Messages

91

Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 1 - Video Dreamer - Page 15 - Viper & Jennifer

« on: October 01, 2014, 02:40:24 PM »

Before I suggested the awkward dirty-talk, Viper and Jennifer were just doing it in the shower and she was being kind of loud. It didn't seem funny enough, and felt sort of redundant after we'd just introduced Dean and Trish in the midst of sexy fun. Jennifer also had way less personality, so I thought about her brother and his pals and realized the perfect personality to give her. You're probably a super cool person if you know what I'm talking about.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 1 - Video Dreamer - Page 11 - Joe & Trance

« on: October 01, 2014, 02:20:32 PM »

We watched the movie Zapped! (1982) for the first time earlier this year and noticed some striking similarities between Scott Baio's bedroom and Joe's. Sort of a neat accidental 80s reference. The silly lamp thing was always intentional, though.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 2 - Party Like It's 198X - Page 13 - Space Boobs

« on: September 08, 2014, 12:22:08 PM »

Thanks, guys. Drawing this page was so much fun, especially after drawing so many pages of houses and yards.

*thinks, "Hrm, why doesn't the amphibian lady have a vagina?"*
*thinks some more, "Wait... do frogs even have vaginas?"*
*subsequently learns a lot about cloacas*
Indirect biology lesson - nice. 

Yay, learning! Cloacas are weird, but posterior orifices/reproductive systems can get even weirder, even among mammals. Monotremes (platypus and echidna) lay eggs through a cloaca (like the non-mammalian tetrapods: amphibians and reptiles [including birds]), but marsupials have crazy junk going on down there. Like, three vaginal canals and stuff like that. Even among placentals (mammals that aren't monotremes or marsupials), there's quite a bit of vaginal/clitoral variation. One of my favorite things that I learned about just this past year or so has been the spotted hyena clit. It's craaazy. I knew that they had false penises before, and that the females are the dominant sex, but I had no idea that these giant clit-dongs were what these creatures got boned in, peed out of, and gave birth through, among a zillion other wacky factoids. I've actually been wanting to make an infographic about spotted hyenas for a while now. Maybe I'll get around to it someday. Why don't they teach us these things in school??

Anyway, the teal alien also has tits, and is pretty anthropomorphic, so anatomical accuracy is sort of out the window. She's an alien, so whatever. I thought about turning her big cheeks into tits too, with multiple nipples each. I guess you could still think of them like that. Her nip-nubs are just really flat or something.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Our First Satan Ninja Review ... and Driller [1984]

« on: September 03, 2014, 11:20:13 AM »

Read Adam's blog post here.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 2 - Party Like It's 198X - Page 10 - Riiip!

« on: August 17, 2014, 11:57:10 PM »

snacky fucking ROCKS!!!   

Thanks. I love drawing Snacky so damn much.

Everyone's expressions are well-done on this page

Thanks. I love drawing expressive faces, too. I really like doing a page that shows a ton of varied emotions.

I noticed something odd right after exporting this page. I flipped between the previous page and this one in an image viewer and I noticed that, in almost the exact same spot on both pages, I drew Alex and Eddie with pretty much the same expression and hand gesture in the same direction from the same angle, both basically telling Dean to leave someone alone. I didn't intend that, hah.

And I'm surprised to see Alex's chest so clearly defined in her gi! I had figured that the vest outfit was chosen to help hide her figure (at least in-universe) until some kind of reveal, but then she could have wrapped up her breasts tightly in her gi if that were the case. Now I just think Eddie is a total moron for missing obvious hints (and subtle blushes) like in issue 1, page 7, panel 8!

Oh man, her chest does look way too defined in her gi! They were actually bothering me, mostly in panel 11, but I just tried not to worry about it and get the page done. But you're totally right: a gi simply wouldn't hang like that on her. I must have been in boob mode from drawing the other girls or something. That's such a mistake I made in my early teens, always making girls have these super defined boobs even when they're supposed to be wearing loose fitting clothes. This can go on the list of little fixes I should make before going to print, along with some weird mistakes with the tiny bounty hunter's costume a few pages back. As early readers, you guys are like our beta testers. Your payment is getting to have these odd early mistakes captured for you. Future readers won't get to see Alex's weirdly defined boobs on the site anymore.

Oh yeah, and not only do Alex's boobs look incorrect, but Adam actually told me a long long time ago that she'd probably tape her chest when doing karate stuff. I forgot about that.

Also, I see how that could look like blushing, but I believe it was just that weird lighting on her cheeks that everyone sort of had in that scene. Ooh, or maybe the super subtle blush I usually give to all the girls is showing up too strongly on your display. It's so minor on mine that I can't even remember if I gave it to her there, even looking at it.

Jessica and I waffled back and forth a bit about the idea of Alex “coming to Eddie’s rescue” on this page. On one hand, it seemed fitting, and we thought the idea of her flipping into the scene whirling nunchucks was funny. On the other hand, it’s the kind of thing that could easily be groan worthy. Hopefully, we pulled it off.

Alex to the rescue was Adam's idea, and I was against it at first. Then I thought about how it might be funny in a painfully lame sort of way. I felt like it was important to keep her from seeming too coolly sarcastic and smirky, like she was playfully being with Corey early in the issue. She's obviously upset here, which tragically makes it easier for someone to look foolish. Even if she's a capable fighter, she looks so goofy.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 2 - Party Like It's 198X - Page 9 - Snacky, No!

« on: August 09, 2014, 12:23:44 PM »

Haha, Veronica continuing to lick her icecream was something I thought to have her do as I was drawing her and it tickled me. It felt very fitting for her character.

Uh oh, yeah, picturing a person walking through that door, Snacky probably looks a bit too big. He's pretty big, though. Also, he might look too small in the shot of him running at the girls. Too many panels, not enough time for accuracy!

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Discuss Anything / Re: Introductions

« on: August 05, 2014, 02:47:10 PM »

Maybe when your art speed reaches a certain level, you'll be able to save time by posting sketches instead of meticulously-planned written responses!

Yes, hah, I'd love to do that.

...Holy cow, I've spent way too long writing these responses today. Sooo much more wordy information than anyone ever needed to hear. I need to get back to drawing!!

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Discuss Anything / Re: Introductions

« on: August 05, 2014, 02:40:38 PM »

So you've reached your ultimate form, so to speak.

I wouldn't pronounce Dravean any different, but Dravian does look more like an existing name. Is Safron a peusonym too?

Safron is a pseudo-pseudonym. It's my middle name. My father's father's mother's birth name was Safronski or Szafranski or Safronowski, or something like that. I've been meaning to ask my grandpa about that, because I've been interested in genealogy lately. Anyway, either she or her parents legally shortened it to Safron. My parents thought it was neat and made it my middle name. I also think it's neat and made it my professional name, except I still need to get a DBA.

You think "ij" is funky? Try the "eu" in my surname, there's a sound that doesn't exist in English and my name hasn't ever been pronounced correctly here in Glasgow. I've given up on correcting people as they generally don't even hear the difference.. 

My father's mother's mother's maiden name was Van Deusen. That name entered the US from the Netherlands in the 1600s, before the US was the US. I think my family has genealogical records dating back to at least the 1300s on that lineage. It looks like the name used to be Van Deursen, and before that, Van Doorsen and Van Doersen. I've always heard Van Deusen pronounced væn'duzɛn, with the "deu" sounding like the "doo" in doodle. My mother's mother's mother's maiden name was Van Husen, and I wonder if that name had ever been spelled with an eu.

Looking at the Wikipedia article on Dutch orthography, eu would be pronounced like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_front_rounded_vowel Sooo... it's like a rounded /e/ sound, I guess? Also, you and Google Translate told me the same pronunciation for rijst, but now that I'm looking at this article, WP says ij would be pronounced ɛi or ə, making rijst rhyme with taste, or rhyme with the "dust" in industry. What's the deal?

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Discuss Anything / Re: Introductions

« on: August 05, 2014, 01:25:56 PM »

I'll let Jessica speak for herself. That is, if she can ever pull herself away from drawing for long enough to post on here.

Haha it's quite clear that you do all the writing and she's drawing all the time..

Hah, yeah, kind of. Don't get me wrong, I looove writing, but I'm notoriously awful when it comes to written correspondence because I take forever to write. I have a tendency to overthink everything I say, mulling over exactly how to word everything, which is actually fun for me, but it gets so time consuming that I end up putting off responses until I feel like I have enough time to spare, which is often kind of a long time.

I've actually been wanting to write blog posts for the site, and I still plan to at some point. I do have some of my writing sprinkled throughout the comic itself, so Adam doesn't do all the writing. I can be really slow and meticulous when it comes to drawing, too, and doing SN8X (I don't think I've ever referred to it as that before; wonder if that'll stick) has made me noticeably faster, and my art speed has steadily been increasing.

In reference to your post on July 26:

Man, seems like it would be so frustrating to put all that work into your studies with such little yield. It's frustrating enough for me trying to scour the Internet for answers to frivolous science questions and coming up with really vague answers, on a platform full of information compiled by people who have done all the real work. "What the hell, scientists? Hurry up and figure out what bats evolved from for me." I hope there are a lot of other sources of satisfaction for you along the way, if findings are so rare. But yeah, at least you have some context and aren't just stabbing around in the dark.

I didn't know about the tree thing, or at least forgot that factoid. That's crazy, or at least sounds crazy, having no idea what those genes govern. Adam and I just watched a He-Man episode last night where He-Man and Tila had to murder the oldest tree in Eternia and give him to a dragon as a present in order to rescue Man at Arms. He-Man almost did it, but decided it was too fucked up. I think the lesson of the episode was that trees have a right to life. He-Man probably knew the factoid. God, He-Man, you're so fucking wise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQs0G8MgkhQ

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 2 - Party Like It's 198X - Page 7 - Eddie's Gotta Ask Her!

« on: July 30, 2014, 05:07:12 PM »

Way early on, after seeing one of the arcade pages, Ghoul (our web lord) told us he thought Alex looked like Peggy Hill. That actually inspired us to change her hair from brown to black.

Nope! Alex's hair was always supposed to be black, as one could see in the concept art in the back of the PDF and upcoming print version of Issue 1. In an early version of the arcade scenes, I think I had some really dark brown mid-tones in Alex's hair and really dark blue in Trance's hair, and that was what Ghoul saw. Their hair really didn't look like it was supposed to be black, so I got rid of the brown and blue, and that fixed the Peggy Hill issue.

Also, I totally redrew her face in that second to last panel of the arcade scene. I think it was actually a lot more cutesy before, but too crappily drawn or something.

Oh boy, there are some babes I'm definitely looking forward to introducing, haha. I can't wait!

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Discuss Anything / Re: Introductions

« on: July 25, 2014, 04:26:06 PM »

Molecular microbiology.

I'm investigating a small metabolic pathway (series of chemical reactions) in Streptomyces coelicolor, which is a model organism for the genus Streptomyces. They're a group of mainly soil bacteria that are best known (well, in certain circles anyway) for their production of antibiotics, immuno suppressants, anti tumor compounds, etc. There's quite a lot of research into them going on, mostly for this reason.

The organism is really cool but also a bit of a bitch to work with, for various reasons I won't bother you with unless you really want to. Anyway, I included a picture to show how pretty they are. They also smell like damp forest (in reality it's the other way around of course, this being a soil bacterium).

The blue droplets (and very intense blue colour in the background) are a pigment they excrete. They consist of a class of compounds that can be antibiotics, but this one is rather weak. You'd have to take so much of it you'll be mistaken for a smurf. The colour is useful though, because you can keep track of its production very easily when trying out different growth conditions or when you mess with its genome or something.

I hope that wasn't too technical..

That's so cool! Hah, I'm so going to think of that picture next time I'm in a damp forest. I'm curious to know what you've discovered about it, and what brought your studies to those specific little guys in the dirt.

Heh, I'm a bit of a Wikipedia addict. There's barely anything on Wikipedia about your pet there (but you could change that!), though I did end up reading a little about its genus. Right before you posted your response to me, I had been trying to learn more about different types of single-celled organisms, so that was kind of a coincidence. Before that, I had been reading about arachnids and was directed to gregarines, which are parasitic to harvestmen (daddy longlegs), and that's what initially sparked my curiosity.

Many (maybe even most) of the articles I like to read are biology related. That's not to say I understand all of it. The other day, an analogy popped into my head: my enjoyment of those articles could be sort of like one of those cats that enjoy television, hah. Hopefully I'm learning a bit more than a cat would. I love reading that stuff and getting my imagination going about prehistoric life, learning how different groups are related, and becoming more aware of the organisms and processes that exist in and around us at all times. Mind-blowing stuff that makes me feel giant and tiny at the same time.

Man, and here I sit, writing a dumb-ass comic...

But seriously, that's awesome and the picture is much appreciated.

Dumb-ass comic? It's the best I've come across so far.

Look at it this way, this comic will be read by loads of people while I toil and struggle to write a thesis that, at most, 5 people will read.

Thank you for the huge complement! I do find myself wondering if I should have gone into a more important field that involved more learning. Being sort of a shallow cartoonist and a security guard doesn't feel too impactful, but I at least have the freedom to exercise my imagination, and having sweet fans makes cartooning feel way more worthwhile. I also get the feeling that picking one field of science as a career might make me feel stuck. Right now, I'm free to learn in whatever arbitrary direction my fickle curiosity takes me, though such unstructured learning makes for a really weird, random collection of knowledge full of holes in even the most basic concepts. I admire people who study our world for a living, and make it a healthier, easier, and cooler place to live in the process.

Cheers, I'm not many people's favourite European that's not a celebrity.

Maddox tweeted about you guys a while ago. I like his writing and he doesn't do spam so I figured it's worth a look. Turns out he was right.

Oh man! That's awesome! Maddox is super great. Have you listened to his podcast? http://thebiggestproblemintheuniverse.com/ I don't think I'd ever really listened to a podcast before. I just started his this week and listened to every episode in two or three days as I was drawing the comic. Now I'm sad that I have to wait to hear more. Heh, even though it updates once a week with soo much more time's worth of content than our comic does. Unless you spend hours staring at each of our pages, which I guess I'd be cool with.

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Discuss Anything / Re: Introductions

« on: July 15, 2014, 11:17:08 AM »

Rijst, what are you getting your PhD in, if you don't mind me asking?

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 2 - Party Like It's 198X - Page 5 - Lord Hreigh

« on: July 15, 2014, 04:21:11 AM »

That'll probably bother me forever that you can't remember where you got that name. Let's just change it.

By the way, my real favorite thing about this page is the pint-sized bounty hunter. I'd love to see action figures of these two someday. Along with pretty much every other character in the comic, of course.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 2 - Party Like It's 198X - Page 5 - Lord Hreigh

« on: July 14, 2014, 10:19:41 PM »

My favorite thing about this page is that I somehow managed to (unintentionally) make the background in panel three look like an obvious matte painting. Probably something to do with the low contrast; needs darker shadows and the light sources look oddly dim. Whatever. Better than the effects in Metal Storm, right?

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 2 - Party Like It's 198X - Page 1 - Lunchroom Daydreaming

« on: June 14, 2014, 07:07:00 PM »

If only our characters were in elementary school so we could show off some of those rad Saturday morning cartoon lunchboxes.

Gah! You just conjured such an awful mental juxtaposition of them all being in elementary school and Veronica wanting Eddie to bang her to the max.