And by big changes, I mean new direction, new cast and a fresh start. After 10 years, I am getting pretty burned out on the comic, it's not that I am out of ideas, its just that I am kind of tired of writing the same characters in the same situations over and over. I need a fresh start, and I think that change will be good.

The idea is to almost have 2 separate comics going, one with the new cast and one with the old, so that I can sort of switch between them as I need a break. Basically, Curt is going to be tired of trying to make it as a homeless guy in Minneapolis, with the cold winter having kicked his ass. After calling in one last favor for some owed money, he hops a bus for somewhere warmer in the hopes of starting a new life. He ends up in a new city, with no idea where to go once he's there and meets a new cast of misfits.

First off is a friendly but naive red-haired stripper who passes him on the street and gives him a few bucks. Curt immediately latches on because of his issues with women and need to try to fix people, and what better a "project" than this? His self-righteousness in full gear, he strikes up a friendship, which leads her to getting him a job at her friend's gay bar, run by...

The next member of the cast, the proprietor of said establishment, a mid thirties gay man with a sense of humor but a bit of a chip on his shoulder. I really want to avoid gay stereotypes here, so my goal is to have the character be "incidentally gay," that is, not have it be his defining characteristic, as I feel that is often the case with writers scripting people "different" than themselves, be it orientation, race, or beliefs.

My big goal is to write more flawed and human characters. One of the hard things about the original cast was originally, I wrote them as, I guess, my ideal people, ridiculously good hearted, witty, smart, and so they all sort of ended up the same. In the early strips, even now, a lot of the characters are totally interchangeable. I had to sort of wedge in flaws and make up reasons for them to be more interesting, like Chip's drug problems. But I think a lot of that is forced because it's like, "okay, where did this come from?" It doesn't really work when characters that were previously shiny examples of leftist idealism suddenly become fucked-up drug addled smut-peddlers or whatever.



Right now these are just ideas, I am still fleshing things out, but I am feeling excited about ideas I am having and I am working on some cool character designs. Keep reading, things should get interesting!

So the new comic is posted and in the bag.


I'm pretty happy with it, although Curt's hair looks weird, I'm trying something new with next week's. Which will have eye-candy for the ladies! That's right, I'm further whoring up my comic with male sexiness now! Downfall, now with more shirtless guys. And boobs. Have to say, though, doing three strips as fast as I can with no break is getting old. I don't even want to pick up a pencil right now.

Halloween, apparently a HUGE day at work is fast approaching, so being barely competent, I am concerned about making it through that night...hopefully it won't be as bad as everyone says. There is a chance of snow. Of course, if it snows and no one goes out trick or treating, they'll all probably order pizzas. I'm looking forward to our 4 year anniversary after that, though. We took 3 days off, so that should be great! Dragon Age comes out, I downloaded some trailers off Xbox live onto our NEW BIGSCREEN HDTV (fuck yeah!) and it looks incredible.

Dragon Age comes out on November 3rd, and so knowing that it will take over my life, I have been working my ass off to get the next couple strips done ahead of time. This week's is done. I took a couple days off to avoid burnout and power through 3/4 of the game Prey, which I got a few years ago, got stuck early on, sold, then a few days ago bought again, as it's now only 6 dollars used. After getting by that tricky part, it's a pretty cool game. I like that you manipulate gravity, making it very 3D.

The new job is going well. I am still slow at the makeline, and with Halloween coming up and apparently one of the busiest days of the year, I am pretty nervous about that. But the money's awesome, I paid off my car, and changed my insurance to liability only, which cut my monthly cost in half. Now I can start throwing some real money at my credit card debt, which is a good feeling.

Sleeping badly again. I don't know why.

So the response so far to the new art style has been resoundingly negative, which is sad, because personally, I think it is an improvement, and I am personally really happy with it. I suppose it'll take time to get used to, it IS different from the older style.

I've been unhappy with my art for a long time now, and I am really excited about drawing again. Huh. I write that sentence roughly every three months, I think.

Another comic done and posted. I'm immediately moving onto the next one, as coloring takes so long these days it's difficult to stay on top of and maintain a weekly schedule.

Here's a little preview of the new strip's line art!

I've been experimenting with different brushes and coloring styles, since I've found that I feel stagnant if I don't try different things. Steph showed me a link  to some amazingly good art and tutorials. She uses textured brushes instead of round soft-edged brushes, which I thought was interesting. So I've been playing around with that. I am less interested in the smooth, lifelike blending she does for the comic, because it's so stylized, but I like the look of the textured brushes.


Other than that, continuing to learn the new job. I am coming to terms with working at a pizza place and the feeling of failing as an adult. I think I will feel better about it when I am done with training and can actually do my job as manager effectively. I don't know why it is bothering me so much, I don't think it would have so much in the past. I have a job, which I am thankful for in itself, it pays decently, it's 2 blocks from my house, which beats driving 20 miles to Grand Forks in snow every morning...it's a good deal. Maybe it's because I'll be 30 in a couple years. I figured I would be a writer or something by 30. I had it in my head as, like, this deadline to have made something of myself.

In any case, I am feeling pretty good about things today, so I am going to try to work on the comic for a couple hours before work.

I wasted my morning sleeping and dealing with the dogs, who despite my best efforts have seemingly made no progress in three years. I apparently shouldn't own pets. Tried to get them to come outside on their own, they just stood up on the stairs yapping and when I yelled at them for that, Rygel and Kiwi got scared and squirted out pee, because they had to go so bad yet would still not walk down the stairs on their own.

So then I cleaned pee. I feel very frustrated with my art, which is mediocre at best, and I don't know why I waste so much time on it. Like, every free second of my day is spent drawing, I get up early to do it before work and I am still not good enough to do anything with it. So I wasted an hour working on something I ended up trashing anyway.

Now I get to go to my job delivering pizza for 9 hours with no lunch break. Well at least I have made something of myself outside of the art world.

I finally saw Watchmen last night and it was an incredible experience. I am glad I waited to go until the theater was less crowded, because that last thing I wanted was to have this movie ruined for me by some drunk dipshit at a midnight showing hooting at Manhattan's penis or clapping every time Rorschach came on the screen.

The fact that a movie based on the most respected graphic novel of all time, the comic that made people realize that comics could be literary and brilliant, was able to more or less successfully abbreviate and distill the essence of the multilayered story into something that was absolutely absorbing and visually arresting is incredible to me. I wouldn't have thought they could. I figured it would look amazing, but miss the mark with the narrative. Not so. I was very happy with it.

And no, I didn't miss the giant squid thing. Seriously...fuck that alien squid. There, I said it. I blasphemed. And I stand by it. The way the film's writer's chose to involve one of the characters in the destruction of the cataclysmic ending just served to make it more personal, and more character driven, even more logical. The whole WTF aspect of the original ending always kind of knocked me out of the story, so I was jazzed when I heard it would not be included, though worried it would lose some of the nihilism (which it didn't.)

I want to see it again, to fully absorb it. I can't fully convey my thoughts on it to words yet, but I know I liked it and that it was a significant achievement.

As the subject strongly suggests, I finally beat Dead Space. November had a ton of games I wanted to play, Dead Space, Fable 2, Spider-man Web of Shadows, and Fallout 3, so despite being mildly obsessed with Dead Space for awhile, I eventually started playing other games, too. I finally beat it this morning, though, taking down the end hive mind on my first try (go me!) with my contact beam and a ton of ammo. Any fans of horror or video games should pick it up and try it if they haven't already, and what the hell, let's do a top 10 list of my favorite games.

1. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Xbox 360)
2. Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox)
3. Mass Effect (Xbox 360)
4. Soul Reaver (Dreamcast)
5. Dead Space (Xbox 360)
6. Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (Gamecube)
7. Resident Evil 4 (Gamecube)
8. Dead or Alive 2 (Dreamcast)
9. Shenmue (Dreamcast)
10. Alien Trilogy (Playstation)

Having a hard time getting this weeks comic done. My heart's just not in it this week. Not happy with the art, although the punchline is pretty funny, I think. I gotta have something up Friday, though. I always feel terrible when I see the "page views" spike and there's nothing new there.