Farsong Blog-o-Matic

It's finally summer; time to put fans in windows. It's also time to venture into the basement room of boxes (of doom). Seriously, that room's probably a fire-hazard. Or an Indiana Jones trap or something. I shut the door as soon as I grabbed the fan, and booked it back up the stairs.

(Drawn in like 20 minutes ... blargb ... I need to get back into drawing things from life — I haven't been looking for that make me go "that would make a great comic," and I need to start doing that again).

To-day was super hot, though. Hoopfest (the world's largest 3-on-3 basketball tourney) was going on downtown this weekend, and it was packed. The festivities bring something in the neighbourhood of $25 million into the city. We also need to get the A/C recharged in the family car, as it provided no relief from the heat whatsoever.


Also, saw Wall•E today. It's a story told almost entirely without words, and so uses the inherently visual medium of film to tell a story almost perfectly. I need to watch it several more times (preferably on DVD so I can pause it) to catch all the nuances of the signs and graphic design — especially in the first few minutes. You are doing yourself a disservice if you don't see this wonderful masterpiece of a movie.

Fifteen-minute sketchcomics. On notecards.



My group totally owned the presentation. I had about fourteen notecards with points (the powerpoint had only three slides with quotes for me, and I actually referenced it only once, having it show different things than I was explaining). I didn't read the first half of the notecards and ended up tossing the last for or five on the table as I was talking. Apparently, I did so in a manner as if I were disgusted with said notecards.

The speech in the bubbles is actually apropos of nothing.

I should also add that the MacBook is awesome when I can control PowerPoints with its little remote-control.


I need to get a new Molskine notebook. And a new, 8.5" by 11" spiral-bound sketchbook. And some markers or something.

In six parts; the idea was to do it simply. Even then it took a while, but it was a great exercise, too.



Parts are perhaps a little dark, but it's supposed to be cheesy (perhaps the cheesiest ending evar), but not edgy; edgy comics are annoying and usually somewhat pretentious. I also tried to show it, not tell it. That's kind of the point of comics.

( The rest of the story )

I didn't realise how long it would actually take to draw/ink/scan six-and-a-half-pages of comics.

This would have taken entirely less time if I had a faster scanner and faster hardware to render the pages. However, I like the way that my scanner works, and how it works with SANE. I do, however, need a new Wacom tablet.


It seems that my style has been influenced by:

Bryan Lee O'Malley
Ryan Estrada: ryanestrada
Mark Smith & Paul Maybury
Mitch Clem: rainofbastards
Calvin


I should probably also mention that this is my first all-nighter ever. Never made it all the way through before, and I can't stop now that it's after 5. That's <2 h sleep, and I can't do that.

More amusing things about twitter.

Frankly, I'm obsessed with it. It helps me not deal with real life problems.

Oh, hey, look: it's a sloppy comic, posted here because it's journal-comic stuff:

( it's sloppy; also: wide )

This was what? Two weeks ago, monday? Something like that.

I finally remembered I had a nib-tipped dipping-ink pen thing, and I inked this two weeks after it was drawn.

But I really did freak out. I was writing a paper at the last minute on the bus to University, and it was raining and the bus had a leak right at the articulation (where the back half connects to the front half with the rubber accordion section). Anyway, I freaked out.


I thought this was sloppy and dirty and rushed and confusing and has too many lines. It's here because it's journalcomicsblog stuff.

Just a reminder that Public Transit is not always Sunshine and Pancakes.

Received a copy of the third volume of the collected Transmetropolatin comic (a series I relish — like most things written by Warren Ellis), this one titled Year of the Bastard and dealing primarily with elections; read through it all this afternoon and am in need of more of this fix. I found Spider's commentary on voting particularly timely. (It's dark and perhaps morbid, so you have been forewarned; then again, I did say that it was written by Ellis, didn't I?).

Spider Jerusalem on Voting:



This has been made even better by virtue of the fact that my copy of Doktor Sleepless (Warren Ellis) Issue 6 is in, and Aqua Leung (not Warren Ellis) will be on its way soon!

As before, the sibling and I have a crazy-awesome relationship. Also, lots of things happen in the kitchen. It is, after all, the heart of the home.

The rough sketches have been in my bag for more than a week.


( Technical aspects of drawing this comic )

Things that actually happen. I love my brother and our crazy relationship. I swear we stood there for at least a minute or two doing this.


Also, hooray for being done with my last final, in math.



I haven't heard this Green Day album, Jesus of Suburbia, in years, and it sounds decidedly overproduced to my ears. I don't like the sound; it's garish. I don't like it at all.

Better. Now I have Argo playing. This is one of my favourite albums of all time.

Most people my age and younger probably don't know what that is.*

I like the lower graphic bit, and I might play with that in Illustrator, later.

( More sketches )



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* If you don't know what that is, look it up on wikipedia.

So, I drew a thing.




The cat often tries to jump from one piece of furniture to another — or to the shelf above my windows. He's not actually allowed to.


This week is terribly busy, with a presentation project due next week, great gobs of math being done this week, activities each evening, and some graphic design/layout stuff outside of school. Finals week swiftly approacheth.

Despite this busyness, today's been pretty good. There's a new episode out of my favouite podcast, I got a copy of the newest issue of Doktor Sleepless, and I'm headed off to the pub to chat with people, shortly.

Also, in spite of this busyness, I came home last night from a band concert and promptly crashed for ten hours. From about 21:30 yesterday to 7:16 this morning. Crazyness. I guess that's what happens when I get 3 hours’ sleep the night before.

I think it's actually the same motor sound I make when showering.

And then I had to go out and shovel with my ski goggles on, because it was blowing out.

It's a crazy winter.

This one has been languishing on my desktop for a couple days. It was languishing in a half-finished form on my desk for another couple days before that.



I just got back from Ella's Supper Club--a cool little jazz club (knipe) down on first, across from the Fox Theatre*. It seems that the music scene--at least the Jazz/classical scene--is a rather small, friendly community. People know one another, or at least know of one another, and there's a great deal of overlap. Very few communities (or aspects of a culture) are like this.

It's interesting, because there was a video-art-installation there in the building. Well, rather, it was outside the building, and projected onto the wall of the Fox, across the street. It was rather interesting, and it was showing video clips in black and white. I think it might have been a Fox thing.


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*No relation to the news station with the most truthieness.

You can't tell I drew this with blue pencils. But I did. It makes the lines cleaner faster, reducing the amount of time that needs to be spent on drawing things. I can also draw more complex things. And there's not eraser bits all over the place. Also: not being able to tell that it was drawn with blue pencil is one of the awesome effects of having blue pencil. Just drop almost all of the lines out in scan.

Also, this is the sort of comic that gets drawn with absolutely no plan. It just happens. It's either an organic comic, or the byproduct of a sleep-deprived, math-addled mind.

Badlydrawn Robot wishes you a Bad Drawing Tuesday.



This happened to-day:( Drawings and ramblings )


Also, the two random shirts I ordered from shirt.woot came in to-day, and neither of them sucks. When I say random, I do mean random--I paid $12 for two shirts, size medium, randomly selected by shirt.woot's shipping. It was a grab-bag, of sorts, and both shirts are cool.


Also, LCD Soundsystem's 45:33 has been on repeat for the last day. Guess how long the track is.

There is a forthcoming graphic novel called Aqua Leung with really interesting art. Interesting enough that I'm going to have to find it in print someplace. It's not even published yet, and the art is interesting enough to draw me in.

I mention this because an early, short Aqua Leung story has been posted in its entirety on Newsarama. And the art's fantastic!

KC Green makes journal comics. His cartoons are dark, filled with funny cartoon expressions, and terribly funny--funny, because they're true. Oddly, the misgivings and apathy he seems to express about comics, sometimes, are the same ones I have.