This is my first ever guest comic, drawn by my good friend Matt Baker. Unfortunately, Matt doesn’t have a webcomic or other site which I could link to, but he’s got a notebook teeming with some pretty great cartoons so I’m excited to share this small sample of his work. Also, it means I could be lazy and not draw a strip today.
I’ve been missing a lot of posts lately, it appears. I just moved to a new apartment so comic schedules have had to take an unfortunate backseat to things like packing and moving all my possessions. And of course, it’s tough to upload comics with the scanner packed in a cardboard box and no internet at the new apartment. These things notwithstanding, I managed to get my act together enough to post a somewhat unorthodox strip for today. And if I can get my act together, I’ve got two new Dancing Bears just waiting to be uploaded.
– sr
I don’t know if anyone’s paying attention, but this is the first time I’ve missed a scheduled comic post. It was also time for another Dancing Bear, but I didn’t have time for that either. The short story is real life caught up with me. I’ve been snowed under by a research job and short on time due to a family vacation. Should be back on schedule next week, however.
I’m not super-pleased with the quality of today’s comic. Since I’m out of town I’m using my brother’s scanner, and either it’s not as good as my scanner at home or I just don’t know how to use it, but I couldn’t manage to get a better quality scan – hence the odd gray background. I tried some new things with the artwork – this is the biggest comic I’ve drawn, I used thicker markers than usual for the inking, and I experimented with more complex perspective. It was a fun challenge, but I’m very aware of where my art fell short of my usual standard. Ah, well, there’s never a time when I’m sad to be drawing walruses.
This a real-life example of Tuesday’s comic. The whole idea of terrorist training camps run by Al Flyda (see hovertext) came up during a campout, and my friend Alex wouldn’t let me not make it into a comic. So there you go. Push a marginal idea on me hard enough and you’ll get a comic out of it.
If you hadn’t guessed, today is my birthday. As a present to myself I drew a self-indulgent comic and had fun experimenting with shading instead of working on my research job. In the morning (since these post at midnight) I intend to continue giving myself a present in the form of mimosas and a trip to the swimming hole instead of working on my research job. Hooray!
Today’s comic is special in a couple of ways. First, I crossed a new milestone as a cartoonist by using the last sheet in a pad of drawing paper for the first time ever. Note to aspiring cartoonists: careful on the last page, it will rip. Second, this is definitely the fastest I’ve ever produced a comic. The drawing and inking was all done in the space of about an hour. I guess that’s a weird thing to be proud of, since I could have taken more time and done more with the artwork, but as long as I’ve still got my day job I have other peoples’ schedules to live by.
– sr
This strip was a lot of fun to draw and went surprisingly quickly – I guess because I was really invested in what I was doing. Pencil work done at Lakota, inking at my house, all in a few hours. Part of me would have loved to just keep going indefinitely and produce a massive view of the bustling snail homeworld, but eventually you just have to call it and post the comic. Maybe we’ll get to see more of the hyper-snails in the future.
Also, big welcome to my mother who left me a note in the comments today. Hi, Mom! Hope this one isn’t too bizarre.
Woof. Another nearly-late comic. This one was inspired by a spontaneous rant I delivered today at RagTag when I realized that bears are – in fact – totally awesome and totally ignored. There’s no joke here, per se. Just fact. Bears are rad.
