No joke I wish for this power all the time [October 2, 2013]
Category: Commentary
This might all just be me.
First panel happens to me all the time. Second panel not so much. Third panel? Well, first I’ll reveal that this comic was secretly inspired by the first time I actually asked someone out on a date. She’ll remain nameless, but she did say yes, so we went for dinner. We watched some of the other staff sing happy birthday and she told me, speaking as a former server herself, that repeatedly forcing a smile while singing Happy Birthday on a busy shift was the Actual Worst.
Epilogue: that was our only date.
Epilogue II: But! In a roundabout way, that date led to me dating the lady who is now my wife. It’s a bit of a story. Ask me in person sometime 🙂 [January 19th, 2017]
I haven’t done one of these in a while!
I hate drawing vehicles and yet sometimes I find I need to do it. If you see a car in my comics it is probably A.) drawn from the top down, which is relatively simple, B.) drawn from very close up to the windshield, so I don’t have to draw the rest of it, or C.) Childlike as in panel 2 here. [October 2, 2013]
It used to be cool, then it was “cool”, and now it’s neither.
The bad apostrophes on the sign in panel one are intentional. Also, is that the “Metal Health” album by Quiet Riot on the left of the middle shelf? I don’t remember, but it miiiiight beeee [October 2, 2013]
My time has finally come!
This is what ended up happening that year: I bought a big box of Sunkist gummy candies to hand out (they’re in little packets, naturally) but made plans for the evening with a friend of mine to watch scary movies. At that point I was using a projector in the basement so there was no way I could hear kids coming or going. I decided to make a sign on cardboard, and hang a bag of the candies (Honor System!) from the latch of my screen door outside. The sign said something to the effect of “please just take one” but honestly I wouldn’t have cared either way.
I don’t think anybody took anything. I didn’t realize until later that you could barely see the bag from the street and with no decorations probably nobody even checked it out. Those that did might’ve been creeped out by the lack of supervision. In any case I was stuck with a pile of gummies for a long time after that.
Addendum: Lori and I tried handing out candies in 2012 and we had like five kids all evening, so it’s also possible my street is just super unpopular. [October 2, 2013]
The more you eat the less good they are.
Does this comic break my informal rule of No Dialogue In The Artwork? Kind of, although I often make exceptions for what I consider to be song lyrics. Three things:
1st, I was concerned that the Oompa-loompa’s expression alone (combined with the narration) wouldn’t be clear enough for people to make the association to their judgmental songs. Maybe I’m under-estimating my audience, but I felt like in this case the text added rather than took away.
2nd, I once had a film professor who was going on about the Dogme 95 movement. The movement had a lot of rules for how a film was to be made (natural light only, no guns to move the plot forward etc.) but the prof pointed out that what was more interesting about these films was they way they selectively chose to break their own rules. I happen to think he’s right, so that’s why it’s fun to do something unexpected from time to time.
3rd, and this has nothing to do with the “rules” but look at that green hair! I’m really proud of that hair. [October 2, 2013]
Gaming’s most awesome accessory.
I can’t remember who or where — maybe Facebook? But after posting this comic somebody tried to argue that “k’pang” was really more of an accurate representation of the zapper sound. Is that even a thing that’s worth pointing out? I mean really. [September 6th, 2013]
Who am I gonna call?
I don’t have DSL at my new place just yet and my tablet’s in a box somewhere, so for the moment you get comics in Microsoft Paint and posted in the mornings rather than late night. Updates as the situation changes!
Tch, if I HAVE to
Wanna see the invitations I drew?
(There’s no text because my readers aren’t actually invited, sorry. I lobbied for you guys!)
[Begin Commentary] All this hoopla was for my oldest brother’s wedding. I didn’t end up officiating, but the first two panels were quite true.
I’m not sure if anyone noticed, but I’ve always liked the reflections of the ‘bow tie’ label and ‘sigh’ sound in panel 2. They shouldn’t be there, but I put them there, and it makes me happy to have done so. [January 5th, 2017]
Also contained: Monster truck rally!
This comic is not one bit of a lie. It was a home video that featured the footage I described in the comic, plus some taped-off-TV tractor pull stuff and more home video of a kid playing “Tiny Toon Adventures” with stuffed toys.
The closest I got to an answer was when I showed it to my oldest brother, who said it looked like some guys that were friends of his ex-wife. Still, there’s no accounting for how it ended up in my VHS tape collection next to the Pokemon episodes and Mystery Science Theater stuff. [September 6th, 2013]