I AM ERROR

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Well, this sucks

So it has come to this at last...

*sigh*

Well, my computer is essentially busted. By this I mean it is absolutely useless for the purpose of making comics.

It's been deteriorating slowly these past five months, and now it's reaching the point where it can take up to five minutes to just open freaking FIREFOX.
So yeah, comics on this thing is - mildly said - a chore. Not that it really changes anything in how the site's been updating (or more like NOT updating) these past three months, but I seriously doubt I'll be getting any comics done, OR moving the site for that matter, until such time as I've managed to procure something more... effective upon which to make comics. I've a tempting offer I'm considering that should let me do comics no problem. I'll let you know when I've managed something.

Anyway, stuff sucks a lot, BUT! It's my birthday today. So today is awesome. TOTALLY awesome.

Moving Day

Having reached the age of 18, the time is ripe for me to leave behind the shaky cradle of my youth and venture forth into a strange and unknown world, wherein wonders and horrors await in equal, to be sampled, savoured and committed to memory for posterity.

This means two things: first off, I'm moving the comic off ComicGenesis. As it happens, tegnebordet.dk, a site of which I am officially ordained 'Administrator', is able and willing to offer me free(!) hosting as a fringe benefit of the many hours (*cough*NOT*cough*) of hard work I put into managing the site alongside my fellow partisan Admins.

Now, this ain't going to happen JUST yet. There are things... MANY things I have to figure out before I'm moving anywhere.

For one thing, I may make the site entirely Blogger-based. It sounds weird, but I think it might be a solid idea, actually. It'd be damn convenient for archiving, at least. Maybe I'll add in some drop-down menues for easier accessability. Maybe.

It's all up in the air right now, really... Because it Moving Day does not limit itself to the digital realm, oh no. No, in the mythical realm of gravity and unpleasant body-odours known as "reality", the time has also come that I must spread my untested wings and soar alone through the skies of Real Life, ever mindful of the terrible chance that my brittle bones might give in, break, and send me plummetting into Oblivion.

...

Okay, so maybe I'm just moving, like, 800 meters away from where I am now, into what can best be described as a dorm-room, but it's still kind of a big deal. I mean, I'll have to wash my own clothes and everything. And make food! Dinner, even. It will be a strange new world that unfolds before my eyes as I serve myself the first helping of charcoal pasta, made palatable only by the sea of crimson ketchup in which it swims, sinks and drowns.


In all seriousness, though, moving will probably take up some time, but I ain't going to be moving anywhere at all until the 1st of August anyway, so I'll probably be able to move the site before that. All that'll remain is figuring out what I'll do with it from here.

O', for a muse of Flash... Yet such a thought I must perish, for it lies - and yea, so I say to ye - Beyond, and in a realm which mortal feet in a likeness of yours and mine may not tread.


So yeah. I'll figure something out. When the site moves, I'll set up a permanent link on the front-page or something. You will KNOW, at any rate, when I am not here any longer.

ComicGenesis is a jerk and I'm NOT talking to him!

Right, so ComicGenesis' FTP-servers seem to be down again, or at least inaccessible.

In other words, I have files I want to upload, but, whoop-dee-doo, I CAN'T.

At this point, I'm seriously considering moving the comic somewhere else. Either that, or putting them in blogs... >_>

But that's a rant for another day.

The comic is HERE -> [LINK]

So much hate.

First of everything: the comic that didn't go up yesterday because ComicGenesis is currently behaving EXTREMELY erratically is at the BOTTOM of this post, because otherwise it'd have text on top of it...

------------------------------------

Over the past month or so, ComicGenesis has had a LOT of downtime. Right now the websites are up, apparently, but it's impossible to access the FTP required for uploading anything, which is why the comic is here and not properly on the site.


It's very annoying. The past three days or so, there's been a MASSIVE pile-up of update-requests on the server - about 5000 at it's peak. That is to say, 5000 FTP-adresses have requested that their content (i.e. the comics) be uploaded to the internet, but ComicGenesis, for some reason or other, hasn't been able to process those requests. And so they piled up.

Bothersome.

Ah well. Bellyaching about it gets me nowhere.

On a lighter note, I've got a bit of buffer still left. There should be a comic tomorrow, too, if ComicGenesis decides to be good about it.
If not, well, it'll be here in the blog.

After all that Girls Only, though, I'm kinda starting to feel like updating Natural Gender again.

-----------------------------------

Poof! We're back!

Sound the horns! Let all of Gondor know, the KING has returned!

...

Say, it's awful quiet here, innit? There were supposed to be horns and crowds and shit. And fainting maidens, screaming in glee at the sight of my manliness crossing through the gates of Minas Tirith and sighing in jealousy as I wed my elvish bride.

Bah. I'll just have to make do without and do this stupid comic instead. Meh. Ingrates. I work my fingers to the bone and what do I get? Not even a bleedin' fanfare. Hah! Just you wait. One day I'll just up and stop doing comics, and how will you like THAT, eh? Bet you WON'T. That'll teach ya.

Well, at least, I've got a two-comic buffer all built up and an entirely new background added to my slowly growing stock of recyclable scenery. Vending machines for the win!

Anyways, to get relevant, yes, we're back, yes, we'll be back the whole summer because I will NOT be going travelling this year.

Okay, well, there IS that one-week artist's convention I'm attending. Nothing fancy, just a bunch of nerds hanging around in tents on a fields for a week and having an awesome time. But that's it!
I should be able to keep a steady rate of updates. Y'know, what with not having anything ELSE to do and all :)

So I'm optimistic! Hey, maybe I'll even update "Natural Gender". It's been a heck of a while since I last did that.

And I'm full of ideas for new stories... *ugh*
Gotta contain it. I won't EVER get anything done if I have twenty comics running all at once...

Female canine!

Well, damn...
I haven't been able to access my FTP-server for quite a while now... I have a feeling it's probably to do with a few... troubles I've been having with my internet-connection. I can get online, just not very well.

Anyway, if there's any filler in the nearest future, it'll be uploaded here, because I can't edit any HTML on the site itself.

How very annoying. Nevertheless, one has to adapt, eh? Check back, like, each week or something. There might be stuff here for you.

On the state of being examined

EDIT:

ComicGenesis being bitchy with me again, HERE is the filler, or a link to it, at least, because it's a fairly large image and it's probably unwise to try and fit it in here.

LINK!

... He come to TOWN, come to SAVE the Princess Zelda! Ganon took her away, so now the children don't play, but they will when Link saves the day! HALLELUJA!

-------------------------------

LONG STORY SHORT:

Updates have been, uh... Well, they haven't been for a while now.

I'm going to kick up a piece of filler-art, and Artist's Block will be on hiatus until my exams are over. As a temporary date, I'm naming June 16th as the end of the hiatus.
Check back from time to time, though. If somehow I manage to do something, I'll post it here.

-------------------------------

LONG STORY:

Exams are coming.


Fuck.


You've noticed, I'm sure, that my updates for the past long while have been more erratic than usual. There is a cause for this. Exams. Or, also exams.

It's a bad combination of exams, a lot of games I need to go through - no, I need to go through them. Need.
This falls in inconveniently with a my general artistic rythm. Remember before christmas when I had that major double-updating period? Yeah, that's the opposite kind of period of the one I have now where it's a chore to just put ONE update together.

It's a number of things. First there was holidays and whatnot stealing my time and breaking my rythms. Then there was my computer breaking down (and now it's even showing signs of not being fixed properly, *sigh*), and then started a period of me being generally more busy than usual. I've been visiting friends, making some new friends, talking to yet other friends, doing the increasing backload of homework my teachers heap upon me... Then most recently there was my youngest cousin's confirmation into the protestant church. Tradition dictates family meetings and binge drinking. I was lucky to get out alive.

In general, I've just been more busy than usual, and it breaks the "rythm" I need to focus on my art. All these long periods of absence from my comics has also brought me out of touch with the stories and caused a premature onset of the "every time I read the archives I see a billion things I'd like to change"-syndrome. It's annoying.

Anyway, the consequence is I can't really deal with everything and Artist's Block right now, so I'm doing something you're used to, I'm calling another hiatus.

This one will probably last until sometime in the beginning of June. I'm saying 16th of June for now, though it might end earlier.

I'm not going anywhere for the summer holidays this year, I've opted to stay home and work on my art. It's a time for me to build back up my "groove" and rythm, that I might perhaps reobtain my period of double-updates.

By the 6th of June, I'll have completed both Fire Emblem-games that lay halfway done, waiting for me, and God of War 2 and if I can swing it, Final Fantasy XII, and that'll free up a considerable amount of mental space for me to do comics.

Check back from time to time. If you don't, see you in June.

Skyen out.

So full of Hate and Happy

NOTE:
Before I go off on tangent, here's the stuff you guys actually care about:

• Artist's Block is back on regular schedule with regular updates and general regularness of the kind you can usually expect from me (i.e. not much)
  
  
• There may be some irregularity in the nearest future. I just finished a major school project while working on another major school project, and now there's a major school project coming up that I'll need to be working on after I've finished the second mentioned major school project. I'm projecting it might be a week of shoddy updates or so until the projects I've projected in this projection are projected onto the great canvas of Stuff I No Longer Have To Care About.

Now, onwards to rant!

--------------------------------------

Okay... so I got my computer back. This is awesome. It is also awesome that it is not quite as slow as it was when I sent it there.

What is less awesome is that it took two weeks to do something that's most likely taken a couple of hours to do - at most. The long time in waiting must therefore either mean they're a bunch of lazy asses... OR! It could mean that all their schedule at whatever workshop my poor piece of hardware was completely filled for ten days. Now, even if the workshop does handle all of Toshiba's repairs for Scandinavia, isn't it kind of tragic that in such a small part of the world (we're no more than, like, 20 million people all together), people can be so miserable careless with expensive pieces of sensitive computer-equipment.

Seriously.

When my computers break, it is almost always the fault of shoddy design on the part of the developers. I keep my stuff properly, I pride myself on as much.

Yet strangely, for all my digital orderliness and for all my careful transport of my precious laptops, in time, all the computers I have owned seem to just... slooooow... doooooowwwnn... over time, growing slower and slower until it is a regular chore to get work done on them.

Mostly it turns out to be the motherboard that's burnt out, or the processor. Not exactly supposed to happen on hardware that comes with a five-year functionality guarantee.

Meh... Next time I buy a computer, it's gonna be from Alienware.

Legend of SHADDAP!

A bit of gaming-humour today, peeps. Anybody who has played Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (or been around any sort of gaming comics will know what this comic is all about.

Everybody else, just chuckle at the potential murder of an annoying, but ultimately innocent fairy.

---

Here's a thought: Lon Lon Milk restores hearts, right?
Wouldn't drowning her in it only make her stronger?

---

So yeah, we're updating again. I've a comic lined up for Friday, too, so check back :)

Also, certain subtle signs might (mind you I said "might") suggest that my computer will be restored to me soon. Or soon-ish.

... God I hate my computer-shop.

On another note

... say, did I forget to mention there's no update friday either?

Boy, it sure would be crazy if I'd forgotten to mention something like that, huh?

On misery

EDIT:
There will be no comic monday. I am visiting some friends in a mythical land far, far away, and we will combat the Dark Wizard of Boredom in unison, the clangs of the steel of our blades resonating throughout the universe. Our arcane spells of magic will shake the fabric of creation as they rip apart the very face of time to suit our fashions. The dark void of Inactivity will be banished, and peace will rule Creation for eons.

And then maybe we'll play some Rayman.

------------------------------

Today's comic contains hints of angst. If you have extreme allergies towards this, well, go do something else that makes you chuckle or whatever.

---

Sure, I could make sarcastic jokes on the drunk-driving
idiot's expense. I could insult his intelligence, rant against
his idiocy and generally spout deregatory remarks.
It's just that none of that would ever make me laugh
about this.

On fate

My mother aquired The Sims 2. Her computer is now a sacred relic, to be neither touched nor borrowed. To break this divine command is to invite the wrath of the Elder Gods and tempt a fate worse than Death.
Update happens later today.

EDIT:
Praise be to the Elder Gods, for in their infinite wisdom and glorious generosity, they have seen fit to grant me the privilege of bringing to you my paltry offering of comical art.

Praise be to Chtulu! X'ne chrzkloerssk pumpkinpie!

---

I have a friend who has praising words for mr. Billy Idol
and his song, "dancing with myself". I never listened to
the song, but the title inspired this comic.

Norah Jones

The title is because she just so happens to be singing sweetly into my ears right now.

Anyways, it be filler-time mateys, arrr!
A little different something today. I tried colouring on top of pencil-only lineart. Thought you guys might like some clearer colours on top of wednesdays death-by-scanner filler.

---

"Love your fate!", says Jester, in case you are not quite learned in the ways of Latin (ignorant philistines!) It is an ancient Greek phrase.
It means to accept the life that just so happens to be meant for you.
Much as I oppose rabid fatalism, I'm tempted to agree.
Life is given when we are conceived, lost only when we die. It sticks with you 'till the end.

Life is loyal, respect it for that. I think it deserves no less.

---

Anyway, next update is a comic! Promise! Like, seriously. Really. A lot!

Mishun compreet!

After many trials of courage, strength and ability to wait patiently whilst a piece of metallic junk not fit to be called a computer starts up with all the speed of a retarded turtle with three legs amputated and the last one permanently lame and no sense of direction.

And to top all THAT off, the scanner I got to use was crap. Crappy crappy crappy CRAP. Last time I'm scanning anything marker-coloured on THAT thing, let me tell you...

Well, enough of the bad news, let's get to the GOOD news, of which there are many!

First up, I have scanned a filler-image, and (and this is the kicker) I have had access to Photoshop in which I could clean, resize and add text, that you might be spared my horrendous handwriting on an otherwise fairly decent picture.

... That is, decent until the scanner mangled it... *grumble grumble*

Anyway, here be it!

---

Shopping is weird enough for poor Jack/Jill already,
what with having to purchase bras and panties and
other... *ahem* female neccesities.
Shopping with Queen/Tom, however, is
downright bizarre.

---

Moving on to MORE good news (for indeed, they stand in line today), I have been able to connect my tablet to my mother's computer. I probably won't be able to do anything but linearts (since, y'know, my mother needs her computer to make MONEY and stuff), but it's still something.

As a last piece of good news, I've gotten creative, so the next few uploads will be filler COMICS, rather than just art. Rejoice, my people, for the time of your Eternal Reward is nigh.

Helloooooo, Monday

Later today, I'll be making an attempt to commandeer a scanner at my school. I have armed myself well, but I fear that an informant may have ratted me out to the ELA (Establishment Librarian Army) command-squads already.

If all goes well, I'll be able to command an uplink for long enough to publish my revolutionary message of comics unto the internet this evening. If not, assume the suppressive forces of empirialist Librarianism have me captured and slated for execution.

I shall die a martyr.

Ready your breakfast and eat harty, for tonight we dine in Hell!

Don't mind me if I get a bit crude...

And props to whoever knows what song the title of this post is from.

More senseless apologies to the peeps now, though, because I still haven't found a way to get my filler-art onto a computer from which they may be spirited away to the wonderland of the internets.

... I do think I may have an idea of it now, though. Here's hopin'.

Well, sorry for the late updates, but as I've mentioned, computers are a strange and mythical thing to me now, accessible only in the most favourable of conditions.

I have nothing much to say besides, except go read better comics 'till I manage to get something online. Don't waste time here giving me pageviews. They only generate money for ComicGenesis, and as we all know, ComicGenesis is nothing but a loyal hand of "the Man". Stop the man and don't browse comics today!

...

Or... y'know, do browse comics. Lots of pageviews make me happy. Make the artist happy, folks. Lookit my adowable puppy eyes and weep as you are overwhelmed with teh cuteness (and a little nausea).

I'm punctual

Only I'm not.

Well, the delay in this blogger-update is because I very much wanted to be able to post some filler-art in this post as well. Gonna have to skip on that. Can't get at a scanner, I'm afraid... *sigh*

I don't have that terribly much to say, because if I start talking, I'm certain I'll be late for school.

Beautiful weather we have now. It wakens certain human impulses in us all, I'm sure.
Not in me though, I hate plants. Nothing personal, I just despise the constant, unrelenting need to water the damn things. I say, if they can't survive on their own, they're not worth keeping. Plant 'em out. In the garden. Where they can absorb their own nourishment and grow and flourish outside the jaws of industrious humans with watering-cans.
Besides, plants have never been domesticated. They're still wild creatures. There are laws for that kind of thing, you know.

Free the plantses!

On hate

Long story short:
Updates will become very, very sporadic as far as comics are concerned for a while. I have no idea when I'll resume a regular schedule, so just... check back sometimes. Things may have happened.

---------------------------

I. Hate. My computer.

There's a reason behind this, believe me.

My computer is being slow.

And that's about it.
The graphics-card is busted somehow, and this makes my computer very crappy at running any sort of graphics. Graphics like, say, Photoshop for instance.
It crashes frequently, freezes up, generates data slowly so my strokes with the tablet take a few seconds to appear on screen. It's not REALLY critical or anything. Not really. Just critical enough that doing art becomes a chore rather than a pleasure.
I'm sending it off for repairs this Tuesday (easter gets in the way of anything earlier), and if I know them guys at wherever my computer goes to get repaired, I won't have it back for quite a few weeks. And if I know the guys at wherever my computer goes to get repaired, there's a fair chance they won't have fixed my computer at all, only reformatted the hard-drive and thought I'd never know the difference.
The bottom line is, if they can't fix the thing, my insurance on it gives me the right to a brand-spanking new one.

Which is awesome, but it's still going to be X-number of weeks in the repairshop until it comes back, fixed or not fixed, and a little extra time also, probably, if I get a new computer. Plus, if I get a new one, I'll need to reinstall pretty much everything. It all consumes time.

So updates are probably going to be pretty damn sporadic for a while. I'll try - emphasis on TRY - to see if I can't set my mother's computer up so I can upload sketches or something for filler. Maybe do a few random-comics by hand, too. Who knows?

In any case, things are going to be rough for a while, so I hope y'all will bear with me. There's stories in the archives you can read at any rate... And plenty of better webcomics out there to keep you amused :)

moral obligations + reflection

I feel morally obligated to link you to two things.

First is Three Panel Soul, created by Matt Boyd and Ian McConville. Those of you experienced at the webcomic-scene might recognize them as the creators of the insanely funny Mac Hall, which, sadly, ended a while ago.
It's a mish-mash of styles, a lot more random (if possible) than Mac Hall was. It's more mature, too, but in a good and funny way.
Master McConville, as always, impresses with his mad photoshop skillz and artistic ability, and Matt Boyd's scripts are clever as ever.

Second is a webcomic called "Minus", created by Ryan Armand. I found it, incidentally, through a link of Matt Boyd's at Three Panel Soul.
What can I say? It's storytelling at it's very best. It maintains a sort of childish innocence, coupled with a strange sense of melancholy... A hopeful melancholy. It's hard to describe, but it is awesome. Do go read.

I'll be putting up some proper linkage in the link-section soon enough.

-----------------------

Moral obligations out of the way, here's a reflection...

I'm actually happy with "Girls Only" as it has developed so far. Sure, the art has major suckitude from time to time, but I do like the story and the storytelling. It works, I think.

This is... well, I'm ranting about it because that's actually very unusual for me. Usually when I look back at anything I've done more than a couple of weeks ago, I will hate it with a passion because I'll be seeing 4,8 million billion things that could have been/ought to have been improved and done better and I'll hate the fact that I wasn't as good and experienced "back then" as I am now, because I could have done something decent about it.

Not so now. With "Girls Only", I actually LIKE my work.

It's a strange feeling.

Not a bad one, though. Let's look back in a year of time and see if not I'll despise it with a passion such as it is my habit.

Jagtvej 69

UPDATE SCHEDULE FOR THE NEXT LITTLE WHILE:

I figure this is more important to you guys, so here it is.

There will be updates with Random Comics Monday, Wednesday and Friday, as if it was a normal week. After that, there's an undecided period of time for about a week or two before I take my leave of Denmark for Ireland, on a trip with my school for a week. I'll give you more precise dates as I have them, but for now:

• Update Mon/Wed/Fri of next week.
• Possibly a sporadic period after that.
• Hiatus coming, due to me not being in the country.
  

--------------------------

(DISCLAIMER: This is the story of Jagtvej 69 as I've come to understand it. I may very well be wrong on many crucial points, but I feel my point still stands.)

It's an infamous address, Jagtvej 69. It's been on CNN, even.

I'll make it brief. The young anarchists, autonomous, punks, metal-types, goths, far leftists and other alternative cultures have for a number of years had a house at Jagtvej 69 in Copenhagen called "Ungdomshuset", directly translated; "The Youth-House". It's a place where they gathered, mingled, talked, got drunk, played concerts and generally used as a hang-out. It's got a lot of history. For instance, it was and is the focal point of the beginnings of a large feminist movement that swept over Scandinavia back in the 50s and 60s.

Well, the young people have also for a number of years had the rights to use this house as they please. There's a lot of legal mumbo jumbo, but the essence of it is that the youth were promised this house as "theirs", that promise was not entirely legally binding and the government went and sold off their house to a pseudo-christian religious sect or cult of sorts called "Faderhuset".

I won't claim to know much about "Faderhuset", but what I do know is that it has one prominent authority, a woman called "Ruth Evens" or something to that effect, who pretty much runs that community.

Faderhuset kept Ungdomshuset for 4 years, not really doing anything about it except trying to set up a mission in the house (which was ejected forcibly, I am told) and generally been somewhat indifferent to it.

Then, recently, Faderhuset decided they wanted the young people to leave.
Or so I understand it.
Now, naturally, when anarchists and punks are given orders by an authority to do something they don't want to do - and that authority is of all things a religious authority - they do not react favourably.

There were protests. And rocks thrown. And a lot of commotion. A trust was set up that offered Faderhuset TWELVE MILLION KRONER - about four times the amount of money they paid for the house and more than six times the house's actual value - but Faderhuset (and this didn't suprise me) did not want to sell the building.

The building has... or had, for it's demolished now, very little real value. It was a fire-trap. Run-down, broken, shaggy, craggy building. It only really had affectionate value to the youth.

Now, things are said and done and Ungdomshuset on Jagtvej 69 is no more. Faderhuset had it torn down.

I won't go into the legal jibber-jabber of whether or not they had the right to do that or whether or not the government ought to find a new house for the youth and all that nonsense.

I will say this, though, and the point of my tale begins here:
The leader of Faderhuset popped up in the newspaper "Nyhedsavisen" recently. What happens in the comic for today is actually more or less an accurate description of how I felt when I read that article.
It is described through the eyes of an eye-witness, and therefore not a journalist with an obligation to stick closely to the truth, but as the speech is described, Ruth Evens (or whatever her name) not only gloats that her "society-transforming power" (and yes, she actually calls it that) has managed to destroy Ungdomshuset, she asks her community: "what's next? Abortions, incest or homosexuality?"

She asks them who they're going to destroy next.

She also often cites that Faderhuset - a community of about 40 - is the very small, very special group of "proper" christians, who know what to do and how to uphold God's Word. Other christians are "luke-warm", I think is how she describes them.

I'll reiterate: the eye-witness was not a journalist, the speech was recorded from memory and he or she had a negative disposition towards Faderhuset. It's important to keep this in mind when I say that I fucking hate Faderhuset and any and all religious organizations like it.

Big religions, now those I don't mind. They have a certain responsibility to uphold a good and tolerant image, otherwise the greater part of the Earth's population will freaking despise them. It's small groups like Faderhuset I think are dangerous. Small groups with one or two strong leaders.

They're how things like Nazi Germany get started.

And you can look that up if you want to. Go on.

What really ticked me off with Faderhuset is... What they did to Ungdomshuset, they did for malice. Pure, unspoiled malice.
They did not purchase that house to re-sell it (although believe you me, THAT venture would have been profitable), nor to restore it and USE it. They didn't even buy it for the novelty of owning a house.
They bought it for the purpose of kicking the people who used it OUT. And nothing else. And then they made damn sure it was never ever used AGAIN by tearing the shit down.

It's like a child who steals a toy from someone else, not for jealousy, just to make damn sure that the other kid doesn't have that toy.

Malice. Malice and nothing but.

It gets even better when they won't even god-damn admit to it.
"Oh no. It wasn't malice. No no. We were saving them, don't you see? From the great big Satanic influence in that house. Oh yes, we've done society a favour by releasing a horde of angry radical elements into the streets."

I just can't help by leap on the irony here. Faderhuset believes the youth in Ungdomshuset are a bunch of lost souls, tempted by Satan and acting on his orders. And then, of course, it is in everybody's best interest that they now have to walk around the streets for lack of a place to be, all the while being really fucking pissed off at everyone and everything for the loss of their place.

I mean, doesn't it say just a little bit about the amount of thought Faderhuset put into their little hostile takeover?


Faderhuset committed intolerant malice - and that's a sin, if I read the Bible right - and they won't own up to it. This, I consider objective fact (so far as my subjective perception goes).
And therefore, they suck. RAAAAWRGH STANDS FOR RAGE!

Further apologies

Ack... Sorry, peeps. Seems like I'm down and out for a while.

Currently, I am draught of inspiration and motivation to draw comics. It's being on a schedule that does it to me. Sometimes I get all "comic'd out", so to speak. Tired.

What happened the last few times I got comic'd out was I redesigned the site instead. Won't do that now. No, now I'll just take a break, play Okami and Final Fantasy XII and recharge my batteries.

The long and short of it is that Artist's Block will be on partial hiatus until 6th.
There may or may not be updates and they may or may not be on the usual monday/wednesday/friday schedule. I have a few random comics lying around, halfway done, and I also have two new stories in the works. I'll start them up as soon as I feel like it.
If you need to read an excellent comic while I'm gone, Mechagical Girl Lisa A.N.T. has recently promised regular updates for the next few weeks. I'd go check it out if I were you. She's a fair deal more awesome than I am in several aspects (even if I did do filler for 10 of her updates ;)

Now, I'm sorry about this, if it messes up your comic-reading schedules or... something(?), but that's just the deal right now. I don't put up "PLZDONATE KTXHBYE"-buttons and I get to take time off from the comic whenever I feel like it.

I think it's a pretty fair deal.

If I ever put up a donation-button, I'll sure as hell also have to keep the schedule. And that is exactly why I'll never, ever, put up a donation-button.

Anyway, I'm fairly sure I'll have a random-comic done over the course of the next 2 or 3 days, so check back if you care to.

Apologies

I'm not entirely sure how I managed to convince myself that a week-long vacation starting the 19th would bring me back home in time to update the 21st. Sure, I started the hiatus the 16th (because friday was packing-and-stressing-your-ass-off-day), but that's still not seven days + a day for recovery. It is less.

Anyway, I'm back at my computer again, now. And I have my tablet. And I have scripts at the ready. And I have absolutely no comics to update with yet.

What can I say? Skiing turned out to be fun. And I seem to have a talent for it, too.

That aside, let's get to business.

I'm going to extend my hiatus until the 1st of March. There's no extremely important reason why I do this, I just want a bit of a break to get myself back to a normal state after my vacation. I've got a bunch of aching muscles, a sleep-deprivation issue and no idea how little or how much work is in store for me at school in the near future. So I just want a little break to get my bearings and get my art-groove back.

Sorry, peeps. As the artist, my will rules supreme, I'm afraid. Even if even I don't like what I'm deciding.

Laah de daa I am lousy title EAT ME!

LONG STORY SHORT:

• No updates from the 16th to the 21st.
• There's a chance of additional updates for a week or two AFTER the 21st.
• There's also a chance of NO updates for a week after the 21st (on account of me potentially breaking one or two... hundred bones in my body.)
  

There won't be any updates for the entirety of next week.

And why is that?

Well, y'see, the winter holiday is next week.

"Oh but Skyen! Holidays mean you have more time to do comics, don't they?"
Yes. They do. Only this particular holiday adds a teeny tiny little twist to that usual mechanism...
See, I'm going on my winter-holiday in NORWAY. And not just any place in Norway, oh no. It's a place in Norway that's far, far up in the craggy cliffs and mountains. It's a place that's far, far away from unneccesary things like, say, electricity and the internet.

So there will be no updates that particular week. I will be up to my loins in snow, bereft of the comforts of civilization, cursing my inability to control those tiny, slim pieces of wood called "skis" that you attach to your feet and then go sliding on down a seventy-degrees downwards slope with a couple of pointed sticks in your hands.

Now, this lack of internet is a two-faced thing... For you see, not being near anything like electricity has the added benefit that about 99,7% of the things that usually distract me so much that I don't get to draw the comic will be gone. If all goes well, this means I get some damn WORK done on them comics. I'm hoping to be able to sketch out a whole bunch of them and write a bunch of scripts also.

This, however, is no guarantee. My father has been insistant that in the event that I join them on this little... escapade, I must also attend ski-school. As I have mentioned, I am no master of tiny strips of wood when they are attached to my feet and I am placed on a slippery slope... so I might be in ski-school for quite a while. And that'll cut into my comic-making time.

Of course, there is also a sorta remote, off-hand unlikely sort of possible chance I'll actually have fun ramming my broken corpse through the snow, being yet another chance of reduced comic-making.

The ultimate comic-making peril is, of course, that I be rendered unable to hold a pencil - temporarily or permanently - by some grievous injury like breaking my back or my neck or maybe losing 80% of my mental ability to a severe head-injury or some other minor potential consequence of skiing.

Pray for my safe return, and may whatever God(s) above protect me... Heck, I'll even settle for God(s) BELOW. Just get me home in one piece, 'kay Satan? Beelzebub? ... Laharl... ?

Schedule-o-nomics

The art of realizing when it's friday.

A difficult art to master, to be sure.

The random-comic today is a product of good scheduling. That is, I did it WAAAAY before it was supposed to be done.


The "Natural Gender" comic which is currently at the state of inking is a result of bad scheduling. That is, while I realized it should be done today - and I could have made it easily - I pushed 'till the last possible moment, and then I got interrupted by something I already knew was going to happen, but failed to plan for.

My mother's brother's birthday is today - the big 40 - and many happy birthdays to him, his fiancée and their as yet unborn child. That meant today was cocoa, coffee and candy-day at their house, which I knew, but didn't plan for. So when I sat down to do the comic today, the three Cs interrupted me. Cocoa, coffee and candy are very powerful interruptors.

I just need to plan better. I'll try and see if I can't get the linearts for a few comics done this weekend, and get myself written ahead a bit, and then we'll see if not I can get something like on top of this schedule. I should be able to. Question is if I can plan it right.

cohesive

For those who just want the lowdown from mister Brown, the crimson from Jimson, the scoop from Betty Boob, ect.:

• "Girls Only" is on temporary hold for a while.
• "Natural Gender" updates as always, monday, wednesday and friday.

-------------------------------------

I've had enough of all this "cohesiveness"-stuff. It has to be all... cohesive and stuff! I can't bear it! So here's what's gonna happen.

"Girls Only" will get a rest for a while. I've grown kinda tired of drawing the characters, and I need some time to write the next part of the story. "Natural Gender", however, will be updating as usual, on monday, wednesday and friday. Sometimes, maybe I can make it double-updates, but I can make no promises. It's more likely I'll be producing a few Random Comics, perhaps. It all depends on whether or not my Muse decides to get her #¤%¤& dressed-up behind back into my skull sometime soon.

Knowing her, probably not anytime soon. Then again, knowing her... quite possibly very soon.
Fickle mistress she is.

Life's gonna suck

Life's gonna suck when you grow up
when you grow up
when you grow up

Life's gonna suck when you grow up, it sucks pretty bad right now
You might have to mow the lawn, do the dishes, make your bed
You're gonna have to go to school until you're seventeen.
(it's gonna seem about three times as long as that)
- Denis Leary
--------------

Well, okay, life doesn't really suck, such as it were. Life is actually pretty awesome.
What sucks is how I'm not producing enough comics. I've kept up with double-updates, monday, wednesday and friday, for these last few weeks, but comic production is kinda going into a lull.

I think it might have to do with me purchasing the "Prince of Persia"-trilogy here the other day, but there is no evidence to support that. Do you hear me? None! You'll never get me convicted. Nobody saw it, and the body was hacked into tiny pieces and burnt when they found it. Don't ask me how I know that. I just do. You can't prove anything.

Anyhow, like I said, comics are kinda going into a lull currently, so expect maybe sometimes there will be only single updates. Besides, kids these days have gotten too spoiled with double-updates. Nooo, in my day, son, we'd wait for WEEKS for an update on our comics, and when they updated it was only a single panel of 50x50 pixels with a few letters that read: "I'm ending this comic FOREVER plz donate ktxh bye," if we were lucky. And we never complained about that, no siree.

Girls Only #10: Bringin' back the paper-cuts

So I've brought the analogue media back into the comic-making process.
I found that, working only with tablet and computer, I was slowly losing my skill with paper and pencil. These are skills that will be absolutely neccesary to me later in my artistic career, and that is one of the reasons I've slightly modified the comic-making process.

It's not a big change, really. I now simply sketch things in pencil first, and then ink digitally. It's the same as doing it all digitally, only with the act of scanning taking up about 30 extra seconds of time.

Also, when doing digital art, I found I wasn't quite adept at keeping up my artistic standards. I could work faster, but the quality suffered pretty heavily. You'll notice if you go through the last few pages of "Girls Only!", the characters' proportions and anatomy varies from panel to panel and sometimes they look outright ludicrous (to me they do, at least.)
It has to do with the fact that to lineart something proper on the tablet, I need to zoom in pretty close to get a smooth line. Zooming in, however, completely ruins my overview of the drawing as a whole, making it much, much more difficult to maintain the proper proportions when drawing. Also, while zoomed in, I'd stare myself blind on mistakes that become obvious to everybody else once it's all sized down to screen-friendly size.

So I'm sketching by hand once again. I did this on the last two panels of page 9 and now here on page 10 of "Girls Only!". I think it works much better, so I'm going with it.

IN other news: after much toil and trouble, I've come up with a new story I'll be running side-by-side with Girls Only. It's called "Natural Gender", and it touches on some of the same subjects as "Girls Only!". It utilizes a completely different set of characters and a very different premise to do so, however, and the two stories are not at all alike beyond a small bit of shared theme material.

Giving you a bit of teaser, "Natural Gender" is not extremely original. The basic idea has been done before, quite a few times. If I say "Misfile", some of you might have some idea what I'm talking about.
I'm taking a good idea and twisting it in a direction that - to my knowledge - it has never been twisted before. Now we'll see if it'll hold or it'll snap under the strain...

Here's hoping for the former!

I'm hoping to make the first update for "Natural Gender" on Monday, along with one for "Girls Only!"
Let's see if I can make it :)

Delays

I am sad to say today's comic will be delayed. Mostly it's because of schoolwork. Lots and lots of schoolwork all crammed together into a period about 3 days because nobody knew where else to put it.

If it wasn't for the fact I'm finishing physics after winter and never ever seeing anything of it again, and if it wasn't for the fact that after winter, my subjects are going to be a heck of a lot more of the stuff I actually like to study, I'd say I hate school.

But, due to the mildening circumstances above, I will say only that I loathe it with every cursed fiber of my mortal being.

Girls Only #4 & Random #13

Girls Only #4:
Aaaand here's a front-page. The girl on the right is this character, originally designed by RememberArt as her deviantID.

Mostly, I liked the hair and the shape of the face, so it's only natural that I should botch both of those up when I redesigned her for the comic. No, being serious, the current design of her is not final - I'll change it as the story goes along. I'm not entirely happy about it right now. Ah well.

Random #13:
Incubus released their new album - "Light Grenades" - recently, and I was happy to find that it actually had a song I could sing along with without breaking my throat in three places.

(Warning! Music nerdery ensues!)
So "Love Hurts" is a frequently played song on my playlists now. I've gotta say, Brandon Boyd's lyrics continue to impress me. His skill as a poet are pretty damn sharp for a guy in a contemporary rock-band.
The music is also good. I'll admit, like many Incubus fans I sorta miss the style of S.C.I.E.N.C.E., their first major hit album. There still is nothing that quite beats "Redefine" and "Summer Romance (The Anti-Gravity Love Song)" in my book. Nothing that Incubus has made, at least.

Ah well. I would also have been annoyed if every album after S.C.I.E.N.C.E. had been just endless repeats of the same sound and same sort of themes and style.

"To get their attention, start lobbing the light-grenades
That burst and blind them with the truth
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"
- Light Grenades