Thirst-Teminate!

@MajorSpoilers, the proprietor of majorspoilers.com has a son, know as 'The Boy'. The Boy inspired this hastily drawn comic.

Discordian Quote Comix: Quote 00006

Discordian Quote Comix: Quote 00005

Discordian Quote Comix: Quote 00004

Discordian Quote Comix: Quote 00003

Mind Your Manners

Here's a little comic I did about table etiquette:

Discordian Quote Comix: Quote 00002

Discordian Quote Comix: Quote 00001

Watch This Space! Discordian Quote Comix Coming Soon

I've been using Bitstrips.com to make comics since March of 2008, and really enjoy the tools available there.  I've used Bitstrips to produce 24 Hour Comics in 2008, 2009 and 2010. I also use Bitstrips to produce Major Spoilers Adventures each week for my friends over at Major Spoilers.

I love the tools at Bitstrips, but find certain limitations with the art frustrating. The character builder is really great, but still leads to a fairly homogeneous style. There are just some things, art-wise (objects or situations) that are more difficult to do in Bitstrips than they'd be to just draw them in pen and ink.

With all that in mind I've come to the realization, in the last year or so, that I really want to do my own comic art, and am working on developing a cartooning style that I like. I've tried developing some characters for a couple of specific concepts, but don't feel I'm consistent (or fast) enough yet to kick off a regular strip.  Still I want to get myself working on a regular cartoon project to get in the habit of drawing daily and having a deadline so I'll be forced to produce.

Since I want to focus on the art aspect I decided to assist myself with concepts from the always amusing Discordian Quotes. My process is simple: I'll find a quote from the site that conjures an amusing image in my head, and then draw it.  That quote will often be the caption for the gag, and the cartoon is done.  I discovered the cartoon can sometimes be made much funnier if I find a different quote that still applies to the situation in the comic and use that quote instead.  This setup allows me to explore lots of different situations, and experiment with art styles and character types, screens, light and shadow, and maybe even color.

Each episode of Discordian Quote Comix will be a single panel gag where something horrible (and hopefully funny) is about to happen, is happening, or has happened.  In the spirit of the Principia Discordia, the great holy book of  Discordianism, I'm releasing the strips under the same copyleft as the Principia:


"Ⓚ All Rites Reversed - reprint what you like"


Seems like the right thing to do given the sources of my inspiration.

As of this writing I have 11 strips done.  Artistically they seem to be heavily influenced by Gary Larson's  The Far Side, and otherwise seem to come from some pretty dark and profane places in me, but I'm having a ball making them so I got that going for me...which in nice.

Watch this space every Wednesday morning starting June 1 for Discordian Quote Comix!

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

Star Trek Fan Portal: The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition

Cafe Press home of Otter Disaster Designs has teamed up with CBS to create a Star Trek Fan Portal, allowing shop owners to create and sell Star Trek themed merchandise.

Here is my first offering featuring some of my favorite Ferengi Rules of Acquisition:

Being a free market libertarian, I always thought the Ferengi were the coolest aliens on Star Trek, and that their quest for profit was far more noble than portrayed on the shows. The Ferengi were featured heavily on Deep Space Nine, which is my favorite of the numerous Star Trek spin-off series. I loved that in the so-called Utopian Trek future (where there was no money) there were still merchants using a medium of exchange (gold pressed latinum) to conduct business.

The shirts feature five different rules, I'm sure one of them will be to your liking!

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

Dingy #4: ...and Shinola

Dingy #3: One Wrong Turn

Dingy #2: I Can't Believe...

Dingy - A Dingbat Font Based Strip

I'm terribly excited that Bitstrips now allows users to utilize their own installed fonts in the comic builders.  This was hinted at last year, and I wrote about the possibilities presented by such a feature.  I am planning a prop font right now (a series of swords, guns and other weapons), and hope to have it finished in a week or so.  Fonts can now be layered behind other objects in Bitstrips, something not possible when the font feature was first teased, making the use of font-based custom objects even cooler.

In the meantime I've created a Dingbat Font based Gag Panel Strip called Dingy to play with the enhanced graphic possibilities of this new feature.  Kudos to the Core Matrix team for all the recent additions to the Bitstrips experience.  

Here's episode 1 of Dingy inspired by the lovely Mrs. Disaster-1955:

Otter Disaster #41: True Story, My Mother Swears

My mom visited a while back and this strip is 100% non-fiction:

Otter Disaster #40: Discretion is One Part

Bitstrips Theme of the Day: Discretion-

Page 100 Project: Illuminatus!

Canadian cartoonist Jason Turner invented the Page 100 Project, where one adapts page 100 from a novel into comics form.  I thought this sounded like a fun idea, and used Bitstrips to adapt page 100 from Illuminatus!, by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson:

Aangst of the Orphans

Bitstrips Theme of the Day: Orphans

I take a little poke at the Hero's Journey at the expense of Avatar, Harry Potter and Star Wars:

Otter Disaster #39: Revelry Revelation

Bitstrips theme of the day - Revelation:

Otter Disaster #38: Acceptin' to the Beat

Bitstrips Theme of the Day: Acceptance from July 14th:

Otter Disaster #37: Bathroom Habits

Today's Bitstrips Theme of the Day is Habits.  Here is my entry:

Otter Disaster #36: Vegetable Guardin'

Here's another entry in the True Life, Two Fisted Tales of Otter Disaster!

Otter Disaster #35: Six Legs and Hurts

My Little Disaster has been pre-occupied with this game of late...

Otter Disaster #34: Numbers

Here's a true life Otter Disaster adventure:

Context is Everything #35: Barriers for Buriers

Bitstrips Theme of the Day: Barriers:

Memories and Thoughts as the VHS Format Turns 33!

Today the VHS format turned 33! I was only four years old when VHS was introduced to the world in 1977. We wouldn't have one for about five more years, but I remember when we first got a VHS VCR in my house, we hooked it up and one of my sisters had rented an American Werewolf in London.

It must have been 1982,  I was only 9 at the time, but I remember watching that movie with my family, all the nudity, and violence intact from the theatrical release.  I was used to watching movies that had been cut to pieces, edited for content and length and appearing on network television.  We did not have cable so we had to drive 20 miles from Selden to Oberlin, Kansas to rent movies.  I don't remember too many of the films we rented, but I recall seeing Trading Places, one or two of the Friday the 13th films, and 16 Candles.  I specifically remember watching the George Romero/Stephen King comedy-horror masterpiece, Creepshow while a friend was over for a sleepover, and that we stayed up pretty much most of the night scared out of our young minds!

We didn't rent a whole lot in those days due to the distance involved in obtaining and returning videos, but mostly used the VCR for it's most revolutionary aspect, time shifting television, and allowing us to record one channel while watching another.  It's sometimes difficult to remember what a life-changing concept this was in the 1980s given the current age of DVRs and streaming web video.

As the youngest child of four it became very apparent that this was a tool designed for me.  I was often low man on the totem pole when it came to choosing viewing material, so the VCR guaranteed I'd never miss Automan, Misfits of Science, or Manimal, shows that my Knots Landing, Dallas loving sisters despised.

Once we moved to Oberlin in 1986 I had my first crack at Cable TV, and the VHS once again proved to be a world changer for me.  For whatever reason when we got cable we were not given a cable box for the channels beyond 13, but I quickly discovered the tuner in our VCR went up to 188, so all those upper tier channels became available.  I found the Discovery Channel (16) and Nickelodeon (33, I think).  Nickelodeon at the time featured the awesome, You Can't Do That on Television (check out the Pythonesque intro), Mr. Wizards World, and the surreal animated French adventure show Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea. I wish they'd release that one in an English language DVD set, but alas, no.  Check out the awesome opening credits:

Check out some Spartakus episodes HERE!

I also remember using the VCR to record NBC's Friday Night Videos, and Night Flight on USA Network. We didn't have MTV in my home town (not even on the upper channels) so those two shows were my only real outlet to view music videos. Here's some Night Flight video about the movie Krull if you've forgotten this awesome 80s show:



Night Flight featured all kinds of video weirdness aside from music, and was my first exposure to the Church of the Subgenius.

I used the VCR to sample and save all kinds of shows and movies and I still have a collection of movies on tape, as well as three working VHS players (one is a DVD combo).  Somewhere in my stacks of old tapes I still have the pilot episode of Twin Peaks from the night it premiered, commercials and all.

VHS tape is truly a buyers market these days.  Thrift stores often have movies on videocassette for as little as $1 each, not just junk either, but major releases.  There is also a lot of stuff that was released on VHS that hasn't made the jump to DVD, so visit those thrift stores.  You can probably pick up a standard definition TV and VCR while you're there.

Last year the awesome website/podcast The Retroist did a great show on the VCR. You can listen to that show HERE.

Happy Birthday VHS, I'll never forget you!

Otter Disaster #33: Stoneware

Context is Everything #34: A Corrupt Butcher