Mistakes of Youth: The Blog (Powered by ur mum)

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Before anyone says anything, yes, his neck is supposed be messed up like that. It makes that last panel all the more frightening. Maybe I should have added some CRACK CRACK sound effects.

Wanted to get this one out quick while the news was still kind of fresh. It’s already pretty old now, but better to post it now than this Saturday! This comic may be overreacting, though, because I just went on Nico and it seems people are still uploading MADs despite this BS. I wonder if that’ll change in a week from now? My mylist has suffered only minor damage thus far, with the Akagi/Hidamari Sketch op crossover being the only loss. Good thing I saved that!

This comic is ok. For some reason drawing people straight on is totally difficult, so I had to fix up a lot of things, mostly Tina. And even after fixing up Tina a lot, I still missed the giant mistake on her shirt. Oh well. She still looks kind of hot, right? Panel two is kind of messed up, as well. Way too angular and pointy. I do like that background, though. For those who can’t tell, it’s the side of a big-ish building. It’s a great hangout for teenagers!

That’s all for today. Hopefully I’ll have a comic up for next Saturday, but don’t count on it.

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For the 100th comic I decided to go full circle and refer back to the beginning of the comic to kind of pat myself on the back for getting this far. As far as art goes, I really like how this one turned out. Aside from a few mistakes, it came out just as planned, and looks good for a 100th comic. It even almost has 5-tone shading! And a pantyshot! I’ll be doing a comic on Nico Video soon, which should happen in the space of a couple of days. I want to get it out while the news is still kind of fresh.

In some other comic-relevant news, I finally updated the reference guide after some twenty weeks, and I’m also mentioned in the latest Anime World Order as Daryl’s Sith opposite. So, yay, I guess.

Honestly, I haven’t had time to really catch up with the new season due to work and other things, so right now I’m sitting on a bunch of new episodes of things and some last episodes of things. Once I see more new things I’ll do my short three-at-a-time season review posts like I did for spring. Watch for it! Or something.

I finally finished all of the Nurse Witch Komugi anime with Magikarte Z the other day. Magikarte Z was kind of weak– the first episode had bad animation the humour wasn’t really as spot on. The whole affair felt tacked on and rushed. That said, it wasn’t bad, just not as good as the first one. I guess the good thing is that it’s only 2 episodes, so it doesn’t overstay its welcome. Also, it has good opening and ending songs.

I’m liking Gurren Lagann Parallel Works. It’s good how the series is at a point in its popularity where it’s big enough for Gainax to make more things based off of it, but it’s not too popular that all Gainax has to do is push out a figure or two every couple of months (sup Eva) to keep the masses interested. The Parallel Works videos are very fun diversions, and I love how each of them have their own unique brand of creativity. The newest one is my favourite– need DVD quality!

Anyways, time to take off and watch anime and stuff.

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I’m surprised my last comic was so well received, considering I thought it read something like an advertisement. I guess people can relate. The art in that comic was ok– I like how some things turned out, but overall it was slightly below-average. I hope everyone enjoyed the fanservice (that I totally ripped from ZSZS) though. The current comic up looks slightly worse, but that said I redrew it something like three times. My job/job training really threw me and it’s affected my drawing for some reason. I’ll shape up by comic 100. You’ll notice that Tina is wearing something she wore previously and that Rets is wearing a new shirt. Someone brought up in the comments for the last one that Tina changes clothes in each comic and Rets has been wearing the same shirts for forever. I was planning on having Tina reuse outfits at some point, but designing new ones each week just became too much fun…

The site was mentioned in various places on the web again, and these plugs were noteworthy enough to post about. The first one is in the Friendster journal of some mentally challenged little girl. I think it’s hilarious when people take my joke posts seriously, and even more hilarious when they think I look like a stereotypical nerd. I love it. The next one is a plug in a Japanese blog which seems to have found me via that Ascii Weekly article. The best part is how he warns middle school kids and lower not to go on my site since it’s foreign. lawls.

In further site news, I got a Twitter on a whim. As you can see, I’ve integrated it into the site sidebar, but I’d like an RSS widget thing that doesn’t advertise itself. Anyone know any good ones? Also, I’d like to know how to make this appear on the blog.

Finished Cromartie High School yesterday, and it was ok. I’ve only read four volumes of the manga (and need more) but I really like how the original handles itself better. The anime tended towards surrealism, whereas the manga was straight up realism with very absurd things happening, which I find funnier. This isn’t to say that the anime’s bad, because it’s generally entertaining, but it really doesn’t hold a candle to the manga. Also, what’s up with ADV’s subs? Do punks really use the word “fudging”? I mean, if you’re going to use an expletive in your translation, don’t half-ass it. This is especially irritating when I know that ADV drops the F-Bomb in their English dubs all the time.

I also finished Nurse Witch Komugi the other day. Some may remember when I started it, but now I’ve finally secured the last volume and have finished it. I would say I should have seen this years ago, but if I watched this years ago I’d totally miss the Tiger Mask reference in episode three or four. This show is crawling with classic anime references, and I love it. It also really helps that Komugi is adorable, and the show’s generally fun and cheery atmosphere makes it a joy to watch. I’ll be moving on to Magikarte Z soon.

That’s it for this week. Hopefully a comic 100 will happen next week, but if it doesn’t then expect it the week after next. I really want it to look good!

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I really like how this comic came together. Everything from the lineart, to the colouring, to the backgrounds looks almost exactly as planned. I’m sure there are rough patches here and there, but I really like this one. I’ve actually kind of been practicing at drawing things I’m not too good at (like girls lol) and I think the fruits of that practice shows here. The lineart for the comic after this one looks pretty good, too. As far as scripting goes, I guess the humour here lies more in the comments than it does in the script. If you haven’t already guessed, this comic is a Nico Nico Douga parody, and like Nico offers, here’s a version of the comic with comments “turned off” for those who want it. But the comic’s only funny with self-depreciating comments like “kore wa hidoi” anyway!

Another week, another Anime Blog Award awarded, it seems. This time it’s the blogger’s choice Gold Award for best blog comic. So yeah, thanks to you guys who voted in that.

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This comic had two possible outcomes: 1) Rets cursing Kurenai for being a lucky bastard or 2) Rets saluting him. I decided to go with 2), since getting a young girl to kiss you on her own accord is pretty impressive. Kurenai didn’t even have to force himself on her! That’s salute-worthy. The art here is slightly better than what it was at first. After some critiques I changed some things the best I could to make it look slightly better. It still looks average, but not as bad. It’s only one drawing, anyway. The next comic, which I already have sketched out, should look pretty good. It’ll make up for all the stinkers from the past couple of weeks. Not sure how funny it is, though…

Oh, Anime Blog Awards happened, and Mistakes of Youth won something in the “People’s Choice” vote. Blogger’s Choice hasn’t been made public yet, but I guess I won that too since last I checked I was 10 votes above whoever was under me. Not sure how deserving I am of any awards, but thanks to all who voted.

I’m three episodes away from the end of Nadesico, and it’s been a decently fun ride. I kind of expected it to go serious after a while, but to my surprise it’s keeping its relatively light tone till the end. I can appreciate why this series is so well loved, but I can’t totally get into it. It’s good, and at points great, but part of what puts me off is just how fast cut and brisk most of the episodes are. The show does however have a great cast of characters who are all filled with personality, actually handles relationships in a mature manner and, despite being pretty light, drives home the “war is hell” message pretty well. I have the movie downloading right now, and I guess I’ll watch that soon. I would buy it, but apparently a used copy of the DVD costs ~$50 and, uh, fuck that.

I’ve finally accepted that Kyouran Kazoku Nikki is not the crazy comedy that I want it to be, despite it doing everything it its power to force me back into thinking that it is in fact a crazy a comedy each time the opening sequences comes on. The show seems more about imparting kind of cheesy morals and lessons onto the viewer while in the guise of a crazy otaku show. That works decently, but it makes me like the show less. It’s still entertaining, but I kind of hoped it’d be above stuff like that and focus more on being a parody show. Oh well, at least Yuuka is still cute with her little pink striped shirt.

More Haruhi 2 news has trickled in. It seems they’re scrapping the “second season” label and instead just treating it as an all-new series. I honestly don’t see the point in noting that, if it’s still going to be based off of the same material. So long as it tops the first one, I’ll be fine. Also, its ed best be amazing.

That’s it for this week. I have a birthday celebration happening today, so I’ll be off to fit in some anime before the festivities begin.

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This comic is pretty horrible in every way, but at least I got to draw the gununu face! Aside from that though, the rest sucks. Especially that last panel. I actually had to edit that so it’d look less like ass, if you can imagine that. I do like how the background in that one turned out, though. Still messing around with a new template for the comic– I just switched comic construction to 300 dpi (I always do character art in 300 dpi, but constructing the comic was done in 72 dpi before now), so I figured I may as well change the layout a bit too. It’s a work in progress. This comic took ages for some reason. Maybe because it’s 7 panels. Next comic will be 2 panels because I’m lazy.

Answerman linked me for some reason, and it’s been brining in decent traffic. Not as good a StumbleUpon link, but decent. Not sure how I feel about ANN readers here, since I think I go against everything that site stands for, but so long as people stay I’m cool.

If you’ve been following the blog you would know that I just got my new computer (and no, it’s not the one pictured here. That’s the old one.) It’s great. Photoshop never slows down and I can watch highres subs! There are however bugs that need to be worked out. Two somewhat big ones, to be exact. One problem is that now I have trouble playing normal res videos in full screen! This trouble isn’t anything major, but it’s annoying. See, when I play any sort of normal res 16:9 video in full screen, I get little bits of noise– jumpy bits of horizontal white/black lines that flicker all over the screen randomly. It’s not totally distracting, but it happens often enough throughout playback that it’s annoying. I messed with a bunch of things starting with the video card drivers– when I uninstall the drivers, the videos play fine. Of course, I can’t leave my drivers uninstalled since that causes a bunch of other problems. Another thing I tried was changing screen resolution, and it seems that if I have the screen resolution set to anything under 1152×864, things work fine. But, I can’t do that since I like my resolution at 1280×1024. I’m sure there are other people out there with my same setup (that being, a computer with XP Pro and an ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO 128MB video card) and I’m wondering if they had this same issue and how they got around it. THE PROBLEM HAS BEEN FIXED. The other issue is with Firefox and my DanbooruUp extension not auto-completing tags. I have no idea how to fix that, though.

Anyway, I need to cut things short since I have a large backlog of anime to get through. Until next week…!

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As expected, this comic came out late due to my moving back to DC for the summer. It also suffers from post-trip fatigue since the art is worse than usual, but that’s also affected by the fact that I tried to copy the Macross F style and failed. It seems the guys actually making the show are failing with that too, so I’m not all that bothered. That one colouring error in panel 3 is really off-putting, though. As far as scripting goes, I figure I’m allowed one stupid comic a year, and I really wanted so make something about Alto’s obsession with paper airplanes. Did you see the focus he was putting into making that one in episode 6? Seriously. Guy has a problem.

Instead of making two comics this week to make up for the missed comic last week, I’m just going to skip a comic since if I made another comic now it’d just turn out looking bad. I just need to relax for a bit now.

Not much going on this week, so I’ll get on to Kurenai and Kyouran after I post this stuff up. Later.

rant title taken from here

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Looking back through the archives, I noticed that I hadn’t even so much as touched upon the issue that is Rosario + Vampire. To atone for this grievous sin, here is a comic which more or less sums up my feelings on the upcoming sequel. I have nothing against fanservice shows, but R+V is a pretty good example of how not to do one. It does get points for Shuuichi Ikeda, though. As far as this comic goes, I’m pretty happy with how the script turned out, and I will admit I was partially influenced by Kaiji when I wrote the punchline. The art is fine– I’m happy with panels 1 and 2, but panel 3 is all too rushed. It looked great in messy sketch form, but not so much when I cleaned it up.

The Ascii Weekly article from a few weeks ago gave the site some pretty decent exposure. I got about 600 more page views that usual and a blog entry! Who knows, maybe I’ll even get a translation deal! (no)

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Before I say anything about the comic, I’d like to call the latest issue of OTAKU USA to your attention. Don’t be fooled by the family friendly Dee Bee Zee cover, since this is most dangerous issue yet. Yes, most dangerous. Daryl Surat may find issue with me labeling it as such, but hear me out, ok? See, normal issues of Otaku USA are simply dangerous since they are overseen by the most dangerous man alive, Patrick Macias. What makes this issue the most dangerous are the various forces that have come together to bring it into existence. It starts off with Clarissa giving a Shuffle! review, which is pretty fucking dangerous in itself– but that’s not enough to make it the most dangerous. What makes this the most dangerous is the fact that this guy and I are in the same in the book at the same time, while forces like Daryl Surat rule over the rest of the pages with an Iron Fist. Yes, you can feel the flames as you touch this burning, blazing publication of HOT BLOOD and MOE PASSION. So go out and BUY IT already. Shit, I haven’t even read it, but I can assure you that your mind will be blown into the outer reaches of space. But that’s not all! The Internet tells me that issue 7 will be even more dangerous than this one. I won’t give any details, but chances are I’ll be in that one, too. I should be writing under my real name, though.

Anyway, enough about Otakus and USAs, on to the comic. I think I’ve reached a new level of Comic Writing in this one, since I actually allude to shows without mentioning them by name. Sure, this writing is still clunky compared to the streamlined Penny Arcade, but we can’t all be legends. For those who don’t know, this comic makes reference to Zettai Karen Children and Kure-nai, shows which are both very good in their own ways, so if you haven’t watched them yet– do it now! I really like the art here. Sure, Tina’s stare in panel 2 is frightening, but the rest turned out pretty well. The backgrounds are even good! So yes, really happy with this one.

One thing I’d kind of like to make clear with this one strip and all others is that this webcomic is not the self-insert comic that 4chan and others would like to think it is. I mean, I’m as much Rets as Tatsuhiko Takimoto is Satou. I don’t write this pretending that I’m in there, I just push my experiences and views onto my character, since it’s easy to write what you know. Hence why Rets’ apartment is similar to mine and the fact that some comics take place in real locations around Boston. I mean c’mon, I’m not shameless enough to make a character that’s supposed to be me hang out with a girl who dresses the way Tina does. If this was realistic, it’d be two guys talking to each other, like every other webcomic about geeky things. But, you know, I like drawing girls! They’re a lot more fun to draw than boring guys. Also, if this was true wish fulfillment, the female character would look more similar to Nagi-tan… or Kaede-chan, but she isn’t really an otaku.

In further comic-related news, Patrick Macias and I recently had a discussion, and this discussion was published in the Japanese magazine Ascii Weekly. As a result, I’ve gotten the attention of the Japanese otaku, and it seems at least one of them is impressed by my knowledge, which makes me quite happy. See, I got an email from a senior otaku who really liked the comic and thought I had the Japanese fan scene down pretty good. Also, another guy from the mag can be found commenting here. I don’t have scans yet, but Macias promised some, so I’ll post them if/when he gets them to me.

The spring season is pretty great. I’ve finally waded through all the crap and found a good 10 or so shows I’m happy with. Full impressions can be found here. I’m mostly happy with my picks, though chances are I’ll drop Allison and Lillia. It’s way too corny for me to stomach.

Anyway, I’ve gone on for long enough, so I’ll cut it off here. Finals are finally over, so now I’m going to kick back and relax in a big way until I go back home and start on my summer job. See you all next week!

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Yes, for the first time in god knows how long, I will not use the internet.

I’ll be away from internet land for a week due to a couple of reasons: 1) because it’s finals week, and this semester I actually have finals I need to study for, and 2) I’m sick of the internet in general so I figure a break would be good. I’m not totally cutting myself off, though. I’ll just be not blogging, posting on forums, or using AIM/MSN/ICQ/IRC. I’ll still download anime and check my email. I won’t be updating my stats on MyAnimeList because going on there may compel me to be social, but my last.fm stats will keep current since it does that automatically. Not sure how long this’ll last, but dammit I’ll try, and hopefully come out of it a slightly changed man.

Anyway, until next week!

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Man, ai-sp@ce sure feels like old news now, but such is the nature of the weekly comic, especially when the hack artist/writer can’t come up with a joke about the news story in question the week it hits and instead decides to make a comic about being a horrible Japanophile. Anyway, here we are with a comic about ai-sp@ce, which is actually just pinched from a bit of a forum exchange, because such things make for the best comics. I don’t know about you, but I actually find this one kind of funny. Sure, the dialogue is stilted and awkward, but with this entire webcomic project thing being a learning experience, I think that’s fine. The artwork is also fine. Yes, there is horribleness in Rets’ fucked up collar in panels 2 and 3 along with some really bad shading, but I like the general look and feel of this one. Boston locals may actually know where this comic takes place. I’m trying to be a less-good Makoto Shinkai by basing backgrounds off real locations. How am I doing??

Dennou Coil sure is something. I think I can only watch it force fed to me 4 or 5 episodes at a time, but it sure is great once you get past those boring opening episodes. My favourite part of the show so far has to be the zombie Illegals attacking Yasako’s house. The kids crossing over to the other side is neat, too. What a wonderfully imaginative show. Not sure how much re-watch value it has, but it certainly is great.

Along with finishing Kaiji up a few days ago, I also finished the wonderful Ryofuko-chan OVA. Various personalities in the comments sections of a number of posts kept telling me to take the plunge, so I did about a week ago, and finally finished it up this week. In my mind, there’s two sects of “otaku entertainment”– boring panderific shit (Yotsunoha, Moetan anime) and hilarious panderific shit with lots of personality and energy (PaniPoni Dash, Hayate no Gotoku.) Ryofuko-chan sits happily in the latter category. Yes, the show has lots of naked lolis, and the opening focuses almost entirely on images of the two main girls in skimpy outfits, but damn is this show just wonderfully absurd. It’s not really laugh out loud funny, but its wacky nature can’t help but put a smile on my face. The mere idea of people from Romance of the Three Kingdoms being cast down from the heavens into the present day– two of them as little girls– is just hilarious. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of people from the past coping with modern life, and Ryofuko makes sure to present this concept in the most humourous way possible. And it doesn’t just focus around lolis– there are a lot of other great side characters, some of which are voiced by epic male seiyuu. Jouji Nakata and Norio Wakamoto are in this! Jouji fucking Nakata! NORIO FUCKING WAKAMOTO! It is also one of the few shows that features a GAR hot blooded loli. So yeah, it’s wonderful, and everyone should watch it. Giant Robo even makes an appearance!

Anyway, it’s half-past-noon already and I have things to do on this long weekend, such as write an essay comparing how Lear and Satan deal with exile in King Lear and Paradise Lost respectively. But that can wait, anime comes first, hurr.

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Little late with this one, but I was kind of in a funk for the last couple of weeks. That coupled with a whole shit ton of anime and homework hitting me like a ton of bricks hindered comic production. But here we are, at Tuesday, with a new comic. I hate liking what I do, but I’m kind of happy with this one. Yes, the art is wonky as usual (make your threads now, 4chan!!) but I generally like how it turned out. The script is something I came up with right around when I started Japanese class last semester, but only got around to making it now. With school about to end for the year, the timing is a bit off, but whatever. For the record, I am myself am shameless with wearing anime shirts to class. I just really don’t care.

God, spring season. Anyone who’s been reading the blog will know that I’ve been documenting my first impressions three at time across various posts. I’m actually working on part IV of that, I just need time to sit down and write it. Overall though, I’m quite satisfied. Some stinkers and wholly mediocre entries, but enough quality to go around. My two favourites off the top of my head have to be Kure-nai and Macross F. Code Geass and Kanokon get mentions for best trash of the season, in two very different ways.

Kure-nai is a bit lighter than I expected it to be, but that dark undercurrent is still there. It could go on being a lighthearted Odd Couple affair, but I want it to act on its darker side a bit more. Macross F is just fucking impressive anime SF. I haven’t seen anything this good in a while. It has 3D work that’s actually good! Code Geass is something I rag on, but watching this second season has made me change my tune. I guess it’s just the fans that are pretentious, because season 2 reminded me that Geass knows it’s silly shit and loves it. Episode 2 was one of the most hilarious episodes of anime I’ve ever seen. Sunrise isn’t really taking this shit seriously at all, and neither should you. I may write a blog post on how Geass is such a great entertainer, but I need to find time. Kanokon is just well animated softcore porn, and I respect that. I like fanservice shows, but they have to be well done. Kanokon has sexy production values, so I’m sticking around for that.

Anyways, I’m playing catchup in the game of life at the moment. I need to catch up on homework, catch up on anime and catch up on making comics. As such, I’ll be taking my leave.

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I am so very disappointed in this comic in every way. The art is lacklustre and the script is pretty… horrible. I just wanted to talk about Kaiji in some way before it finished its sub run, and do a general parody on the art style.

You know, that scenery in panel 1 is actually inspired by Clannad. Strange, right? Well, when I put digital paint to digital canvas, I just start picking out dark/grey colours, so a lot of Clannad’s spring-time happiness doesn’t really carry over. I blame the fact that it was actually raining outside while I was making this. And I just like grey-ish overcast atmospheres. Anyway, next week should be better. I hope. orz

The new season has started, but I’m still kind of in the process of putting a lid on the rather craptastic winter season. That’s mostly a case of the sub groups having to catch up, though. I have however watched one spring season show so far, and that happens to be Kure-nai. You may remember that I was looking forward to Kure-nai a while back, and thankfully episode 1 seemed pretty good. I say “seemed” because I watched it raw and couldn’t really understand what was going on past the basics. It does however have great animation, great atmosphere and an adorable little loli who is thankfully less annoying than she was in the preview. If the script is as good as everything else, then Brainsbase might have another Kamichu or Baccano! quality show on their hands. Let’s just hope they don’t pull another Innocent Venus. Oh, also, the opening is worth noting.

As far as other anime I’ve watched recently goes, I caught a bit more of Dennou Coil at MIT. The show is certainly getting a lot better as it begins to explore its mysteries, and the “filler” has become quite entertaining, too. The show has a lot of character, which I admire. Not sure if it’s rewatchable for me, but I actually do like it now. You know, I have to thank MIT for showing things like Baccano! and Dennou Coil– things I was reluctant to go and watch/finish for myself due to my own stubbornness. So yeah, good on them.

Still trudging through Shinigami no Ballad, almost a week past the set review deadline. Sorry Seven Seas, I just ain’t a fast reader, and it doesn’t help that the story I’m on I saw before in anime form. It’s not a bad book, but it’s not especially amazing either. I think I liked the first story a bit better.

Anyways, that’s it for tonight. I’m out.

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Here is the Anime Boston con comic, which puts a lid on my Anime Boston 2008 coverage. Like last year, most of this stuff only really made sense in context, but whatever. I should also note these kinds of comics aren’t really what people said word-for-word– if you want that, listen to the podcasts. Expect a comic about noses next week.

Lots of stuff from the TAF, which actually took me by surprise for some reason. Unfortunately, I can’t be all too excited about much of it since I’m not all that pumped about this next season, even after seeing these trailers. I guess I’ll just bullet-point this stuff.

• The Golgo 13 trailer is good, but it has too many still images, which makes me worry for its budget.
• Crystal Blaze looked fine for the first minute, then in the last minute it took a nosedive– I’m afraid it’ll take itself seriously.
• DMC looks like it could be fun.
• Jigoku Shoujo is the same old thing, which means it should be moderately entertaining.
• Michiko to Hatchin is Manglobe’s new offering, and certainly looks more fun than Ergo Proxy. Approaching with some degree of caution, but I have high hopes for this one.
• I’m guessing this new Gurren Lagann footage is from the new music video project, and not from the new movie. Some of it looks quite interesting.
• I certainly hope the people in this video are cheering for something else going on in the hall, and not for Kanokon.

Reading that Ballad of a Shinigami novel that Seven Seas sent me. I’m about 1/3 of the way through, and should be done in a week or so. It’s a good light read, but doesn’t really have a distinct writing style that inspires me or anything. It’s not bad, but it kind of just makes me want to watch the anime again. Maybe I’m just not used to reading books that aren’t written by Patrick Macias.

So I guess Hayate is getting a second season, which is good news. It’s managed to keep my attention for 50 episodes, which is quite impressive. Let’s hope they don’t drop the ball with this next one!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand that’s a wrap.

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Here is a comic. I forget if it’s good or not at this point. Pretty much speaks for itself.

Anyway, Anime Boston. First day sucked because 3.5 hours of it were spent in line. After that I met up with a few people, talked and bought some stuff. Went to a couple panels, too– FUNi’s industry thing and Mike Toole’s black ‘n’ white anime panel. Other than that, nothing of interest happened. Quite an underwhelming day. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. Oh yeah, the lines were crazy. My friend was in the normal reg line for 6 hours, and got to skip parts of it. Yeah. Anyway, hopefully a podcast of this madness will materialize in the near future.

Going to watch some bad anime (DRAGONZO) then go to bed. Later.

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I don’t know how to feel about this one. The biggest problem was that I forgot to draw Rets in panel 2, so I had to hastily sketch him in Photoshop. Though, looking at it now, I kind of like that. Tina’s face also looks too long in some planels. Bleh. I guess I like it more than others. And yes, I know that messy little scribble on the sketch pad doesn’t really look like Roro– I didn’t wanna put to much time into drawing man porn. The joke seems solid enough to me.

Anime Boston is in something like two weeks. I’ll be there, but I won’t have a table or anything. I’ll just be walking around with some dudes. Most likely my server admin and Seiya (gotta get back in contact with him!) and will probably meet up with DS and Hinano.

About half-way through Dennou Coil, and it’s finally starting to show its stuff. The fish episode and the beard episode do a good job of playing with the setting they’ve created far better than the opening episodes. Also, a lot of interesting plot developments are starting to take shape. I actually want to see the next episode, now!

Finished Diebuster again. I almost forgot how incredibly epic the ending was. I almost want to buy those Bandai Visual DVDs, now. Almost.

Anyway, cutting it short today for whatever reason. Got some raws/subs to dig into and a Shuffle! DVD. Later.

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I actually had this one drawn and done for a bit. The idea was to get this one done real early, then have the one for next week done already. That didn’t really pan out since I’ve been in something of a funk all week. No matter. This comic was real easy, and looks fairly good, I guess. I dunno why Rets has such a messed up expression that last panel, I guess I thought it would be funny. You know, the greatest thing about this comic is that you can probably put any kind of dialogue in and it could be funny. Probably funnier than what I have here. As you can see the comic is something of a joke on anime writing, highlighting two examples of QUALITY. Honesty, do girls really go “I WON’T LOSE!!!” all the time?

Winter season is still fairly lame, and a lot of shows from Fall are concluding. Hayate seems to be going out with a bang, with a strong set of final episodes (manga-based?) and Clannad is ending well. I kind of wished I’d just stayed with the widescreen releases of Clannad instead of watching both 4:3 and 16:9 versions. I kept up with the 4:3 mostly because I didn’t want to miss any discussion on it, but about 19 episodes in, there’s not much to talk abut. Yes, I do appreciate that Clannad was trying to be different in not telling overdone sob-stories, but as a result it comes off as rather boring. Well, boring isn’t the right word. Maybe not as memorable and engaging. I guess it’s not good that I don’t really dig the characters all too much (well, it’s more I don’t like Kyou and to a lesser degree Tomoyo.) Nagisa, however, is cute as a button, so I guess that’s fine. This last arc is shaping up to be a good one, but I doubt Clannad will leave much of an impression in my mind.

I’ve been catching episodes of Diebuster at MIT lately. Diebuster gets a lot of flack for various reasons, but I like it well enough. I think it lacks the punch of its predecessor, but is in turn a more competently structured story. The first two episodes are rather weak, I’ll admit, but the show settles into its groove at around the midpoint, and then does nothing but impress from there (splitting of planets etc). Maybe one of the problems people see with Diebuster is the lack of too much overdone drama. Sure, there’s drama, but Gunbuster was pouring that stuff on at episode 2. Personally, I like Diebuster’s approach better. Makes the show easier the watch.

Another thing I’ve caught snippets of at MIT was Ergo Proxy. For those who don’t know, back when Ergo Proxy hit I was kind of looking forward to it as a fan of Witch Hunter Robin. I dropped the show after nine episodes. I caught the first four episodes again a few weeks ago, and episode 8 last night (was trying to get there in time for Diebuster, but ended up watching an entire episode of EP, too.) The show is beautiful. I love dark, grey colour schemes. Always have. The show puts together a nice, if not somewhat generic, futuristic dystopian world. I think it looks great. The praise stops there though. The actual content is kind of meh, and the only good character is Pino. No, not because I’m a lolicon, because she’s genuinely entertaining.

That’s all I got for today. Let’s hope I can get something out by next week. I sure do have plenty of scripts to work off of…

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I was quite surprised to see that when I woke up this morning (at around 11am) that the site had already garnered 2000+ visits, which is more than I usually get in a single day. Right now it’s up to 3,500. Turns out someone posted one of my comics on Stumble Upon, and the site seems to be getting a lot of traffic from that. I can’t say I’m not happy, but the art in that particular comic is so godawful, I feel bad about it being exposed to so many people. Oh well. Traffic is traffic. Thanks to whoever posted it.

Anyway, on to this comic. This is probably the worst comic for a new reader to stumble upon (LOL) given it requires knowledge of the characters and running gags. The point of this comic was to bring all the main characters together, since up until now, they’ve not all been in the same comic. I kind of like this one. The idea of Rets and Tina doing a double assault on Brad with horrible porn is amusing to me. Not sure if it will be for everyone else. The art in this comic is fine. Nothing amazing, but solid. I like the panel layout. Lately I’ve been making an effort to have things flow better. This one was easy since there were no speech bubbles, so that was one less variable to worry about.

I watched The Cockpit the other day. For those who don’t know, The Cockpit is a set of OVAs based on old Leiji Matsumoto comics about WWII. I thought they were fine. The subs I got weren’t the greatest, so that probably played into my impression of the work as a whole. I’d like to see a professional release of this, since I’d most certainly buy it, just to see it in the hands of a competent translator.

That’s all I got for now. I know for certain there will be an update next week, since I actually already have that comic done with.

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This is something of a true story. Yes, it is true that in my English 101 class last year, our first assignment was to write about anything we wanted. I however, did not write about moe. That happened about two years earlier in my Junior year of high school. See, in high school I was doing the IB, and part of trying to get your IB diploma was to write this 10 page essay called the Extended Essay. Me, being more of a Japanophile then than I am now (if your mind can fathom such a thing) wrote an “anthropological study” on otaku. The paper is horrible, and if I tried to read it again now I’d probably rip my face off. Anyway, the paper had a bit on moe. Now, when I wrote this (I guess back in… 2004? 2005?) I didn’t really know much about moe past the word. So I read a bunch of essays, and basically wrote about it as a desire to protect innocence and cited examples of certain works and magazines. Some time after I wrote it, I gave it to my English teacher to look over, and he said exactly what the guy in this comic says, word for word. As far as art goes, I don’t really like it. The drawings are sloppy and rushed. I do like the backgrounds and the lighting, though. I also like dressing the English teacher up as Lupin III.

I’m kind of running short of comic ideas. Nothing airing at the moment really inspires me to write anything funny. Well, I could do something about the two horrible Gonzo shows playing, but that’d probably be the same as that Soul Link comic I did a long while back. I do have a good supply of scripts that should last for a good 15 weeks, but reading them over, they seem very not funny. Eh. I probably need to give some of them a good editing job. Whatever. I kinda know what I want to do for next week, so that’s fine.

(more…)

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“no author is stupid enough to talk about their own comic on 4chan, except dan kim”

And indeed, I am not that stupid. Hell, I don’t even post on 4chan. Clearly someone is running around in my skin.

Context would help, I suppose. Rewind to about a week or so ago– I’m bored and decide to google my name, looking to see if people are saying dirty things about me (that’s the one and only reason I blog and make a comic, after all.) I was happy to see that I had hit gold in the form of a 4chan thread. The thread, however, was gone. So, to narrow things down, I only searched for my name within 4chan, and then proceeded to add various other words after my name, trying to get other parts of the thread to appear in the google excerpt. Nothing of much interest showed up, but after that I searched for my name on 4chan daily. Throughout the week I came across more threads, all deleted, and repeated the same process to try and get the general gist of them. I came across remarks such as “stop posting wildarmsheero” and “gtfo wildarmsheero.” Now, in my mind, “wildarmsheero” was shorthand for “wildarms’ stupid horrible comic fuck that stuff” so I assumed they wanted whoever was posting my comics to stop. It wasn’t until I came across the quote posted above did I conclude that someone was impersonating me. So yeah, guys, I don’t post on 4chan. I’m a 2chan/danbooru guy. On the few times that I do post on 4chan, it’s always as anonymous. Back in ‘03 when the site first hit, I did post under wildarmsheero and used a tripcode, but that seemed more common back then. I haven’t done that for a good four or so years now, though. Anyway, one good thing came out all of this. In one of the google excerpts, someone mentioned that I had dated the last comic incorrectly. I have since amended the comic, and thanked 4chan accordingly.

But, enough about that. Surprisingly enough, I like how this comic turned out. The background is pretty solid, and the character art is mostly ok. Rets looked pretty weird in some cuts, but I managed to hide the parts I didn’t like with cropping and shading. Still, it’s not perfect, I make my usual mistakes, but I like it. One thing I have to improve on is fabric folds and shading. Unlike anatomy, I can’t quite see the method in the madness that is fabric folds, and to a lesser extent, shading. Guess I have to do more life drawing. Don’t know if the script is funny, since I’ve read it 100 times and wrote it like months ago.

Don’t have much to talk about anime-wise. Winter season is slow, and I haven’t yet picked up any older titles to plow through. Newest Zetsubou Sensei was amazing for a number of reasons, but I don’t wanna spoil it. Other than that, I watched the first four episodes of Dennou Coil at MIT. I decided to give the show another shot since they were showing it. I still find it really boring, but it’s better in large chunks rather than bite-size portions.

Anyway, that’s all for this week. Later.

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Brad last showed up roughly 20 comics and 5 months ago, so I figured I needed to bring him back in. I actually had this script done for a good while (almost half a year) but other things kept popping up, preventing me from using it. But now, since there’s not been much news of note, and all the shows airing at the moment are pretty meh, it’s a good time to work from the backlog of unused scripts. Brad is meant to represent what I like to call the “Anime World Order” portion of fandom. Those who got into anime through the cool and violent stuff of the 80s, and who wish the “dreaded era of moe” would end. Brad also represents every adult in my life, ever. His influence in the comic is nice, and I should have him in more often. I should probably bring Rets, him and Tina together but drawing all three characters in one comic may break my hand. The art here is fine. Kind of messy, but turned out ok. Could be better.

In other site news, I changed the layout again. The site is mostly transparent pngs, so if you’re looking at this with IE 6, the site looks like total crap! But that’s only about 5% according to AW Stats, and about 70% are using Firefox, so that’s all that matters. Also, to all you IE 6 guys, at least upgrade or switch to a non-crap browser. For serious. The transparent pngs are kind of temporary, though. I’m still messing with the site’s background colour, and when I find something I like, I’ll switch back to more user-friendly gif. Also, I may try and take a stab at updating the reference guide this weekend. Does anyone actually use that, anyway? I think most of the jokes are quite obvious…

Finished Baccano! today. The show is good, but not great. See, it’s shallow. No, it’s not shallow in that it’s lacking heart, or that the characters are crap, because the show has plenty of heart and the characters are all wonderful. It’s shallow because it doesn’t really achieve what it sets out to do. The show goes out of its way boasting to you how wild, crazy and complicated its plot is, but in the end doesn’t explain everything. Not like it really matters, since the show is just fun to watch, and I recommend it to anyone who likes a good time, and is not averse to large amounts of gore. That’s another thing that put me off. I can only handle so much horrible violence! The show gets points for a good setting, nice style, and doing the “Layzner thing” with its opening– except it shows clips from previous episodes, instead of the episode to come. Also, you can’t hate Isaac and Miria. Love those guys.

That’s it for today. Kinda tired right now, so I’ll go to bed for now. Later.

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I like this script. It’s solid. Gets the point across. Art is kind of bland, but let’s just say it’s a joke on Gunslinger Girl 2’s poor quality animation. I was going to give GSG 2 the three episode test, but once episode 3 rolled around and I hadn’t even watched episode 2, I gave up since I could only stand the show one episode at a time. I’m buying the manga now, so it’s not as if I’m missing out on anything.

In other site news, we have some new fanart and a new wallpaper. And yes, if anyone was wondering, I will eventually get around to updating the reference guide.

Caught six episodes of Baccano! at MIT last night. I had planned to watch the show when it first aired, but didn’t really get around to it. I was going to marathon it, but after it was over, all the wrong people where praising it, so I passed. I noticed MIT was showing it, so decided to go since if I can’t be arsed to download it, I’ll just walk 20 minutes watch it with something like 30 other people. It’s quite a good show. As of right now, not as good as some people make it out to be, but it’s good fun. The series is special because it has a lot things you don’t normally find in anime, and instead pulls from older American films with a hint of anime craziness to spice it up. It works well. I like the ensemble cast– each character gets a decent amount of time to show off how fun and wacky they are, so the show is never really boring in that respect. Naturally, my favourites are Isaac and Miria. The story is full of mysteries right now, but the show bogs you down with so much stuff that it’s hard to really wonder about them. But that’s fine, since half the fun is just watching it all play out, and hoping all the stupid commotion makes sense in the end. I should note that the opening is really awesome, and is now one of my favourites. It also gets bonus points for doing the Snatch thing.

Also, MIT anime club, as much as I love you, I find issue with what is considered to be “Essential Anime.” Actually, I only really object to two titles, those being Nodame and Gravitation. Replace those two with an episode of Zeta Gundam and Space Battleship Yamato. Hell, even episodes of Haruhi and Lucky Star would do– they’re far more “essential” than the likes of Nodame and Gravitation.

That’s all for right now. Time to use the free time I have now to get through some backlog. Later.

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I was going to wait until after I went to bed to post this, but given I’m so hyped up on stuff, I figure I’ll put the comic up now. There’s really not much to say here, as I think its best for you draw your own meanings from it. The artwork is mostly good. Tina came out nicely, and I’m happy with how creepy I rendered Anno. Rets’ lineart is a bit wonky, but it gets covered but shadows so it all works out. I’m using a set of pens to clean up the sketches now, rather than a mechanical pencil. A friend of mine got me a set of Copic pens as a late Christmas present, and I was delighted to see that they had a 0.03 mm size pen. A long time ago I used to use Sakura Mircons, and whenever I used the 0.05mm it broke on me. I’ve been using 0.3mm Copic for a bit and it has yet to die on me. At this rate I may go back to using actual ink! Actually, does the lineart look slightly thinner?

I’ve been messing with the site design lately. If it looks funny just force reload and it should be ok. I’m not sure how I feel about the black. I may tone it down a darker grey, but anything is better than unresolved white.

Recently got that Max Factory Pachira from HLJ, and let me tell you, it’s quite a lovely figure. I can’t say I’m enamored enough with MagiPokaa enough to buy figures from it (though, I do like the character designs. I may pick up that Uma if I see it at a con again), but this figure’s gimmick was too awesome pass up. Those in the know should have a good idea as to what I’m on about :3. The only real problem is that during the cast-off process some red paint rubbed off on her chest. It’s nothing major, but it’d like to clean it up. Anyone got any tips?

The current crop of stuff airing hasn’t been all that impressive lately. I just finished Moyashimon, which was a weird show. Not weird in the way that I wanted it to be, though. The promo material suggested the show would be all about the microbes, but they really take a back seat to bizarre plot twists and character interaction. The show has fun sitcom-ish qualities to it, along with some strange drama-ish aspects, but never did it really act on what I expected out of it. I doubt I’ll watch it again, since a good half of it is extremely boring, but I guess it was fine in the end. I’m also not too taken with Clannad. The stories are fine, but they lack a lot of the overdone drama that made both Air and Kanon engaging to me. The characters, while well-written, don’t really leave much of an impact on me either. Maybe I just like poorly written stories better? I dunno. Kaiji is pretty DBZ at the moment, but it seems like they moved out of that with episode 15.

As for the new offerings from the winter season, I am again mostly not too taken. Gunslinger Girl 2 is an absolute depressing wreck. I may give it the three episode test, but it’s just too sad to watch. Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is of course genius, so I’ll just leave it at that. So far the best thing I can think off that’s not a sequel this season is Spicy Wolf. Episode 1 was boring, but by episode 2 I am beginning to see truth in Cunningham’s words on the original novel. Horo and Lawrence’s banter is entertaining, though I’m not sure if that alone will keep me for 13 episodes. It really seems like it’s a good time to catch up on old things, so I guess I’ll watch something like Devil Hunter Yoko tomorrow, or these Crusher Joe things that came down the pipes this morning.

I guess I’ll try to get some sleep now. Later.

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I watched Soultaker earlier in the week. I promise I won’t do this ever again. Maybe. The script is about how downloading doujinshi is kind of bad. I know I have at least two Japanese readers, and one of them took offense to my comics about downloading doujinshi. If I could buy doujin easily, I would, but I can’t. I download them because my penis is stronger than my morals, but I do buy as many as I can at cons and the like. Also, this comic references this other comic, if you forgot about it.

In other site/comic news, we have some fanart. I’d also like to draw attention to my year in review, since I didn’t write ~3,500 words just so no one could read them. Also this Eva review, which is just what everyone else wrote back in September, but whatever.

That’s all. I just got back to Boston, so I’m bit worn out from traveling.

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First comic of ‘08! It looks kind of bad! It’s not totally horrible, but it’s not totally good, either. I do like Tina’s yandere face in panel 4, though. After reading this comic over and over, I realized that it’s actually just this comic + this comic. Oops. This comic plays up the slowly developing insanity in Tina. Normally she’s a cheerful fangirl with pretty well rounded opinions on things, but if you hung around Rets as much as she does, certainly you’d have instances where you’d crack. Rets, however, is smarter than he looks, and knows how the right time to exit. He should thank his lucky stars he’s not dead on the floor. Yet.

The severe lack of Nagi doujins out of C73 is a problem, though. I let last Comiket off since the show was just beginning, so naturally I assumed there wouldn’t be a good turn out. But now the show is almost over, we are lacking in high quality Nagi porn! What is with the fixation on Hinagiku, huh? Tell me, Japan! Actually, I’m sure Japan would tell me to stop whining and just go over there to buy the things myself. Which I would like to do. Eventually. I may do a comic around that idea for next week, but it’s not really fully planned out, yet. In any case, I am in despair. To console myself I’m downloading older Hayate doujins, hoping they will be of Nagi. It’s fine, but I want stuff that’s FRESH. FRESH, NEW AND WELL DRAWN. Sigh. Comiket, I will take you on. One of these days.

New season has started, and as usual, I’m not watching the first episode of everything like every other blogger. I am a discerning individual, and can tell just from promotional art whether or not a show will be for me or not. My judgment has rarely done me wrong, so I’m fine with not watching everything. I have watched some things though, those two things being Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Rosario + Vampire. I won’t say much here, since I’m reserving my thoughts for a blog post that may or may not happen. I will say that SZS 2 is more of the same except with better animation and the style may be a bit more off-beat and wacky. Rosario + Vampire is a stupid fanservice show, but provided Gonzo doesn’t fuck up the animation, I could watch that for 13 episodes. As of right now currently looking forward to subs of Minami-ke ~okawari~, Gunslinger Girl 2, and the end of Sky Girls (I need to finish my year in review, dammit!)

Before I take off, I’d like to mention a few things. The comic has gotten some press again, this time in the form of the Anime Genesis Podcast, and Aarin’s Blog. Anime Gen declares me webcomic of the year, and Aarin gave me a fairly well thought out and honest review. Thanks to both of them.

That’s it for this week. I head back to school next week, but I’ll try to push out another comic before then. Later!

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Squeezing in one last comic before the new year. I like this one quite a bit. It didn’t call for much in the way of backgrounds, but I like how that first panel turned out. Sure, it’s all blue, but that’s because it’s cold! Line art isn’t exactly as I want it, but it never is. Overall I’m quite happy with this one. And yes, no matter what you say, 0nT2 is a true MAN’S ROMANCE.

There’s something of a break right now in terms of anime coming out, but I don’t really mind at all since it gives me something of a chance to catch up with all the DVDs I got for Christmas. I decided to start off with the first volume of Air. I haven’t seen the show in about 2 years, so it’s pretty fresh to me. KyoAni’s work rendered in DVD is lovely, but it’s funny how rough the show looks compared to their current works. Not to say it doesn’t look amazing, because it does, it’s just cool to see how much they’ve improved in such a short time. The first epiosde was beautifully directed, and reminded me of how adorable Misuzu was. Let’s see if the rest of the series is as good. I don’t remember my impressions too well, but I think it’s my favourite out of the KyoAni Key adaptations.

Apparently the last episode of Minami-ke came with a preview for the next series, Minami-ke ~Okawari~ by studio asread (of Shuffle! fame.) I have to say that things look quite promising. I’ve heard that people in certain corners of the internet are already hating on it for some stupid reason. As far as I’m concerned, if the direction and scripting stay somewhat consistent, I don’t mind. And before anyone brings up the fanservice aspect, think back on all the fanservice in Doumo’s Minami-ke. There is quite a lot, even if you don’t realize it. A lot of other series have ended, too. Once I catch the last episodes of Sky Girls and Minami-ke, I’ll do a Year in Review post.

That’s it for 2007. See you all next year~

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Because, seriously, horses are better than reindeer.

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The comic has gone far too long without giving proper exposition to Tina. This was mostly because I just didn’t know what to do with her. I gave my comic a female character for the obvious reasons, but up till now she’s mostly been an accessory to Rets’ rants. I realized a while ago that I was writing her completely wrong. Given she is wish fulfillment I wrote her as a romantic fantasy, which would probably work ok in some romance story. This, however, is clearly not a romance story– it’s a comedy. Thusly, I’ve started to write her as a character in a comedy. She’s supposed to make you laugh as well as Rets, so I’ve began fleshing her wacky fannish habits. Hopefully it’ll be to your liking. I really like the art here, except for panel 2. Rets is all wrong, and Tina is suffering from big head syndrome, but the rest I think is pretty good. In attempt to flesh out Tina some more, the comic takes place in her room rather than Rets’. We’ve seen her place a couple times but up until now it’s not been much but a vast expanse of blue wall. This time we’re treated to a better view of her bed, with its red comforter, pink pillows and, against my better judgment, FMA pillows. There’s also a Kero-chan plush, so it evens out? Also, some horrible 00 poster. She is a girl, after all.

Unfortunately, I’ve not gotten around to watching any anime today. I woke up at around noon and since then all I’ve done is raked leaves, made this comic, and am currently at my grandparents’ house decorating for Christmas. Hopefully when I get back home I’ll be able to catch up on somethings. Watching Cobra has set me back a few episodes on everything, so I’m currently in catch up mode.

I’ll try to get another comic plus some holiday art out by Christmas, and after that I’ll probably go back to one comic a week. As much as I’d love to do two or three a week, I just don’t have the time. I’d also like some time to update my art site, too.

Anyway, I’m out.

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I had to do something about Minami-ke, even if it is a not very clever penis joke. I kind have something similar written for Ef, but I’m not sure if I want to do it now. Honestly, after reading some entries at The Comics Curmudgeon the writing here just looks even more horrible. I bet if I was a newspaper comic he’d tear me apart. I need to do better. The art here is ok. I used the pencil tool to do most of the shading rather than the pentool. I should keep doing this, since it’s far less restrained than the pentool. Though, sometimes you need control, like with the shadows on the face from the hair, so I still whip out the pentool for that.

Lots of anime related news came in over the past week, mostly in the form of announcements for more seasons of various franchises, those being Haruhi, Zero no Tsukaima and Higurashi. In Haruhi’s case it was just KyoAni being less cryptic (but still rather cryptic), but 0nT and Higurashi being more normal franchises had BS-free announcements. I think Haruhi is a very good show and I am quite excited for a sequel, since the first season really only got totally awesome by the end. I’m also excited for Zero No Tsukaima. I really liked the second series, even if no one else did. It was a fun fanservice romp that never really took itself too seriously, so I look forward to more. I have no opinion on Higurashi, since I’ve never seen it past the opening.

I have one episode left of Cobra. I won’t say much here, since I’ll blog it all once I’m done. What I will say is that it’s a severely underrated show and that everyone should watch it because it’s awesome. Also, to all you people who think old anime is unwatchable, this show looks far better than a lot of the stuff that’s come out over the past 10 years. Gotta love those 80s budgets.

Anyway, I’m out for now.

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Leaving in the morning. Don’t have much to say, which is good since the comic pretty much speaks for itself.

Rants will stop being lame soon. Hopefully. I wrote something kind of long earlier in the week/last week/I forget that you can read instead.