Song of the Day: Switchblade Symphony – “Wallflower”
Get the entire album here: Switchblade Symphony – Serpentine Gallery
I think Doomie needs to buy some more clothes.

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Song of the Day: Switchblade Symphony – “Wallflower”
Get the entire album here: Switchblade Symphony – Serpentine Gallery
I think Doomie needs to buy some more clothes.
Song of the Day: Voltaire – “Happy Birthday [My Olde Friend]“
On this Day in:
1910: The Earth passes through the tail of Comet Halley.
1980: Mt. Saint Helens eruptes in Washington state throwing ash more than 11 miles into the sky. 57 people were killed and causing 3 billion in damage.
1973: I was born.
Other people I share my birthday with:
Pope John Paul II, Don Martin, and Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka.
Who died on my birthday?
Ian Curtis
Song of the Day: Menticide – “Komm zu Mir”
On a recent trip to Portland I had the opportunity to visit Powell’s bookstore. It’s such a huge and wonderful place, packed with books that you’d only be able to find on eBay or amazon [but without the shipping charge!] I don’t know if I was in a Voodoo Donuts sugar coma or I was just tired, but I only managed to pick up a couple books. One of which is The Comedy Bible by Judy Carter.
I’m on about page 120. It is an easy read, geared more for a person that is interested in being a Stand Up Comedian. What I find extremely helpful is the detail the author gives to joke construction. I feel myself getting funnier as I read it [or it's just gas] but there is one downside. Now that I am re-reading my old Writhe and Shine Strips, I find them completely unfunny and full of amateur mistakes. I’ll just have to chalk all of those clunkers to the learning process and hope that I can do better in the future.
Video/Song of the Day: IAMX – “Volatile”
I was inspired [by someone or something, I'm not sure if I remember...] to get my comic drawing process in order. Now that I am officially working on two webcomics at the moment I was having a difficult time remembering how much work I have done on each and what I needed to do to complete them.
So I created a Master Checklist for each of my comics.

Down the left side are the Numbers and Titles of the individual comics. Across the top are the steps I take from beginning to end [left to right] to complete each strip. These steps are as follows:
1. Write the strip. This includes the initial idea for the strip, the joke I want to tell, or the part of the story I want to reveal. The text for each panel is planned out including who said what. Settings are described briefly as well as who is in the panel and how they are acting.
2. Edit. I then hand all this off to my editor [girlfriend] to check for grammatical errors, readability, humor, and whatever else she suggests to change to make the strip funnier and easier to understand. Re-writing the strip is included in this step.
3. Word Balloons. After the strip is rewritten, funny, and understandable, I make the word balloons in Manga Studio so that I know how much space is taken up in each panel. That way I know how big to make each character and where I can place them.
4. Print word balloons. When I have a significant number of word balloons I copy and paste them onto a 8″ x 10.5″ Photoshop file and print them out at normal size.
5. Sketch. I have a stack of printer paper on which my comic frames are printed. I then use a light box to trace the word balloons into these frames and then sketch the characters in each panel.
6. Draw. After several panels are drawn I pick and choose which ones I am interested in drawing and then, well, draw it. This is the part that takes the longest as there is often a lot of erasing and redrawing involved.
7. Transfer. Once the drawing for all the panels in a particular strip are satisfactory, I use the light table again to transfer the drawing onto the final art paper.
8. Ink. I ink the drawing. I use the light table once again to carefully trace with a Micron pen the word balloon and all the text. I erase all the pencil marks, fill in all the blacks, and use Dr. Martin’s Pen White to fix any mistakes.
9. Scan. I scan my drawings in at 1200dpi and save them in the Scans folder on my desktop.
10. Scans converted and saved. I manipulate these original scans in Photoshop [converting them to Greyscale and upping the contrast] and then save them in the same folder with the Manga Studio files.
11. Finish in Manga Studio. I open the Manga Studio file again with the word balloons and import the image files, placing everything where it needs to go. I then export this file to the desktop.
12. Finish in Photoshop. I clean up the image in Photoshop [using the pencil and eraser tools] to make sure everything is just right.
13. Rename, Resize, and Save. I save the initial file as a 1200dpi .psd file, then as a 72dpi .jpg for the web [with the appropriate file name for ComicPress purposes], then as a 1″ tall 72dpi .jpg for posting purposes. This last image is used in places like LiveJournal and VampireFreaks. People can see that it is a comic strip but they cannot read the tiny words. Therefore they click on it to bring them to the full-sized version which happens to be on my website [yeah traffic!]
14. Upload. I upload the strip to my website.
15. Schedule and Tag. I create a post for the strip where I write anything witty that comes to mind, Title the post, tag it, and choose when it will be posted.
Really there should be a 16th step in which I go to several sites the day the strip is posted and spread the word that it’s up.
Did you always know what you wanted to do with your life?
I can’t say I have. I remember looking through a scrap book my mother kept of my grade school years that had pictures, grades from different classes and activities, questions that I answered at the time. One of those questions was “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Every year my answer was different.
I’m not one of those artists you meet that tell you they’ve been drawing since they were four. I can’t tell you that I’ve always wanted to draw comics. In fact, when I was in Boy Scouts a bunch of the kids used to get together and trade comic books and trace them and draw their own and write their own stories.
I used to think they were wasting their time, that they were dumb, that they should be doing something more interesting. Looking back I realize how wrong I was. I envy them for doing something that they wanted to do. Not that any of them turned out to be professional comic book artists, I still envy them for -knowing- what the wanted to do.
I never have.
At least I say I never have. It may be that I’m just not being honest with myself. I may just find it hard to admit that I want to do something that seems like a frivolous waste of time… for a living. Maybe I have admitted it to myself but instead have gotten it into my head that I’m just not talented enough to make that dream happen.
So I have come to realize that all I need to do is practice. I need to practice a lot.
Who the hell has time to practice? I don’t keep a sketch book and I never have. I hate them. Mine always end up with words in them instead of pictures. Words and scribbles. I feel that if I ever have the time to sit down and draw something it needs to be for something. If I have the time and inclination this week to draw I feel that it should be for next week’s strip. If it isn’t then I’m just wasting my time and not actually getting something done.
Am I crazy to think that?
Was I crazy to think that the kids drawing comics in their tent instead of playing Capture The Flag were stupid? Should I have known at that time in my life what it was that I wanted to do? Should I know now, a week away from my 39th birthday?
Should I have been interested in computers back in the 6th grade when they first started coming out? Should I have known that they were going to get as big as they are today? Should I have known that I would need TONS of computer skills in order to get any kind of job that had potential in the art field?
Damn, I wish I would have been more interested in computers when I was younger. I think I would be in a much healthier place today if I had. I may joke about not knowing the difference between a browser and a [insert other computer term here], but I’m serious. I don’t know! And that’s killing me.
But what a beast the computer field has become. I have no idea where to start or even what I should know. There are so many programs and so many versions of programs. It’s impossible to keep up.
In case any of you are wondering, or if there are any of you that actually read this far, I’ve been looking into getting a new job. The art gallery has been fine for the past 6 years, but it hasn’t been personally satisfying for quite some time. I’m not getting anywhere and I’m not going anywhere. It is what it is. It pays the bills. That’s it.
I have until the end of the summer to figure out where I want to go and how to get there. I need to start taking those first steps along the path.
That means I need to figure out on which path to travel. And that’s the hardest part of all.
I’m going to need some help.
Right now some options have shown themselves. I can take a class or two at the local community college, mostly introductory classes for computer art programs. I can try to volunteer time at a local computer game company if they’ll teach me one of their programs. I can apply for jobs that I don’t have the experience for, hope that they hire me, and learn as I go. Or I can find just another job that I’ll get sick of in a few years at which time I will go through this all again. [Yes, this last option is not on the table.]
…Uh, that’s all I’ve got. Any suggestions?
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