I haven’t seen actually Xorph fan art?, but I kind of like it better unanswered.
As seen camwise, I have a lightbox. Like a real honest to goodness lightbox. It is made of a box with plexiglass on top, and it has a light switch on theside, and when you flip the switch these two fluorescent lights on the inside come on and you light it up FROM THE INSIDE. So you can trace things. It is a miracle of modern technology.
Like most of the web cartoonists who have one of these, I built mine instead of buying it–if by “built” you mean “stood around and made helpful grunts while Mom’s boyfriend, Joe, did all the real work.” It ended up taking six hours and costing about $50 in materials, plus probably hundreds of dollars’ worth of skilled labor on Joe’s end that he wouldn’t even let me chip in for. He’s a really good guy, and amazingly skilled with anything related to carpentry or building. He tends to stay away from computers, but lately I’m starting to think that’s a wise attitude.
Anyway, I have a lightbox, and it’s well beyond merely “cool” into “slopy” territory. I need to sand down the corners, probably, and maybe stain or varnish the wood, and I’ve got a can of glass obscurer that I may or may not use on the window to diffuse the light a little. We’re going to Gatlinburg tomorrow afternoon, so I’ll pretty much have to test it out tonight if I’m going to do a comic thisweek.
I’m guessing it’s going to cut my inking time in half, at least–which will knock that out of its top place as Most Dreaded Part of doing the comic. Now the writing is all I have to fear.
Back Wednesday.
Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You
The past 48 hours have been the longest, well, 48 hours I have ever lived. In fact, I’m recounting on my fingers right now to make sure I’m numbering them right–it feels like it’s been at least a week since I wrote my last journal entry. Which, coincidentally, is where the whole thing starts. To help me keep things straight, all times are in military.
Shortly after I finished fiddling with the idiotcam©, Ken asked if I wanted to go out somewhere for dinner. Certainly! I said, but as I was flat broke it seemed the possibilities were limited. But wait! I had the free pizza I’d won from Little Caesar’s, didn’t I? Problem solved!
Unfortunately, the bastards at said pizza joint were apparently resentful of having to give away anything at all, and so laced my double slice with a hearty dose of poison. The rest of that night was entertaining, to say the least (which I will), and the fact that I was slinging together an entire toon from script to finish didn’t exactly make things easier. I finally trudged to bed around hour 0100 hours, to begin a series of short naps interrupted by–well, fill in the blanks yourself.
After one such nap, I awoke not long before my alarm was due, and decided to turn it off so it wouldn’t wake up my poor roommates. I then forgot about said precaution and crawled back under the covers. In the words of The Spleen, “Big mistake!” Jon finally woke me up himself when he noticed that it was a good half hour after my planned wakeup call, and while I engaged in The World’s Fastest Shower© David was calling my room to see where, exactly, the hell I was.
We got into Henry’s car only running about the aforementioned half hour behind (but let us not forget that my body was just beginning to make me pay for the pizza). We got to the airport around 0815. I was writing Henry a check of appreciation for the ride when it became clear that yes, in fact, my pen had exploded all over my hand and made me look like some kind of squid molester.
I think it’s to my credit that only then did I start making signs against the Evil Eye.
I set off the beeper at the security checkpoint, of course (foolish, foolish zipper!), but even with all the delays it turned out not to matter–our flight was late and we were routed onto a different jet, an hour behind schedule. Having removed most of the ink evidence from my hand, I covered myself in my coat, shivered and began the practice I’d cite to Matthew repeatedly (and weakly) whenever he checked up on me over the next six hours: hanging tough.
David got the window seat on the way to Atlanta, the bastard.
We’d missed our connection, of course, but things actually began to look up at this point. They put us on the next jet to Mobile–only an hour and a half behind–and meanwhile I bravely consumed a Sprite and four peanut butter crackers. I didn’t actually think I was going to get on the flight, as they waited until roughly every single passenger was on before assigning me a seat. As it turned out, though, that meant I got the window seat in the very first row of the plane.
Allow me to state, for the record, that flying up front–even on a one-hour flight, and especially when you’re slightly feverish–is a very weird thing. I think the stewardess spotted me as a first-time first-class passenger, though I can’t imagine how my ratty khakis and bewildered expression would have given me away. She was even courteous enough to help me stow my carry-ons, and to smile, and to get me a lemonade from the back when first-class passengers were supposed to get soft drinks. I believe I will love her until the day I die.
The fact that our luggage was actually in Mobile can only have been a huge mistake on the part of our airline. I fully expect to have the repercussions hit on our return trip, and it only remains to be seen whether we’ll accidentally be flown to Norway or just get sucked out through the toilet at 29,000 feet.
The three-hour nap David and I got at the hotel was up there with turkey sandwiches as the best thing. Ever.
We registered (David had problems), we ate (I had problems), we went back to the room to unpack our snazzy borrowed laptops, and we arrived at the ballroom just in time for auditions to start.
Yes, This Is Still Going, I Warned You
Auditions were the most heinous display of “AC-ting!” I’d seen since I volunteered to time qualifier auditions, but there was promise here and there. I took notes like “sycophant elephant” and “you can’t kill a roach with a rolled-up newspaper” in hopes of inspiration, which were almost as helpful as they look. Finally, around 2330 hours (central!), they cleared the place out and told the chosen six of us to get to work.
It should be noted that we were all guys, and fate is cruel.
There has been plenty of “well it has been interesting!” content already, I think. The next seven and a half hours, though, take the proverbial cake as the longest stretch of time ever measured by human experience. Let’s recap: I had slept no longer than three hours at a stretch out of the last twenty-four; my digestive system had yet to even apologize for the things it had put me through; the only idea I had was for a zany cross-dressing comedy that involved a baseball cap and a wedding veil; and as I am me I was of course unable to get anything useful accomplished until way behind deadline.
After about five false starts, I finally started on something promising around 0100 hours; the first draft was due for a group read-through at 0300, but when that rolled around I had three pages out of a required ten, and no idea where I was going next with it. The waning half of the night followed a fairly standard cycle: I would write one line, stare at the screen, and get up to walk around for a while to wake up. I couldn’t recite much of the dialogue from my script if I tried, but let me tell you, I could find my way around the second floor blindfolded.
The scripts were due at 0700, and at 0600 I had six pages. By well-established Brendan habit, of course, I finally got down to work when it was clear I wasn’t going to make it, and at 0659 I was done and casting about desperately for a title. David (who had finished at like 0400, the bastard) gave me the nudge I needed, and at 0705 I was hand-numbering the pages of the finished product.
They gave us a break just long enough to lug our bags back to the hotel room, and at the final read-through with the directors I finally came up with a much better title, which I naturally made everybody write in on their own copies. It got a good response, and I got assigned a very funny director, and David and I finally got to go back and get four hours of sleep, and now I’m sitting here finishing the longest journal entry I have ever written before we go to dinner. The performances start at 2200, and even though my script has to go first I am looking forward to this more than I expected. My hands are off–it’s their baby now. And no matter what happens, it’s going to be fun.
That’s all.
Oh, unless you saw my other play and recognize that I recycled like an eco-bandit. In which case: shush.