Yeeeeeeaaaaaaah, that's been the story of 2017, hasn't it? Well, as I've mentioned a few times already, I DID manage to get a decent number of AWA comics drawn at the con, so we can HOPE the last update of the year will come out in a more reasonable pace than the others... but then, the others weren't done under the constant, terrifying threat of computer failure, so there's no telling how THAT'LL mess with things...
There's two things about asking me comics-related questions in person: First is that asking me ANYTHING in person is a risky venture, since speaking out loud for me is a bit like running a marathon on my hands while juggling chainsaws with my feet. It's fairly unnatural, and requires a lot of preparation beforehand. But even after that, I tend to give random people the former non-response specifically to spare them from the latter. It's a given that most people will NEVER...
2017-10-08 14:21:23 +0000 UTC View Post
If there's one gripe I have about the new convention center, ASIDE from how exhausting all the stairs are, it's how many fewer places there are to leave stacks of flyers. I REALLY miss all those little side tables along every wall, not to mention the innate understanding of where people are actually going to go. The closes thing to an obvious bet was all the tables in the back of the Dealer's Room... and as you can see, getting complete coverage of THAT wasn't remotely possible.
...and that was the WORST rain-related mishap anyone experienced at Otakon this year!
2017-10-08 13:53:06 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm sure you don't need my help pointing this out, but I've gotten really into doing photo backgrounds in Conventional Wisdom lately. Between the good response I got from the MAGFest comics and the whole rigamarole of having to go down to Raleigh after Animazement SPECIFICALLY to get some extra pictures, I went into Otakon with the specific mission of taking as many background pictures as I could... and IMMEDIATELY forgot to do it all the way through my epic cross-district hike. I me...
2017-10-08 13:45:21 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, so my computer's still up on blocks, but while my old laptop may be woefully incapable of running my art programs (you'll notice a conspicuous lack of a picture with this blog) it IS still capable of basic typing, so i figured go ahead and post a blog post I'd been toying with. Or, to be more precise, frantically try to rewrite a blog I'd been toying with for a while ENTIRELY from memory... so, sorry if this one's even more sloppy and typo-riddled than usual.
Anyway, I used t...
2017-10-03 14:32:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Okay, I should be able to post the extra Otakon 2017 comics shortly after I get back from AWA, but I wanted to go ahead and get this out before I hit the road, because it’s relevant to that soon-to-happen trip: Do you ever travel to conventions solo?
I’ve mentioned elsewhere that , anti-social as it sounds, I‘ve really come to enjoy heading all the way out to a con on my lones...
2017-09-27 00:28:32 +0000 UTC View Post
Really, I could have done some version of this joke for ANY show that's come out over the past ten years. "Oh, THAT'S where those GIFs are from!" "Oh, THAT'S where that AMV came from!" "Oh, THAT'S what that meme is about!"
So, a bit of housekeeping: I HAD planned to hold off on posting any KonoSuba comics until (A) all the Otakon stuff was out of the way and (B) I could get enough of the later pages inked and edited in advance that they'd be sure to go up weekly without interruption. &nb...
2017-08-19 23:57:14 +0000 UTC View Post
2017 marks the first year Otakon takes place in the heart of Washington DC rather than Baltimore, and that’s a pretty big deal. When any convention leaves from the setting you’re used to for a new one, it’s going to change your overall experience, even if you’re a hermit who never leaves the convention center like me. When Animazement left the Sheraton Imperial, which was tucked away in (at the time) the big stretch of nothing out past the airport, for new Convention Cente...
2017-08-17 21:06:23 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm glad so many people are liking me using actual con photos in these comics... but I'm really gonna have to start getting better about taking more generic hall shots to cover every potential and setting. Cos Lord knows I won't chance to just drive up to Washington and do this for Otakon.
Actually, the funniest thing about this comic is that I very nearly had to use some stock Google photo... in the comic about how I was taking my own pictures. Without thinking, I deleted th...
2017-08-02 20:06:36 +0000 UTC View Post
Man, if there's one think I learned this weekend, it's that facepaint-based cosplay is NOT conducive to my art style.
But yeah, I was really a sight that night. Sittin' in a minivan, wearing a dress shirt and tie, with hair all scraggly and face covered in kabuki makeup. I looked like the guy who fixes the copier at Death Metal World Headquarters.
This is another comic where I probably neutered a lot of the humor out of the original concept, but as with other instances of that happening, I'm pretty sure it's worth it. I mean, this is a room full of my FRIENDS I'm talking about here, I don't want it to come across like that's something I hate or anything.
...AND YET, it must still be said that spending the week...
2017-08-02 19:47:45 +0000 UTC View Post
Yay! I got a set of Patreon comics done BEFORE the next convention! ...just barely, and significantly less than the previous set, but IT GOT DONE!
Anyway, this is one of the great disadvantages to commuting instead of staying at the hotel: you have to, ya know, actually COMMUTE. I was artistically up to the challenge of depicting just how crappy the drive into Downtown Raleigh actually is. Yeah, I know I've depicted disastrous traffic conditions 2017-08-02 19:37:51 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Lord, that’s a terrifying title, isn’t it? And yet, here we go. It’s no secret that I really love Digimon. It’s one of the first anime I could ever watch on a regular basis. It’s THE first anime I ever fully and conclusively geeked out over. The first art I ever put out on The Internet was Digimon fanart. I ran a Digimon fansite that, in its own way, might actually have had a larger fan following than any original work I’ve done since. At this very moment, I’m w...
2017-07-29 20:52:56 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey wow! A new Patreon blog! How long has it been since we saw one of these? …probably since I last apologized for not doing more blogs, or Patreon content in general, and promised that my next blogs would be about me reevaluating my creative process and getting myself back on a productive schedule. Well, you can see how long it’s been without those blogs, not to mention how all the other promised content either remains on hiatus or creeping out so late it might as well be (Se...
2017-07-27 17:55:31 +0000 UTC View Post
CAN IT BE? IS IT REALLY TRUE? YES! I FINALLY FINISHED THE ANOHANA COMICS! ...it only took me seven months to watch an eleven episode series! Okay, no, actually WATCHING the show didn't take nearly that long, just the comiking thereof. You know, like pretty much everything else this year. I would love to test my hypothosis that I'd get a whole series done faster if it were an old school mecha scifi series though, HINT HINT :)
But yeah, we're FINALLY ...
2017-07-02 14:48:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Oh yes, there's still plenty more of THAT to get through. Don't worry, there's no where NEAR as much additional material to sort through as all this MAGFest stuff, but there's still at LEAST a dozen more Animazement comics coming to SmackJeeves soon, not to mention another batch of extra comics you faithful Patrons. I'd really seriously LIKE to have all that stuff done before Otakon rolls around... but then, I would have liked to have the last of the MAGFest stuff done before Spring ...
2017-06-26 19:25:47 +0000 UTC View Post
So... yeah. This thing took a LONG time to finish, didn't it? And believe it or not, despite the total page count being at least fourteen figures long, there's STILL content I was planing to use for comics but cut. In some cases, especially during that first blast of activity right after MAGFest itself, the culling happened because I just couldn't make the planned joke work as I'd hoped, so it either got dropped or mashed in with another comic. However, by the time I hit ...
2017-06-26 19:13:15 +0000 UTC View Post
While I still like video games, I don't really get around to playing them very often anymore, and it cannot be overstated how Not Good I am as a result. Even when I'm deliberately trying to get a Game Over for the purposes of obtaining silly plushie pictures.
Also, if I'd bothered to actually go back and look at those pictures themselves ra...
2017-06-26 18:58:10 +0000 UTC View Post
If you had told me back when I first walked into the Gaylord for Katsucon that ANY event could fill the place up to the point that basic travel from point A to point B would require constant micromanaging from staff, I would have been incredulous at best. I mean, yeah, Otakon ran up against that kind of thing during it's later years in Baltimore, but the BCC is WAAAAY more cramped than the Gaylord. And yet, for at least a few hours on Saturday, things in the halls really did get so b...
2017-06-26 18:44:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Having decent pockets while cosplaying is a rare, special thing. I genuinely do wish those cammo pants weren't as uncomfortable as they are, because they'd otherwise be AMAZING convention wear.
WHAAAAAAT?!?!?!? How can there STILL be MAGFest comics left to put out? At this point, all the comics laid out end-to-end would probably stretch out in a line that's longer than the Gaylord itself! And yet, it's true. For those of you who can't remember all the way back to February, I promised that -in keeping with out EVERYTHING MAGFest 2017 related was too big- there was still a second batch of Patreon comics on the way. And at long last, here they are! Sorr...
2017-06-26 18:19:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey, remember back when 20th Century Boys was a thing? I sure hope so, otherwise this will make so sense whatsoever.
Also, HAHAHAHAHAHA "Weekly Anime Comics." At this point, that's become a genius form of surrealist anti-comedy
In my own defense, the ServantXService one didn't really require us to dwell on the fact that the children in question were, you know, DEAD. So that kind of helped.
Oh, and look! I only had to ink the bottom half of this one! That was TOTALLY a creatively-driven artistic decision in no way influenced by the fact that I absolutely HAVE to get the rest of the MAGFest comics done b...
2017-05-15 10:22:13 +0000 UTC View Post
If I can't find an excuse to work at least ONE Digimon reference into these sets of comics, I have failed as both an artist and a person.
(For those of you who aren't Digimon fans, both Leomon and Wizardmon here are remembered for dying tragically. In fact, Leomon has died MULTIPLE times. It's basically his job in the franchise now.)
Nothing huge this time, but I did want to just take a second and say how shocked and amazed I am to actually still have any Patrons after the last few months. I am HUGELY grateful that you guys think highly enough of what I'm doing to keep putting money into it despite after all the problems maintaining a schedule these past few months. I appreciate the CRAP out of it, and am trying my hardest to actually make sure you actually get something in return that's worth it. For the r...
2017-04-30 08:44:19 +0000 UTC View Post
Eventually I'm just going to stick Menma into every single ghost-related piece of pop culture in existence. Clearly that's where this is headed. I HAD thought about doing two panels here, with Jintan looking at them as Luke Skywalker and other cast members in Star Wars getups... but figuring out how to do that Force Ghost effect well was, like, HARD and stuff and I didn't wand to do another panel!
Also, note Menma hiding Anakin's face because irrational hatred of Hayden Christiense...
2017-04-27 11:08:17 +0000 UTC View Post
Okay, here comes the part where I get an entire generation of thirtysomethings mad at me: I've never really had any nostalgic conection to Ghostbusters. I mean, I don't think it's a BAD movie, but I've just never particularly cared about it, especially not in those childhood days when I was forming most of my really important pop cultural obsessions. Case in point, I've only ever seen exactly ONE episode of The Real Ghostbusters cartoon, and that was years and years ago. So, if...
2017-03-19 05:26:19 +0000 UTC View Post
IT'S ALIVE! IIIIIT'S ALIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!! ...is actually a really horrible joke to be making about these comics given the series in question. I apologize.
So, yeah. After all my belly aching about burnout and lack of energy and all that, we FINALLY get some Anime Comics again... and it’s this randomness. Actually, that’s by design. I started to write a big, long explanation of how drawing a picture of a little girl’s ghost as a robot represented a shift in my creative approach and th...
2017-03-05 23:29:53 +0000 UTC View Post
(making this public, cos it kind of needs to be seen by a lot of people)
HEEEEEEEEY! Remember that blog post I made weeks and weeks and weeks ago explaining how I wasn’t gonna do Artist Alley at conventions for the near future and how that would hopefully help with the scheduling problems around here and how you longsuffering patrons wouldn’t have to keep paying money for things that weren’t ap...
2017-02-22 02:49:03 +0000 UTC View Post