The Konamis: a webcomic in progress

Monster Vacation!

2008-07-24T13:27:00.002-07:00

Oh man, I love this vacation. It was badly needed.

I've been frequenting the local coffee shop quite a bit the past few days, pulling out the ol' Wacom Tablet, inking a comic, drinking some sweet sweet coffee. It feels so good to be productive, and being productive doing something I love to do. I have spent the last 2-3 days drawing for 6-8 hours a day, it has been wonderful. That, and my wife and I collaborated on a painting for our den, and that turned out really well. I know that anyone who has been reading this blog is going to be thinking, hurry up and post the comic already. Well, I'm gonna ask for just a little more patience. Essentially I got to a point where we could feasibly start posting, but I really want to get this entire story arc done, before we do that.

At least I feel like I've been able to keep up on the schedule a bit more, and I'm happy with how the art has progressed throughout the pages. So, soon dear readers, soon. Until then take a look into Monsterland:

2008-07-22T14:53:00.003-07:00

Well well well, looks like they finally decided to start letting me post on blogger from work. Anywho, we're getting ever closer to launch of the comic. The script is finished, and TJ has maybe 5 or 6 more comics to draw before the first adventure is complete, which should give us a good 3 month buffer. From there, all that's needed is to finish the site and we go gold. It's been a long road, but I think it's been worth the wait. The comic we're doing now has very little in common with the comic we set out to do, but I think it's far better for it.

Tease-Rex

2008-07-18T10:12:00.002-07:00

Hey just thought I'd hit you up with another teaser image. What better than Steve riding a battle-armored T-Rex?

Honkglomeration

2008-06-09T02:35:00.003-07:00

I wouldn't say that I've got insomnia right now, more like a freeway of ideas running through my head, honking at each other. Website coming soon? fingers crossed. It's never an exact science.

Work-a-day

2008-05-13T11:22:00.002-07:00

Some days I love my day job, and others...I really, really don't. Is it so much to ask that, when we start to get busy everyone pick it up a gear or two. Seriously. I'm burning myself out and the customers are left holding the bag, because the other crew can't get their ass in gear. Blergh!

A Calliente Adventure

2008-04-27T11:27:00.004-07:00

So, what the fuck is wrong with people?
I think that is a legitimate question.

Yesterday, Jack and I went on an adventure. We were driving through a bad neighborhood when my car overheated, billowing smoke, which would have been cool had we been in a music video and not in the barrio in 100 degree weather. So I pull over in front of a house, and two houses down a group of drunks (literally) start shouting at us to "get the fuck outta here!" etc. etc. (which I would have loved to had we had the choice).

Meanwhile the guy whose house we were parked in front of was badass, offering to help and busting out the hose so we could cool down the engine. Maybe 10 minutes pass and one of the drunks comes over and tells us we have 15 seconds to vacate the premises, he then goes on to ask me if I'm a cop, and unloads a barrage of obscenity upon me. The homeowner steps in between us and holds the drunk back, telling him that our car had broke down and that he needed to go back to his friends.

So it's been about 20 minutes and I'm fairly comfortable that the car is cooled down by now, so I thank the guy for his help, and we're on our way. Which leads me to my previous question, "what the fuck is wrong with people?"

woot!

2008-04-26T19:32:00.003-07:00

The manuscript for the first adventure is officially finished! I think I wanna celebrate by playing some Smash Brothers and keeping myself from going back and re-writing it.

On another note, I'm really super excited about Iron Man next week. Unfortunately, I probably can't convince anyone to go to the midnight showing with me, but TJ and I will probably go after work.

Intraweb Links -or- How I stopped the internet through hyper linking

2008-04-24T13:25:00.006-07:00

Listen up kiddies, I'm doing this once. Here are some artists I like check 'em out, they got the goods.

Scott Kurtz
Mike Maihack
Akira Toriyama
Alex Ross
Maurice Sendak
Deth P. Sun
Masashi Kishimoto
Humberto Ramos
Brad Guigar
Jeff Smith
Rob Schrab

Back Log

2008-04-21T13:35:00.004-07:00

Hey-O TJ here,

Lately we've been busting major Ass on this comic, but I have yet to hit my stride on producing 3 fresh comics a week. Yes, we are building a back log of comics so we can update consistently keeping everybody happy and shiny. Oh and what a wonderful world it will be. I know Jack is just about done scripting the first adventure and he is a bag of mixed emotions about that, "Whoo-hoo! I'm almost done! oh shit I gotta write another one of these?" Yes. Yes you do.

Well, here's a little something to tide you over until the comic goes live. This is a mini-comic I drew for my son. Enjoy.

Henchemology 101

2008-03-19T06:00:00.003-07:00

Every villain worth his salt knows that for a successful plan execution you're only as good as you're weakest link; your henchmen. Henchmen are the expendable adherents of the main villain; always ready to do the master's bidding. Kill or be killed, and often they are. Either by the hero before reaching the master, or by the villain himself as punishment for failure (or just for kicks).

The word henchman, refered originally to one who attended a nobles horse. Henchmen were members of royal court or a noble household. It wasn't until the 1800s, long after Tudor Queen Elizabeth I abolished the royal henchmen, known also as the children of honor, that they became stock characters in many adventure stories as the villain's lackey.

Just to be clear; a villain has henchmen, minions, or lackeys, not sidekicks. While this is partially a convention in terminology, it also reflects that few villains are capable of bonds of friendship and loyalty, which are normal in the relationship between a hero and sidekick. There may be some exceptions to the rule, but generally its a pretty safe bet. Villains don't like to share the spotlight.

It's a fine line between having henchmen that are, competent enough to pull off instructions and henchmen that are ambitious and want to overthrow the master. It's finding that special blend of intelligent and lazy. Most of the time you'll find yourself settling for stupid. Just hope that sheer numbers will prevail.

Blerg King

2008-03-16T11:01:00.003-07:00

I love my son, but I'll be damned if he isn't an outbreak monkey. He got sick on Friday, which subsequently means that everyone else in the house got sick. My wife and I have been engaged in vomiting matches for the past few hours, and even as I write this I'm shakily trying to keep down a glass of ginger ale. Ugh. Enough pity party though, I'm gonna get some more sketching done and try not to throw up on my sketch pad.

Until next time, go rub a sick kid on your face.

Pen and Ink

2008-03-01T19:56:00.004-07:00

So, I'm torn. As I mentioned in an earlier post, when I draw the comic in Illustartor I use the laptop nipple. However, I've really wanted to get good with the Wacom tablet. I want a pen and ink feel to my art without having to bust out the pen and ink. I want to make the comics in a vector program, like Illustrator, so I can adjust the size of it without loosing any quality. So I've been practicing, and I tried to draw the newest page using the Wacom. I liked it, the results are good. I'm going to keep at it and see if it's worthwhile to continue to use it. I want to follow the Half-Pixel advice: first get good, then get fast, then get good-fast.

Basically I'm struggling with a balance of time.

Thunderskull Lives!!!

2008-02-22T21:39:00.004-07:00

Here it is my new tattoo. Megan and I decided that the 6th year anniversary was the ink anniversary, so we each went out today and voila! My inspiration for this was from a character I've been developing for a while now and my love of music. I like that it's open-ended so if I want to add onto it, it should be fairly easy. So here he is: The Amazing Dr. Thunderskull.

Danger! It's Electric!

2008-02-19T13:04:00.002-07:00

Fear not, friends, for I am back and am indeed NOT dead. As TJ mentioned in a twitter post, I was in a car accident this weekend on my way back to Estrella War (if you didn't know, I'm in the Society of Creative Anachronism).

I am completely okay physically, but my car is totaled, so now I need to spend some time looking for a new one. I am a little bruised, a little beaten; but not broken, and never defeated. No matter what, this comic will be completed, and will be excellent. This is my goal, and this is my promise.

Just working on it...

2008-02-15T21:20:00.003-07:00

The Process pt. 1

2008-02-06T13:45:00.001-07:00

Well, working on pg. 9...still. Haven’t had a lot of time to tackle it the past couple of days, but I would put it at a 89% completion. Mainly the background is the beast of it. So, I thought I’d take this time to actually talk about the process I use when drawing this thing. First of all, anytime someone watches me work I get the “what the fuck are you doing?” reaction. I use a laptop to do all my work, and I use the little nipple in the middle. That’s right I like the nipple. My mouse crapped out 5 years ago and I never spent the $10 to replace it. I got used to drawing with the nipple, and I’m pretty damn good at it. I do all my “inking” in Illustrator; I’m a sucker for the vector art, and the point manipulation is easy to use and modify. Doing everything in layers allows me to pencil something loosely then throw it in and “ink” over it. Sometimes it does take a bit longer to do anything too detailed, but the result is something I’m very happy with.

Instantaneous

2008-02-02T20:30:00.000-07:00

Man, it's been a...(insert adjective here)...couple of weeks. Been busy at work still; the christmas spirit still alive and well (buy, buy, buy). I haven't had a whole lot of time to do much else, but I was able to paint this batgirl for my brother.

I was able to get a couple more pages of the comic done too. That's the important thing. Um...I'll leave you today with a little of the Konamis band, and the lyrics to

'Instantaneous':

It's Instantaneous how I fell for you
you're made of spare parts and I was made for you
and you were made for me

I didn't find out until it's too late
I fell in love and isn't it so easy to see?

1,2,3,4,5,6,7 we get together always forever tonight
1,2,3,4,5,6,7 we know that'll be better than ever before tonight

It's like lightning how the spark ignites
it's electric running through my brain
my senses overcome me, it's driving me insane

It's Instantaneous how I fell for you
you're made of spare parts and I was made for you
and you were made for me

it's electric running through my brain
my senses overcome me, it's driving me insane

The Young Adventures

2008-01-19T09:38:00.000-07:00

I am excited about the new Indiana Jones movie. I know that people have already made up their mind to hate it, but I'm going to give it a shot. I grew up with Indy (the dog's name) and much of my love for old 'retro' adventure serials is because of Indiana Jones. "Raiders of the lost ark" was the first movie my parents ever took me to, and I still remember covering my eyes when the Nazis had their faces melted off. Really that was one of the most gruesome scenes of my young years.

The only concern I have is that Shiah (la-boof) is in it, and so far I haven't seen him in a movie where he didn't play exactly the same character. His only got one mode of acting, and I just hope that it fits.

Well I really should get back to drawing, unfortunately those pages aren't going to draw themselves (man, that'd be great).

TTFN

it's all starting to make sense, now

2008-01-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

Just finished up some light remodeling around the site. Other than some basic housekeeping (cleaning up my shitty code from when I had even less of a clue of what I'm doing), I've added our OWN google adsense ads (no more godaddy making more money off of me), and added a link to Megan's awesome pop-culture blog.

Who is this mysterious new challenger??

2008-01-14T19:00:00.000-07:00

Amazing Ape!!

2008-01-10T20:07:00.000-07:00

Half Pixel does a weekly podcast, generally revolving around webcomics. They're inseption, production, fruition. This podcast specifically dealt with covers. Filled with useful information about creating a brand, a family. The thing that stuck out above all was this tidbit of information, about the increase of comic sales when there is a monkey on the cover. After hearing about that it just seems like common sense.

In an interview in The Comics Journal #214, Golden and Silver Age artist, Sheldon Moldoff, when asked about DC's science fiction titles, had this to offer:

"It was a question of trying to find something that sold, and if one issue came out and it happened to sell, then immediately they would follow that type of story. Now, it didn't neccessarily follow through that they were going to sell. Now, I know Jack Schiff, when he was the editor of Batman, he followed sales very well. When he found that a gorilla on covers sold, then you could be damn sure that in an issue or two you're going to have another gorilla story."

Holy shit, this is frightening

2008-01-09T14:36:00.000-07:00

The Brothers Maidford Studios is now a legally recognized entity. We just finished up submitting the forms for our tax id and all that good stuff.

Office Guitar

2008-01-05T07:38:00.000-07:00

So every day or so I get the hankering to play some sweet licks. I'd be at work doing customer service or some type of managerial whosiwhatsit and have an idea for a riff, but by the time I got home it was gone. Then wonder of wonders we had a nice sounding aucoustic guitar come in over the counter. It was as if my prayers were answered. So I give you the birth of Office Guitar - or - Assistant to the Assistant Manager. I gonna go play it right now.

Later,

TJ

Year's End: Exodus

2007-12-31T12:29:00.000-07:00

Ah the new year! Merry New Year Auld Lang Syne, you festive 'ol lush! Well I myself will probably be asleep by 10, and when I awake I will be one year in the future! All the way to 2008. I'm hard at work with my personal robot apprentice keeping me in fresh supply of sharpened pencils. Back to the grindstone!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Briefs and Boxers

2007-12-28T14:01:00.000-07:00

I'll be honest, it's hard to write a blog about the comic without giving too much away. I know Jack will agree that we really want the comic to speak for itself when it's all ready to go, and not to divulge too much before then. Making headway on the first few pages though. Just putting finishing touches on pages 1,2, and 3 while drawing up some roughs for 4 and 5. Other than that just on wind down mode from all the holiday excitement.

The elusive White Elephant Man

2007-12-28T13:27:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago Megan and I hosted a "White Elephant" party. All participants bring their gift to "the pile." Gifts are wrapped, but are not labeled. Gifts are inexpensive, humorous items, that should ultimately be pretty useless. All participants draw a number. The participant with #1 unwraps any gift from the pile and then shows it to everyone. Each successive participant, in the order determined from the drawing, can either 1) "steal" an already opened gift (if there's one they really like) or 2) be adventurous and go for a wrapped gift from the pile. If the participant chooses to steal, the person whose gift is stolen now repeats their turn and either 1) steals another person's gift or 2) unwraps a new gift.

Since items can be stolen, the item in your possession is not yours until the game is over (i.e. a food item cannot be eaten until the game is over). However, this is often amended with a rule declaring a gift "dead" or "safe" after it has been stolen a certain number of times (usually two or three). This helps the process go more smoothly (avoiding, for example, the hypothetical scenario of the same gift being stolen by every successive participant) and limits the disadvantage of being among the first to choose gifts.This was our second "White Elephant" party, and last year the gift that stood out above all others, was a lone can of Celery Soda. The gift that was never stolen. What should appear again this year? that same can of Celery Soda. Oh how the Gods have smiled down on our festivus. I really couldn't have asked for a better Christmas.

Now let's see if 08 can live up to it.

Konamicast #1

2007-12-26T22:42:00.001-07:00

TJ got a new camera for Christmas, so we decided to make some videos.

2007-12-21T04:35:00.000-07:00

I just added my twitter box to the page, which means I need to start twitting some more (I'm pretty sure that's the verb form. Perhaps I can persuade TJ to start one as well, we'll see. Now I'm gonna dive back into my coding studies.

Oh, and there'll be another beard pic soon

2007-12-18T05:18:00.000-07:00

Man, css is HARD when you don't have much of a coding background. I understand how it works decently well, but I realized I don't know enough xhtml to fully use it, so now I'm relearning all that.

If anybody wants to code the site for me, I will pay you in awkward conversation. That is a thing I am exceptionally good at.

2007-12-16T13:00:00.000-07:00

This is Raymond. Everybody loves him.

2007-12-11T05:50:00.000-07:00

So, for the past week or so I've been working on a Mac, and so far, I like it. I can't say much as far as Leopard or core duo and all that, as this is a 550mhz G4 powerbook running 10.2 that unfortunately doesn't even belong to me (it's TJ's, I brought it over to move some files off a mac-formated external drive). The number one thing I can say about it is that the text is incredibly crisp. I don't know if it's better anti-aliasing or what, but words just seem to pop off the screen in an extremely good way, and it makes writing somehow more enjoyable. Once I get my main computer fixed, I'm gonna have to start saving up to get one of these of my own.

2007-12-07T08:21:00.001-07:00

It's a couple days late, but here's the progress after the first week of growing:

We're getting there

2007-12-04T20:57:00.000-07:00

2007-12-04T08:02:00.001-07:00

I just found out that my Mom reads this blog. That's... awesome?

2007-12-03T06:46:00.000-07:00

I really need to start carrying a small notepad around so I can write ideas down when I get them. It's not that I forget them later, it's the opposite: they bounce around in my head forever and ever, intermingling with everything other idea until I can't completely focus on what I'm actually working on now. If I'm not careful, I'm going to end up writing 5 different adventures at once, and each and every one of them is going to suffer for it.

2007-12-02T05:04:00.000-07:00

testing of comicpress future posting is now complete: success! This seals the deal on using it for the site, now we just need to get a design together that we can both be happy with. Unlike some of our previous designs for the comic that will not be named, I definitely want something a bit more modular, so we can add and take away buttons without destroying the look.

Indeed we did

2007-11-30T08:06:00.000-07:00

Still working out some finer points with the style that I want to draw this in, I feel excited and confident that this is going to be a fun comic.

Stay tuned for tales of intrigue, suspense, romance, and adventure!

Terror!
Robots!
Rock and Roll!

2007-11-29T06:13:00.001-07:00

TJ and I got together today to discuss and finalize the strip shape and size, as well as some other stylistic decisions. He also got started on the thumbnails, and it's already starting to look pretty damn awesome.

2007-11-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

2007-11-28T07:03:00.000-07:00

I've now installed Wordpress with the Comicpress plugin one of my other domains so I can test it out and figure out how the whole thing will work. It seems pretty solid so far, and I've been able to upload a few images and figure out how to get them to archive and show up on the right dates. I've still got quite a bit to learn before I'll be comfortable making a more public test, but so far it seems promising. I've been really on the fence about what to use for the syndication back-end, but seeing what Kurtz was able to do on PvP using just Comicpress sealed the deal. I may not be able to make it look quite as shiny as his does quite yet, but I figure if it can easily handle an almost 10 year archive and more vists per day than we'll be lucky to get per month, then it'll be more then enough for us.

Throwing down the gauntlet

2007-11-28T03:08:00.000-07:00

Just trimmed all my facial hair to the same length for MaBeGroMo (Macho Beard Growing Month). Here's a pic of stubble mode:

I'll try to take pictures every tuesday / wednesday throughout the month. I'm calling out TJ to do the same (if he thinks he's got what it takes)

2007-11-27T05:31:00.000-07:00

Things that are rad: Figuring out how to fix the broken garbage disposal yourself (+20 Man points)

Things that are the exact opposite of rad: Having your computer freeze while installing CS3, and upon reboot deciding that your system drive no longer exists right after you sent your last WinXP install disk to your mother so you could help her with her computer.

Looks like this little laptop's gonna be my only lifeline for a little while (unless the Saint of maybe-if-you-unplug-it-and-wait-awhile answers my prayers in the positive). Well, at least I can once again grind things into tiny bits which can go down the drain.

2007-11-26T06:41:00.000-07:00

Stumble upon, Wikipedia, Fark, and Slashdot: The Four Horsemen of Insomnia.

Damn my inquisitive ways!

2007-11-25T05:16:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia may just prove to be my undoing. I normally am proud of the vast amount of subjects I have a passing knowledge of, even if they knowledge is somewhat shallow (jack of all trades, master of none and all that), but now it's starting to infect my writing. I never realised how hard it would be to write a science fiction story involving space travel over vast distances when I actually know something about relativity. Sure, I can't call up the equations involved at a moments notice, and I don't have a complete understanding of all that it pertains to, but I've got the basics. Unfortunately, those basics say that not only is FTL travel impossible, but that the ramifications of speeds anywhere near light are pretty bad. For one (simplified) example, there's the twin paradox. The twin paradox is used to illustrate the principle that time slows when near large masses or traveling at exceptionally fast (relative) speeds. In other words, imagine that there are 2 identical twins; one of the twins is an astronaut and the other is an office worker. When the astronaut returns from a long trip having traveled at speeds near light, he will have aged less than the office worker. (For more information on this and some actual calculations, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_paradox )

Anyways, because of me knowing all this, I just spent over 2 hours trying to figure out ways around this. Even after coming up with possible plot devices that would excuse the time difference, there was still the small matter of the nearest system being

4.45

light years away. That means that even if we could somehow travel at 99.99% speed of light (which is impossible, and even if it weren't would require such a large amount of energy that it would still be unfeasible) , it would still take 8.89 YEARS to make the trip there and back, and that's assuming max speed could be achieved instantly (also impossible). 2 hours I spent trying to figure out how I could make it work when I finally realised that this was science FICTION, not science FACT I'm writing. Even the hardest sci-fi throws this shit under the carpet, and I've already played pretty damn loose with just about every natural law.

In other words: Fuck it; we're going into hyperspace.

How was your thanksgiving?

2007-11-24T06:16:00.000-07:00

I just checked out the PvP site redesign, and man, am I inspired. The site is run on wordpress, using comicpress, and it looks gorgeous. I especially like the fact that Scott did it that way to show all us hopefuls that we can have a site design that's just as functional and flashy as the big-boys without having to spend an arm and a leg. Class act all the way.

I've been listening to the Webcomics Weekly podcast lately, and even though I've only gotten through the first 4 so far, I've already learned quite a bit. I'm actually kinda glad it's taken so long to get to the point I'm at right now, otherwise I wouldn't have had the opportunity to learn from them and avoid some newbie mistakes.

Wow, it really seems like I'm trying to brown-nose or something, but considering how few readers this blog has (unsurprising for a placeholder) and the near impossibility for any of them to stumble across this page, I'm pretty sure that's not the case.

Anyways, I just believe in giving credit where credit is due, and I can't wait to put what I've learned to use.

2007-11-23T06:33:00.000-07:00

The biggest problem with writing a mini-comic? Keeping it mini.

by the way

2007-11-22T03:26:00.001-07:00

Could somebody have a chat with Daft Punk and ask them to stop being so fucking awesome? They need to leave some for the rest of us

crisis time!

2007-11-21T06:06:00.000-07:00

Not much of an update, just random happenings. I was just writing up a script for a minicomic TJ and I were talking about making for a con in January when I made a typo. No big deal, right? I hit backspace.

And nothing happened. Again and again I pounded on the key, but to no avail; it was like I was in the middle of and RPG and my memory card fried. I have to live with all of my mistakes, just like in real life! This is horrible! Not only that, but G stopped working! Probably other keys, too, but that was enough right there to cause alarm. With hope in my heart, I reboot the laptop.

Around 10 minutes later, XP was booted up (this computer is way too slow), and my hopes were dashed. With a heavy heart, I pursued the last option available before getting a new keyboard: the venerable google search bar in firefox (thank God for that. Imagine trying to get to google without a G key!). Anyways, the first result was from Yahoo answers, and described my problem almost exactly. The only answer was to shake the keyboard to get out crumbs in the keyboard; I couldn't this see applying to me, as I've never eaten while working on this laptop. However, I did see that he was using an HP, just like me, so I held my keyboard up so I could check my model number to see if they matched. They didn't, but all of a sudden, my backspace was working! My G was, too! It's like it just started working like magic! You know, right after I started moving the lap..top..... Shit. I'm a slob and didn't even realize it. Go me.

guess I should start using this

2007-11-10T23:56:00.000-07:00

Work on the comic is coming along at a pretty good rate recently. The re-wright of the first storyline is pretty close to complete, and I've got some more afterwards outlined. Will you see the first pages of the comic before the end of the year? I wouldn't quite hold my breath. Due to our desire to present you with a high quality comic at a constant pace of 3 per week, and knowing full well the limitations we both face where time is consumed, we still want to have a buffer of at least several months worth of comics before we post.

This will also allow us to focus more on the story and the quality than just having something to post. As I've said before, it'll be done when it's done. Until then, here's a painting TJ made for me for my birthday:

So, what's all this, then?

2007-10-19T05:57:00.000-07:00

Remember back in the 90's when you'd go to a site that wasn't quite finished yet and they'd put all those little pictures of construction signs and caution tape all around to let you know that they were working on it? This is kinda like that, except I'm not showing you my half-finished shit at the same time; as if some tiny animated .gif of a construction worker waving you along was going to excuse the sorry-ass content on the page. Instead, we've got what I am far too horribly aware is the 'web 2.0' version: a blog. In case you were wondering, there are very few terms I hate more than 'web 2.0'. In fact, if you were to scour just about every dictionary on the planet, you probably wouldn't find one that I hate more. And yes, I'm including klingon dictionaries as well. It's more than likely that that's why I always feel the need to put quotes around it: to keep it segregated from the other words. So it can't HURT THEM.