Poltergeist

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

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

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

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

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

#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?

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

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

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!

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.