Dragons With Pom Poms

If you still read this somehow

2011-11-24T02:53:00.001-05:00

http://waterloggedcomic.com/

The new comic is up. Visit that site from now on, and enjoy!

I HAVE A NEW WEBSITE

2011-03-23T02:01:00.003-04:00

Hey, if you're visiting this site, first of all I'd like to apologize for all the shitty comics I made here. I swear I've gotten funnier/better/cooler since I did this site.

Second of all I have started a new project.

Here you are. Click this to be taken to my newest project.

First of all, you'll notice that it's just a teaser site. Yeah, I know, but Brandon (who used to do Lunchbox Surprise and who I've done multiple projects with) and I have been working on this project since December of last year. We've been putting heart and soul into making this as good as we can, and we're pretty excited.

I won't reveal too much about the comic, but we will be updating the site occasionally as we get closer to getting the project started. According to Google Analytics I'm actually getting one visitor to this site a day so I figure I'll post updates here whenever we do make a change to the teaser site, and you can bet I'm going to go apeshit when the thing is actually finished.

So, guys, for now, let your mind wander about what Waterlogged will be about as Brandon and I put in a bunch of hard work getting it ready. Also, check out my Twitter because I write jokes on it.

If you want to know how good the writing will be, take a look at these comics below. Then, realize that Waterlogged is going to have an ongoing, coherent story, which makes it a lot easier to be funnier since I don't need to come up with some random situation all the time. Then realize that I think the writing in most if not all these comics are absolutely shit and that I've gotten a lot, lot better. Suffice to say these comics are not indicative of how good Waterlogged will be at all.

BYE GUYS

042 - Knowing Is Half The Battle

2010-01-31T23:20:00.004-05:00

Since I've never seen any character stop, drop, and roll in a movie when they're on fire I don't really know if that ever works.

MINI COMIC JAOIJFPAOIFJ

I actually have an explanation but I don't feel it's the right time to say it. Maybe in a couple months when things get a bit more concrete.

041 - Hemophilia

2010-01-06T13:50:00.021-05:00

I'm pretty sure blood does not work that way.

Last time I did a vampire comic, some people liked it. However, a more vocal majority hated the comic, complaining that it was just about a comic with a vampire that suddenly explodes whoa wacky random! Now, this certainly was never my intention, but I will admit now that I have some flaws in the way I did that comic that made it give off that sort of vibe.

OH WELL I DID ANOTHER COMIC WITH A VAMPIRE EXPLODING

"I don't give a fuck"

- Tupac.

By the way, I do hope the fake dark-and-scary background is more pleasing to the eye this time. I think it's at least an improvement. The last one just hurts my eyes. Sorry to subject you to that.

THIS MINI COMIC IS LONGER THAN THE ACTUAL COMIC

You know, every time I reread one of my comics after I've finished them, I absolutely hate the pacing. I really, really need to work on that (along with every other aspect of my comics. It's an endless struggle).

My good friend Kyle turned a number I won't specify this week. So, because it was cheaper than buying him something, I drew him a comic. Then I decided to use it as my mini comic because I did put quite a bit of effort into it and it would mean I wouldn't have to do a mini comic.

Since I managed to do two comics in one week, one might ponder "If he can do two comics in one week, why doesn't he update the site two days a week?"

I have a simple answer for that:

I can't write two comics a week. Hell, half the time the one comic a week I write isn't good. Here at Dragons With Pom Poms (it's just me), we value quantity over quality. Were I to update twice a week, I would have quantity, but my qualm is that the quantity would not be of good quality, and if I were to quantify the quality of the quantity there would be more comics of questionable quality. Quality is a requisite. I don't want a quasi-quantity by quelling quality. This comic requires a quantity with quality.

I hope that answers your question.

- I'm sorry about that piss-poor attempt to be witty. Have a good week.

040 - The Way of the Future

2010-01-04T00:47:00.003-05:00

Hey, so I'm back! What's this, like, the fifth time?

Anyway, so there's a comic for ya. I made today. I did it all today. FOR YOU

Anyways, with this new tablet that I'm not expecting to break any time soon (knock on wood) and my New Year's Resolution (among many) to not procrastinate as much, maybe I can keep this comic consistent now! Here's hoping.

Here's a mini for ya

- Have a super-de-dooper week.

Hey, so I got a tablet!

2009-12-29T16:15:00.001-05:00

Which means that come January I'll start updating again! Hoo-ray!

2009-12-18T03:58:00.009-05:00

Comic on Hiatus Until I Get A New Tablet

2009-11-03T19:47:00.003-05:00

So I'm going to have to put the comic on hiatus until I get a new tablet, as my current one refuses to work at all.
I'm sorry about this, I've spent the last hour trying to get the damn thing to work to no avail. I'll keep trying until I get a new tablet, but until I actually get that new tablet, don't expect any comics. I'm sorry.
To know when the comic comes back if you're that interested in it (I know there aren't too many people who are), check back in January, I hope to have a new tablet by then. If I do get some comics up before then, check my Twitter. If you think Twitter is a retarded wasted of time, subscribe to the RSS feed (does this comic have one?). Actually, that's probably the easiest way to know.

Again, sorry about this. Shitty fucking tablet.

By late Monday I may have meant late Tuesday

2009-11-01T22:29:00.002-05:00

The school requires me to get this stupid alcohol thingy by tomorrow and I have, forever, been unable to get the damn thing to work. If I don't complete this by tomorrow, I pay the school $250 bucks and I simply don't have that money, so, since I imagine making this thing work will be a royal pain in my ass, I will probably have the comic up sometime Tuesday.

I'm sorry.

039 - This Is A Test For The Emergency Broadcast System

2009-10-20T22:22:00.002-04:00

Hey, I got this one up before Wednesday! I'm getting back into my routine!

Anyway, this idea was way way way more terrible before, but after I had a chat with a good friend and he helped me make this idea better than it was before. Now, I'm not sure if this idea is funny, but it's way more bearable than the original idea.

THERE IS A MINI

ALSO THIS MINI IS VERY MUCH LIKE THE PREVIOUS MINI

- Have a good week.

Comic up Tuesday

2009-10-19T00:13:00.003-04:00

Okay, shit, I slept through my alarm. After 6 PM it is!

038 - Shake Your Booty

2009-10-13T02:10:00.004-04:00

That one took way too long for a cheap shock joke. I'm sorry. I am, however, happy with how the last panel turned out.

Also, if you can't tell, I'm shit at drawing girls. Yeah, still working on the female anatomy, face, all that stuff. Gah. Well, I'll include more women in the comic, that'll help with the practice.

MINI COMIC

This one looks a bit too much like Kate Beaton. Sorry.

Seriously, stop those goddamn masturbation jokes. I can't enjoy a goddamned Sunny D anymore because I'll shake it and a friend's like "Hurr hurr" and I'll say SHUT THE FUCK UP I JUST WANT TO ENJOY THIS GOLDEN LIQUID NOW I'M MAKING A PEE JOKE GREAT.

- See you next Monday. I'll be waiting. Maybe you will be. If I keep these updates late, then it'll be you doing the waiting. We'll see.

Oh, by the way, a post I did on Destructoid was featured! Yeah!

Update will be today at some point

2009-10-12T02:52:00.003-04:00

Check back Tuesday, the update should be up by then.
Sorry it's gonna be late again, classes, man. Let me tell ya, they're a bitch.
They also provide a good excuse for my lack of initiative.

037 - Necessary Paperwork

2009-10-07T02:48:00.004-04:00

Holy shit! Remember when I used to do this comic?

Of course you don't, someone would have to actually read this comic to remember it.

Anyway, I'm going to start updating this thing every Monday I possibly can again. Sorry this one was so late, but stuff happened. Then some more stuff happened. Then, and wouldn't you believe it, even more stuff happened. Craziness, I tell ya.

Anyway, here you are. A comic.

I must say that I have stopped caring trying to make these comics funny. I mean, I'll still try to make them funny, but if they're not I can deal with that, I really want to use this to practice my art. Make my shapes look less flat and all that. I'll still use this to practice writing funny comics as well, but I won't be heartbroken if I can't come up with anything. I'll call it the "KC Green Method".

Is there a mini comic?

Unfortunately, not this week. Minis will continue again next week. Until then, here's a bunch of art I did in this comic's absence!

Oh my God I'm standing against a wall!

Oh my God Strawberry Clock is flying!

Oh my God I'm playing video games!

Oh my God I'm coming up with an idea for a video game!

Oh my God I practiced heads!

Oh my God sideburns!

Oh my God unicorn!

Oh my God the beach!

Oh my God I AM a video game (this one is about four pictures late...)

That was a lot of pictures.

- See you next Monday!

My tablet's giving me shit

2009-08-03T14:05:00.006-04:00

My tablet is being a douchebag right now and is refusing to cooperate. I'll get this comic up though, I swear. Give me a bit.

036 - I'm So Witty

2009-07-27T01:12:00.003-04:00

Gargh, I had a busy week, so I didn't work on the comic. I hiked the Appalachian Trail for three days of it and the other days I was doing things, so I did nothing.

I'll get back into the swing of things. I swear.

MINI

Yeah, fuck that comic!

- Have a super neato week.

035 - Sorry

2009-07-20T22:10:00.003-04:00

MINI

Whoo! Yeah! Two in a row!

So I've had a bit of trouble with ideas and whatnot. I've looked back at all the ideas I've written down and, well, I hate them all, so I've got to get a good supply of funny from somewhere. I'll keep looking.

I do have an idea, so I'll get that done for next week. We'll see where things go from there.

Almost didn't do one, but then I decided to at least half-ass one.

- Have a good week.

034 - I Got Distracted

2009-07-13T00:55:00.003-04:00

Whoops, went to a movie and never did a comic for this week! Here's a filler!

Mini Comics

The following mini comics are what happen when you vow to do this week's comic on a Monday night and find yourself incapable of coming up with any comic ideas.

GRAB DEM TITTIES WIT BOTH HANDS

HOW TO FUCKING ROCK THAT SHIT THAT's RIGHT!

AW SHIT YEAH

REMINDS ME OF THAT TIME I PUNCHED A GUY SO HARD IN THE FACE IT HURT HIM A LITTLE!

COBRA COMMANDER IN HOT PANTS

I JUST BITMAPPED SO HARD ALL OVER YOUR FACE

SHOOT LIGHTNING BOLTS FROM YOUR SPLEEN

IF THE SUN TOOK THE DAY OFF WE'D PROBABLY ALL DIE

033 - Diminishing Returns

2009-07-06T01:38:00.007-04:00

Hey how's it going I'm back. I hope you enjoyed your three weeks without any comics because they've come to an end.
Nothing fancy with this comic. Just something to get back into the groove. I don't like the drawing in the last panel.

not so MINI COMIC

In Italy, while I was relaxing at the hotel when not doing tourist-y stuff like sightseeing or getting food from restaurants, I'd see what was on Italian television. Let me tell you, Italian television programming is crazy. They've got some strange game shows, there's tits in commercials for bottled water, the late night programming is softcore porn, and their MTV actually plays music. It's crazy shit.

One thing I remember in particular was that I watched quite a few episodes of several shows, one of them being Power Rangers: Ninja Storm. All the episodes were in Italian, and I didn't have as good a grip on the language as I would have liked to have. So, I watched quite a few episodes of Power Rangers: Ninja Storm in a language I didn't understand yet. I've also forgotten a lot about the episodes since then. So, this synopsis of an episode is somewhat akin to Frankenstein's monster. It's ugly, it's big, and it's put together using several different episodes (probably).

Also, here's a colored version of a particular drawing in that comic I really like.

Enjoy!

- Ciao!

Come back in two weeks

2009-06-09T14:59:00.000-04:00

No updates for two weeks because I am in Italy.

032 - Mood Shift

2009-06-07T22:44:00.006-04:00

This ability could totally come in handy somewhere.

I get the feeling this joke's been done before. I mean, it wouldn't be surprising if it was, I'm fairly sure that every joke ever has already been used.

Anyway, this one's another play on words. I really should stop with these. However, I have not had a lot of time to do this comic, what with graduation and all things related to graduation going on. So, I found this idea in my idea bin and decided it'd be easy and fast enough to do. I was right. I have plenty of time to spare.

Something possibly affecting updates
I would like to mention that I will be traveling around Europe for two weeks soon with no Internet connection or computer or anything like that. So, there's a very good possibility I will not update in my absence. A very very good possibility. I'll see what I can do, but, either way, just expect at least two weeks without updates.

OH MY GOD HERE'S A MINI

Seriously, what the fuck.

031 - Van Hemochromatosis

2009-05-31T23:37:00.004-04:00

Boy, what a terrible looking explosion.

Anyway, here's the comic. This one is special because, unlike the last I-don't-know-how-many comics, I actually finished this one before update time! Now, granted, I finished it only 25 minutes before then, but it gave me enough time to write this out and do a not-so-rushed mini comic. I also had fun doing this comic, so there's that, too.

It's unfortunate I couldn't find any medical conditions involving blood that sound more like "Helsing" than "Hemochromatosis", since that doesn't sound a thing like "Helsing" But, it had more S's than "Hemophilia", so I put it in. Maybe one day I'll think of a better pun involving blood and Bram Stoker's Dracula for the title, and I'll shake my fist at the air and curse.

This comic is somewhat special, as it is the last comic I will ever completely draw as a high school student. I will be graduating this Friday. Holy shit stuff!

Mini Comic

Just droppin' some knowledge on ya.

- Have a bloody good week, eh?

I hate myself for that pun. Ow.

030 - This Comic Is Political Or Something

2009-05-25T00:32:00.001-04:00

Here you are. I've been busy all week. I also didn't even draw this at my house, but I made this comic JUST FOR YOU.

See you next week. I'll try to kick my not doing this comic habit.

MINI

Here you go.

- Goodbye. Have a relaxing week.

029 - Only Mildly Based Off Of A True Story

2009-05-18T00:24:00.001-04:00

This comic is so fucking meta it hurts!

Anyway, yeah, there ya go. This is based off a true story. Twice, actually.

So, there ya go. Sorry it's late. Again.

I remember when I used to have my comics finished by Sunday nights, let alone started by then. Oh well, maybe I'll start working on them earlier someday. As long as I don't need to stay up until 4 in the morning like last time.

MINI COMIC

I give you two this week to make up for the lack of one last week.

Yes.

There ya go.

I saw Star Trek last week. It was awesome. I'd go as far as to say it was one of, if not the best movie this year so far.

- Have a good week.

028 - Going Down Down Down Down Down

2009-05-11T03:28:00.003-04:00

Jesus Chris I thought I'd never finish this. I'll fix up any mistakes I may have made tomorrow.

I'm really really really really sorry it's so late.

I didn't include myself in this comic because I don't want Dragons With Pom Poms to turn into a complete author wank.

I got the inspiration for this when, while visiting the New York Museum of Art, I found out they have people standing on the elevators like this. I call them elevator jockeys, but not to their face. I don't know what they're actually called.

I actually attempted this joke on the elevator jockeys. The first year I visited the museum, the lady that was tending to the elevator actually responded with the answer to the joke (as illustrated in the article). She seemed less annoyed doing it, and everyone in the elevator had a laugh. It was the high point of my day.

The next year no one caught on to the joke, but I did get into some interesting conversations with people about working at the museum.

Also, think of this comic as a way of saying "Yeah, I hate the puns I made the last few comics, too." Really, I hate puns, yet I somehow like them at the same time. It's strange.

MINI COMIC!

I'll do a mini comic when I get home from school tomorrow. I'm way too tired to do one at the moment.

-Have a week.

Ah fuck, Blogspot doesn't want images this big! I'll upload it to the alternate host in a moment.

027 - My Other Power Is Sexual Healing

2009-05-03T23:31:00.000-04:00

Oh me.

I'm sorry this comic is another wordplay, but I did this last minute as a replacement for what was originally going to be this week's comic.

Why did I switch comics so late in the schedule? Well, to put it frankly, the first comic just wasn't funny. At all. It was two guys talking and laughing about how they accidentally killed their friend. It's much more tastefully done than what it sounds like, but it wasn't funny. At no point in the comic would someone say "Oh, haha, that's humorous in some way."

So I switched it for this comic which I came up with about five hours ago and drew an hour ago. It's much better. Maybe someone might actually find it funny? I'm not holding my breath, but I hope so.

So I'm very sorry to have a second consecutive week where the joke is some wordplay. Very very very sorry. Hopefully things will be different next week. Maybe I'll actually, you know, work on the comic before Sunday.

I start work again next week. Rafting season is beginning again, which means I can start earning money. With each paycheck I get I'm going to be putting a little bit toward a website and a little bit toward getting a fancy Cintiq monitor. It'll only be a forever and half before I get enough scratch saved up for one, but I'm patient. The rest goes to college and other general things like video games and not starving to death.

The prospect of having a Cintiq monitor excites me in ways it really shouldn't. Honestly, it's one of my dreams to have a Cintiq. Whenever I see one my mouth waters and I see a little montage of all the things Cindy (the name of the monitor in my dreams) and I would do together. The drawing. The doodling. The scribbling. The erasing. The laughing. The crying. The long walks in the park. Staring into each other for hours on end. The passionate lovemaking...

Right, anyway.

MINI COMIC TIME

I've got no comment on this one. I thought up and did this about 7 minutes ago. I really procrastinated this week. I'm sorry.

I wonder if I apologize this much in my other posts... I should, you know, do updates I don't feel the need to apologize for.

-Have a frakkin awesome week.

PS. For the large amount who don't get the joke (sorry sorry sorry), in the last panel the skeleton is singing Dog Eat Dog by Adam Ant.

026 - Hot Stuff Coming Your Way

2009-04-26T23:53:00.001-04:00

Boy am I mature!

This is what happens when you're out of state for the majority of the week and have to do the comic last minute.
It's also what happens when you use a funny joke from a conversation you had for a joke. I hate when people do that. I've done it about four times. I hate myself.

Fun fact: The title of this comic has several jokes. Two incredibly inappropriate ones, one that is a reference to a particularly hilarious review from the show X-Play on All-Day Cops Marathon Channel! (G4) that is also an inside joke between my brother and I.

You may remember last week's tasteless Nirvana joke I did.
Penny Arcade did a Kurt Cobain joke the following Wednesday. There's no way they copied me since nobody reads this comic, but I find it funny that this coincidence happened. This time, though, I beat them to the punch instead of them beating me to the punch like Demetri Martin did (damn you Demetri Martin! When is season two of your show coming?!).
Again, though, they did the joke better than I did. Oh well.

MINI COMIC!

Oh look! Another wordplay! A whole week's update of wordplay! Aren't I just fucking hilarious?

Anyway, yeah, as you can see, I was pressed for time this week. As of writing this sentence here, I am two minutes late for my update. Curses!

-See you all next week.

Here's a little joke I forgot to include in this blog post about the Large Hardon Collider. In the extremely unlikely event the experiment should go wrong, the Earth may be sucked into a pink hole. Ahaw haw haw.

025 - Dude Looks Like A Dude

2009-04-13T22:28:00.000-04:00

...bringing my number of comics with a song reference to two.

Sorry it's a bit late.

I didn't have fun drawing the comics this week Well, maybe a bit more at the end, but I didn't have a blast, per se. I seem to be on-off with how much I enjoy drawing the week's comic. Last week I had a lot of fun drawing the comic, the week before that I definitely didn't (remember, I procrastinated to the last couple of hours), the week before that I had fun... so on and so forth.

Last week, I kinda sorta fucked up and forgot to post the latest version of the comic, meant to make the last panel more disturbing and whatnot. Rather than pulling a George Lucas (though, technically, I made this one before I even posted the comic, I just forgot to update it), I'll just post it here. Whether it's better or worse is up to you.

There ya go.

This week I decided I really need an improvement to this style that I use to draw. Too stiff. It's better than how I used to draw before this, but it's still got some huge flaws. I'm confining my head shapes and shit to circles with slightly different bottoms. Oh joy, that's so amazing. It's too "Boy these things have to be too much like a person's head while still not quite getting there." I need to make it better, more fun to look at and all that. Hmm....

Don't expect any immediate changes or anything.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMINI COMIC!

This comic is kinda what helped me decide that I need to fix up the style, make it better and whatnot. I didn't enjoy drawing this, the other guy doesn't look good at all, especially the last panel.

- I just realized everyone in my comic is white and male. I should change that.
Have a good week.

024 - It's A Gas! Gas! Gas!

2009-04-08T20:50:00.000-04:00

Tonight's comic is, hopefully, funnier and more visually stimulating than the last comic.

So, hey, I believe this brings my number of consecutive weeks I've updated on time to about eight! And to think I expected to only last three. So far I've been having a lot of fun doing this comic. Some weeks were more fun than others, but whatevs. I'm glad I've lasted this long.
Still, though, eight? Way more than I thought. That's gotta be more weeks updated on time than VG Cats has ever done. Well, here's to eight more weeks. Then eight more... and another eight...

Apparently I've done two comics within a short amount of time of each other both involving dental care. I never noticed, but I guess you could argue the case.
If you really care, you could sorta argue that this one has to do with it as well. You know, if you're desperate to find the correlation.
Since no one is as desperate as I am, I've done it for you.

1.) #019 - Deep Thoughts 2 - Holy tits on a pine cone! I'm brushing my teeth!
This is actually just because the comic would be more interesting if I was doing something. It's boring to just have your character standing around doing nothing. He has to be doing something, even some innocuous activity like brushing your teeth or painting your girlfriend's nails so as not to make it a complete talking heads scene.

2.) #023 - His Teeth Ain't White For No Reason - Well, yeah.

3.) - This week's comic - Apparently some dentists use laughing gas on their patients. I've never found one that does, which means I should switch dentists immediately.
Really, though, I was thinking along the lines of hospitals and their use of nitrous to sedate patients. Still doesn't stop the fact that apparently some dentists used laughing gas. It's funny, my friend decided to show me that video the day I started working on the comic. Who knows, Demetri Martin might decide to use my idea next week again. Maybe not.
Hopefully not.

So, there, we've got that dental hygiene stuff out of the way. I imagine that, despite my blatant lampshade hanging, it'll still be brought up. I imagine that since I just brought that up people will bring it up, and having just brought that up...
The existence of tongue-in-cheek humor has clearly had some negative effects on the world.
Whatever, let's move onto the real subjects.

The last couple of comics have received some criticism, which I can totally understand. They didn't have an amazing ending and some thought the actual jokes weren't that good or were missing altogether. I admit, for the chess piece one, I never did figure out exactly where to deliver "the funny". Sorry. Both comics ended after the joke as well, mostly because I'm a fan of anti-climax and I like it when a comic goes an extra panel after the punchline. When a comic ends directly on the punchline I can't help but see a giant "LAUGH NOW" sign flashing in front of me. I hate that.

Also, someone mentioned that my drawings are a tad boring. I can understand that as well. The last few comics I've done have been strictly people acting like people rather than cartoons. I like to do that every once in a while. There are times when drawings need to be exaggerated and goofy, and other times where that would just be unnecessary.

Anyway, this comic should hopefully avoid those two problems. Exaggeration and weird shit abound in this one, and it ends with a bang rather than a fizzle. That still doesn't mean it's funny, I'll let the feedback be the judge of that. I did enjoy making this comic, though. I set up a UStream thing and got some friends on and drew the comic while playing some Patton Oswalt (a hilarious stand-up comedian) and some music. It was fun times, though I did stay up until 4 AM on a day I had school. I ended up regretting that for the rest of the week...

MINI COMIC

If you haven't read Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations, you won't get this. You should read it. It's good.
If you haven't seen Mike Judge's Office Space, you should see that. Shame on you for not seeing it, it's a great movie.

Anyway, to explain it to those not in the know, here goes.
YARR, THERE BE SOME MAD SPOILERS FOR BOTH GREAT EXPECATIONS AND OFFICE SPACE IN HERE. So, like, turn back. Now.

In Great Expectations, Miss Havisham is a bitch (she's the old lady in the first panel). Toward the end of the novel, she catches fire and, this might be in the movie only (or in neither, I forget), the whole place burns down. Fwoosh.
In Office Space, the character of Milton is mistreated constantly, and remarks that he can burn the whole building down. At the end, he eventually does burn the building down. It's beautiful.

So, there you go. Great Expectations and Office Space.

SPOILERS ARE DONE.

- Have a great week.

023 - His Teeth Aren't White For No Reason

2009-04-05T15:16:00.000-04:00

True story.

I don't have much to say this week. I really only worked on this comic just a few hours ago, as I've been a combination of busy/lazy/sleepy all week.

So, yeah, sorry.

Mini!

The mini is longer than the main comic.

That's just strange.

- Have a good, productive week!

022 - Pwn Takes King

2009-03-26T22:35:00.000-04:00

It figures the week I decide to bring out this old idea to do for the comic, Demetri Martin does pretty much the same thing (click "Annihilator). I would say "it figures", but it really doesn't figure. That's a motherfucking strange coincidence.

Makes this comment someone made about my comics all the more correct.

Of course, now this strip is going to be compared with the Demetri Martin skit and somehow I have the feeling I'm going to lose that battle...

Oh well, time to move on.

The title "Pwn Takes King" is from a drawing I did in art class last year. I was told it would make a good t-shirt design. Maybe. I'm not a t-shirt company, though. When I decided I didn't feel like doing any of the ideas I had written down on the computer, I started looking through my scattered pieces of notepad paper on my desk and found the entry "Tape miniature gun to Chess piece for ultimate chess piece." Between that and "Etch-a-Sketch pornography" I chose this one. Then, I remembered my little picture I made in art class and I decided it would make a good title for the comic.

Originally, the fourth panel was the last, but I hate the routine nature of punchlines. The last line of panel four seemed like too much of a "LAUGH HERE" sign. I spent several days contemplating how to end the comic effectively, and this is what I came up with. I don't know if it's funny, but I think it at least completes the comic without the reader thinking "That was cheesy." I hope.

Someday I'll get better at writing. Promise.

Anyway, I quite like the way the art turned out in this comic. I got the lineart done in about three hours, which has to be a record for me, and it looks good compared to my previous comics. I even managed to get the angle from behind the head to look a lot less awkward for panel five. As always, though, I'll hate the artwork by next week.

Before you go, here's your weekly mini!

This is related to Cat's Cradle, a book by Kurt Vonnegut. If you haven't read the book all the way through, you will not get this at all. It'll just seem like I redrew the opening of "Friends" with different people.

I admit I kinda cheated for this mini. I didn't draw it specifically for this comic. We had an assignment in Science Fiction class to do a comic based on Cat's Cradle, so I pulled an all-nighter and drew this (I reeeaaally didn't want to use the two websites the teacher provided). I got it done fairly quickly but I overlooked a bunch of stuff, was an hour late for school, and overall didn't enjoy drawing the comic in such a rushed manner. The comic makes me laugh, though.

Alrighty, well, that's all I've got to say this week.
Fuckin' Demetri Martin. But I still love his show.

-Have a good week, you.

021 - How To Run Your Own Successful Fonzie Scheme!

2009-03-22T15:18:00.000-04:00

Not a big fan of the art or colors in this one. I didn't enjoy drawing it, so by the time I finished this I just kinda wanted to get it done.

In case you are unaware for whatever reason, I won't question you, this comic is inspired by mishearing the news during the first report I heard of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi Scheme.

If you don't feel like reading Wikipedia (who can blame you), I'll explain a Ponzi scheme as simply and as best as I can. I hope I've got this right...

1.) Guy gets investors to invest in something and promises them a great profit in return for investing. Most of the investors in the Ponzi scheme are unaware that they're investing in a Ponzi scheme.

2.) Guy doesn't actually make any product or service and instead gets more investors to invest money to pay off the first investor.

3.) Repeat until the scheme inevitably collapses on itself for several possible reasons, such as not finding new investors or someone gets suspicious and contacts the authorities, etc.

Anyway, yeah, if you didn't get it before, hopefully you get the comic now.

So I've finished reading Watchmen. It was amazing. I want to read V for Vendetta now.

That's all I've got to say for now. This post must seem mercifully short after the last two I've written. Hell, you might even bother reading it.

Anyway, oh yeah, the mini.

Mini comic!

Comic is self-explanatory.

Man, if I were the guy that does XKCD, I probably could've made that graph a bajillion times better. Oh well, this is somewhere around the best I could do. XKCD is incredibly witty and whenever I read it I begin to wish I was as witty as XKCD or Dinosaur Comics, and then I start reading things and sit in a huge chair and smoke a bubble pipe and feel stupid for all the juvenile humor I've used in previous comics.

Some day I'll be super smart and think witty things! Art college won't help with that, but maybe they'll have some kind of "We Are Smarter Than You" club where I can learn neat things.

Time will tell.

Wallpapers!
Giving out even more love! No one asked for the first wallpapers, but I've given you another wallpaper anyway. Enjoy, fuckers!

1024 x 768

1280 x 960

1920 x 1200

-Have a good Monday.

020 - Antony and Cleopatra and Robin and Starfire

2009-03-09T21:49:00.000-04:00

It just figures that on Monday, the week working up to making this comic, this comes out. I don't believe a word of it since I like to think I was somewhat accurate with my drawing of Shakespeare after having practiced getting it right.

Here are some fun facts about the comic!
1.) In panel two, I put a pen in each of Shakespeare's hands because I couldn't find out whether Shakespeare was right or left-handed. However, note that in panel four I couldn't avoid this so I made him right-handed since right-handed people get all the ladies and party while left-handed people such as myself are left to lay bricks or improperly use scissors.

2.) Some guy, maybe Shakespeare, once said "The pen is mightier than the sword." Well, now Shakespeare is holding two pens, and he's using them as swords. The body count is suspected to be in the billions.

So, hey, remember last week when I said I'd use the time to try out a new art style? Well, I didn't do what I meant last week, but I still tried to spice up this week's comic. The first panel went fairly well, but the following ones elicit a reaction of "What the fuck happened?"

What happened was I got lazy with the drawings. Sorry.

I've been thinking about how I'd be able to spice up the layout of the panels. I know the first time didn't go over so well, but I'm not going to stick with cookie-cutter layouts like this. With the next comic I've made a little change in my process of making the comics. It might take a little time for me to get used to. On the plus side, if it works well enough, it should not only allow me to be a bit more free form with the panels, but drawing the panels in the first place will be a lot more comfortable. It may also make the whole comic-making process even speedier. I have been producing the last few comics fairly quickly, now.

I'm hoping to find the winning formula that works best for me with making comics. I feel I'm getting closer, though.

Oh, hey, by the way, here's another mini comic. I like making these. I think I'll do one for each comic in case the main one tanks or whatever.

This is referring to how, as mentioned at the very beginning of this post, as soon as I started work on the comic, I found on Digg.com that Shakespeare's real portrait may have been discovered. The idea came from when I was talking with Brandon about it. He said it would make a good comic, so I made it a comic.

WALLPAPERS!

No one asked for them but I have given them to you anyway, here is a wallpaper! Download it and do whatever you do with desktops that you like. If the size is too big, set it to stretch and it'll shrink itself to fit your screen at no loss of quality. Nifty.

1024 x 768

1280 x 960

1920 x 1200

019 - Deep Thoughts 2

2009-03-02T22:46:00.000-05:00

Since I've decided to regularly update this comic, I've changed several things in the way I go about making my comic. The first being that now I actually work hard and consistently on it instead of here-and-there over a couple months. Another is that I've added the title of the comic (since it now has one) up at the top all pretty-like, put my name and the name of that specific comic beneath it, and I've hidden my name once somewhere in each comic (starting at the M & M one).

Why do I bring this up? No reason, really. I dunno, maybe trying to find my name in every comic will be fun. It's not hard.

There were several problems with my comic about The Thing last week. One of the big ones was that, simply, the comic was too fucking wide. It was 1600 px, which barely fits onto my widescreen monitor. That's a tad redonkulous. So, this comic and from now on, I've got a set width for the comic. I'm not the biggest fan of the set width since I like to keep my pages nice and big, but, let's face it, nobody likes scrolling to the side. No one. So, while I like my comic to be wide, I've made viewing it less annoying for everyone.

Another problem was the joke in itself. I knew full well that not every has seen The Thing. It's an amazing movie and you should watch it right now.
However, what I failed to take into account was people who've never even heard of the movie The Thing. I dunno, I guess it slipped by me or maybe I thought it was as familiar as King Kong. So, those who have never heard of the movie The Thing were totally left in the dark with the comic and thought that the guy had mutated from the T-Virus (from Resident Evil) or that the joke was just completely off-the-wall random pertaining to nothing. I'm not going to say I'm above a random joke that makes no sense, I can't help it if I do, but I do hate those kinds of jokes. I swear last comic was not one of those.

I hope.

Anyway, the third and biggest problem for last week's comic (for me) was consistency. I can not stay consistent when drawing. Whenever I do this comic, all the panels look different, have a different composition, line width, everything's different. It's something I've tried to correct for a long time. I'd draw the same picture over and over for hours on end trying to get two of them to look alike, but they never do. Am I missing something here? How can I not get them to look at all similar? I mean, I like variation, but within acceptable limits.

I managed somewhat better than the last comic. The lines are now basically the same thickness now, and the style is more consistent and things are less jumpy. However, I still notice annoying quirks and differences between the separate panels that bother me.

I'd hate to see myself draw anime. I mean, it all looks the same.
Plus it's anime.
Hey watch me troll.

READER FEEDBACK TIME

Last week, someone commented directly onto the blog (that was awesome, thank you). Their complaint was that they felt the speech bubbles didn't fit the style of the comic at all and that the two don't mesh. They clash. They rock the Casbah in a bad way.

Now, I can perfectly understand their reasoning. The artwork has thick outlines and single colors and no shading save for when it helps improve the mood of the comic (I've done that, like, once, so far). On the other hand, the speech bubbles consist of a 1 pixel line at 50% opacity with a white to very light gray gradient. They're practically opposites.

However, I've grown quite fond of my little bubbley bubbles. I think they look nice and clean, don't get in the way of the artwork too much and contain the dialogue quite nicely while remaining incognito, letting the viewer focus on the important things: the artwork and dialogue.
Though, the speech bubbles may very well not be doing that since someone took notice to how they don't like them. Oopsy.

But I dunno, I like them. I've done your generic, thick outline blank white background speech bubbles before and, while there's nothing wrong with them, I always like a little variation. Yes, you can always make them a different color for special characters, like red for an evil overlord (who would pop in to help deliver a punchline, not kill people. I'm specifically hoping to avoid subjecting this little comic thingy to Cerebus Syndrome). But, even then, when that evil overlord appears once ever, maybe twice if he's required again, I go back to ho-hum black and white speech bubbles.

Now, I really do hate to disregard constructive criticism. I appreciate it immensely that someone took the time to explain how I could fix something up. Thank you. However, my own personal feelings are getting in the way since I really like the speech bubbles. If I were a Jedi, Yoda would be giving me an incredibly harsh, vague, and confusing talking to right now.

So, are the speech bubbles a no go, or are they really not so bad? Please note I may disregard your opinion anyway. Just this once, I promise. I really do like the speech bubbles.

END READER FEEDBACK TIME

Up until Wednesday I considered putting two comics in the update this week. I wanted to for two reason:
1.) This comic took a really short time to draw. While last week's took up until midnight of Sunday to finish, I finished this one Thursday night. I figured that, since I had plenty of time left over, I'd give those who actually decide to check this site out a little treat. Some fan appreciation without drawing tits.

2.) I am absolutely unsure as to whether this comic is funny or not. I kind of find the comic funny, but at the same time I know I'm inclined to find my own shit funny. Besides, this comic seems obscure and random as hell. In all honesty, it made perfect sense when I had this thought, but I've let it simmer, and I dunno.

Okay, there's a third.
3.) I didn't get it finished in time. I'm a slow worker, okay?

Anyway, I decided against putting up two comics for one reason and one reason alone.
If I get more comics done this week, that's more time on my hands to have this site updated on time. This is a huge experiment to see if i can consistently keep this site updated every Monday, and I certainly want to help things in my (and anyone who reads this) favor by having something new consistently. If I put up two comics in one week, while that would be awesome, that's an extra idea I've used up and that's time I could have spent getting more comics done in advance for future weeks. Maybe even finish a super-duper long one.

Am I saying I'll never surprise those who've stumbled upon this place with two comics one week? No, I'd love to do multiple comics in some updates. Hell, three would be awesome. But, as I am no super comic-making awesome mastermind who is consistently funny and doesn't take an entire White Stripes album per panel, I just can't manage that right now.

Trust me when I say, though, that I used this time to make next comic a little experiment in art. WARNING It's a video game comic, and probably also very unfunny, but it'll be something different and definitely worth the effort (for me, at least).

I still love ya, anonymous reader. Thank you for actually noticing me, if even for about ten seconds.
-Have a good week.

However...
I do have this little ditty I drew in a minute, just for you.
I guess this technically counts as jumping on the "making a Watchment-related comic" bandwagon. Oh well. I have yet to read it, and I really want to see the movie. I'll get ahold of the comic this week, read it, then watch the movie this weekend.

Evidence would dictate I did no research for this mini (purely out of laziness). I am 70% sure Rorschach is not the character who says that in the movie (I merely put his face there because he looks cool and is one of the more distinguishable faces in the trailer, in my opinion).

Also, I took no effort in correctly portraying his mask. I didn't bother going to Google to find an image of his face to draw the ink splatters on his mask. Again, I was really lazy. So I made my own. Oh well.
Then again, his face is a goddamned Rorschach ink blot test. His mask might have different ink blots on it throughout the graphic novel/movie, I dunno, I'll have to see.

-Have a good week.

QUICKEDIT
Holy goddamn this is a long post! I wish I'd proofread it!

018 - You Never Know Who It Is

2009-03-01T17:28:00.000-05:00

Ah tits, I'm a couple minutes late :( Sorry, bros, I tried to get it in as close to midnight as I could. At least it's still Monday.

Thus ends last week's trial to have this comic finished in time by today. I learned quite a bit from it. I immediately forget what it is a learned but I still learned something and that's all that mattered. Besides, I'm sure I have my lessons written down somewhere.

Making this comic was an ordeal. I finished the last two panels on Sunday which barely any time to spare. During the entire weekend I was in a funk and I just couldn't get my drawings to look right. Panel 3 was drawn on Friday and panel 4 on Saturday. Panel 3 is not as egregious as panel 4 is. It's like the lines went on a diet! Each panel might as well have been drawn by someone else! Gah! Consistency is definitely something I need to work on.

One of my main focuses of this comic was getting the three characters in this comic to look different from each other without resorting to the obvious "easy-way-out" tricks. I wanted the characters head shapes to be different without making one's in the shape of a triangle, one's a ball and one's a square. I wanted the features on their face to be different without having one having a gigantic nose while the other has none. I wanted them to behave differently, and everything. Unfortunately, the comic in the end did not serve as a good practice for quite a few of the variations I wanted to work on, but I still got a bit of practice in. Oh well. There'll be many more comics with lots of people in that will be great for practicing with.

So, when I made this comic, I had seen The Thing about an hour before. It was awesome. The Thing is an amazing example of a horror movie that doesn't add in unnecessary fluff or stupid plot points that beat around the bush and add time. It's straightforward. The Thing comes to the arctic base the cast is on and shit gets fucked up. There's no romantic interest that distracts the character and makes him lose his cool, there's no "this character misses his wife and we get many shots of him staring at a family photo longingly". It's great.

It even had all the great things about horror movies that all horror movies should have. As anyone in their crew could be The Thing, so everyone is paranoid and freaking out and no one trusts anyone. The movie can be truly suspenseful at times and you're constantly wondering what will happen next. The gore and special effects in the movie are great too. The animatronics used for the film are top notch and disgusting and everything.

See The Thing right now. You're welcome.
-See you next Monday.

UPDATE OH CHRIST
According to a person who read my comic, my comic is way too wide. Looking at it, yes it is. 1600 width is just 80 pixels below my screen, and I have a new somewhat big-ish screen, so that's definitely too wide. I'll make sure to fix that with the next comic.

Ah, learning experiences.

DOUBDATE, OH NO
Wow, looking at this comic I made so many errors. Gah, I should be ashamed.
Well, I am. Slightly.

017 - Dial "M" For Murder!

2009-02-21T19:54:00.000-05:00

Greetings, my invisible audience. I have decided that, from this day forth, I shall be regularly updating this "webcomic" (blog) every Monday.

Monday, remember that.

Now begins where I attempt to update this comic weekly. Yes, I'm sorry, Monday is once a week, which equals a total of 52 comics per year, which isn't much. I don't have the patience, skill, mental capacity, speed to update the comic more than that, I'm sorry.
I do hate deadlines, but oh well. I'm doing it Monday because I can finish up the comic during the weekend if I have to (I didn't this time).

If I slack behind my schedule, feel free to call me "slacker", "lazy", "jackass", "your real father" or whatever. You would not be wrong. I would be all those things, but at least I wouldn't be a sellout (in order to be a sellout I'd first have to gain an audience of at least one and start pumping out witty hipster t-shirts of a dolphin fighting Thor in the Joust event from American Gladiators. ...hey, wait a second...).

So, yeah, schedules. Let's hope I can keep this up, eh? I seem to be pumping out at least one comic idea per week (sometimes more), so I might be able to make it like a renewable resource. I use one idea, and I get another within a day.

That'd be nice.

Again, we'll have to see how it all pans out. Some ideas are only funny within a certain time span and those will have to go in the trash if I take too long to make it (and it could be unfunny two days later by Sunday, so...). At the same time have a whole bunch of videogame comics, but I don't want this to become a videogame webcomic. At the very least I can think
of some comic ideas to break up the videogame ones.

Well, we'll find out, won't we? It's all kinda like an experiment. A fun experiment that will eventually break me and make me do horrible things to the people I love.

UPDATE OHMYGOD
According to a couple people, the comic layout is hella confusing or whatever. I can understand that, that's one of the things I was wondering when I was drawing this comic. I figured I might as well go with the less uniform layout for the panels to see what works and what doesn't. Layouts are one of the many, many things I would like to improve with my comics, so I'm going to have to work on it some more, read some comics to see what their secret is, all that stuff.

Science!

015 & 016 - If I Were In Movies:

2009-02-19T22:12:00.004-05:00

YAR! Thar be spoilers ahead!

These comics are pretty old.

If I Were King Leonidas in The 300.

After I watched The 300, I considered how I would end the movie.
When SPOILER
everyone dies, they gave their enemies the satisfaction of killing them (although they did get the satisfaction of Xerxes being proven to be mortal.
SPOILER how did you not know that was the ending?
I figured "Nuh uh, that ain't for me!"
This comic shows how I would have ended The 300 were I King Leonidas.

I mean no offense by the inflammatory language below. There's some inflammatory language below, by the way.

SUPER SPOILERS BELOW AND IN THE COMIC

Fight Club is my favorite movie of all time. It's just awesome through and through.
So, after I made my 300 comic, I thought back to how I would change movies were I the characters in them.
In Fight Club, the main character discovers SPOILERS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD
that, through the entire movie, he has imagined Tyler Durden, and he is actually Tyler Durden. Then, not long afterward, the narrator lets Tyler beat him up in a parking garage. It's one of my favorite scenes in the movie.SPOILERS ARE DONE you should really watch this movie
I figured "This is how I would do things as the narrator."
So here ya go.

Those are really old.

By the way, be sure to check Monday to see something super special. That's right, you right there.
Because you don't exist. Kinda like SPOILER YOU CAN JUST STOP READING RIGHT HERETyler Durden.SPOILER DONE really, though, watch Fight Club

I will update again soon...

2009-02-10T21:15:00.000-05:00

You may or may not have noticed that I haven't posted anything since my brief stint of posting when I put all the comics up.
Or you might not have. This blog gets no viewers.
Anyway, I have an explanation. I'm jotting down ideas left and right, and when I have what I feel is a sufficient amount, I'll start updating again. My plan is this:
1.) If I have ideas for comics, I can get them drawn and colored and formatted and what-have-you easily enough, thus updates will be regular.
2.) As I update (maybe two a week, that'd be nice), I'll get more ideas that will replace the ideas I have used, thus I will constantly have ideas to update with.
3.) Well, there ya go.

So, yeah.
God, this would be so much easier if I was a gaming webcomic or some movie webcomic. I could just read the latest general news about video games and then be like "Oh, I'll draw a comic about how utterly confusing and fucked up Noby Noby Boy looks! Here I go doop doop."
But no, I've decided I'll just do a comic on whatever suits my fancy and won't go down that road. I've decided to be better than that.
But man, it'd just be so much easier...

014 - Topcatyo Finishes The Phoenix Wright Series

2009-01-26T23:26:00.000-05:00

Topcatyo Finishes the Phoenix Wright Series

It's strange. I make a comic during the middle of the Phoenix Wright series with an esoteric joke that people who haven't played the series would not understand, and when I've finished the entire series and know everything about the games, I do a comic that's easy to grasp and anyone would be able to understand.
Shouldn't it be backwards? Ah well.

The artwork in this comic took forever and I hate it. This was when I was still using the old dated form of cleaning my lineart up that took forever and didn't look great. So, drawing this comic took me far too long and the result for each panel looks so different from the others it looks like a collaboration of several different artists, or I drew the panels with years between each other.
Well, lessons to learn for next time.
Didn't I have a soda in the first panel?

013 - Topcatyo Plays the Phoenix Wright Series

2009-01-26T23:07:00.000-05:00

Topcatyo Plays the Phoenix Wright Series

Remember with that Lord of War comic where I talked about how I didn't want to exclude my readers?
Well, I did it again.
Last year, a friend of mine lent me his Nintendo DS and the Phoenix Wright series for me to play. So, I played through them, quite rapidly, mind you, I was hooked, and felt better because of it.
In the middle of this series, I got the idea for two comics. This one, and the next one. This one based on a true story and the next on what I imagined would eventually become a true story.

Allow me to explain this one:
The Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney series, in case you don't know, is a series where you're a defense lawyer in the future with a different court system than the one implemented nowadays. You defend clients while also acting as detective for some reason, and eventually you solve cases. The cases get more and more convoluted as they go on and they almost always hit rock bottom for things start to look up. They can be quite stressful. At least for me.
Anyway, when the game isn't in the detective sections, you're in the courtroom section. In this section, you take various testimonies given by the witness and, using any evidence you have or any errors they make in their testimony, you hack away at the slab of marble that is their testimony until you have a nice statue of the truth, which is usually a middle finger because what you learn from the testimonies ends up screwing you over in the long run.

During these courtroom sessions, what you are meant to do is either extremely obvious and easy to figure out, very confusing and precise about what you need to do, or what you should do is extremely obvious but the game won't let you do it because your character hasn't figured out what to do next and you have to get him to the conclusion with baby steps.
Pressing a witness has no affect on your health bar (yes, there's a health bar) in the game except for special occasions. However, using evidence to show a contradiction in the witness's testimony will make you lose health, so you have to be very careful. It's best to save that health up because you're going to need every bit of it.
In Phoenix Wright, whenever I screwed up up and lost health, I'd simply shut off the DS and turn it back on as soon as the music showed that I was incorrect with my logic. This would mean I'd be taken right back to where I saved (right before I made my guess) and took less time than watching Phoenix get chided by the judge. I eventually learned there was a reset button for the game, and things went even faster.

The error in my thinking with this comic was that I never thought to check and see if anyone else did this. Oopsy poopsies.
Either way, here's the comic.

As you may notice, it's much much much better that my previous comics in the art department. This where I decided to start using clean lines for teh drawings and start coloring the comics. Coloring was a cinch, but the lines were a pain because the process I used to go about making the lines was extremely flawed.
I'd start by drawing rough, super thick lines for the drawings. Then, like the witness testimonies in the games, I hack away at the lines with the eraser tool until the lines were nice and clean and how I wanted them. This was bad because it took foreeeeeeeeeeeveeeeeeeeer and any small screw-up was noticeable, so I'd spend an hour erasing and going over the same pixel over and over until I got it right. I did quite a bit of drawings in Photoshop using this until I, recently, found a better and much much much quicker way of doing it.

012 - Thank You

2009-01-26T23:05:00.001-05:00

Thank You

If someone were to give me the choice between being put into an iron maiden or writing Thank You notes, I'd probably choose the iron maiden because then I'd at least eventually bleed out.

011 - Thinking of Sleeping

2009-01-26T23:02:00.000-05:00

Thinking of Sleeping

Have you ever thought consciously about trying to fall asleep while trying to fall asleep? It's impossible.
Try thinking about how often you blink.
Think about how much time you put in between breathing in and breathing out, and how much you breathe in an out.
Have fun.

010 - Black

2009-01-26T22:25:00.000-05:00

Black

Black is sort of an enigma of a game. I hated it, yet I enjoyed it at the same time. Sure, the story was crap, as were the cutscenes and the bad acting in them, the terrible dialogue with swear words put into every gap, giving them an unnatural sound, the repetitious enemies, the very basic environment damage caused by the explosives, the annoying checkpoints, and uninspiring gameplay. Yet, I enjoyed it because it had tons of explosions, shooting people was fun, and it handled surprisingly well for a console First Person Shooter.
One day, when I was bored, I decided to draw a comic dedicated to this enigma.

Now, since I have ludicrous examples of what causes explosions in this comic, allow me to go over the explosions to point out if they actually do happen in the game.

1.) A grenade will cause a large explosion, sometimes followed by other explosions, like the grenade had a suitcase full of other grenades with it.
2.) Shooting red barrels, hell, red anything, will cause a large explosion. As, more often than not, there are other explosives within the damage radius of the explosion, there will be several more explosions afterward.
3.) Strangely enough, killing an enemy with a rocket launch will make them explode. Why? I don't know. I imagine it's because the player has shot the rocket launcher itself enough times that the rocket inside the launcher exploded, but that makes no sense. That, and I don't think that's how rockets work.
4.) An explosive next to a building means that explosion will obliterate the building. Fun stuff.
5.) Unfortunately, there are no cats in Black. If there were, however, they would, no doubt, explode.
6.) Guns do not explode when swapping them for other guns. Not even the rocket launcher.
7.) That drawing doesn't look a thing like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

So, there you have it, the "fact and fiction" of my comic. Goody.
As you may or may not notice, the artwork is improved somewhat in this comic over the course of drawing the ones before. That's because, at this point, I was getting used to drawing in Photoshop. However, I still wasn't great. I've improved quite a bit since then, but I'm still far from perfect. In this comic, I also managed to figure out the dark secret of newspaper dots, and then used the crap out them for this.
Despite my improvements with Photoshop, I was still a rookie (still am), and the comic took over fourteen hours over the course of three days to make. Yeesh.
Still, it was a fun comic and a good learning experience for me.

009 - Economy Crisis Analysis

2009-01-26T21:59:00.001-05:00

Economy Crisis Analysis

Having finished the Oil Crisis Analysis comic, which took longer than I expected (around 10 hours), I began to work on this.
Now, remember that the economy was much better off back then when I made this comic than it is now.
In that list of all possible explanations for the economy (which, may I add, I simply wrote down a list of various reasons, and I had no evidence any of them were right, not did I believe that any of them were the right reasons), I never listed "people not paying off their mortages."
Turns out that was the big one.
Oh well, you got a comic out of it. Enjoy.

008 - Oil Crisis Analysis

2009-01-26T21:51:00.000-05:00

Oil Crisis Analysis

A long, long time ago, I was having a nice chit-chat with my friends as I usually do. The subject made a pitstop on the economy and the sad shape it was in. Suddenly, a thought popped into my head. "The reason the economy sucks so much right now is because everyone is losing their change in their couch cusions. Those coins are lost for a long time, perhaps forever, and they are never used again. If this is applicable to the entire population of America, we're losing a lot of money."
It wasn't a serious thought, but I immediately thought "That'd be a fun comic to read."
Well, I was in comic-making mode after the previous comics I posted, so I felt the need to draw these comics.
As soon as I was about to get to work, however, another thought popped into my head. I never wrote the economy idea down, so I was going on memory, but it was firmly implanted in my head. However, a new thought popped into my head regarding the oil prices then, which was going over $3.00 per gallon. "Seagulls. Damned seagulls."
So I drew this.

007 - Minor Ways to Hurt Yourself 3

2009-01-26T21:46:00.000-05:00

Minor Ways to Hurt Yourself 3

This was the last in the series. I wanted to keep going, to draw one every day. I was having fun with it.
However, I was out of ideas. I couldn't think of any other ways to innocently hurt oneself. I considered leaning back too far in a chair, but there's always the possibility the chair will break or the person could hit their head off of something behind them.
Plus it's just frightening to lean too far back. It's downright terrifying.
So, I put the series on hiatus indefinitely. Maybe one day I'll revive it with some more ways to inflict pain on oneself without any lasting damage.
Until then, I'll just keep living life until I discover some more ways in my adventures.

006 - Minor Ways to Hurt Yourself 2

2009-01-26T21:37:00.001-05:00

Minor Ways to Hurt Yourself 2

"...and the Lord said, 'Let there be a sequel!'"
That's not the exact quote, but it's kinda close.
Kinda.
Anyway, I discovered this fun way to inflict pain on oneself long before I discovered the Playstation controller one, but I never found a reason to tell anyone about it.
The first comic in the series created a perfect opportunity. It created a nice segue for me to draw about hurting oneself with a bag of Skittles.

You may notice a difference in artwork between this series and my other comics. For these comics, I wanted to draw them up fast. As I was not experienced with drawing from scratch with Photoshop, it took me a long time to make the previous comics, despite how simple they looked.
However, I'd been using Macromedia Flash for a long time. Since Flash 5. So, I could doodle something quick in Flash and be done with it.
I wanted to finish each of the comics in this series within an hour (and I did), so Flash was the perfect opportunity. I could draw the image up (and it'd look nice and smooth too since Flash's paintbrush tool automatically smoothed every line you made if you set it that way). After the picture was drawn up, I'd export it as a .png, increase the resolution by about 300 and then import it into Photoshop. When it was put into Photoshop, the increased resolution made the image appear enormous. In Photoshop, I'd shrink the pictures down, put in the panels and words, organize everything, and I'm done.
It was quite nice, but Flash Is not the most rewarding program to draw in. The smooth feature had a way of butchering your lines. They'd be drawn weird or misshapen and it wouldn't look quite like you drew it.
Photoshop was much better for drawing, but it took a lot more practice to get it to look good. I'm still practicing, but I'm getting better.

005 - Minor Ways to Hurt Yourself 1

2009-01-26T21:28:00.000-05:00

Minor Ways to Hurt Yourself 1

Ah, curious youth.
Well, this was a year ago. I remember it like it was yesterday. Sorta.
I was playing Final Fantasy 7, which, according to a bajillion annoying people on the Internet and even more fanartists on Deviantart, Final Fantasy 7 is the best video game ever made.
Period.

Well, it's not. Maybe I was just looking at the game wrong, but I hated it. I hated every second of it. Don't say I didn't play the game enough, I beat the entire thing, which took about sixty plus hours. I had a lot of time to review my decision that the game is no fun.
The characters are also hella boring and one-note. Cloud is all "I don't care about anyone I do what I want look at me be badass." The Aeris dies, and his personality switches to "Let's save the world, gang!"
Ugh.

Anyway, I was so bored playing Final Fantasy 7 (this was in Bone Town or whatever this happened), that I decided to shove the cord of my Playstation 2 controller up my nose.
Yeah, I'm a smart one.
Anyway, it turns out the Playstation 2 cord is really, really thick, so it has the strong urge, if that's what you want to call it, to uncoil itself and go straight again. Well, my nose isn't a strong thing and it was preventing the cord from uncoiling. So, a massive amount of pain ensued.
I then decided to share my pain with everyone else.
Go on, give it a try. It's fun.

004 - Deep Thoughts With Topcatyo 1

2009-01-26T21:21:00.000-05:00

Deep Thoughts With Topcatyo

If by "deep" you mean the depth of a pond.
I got the idea for this comic after I watched a thirty minute-long Youtube video that featured a large collection of intros to cartoons from the 90's. Since I grew up in the 90's, it was a huge nostalgia trip for me. I got to see the intros to some cartoons I had not seen for a long time, but yearned too. I noticed every single cartoon from the 90's had a cheesy song with lyrics. It was like being four all over again.
I even remember some cartoons I didn't remember before seeing the video.
One of these was Mighty Max.

Here was the premise (what I remember of it) for Mighty Max:

Mighty Max is a, oh, let's say ten year old kid. When he puts on this red hat with a large "M" on it, he is suddenly transported to this other, super dangerous world, where this big guy and some talking owl and he go on dangerous adventures and barely escape death.
Does that put the comic in perspective? Do you kinda sorta get it now?
Again, deep as a pond. About as funny as one, too, I'm sure.

003 - Poker With Frank

2009-01-26T21:17:00.000-05:00

Poker With Frank

After I had shown off a few of my comics a while ago, a friend of mine said, "Hey, would you mind drawing me a comic?" Being the nice guy I am, I cussed him out of the room and told him I wished to never see him ever again ever.
After he persistently asked me for the next three days, I caved in and said I would draw his comic.
One of his hobbies was playing online poker. From what I hear, he's very good. Anyway, this was the original idea he gave me for the comic. He had another one with an alternate punchline, but it would be a confusing punchline if you didn't play Poker a lot, and I already excluded quite the audience with my last comic, so I'm posting the easier to understand version.
This is still when I didn't quite have the newspaper dots figured out, and I still didn't care about cleaning up my lineart.

002 - Hero of Guitar

2009-01-26T21:13:00.000-05:00

Hero of Guitar

If you haven't seen or just forget the movie Lord of War, then you really won't get this joke.
That kinda slims down the audience for this joke quite a bit, doesn't it?
Anyway, guess what song I was listening to when I decided to draw this?

Also, I should add that this is an older comic I drew. This was before I managed to get the "newspaper dot"-like effect for filling stuff in down pat and when I didn't care about whether or not the lineart was clean.

001 - MIB

2009-01-26T20:55:00.001-05:00

MIB

People oftentimes like to ask me, "How do you get your ideas for your comics?", to which I respond with "Do I know you? Where am I? How did I get here? What's going on?!"

Dragons With Pom Poms

2009-01-26T06:33:00.001-05:00

This is a blog where I will be posting comics I make.
A webcomic, if you will.
Enjoy.