I’m trying to get away from these LJ-style posts, but I felt like countering my overwhelming negativity for once. First, I grabbed the wrong type of microwave pizza by mistake, but it’s really good. Red Baron deep dish “special deluxe” is, except for the olives, great. There’s mushrooms on this shit! Everyone and their dog seems scared shitless of mushrooms these days, even after freezing these taste great.

I hung out with my dad today, which entailed carting my guitar and keyboard down there. He showed me some shit on guitar, and I showed him some shit on keyboard. We played around with the voices and played Aqualung (part of it anyway) on “Church Bells.” As it turns out, when you hold down sustain, the bell echos a few times, I assume to simulate the clapper bouncing around inside the bell. It made for a nice delayed effect, my mom thought it was cool. And through cunning misdirection and stealth I managed to escape with my keyboard. My dad seemed resistant to the idea of practicing on my old Casio.

And now I’m gonna go see Ratatouille. This has been an overwhelmingly positive day.

Wait… wasn’t I supposed to be doing a comic of some kind?

Would have gotten something done, but work sucked today and I decided to kick back and listen to NHB. (Because I’m usually such a workaholic. >_>) Doesn’t help that perfectly legal tobacco seems to give me a bad headache these days. Just as well, it’s expensive and I can find more productive ways to spend that money.

I’ll try and get some more work done on what Starfyre has dubbed “Litzero” later on tonight. And maybe get some more work done on SEP tomorrow if I don’t run off to see Die Hard. Or Ratatouille, that’s out this week as well. (If you haven’t, check out that 9-minute preview on the Apple site, it’s pretty slick.)

As evidenced by the ghost of the guide, I drew Amy’s head a bit short up top. This is why i draw those guides, so i can ignore them and then see that I shouldn’t have done that once it’s scanned. At least I fixed Jenn’s left arm somewhat. One panel down, six to go. I don’t think I’ll be making this Friday’s “deadline,” such as it is.

No HoD or real comic done today. I’m hoping to get off my ass and get the next page of SEP done by Friday, keeping with my sham of a schedule, but we’ll see.

The specific reason I’m MIA today is that my fingernail is too damn long and it’s affecting my typing. Not really, that’s just bugging the hell out of me right now. Actually, I finally got around to buying a keyboard stand on Sunday. As I actually have a place to put the beast now, I have it set up by my computer desk 24/7. Not having to dig the keyboard out of its case and run cables every time is nice. Very nice. So I spent a fair portion of tonight playing with my keyboard. And guitar because the tabs I found for Smoke On the Water did not sound at all right on the keyboard. (That opening riff is easy as hell to play. How about that, I can play something my dad actually likes.)

No shit, I can actually draw? I thought I was limited to copying and pasting.

Started working on the next page of SEP, got next to nothing done, but hey, it’s been a while.

Christ that left arm needs reworked.

Why do I draw that little arc for the breast? It’s never placed correctly and has little to no bearing on the final lineart. And no matter how I erase, it always, always, always shows up in the preview sketches.

10:20 PM: “What was that game Starfyre was talking about, it sounds cool…”
10:21 PM: IM log for applicable conversation loaded
10:22 PM: Searched Wikipedia for Defcon (game)
10:30 PM: Downloaded demo
10:34 PM: Blogg’d. 60mb takes a bit of time, even on reasonably fast broadband.
10:36 PM: Ran out of things to list.
10:37 PM: Clicked “Publish”

As an aside, if I should drop off the face of the earth due to Defcon, you now know who to blame.

Found GUD Magazine via Schlock Mercenary, specifically the Project Wonderful ad. Like I said, I’m a sucker for digital delivery, so they now have three of my dollars and I have a copy of their mag. If I wasn’t in the middle of a goddamn literary onslaught (of five novels, none of which are less than 300 pages, I’m about a fifth of the way through the second), I’d be very happy indeed, as I read a lot and am usually strapped for new material. On the other hand, I’ll be surprised if the aforementioned onslaught lasts more than two more weeks. In the all-you-can-eat buffet that is the printed word, I’m a really fat guy. (Ooh, profound.)

Interesting note: earlier today, my dad, who’s been playing music since before I was born, was discussing the finer points of alternative tuning with me. Amid queries as to why I didn’t bring my guitar. (I brought laundry instead, and damned if my hands weren’t full from that.) So he’s going over this and that and mentions that he doesn’t have the head for “that structural stuff,” as he had to look up on a chart to find the missing sharps. (If you don’t play, just suffice to say that B# and E# don’t exist. Google exists to explain further.) Which I admit I found funny as hell. I think I grabbed my old keyboard, which collects dust in his garage, and pointed out the missing black keys. (Again, Google exists to educate you on this subject.) Of course, it’s hard to remember much as I was matching an old hippie hit for hit with perfectly legal tobacco, and actually burning through beer faster than he was. (That doesn’t seem so bad until you remember that I deliberately keep my tolerances low. Cheaper that way.) Up until I had to come home and crawl into bed for the last seven hours, it was a blast.

What I’m trying to say here is that I don’t have a comic for you. I’m sure both of you are not surprised.

This is what happens when I’m allowed to interact with people. I say things and then put them into Max’s mouth later on.

Also did a new sprite for Ness, not a major change but I like how it turned out. Except for the part where her body is still drawn llike crap.

The Broodax Imperiate
Broodax ‘08

Little Juan brand burritos, about five for $2 at Safeway. Might seem odd, what with Chipotle being based in Denver, but only if you’ve never eaten at Chipotle.

This was gonna be a rant about bloggers, but I kinda got distracted by my breakfast. Little Juan saves the day again!

You can totally tell where I got lazy and just pasted mouths onto existing sprites. They’re the ones that look like Scott Kurtz did ‘em. I can’t help but wonder if this is how he feels, because I feel like I just ripped someone off. Not quite sure who. Ah well, the new Ness in panel 2 is cool. Yep, high point of my day right there, modifying a PSD slightly to make a new prerendered sprite.

I have had tons of contractors borrow my knife and hand it back blade first (what kind of carpenter doesn’t carry a knife in the first place?), but nobody’s been so careless as to call me on cutting toward my body. Could be because I know what the hell I’m doing and I like to think it shows, but most likely because I’m holding a knife. (I know, it seems stupid, but some people actually think a folding knife is some kind of weapon. Boggles the mind, dunnit?)

Ah, goddamn it. I just realized that I forgot to go back and fix Ness’s dialogue. She’s supposed to have a really thick southern accent, but I forget to actually write her dialogue that way every time. I’m like this close to just making her mute. But she’ll sign with a southern drawl, that much is for sure.

EDIT: Okay, fixed. What can I say, I like southern accents.

This was rejected as a follow up to Max’s last line: “It’s the wounded suicide girl angle. So sweet and innocent, like a hurt puppy that you find by the side of the road, nurse back to health, and fuck like a madman…” Omitted because it wouldn’t fit easily. And because if I’m gonna go for a sex joke, I can do much better.