A Metaphor, pt. II

It's funny, but i'm happy with ever pose of the girl except for the straight on one. Shouldn't that have been the easiest to draw the best looking?

A Metaphor, pt. I

So this is something i've been kicking around doing for a long time now. It's basically an experiment involving panel layout. I know for a fact that i'm really really lazy when it comes to panel layout (what's that, you say? another strip in which two people face each other in a series of unbound panels going down the page in a linear line?), but i've also got some strong opinions on panel layout, and i thought it was about time for me to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

What i'm doing here, then, is taking a very simple content idea (it's not even a joke, really, it's just a visual metaphor i came up with) and attempting to lay it out in standard comic book format. That's why it's going to take me five pages, because before setting out on this project i did some exhaustive research (read: read a bunch of comics) and established that most comics tend to keep their panels-per-page between six and ten. Interesting, right? Webcomics don't do that, but webcomics don't have to give a shit about paper page constraints. Anyways. Yeah. Bear with me?

It's been awhile since i did anthropomorphic kitchen items

I considered a second panel in which banana beats the shit out of them, but i think the one panel stands well enough on its own.

Sometimes i really want to just do this.

Regarding the watermark: I don't care too much about credit, but i've been informed that that last one made it some small way around the film student circuit, mostly via some people just ripping it and sending it along, with no up in page view counts for me. And while i'm happy as long as people are enjoying my stuff regardless of whether i get credit or not, maybe i'd be more happy if more people enjoyed more of my stuff? So if people don't find it too distracting, i'm just going to start throwing that up on all the strips so that if any of them make it alone out into the world, there's ways for people who find it to trail it back here.

Ugh

I have the ideas, but i lost my tablet's cable in one of the many locations i've been lugging my laptop around through. I know the cable i need, and it's like six bucks at fries, but i don't have a spare moment to run and get it. Sucks. Back on schedule after i get it.

The process of making movies

"I'm working on a movie," I say, and every time their eyes will light up, and I can just see the bombardment of questions coming, so before they can get a question in, I will sigh and insist, "believe me, it's really not as interesting as it sounds." And then they will ignore me and start asking questions anyways.

Working on set

True story. I'm the one of the far right, throwing papers in the air in frustration.

Klaatru

Man, so the reason this was up late is that i'm so caught up in the whirl of the set i'm working on that i actually forgot what day it was.

Gelato

Another almost true story.

while driving to the city, i stopped on an unlistened-to radio station

So this was just something weird that happened to me during my day. Panel four is probably pushing it a little. As is "gay traffic report". But the rest of this story is almost actually true.

Anyways, as you may have guessed from the lack of comic yesterday, but i have switched to a MWF schedule until further notice. Sorry, Kimothy.

Analytics

For those who came to see the new comic crack at midnight and found it missing, i apologize. Fair warning: for the next two or three weeks comics may get choppy as i'm going to be working on a project in the City (San Francisco) and living with my grandmother during that period. I don't think she has internet, and i don't think i'll have time to do comics regardless. I'm going to try and put a store of comics by before i head over there this weekend, but it probably won't be nearly enough for the whole week, so i may shift them to a staggered missing-a-few-days schedule during that period.

Knock-knock jokes

I was going to make this a Tales from Unemployment, but i thought the title would make the punchline too obvious.

There's a reason they're green

Somewhat juvenile, but at this point i'm just glad i'm getting coherent punchlines at all.

Turtles do not make the best engineers

in the park

I'm still not proud of these yet. Haven't quite knocked all the rust off of my comedic tool set. I had the punchline for this one floating around in my head all day after seeing that sign. I knew i wanted a guy taking his elephant to the park to poop, but... i dunno. I feel like i got there, in the end, but i didn't necessarily take the best path.

I guess i'm just in an elephant-ey mood lately.

cop out

Sorry guys, real comics coming. Got several of them sketched out on little note cards. But deng, my whole body feels wobbly right now.

Ivory

This is the most far-side-ey comic i've come up with in a while.

Wondercon

Not even a little bit of an exaggeration.

Scrooge

I'm annoyed because i feel like this joke is funny, but that i didn't execute it well. I mean, i spent an hour just sitting around trying to find a proper way to round out the punchline, but nothing seemed to work.

the one where i fail to get comics done at starbucks

the one where i try to get comics done at starbucks

Not at all fictional.

the roadtrip one

Only half fictional.

the movie one

Alternate ending: "I clearly need to pray more."

the other mop one

Ryan gets points for pretty much single-handedly turning last night's terrible punchline into a clever and not at all terrible reverse.

the mop one

So the problem generally lies in the fact that there is a very thin area in which i can be productive, between when a problem is small enough that i feel i can ignore it and when it's so big it becomes overwhelming and i can't get it done. My comic schedule for the last two months was basically when i completely missed that mark. Now i'm going to just post comics again daily and pretend there was no problem ever. That ought to work.

Additionally, i would like to apologize about the crap comics you are about to be bombarded with. It's been rough, trying to get back into the game.

Dan Zembrosky

http://www.noozhawk.com/local_news/article/0127_search_for_missing_kayaker_called_off

http://thosearentmuskets.blogspot.com/2009/01/dan-zembrosky.html

For the sake of honesty i must admit that Dan and I had long since drifted out of the spheres of one another's lives. He left San Diego, and though he came back for productions, my interactions with him became less and less, and by the time i moved away we barely kept up at all. I haven't seen nor spoken to him in over a year and a half, and had no plans to change that in the near future. I didn't even think of him that often. And for me, this is the true regret - that I allowed him to fall out of my life, and i cannot mourn him properly, and that i will never be able to rectify that. For me to attempt to eulogize him would ring false, even to me. Especially to me.

Nevertheless, it is within the bounds of propriety that i remember him and his influence on me, and there is certainly much to remember. Dan was my first Editor in Chief at the MQ, a year above me at UCSD, and though i at first attempted to pedestalize him as an authority figure, it was apparent from the first that he would not have it. He seemed to like me, and from my first day at the MQ he treated me like one of the guys. He laughed at my jokes. He asked me my opinions. And even if my ideas were bad, he would always think about them before dismissing them - but then, Dan always considered everyone's ideas. Even the really dumb ones.

Dan was the first person to make me question my career choice as a writer. Ideas tripped out of him like a memetic waterfall, and he would lunge from thought to thought and gag to gag like a child catching fireflies. I can distinctly remember thinking that if every creative person was like this, so full of passion and ideas, then i didn't stand a chance. At the same time, he was the first person to make me believe that comics might be something i could seriously pursue. There were other artists at the MQ, other people who could draw just as well or better than me, and yet that first year he leaned on me hard. Every production he handed me a thousand things to draw, and then to redraw - because he always knew in his head exactly what he wanted to see - and though i'm fairly certain that the other artists had other jobs that they couldn't be taken away from, a part of me likes to believe he saw some sort of potential or skill in me, that made me his go-to artist. And now i suppose i'll never know.

A part of me - most likely the part that is beginning that famous five step process - is convinced that this is all an elaborate prank. I wouldn't put it past him. Dan always loved one-upping somebody else. I remember once, during the annual UCSD Org renewal period, when the Koala tried to register as The MQ, to steal our funding and name for whatever nefarious shenanigans they thought they'd get up to, and Dan didn't even show up for the administrative meeting. He just sent a letter to be read aloud: "Thank you for your expressed interest in joining the MQ. Unfortunately at this time all positions have been filled..." I cannot help thinking - hoping, believing - that come the memorial service a singing telegram will stride into the hall in the middle of the service. "Thank you for your concern," he will recite, "but the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated..." Probably not, of course. But nothing else makes sense. Certainly not the thought that he's gone forever.

I'm not sure what else i could say about him. I liked him and admired him, but in our relationship, despite his best efforts, i always thought of him more as a boss than a friend. A good boss. A boss who demanded the best from me, and, by and large, one who got it. A boss who relished his job, and in the process made the rest of us enjoy ours as well. A boss who was crazy and hilarious and sometimes infuriating. A boss who cheated at NERF war because he was obsessed with winning it. A boss who couldn't quite bluff at poker. A boss who was always excited about every project i saw him work on.

The best boss. The best boss ever.

Man, man, seriously, man

So thanks to some people saying that they have been missing my comics, i have been quietly attempting to draw some down on the DEE-EL. But man, they have not been funny at all. And we're not even talking about like elephant sat on my dog not funny, i mean, not funny.

So. Shiz. Gimme something to draw. Doesn't need to be anything fancy. "A comic about a narwhal who is sad because he cannot play the harmonica" is a.) already more complicated than i need, so your idea can have like three less modifiers than that and 2.) awesome i am going to go draw that right now. But seriously. E-mail me or put it in the comment of this post or something. And don't do that "i read his request but i'm going to pretend that i didn't so that i don't have to think of anything" shit that i know you're going to try and pull. I have a thing that tells me you people come to this page everyday looking for comics that aren't here. If Kate Beaton can ask her readers (who, granted, aren't all her RL friends with jobs and classes and stuff) for comics subjects, so can i, dammit.