Thursday, June 12, 2008

The AMA Alliance Sounds Stressed, Maybe They Should Smoke A Cig

"Shame on 'The Incredible Hulk' for unnecessarily adding smoking to a sequel that would have been just as exciting and believable without it," said Dianne Fenyk, President of the Alliance. "Universal Studios and the other Hollywood studios should be especially embarrassed for using comic book movies, which they market to children and know youth will want to see, to promote tobacco."

The above quote pretty much sums up a press release by the American Medical Association Alliance, which is riding the coattails of a big budget movie into the news. Saying that a character promotes cigar smoking by simply having one is as sensible as saying that the Hulk (the protagonist lead) is promoting running from the law by... running from the law. Maybe the cigar in the movie shows something about the character, like how he is old fashioned and inconsiderate of others' well-being.

In a related note, I have a theory about why crazy people are often in leadership positions of otherwise sane organizations. Maybe I'll share it sometime.

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Wednesday, May 7, 2008

From Zero to Awesome in 3.5 Minutes

After X-Men: Evolution, I wasn't exactly thrilled about yet another X-Men cartoon, but there were a few glimmers of hope. Stephen Jay "Spike-Guy" Blum was reprising his role as Wolverine (he's Wolverine in videogames), and Kari "Fuu-Girl" Wahlgren was, of all people, Emma Frost. Then they released this trailer:



Hooooooly smokes! Sentinels! Genosha! Spiral! Hulk! Mojo! New X-Men! People I'm not hardcore enough to recognize! It's all quite overwhelming.

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Thursday, November 8, 2007

Learn Anthropology; Save the World

The latest issue of Shadowpact (#18, page 4) has a weird endorsement of physical anthropology:

Learn anthropology, save the world.


If physical anthropology teaches me how to fight werewolves, then sign me up! Oh wait, I'm already signed up.

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Sunday, October 21, 2007

I Don't Remember the Weekend...

...but I'm holding a comic apparently done by my hand. Cleanup and scanning to commence soon!

Update: Looks like I can piece together my weekend through local news articles, like this one from the Columbia Missourian: "Comic artists burn the midnight oil for 24 Hour Comics Day."

Update 2: And this blurb from KOMU (though I'm not in it).

Update 3: Hey I am in the KOMU news story, for around 0.05 seconds. Check out the video to the right of the page.

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Tuesday, October 9, 2007

I'd Like My Comics With Jam, Please

24 Hour Comics is an international event where cartoonists draw one page an hour for 24 straight hours. It's grueling, but sounds like a lot of fun! Last year I suddenly thought about doing it a week after the official day so I was bummed. This year I was all over it. The local comics group, Midmococo (that's mid-moe-koh-koh). They always seemed like a cool bunch of people but I've never been to a meeting on account of me being a loner. Their mailing list announced that their next meeting was going to discuss the upcoming 24 Hour Comics Day, so it was a good excuse for me to finally show up. I was a little worried because at their last meeting they had a comic jam, where each participant would draw a panel in an impromptu comic.

I showed up and everybody was very nice. A student reporter from the university was there with a videocamera to document the meeting for her project. I sometimes glanced unconsciously at the camera like I was on The Office or something.

At the end of the meeting, we had almost "forgot" (I remembered but didn't say anything, heh) about the comic jam, but it was brought up as a great visual for the journalism student to record. I was a bit nervous drawing on demand but I had fun with my section. You can see the jam at midmococo.com. My panel is the 4th one. I was really hungry when I was thinking of what to do.

24 Hour Comics Day is October 20th. Stop by with food and drinks! Especially the 2-6AM shift lol.

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Sunday, September 30, 2007

DC comics is having a comics contest through their new Zuda Comics label: the prizes are various amounts of cash. Sign me up!

There are rules to follow: the comic for the contest is to be 8 pages of 800x600 pixels. The comic can't be shown anyplace other than their site during the contest. Beyond that, anything goes.

I thought a bit about what story to tell with what characters. I decided that making something totally new would lower my chances of making a good comic: good stories take lots of time to work out the details. I settled on my favorite character at the moment: Keeley Walker and her superheroic storyline. The setting is a few issues beyond where I'm at right now. It's kind of like fast forwarding the action a little to get to some cooler stuff I've had in mind.

I had to think a lot about what specifically will occur in the comic. 8 pages isn't a lot for introducing the character, having something interesting happen, and providing some type of closure. I wrote out the first draft of the script, and now it's time to work on that some more and sketch out the thumbnails. Progress updates later, I hope. Wish me luck!

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Thursday, May 24, 2007

We Have a Winner!

Fellow cartoonist Winter told me about Inkscape, an open source vector program. It does everything I use in Illustrator, but for free! I whipped up a traced image with a speech balloon in around ten minutes using it for the first time. I am definitely impressed.

Around 10 minutes worth of work made this in Inkscape.
{I traced an old scan I had on my drive and added a speech balloon in Inkscape. OMG!}

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Thursday, May 17, 2007

Bring Out the GIMP!

Adobe released their new Creative Suite, including programs that they ate when they bought out Macromedia. I was hoping that their price structure would make things a little cheaper. I guess I should read a basic economics book because if a company controls a certain niche, they can apparently charge whatever they want. Goodbye $100 Dreamweaver. It's now $194. Educational versions cannot be upgraded and the price to buy them new is the same as a normal upgrade. Uh, thanks?

I'm not just here to complain though. The good news is that there are always cheap, even free, alternatives. Enter the replacement players! I've had GIMP on my computer out of curiosity but now I'm learning how to use it in earnest. A program called Rapidweaver claims to be a Dreamweaver replacement. I still need something to replace Illustrator. OmniGraffle is close, but not quite the same niche. Maybe there's something else out there...

Me using GIMP
{I'm using GIMP to add shading to page 6, coming out soon!}

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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Kristin is Into Details

Me: I have this new character. Her name is Invincigirl. She's invincible to everything. She can't be crushed, suffocated, starved, etc.

Kristin: Can she break bones?

Me: No.

Kristin: Can she bleed?

Me: No.

Kristin: Can she age?

Me: Um, I haven't thought of that.

Kristin: Maybe she ages slower than normal. I mean, what if she gets osteoporosis?

Me: I think you're the only person who would consider osteoporosis in a superhero origin.

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Wednesday, April 4, 2007

More Issues! The Good Kind!

The first "scene" of Keeley: Comic Hero Extraordinaire #3 is up. Two scenes, really, as the first scene is one page. It's neatoriffic: go check it out!

A panel from K:CHE Issue 3

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Monday, February 26, 2007

Whatever Happened to Issue 3?

Believe it or not, issue 3 has been snowed out until now. The opening of issue 3 takes place at the Columbia Public Library. I wanted to get some good photo references but it's been snowing and cloudy for most of the past two months. Today it was finally sunny and snow-free so I went out with my camera. I snapped a few pictures of the front and was walking up the front stairs when I got hassled by The Man. Apparently I can't take pictures of the inside of the library.

There are several ways to handle the situation. Kristin, who I related this problem to already, would've snapped pictures of the interior anyway. I listen to The Man more and I put the camera away. Instead I got some blank paper and a library pencil and sketched what I wanted. Mission accomplished!

Next comes the actual drawing from the photos/sketches and all that. Since I couldn't do the library stuff I've skipped ahead and worked on pages 4 and 5. The first five pages should all be posted together when it's all done with.

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Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Space Battle

I somehow missed the birth of networking sites like Friendster and Myspace but all of a sudden it seems like this type of site is almost ubiquitous with casual internet use. Specialty sites have come up to cater to specific audiences. There isn't one for anthropology yet so I'll write about two that cater to the other two-thirds of this site's theme.

1up.com is a networking site for gamers. I usually go there for the news, though I've visited it less as less since it is so complex. I just want my gaming news! The news sits in a little block of text surrounded by links to blogs. I don't want to see what Joe D. Gamer says on his gaming blog. I have my own! Why read the World of Warcraft Blog when I can just play it with the other eight million people who have it? Anyway, I wanted to see how the networking part of the site was going so I went profile hopping. I even found someone I know! So I set up my own little profile and tried to invite him to be a friend. And... nothing. I have no idea how to do it! The site is just so cluttered. The obvious "Invite Friends" button is actually for spamming my friends who don't have a profile so they will join. But how do I send and invite to someone who is already here? I still haven't figured it out. The help link, buried in the lower right of the page, leads to a single page that only shows me how to sign up for this monstrosity (using outdated screenshots no less). I give up. My reunion with my friend will have to wait until I get some more patience. On to other things, like writing this post.

I've dumped on 1up.com a bit now so it must mean I have a solution for all of their flaws. Well, to show an example of a networking site that works in its simplicity, I present Comicspace. Yes, it's a blatant name-ripoff of Myspace, but it is so much better in execution. Just compare the two home screens. Comicspace has a tasteful row of ads at the top, and the rest of the page are large blocks of information. there is a lot of information here but it is given room to breathe. And once you start clicking links and filling out text boxes, it works flawlessly. Comicspace is run by one person with volunteer programmer helpers and it just plain works. Myspace has all kinds of money backing it and it fails. There are errors that show up for the most mundane tasks like sending a message or seeing someone's profile. It's shoddy while Comicspace is expertly designed. Just look at it! It's, dare I say, a beautiful site.

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