The noob blog

Jogging for nerds

2011-01-21T19:23:00.002Z

A friend mentioned the other day that I haven't blogged for more than two years, and that made me think that I might as well start again - especially now that I am so slow with the comic updates. I vaguely remember it as a pleasurable activity, the few times that I did it.

I have started working out a lot more than I used to around June last year, after someone I gamed with mentioned in IRC that they were doing Insanity and P90X from Beach Body (there is always a nerd link to everything I do). I had always steered clear of exercise videos, thinking that they mostly showed ex-fat Z-list celebs yelling and jumping around in pink spandex, but this is not the case with the BB videos. Lots of yelling actually, but no pink spandex or Z-celebs in sight (or maybe American ones that I ignore) - and it kicks your ass like - or more than - a tough gym class.

At the same time, I've used the coach-to-5k plan to start jogging. It goes more or less like this:

week 1
Walk 2 minutes - Jog 1 minute - Think that you are having a heart attack 5 minutes - Jog 1 minute - Hyperventilate 3 minutes - Jog 1 minute - A tunnel, with a light! And angels! And is that you grandpa? Is this heaven? 5 minutes - Jog 1 minute etc. etc.

until you are ready to survive a glorious:

week 9 - jog 30 minutes

The only problem about the 30 minutes is that it makes "coach-to-5k" a total misnomer, since it takes me almost twice that long to cover 5k. I am so slow that you could track my progress with a calendar.

The other day it was a bit embarrassing, because I ended up jogging next to a fast-walking woman with a baby in a pushchair and going at EXACTLY the same speed, right next to her. After two minutes or so she started looking increasingly nervous (add to it that I don't have smart runner gear, and the stuff I wear looks like I just robbed a homeless person). She must have thought that I wanted to steal her baby, possibly to eat it. I wanted to overtake her but I had run for almost an hour and I was already considering crawling for the rest of the distance, let alone sprint. Eventually I moved to the opposite side of the road before she called police.

At some point when you take up jogging - assuming that you don't hurt yourself and have to stop - something magic happens. It's no longer unpleasant and painful, it turns into an awesome feeling. Well, most of the time, and with aches and pains. But it's absolutely great. Your thoughts are no longer "fuuuuuuuuuuck.... fuuuuuuuuuuuck.... aaaaahhhhh... ohmgod Imgonna dieeee...." so you have your brain at your disposal for an hour to do what you want with it.

I think a bit about the script for the comic, but the only way for me to do something constructive with it is to actually write - not compatible with running - and at most when I run I could get an idea to elaborate later, so that leaves a lot of mind room for trivial thinking, like "If Berlusconi had orgies with prostitutes dressed as nuns, instead of just topless police and nurse costumes like he does now, would the Vatican be more upset about this scandal? And why are police unions upset about it but not nurse unions? hmmm... What if I cooked fish again but with pancetta instead of chorizo OOOH that's a seagull! A small seagull! Ugh, what if this guy with the mean looking dog attacks me? Is that a pit bull terrier? I'll yell OH SHIT LOOK BEHIND YOU! and throw him in the river when he turns around! But maybe I should throw the dog in the river first. Yes. Would the dog turn around though? If I use pancetta and white wine it will be delicious, I am sure. Not very healthy, though. Another seagull!" etc.

I thought that I should listen to audiobooks to put my brain to better use, but then I remembered the time that by mistake I added Mozart's Requiem to my jogging mp3 tracks and couldn't be bothered to take the phone out of its holder to change playlist.I ran even slower than normal that day, with an impending sense of doom. As beautiful as it was, I need something with a different tempo to keep me upright and mobile - I've tried different genres and these days I listen to loud trance and techno even if I am not a huge fan, it's great for running even if I end up with tinnitus. An audiobook might be too quiet and slow.

So it happened that yesterday, with particularly bad tinnitus after an hour of NTZZ NTZZ NTZZ NTZZ trance beat though my earphones, I browsed the Kindle store page and saw a book called Zen and the Art of Running and thought, YES! This is what I should do! so I downloaded it to see how you can run and meditate at the same time without getting run over by a truck. I have tried meditating before, but always end up falling asleep, or making shopping lists in my head, or just not even trying because I have very important things to do before bed, like the daily fishing quest in WOW and such.

I read about half of the book last night. It appears to have been written with the potential serial killer in mind as its target audience. It spends a whole chapter with advice on how not to get mad at pedestrians in your way, or even at red lights, because you shouldn't take it personally. They are not there specifically to hinder your progress. If someone suspects that the Illuminati or some other sinister group are controlling traffic lights specifically to annoy them, this book is the solution.

After making sure that you won't go on a killing spree the next time you go jogging, the book suggests some beginner exercises to increase your mindfulness. Listen to your body, it says, and notice its sensations, and as you observe them make them external and impersonal, and let their importance dissipate. Notice how, for example, your knee aches? Ok, label that sensation, and let it go... So I started paying attention to my body's sensations, and sure enough my left Achilles tendon felt a bit sore. I didn't manage to ignore it though. Oh no. Instead, I also noticed that my right arm felt a bit itchy, right above the elbow.Two horrible sensations and I couldn’t even decide what was worse! It was enough to drive anyone mad! Aaaah! Let's try to ignore it, no way, it's too bad... Wait, I have hair in front of my eyes and that's the most annoying feeling ever, Oh God! If I don't do something I'll howl! Two minutes later I was a total wreck, with enough aches and itches as if I'd been attacked by angry ants and rolled into a ditch to save myself. I guess that I'm much closer to enlightenment when I DON'T pay attention to my body, but I’ll try to keep practicing.

Tonight I'll read the rest of the book and apply its teachings in the morning when I jog in Greenwich Park, but I have a lingering doubt. Buddha was a fatty. Not much jogging, there.

Positive thinking

2008-09-26T08:50:00.004Z

I've read in an article that the best way to beat negative thoughts is to:
a) Stop the thought in its tracks by telling yourself "Stop!";
b) think something positive, and
c) take a deep relaxing breath.

I have decided to give it a shot but I can already add two caveats:

- don't do it at work meetings or people will think that you're hyperventilating;
- never, ever do it when you are cleaning the cat's litter box.

Warhammer happened and I am sleep-deprived and wondering when I'll be able to finish the next episode. I'll have to work on it all weekend, dammit! STOP! Hey, it's great to stay indoors on a sunny weekend, you know you love it - DEEP BREATH.

I took a political compass test and it looks like I share the same views as Gandhi! I better check out what they were because I'm not too sure.

POLITICAL COMPASS TEST

A Dell?!?

2008-05-19T08:33:00.005Z

Yesterday I went to see Ironman with a friend and really enjoyed it - it's a very entertaining movie. However I was very suprised to see that their bitchin' computers were labeled Dell (you can see it when Pepper leaves Jeff Bridges' office). I understand product placement and all that, but WTF? I can just figure Stark on the phone with their helpdesk, "yes, yes, a superhero iron suit... I pay with Visa, yeah... oh, I get a free printer with it? Aaah, your Supersaver Summer Deal, of course... Great! Thanks!"
As for books, I've finished reading The Dreaming Void a few days ago and I didn't like it very much. It only has two decent characters (Aaron and Troblum), aside from the old characters from Pandora's Box and Judas Unchained that make cameo appearances. Besides, Hamilton should do everyone a favour and stop writing about sex, he's really crap at it. The dream chapters were bog standard boring fantasy - I wanted to read science fiction, not all that crap. I like the guy, he's written good books in the past (like the Neutronium Alchemist) but this is not it - and the rest of the trilogy isn't even out yet.

One with nature

2008-03-30T10:30:00.005Z

Sometimes I have the feeling that life mocks me in subtle ways.

A while ago I noticed the first signs of spring, tees in bud, etc. while I was walking to the train station. It made me think of Disney movies, with little couples of birds in love flying from branch to branch, and I felt uplifted (I know that mental images don't get much gayer than that, but it's not my fault if I watched so many Disney cartoons when I was a child). I reached the station, sat on a bench, and two of the dirtiest, mangiest pigeons that I've ever seen landed right in front of me and had a vicious fight over a crumb.

Last night as I went to bed I had a New Age moment and I put on loop a CD that I downloaded - a relaxation track with sounds of thunderstorm and pan pipes - thinking that it'd be nice to fall asleep and wake up to the sounds of nature. Sure enough, I woke up a few minutes ago to the loud sound of the cat vomiting a hairball. Well, at least it doesn't get much more natural than that.

Sims2 - It's that time again!

2008-02-29T11:37:00.009Z

How exciting, today the new expansion of the sims2 is coming out in the UK! I can finally put aside LOTRO pvp for something else - for the full three hours that generally it takes for a Sims2 expansion pack to bore me thoroughly.

In anticipation, I've been checking the official forums and there seem to be several complains about bugs and glitches. The Sims2 have the BEST BUGS EVER:

Sad: "I had a pregnant dog go to work with a bladder that needed emptied. She never came home."

Irritated: "I am trying to work and all these sims are coming up to me wanting to talk to me through the teddy bear. Please maxis do you really think that in real life someone you don't even know is going to bring a teddy bear up to you and start talking through it to you?" Actually, that'd be awesome.

Irritated 2: "I also noticed that my guests now use the computer to browse the web and blog about their hobbies. This bothers me a lot although it was probably meant as a feature." Sounds quite realistic to me.

Confused: "The same sim, I called a taxi for her to go downtown. 'The taxi came, she got in, nothing happened, next thing I know, she is returned by the taxi and I am informed she had a good time and purchased a game." That's EXACTLY what happens to me when I go out and drink too much.

Simian Mobile Disco

2008-02-18T18:14:00.003Z

Last week I went with a friend to a gig by Simian Mobile Disco, one of the few bands that she likes that I don't object to. I remember seeing their video Believe on YouTube last year and being really impressed because I thought it was actually done and sung by the Romanian destitute peasants that figure in it.
I enjoyed most of the show, but was really puzzled by the fact that I have no idea what the two guys on stage were doing. They seemed very busy turning knobs and stuff in what looked like an island counter in an alien spaceship's kitchen, but if they were just mixing prerecorded stuff, why did they even need to be there? Well, aside from looking cool in the dry ice and lighting effects while they cranked it to 11.
Another effect of ageing is that every time I go to a gig (not very often) I feel less and less part of the crowd. They look younger and more strangely dressed every time - I know I was a teenage rebel back in the day and dressed the part, but what's up with a flanel pijama with a strawberry motif accessorised with glow-in-the dark necklace? What the fuck, kids? Maybe it's a super hip Grampa-on-Acid look and I just don't have a clue.
A few more years and I'll be chewing a denture and complaining that back in my day we had real music, Sex Pistols, Ramones... TUNES, dammit! TUNES! Oh well, at least I still like Simian Mobile Disco, even if it's played by two strange guys on a futuristic kitchen unit instead of a village of poor peasants. Also, on the upside, I can now be mathematically sure that I do not suffer from photosensitive epylepsia, or I wouldn't be here to write this after that gig.

The tastiest battle of our time

2008-01-28T15:34:00.001Z

The battle of Pelennor fields in candy form, re-created with liquorice and marshmallows by a family during the holidays. It's absolutely amazing. I wonder if they ate it afterwards, that's a huge army of candy.

Candy Minas Tirith

Bleugh

2008-01-23T16:44:00.000Z

I've finally finished reading the space opera saga Pandora's Star + Judas Unchained by British writer Peter Hamilton. I've really enjoyed it, to the point of staying awake until 2-3 in the morning because I couldn't put the book down.

I have only one gripe. In Judas Unchained, it's the year 2400 something and a starship technician who not only isn't British, but isn't even from Earth, unwraps and eats a Cadbury bar. NO FUCKING WAY.

Cadbury chocolate sucks. It sucks immensely. The only reason why people in this country eat that dog puke is because they don't know any better, but it's horrible. Try Swiss or Belgian chocolate - hell, even whatever local non UK chocolate you can find - and compare. Cadbury's in-fuckin-edible. The UK has some special regulations and ingredient quotas on how to make chocolate where they use less cocoa and replace it with other stuff, arguably sweetened shit (as if anyone had to wait for the lab results to find out and couldn't tell from the taste).

Forget the evil aliens, the nova bombs, the quantumbusters, the 60 destroyed planets and the millions of dead Galactic Commonwealth citizens, the really scary thing in Peter Hamilton's book is the concept that four hundred years from now someone will still be shoving that garbage in their mouth.

/nerdrage

The turnip

2008-01-12T13:03:00.002Z

In an attempt to eat more vegetables, I've subscribed to a scheme where you pay ten pounds a week and they bring you a box full of organic greens and fruit. I've done it before and it resulted in several pounds of carrots rotting slowly at the bottom of the fridge, but these new guys allow you to tell them your likes or dislikes beforehand. And that's not all! You can do it with smileys! I wonder if they have a japanese version. "Aduki beans: ^___^".
So that's the theory. In practice I received a box of mixed vegetables where half of the room was taken by a giant turnip. Anyone who's familiar with the old TV series Blackadder may remember an episode where Baldrick spends millions of pounds on a giant prize turnip, the dream of his life - this is not quite that big but it's getting there (probably they put the really big ones in the family sizes boxes). Now I'm wondering what to do with it. I wouldn't even know what to cook with a small turnip.
I could google giant turnip recipes, or maybe travel the world and take pictures of or with it in front of famous landmarks. I could keep it until Halloween and then carve a monster face in it.

If this was a China Mieville short story the turnip would slowly take over my thoughts and my life, I'd come to fear it and be obsessed with it at the same time, and eventually it'd open the gate to some other dark, terrible dimension. Shit, I should get up and throw it away. But now... I'm scared...

Done!

2007-12-13T11:21:00.000Z

I went, I swore, I got my citizenship certificate. The high point of the ceremony was when we all had to stand up in turn and say "I, Gianna Masetti", "I, John Doe", etc. then wait to repeat together the rest of the formula. There was a lady who kept repeating "I, Council of Lewisham", "I, Lewisham Council?", "I... I... Council!" with increasing panic in her voice. I wonder if it was just stage fright or a complete lack of basic English skills. Or maybe it was just her name, by an uncanny coincidence.
Apart from that, the council staff performing the ceremony had that uniquely British brand of cheerfulness that reminded me of that Life of Brian's scene where they line up prisoners. "Good morning! Crucifixion? Jolly good! Out of the door. Line on the left. One cross each. Next please! Crucifixion? Splendid! Out of the door. Line on the left. One cross each."
They even had balloons, red white and blue, and a table of refreshments that I didn't try because a very large, angry woman stabbed me in the back with a plastic fork to get to the food (I couldn't move because there was a small kid in front of me stuffing his face with scotch eggs straight from the tray).
I didn't even complain to her because most of the people seemed to speak no English, despite the fact that you need to pass a written test before the ceremony, where you show your knowledge of Britishness answering questions like "Who is the patron saint of Wales?" and "From what countries did bus drivers come to England in the Fifties?". If I ran a pub I'd ask these questions at quiz night and I'm willing to bet that most born and bred Brits wouldn't have a clue.
Now I can apply for a passport, but I'm told that before they give it to me I'll have to go to yet another interview, where I will have to demonstrate that I am in fact myself. I hope that they don't go for a philosophical angle. "Good morning. Sit down. Tea, coffee? OK, to start let's define the concept of "self", shall we? Consciousness constitutes the reflected or relational level of the spirit, the level of its appearance. The self is the infinite relation of the spirit to itself but a subjective relation, as self-certainty. As this absolute negativity it is identity in its otherness; the self is itself and..."

Repeat, repeat, I, I, your name, your name, solemnly swear...

2007-11-29T11:01:00.000Z

This afternoon I'm going to a ceremony to become a British citizen in addition to Italian.

I'm a bit nervous about it, especially the part of the instructions that says "then we will all stand up and sing the National Anthem". I realised that I only know the Sex Pistols version so I had to google 'youtube british anthem singalong' and practice a bit. At least I know the words now, they don't say "no future" as a foreigner may be led to think.

Aside from the first part of the anthem that everyone knows because it's sung at football matches, there are other verses that apparently are only sung on special occasions. I could find two on the internet - one is quite nice and wishes well to the Queen and invites people to send her gifts etc etc., the other one is a lot more pissy and has a bit of a rant about enemies and their plots and knavish ways - I assume that they mean the French. Anyway these parts aren't sung at normal ceremonies so I won't have the embarassment of starting with the wrong verse.

Also, the instructions don't mention having to walk on crosses to renounce my popish ways or anything hardcore like European merchants had to do to be accepted in Japan a few centuries ago. In fact, this is a country that welcomes and encourages diversity, to the point that the instructions of the ceremony invite me to wear my national costume if I am so inclined. I considered wearing a Roma jersey but I'd have to go and buy one for the occasion.

Short Q & A

2007-08-14T12:01:00.000Z

A reader from Ukraine, Tassadar, wrote to ask some questions - here are the answers.

1) What is you favorite MMORPG ?
Well, I guess that the best game out there at the moment is WoW - although I'm a bit bored with it right now and I'm not playing it. I left it for a long time before and came back for the expansion but now I'm taking another break. I've also bought LOTRO to try it, it's very pretty but it makes me sleepy ;) The part where you play hobbits elves etc has no pvp so it's like playing The Sims. It has a pvp area though, more of that in answer 2. Historically my favorite games were UO and most of all Asheron Call 1.

2) What MMORPG do you think has the best pvp and pk system ?
I agree with you that WoW isn't really a pvp/pk system. I go afk for an hour in places where I will probably be killed because who cares? I can just run back. Battlegrounds are fun for an hour. Arena is fun but again, it's like a minigame. LOTRO has an interesting team pvp setup, where once you are level 10 you can go to a Fell Pool (or something like that) and make a level 50 evil character (orc, warg, etc.) and then fight high level good guys in a contested area that has fortresses that you need to control etc. This is done in raid groups and the bad guys require a lot of strategy to win because they are disadvantaged (but they are usually more skilled). You get points for kills that you can spend on abilities etc. to become stronger. There's in-game voicechat (although quality sucks) so you can logon and be in a pvp raid within 5 minutes, at peak hours. However, it's not free for all pvp in the way that AC1 Darktide was (it was great). I don't play it but I hear often that EVE is the closest you get these days to a free for all pvp setting. As for the future, I hope that Darkfall will finally get released because they promise ffa pvp, and I'm looking forward to trying Conan.

3) About your comic - Have you ever thought about meeting characters of The Noob irl ?
I've met plenty of people in game that inspire the characters. Not as in specific people, but as in human types, the pker, the roleplayer, and so on. But to answer your question specifically, the characters of the Noob are just fictional characters - I never actually thought that I'd like to meet them irl ;)

Noob e-mail

2007-07-23T10:40:00.000Z

I received several emails while I was on holiday in Scotland, so I'll answer them here.

Simon writes about a free mmo that he plays, Eternal Lands, where high level miners can move on from diamond digging and start harvesting precious substances from public toilets. Apparently there's rare gunpowder to be found in human faeces (which possibly requires a dinner of curry vindaloo the night before). Maybe the designers of Eternal Lands were fed up with miners asking for craft improvements when they made this update. I was about to say that WoW designers can only dream to have players with their arms up to the elbows in dung piles then I remembered that there are quests in Nagrand where you have to do just that. Are they trying to send us a message? ARE THEY FED UP WITH PLAYERS? How's that possible!?! After all, listening to endless whining, moaning and complaining from people with an overinflated sense of entitlement has never killed anyone.

Earte writes a long suggestion for the plot based on Apocalypse Now/Heart of Darkness. Thanks, it's very interesting and detailed. I won't use it but I really appreciated it and had fun reading it. Anyway I have ideas that I haven't scripted yet, that are based on Apocalypse Now. The last time that I quoted it someone said that I was quoting Surf Ninjas, so I'm really curious to see if anyone thinks that "oh the horror... the horror" is a quote from Scary Movie IV.

I have received emails from several Swedish readers, horrified at the thought that Basshunter is embarassing their country outside national borders. I don't know what you're talking about, all I sing in the shower these days is "on enemies ve creep-ah lalalah ve sleep-ah". Mattias points out that the correct spelling is "vi sitter hÄr i venten". Double-dot omissions are seriously frowned upon in Sweden, I'm told. They may even creep-ah on you and bitchslap you, if you do it too often.

Borys from Poland likes the bored dwarfette/chavette in the last panel of 262. WTF, chavs are known outside Britain, now? Now that's embarassing - much more than Basshunter. I drew the dwarfette looking at a still image of the girl in the white gym suit in the video - a.k.a. the swedish version of Vicky Pollard.

J would like to see some eccentric newbies in bronze armour in the comic. Well, ok, but they'll have a hard time looking eccentric in Beacon of Hope, though, what with the flower guys and the squids and so on.

Then there's the usual bunch of people who want a piece of me, like some guy who signs his emails as Dynamo Ace. He offers to format in PDF and sell my comic with chapter bookmarks (chapter bookmarks, no less! welcome to the world of tomorrow! Don't you need some special expensive machinery to enter bookmarks in a PDF file?). He would generously give me 50% of the profit. How very kind! He'd be selling my work and keeping only half of the money! What a great deal.

And while the distribution of the comic is in safe hands with Dynamo Ace, I can rely on Janet from Nigeria to take care of the online store:

"Hello sale,
when i come across your website, i observe that you have different product in your store and available items, well before i procced i want to know if you can ship your product to one of my store in Nigeria.

Thanks,
Janet."

I really like the "hello sale". Nothing like the informal, human touch to start a business partnership.

This is all for this bunch of emails, thanks for writing and take care.

Please continue to hold

2006-11-17T13:17:00.000Z

An old episode has come true! British Telecom have double-billed me for my broadband and I can't get through to their customer service!

"Please continue to hold. You are moving up the queue and you are now #35703895 in line to speak to our customer support desk in Bhubaneshwar."

Although they're not quite as awesome as the support line of a friend's broadband, who play MIDI versions of Pachelbel while you wait and wait.

Why I love the Sims 2

2006-10-23T16:22:00.000Z

Because of their amazing bugs. I've bought the Sims 2 Pets on Friday and I was browsing a fansite forum, when I came across this post by a concerned player:

I had the weirdest thing happen after installing Pets. I created a dog and then called for an obedience trainer. They trainer sim came to the house but just sat in a van in front of the house sobbing and crying continuously! I couldn't get it to stop and I couldn't interact with the trainer sim. I ended up moving the family out and demolishing the lot. Has anyone else seen this?

That's such a great bug.

It seems that people don't have much luck even if the trainer is not upset, though, according to this answer:

My trainer won't train either. She came, I purchased training, then she sat on the couch and watched TV.

Are you unable to connect to the main webcomic site?

2006-10-23T09:44:00.000Z

Two readers have posted comments saying that they have been unable to view the main webcomic site for over a month. I've spoken to the network administrator of the host who told me some things that you can check out if this is happening to you. He would also appreciate if you could post/email the results of these checks. Comparing them for all the people who are having problems would help him to see if there is a problem at our end.

These are the checks to do:
1. In windows, press start, then Run, type in CMD (win 2000/XP/Vista) or COMMAND (Win 98/ME)
2. In the command window, first type:
nslookup http://www.thenoobcomic.com
the IP should be 67.18.37.227

then type:
nslookup http://www.thenoobcomic.com 67.18.37.226
the IP should still be 67.18.37.227

If the first fails, but the second works, it is your local DNS server and you should be able to fix the problem by contacting your ISP. Even so, please send us the results so the network admin can check them.

3. If both work, type tracert 67.18.37.227 to see how far you get. (Tracert displays all the hops that you do to reach the page.)

HOW TO DUMP THE RESULTS TO A TEXT FILE
In the command window, type the following (where filename stands for whatever name you want to give to the file and [ENTER] stands for pressing the Enter/Return key):

nslookup http://www.thenoobcomic.com > filename.txt [ENTER]
nslookup http://www.thenoobcomic.com 67.18.37.226 >> filename.txt [ENTER]
tracert 67.18.37.227 >>filename.txt[ENTER]

Paste the results of the text file here as a comment or email them to me at gianna.masetti@gmail.com

In the commands above, > writes to file and >> appends. If you want to write the file in a specific folder, e.g. a folder called misc on your c: drive, just type the whole path, > c:\misc\filename.txt.

In the meantime the network admin has made some small change at his end so you may be able to view the comic website already. I hope this helps!

Minor things that annoy me

2006-10-21T14:00:00.001Z

Commentary in some documentaries.
The sensationalist spooky bullshit, specifically. "There's something haunted here... something scary... IN THE POSTAL MUSEUM!"

Labelling in grocery stores.
Tesco, the supermarket where I normally buy my groceries, sells normal sized bananas and slightly smaller, misshapen ones. Instead of calling them honestly grade B bananas or something, they label them "Fun sized bananas". Fun sized? FUN SIZED?!?
Oh yeah... hilarious...right... "Joe! JOE! Oh God, come here, you have to see this!!! IT'S A SMALL BANANA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!". Jesus.

Force of gigantic dis

2006-10-11T10:34:00.000Z

I'm participating to season 6 of Sketchbattle (with AF writing the scripts) - which is a lot of extra drawing but is also good fun. Today KC Green destroyed the other contestant in the best battle since the creation of the website. Just the hands spelling "Bitches" is pure genius - I was transfixed. He should win the season automatically just for that. The guy's comics are very funny - those I've read, anyway, because it would take 10 years to go through all the archives. By the looks of it, he draws two dozen strips per day. And most of them are very good.

Another contestant that I really like is Fabricari. His art is amazing (I'm not so sure about his bespoke sound effects though - zottlx?!?) and he's had a very good idea about setting a webcam on his drawing table so that people can watch him draw in real time. He explains how to do it and I am tempted to set it up too.

UK Webcomic Thing 2007

2006-10-02T13:31:00.000Z

I've booked a table for the UK Webcomic Thing 2007. Now I MUST get book 3 ready - maybe even book 4. I just shudder at the thought of printing episode 200 because it would have to span across two pages. It's a pain in the ass to do things by trial and error by normal post across two continents.
I'm also thinking of buying a badge maker and make buttons. I don't use them but I've seen people walking around the convention last year with so many badges on their clothes that I wondered how they still managed to move - so I guess that they are a popular item. If not, I can try to use them instead of coins in soda vending machines.
What else? I have some fridge magnets and stickers from last year (the pirate parrot was particularly popular) and very few t-shirts left. Time to print some more.
If only I didn't suck at organising this kind of stuff.

:-( B.C.

2006-09-19T23:59:00.000Z

I spent a weekend in Paris where I made an important discovery while visiting the Louvre. As you can see in the photograph that I took, the sad smiley had already been invented by the Egyptians more than 4000 years ago.

Where do I get ideas? In the Retarded folder

2006-09-13T12:20:00.000Z

I haven't read message boards for ages and my brain thanks me for it, but who knows how many countless gems I'm missing. When I used to read them, I'd copy and save posts that were retarded enough to stand out for exemplary stupidity even in the great Ocean of Dumb of gaming forums. Unfortunately I changed PCs at work and when I did a backup of my stuff I forgot to copy over my beloved Retarded folder, so I have almost nothing left. These are two of the few things that remain.

The first is a sample of an insanely long drama post on a WoW forum. I already had in mind to feature a drama queen in the comic so I copied it for future reference:
He told me the reason he broke up with her was because she wanted to have a 3sum with him and some other guy. He also told me about Zenithfaith/Zenithstorm, and said they knew eachother in real-life. He said that she was too shy to make out with him, but that they would fool around all of the time. He said she was the reason he started playing WoW. At the moment, he is dating someone I thought was a friend, Lunarflower, who after 20 minutes of knowing my friend Serujisu, whispered to me she thought she had a major crush on him. Gawain and I laughed and made fun of her, and talked about how pathetic they both were (which later we found out Serujisu never had interest in her, so it was just her). I also found out from a friend that she's tried dating Bouncerr and someone else from Judgement. We cracked up for a day on how lame she was, but now he hypocritically went to her because he knew she was easy."
She goes on and on AND ON like this for pages. Amazing. I'll use choice bits to script Emonika's dialogue. Seriously, you can't make this shit up.

The second is a three year old post from someone who was extremely saddened by the introduction of pvp in City of Heroes (when they announced City of Villains). I really don't see how I can use this in any way in the comic, but if I could somehow re-create the pathos and drama that this moron infuses in a post about a FUCKING GAME, it would make for some fine script:

"Beta reports made me dream of a game that brings out the best in players. Finally, a game relatively free of d00ds, griefers and silly immature behavior.
I thought I would see players that care for other players, who know that grief in the game actually hurts the real person in front of the screen... those players that know that hurt is bad.

Now its pvp... now the griefers come. Lets welcome the d00ds, powerlevelers and leet-speak kids.

It doesnt matter if pvp is separate. They will be all over the community, like everywhere else. Their issues will be on the boards, their playing style will contaminate every discussion.

Its a mindset, a way of thinking. If there is a chance to mess with other players, those who like to mess with other players will come and do just that.
I wished so hard to for once be able to avoid them - to forget about them.

I think it will feel much less fun being a hero now. It doesnt feel like fun at all.

There comes the attitude, the foul mouth, the silly behavior.

Right now, hope is gone."

Make a wish emails

2006-09-11T09:54:00.000Z

A reader on the tagboard asked me to blog more and I was so surprised that someone would want to read my drivel that I decided to indulge him/her. I've even enabled comments, so all the viagra dealers have a place to append their spam. I very rarely have anything meaningful to speak about but nothing is easier than talking without nothing to say. That reader will rue the day he asked for this.

A colleague sent me one of those chain emails that normally I delete on sight - make a wish, read the prayer to St Teresa, send this email to 12 other people and your wish will be granted within four days, etc. etc.
The email also mentioned that I had to include the sender in the group of 12 people, so I feel a bit bad not sending it back to my colleague. One thing is to think "WTF did you send me, did you lose your mind?" but keep the thought to yourself, another is to let your silence say it for you. Maybe this lady wished for something awesome like peace on Earth and I'm fucking it up for her.

Of course I could send it back saying "I MADE A WISH THAT YOU'LL STOP SENDING ME THIS RETARDED SHIT - BUT FAT CHANCE OF THAT HAPPENING, YOU MOTHERFUCKING MORON!", but that would be just as rude as not answering. Maybe even a bit ruder.

Let's have a look at the requirements. Let's assume for sake of argument that St Teresa really exists and that she cares about this email being forwarded it exactly twelve people. Maybe that creates just enough Heavenly Mana points for a small miracle. I guess that sending it back just to the colleague and pretending that I sent it around wouldn't fullfill the conditions.

So I wonder - what if I forward it to my colleague and 11 people picked at random from my spam box? Would that satisfy the requirements? For example, there's a Lara Leary who's been eagerly trying to get me interested in a "fine-looking Innoccent Cutie getting splendid it anallly!" (how does one get splendid anally? maybe it's somehow related to mystical ecstasy and they would appreciate a prayer email to St Theresa); there's a Sushi bar in Spain that keeps sending me emails about their home delivery service (that'd be some ripe salmon nigiri by the time it got here); and so on. Do these count as people for the purposes of email miracles? If they don't, St Theresa may get really pissed - and who knows what other superpowers she has aside from granting wishes by email? Better not risk it.

Mediocre movie night

2006-07-27T12:59:00.000Z

I spent most of yesterday evening colouring episode 203 and I watched a disappointing movie called The Village. It was very much how I imagine Live Action Roleplaying to be, muddy, overacted and with nothing really going on.
When it started I thought it would be cool, but what totally killed it for me was
*SPOILER WARNING* (stop reading now if you haven't seen it!)
*SPOILER WARNING*
.
.
.
.
.
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seeing Miss Piggy dressed like a spanish inquisitor walk past in the background. Also, the characters kept doing things that made no sense, it was really irritating. Maybe that's why the retarded guy was the best character, at least he was justified.

Our Exalted Leader

2006-07-25T14:09:00.000Z

I was reading the EQ2 forums looking for interesting material to use in the comic and happened on this mindblowing statement in a thread about gold farmers (the bold is mine):

I have said it before and i'll say it again that the only way to really cripple these people is to get the governments involved. I don't think the US president, European Primeminister, China leader, Japanese Emporer and such will be too happy they are loosing money from these people. This stuff is unfiltered un taxed money like paying a person under the table you start billing these people for tax evasion and punishing them severaly enough it'll start to stop for a bit.

That's why gold farming is rampant! That lazy European Primeminister isn't doing anything about it. He's not getting my vote at the next elections, that's for sure.

Football fever

2006-06-12T13:55:00.000Z

Football craze is upon us, for the next month (or earlier, depending on results), England flags will be the hottest item for sale at pound shops all over the country. I went to the supermarket two days ago and it felt like I was the only person not flying the colours - I vaguely worried that I may be confronted and beaten up in the car park, because my old car has a Roma sticker with the Italian flag colours in the background.
Anyway, the next episode, #191, has a World Cup theme.

Virtual fashion

2006-06-02T14:28:00.000Z

I've been browsing for screenshots from old UO days (Found them! Please don't send any) because I want to draw a large group scene in #189 - a fight night - with a retro look and the 3rd person view angle from above that UO had.
I've found a bunch of screenshots of assorted pwnage on a guild website of some pk guys who probably had their site designed by Dakilla (minus rotating skull gifs, I'm sorry to say), and a bunch of screenshots from some online wedding found googling with the usual orderly crowd of people in cloaks and feathered caps spamming *cheers* and *claps*.
I realised while I was looking at these two very different groups of people that in UO - since it didn't matter really what you were wearing and you were just as likely to see guys in full plate or guys in loincloth and skull helmet running around - people could come up with all kinds of different combinations of clothing, crossdressing and weirdness - and ended up making fashion statements about themselves just in the same way people do in real life.
I don't mean by having "unique characters" like you can do in many games now, where you can spend 4 hours choosing the nose shape and the angle of the eyebrows and all kinds of minute details of your character's face, when anyway you'll never see much more than its butt while it runs around the game and no one else will ever give a second look (or a first) at its facial features.
I mean instead in the same way that a goth, say, or a smartly dressed businessman, make a fashion statement about themselves, so as soon as you see one you label them in your mind. I could have cut off and mixed all the guys on those screenshots and guessed who was one of the pks and who was a roleplayer just by looking at their clothes.
I think that it's cooler than games where everyone looks like cookiecutter character #1843475. WoW has great graphics, but people of approximately the same level and gear quality are going to look very much like variations of each other, whoever they are and whatever their game style.
Now, I'm not being nostalgic - after all there are games like City of Heroes where it doesn't matter what you're wearing so you have great freedom to customise your looks, but I think that it'd be nice if gear-based games like WoW allowed players to display any kind of clothing, hats etc. on their characters, if they wanted. Right now, everyone looks like a clone.

I'll never reach nirvana this way

2006-05-25T11:05:00.000Z

I think that the consensus, among levitating gurus & co., is that you need to trascend all earthly desires in order to achieve cosmic peace and nirvana. So far I've coped with earthly desires by trying to buy stuff that I coveted as soon as possible - since it's generally nerdy stuff like books and new computer games that's not a big deal - but now I'm in trouble. I've seen a Wacom Cintiq UX21 graphic tablet, I've TOUCHED IT, and SKETCHED ON IT, and I'm in love. It's also very, very expensive.

I went to the Adobe Live expo yesterday to get information about software that I may use for work (my day work, rather than the comic) - and since I was going to wear a badge and didn't want to disgrace my company with shabby looks I made a huge effort and wore a girly shirt and extremely fake pearls. When I got there I discovered that it was a show aimed at creative industry workers, though, who were all hippy-looking people eyeing with some suspicion my pseudo-semi-corporate look. After playing City Life with the social classes that set each other on fire I was vaguely uneasy. Maybe I should have shouted, WAIT! I'M NOT A SUIT! I'M LIKE YOU! I'M LIKE YOUUUUUUU... AAAARGH!

Anyway there was a Wacom stand, and I got to try the Cintiq. Imagine a 21'' monitor at 1600x1200 resolution that you can lie flat and draw on. At the moment I have to zoom in even 6x to get my lines not to look too shaky, so that often when I zoom out again I discovered that I drew, say, the legs of the character twice as large as they should have been, because I couldn't see the whole figure. On this tablet, I wouldn't have this problem at all. I can get a firm line even at 1:1 resolution. It's really like drawing on paper. BOHOOOOO. I DESIRE IT SO MUCH. I've been telling myself that since I spend at least 20 hours a week drawing in Photoshop, it would make perfect sense to spend my savings and then some on this thing, but then I do a reality check and realise that I'm just being crazy.

Nerd points - Current tally 125

2006-05-17T08:59:00.000Z

Last night, my karate instructor was telling us of a guy who could make people faint just by applying light pressure, or even just brushing, specific points on their necks.
FOR THINKING "OH, LIKE THE VULCAN GRIP!" - 100 POINTS.

This morning, looking at some flowers while I was walking on a path in a nature reserve area on the way to work.
FOR THINKING "WHOA, THOSE ARE THE FLOWERS FROM OBLIVION" - 25 POINTS.

If I had to count all the nerd points that I scored in my life I'd be totalling millions, but I reset the count to last night.

2006-05-07T10:18:00.000Z

Yesterday afternoon I slept for a couple of hours and woke up in such a daze that I coloured the comic for two hours without saving. THEN PHOTOSHOP ATE IT! This morning I'll have to do all that colouring again, booohooo...

Last night I went to Cargo and I particularly appreciated the video that the band (Pet) played during a song - a video of a race game with a car going the wrong way.

Two or three weeks ago I went to a club where they were looping a long video on a wall with all kinds of shots, from people crossing the street to fashion shows for bishops (AWESOME) - and I wondered how much fun it must be to do that shit.

Busy May

2006-05-04T15:51:00.000Z

Life is very busy at the moment. Things at work are hectic (with weekend work looming) - on top of that my two dojos (karate & aikido) have scheduled gradings one after the other, in two weeks from now. I'll have to test for karate 2nd kyu on Tuesday 16th and aikido 5th kyu on Wednesday 17th. I'm glad it's not the contrary, because karate gradings are exausting - when it's all over you feel like you cycled up a hill. Anyway I feel absolutely NOT ready for either grading, but since nobody shoots me or scratches my car if I fail, I don't see why I shouldn't try.

The effect on the comic is that I'll have to find a way to fit drawing around 4x a week evening training (I should always train 4x, but I usually slack one or two days a week). This weekend looks good for drawing though, aside from going out on saturday afternoon-evening, I should draw all day on sunday - they forecast rain.

I wasn't lazy yesterday! Honest!

2006-04-25T11:28:00.000Z

I know that the progress bar didn't move from 75% tracing, but I've actually been drawing all evening. What's happened is that once again I wasn't happy with the upcoming episode. Heck, with the next two episodes. I can't do without though, because it's central to the story, so I've concentrated both episodes in one long strip. It doesn't really have a punchline but it's full of drama! My creative consultant was unavailable for last minute fixes to the script so you'll have to live with this unfunny #182, then we go back to Fred the Dread and his romantic adventures.

Proud to be a dickhead

2006-04-05T15:26:00.000Z

I really am.

From the Guardian:

Silvio Berlusconi was accused yesterday of dragging Italy's already raucous general election campaign into the gutter when he declared that those who voted against him would be "dickheads".
Speaking to journalists about the expected outcome of the election next Sunday and Monday, the Prime Minister said: "I have too much respect for the Italians to think there are that many dickheads around who'd vote against their own interests."

Unbelievable. If this clown gets re-elected I'll seriously consider changing citizenship.

13 years to the day

2006-04-03T12:22:00.000Z

I've moved to England from Italy exactly thirteen years ago, on the 3rd of April 1993. I did it because I had fallen in love with a Brit, and when we split up years later I already had a job, a car, two cats, etc. etc. So I stayed mostly because I'm too lazy for massive changes unless there's an overwhelming reason, but also because London is an amazing place. The best thing is cycling along the river in summer from Greenwich to Tower Bridge and back on the other bank, where the smugglers and pirates used to hang out.

Poltergeist

2006-03-24T11:42:00.000Z

I found the script! The USB key was simply hiding behind the monitor. I'm working hard on episode #175 which is 1.5x length and will be a bitch to colour, right now I'm trying to finish some stuff at work by tonight so that I don't have to come in during the weekend again and be late with the update.

Yesterday I had this surreal conversation with my best friend, who is GENERALLY an intelligent woman but has some really weird theories.
Me: "Did you install yet that DVD recorder that you bought last week?"
Her: "No, I'm waiting to do it after this Saturday, because at the moment Mercury is retrograde and that's really bad for all things related to technology"
Me: "Hold on a second, you don't believe this crap, do you?"
Her: "Of course I do! Mercury is the god of communication, and what are DVDs if not..."
Me (interrupting): "You can't be serious, do you really believe that a chunk of rock in the sky determines how easy it is to install a DVD player?"
Her: "Well, don't believe it if you don't want to, but I've had plenty of problems with tech stuff in the past when Mercury was negative!"

Now I'm a bit concerned. I had planned to buy a new TV this weekend at Comet in Greenwich, but maybe I should check first if the store was built on an ancient burial ground.

Dude where's my script

2006-03-21T09:40:00.000Z

My beautiful script! I keep it in a USB key that I keep in the front pocket of my jeans along with change, and now it's not there! Either it fell off at the gym in the locker, or it fell off at home... I HOPE! Otherwise it's going to be a pain in the ass to retrace in my memory the latest stuff I've written. I have saved a copy on the work PC a few days ago, but yesterday I'd written a couple of episodes that I was very happy with, for a change - so I'd be really pissed off if the key's gone. That'll teach me drinking three big glasses of wine when I go to the pub.

Oh God oh God... just checked the backup file I have... there's so much missing! At least three solid episodes that I really liked. BOHOOO! That USB key better turn up.

Tales from the crypt

2006-03-17T11:45:00.000Z

Or rather, from my office desk. I'm sorry for being AWOL if anyone was searching the site for a write-up of the UK webcomic con. I haven't had time to do it because work is omfgpwning me at the moment. I'll do my best to write about it asap!

#174 is another double length episode, with a couple of very crowded large panels. I'm going to be working overtime all day Sunday. When am I going to find the time to colour it? Fuck knows. I'm going out tonight, so I'll try to finish it tomorrow. I may even do a 1 or 2-colour update rather than a full colour one, because free time is horribly scarce these days and I'm already having trouble updating once a week as it is. I don't think that people give much of a shit about pretty colours all the time, anyway.

Bohoo

2006-03-06T12:21:00.000Z

This is so annoying... I spent 250$ to have volume 2 books sent by Lulu, back on the 23rd of January, and they're not here yet. If I don't get them by the end of the week in time for the con, I'm so screwed. I've got one sampler copy, maybe I should just write down the email of anyone who wants the book and let them know when I finally get it. Fuck you US Mail and Royal Mail! Fuck you both! Anyway, I guess that it's no big deal, I can always keep the copies if and when I get them for another convention.

Speaking of which, sooner or later I should be bold and brave and go to a convention in the US or Canada, since about half of my readers are from North America. There are lots of conventions over there, maybe the best would be Otakon in Baltimore (ComicCon is way too huge for small fry like me, and DragonCon - on the 'too big' side as well - is more of a generic nerd extravaganza than a comic convention). Otakon is anime comics and my comic isn't anime by any stretch of the imagination, but neither is Little Gamers and they do go to that con. I'll see if I can ask about it to the authors if they are at the UK Thing.

I doubt it that it will happen this year, because I don't think that I can afford it. Besides I have an old fashioned passport, while the new US post-terror regulations require passports with biometric data, such as fingerprints, iris data etc. ("Is this to be an empathy test? Capillary dilation of the so-called blush response? Fluctuation of the pupil? Involuntary dilation of the iris..."). Getting a new passport done means taking half day off to sit and wait for hours in a room packed with other expats at the Italian Consulat. I don't know why, but it always makes me feel a bit sad, especially when some old person talks in broken English AND broken Italian. I keep worrying that I'll end up the same, incompetent in two languages.

The #172 solution

2006-03-06T01:52:00.000Z

After agonising about it for a bit, I decided to put together #172, which I didn't like, with #173 in one big strip. It's taken a while to do, but at least I avoided posting an episode that I didn't like.

I hate #172! - Gamer diet - UK con

2006-03-01T11:05:00.000Z

#172
I really enjoyed drawing #171. It's such a simple idea, but it's a good one. I know in advance when a strip is going to be good, so I was looking forward to #171.

I also know when a strip is NOT going to be good, so I'm loathing the idea of drawing #172. It's bad in so many ways... it's not funny, I HAVE to do it because of the fucking story, it's complicated to draw. I enjoy having an ongoing story in the comic, but not when it forces me to draw strips that I don't want to draw. Normally (but not always, unfortunately) shitty strips get deleted from the script when I revise it, but I can't find a way to get rid of this one.

Gamer diet
After signing for the diet-for-charity event Biggest Webcomic Loser at the beginning of the month, I started to feel terrible because after two weeks my weight hadn't moved, if anything, I had put on two pounds. Then I decided to try the free trial of EQ2 on the new pvp server. I'm completely hooked. I spent four days eating much less than normal just because I was so engrossed in the game that I didn't want to stop playing it unless I was about to pass out for lack of food. I don't think it's particularly healthy, but as a result the weight is finally dropping. Now, if only I could maintain the same level of interest in either EQ2 or some other game until I lost the remaining 17 lbs, it would be awesome...

Anyway this made me understand something about myself: I eat when I'm bored. I had never realised it because I never want to admit with myself that I'm bored, but right now that I'm honeymooning with this new game the number of trips to the kitchen has gone down dramatically.

UK con
Oh my God, less than two weeks for the UK con. I'm worried because I spent 250 dollars to have Lulu.com send me copies of book 2 to sell, and they aren't here yet. I shouldn't have been cheap and should have chosen the faster mail option, but it was mid-January, for crying out loud. I'm a bit nervous and very excited about the convention, in the next couple of days I should update the page with a big banner or something, to let the British readers know that I'll be there. I hope that someone shows up! I can't wait to get myself some Scary Go Round and Beaver and Steve stuff, maybe a book or two.
An organiser wrote me to ask if I was available for a panel, if they select me for it I hope that my Italian accent will be understandable. I also hope not to ramble, babble and trail off as I usually do when I talk. Then again, maybe I won't have to sit in the panel, I don't know yet.

Who can blame her?

2006-02-14T14:00:00.000Z

From today's Metro (London, UK) newspaper:

A nurse put a patient's glass eye in a cup of Coca-Cola to give to a colleague as a joke, a disciplinary panel heard yesterday.

As for webcomic news, I'll have a lot to colour in #169 (there's a panel with something like 10 people) and I'm not too sure where to fit it in with the other stuff I have to do - karate tonight and aikido tomorrow. Since both classes are lateish, 8:30 pm or so, I'll skip the gym beforehand and run home at 5 to get 1-2 hours of colouring done. Ideally I should finish it sometime tomorrow night, but there's really a lot to do on it. I've received the fridge magnets for the convention (from Alaska, where they probably stick them on icebergs) and they look awesome. If I get round to taking photos of my fridge I'll post them.

Creepy

2006-02-10T09:41:00.000Z

Yesterday I stopped at the vet to pick up food for my cat (who's old, has a bad liver and leads a very extravagant lifestyle of expensive special food) and there was an old lady who creeped me out. For the whole time that I was there in the waiting room she kept talking incessantly to the dog, who never moved an inch and looked quite bored throughout: "Now you have to sit here because you're such a good girl, yes good girl, you know there have been other babies here today? Lots of other babies! Like you baby, because you are such a good girl, sit, yes, sit, now the doctor's going to have a look at your paw because you're such a good good baby, sit darling, sit..." She was at it for five fucking minutes non-stop while I was waiting to get my stuff. I almost wanted to walk up to her and tell her, lady, for the sake of this dog who can't talk and tell you, SHUT THE FUCK UP. Anyway this morning I woke up because the old cat was clamouring for food ("what's up with the service in this house? Breakfast should be served at 8!"), I told him "ok, ok, good cat, quiet now" and froze in horror. Fuck! I'm going to become batshit crazy like that old woman and talk to cats! Well, if I ever become a crazy old woman I'm going to be hardcore about it, I'll go to the park and talk at length to other people's dogs while the owners squirm and smile all embarassed and wish that I'd go away.

Yesterday I had my first aikido grading, since it was newbie grading it was very undemanding and I think that in order to fail you'd have to faint, or maybe run up to the instructor and be sick on his shoes, but I still managed to build up a nice panic beforehand. Bolstered by the fact that I had passed (along with everyone else), I stayed for the following intermediate/advanced class and we had to do some drill with forward rolls. Now, these fucking aikido forward rolls are nothing like the stuff I did as a kid, you're actually supposed to roll on your arm and shoulder like a wheel, and when you look at people who can do it properly they look like circus freaks. I've googled aikido images and this site has a photo of a guy doing a roll. I find it quite scary, because you start them from standing up, looking at the other guys it seems that once you've mastered it, it's completely natural and painless and easy, but I find it hard to let go and just do it. They tell beginners that we can go down on one knee to start the roll and make it easy if we want, but I get in this adrenaline-induced delirium where I want "to do like everyone else" so I start from standing up too. The result is that I manage some approximation of a proper roll on the right side, but the ones on the left SUCK. I don't know what's wrong with my brain's wiring, I'm left handed and footed, and still I can't roll for shit on the left. My shoulder is hurting because I somehow fucked it up last night, even if I didn't have the impression of doing anything different from what I do on the other side. Blah!

On the comics front, I registered for the Biggest Webcomic Loser and I really hope that people are going to pledge for me. If I find the time I'll draw a PC wallpaper as a thank you gift for pledgers. #168 is coming along nicely, I'm very fond of it even if it's a bit vulgar, but what can I do, I like lowbrow humour. It features (in a memory from the past) Drakoola before he lost his body, following a friend's advice I drew him in UO bone armor to give him that retro look - I wonder if anyone will recognise the armor set (especially with my limited artistic skills). It would have been much more recognisable if I had drawn him with the skull helmet, but I wanted to show his face. I drew him as a dashing pirate-looking type. Yesterday I came home too late to finish it, but I count on finishing and posting it tonight.

Dieting for charity

2006-02-02T17:36:00.000Z

I'm thinking of joining the Biggest Webcomic Loser charity initiative:

BIGGEST WEBCOMIC LOSER

In their words:
"Biggest Webcomic Loser is about webcomic creators getting together to raise money for UNICEF, the United Nations Children Fund.

Pledge donations for the extra pounds of your favorite cartoonists. You can pledge any amount per pound you choose. Those pledges add up so that every extra pound lost by a creator can be worth a lot of money to the Children of the World.
"

With this in mind, yesterday I found the scales from their hiding place under the bed, stuck them on lbs mode and stepped on. After a moment of dizziness (I hadn't stepped on scales since BEFORE xmas, and I underestimate my lardiness by sucking in cheeks and stomach and making thin faces everytime there's a mirror nearby), I found myself facing a problem. My weight in lbs last night was 178. Most of the other comic authors participating to the charity thing have starting weights ending with a 0 or 5. Should I lose 3 pounds before I even sign up to have a figure ending in 5, or have some extra cake for a figure ending in 0? Or even go berserk and stuff my face to put on 8 pounds before I start dieting?

OK, I know that the only reasonable option is to lose 3 pounds first, or just round up my weight WITHOUT having to actually put it on, but I abhor the thought of dieting. I tried to as a new year resolution and it lasted until Jan 2 afternoon. However, if I do it for charity, I should be motivated enough to stick to it, because I'm not doing it just for myself (a self that keeps suggesting that extra servings of pudding would be much more welcome as a sign of caring). It'd be really cool if people pledged and I managed to lose the 20-25 lbs that I'm going to set as target, and get all that money to Unicef. Now I just have to get off my ass and sign up.

It's too early in the morning to think of a title!

2006-02-01T09:45:00.000Z

I've started making more and more long episodes, #166 is a 6-panel update. It's all well and good when I script them, but then it takes for f'n ever to colour them!

I'm very slowly crawling out of the creative block phase I've had recently and I've started writing again some episodes that I haven't deleted right after. #165 went so well with the readers, with many saying how they liked the return to the roots of making fun of the game mechanisms, that I'm going to bug the co-author again for help as soon as I get round to translating my script notes from Italian to English.

This is an example of how my scripts look like (from an old strip with El D34dlito and Your Name Here in a restaurant):

YNH, D34DLY, DARKBLADE

Idea: Darkie cerca di prendere la mano di YNH nel corso delle vignette, che per reazione cerca di infilzargli la mano con una forchetta.

Tutte le vignette sono lunghe.

Scena 1: Da sinistra a destra, YNH, Darkie e D34dly seduti a tavola in un ristorante. Un cameriere vicino a D34dly (sulla destra)..

Darkie: You’ll see, mylady, the food is fab-u-lous here! *smiles charmingly*
Cameriere: As entrée’, monsieur, may I suggest our miniature crab cakes with sauce remoulade, prepared with ze freshest …
D34dly: Wha?

It's impossible to follow, unless one can read Italian. I'd never thought that I'd be discussing my script in advance with anyone, but now that I stand corrected I've started writing notes in English.

#165: Script rescue - giving credit where it's due

2006-01-27T13:43:00.000Z

The original script of #165 was giving me trouble because I didn't find it funny at all and it had no jokes or punchlines, but I needed the queen to enter in Ohforf's room to link up with the upcoming episodes so I didn't want to get rid of the episode altogether. I was so depressed about not having any idea on how to turn it funny, that was thinking of adding a complimentary Yo Mama joke at the end of it. For real. (Well, there's a particular yo mama joke that I'd like to draw, but that's unrelated.) So I went to an irc channel of people I game with and whined about it. Whining pays off!

Readers seem to really like #165, but the people they should praise are two friends of mine:

-AF, who helped me rewrite it from scratch. He's had the idea of the queen using a house break-in bug to get in Ohforf's room, as well as Drakoola's reaction (I had written at first "Aaah, 'sploiter!", which is more what a Baconian of Hope would shout, while "Hax!" isn't so judgemental - and you believed that there was no thought involved in writing forgettable gag strips about games!).

-Lan, who suggested that she could use a bug like the one in UO circa-1998, when people broke into houses from the roof by doing some weird shit with piles of crates.

Incidentally, AF had already suggested in the past that I make a strip about house break-in bugs, his original idea was that it would be used by Jehova witnesses to break into people houses and preach. It was an awesome idea, but it's fairly hard to work it into the story. Darkblade is going to experience a religious epiphany sometime soon, though, so it's not necessarily discarded, yet.

At the moment I'm going through a creative block, by the way, so I'm glad that I have script to last me 30 episodes because almost every time I start adding a new episode I decide that it's rubbish and discard it. The problem is that instead of thinking of the script in every waking moment, as I do when I'm inspired by a storyline (like the pks kidnapping Ohforf, or his meeting with Cyborella), I only think about it when I sit down in front of the blank page and it doesn't work. I spend every single waking minute doing something that doesn't give me time to think about it (such as gaming, working, reading etc.) and even if I am on a train for 5 minutes I'll read two pages of a book. Today I thought about the script for a solid hour during lunch and a few ideas started to pop up, so I should make a habit of doing that until I get past this draught. It's weird how it always happens when I've just published some episode that I'm inordinately proud of. Last time it happened when I posted the updates about Ohforf ninjaing the orb, which were good stuff, and this time I've just posted his meeting with Cyborella which was an idea that I had been holding on to for a whole year. I think it's because if I post something that I find particularly good, anything else that I write feels like shit in comparison and I keep throwing it away.

Gah!

2006-01-24T11:51:00.000Z

Episode #165 is going to be one of the longest I've drawn so far, double size length. I was afraid of putting pen to tablet, yesterday, when I started colouring it. Progress has been slow yesterday because I got home at 11pm and first had to do unspeakable things to some chicken strips with chilli oil and stirfry sauce. Tonight it's karate night, so I'll probably get home at the same time (and first do unspeakable things to broccoli with garlic and anchovy fillets). Tomorrow though, I should have time to do a lot of work on it. Once I post it, I'll explain how it happened that a short and painless update ended up as this monster double-length feature. I hardly ever do last minute script changes (the episode with the giant duck is a sad testament to this) but this update was an exception.

Do's and don'ts

2006-01-21T14:11:00.000Z

There's a thread on the comicgenesis forum about do's and don'ts of webcomicking so I added mine. The third "do" is actually one of my pet peeves as a webcomic reader.

Do care very, very much about your script. Script well in advance and keep re-reading it and tweaking it all the time. This is particularly useful if you have more than one storyline progressing at once. Be your worst critic and if you think that an episode is not going to work, can it.

Do realise what are the pages that a new reader is going to check:
1. The latest episode, maybe the one before last. You can't always have the best work on your homepage, but someone said that your comic's as good as your latest update, and that's very true.
2. The first 5-10 episodes. Here is where you keep or lose your new readers. Many times I've seen some author lament their low readership, checked their story, and it didn't suck. It just lacked that humph in the beginning that made you want to keep reading. Do you think that your initial episodes are crap and don't do justice to your improvement as a webcomic artist? Think of the best possible prologue to your story, think what makes you sit on the edge of your seat when you watch the beginning of a great movie, and draw 5-10 amazing pages of prologue that will be the first thing the new guy sees after the latest page. If you outdo yourself, chances are he'll put up with your so-so early work after that.

Do understand that new readers don't give a flying fuck about your characters. In your eyes Nebula Coltrane, Galactic Detective, may be the epitome of cool, so cool in fact that she can carry a whole episode just by standing coolly in a corner lighting a cigarette and making smart remarks, because she's so, you know, cool. That works for YOU. Possibly for existing readers. A new reader is just going to think, what's this shit? When is something going to happen? Why am I reading this?

Uh oh

2006-01-14T15:54:00.000Z

Yesterday the WoW Europe page linked the comic again, but the strip I'm drawing at the moment makes fun at the expense of WoW... It's going to be kind of rude of me to have it linked straight from their website! But what can I do, it's already all drawn and halfway coloured... Maybe next time I logon my shaman, a GM will show up and rip my First Sergeant badges off! Oh well, I had no idea, and now it's too late! I better keep colouring.

#162 - The noob Graduate

2006-01-11T09:29:00.000Z

I wonder how many people spotted the reference to the Graduate in episode #162. The episode seems to have been liked, but someone said that the script was confusing. Maybe it's because it follows The Graduate's script quite closely. Here's the original:

Mrs. Robinson, naked, is shutting the
door to the bedroom behind her.

BEN
Oh God.

She smiles.

BEN
Let me out.

She turns the lock on the door.

MRS. ROBINSON
Don't be nervous.

BEN
Get away from that door.

MRS. ROBINSON
I want to say something first.

BEN
Jesus Christ!

MRS. ROBINSON
Benjamin - I want you to know
I'm available to you. If you
won't sleep with me this time -

BEN
Oh my God.

MRS. ROBINSON
If you won't sleep with me this
time, Benjamin, I want you to
know you can call me up any
time you want and we'll make
some kind of arrangement.

BEN
Let me out!

[...]

Mrs. Robinson - I can't do
this.

MRS. ROBINSON
You what?

BEN
This is all terribly wrong.

MRS. ROBINSON
Benjamin - do you find me undesirable?

BEN
Oh no, Mrs. Robinson. I think -
I think you're the most attractive
of all my parents' friends.

Cyborella's storyline is fun to draw as it was to script, but the next two episodes will take a break from it, for the relief of anyone who's getting tired of the slutty queen. I won't have much chance to do a lot of drawing until Friday, so it's unlikely that I'll manage to get #163 ready until Sunday at the earliest. I also have to start drawing the cover for book #2 and various stickers and magnets and buttons for the convention A.S.A.P. and I don't really know when I'm going to find the time for all this. I've started taking the Wacom tablet with me in case I get some free time at lunchtime.

Happy new year and all that

2006-01-05T17:37:00.000Z

Life's picking up pace again after the holidays, so I can't spend all night playing games and then sleeping until sunset, much to my regret. I'm going back to aikido tonight after getting patched up and encouraged by my chiropractor, I'll hover with my butt a millimeter from the floor before I do any breakfall, hopefully I don't get a repeat of back pain. I'm a bit scared about it, but the chiropractor said that aikido is really good for the back (or did she say for her business?) - so we'll see.

Now, on the comic front, finally Cyborella's made her appearance, after I'd thought about the character more than a year ago. Maybe the story IS slowpaced. The next episode, #162, is BIG. 8 rows, and not much to copy-paste like the backgrounds in the fountain episode, either. I'm excited about it, though, because I quite like the script. Plus, I get to quote a movie, and I love doing that! Given the likely young demographic of my readers, though, I doubt that many will recognise the scene and remember what movie it's from. After lots of wrestling and cutting and cursing at the script, I'm finally at a point where I'm quite happy with the next dozen updates, but I've been cutting so much that it's actually shrinking! It's ok, though, because I've got some new ideas to work on, as long as I stop being lazy and write them down.

PXS

2005-12-22T11:33:00.000Z

Pre Xmas Syndrome. I still have to buy stuff for xmas and the shopping centre is going to be so packed with people that probably the only way to get close to any merchandise is to shout IT'S CLOBBERING TIME!. Or maybe plan ahead and not shower for a week before going shopping. Fuck this, next year I order everything online down to the wrapping paper. What good is the internet if it doesn't help us to avoid human contact?
#158 seems to be liked, which is a relief. I had it in my mind for so long that I was completely unable to decide whether it was funny or not, like a comedy sketch viewed 20 times. I have vague memories of considering it funny when I first thought about it, but I think that it was last year. #159 is not going to be that great, it doesn't even have a punchline (or anyway the last panel falls below Minimum Punchline Treshold). It's one of those episodes that you need in order to explain what happens next in the story, but that are marginally less lame than a panel of text saying "And then he was told that he should blablah". Maybe I should use the written panel and surround it with random people throwing pies. Oh well.

Sleepless

2005-12-19T12:47:00.000Z

I'm a zombie because it's really hard to fall asleep with back pain. Eventually I propped myself with so many cushions that I must have looked like one of those frescos of dying Popes, minus angels and rays of light, and managed to fall asleep at around 4am by staying absolutely still and trying to ignore the pain. I tried to do that yoga trick where you empty your mind of all thoughts but it just doesn't work. I haven't managed to do it ONCE. Never ever. I suspect that people who claim that they can empty their minds are full of shit.

I should be able to finish #158 comfortably before I fly home for xmas, I worked on it for six hours solid yesterday evening. I watched Lenny on TV at the same time, first time I've seen the movie even if it's been around for 30 years. It's about a stand-up comedian who fought for our right to swear in public places. Dustin Hoffmann is a great actor and it was an interesting story, but I'd probably have been bored if I hadn't been colouring at the same time and I couldn't shake the impression that Lenny, even if a likeable character, kinda sucked as a comedian.

Resurrection of the blog

2005-12-16T14:29:00.000Z

This probably makes it an undead blog.

I've fucked my back and have been in pain for a week now, so no gym - which for the comic is a good thing, since I have time to draw more, or I would if I didn't spend it playing games.

Thing is, I've recently had what I believe to be a middle age crisis, and started an aikido class. I've been doing karate for three years, but apart from one fat lip, a dodgy knee and assorted bruises, I've never been seriously hurt doing it. Aikido, at least for beginners, is deceptively softer, but if you don't know what you're doing, you still end up slamming clumsily your back on the floor over and over and over. Sure, there are mats, but I guess I still messed myself up. I've seen photos of the founder of the art, a creepy old japanese guy throwing to the floor everyone in his path, so maybe it's an activity compatible with senile dementia and sciatica and I have something to look forward to, but starting two days after the last class I've been I am in pain every time I stand up.

Comic... hmm... The next episode that I'm going to draw sometime over the weekend, #158, is an episode that has been in my mind for so long that I've lost all sense of objective judgement on whether it's going to suck or not. It's going to have a fixed background, but it's long, looooong, it's still going to take a while. I can't wait to get over and done with the following three episodes, which are just storyline movers, and get to finally draw Cyborella - the slutty elven queen. I have so much fun scripting her dialogues, *lick lick lick @lololol*. I'm quite keen also on D34dly and YNH's storyline, but I have to pace it slowly because it has to match the other timelines.

What I'm not keen at all is the ZERG storyline (although there is one of the future episodes that I kind of like), I got an insane amount of shit from friends for the lame episode about the giant duck, and who can blame them? I have an upcoming episode which matches the lameness of the duck one, maybe I just go undercover for a few days after I post it.

I'm working on the book 2 file, wondering if I should add some additional material to it, like possibly a Cast page. That means work though! Anathema! Well, time for coffee and for feeling sorry about my back. Waah.

Check out these two comics

2005-05-25T08:34:00.000Z

Elf Only Inn, one of my favorite webcomics, is about to come back from a long hiatus. E.O.I. is the name of a roleplayers chatroom with some memorable characters. If you haven't seen it before check it out, it's very funny.

Yesterday I stumbled by chance on a comic that really impressed me, Code Name: Hunter. There are only 11 panels so far, but what panels! Script, drawing and colouring are all very good, an awful lot better than what you'd normally expect from a webcomic. It's early to know where it will go from here, but the authors are very talented so it's worth checking out.

Scripting for dummies (like me) - part 1

2005-05-18T11:38:00.000Z

I started this blog and then I suddenly realised that I have very few strong opinions - most of them about the correct way to prepare a pizza and why it should never include pinapple, which you may not care much about.

For lack of more interesting topics, I've decided to share a few things that I've learned in this first year of making a webcomic. Take everything with the benefit of doubt because what works for me may not work for you and (insert disclaimers of your choice here). I'll just describe the way I do things and my thought process, it's up to you to decide if it could apply to your work - if you are a comic author - or if you give a shit - if you're a reader.

1. The idea
First of all, of course, there's the idea for the episode. It doesn't have to be detailed, as long as I think that it could work by being funny or moving the plot, or if I'm lucky, both. For this tutorial, I'll script a very simple idea that I may include in the story whenever Ohforf will group with other newbies to go level. The idea is this (it's not particularly funny but it's simple so it's good as an example):

The group includes a guy who's playing a new character but isn't a newbie like the others, he is - or claims to be - an alt(ernate character) of a much higher level main character. He gives Ohforf and the others some complex instructions of what they're supposed to do when he brings a monster to the group (using a lot of acronyms and expressions that leave the newbies completely baffled). He proceeds to pull while they stare at him(they didn't understand a word he said), and dies horribly while they're still staring or possibly discussing his instructions.

2. The general look

At this stage I still haven't thought of the details of the dialogue, but I form some vague concept of how the strip would look like and about the characters involved.

For example, I think that for the strip to work well the guy that gets slaughtered should be an annoying fucker, rather than a poor bastard who had to join a pickup group of noobs for lack of options. He should be the kind of know-it-all guy who tells pickup newbie groups that he's got a maxed level main character and tells people what to do (generally ending up in everyone's death because he doesn't have a clue, then him leaving the group after calling them stupid noobz). Everyone's grouped with a specimen of this player type at some point, so it would be nice to see one of them die a horrible death - but most of all I'll enjoy drawing it.

The image layout is very simple (within the constraints of my - mostly - 4-panel comic). I think that the guy should pontificate to the group in the first two scenes, leave them to pull a monster in scene 3 while they stare open-mouthed (something that Ohforf is very good at), die horribly in scene 4 (no need to draw it, all it takes is cries for help and blood and guts spraying from just outside the scene borders) while the group is still staring at him with the same expressions. This is the general idea of how the panel looks like that I have at this stage:

Scene 1 - (assuming that the group was already together and the characters were all introduced in the previous episodes). Close-up of the alt guy who's telling the group that he'll organise the pull and what each of them should be doing.

Scene 2 - Group scene with "camera angle" from behind the alt guy talking, so that the confused expressions of the rest of the group are visible. He's completing his speech in this scene.

Scene 3 - Seen from the side, the group staring at the guy as he's running out of camera view to the right of the panel, possibly still talking.

Scene 4 - Blood and guts and cries of agony coming from outside camera view while the whole group is still staring. Maybe there will be a short exchange between group members in scenes 3 and 4 but I'll look into that later.

3. The raw script

Here, I start writing the dialogue without giving myself too many constraints of timing, length and exchange sequence. I've already got a rough idea of the division in scenes though, to fit the dialogue in. Let's say that the characters present in the strip, aside from Ohforf, are the two newbies Sugarbabe and Masterandcommander - who appeared briefly in episode #52 - and the alt, which I'll just refer to as Alt. OK, let's have a first go at the scripting.

Scene 1 - (assuming that the group was already together and the characters were all introduced in the previous episodes). Close-up of the alt guy who's telling the group that he'll organise the pull and what each of them should be doing.

Alt: Guys! My main's a 75, just do as I say! I pull, Ohforf tanks, if it bafs Sugarbabe mezzes the adds, but whatever you do don't agro the left spawn

Scene 2 - Group scene with "camera angle" from behind the alt guy talking, so that the confused, borderline imbecilic expressions of the rest of the group are visible. He's completing his speech in this scene.

Alt: If it's an Evoker and it waves the green thingy hit it with a dispel straight away and go full damage but don't overnuke or you'll be OOM when it regenerates the Hounds of Hell! GTG?

Scene 3 - Seen from the side, the group staring at the guy as he's running out of camera view to the right of the panel, possibly still talking.

Alt: (partially out of view, only a leg still sticking out) -=*** PULLING (GREY GOBLIN EVOKER) ***=-
Sugarbabe (whispering to Ohforf): What did he say?

Scene 4 - Blood and guts and cries of agony coming from outside camera view while the whole group is still staring.

Ohforf (whispering): "Guys!" and, hmm, some other stuff
Alt (from outside the panel): AAAAH! HELP! AAAAAAH!
Monster (from outside the panel): grrrrrr

Now that there's a basic script I'll have to do the finetuning work, cleaning up the dialogue, working out the sequence, possibly changing the camera angles if required. I'll cover these things in part 2.

#102 - Land of peace and harmony

2005-05-09T13:15:00.000Z

The latest two episodes were directly based on old UO history and may be possibly the closest I've ever come to expressing an opinion through the comic. I'd rather not make it a habit, since I'm not particularly opinionated and in the few cases where I am, I'm usually full of shit. However, I'll expand a bit on old UO, at least of what I remember of it six years later, mostly for the benefit of those who didn't play it.

UO was possibly the largest and most impressive virtual dystopia to ever grace the internet. Since those days, game designers took a hint and separated people who wanted to pvp and people who didn't by different servers, pvp flags, safe areas or even different games, so that UO's glorious and involuntary experiment in recreating Lord of the Flies online hasn't been repeated since.

The people who originally designed UO did a fantastic job in creating a virtual world where you could be and do anything you liked, I can't think of any other game that did the same in such detail. They also made a mistake (and it's hard to blame them since they were threading in unknown territory) - they assumed that a virtual society would police itself. I think that their idea was, let's allow people to murder and steal from each other, because there will be "good players" who'll take care of the micreants.

What the fuck were they thinking?!? If you consider the aggression level and pvp experience displayed by your average pk guild and your average, say, craftsman or roleplayer guild, what the UO designers did amounted to taking Hannibal Lecter to a Weight Watchers meeting and counting on the fat people there to defend themselves in case he got peckish.

It was crazy to see a game that was the ultimate griefer paradise, with a design/support team trying desperately to stop people from doing exactly what the game allowed them to do.
"Do you want to watch people explode to bits when they open chest boxes that you've trapped? You got it!
Do you want to steal stuff from people's bags while they're standing around in town? You got it!
Do you want to kill someone, loot everything he's wearing and carrying, then hack his body to pieces while he stands there watching in ghost form? You got it!
Do you want to burglar people's houses and take away all their belongings that they took months to collect? You got it!
However, we count on you not to do any of these things, because they're very very naughty."

They found themselves dealing with a huge amount of complaints and reacted with what appeared to me as kneejerk reactions, such as what seemed to be almost GM harassment towards pks (who weren't after all doing anything that the game mechanics didn't allow them to do), extremely severe penalties for killing other players and so on - and the end result was that they managed to piss off everybody - both the pks (who always found a way around the penalties such as macroing off their kills - the murder count decreased over time) and their victims, who kept getting killed left and right no matter how much they complained about it.

The solution that they finally implemented, a mirror world where PKing was disallowed, would take another three paragraphs to explain and I don't know much about it because it was done after I had stopped playing. When I checked the game again, though, it looked changed beyond recognition. The lands where PKing was allowed were completely deserted. The lands where it wasn't allowed were covered in player housing in every available inch of terrain, with very beautiful and imaginative furniture and decoration arrangements, but again it seemed to lack any life or action - the most exciting thing was to try and find your way out the labirinth of houses built next to each other.

Welcome!

2005-05-06T07:10:00.000Z

I decided to start a blog linked to the noob comic site for those days when I have too much commentary for the side of the latest strip. I'd say more, but it's early in the morning, I drew until 2 am last night to finish the strip, and my brain refuses to work. Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaain.... Maybe I could update this blog every day, but just with ...braaaaaaaaaaaains.... braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains... Lines and lines of it! Pages of it! The zombie blog! OK enough bullshit, I've got to get ready for work. This template looks nasty, but I don't have time to replace it now.