On the Job

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - 11:05 PM
[Update by Brian]
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Stu happily dons a BOB hat? What's goin' on here?!

My apologies for the late strip. It has been something of a crazy week.

I'm on a strange kick of deciding not to pay for things anymore. Listen to my story.

Back in the summer, I decided not to use my air conditioner anymore because I got mad at just how much it ran up my energy bill. While uncomfortable at first, I eventually adapted to life without air conditioning, using only fans, cold drinks, and prancing around completely naked (the neighbors across the street were not happy about this) to stay cool during the hot summer months. In the end, I saved a bunch of money, and I'm no worse off.

Last month, I decided not to use my natural gas heat anymore because I got mad at just how much it ran up my energy bill. While uncomfortable at first, I eventually adapted to life without heat by hanging fabric and plastic in my doorways, sealing all the windows, using a small space heater sparingly, and finding a means of harvesting the heat produced by my downstairs neighbor's cigarette-smoking parties. (He has about three a week.) I'm saving a bunch of money, and I'm no worse off.

Recently, Amanda and I did some research to see how much money it will cost us to have a 2-person cellular phone plan when we get married. It looks like it's going to be about $100 a month. We can afford that, but neither of us like cell phones enough to pay that much every month. The culture seems to be driving everybody to the belief that everybody must have a cell phone, no matter the cost, leaving those blood-sucking fiends at the top of the cell phone companies free to charge practically whatever they want for a service that should realistically be maybe 30 bucks a month. That's probably not really true--I'm not a businessman, so I don't actually know what I'm talking about. All I know is that it's not worth it to me, and I'd rather be spending that money on curly fries, or putting it towards our eventual retirement home on the beach. We'll have saved enough money on cell phone service over the years to install platinum bathroom fixtures and a shield generator to keep hurricanes from knocking it down.

Anyway, we'll probably only have one fully functional cell phone, and get another text-only phone at a fraction of the cost of two regular cell phones. Or maybe we'll get a land line--people do still have those, from what I understand. We'll adapt to life with only one cell phone between us, save a bunch of money, and be no worse off.

There's another, funnier story behind all of this. The reason we were looking at cell phone plans is because my cell phone was breaking in half. I was eligible for a free upgrade, but I would have to renew my contract to get it, and to then add Amanda to the plan would be where the $100 a month would come into play. Fortunately, I found my old phone, but I had thrown away its charger. We went to the store to buy a replacement charger and a belt case for the phone to prevent it from breaking in half in my pocket like the other one did. We bought a charger and a case, but when we got home, the phone was gone. We apparently lost it in the store. Fortunately, my friend Josh's mom had an old phone she wasn't using anymore, so I took it off her hands.

My dad got a call earlier today from a man saying he had his phone, to which Dad replied, "No, you don't," not realizing what was going on. It turns out we left the phone we thought we'd lost inside one of the cases at the store in what was definitely one of our more scatter-brained moments. An employee found the phone and dialed the number labeled "Home" in the contacts and got my dad. My dad called me and relayed the information, and I got my old phone back. Mystery solved.

I gotta go to bed. Thanks for reading and for your patience, and I'll see you next time!

Smelly Reputation

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 - 6:50 PM
[Update by Brian]
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Hey, word and odors both get around.

The exciting, but terrifying urge to play a massively multiplayer online game has struck me again. It last struck in 2006, when I was encouraged to try World of Warcraft. I played WoW for 10 months before I got bored (and got a job), so I gave it up. It's a great game--lots of things to do, the Warcraft universe is fun and accessible, and there are some epic boss fights, which is always a plus.

Since WoW, no online game has really struck me as being compelling enough to try. However, two of them are coming soon, and I don't know if I'll be able to resist the temptation of either of them: Star Trek Online and Lego Universe.

Star Trek has been a big part of my life since 4th grade, when a grade school chum introduced me to it. I never had anything against Star Trek; I was always just a Star Wars kid and didn't pay it any mind. But Star Trek ended up being a big influence on a lot of the early comics I did as a kid, and it embued the desire to command a starship (or to be a bridge officer, if nothing else). At one point I even bought a red lightbulb for my room, and imagined my top bunk being the command post of my ship, and if there was an emergency, I turned off the overhead lights and turned on the lamp that had the red lightbulb in it to simulate a red alert. I hoped Starfleet would exist at some point in my life, but I grew up and it's still not here. However, I can fulfill those wishes to some extent with Star Trek Online. However, I can be really stingy with money, and there's also my whole problem with having a ton of video games to finish as it is. I want to play STO, but I'm conflicted.

Then there's Lego Universe, another video game adaptation of something I loved as a kid and still love today. What appears to be the neat thing about Lego Universe is that it encompasses all things Lego. If I want to do space, castle, ninja, or pirate adventures, it looks like they're all there. And the thought of building my own stuff is always nice, like if I could build my own ship or my own headquarters. However, these wishes can actually be fulfilled in real life with real Legos, perhaps not with the same scope that Lego Universe will offer, but if I ever want to play with Legos, I can just pull them out whenever I go visit my parents. The only problem is that when I do play with them, I usually will play with my nephew, who seems more interested in being on the opposite team as me and blowing my stuff up than he is actually building anything. (And all his guys can "hide" or "have force fields" and this sort of thing if I try to fight back.) Also, I can be really stingy with money, and there's also my whole problem with having a ton of video games to finish as it is. I want to play Lego Universe, but I'm conflicted.

It's going to be interesting as to whether or not I can resist the temptation over the course of the year. Star Trek Online is the frontrunner. It comes out February 2. Will I cave? We shall see.

Thanks for reading, and I'll return sometime soon!

Mike and the Ninja Volume 1 Finally For Sale Online

Thursday, January 21, 2010 - 9:12 PM
[Update by Brian]
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It may interest you to know that if you have not yet purchased a copy of Mike and the Ninja, Volume 1: San Francisco Fracas (and shame on you if you haven't), it is now available for sale in the vast and desolate wasteland we know as the internet. I took more time than I should have to go through the motions of securing an ISBN for the book, but now that said task has been taken care of, a mighty internet company will, with the proper exchange of cashola, print and ship a copy just for you. I would also eventually like to set up my own store via my website and package and ship books to you myself. It's more personal that way, and the shipping will honestly be less expensive for you, as well.

Or, if you'd like to pick up a copy at Cape Comic Con, the book will be available at the special Comic Con Discount®, which, I assure you, is a deal so good, it can make an ordinary man punch through a solid brick wall. (It's true--it happened at Comic Con '09!)

If you're feeling particularly dedicated, I would humbly request that you please leave a review for the book on its Lulu.com listing. You'll probably have to register an account with them and all that--which is a pain, I know--but if you're up to it, I would definitely appreciate it. Even if it's negative--I like honest feedback.

Of course, this means I will eventually be posting a permanent banner somewhere on the site advertising the sale of the book. I promise the ad will not include seizure-inducing flashes of bright color, nor will it offer you one simple rule to lose your gut forever.

At times, it's easy for me to lose sight of the fact that I made a book, and that it is something I should be proud of. Pretty much every internet personality I follow closely is somehow associated with webcomics, and (almost) all of them have multiple books. Because of this, I feel like having written/created a book is sort of a normal thing, and compared to them, I look at my book and think, "Hm, here's my one book. And it has the rough early stuff in it, too. Ho-hum, whoopdie doo."

Fortunately, at that point the driven, less mopey part of my brain kicks in and says, "What are you talking about?! This is your book! You made this! You've done something lots of people only ever dream of doing, and you enjoyed every bit of it! This is great! You should be proud of this thing!"

I am proud, and I hope you enjoy reading the comics as much as I enjoy making them.

Dumpster Dive

Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - 6:30 PM
[Update by Brian]
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Trepidation lingered in my mind as I sat to begin work on this week's comic. However, it ended up being a fun comic to draw, and it didn't take nearly as long as I anticipated. Being a chase scene and all, I couldn't justify using the same angle or background over and over again--this ain't a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, after all. So I had to come up with some varying and creative angles to keep things from getting boring. Drawing at angles which took me out of my comfort zone, combined with the fact that this was a 9-panel strip, which takes quite a bit longer than the usual five to seven panel strip, led me to believe it would take forever to get this comic in the can. However, instead of dreading it, I just sat down and did it. I'm also trying to not be such a perfectionist and take hours and hours to draw a comic strip. I always feel like the pencils have to be perfect, but they are only there to serve as guides for the inking and get erased when the comic is finished, anyway. I'm trying to shake myself from this misconception I have that the penciling has to be brilliant and flawless before I can move on to the inking. If I want to expand to two comics per week, this is going to be essential. I'm working on it.

Exciting news on the Cape Comic Con front! According to the website, the dates for the 5th annual event are Saturday and Sunday, May 1 and 2. Mike and the Ninja and I will be appearing at the show, and I'm proud to report that I designed the new logo for the show, as well. I'll be sure to put a permanent link on the sidebar if you're interested in more information on the con as it becomes available. Special thanks to Ken Murphy for using my logo design--it's a real thrill to be able to contribute to the hometown comic con in some small way!

I'd like to do a blog entry this week, so I'll try to be back on Thursday to take care of that. In the meantime, be well and thank you for reading!

Bee Afraid

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - 10:09 PM
[Update by Brian]
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Thank you for your patience on this late comic strip! I'm just glad I got it posted, as I wouldn't be too keen on already missing an update the second week of the year. The perspective got a little wonky in some of the panels of this strip, but I'm not too worried about it--it's a hard thing to deal with. I've also noticed on the last two strips that it has been taking forever for my ink to dry, so I usually end up having to clean up a lot of smears in Photoshop. Must be the weather or something.

I don't have much else to talk about right now, and I need to get to bed, anyway, so I'm gonna cut this blog entry off here. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time!

ANNOUNCEMENT: This Week's Comic to be One Day Late

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 - 6:07 PM
[Update by Brian]
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Aw, man! This week's comic is not done yet (still somewhere in the inking stage, to be precise) and will be posted sometime Wednesday night. Amanda and I are overwhelmed with some early wedding planning stuff. The good news is that we've already figured out most of what we're gonna be doing and have already taken care of a number of essentials! The bad news is that the comic is going to be a day late. But it should be up tomorrow barring mouse infestation, allergic reaction to food, or the acquisition of a sweet new video game I just HAVE to play.

I'll be back tomorrow night with the comic. Stay strong, citizens!

And then I got engaged

Thursday, January 7, 2010 - 11:20 PM
[Update by Brian]
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Remember in Tuesday's blog entry when I said 2010 was going to be a big year?

Well....

On top of all these big plans I have for comics and whatnot this year, I asked Amanda to marry me last night. When my proposal was met with hysterical laughter, then tears, then hysterical laughter again, I was pretty sure she was going to say yes. Oh, who am I kidding? I knew for certain she was going to say yes before I even asked. But it felt really, really good to hear it.

I don't have much else to add at the moment--I've been experiencing a major adrenaline rush for the last 24 hours and my brain isn't working all that well. All I can say is that we're really happy together, I love her very much, and I don't think I've ever been so sure of any decision I've ever made as I am this one.

Thank you, and goodnight.

Positive ID

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 - 6:38 PM
[Update by Brian]
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Here we go! First comic strip of 2010! It took a little bit of time to get back into the drawing groove--I had worked ahead to compensate for time I knew I wouldn't have during the holidays to work on comics, and thus didn't work on any comics for a couple of weeks. I was really frustrated with pretty much everything I drew right at first, expecting everything to be perfect. After cooling off, things came a little more naturally, and it turned out all right. The new drawing table really came in handy--I'm looking forward to working with it more in the future.

Since we're starting a new year and all, it's resolution time. I've never been a big resolution kind of guy, but I do like setting goals when it comes to the comic strip. Here's what I said at the beginning of last year:

"...I guess if I were to make one, I would like to greatly increase my efforts to promote the comic and grow an audience and community. Oh, and I need to change the name of the comic. I actually thought of some ideas the other day, but they were too generic and have already been taken by other things.

Also, my goal for this year is to top the number of comics I made last year, so I need to make 47. Right now, that sounds really easy, but you never know--something may come up, or I might fall into a sophomore slump and slack off. But hopefully that won't happen."

I didn't grow the audience and community as much as I would have liked, and that is because I simply didn't put enough time, effort, or research into doing so. However, I also didn't set a realistic goal for myself. I recently read an article in which a concerned webcomics artist was frustrated that his 8-month old comic strip wasn't catching on because he only had 20,000 unique visitors a month checking it out. Heck, I'm gonna be thrilled when I get to a scant 100 unique visitors a month, and I've been around two years now, so I don't know what that guy was worried about. But around this time last year, I was realistically looking for a number similar to 20,000 unique visitors a month. If I can get it up to 100 by the end of the year, that would be fantastic.

On the plus side, I did finally change the name of the comic, and I surpassed my goal of 47 comics in the year, ending 2009 with 48 comics in the can. On top of that, I also put together the first Mike and the Ninja book (which, by the way, another goal would be to have that for sale on the internet this year), had a successful showing at the 2009 Cape Comic Con, and illustrated a children's book for Southeast Missouri State University. (That was my big secret project I was working on in October.) So all in all, I think I got a lot of stuff done.

But I want to make more comics. I want to accelerate my production rate to get them out of my brain and onto your monitor faster. I'm trying to keep the story fast-paced, but even so, only producing one strip a week really makes things feel like they're dragging sometimes. Therefore, by July, I want to expand to a twice-a-week format. In order to do this, I need to start working on it now. My time management skills are not that great, and I believe there is a lot of time in my week to draw more comics and still do everything else I also want to do.

In other words, 2010 is going to be a BIG year. Let's get to it.

Mike and Stu's new digs

Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 5:50 PM
[Update by Brian]
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Amanda and I returned to my apartment late Christmas morning after spending Christmas Eve at my parents' house with my family. We sat down in front of the tree to exchange gifts--she had fawned over some art sets we saw at Hobby Lobby some months ago, so I got her one of those and a sketchbook, and I drew eight Legend of Zelda coloring book pages for her to color with the new art set.

There was one present waiting for me under the tree. It was heavy, and Amanda said to be careful with it. I cautiously removed the wrapping paper to find a pane of glass waiting for me. I was a little perplexed, but I smiled because I thought I had an idea of what it might be. Amanda played along.

"It's the first piece of your light box!" She said. We had recently discussed my getting a light box for use when tracing was necessary, such as needing to draw a building or other piece of scenery consistently across multiple frames. I was excited, but curious as to where the rest of the light box might be.

"Can you grab my robe off the drawing table? It's a little chilly," Amanda said as she rubbed her arms briskly to generate some warmth. I got up and walked over to my brother-in-law's drawing table, which was on permanent loan to me as long as I kept using it.

I picked up the robe to find a large, square hole had been cut in the surface of the drawing table.

Except it wasn't my brother-in-law's drawing table. It was a different table:

It was my drawing table.

Amanda inserted the pane of glass into the hole in the table to reveal a built-in light box. All I have to do is place a light below the table.

If I haven't mentioned it on the site before, my dad has a wood shop in which he makes all sorts of things--furniture, decorative boxes and doodads, shelves, cribs, rocking horses, etc. Well, it turns out Amanda and my dad covertly built me a new drawing table in the weeks leading up to Christmas, and Amanda covertly switched out the old drawing table with the new one on Christmas Eve after I was sent out on a bogus errand by my mom to get cottage cheese for a recipe. As soon as I got back to my apartment, Amanda hopped in the car and we were off to my parents' house, leaving me none the wiser as to what was really going on.

I was stunned. For a long time I just stood there, staring and smiling at the new table. Amanda's knack for thoughtful gifts is incredible. I just couldn't believe it. It's a wonderful gift--she really outdid herself this time.

I hope to keep this table in service for a very long time.

Some closer shots of the table are available in the revised Tour of the Studio. I have also added a Tools of the Trade section that details the pens and other tools I use to draw my comics.

I will be back on Tuesday with the first comic of 2010. Until then, Happy New Year! See you next time!

Grim Conclusion

Tuesday, December 29, 2009 - 1:59 PM
[Update by Brian]
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Welcome back to the world of the internet! (Please don't tell me you were hanging around here over the holidays....) I hope everyone had a good holiday and a good weekend, and I'm happy to be back online with the next comic strip, in which Stu realizes what must be done.

I am extremely excited about the new year because my head is bulging with ideas. I don't know where they all came from, but judging by how frequently I narrowly complete my comics in time to make my Tuesday deadline, I'm definitely not going to complain. I already have all four strips for January written and could pretty easily keep going into February and March. Meanwhile, there's a novel I've been working out in my head for a few months now that I'd like to get started on in January. And, on top of all of that, I thought of an idea for a video game over the holidays that I might be able to put together in Adobe Flash with some more self-training, but that's the kind of project that will take a back seat to everything else.

Also, my friend Joe referred me to some nice tutorials on HTML 5 and CSS 3, and taught me more about CSS in about three minutes than I've learned in the last three years. With all of this newfound knowledge, I'd like to rebuild the Mike and the Ninja website--not redesign it, just rebuild it. How I have it put together now is kind of sloppy, but with some care, it will be in better shape and a little bit easier to manage.

Also on the not too far horizon is Cape Comic Con 2010. I need to go ahead and start planning for that early so there's no rush.

I think it's shaping up to be a pretty big year!

I got some awesome Christmas presents, but I'll wait to tell you about those that pertain to the comic strip until the Thursday blog entry, as some photographs will be necessary. All I'll say is that I couldn't stop smiling at the grand finale.

I'll return on Thursday. Until then, enjoy the comic and thank you for reading!