Back from the Dead

So hiatus lasted exactly as long as my extra teaching duties. I consider this new episode a "special," so no number for it. My working title was "Strip Reset" but I didn't make a title card.

I did it quickly, straight to inks, and the resulting art makes me cringe. But I like a couple of things I did with it, and it makes a nice kind of warm-up for me and whoever reads it besides my fan.

Episode 12: Week in Review

Had fun putting all the flashbacks on the diagonal. I had originally envisioned it a little differently, with long strips of diagonals, but it worked better to break it down this way, at least for my pathetic art abilities.

It's my first attempt at a triple punch line. I've tried for doubles often, but this was the first time I got all three main characters to say something (I find) funny. This wasn't deliberate--I just had Chuck sitting there in the last panel and thought he ought to say something.

With my job temporarily overloaded, production has been slowed. I may try to get something done this weekend, but who knows. Either I'm going to produce fewer comics or I'm going to have to be willing to lower my standards for the art.*

*Believe it or not, that is possible.

Episode 11: Riot Acts

I did not have a wildly productive break, at least in terms of drawing comics. But I got one done, so we can start the semester right. And appropriately, it's about how we start semesters.

This is the first time that I've drawn a comic out-of-order. Of course that was made easier by the fact that all but the last panel can really go in any order. But I drew the last panel first to be sure I had the room I wanted for the punch line, and then just played around with the rest of the available space to see where I wanted to put what.

I'm fairly pleased with how the various teachers came out considering I didn't do any planning or sketching. I'd just start and think, "Let's give her a pretty square face" and see what I came up with.

Hope everyone has a non-riotous start to the semester.

New for 12/5 -- Guaranteed*

Yes, I'm far enough along to guarantee* the new episode, "Test Results Anxiety" for Monday, 12/5. Once again in this episode I've done nothing interesting with layout because I was too crowded for space. (Those of you who've been taking notes realize this is ironic because part of the point of this whole thing is to experiment with panel layout by not being pressed for space.)

Another flaw with this episode is that most--perhaps all--of my readers will not really "get" the primary punchline. It helps to know that in the original Star Trek series, Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy had a recurring line that went "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a ______." The blank would be filled in by some derogatory summary/interpretation of whatever Bones was being asked to do. For example, when he was asked to deal with an alien with a silicone-based anatomy: "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!"

So knowing that might make what Francis says in the final panel a little funnier.

I might find time to post a "finals week special" that interrupts continuity. Next semester we'll get the gang started actually taking classes, and someday I may steal a page from The Order of the Stick and do a Q&A session. So if you have questions about the strip, the characters, or whatever, fling them at me.

*or your money back.

Indefinite Delay

I don't know when a new comic will appear.

Last week I lost a whole night to depression, so that meant other things took priority over drawing. This week we have travel eating up most of our time, so even once we're back we may just want to collapse and rest.

Then we're into the mad rush to the end of the semester. So who knows what will happen?

Ideally I'd like to get at least one more posted this semester, so I could start spring semester with the cast starting their semester as well, but at this point I can't predict anything concrete.

Episode 9: Decisions, Decisions

I'm pretty happy with the way this one turned out, especially the top part. I had toyed with a few different ways of showing all the options Chuck was exploring, but I like the overlapping panels the best. I should've aligned the USC one differently from the Louisville one to make it easier to tell them apart. And I have no idea if they actually do a cheer of "U-S-C, Dy-na-sty!" but the way they're going they certainly should.

New kneaded rubber eraser worked great for cleaning up after inking without destroying the paper. And the new pens continue to rule.

And by the way, if any of you are somehow interpreting this to be critical of "Millenium College" or any real-world college for being affordable, all I can say is, you're reading the strip (and the world) a lot differently than I do.

Halloween Special

I decided to interrupt continuity for a week and do a Halloween Special. I kept my standards especially low for this: no pencils, just straight to ink and you gets what you gets, errors and all. It's just a simple "talking heads" gag, and nothing too original at that, but I like the idea of doing specials now and again, so you may see more of them.

I hope next week to have a more elaborate and interesting strip, and to finally get them to the college.