the realovechat one

with thanks to Ellen for the jargon. Also, i need to stop watching late night television.

the vampire one

So i'm not sure if you can read it, but the squeeze bottle is maple syrup. That's sort of an important part of the punchline.

the clear communication one

the veterinarian one

You thought the dog was going to be dead, didn't you? Don't lie.

the awkward turtle one

the preserverance one

the potato one

the tact and repercussions one

the puppet one

Missed a week when i'd forgotten about my comic. Luckily it happened to be thankgiving week. Or the week after? I don't really remember. Something like that. Yeah, i'm going to go with that. But it puts me that much closer to being on schedule! Sort of. Uh.

Better luck with the art today.

Well, relatively.

the seal one

the princess one

I actually drew like six comics this evening. I think it gives some idea of how bad the others were tonight that this made it into the posted three.

In addition to not being able to come up with any worthwhile ideas, it was something of a bad art day. Which is like a bad hair day, except that it effects basic motor functions.

the sandwhich one

13 Unique Visitors

the rajah one

the one in which i lament the inevitable

the superhero one

Based loosely on a conversation with Robin.

the balloon one

the spaceship one

i am still mopping up puke.

the candygram one

Featuring the triumphant return of Xzzgrikthylss that mischievous elder god.

the whale one

I actually really really like this one.

the burning guy one

I think maybe i overuse the "guy on fire" concept.

the toaster one

So yesterday's... difficulties put some things into perspective for me. I've been trying to improve the quality of my art and storytelling. This was clearly a mistake. Because a.) my art skills are crap and 2.) i don't have the patience to improve them. And i'm really tired of being so far behind schedule. So today i decided to change tactics and have, in the tradition of Nedroid and Chainsawsuit, begun my new thirty to sixty part installment, Carelessly, and Predominantly By the Seat of My Pants, in which every day i come up with and draw three poorly thought out comics in about an hour. Maybe. If i don't get bored.

Fountain Pen Revisited

This doesn't really have a punchline, but it's funny in how terrible it is. It'd be filler if i wasn't like a month behind posted schedule already. I guess it's just here to underscore how incredibly out of my depths i am. Personally, i blame my parents for forcing me to take a study skills class instead of art like i wanted to in freshman year of high school. All their fault. Yup.

Seriously, i have no idea how to use this damn thing.

Fountain Pen

For some reason i always believe that some new piece of tech will make my comics better. A finer sharpie, photoshop, a tablet, colored pencils, markers, a fountain pen. It's not necessarily an irrational belief - photoshop and the tablet both marked significant improvements, and every other new pen bit thing has in some way made the process easier or more interesting. At the same time, it really is kind of irrational because i don't make markedly better comics because of these things, and half the time i lose interest in them and go back to my old methods anyways. Really, i'm just constantly on the lookout for something new and more interesting, as if, were i to continue this neverending search, one day i might find the pen or paintbrush that i find ultimately fulfilling, and from that day forward i will have no problem sitting down and honing my art skills and drawing comics and everything will be perfect.

In the end i know that this is stupid, and that there is no magic marker that will suddenly make this thing easier to do or keep up with, that will make me less lazy and more interested in buckling down every day to draw a comic. There is no cure for this psychological wanderlust that makes it so hard for me to focus on my projects.

That being said, the fountain pen was really a lot of fun to work with.

My Heart

Lest any confusion be sown, that is not supposed to be Imaginary Rica. You can tell because she doesn't have that bit of floppy hair. For future reference, that's how you may tell Imaginary Rica apart from any other girl i draw; the bit of floppy hair. Well. Except, should the occasion ever arise, Real Rica. Then i'm not sure how you'd know.

Also, i know that this was posted the same day as this suspiciously similar - and quite frankly significantly better - XKCD strip, but honest to god this was kicking around upstairs for awhile before. So it's probably alright. Right?

...Please nobody sue me.

time travel!

So this may be the last one for some time, kids. My tablet appears to have decided to be busted. I've sent a letter to the kind people at Hanvon (the guys who made it), but considering that their troubleshooting file was all of half a page and consisted of them telling you how a USB plug works, i'm guessing these are the kind of people who are builders, not maintainers, if you know what i mean. I suppose this is a valuable lesson in going off-brand. Remember, kids: just go WACOM. If this doesn't fix itself, or if i don't get it fixed, i'll probably go back to paper and scanner comics until i get a job, which is... vexing.

...but probably better for my own personal art skills, in the long run. Whatever.

Kitchen Mafia

Sometimes i worry that i only do kitchen gags when i'm feeling lazy or uncreative. But then again, they're still my favorites.

Go Go Taiko: Conclusion, revisited

So i did this sort of as a favor to Mike. Well, i say "a favor", but really he never asked or even expected me to do it. We were just talking about his taiko comic and how he'd never really concluded it, and he joked that he was just going to do one last strip saying "and then everybody died. The end." And then i objected, saying that all his loyal readers would get no satisfaction from that ending, and he retorted that it would be better than no ending at all, and then i reflected on how that conversation would actually go were he a storyteller and we his audience, and this is the eventual brainchild of that conversation.

I actually made a version of this about eight months ago, before i started making comics on a regular basis. I like to think that i've learned a significant amount in that time, one of the first and most important lessons being, "don't try to stuff eighteen panels into one page." There are some other slight improvements to timing, wording, aesthetics (or i like to think so, anyways) and layout, and knowing what i know now i think i'd have preferred to take a few new photos, but all in all i think that it's somewhat better.

Mike's comics are here.

My original attempt (sigh) is here.

Turducken

Turducken, for those of you not in the know, is a holiday food centerpiece in which a chicken is stuffed into a duck, and the duck with the chicken inside is then stuffed into a turkey, and the whole thing is then roasted. I've never tried - or even seen - it myself, but i've been told that it is delicious beyond that which words can describe.

Evolution

Concerning the numerical nature of wheels and awkwardness

Oldie but goodie. If you were somebody that i ran my comics by when i was at UCSD (i.e. all of you) then you probably recognize this one. But, you know, drawn better. So that's alright, right?

Also: link a brother. True story. It's okay, though, Mohammed. I know you've got to go and be a doctor and save the world. But - but i can dream.

100th comic!

Well. I say "100th comic", but really, it's harder than that to define. I would more specifically say that this is the 100th picture that conveys an idea - not all of which i would necessarily define as a comic. I mean, would you count dragon-roasting-hot-dog as a comic? Or the goodbye san diego stuff? Or the last strip? And this isn't even beginning to get into all the MQ filler that's been thrown in. But. If you just count some sort of art with some sort of idea as a comic, then this is the one hundredth one of those that i've put on the internet.

I return from my sabbatical!

"Sabbatical?" you ask, going through the archives, "what sabbatical? It looks like he did a strip yesterday!" In truth, gentle reader, i did this very clever thing whereby i abused a blogger mechanic that records all blog posts as having come from the moment they were created, not the moment they were posted. And so while it may appear to the untutored eye that the comic strip for monday, october 20th segues neatly into tuesday, october the 21st, that is in fact a lie. In reality i have been on a three and a half week sabbatical.

And by sabbatical i mean i got really tired of my glitchy copy of photoshop and used the fact that i was near my one-hundredth strip as an excuse to cop out and not deal with it for awhile. I'm going to try to catch up with two to three strips a day. Yeah. That's going to go well. I know. Just... just bear with me here, okay?

Fringe

Am i a bad person, Y/N?

FPS

You can't read their names because shrinking made them so small, but for those interested, the other players onscreen are "ImACampingBastard", "SirStabsalot", and "New002" - the last one being my own personal handle when i play first person shooters.

Fishing, part II.

So i watched the presidential debate this evening, and got depressed, and if there's one thing that'll get me out of a funk, it's doing Jesus jokes. Don't ask me why, i don't even know. It's just the way i'm wired.

Fishing

I *wish* i was on the news...

Religulous

Imaginary Rica's been hanging out a lot

So it looks like Imaginary Rica has become a recurring character, mostly because i'm tired of generic bald circle-headed guy being my only conversational foil. Uh, Real Rica, if this bothers you, tell me, and i can make up some other imaginary character. I just got really good drawing Imaginary Rica's head (which is deceptively difficult) when i drew it like sixteen times for monday's strip.

For both tuesday AND wednsday

So i don't really anticipate anyone else enjoying this one as much as i did, but sometimes you've just got to do one for yourself.





So for those not in the Japanese American know, "'Jiichan" is a shorted, affectionate version of "Ojiisan", which is Japanese for "Grandfather". It's basically like "Grandpa" or "Pop-pop" or whatever kiddie name you used to call your grandfather. It's what i called my grandfather, and a part of me thinks it's what i'd liked to be called by my grandchildren.

This is, of course, assuming i ever have children.

Which in turn, is assuming that this economic crisis doesn't spiral out of control, leading to a mad-max style Dystopia in which an academic such as myself has no place, leading to my quick and inevitable demise.

ALSO: in the future, everything floats.

Tales from Unemployment

So of course, the best part about this strip is that, if you look closely, you'll notice that i made me a font for my own handwriting because i didn't want to spend an hour writing in all those words by hand. The kicker being that it took me three and a half hours to make that font, and i'll probably be spending another cumulative three hours fixing it so it doesn't look like i'm concussed. But. C'est la vie. I suppose, barring somebody using this font to steal my identity, it was well spent time.

Stole this one from myself - of four years ago

Fun fact: i no longer have any idea what i'm talking about in this comic.

Also, be advised - the math written on the board is almost assuredly not real.

Anyways, this comic was for thursday, but i sort of fell asleep after coming home from work, and didn't finish it in time. I'll get an actual one up for friday later.

No ten day waiting period on *my* purchase...

True story, verbatum.

Fuck that guy

So i'll be honest, this was one of my spur-of-the-moment, made up on the spot, gotta get a comic done comics, but the more i reread it, the more i really really like it.

I'm sorry, i was playing a video game. For a week.

Hey, Fourth Panel Imaginary Rica? I'm really sorry about your head.