Otter Disaster #47: BLT, Hold the Theatrics

Mrs. Disaster is what we call a 'picky eater'...

Context is Everything #39: H.P. on the Highway

Read a quote from Lovecraft the other day and it inspired this strip:

My dad was a big fan of the Burma-Shave road side rhymes and had dozens of them memorized.  They were long gone when I was a boy, but dad taught me a few of them and used to crack me up reciting them.  I have a couple of books compiling all the known signs from the Burma-Shave campaigns.  This one is the best.

Otter Disaster #46: World Domination

Bitstrips Design Challenge: World Domination

Otter Disaster #45: I've Ruined My Child Part XXVI

Being a nerd, I've exposed my daughter to all kinds of geeky stuff from which she will likely never recover...

Otter Disaster #44: Abstract Dess-Art

Todays Bitstrips Theme of the Day: Abstract Art.
Here's my entry:

Context is Everything #38: Pure Cellynous

Otter Disaster #43: Throw!

This was a frequent, and more-or-less true occurrence from my college years inspired by Bitstrips Theme of the Day-Throw:



Art Students...whaddaya gonna do?

Dingy #13: Haunted House

Dingy #12: Politics as Usual

A lady who knows how to get things done...

24 Hour Comics Day 2010: FINISHED!

I once again completed the 24 Hour Comics Day Challenge using the wonderful tools at Bitstrips. I began at 9:00 am on Saturday October 2 and finished at about 6:30 Sunday morning.

I made a conscious decision this year to avoid the romance/relationship theme of my last two 24 Hour Comics, from 2008 and 2009, and decided in advance to try to do something more action oriented, possibly with a sci-fi or fantasy approach.

I began with no script or preconceived characters, and once again used a random song title from iTunes to give me a title. The first track to play on Saturday morning, Wish I Had An Angel, by Nightwish, inspired the notion of guardian angels. My initial idea was that there are these space pilots aboard a space station and their technicians are sort of like the pilot's guardian angels, keeping the ships running, communicating with the pilots and protecting them from 'the heaven' of the station.   With that in mind I decided that the characters of this tale orbit a planet named Midgard, from a space station named Asgard, and went with Norse naming scheme for the solar system in the story.  This Nordic inspiration was due in part to the fact that Nightwish is from Finland.

Unfortunately I misspelled Yggdrasil, the name of the sun and solar system in the story, in the first caption in the first panel of the tale.  Later I named a moon Mani' continuing the Nose Mythology naming conventions, but a couple of hours later I mentioned the moon again and called it Madi' which it remained through the rest of the tale. These things happen when you're 12 or so hours into the process, not completely lucid and working improvisationally.

As usually happens with these 24 Hour Comics, my initial idea mutated pretty quickly, turning into a friendly rivalry between two techs, and their pilots.  I had decided on the darker aspects of the ending of the story early on, but I surprised myself in exactly how I got there.

Changing genre made for some difficult artistic choices. Spaceships are difficult to do in Bitstrips!  Otherwise, I found the work moving along really quickly.  This is due in part to the advances made in the builders in the last year, and also to a new computer, purchased over the summer.  I did 166 panels total, well within my goals of 144 to 180 panels.  The ability to do more complex art continues to get easier, kudos to the Core Matrix team for continuing to make Bitstrips so great!

I once again had a great time doing this comic, it is certainly not without it's flaws, I tried something different this time, and was pleased with the result.  Here is page one of Wish I Had An Angel:

Otter Disaster #42: Bass-ically

A goofy little strip testing a new feature at Bitstrips:

Dingy #11: Cocktails for Cottontails

Dingy #10: Bake 10 Minutes at 350

Dingy #9: Credit

Dingy #8: Mutant Jean

Dingy #7: Quality is Job One

24 Hour Comics Day 2010 is Coming!

24 Hour Comics day is right around the corner and once again I'm planning to participate.

The date:



Once again, I'm encouraging Bitstrippers to join me in the monumental task of creating a full length comic story in a single 24 hour window:



Some people, can't commit to the whole day, but there are other options:



Of course the whole exercise is about spontaneity, originality, and creativity:

Context is Everything #36: Short for Fanatic

Dingy #6: 80-88

Dingy #5: A Love Triangle