Pie2k Comics

Not-So-Minor Mistakes

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Just another quickie. I actually wanted to do this to see if I could get at least a chuckle-worthy comic without any text. I don't know if it worked but it was certainly fun trying. It was also an opportunity to try out this screen video capture program we were using for a project at work. I see people put up time-lapse video of their drawing every once in a while and I thought it'd be fun to try it out for myself. I think though that I've got to shorten the capture interval. Right now it's capturing the screen once per second. I'm thinking I need to make it twice or three times per second if you're going to be expected to follow what's happening.

Slightly More Space

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Yet again I feel inclined to apologize for the lack of updates. This time around it was a bit of a setback that threw me off the whole process. My previous update was about how many real stinkers we saw while house hunting. What I didn't mention at that time was that we were in attorney review with a bid on a nice little cape-cod with a huge family room. It wasn't an amazing home, but it had a lot of potential: 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, full finished basement, and a large extension to the family room (to turn it into a beautiful solarium space). My intention was to announce our purchase in the next strip as soon as we were out of attorney review.

House Hunting

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

I know it's been a long time, but at least I got a warning out ahead of time that Brawl would probably consume all my free time. In reality, it's not just Brawl. Beth and I are now starting to see about getting a house together and, well, the search has been a mixed bag. We've seen a few decent houses right at the cusp of affordability, but even some of those are already under contract. We saw a couple of decent ones this weekend but the bad definitely outnumber the good. The most common complaint we have is simple disrepair. I'm amazed at how little effort people are willing to put forward to even clean their houses before showing them off for sale. If you were going to sell clothes at a yard sale for $5 each, you'd wash each article first, right? Well if you're trying to get someone to drop several hundred thousand dollars on your house, maybe it'd be a good idea to run through with the vacuum cleaner.

Bukket

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0400

This is a little quickie born out of a conversation between Beth and myself. Tycho and Gabe mentioned on one of the podcasts recently that they don't understand how solo webcomic artists do it because they get so much out of bouncing ideas off one-another. Having had a chance to do the same I have to agree that it's much easier when you have somebody brainstorming with you. Of course, given how long their "brainstorming" sessions are it's clear that they owe a lot to the fact that they now do PA for a living. I can't even find that kind of time to play games anymore, much less just think of new comic ideas. That's okay though since I draw with such less frequency.

Zombie Diner

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500

A quickie tonight. One of the forums I frequent has been ragging on CAD a lot recently thanks to its recycled artwork and annoying habit of explaining punchlines beyond the point of them being funny. In light of that, and knowing that I've drawn things out too long in the past, I'm trying to make an effort to do some more direct strips. Ideally, I'd like to get to the level of succinctness you see in Perry Bible Fellowship, Brevity, or The Far Side. All you ever need in a joke is a setup and a punchline. Comics like Brevity and The Far Side can be so short because they rely heavily on your pre-existing knowledge to provide the setup and they just need to provide the punchline. Mechanically, it's hard to approach that level (and that's why these guys get syndicated), but it certainly won't hurt me to pick up some ideas from them.