An Experimental Life

Today’s art is some quick pencils from local cartoonist Kevin Mackadoo (sp). The samples he’s shown me of our characters conform much more closely to Shan’s style, but when I asked him for this, he cranked it out in about fifteen minutes with no references to look at. We’re trying things out to see how well we work together.

Transcript to follow, but it's writing group night, so for now I'm getting back to work on my latest story. I'm going to start posting Lords of the Living Room at some point over the next few days, too. See you guys soon!

Oops! Didn't realize I'd misspelled "repercussions" until I'd already uploaded the comic. I'll fix it later. (Probably.)

The next script is already finished, and I plan to start doing color again soon.

TRANSCRIPT:
Panel 1
Blue (Royally pissed): Get Sarah down here with her med kit ta save Ceasar. I'm gonna clean up the Roman senate.
Crash (Trying to pull Blue back): No! You can't do that, Blue!

Panel 2
Blue: Gimme one good reason why I shouldn't.
Crash: It'd change history. We have no idea what kind of repercussions it would cause.
Blue: So what you're tellin' me is...

Panel 3
(We see a building with a sign on the window that says, "Time Travel Vacations.")
Narrator: And now let's skip ahead to the year 2416...
Voice from inside the building: That's right, sir. What happens in Ancient Rome stays in Ancient Rome.

Ah, good old Spring of 44 BCE. Just in time to witness the assassination of Julius Ceasar.

Transcript at the bottom, as usual, but first, a cautionary tale on cartooning while entirely too sleepy. In other words, I am going to talk about how I did very stupid things, and whine a bit, as well. (And was tired enough that I misnamed and misordered this when I first uploaded it, so my apologies for any double-notifications.)

I started this on the tablet--with which I am just beginning to become comfortable--then Shan took pity on me and agreed to do pencils. Hooray, Shan!

When she handed off the pencils to me I had a moment of dubious brilliance and came up with some seemingly good ideas for inking shortcuts. They really were good ideas, too. The problem is that I spent more time doing "proof of concept" and figuring out how the proccess would work (still don't have it down completely) than it would have taken me to just jump on the tablet and get it done.

By the time I had the first part of my genius shortcut proccess pretty much figured out, I was sleepy. So sleepy that it took me about a third of the way through inking to realize I was actually working on my pencils layer. Argh! So, scrap that, go to the correct layer, and start over, right? Sure.

By that time I was tired enough that it didn't hit me until about a third of the through again that all all my lines were jagged. After stuggling to fix that for a while, I finally asked Shan for advice. Of course she knew what was wrong. I was using the pencil tool instead of the brush tool. DOH!

I switched tools, adjusted the tablet properties, and although exhausted, was moving along fairly quickly and feeling pretty happy about my progress... Until I realized I was once again working on the wrong layer. Why hadn't I locked the damn pencils layer the first time I screwed up like that? So I started over once again... Lather, rinse, repeat with minor variations.

In retrospect I realize that had I acknowledged to myself that I had reached (and passed) the point of diminishing returns, gotten some rest, and hit it in the morning, it would have looked much prettier, taken me less time, and I'd have had it to you earlier in the day. I have learned my lesson.

Anyway, I apologize for the appearance of today's comic. The good stuff is from Shannon's pencils, and any ugly stuff is from me.

And now, the transcript.

Panel 1
(Crash and Blue in ancient Rome in proper period attire--Unless I screwed it up.)
Crash (looking pleased): The forum in ancient Rome. Just think of the greate people who walked these halls, the historic debates, all the--
Blue (looking past her and cutting her off): The knife fights? Like that one?
Crash: Oh, don't be silly. The Roman senate didn't...

Panel 2
Crash (worried): Wait, when are we again?
Blue: 44BCE.
Crash: What month?
Blue: 'Round mid-March, Seth said. Why?

Panel 3
(Sound effect: stab, stab, stab, stabbity stab-stab)
From off-screen: Et tu, Brute?
Blue (transfixed): Man, history's brutal.
Crash (hurrying away): Time to go, Blue.

It's been a long time coming, but as promised, Blue Crash Kit is back! Your favorite polyamorous (polyfidelitous, to be precise) talking animal (aka furry) costumed heroes are back in action. I've got a local artist or two staked out, but I plan to draw at least a few comics myself to prove to myself that I can do it. Today is a combination of me using the tablet and stealing bits and pieces from Shannon's line art.

Panel 1
Seth (exhausted): Looks like we're making a pit stop in ancient Rome to recalibrate. I've been tracking Nip by looking at temporal anomolies, but something's off. It took me all night, but I charted everything out so I can start eliminating false positives.
Blue: Huh?

Panel 2
Seth: C'mere. I'll show you. It's a 4-D grid. The positive numbers are forward of our current time, and the negatives are in the past, so if you--

Panel 3
(Seth's chart has sloppy pictures of sailboats, cats, and rubber duckies drawn all over it.)
Seth (peeved expression): I don't suppose you'd know anything about how this happened?
Blue (contrite): I thought it was one of them "connect-the-dots" thingies.

Transcript below, as usual, but there's a lot of stuff to catch you all up on about the comic and more.

The personal stuff first: Shan and I are getting married today! Hooray!

We figured if we waited until we could "do it up right," we'd be waiting a long, long time (especially considering it turns out the insurance settlement isn't even going to cover my medical bills), but hey--We're together, and we're happy. During the times we can't make each other happy, we at least make each other less miserable. Heh! Eventually we'll have a big reception/party to celebrate, but we're cool with a little civil ceremony for now.

About the comic:
And what's this? After such a long unplanned hiatus, three updates at once? Well, yeah. I've had the line art from Mike's last two strips for quite a while, but wanted to wait until I was going to be able to keep things going before I posted them.

You'll also notice that my name is the only one on the comic now. Yup--My arm/back have been improving quite a bit. The bad days are getting fewer, further between, and less severe, so I decided to take over the art myself.

It is of course not up to the standards you've been used to in the past, and I was a bit nervous about it, but in a way, it's nice to be doing it all myself from start to finish. I can draw for about twenty minutes at a time now before things start cramping up, so I'm just pacing myself, and I figure my drawing will improve with time. Shan is helping with critiques and suggestions (and of course, it's nice to have all of her original inks for reference), and drew Kit's body on this strip. I'm also out of practice with shading, but I'll work on all of it as we go.

Expect a redesign and some improvements to the site soon, too!

Transcript:
Panel 1
Kit: What's wrong, Seth? Blue got your time machine back.
Seth: I know. Just... It's my fault your cat's missing. I promise I'll keep looking for Nip until we find him, though.

Panel 2
Kit: I know you will. And look at the bright side of things.

Panel 3
Kit: I bet you're the only person in history that ever had this much help hunting puss--
Seth (cutting her off): Do you mind? I thought we were having a moment.

Panel 1
Duck 1: What're we gonna do?
Duck 2: We'll get it back!
Duck 3: Are you nuts?

Panel 2
Duck: Coward! Are we not warriors? Are we not ducks? There's only one of him. Now follow me. We're going to retake the Trojan Duck and arest the thief.

Panel 3
Beaten-up duck: We, uh... lost the Trojan Duck, sir.
From off-screen: Damn. Looks like we go with the horse, then.

Panel 1
Duck 1: Is it me, or is this getting heavier?
Duck 2: It's just you, Ralphus.

Panel 2
Both ducks (being pulled off of their feet): WHOA!

Panel 3
Blue (pulling the Trojan Duck from the other side): The girls are sooooo gonna chew my ass for this.

Still a bit delayed by real life issues, but we WILL be back.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Kit: Or I could--
Crash: No.

Kit: Aw, man. This is just like when you wouldn't let me bring home the kitties.

Crash: Those were tigers, Kit.
Kit: But they LIKED me!
Crash: They were AFRAID of you.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Narrator: And just because we promised her--One last peek at what Kit would do if the Trojan Duck were hers to keep forever...

Kit: 'Kay, so then ANOTHER left, and... Feels like I've been driving around in circ--Whoa! That's a little too close for comfort! Keep it in your own lane, buddy! This ain't a race, you know!
(pause)
Kit: Or... Wait a minute. Just how wrong of a turn DID I take back there at Albuquerque?

Narrator: Ookay, Kit. You've had your fun, and the other characters are waiting.
Kit: But I--
Narrator: You'll get to wear the pink toga again.
Kit: To-Ga! I'm there, Mr. Narrator!

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