Something I don’t do enough of is general sketching of characters that are in things I’m working on. Nothing gets you better at drawing a character than drawing them over and over doing different things. Here’s one I did of Brianna.
This is an older drawing, so it’s not really in step with my current design on her.
This is a manifesto vaguely inspired by something I read about Zach Helm several years ago. It was a set of guidelines he made for himself regarding his screenwriting, and although I found the idea wonderful, it did lead to Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, so I’m not sure I can call that a win. Actually, since he did Stranger Than Fiction first, I think it still averages out as a plus. Anyway, here goes.
The Document
I will make comics. These comics will fall into the following categories.
1. Things that are funny. I don’t think this needs much explaining. Primarily, I would like to find it funny. If other people also find it funny, all the better.
2. Things that are strange. I like things that are different.
3. Things that are beautiful. Be it visually or intellectually.
4. Things that are interesting. Be it visually or intellectually as well.
If a comic is not one of those four things, it will, at the very least, be true. This truth may be literal (a true story), or cosmic (insert your own personal concept of a metaphysical truth here).
Comics are not excluded from falling into more than one of these categories. The norm should actually be to exist in at least two, and often more.
I will make comics because I am inspired to, because I want to, because other people want me to, because I am compelled to by forces internal. And, some day, I will make comics because it is my living.
Let’s have a story.
Last month Elisabeth and I decided to take advantage of Superbowl TV sales and buy an HDTV. So we went online and found a good looking TV, checked it out on Consumer Reports. Then we went to the Northgate Best Buy and looked at it in person. We had someone show us the difference between 60 and 120hz and decided we wanted to pay a little more for that.
The next day we had a some help from my sister and her husband in transporting this TV from the Bellevue Best Buy home in their truck, as it was raining. Putting the top down on the Saab and shoving it in the back seat wasn’t really an option. What we bought was this beautiful 42″ Insignia (a BBY house brand) LCD 120hz thing. It was awesome. TV heaven. That weekend was actually our anniversary, and although we did go out on Saturday, we basically spent all of Sunday at home watching DVDs and cooking.
Wednesday evening I sat down for my first serious bit of video game time. ME2 looked great on it, and I was in VG nerd heaven. Until the TV turned off. “Huh” I thought. “That was weird.” I turned the TV back on. About 30 minutes later, the same thing happened. TV honeymoon over.
I called the tech support line the next day. There was some mild hiccup with them trying to find me, as they couldn’t find my phone number on file. This was not surprising to me, as I never gave my phone number when purchasing the thing. This continued to be a problem with every call I made to them. In any event, my first recommendation was to unplug it for a minute or two, then try again. This was done, to little effect.
My second call involved checking to make sure we had removed all the plastic and that there wasn’t anything blocking the vents. No and no. The TV was no warmer than any other appliance in the house.
My next call ended with my having to get a Geek Squad member out to look at it, which had to wait until yesterday, as that was the first available weekend appointment.
Somewhere in this process we realized it only happened when playing video games or on the Xbox dashboard. This made Rock Band an unrealistic gaming notion and online play impossible.
Yesterday the GS came by to look at it. The trick with an intermittent problem like this is actually demonstrating it to someone. That turned out to be unnecessary. It seems he’d seen the same thing at someone else’s house. The best theory as to the nature of the problem was a feature that turns the TV off automatically if there’s no signal detected for a while. The problem being that somehow the TV, even though it’s showing the picture, is also thinking there’s nothing coming from the component cable. The GS guy said he could either order a new main board for it, but since it was still within a month of buying it, he recommended just exchanging it. Which we did that afternoon.
Having already thrown out the packaging, we wrapped the TV in blankets and rope and dropped the top of the car. It was a sunny weekend here in the northwest, though not all that warm. We drove into Bellevue and swapped it for another.
Elisabeth, sweetheart that she is, recommended that I spend some time playing on it to make sure the same problem didn’t occur. This was a wonderful suggestion. I popped in Dragon Age, which I had just borrowed from a friend while visiting him, his wife, and their new baby. He probably won’t be needing DA for a while.
About an hour or so in, the TV turned off. It did it again a little after that. I went online. Apparently this is widespread problem, only recently occurring. I don’t know how I missed this before. A thread on the Insignia forums has someone at the company saying they’re working on it, but with no timetable available. The general consensus was that a firmware update could clear it up. There was some evidence to suggest that if you just use an HDMI cable, the problem is fixed. I don’t own an HDMI cable. Also, I don’t want to have two useless inputs on the back.
This morning I called Best Buy. I explained the whole situation. I was basically fishing for either a different but comparable model in exchange for this one, or a free HDMI cable. In truth, and HDMI cable for the Xbox is something I would be willing to pay for, but I do not want to have to pay for one because of a defective product. The guy from BBY actually suggested buying a new component cable to see if that was the problem first. I hung up the phone and looked at Elisabeth.
“We’re taking it back.”
We still had the original packaging this time, and we drove it in and I got my money back. Elisabeth asked me if wanted to look at any of the other TVs there. “At this point, I’m thinking, fuck ‘em.” I really do have a way with words.
We spent today driving around to the nearby electronics stores. Her phones directions to some place we’d never even heard of asked us to turn down a dirt road. “That’s where it is?” I said. “It’s not even fucking paved!” We gave up trying to find that one.
We hit Target, Fred Meyer, and eventually ended up at Costco. We didn’t have a membership, so we signed up. Then we got a new Visio TV. Also, a bunch of muffins.
Attention Eidos or Square Enix Europe or whatever it is you’re called now. Stop working on the new Deus Ex prequel you’re making. It’s probably going to suck, not that anything could suck as much as the Deus Ex sequel did.
Instead, take the original Deus Ex, revamp the graphics and physics, and re-release it. Don’t change anything else! Especially not that bug that gives you unlimited skill points after the sealab mission.
Seriously, that game was way ahead of it’s time. A little spit and polish and it would be a heck of a lot better than some games that get released these days.
On Warren Ellis‘ forum, he often does a thing called “Remake/Remodel,” which involves redesigning old pulp characters. The most recent was a scientist with a flying pack from the future named Atoma who quells a robot rebellion. This was my submission, made entirely on my new Cintiq.
First off, Bashert has a brand new site designed by me and coded by Elisabeth. Note the logo and handy random shirt box linky thing to Bashert Shirts.
Also, there have been many new comics, most of which I have not linked to here. Most notable are a report of our vacation in R’lyeh, a rumination on the danger of Pastafarianism, Iron Chef on a certain desert planet, and the first adventure of Scott Freed, master of escapes.
There’s a new comic at Bashert Comics. Looks like I slipped into that old habit of naming things after songs.
There’s a new comic over at Bashert Comics . It’s about ninjas and education. Because we went and saw Ninja Assassin earlier. I enjoyed it. It’s always good to see Patrick getting some work.
There is a new comic over at Bashert Comics. It’s about auto maintenance. Sort of.
Professor Albrecht James-Littleton
In 1854, one Albrecht James-Littleton unveiled the creation of his first assisted circulation and breathing device. Named the “Breathing Bed”, the user had to be strapped in place so as not to disrupt the careful tubes and servos necessary to keep it working.
Five years later Professor James-Littleton introduced the new portable model, called the “Walking Breather”, it was the pinnacle of Victorian medical science.
Harnessed about the chest and held in place with complex collection of straps, ties, knots, buttons, screws, nuts, bults, nails, glue, caulk, rope, string, twine, spit, feathers, bows, and one crude zipper (the source of a future lawsuit with Elias Howe, as it was used out of patent) the portable model was lauded by Joseph Lister, Charles Darwin, Lord Shaftesbury, and Charles Dickens, who credited it with saving the life of a distant cousin, calling it “the most fascinating medical device since the opium pipe.”
For it’s invention, Professor James-Littleton was given a knighthood in the Royal Victorian Order in 1898.
We now think of the “Walking Breather” as a crude and dangerous device. Though portable in design, the chances of surviving the installation procedure were low, and most who did suffered so much blood loss and infection that the lives that were saved were short and quite painful. Still, on this, the sesquicentennial anniversary of the introduction of the portable model, we are pleased to present this new shirt design in commemoration.
This shirt is a reproduction of the original, working prototype created by Professor James-Littleton and attached to black-lung suffering coal minor, Arthur Johns. Mr. Johns lived a full 12 hours with the device as his sole means of respiration and circulation, before succumbing to blood loss, toxic shock syndrome, massive renal failure, and an exploded spleen. Though the type our design is based on was made of steel, iron, wood and waxed paper, future models were made of finer materials, the best being a solid gold model with silver accents and whale-leather bellows made for Archibald Primrose, the 5th Earl of Rosebery.
This design is available for both gentlemen and ladies of good moral fiber and a love of scientific history.
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