For those that don’t know, I graduated from an “alternative” high school. That’s where you go if you drop out, get kicked out, or are just too damn stupid for traditional high school. (That’s like being too sober to drive, ain’t it?) The student body consisted mainly of gang members and pregnant girls, and most of them were just plain stupid. In addition to this gem, I also overheard “the sun is the largest star in our atmosphere.” To put it another way, to pass your classes you pretty much just had to show up. Not even do anything, just be in class. Most of these people couldn’t handle that.
Reminder:
Feel that the comment system here is lacking? As it turns out, The Next Project forums include a shiny new HoD forum. Hence, you can discuss this strip in the forums. At last, a way to prove conclusively that nobody reads this comic!
Ah, for the carefree days when you could ask “did she seriously” and expect a constructive answer.
I’d link to a YouTube, but all the videos are from different performances. Ah well, if you’ve seen the Dresden Dolls cover of War Pigs on their “Live in Paradise” DVD, you know what I’m talking about. And if not, just look at that lame background Until the next comic comes around, I guess?
I have many ideas for HoD strips, but they all require me to draw new source material. Yay.
EDIT:
Feel that the comment system here is lacking? As it turns out, The Next Project forums include a shiny new HoD forum. Hence, you can discuss this strip in the forums. Because I felt you needed one more way to tell me that today’s strip sucked.
If you haven’t played Lumines (what’s wrong with you?) then this makes no sense. But that’s not something I’m prepared to give a damn about, considering the amount of time I continue to sink into that game. Honestly, they could’ve just soldiered Lumines into my PSP and I probably wouldn’t know the difference. You know how when you’re not thinking about anything, your brain goes into idle and your mind drifts off to random shit? Without fail, mine keeps going to various patterns and situations in Lumines, as if I was playing it, and it will continue to do so for several weeks after I’ve stopped playing. Just like the last time I played Lumines obsessively. And possibly the time before that, but I had just bought it at that point and I don’t think it had altered my psyche. Unless you count the unbridled rage that accompanies opening the case of my first copy to find that the UMD was busted. Like, won’t-even-fit-in-the-PSP busted. And then finding that of the two used copies the store had, I got the busted one and they sold the other, presumably working, one in the interim. And they only give store credit. Yeah, this game was worth all that, I feel.
Lacking any exterior art and not feeling like drawing, I just used the Google map of my apartment. So if you can figure out the location of the building (Englewood, CO), the apartment indicated by the speech bubble (#302), and which floor I live on (fairly obvious given the apartment number), you’re halfway along on your quest to break into my home and murder me in my sleep. I’m just looking out for you.
This came from the notes I found on my desktop, and dates back to when I was still thinking about doing a journal comic. It doesn’t quite work as an HoD strip, but it serves to make a universal truth known: hammer-ons and pull-offs are not as easy as you’d think. (And the fact that those are the official terms serves to illustrate why I make jokes at the expense of guitarists. (Though the existence of a keytar means that they can make the same jokes right back.))
Is it clear that they’re talking about Jessica? People calling other people by their initials is still done, right?
Oh, I’m gonna get some hate mail for this one… Just let me state that this is a joke. (A JOKE!? In a COMIC!? NOOOO!) I like Squier. I like guitars. I just like insulting guitarists a little better.
For those of you who can’t be bothered to use Google, Squier is Fender’s bargain brand. For the most part, they sell cheap versions of Fender guitars, such as my Strat.
Click for full-res version
I didn’t feel like drawing in her other foot when I was prepping the sketch. And the shading is sloppy as fuck. And I’m pulling an all-nighter. But I like how this came out, and her design is more or less final.
The shirt logo was appropriate, I feel, both for the character and for the state I’m in at moment. And I learned how to warp an object so it looks right superimposed over the curvy bits on her chest. Still can’t get the camo pattern to appear deformed when I use a displacement map, but it looks close enough with shading and a little manual editing to stop camo blob thingies from spanning between her legs, thus creating the illusion of separate legs. Did I mention I’m not sleeping tonight?
Sometimes you make comics to entertain. Sometimes you make comics to deal with shit that bothers you. And sometimes you make comics because the world needs to know just how much of a fucking idiot you are.
I’m confident that I will screw my hair up many, many more times before I figure this out, but I refuse to pay someone for a fucking trim. But, as was mentioned under that crushing wall of text, the shit will grow back. And if that’s the worst thing that happens to me this month… (It isn’t.)
I swear I didn’t mean to make Ness look like a bitch in that last panel. Yay for me being too lazy to draw a new, non-bitchy sprite.
When clearing a bunch of “to be dealt with” shit off my computer’s desktop, I found a text file with a bunch of strip ideas for a couple of strips I was thinking about starting before I decided to restart HoD. So I have a handful of ideas that I can make into HoD strips, the first of which is this one. I’ve got another one, which I won’t be using, about the electronic drums in the background there, featuring the phrase “I can’t drum very well, but it turns out that sucking at the drums is just as fun.” Not really useful without doing yet another photocomic, but damned if it ain’t true. Hitting things with sticks is hella fun.
If you don’t recognize the lyrics, it’s because they’re French and therefore not pronounced like they look like they’re pronounced. And / or you’re not a Freezepop fan. The song is entitled Parlez-vous Freezepop? Also note that Spectre Verde doesn’t include the special foreign characters, so the little fiddly bit on the C in garçons is missing. I apologize to French readers for being too cheap to get a Blambot Pro font.
(The lyric is roughly “It’s the boys and me, voila, it’s our life.” I only mention this to point out that I can just barely speak a little French.)
The video in question. It’s actually pretty cool. Applegeeks is a damn decent comic.
Now that I think of it, they might have a demo unit at an art supply store… There’s one down the street from me, too…
There will be one more photo-based comic. Two artists, both much better than me, posted videos in the same day. The next one should be better.
If you want to know what all that shit is on my computer, enjoy this photo without me in the way. I probably violated four dozen copyrights and trademarks with this photo. Um, fair use?
