Thank god. I nearly posted this on time. Unfunny by lack of talent, late by the grace of god.

My back hurts. Where coffee…?

I guess I forgot to upload this last week? The title probably explains why.

Because Stephen King is a poor writer! Get it?

EDIT: I guess this was filed in the “sketchblog” category, but not the HoD one? Way to go, intoxicated !nk.

Hot damn, I didn’t have to crank this out at the last minute. And now it’s like 7:30, and I’ve still not had dinner. I was starving when I punched out, too. What gives?

This Questionable Content strip got me thinking about The Cask of Amontillado, which I reread right before doing this comic. (It’s not long.) Still holds up, even after I’ve significantly broadened my literary horizons. I still prefer Lovecraft, though. Poe is creepy, but Lovecraft’s writing has this realism which makes it downright disturbing. The first time I read The Call of Cthulhu, I couldn’t get to sleep for an hour afterward, at which point I had nightmares for the remainder of the night. So there you go: Lovecraft gave a grown man nightmares.

(In the unlikely event that you’ve never read any Lovecraft or Poe, I also recommend Herbert West: Reanimator and The Dunwich Horror by Lovecraft, and The Raven and The Tell-Tale Heart by Poe, as well as the aforementioned The Call of Cthulhu and The Cask of Amondillado.

As an exercise, and because I was bored, I did most of this at my parents’ place Saturday. If the writing feels forced (well, more forced than it usually does) it’s because I was trying to work Photoshop with a touchpad and low-res screen. And that’s after the liquor had started wearing off…

I get to drive a forklift and I have never heard any lolcat-speak at work. I think my job is pretty damn sweet.

For some unknown reason, I drew a new sprite for HoD. Being out of practice and tired and rushed, it really lost something when I inked it, but I rather like the sketch.

Jay is supposed to look horrified. Why can’t I draw her horrified? One small dialogue change later, and now Jay is confusing Arkham with Innsmouth. (Innsmouth was the fish town, right?) This is what happens when you forget to do a comic until forty minutes after it was supposed to be up. And, having no ideas, I thought drawing a new sprite would be a good idea. It’s now one o’clock in the AM, and goddamn it I want to go to sleep. Ah well, the title sums up my thoughts on this one pretty well.

I got no ideas, so let’s have some Cthulhu. Seriously, though, if someone tells you that (or just about any other Lovecraft story) isn’t incredibly creepy and unnerving probably never sat down and seriously thought about the events detailed therein.

Actually, Ness is named for the Scottish lake. You know, the one that’s supposed to have the giant fish lizard in it. Jay’s name is completely random, and Max is named for Max Quordlepleen, the host at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy¹ books.²

¹ Or Hitch-Hiker’s Guide or Hitch Hiker’s Guide, depending on your proximity to a small chain of European islands who can’t decide how to speak the language they invented. Or so I’ve been told.
² Actually, he only really shows up in the second book, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but I already said that once in that sentence.
³ One could argue that I go out of my way to use footnotes when talking about the Guide.