Life Allergy

Monster Party

2011-06-08T23:49:00.000-07:00

There's a strange phenomenon associated with drawing pictures of mutants, severed heads, and executions - people assume you're depressed.

I almost made a short film about this. Be glad I didn't; it would have been expensive to produce, and up to the hilt in deeper meaning.

Now, that's not me in the slightest. In fact, I think that any well-designed monster should have some element of humor - It might not be visible to everyone, but it'll be there, somewhere, beneath the surface.

By the way, this is what I would draw in college, while all the professors thought I was taking notes.

A well-designed monster is like a joke that makes your mouth bleed when you tell it. When you hear the punchline, your lymph nodes swell like oysters Rockefeller, and your ears ring like a dial tone. It's vile; you don't want to tell it, but you need to see what would happen if you did.

New Comic Monday

2011-06-07T05:32:00.000-07:00

Though I'm typing this at 5:24 AM on Tuesday, as promised, I updated Give Me A Reason yesterday. Actually, that's not true - I updated it at 11:34 PM on Sunday, so between that update being ahead of schedule, and this one being behind schedule, it all evens out. Feel free to head on over and have a look at it in full size. To quote Mike Mozzart, I think you'll like it (assuming you're some form of malcontent).

Win Some, Lose Some.

2011-06-06T01:06:00.000-07:00

Bad news: I'd evidentially been driving around with a pool of gasoline sitting on top of the engine.

Good news: In the month that I'd been driving around with it like that, my car didn't explode.

I figure this is as good a time as any to introduce this picture. It's a little small, but I love it all the same.

Old Money (or a lack thereof)

2011-06-04T21:11:00.000-07:00

I remember 2006 as a sleepy year. Like a lot of full-time students in Michigan, I was working a job that paid badly, and shared an apartment I couldn't afford with three other guys who couldn't afford it, either. I think Michigan's economy was the second worst in the country at this point, and if it wasn't, it sure felt like it.

We were bored so much of the time, but not by choice - surely, we were trying to create opportunities for ourselves, but the raw materials just weren't there. Nobody wanted to hire college students with zero years of experience when people with five or more years were lined up around the block waiting their turn.

(I can't help but wonder: if all that LipDub-fuelled optimism had arrived earlier, would I ever have left?...)

Now, anybody who's experienced boredom for months on end knows how dangerous it can become. It got to the point where we were stowing old Christmas trees in each other's rooms, ruining our neighbor's beer parties with our sobbing, and putting firecrackers in the microwave.

PROTIP: don't do this. Your house can, and probably will, explode.
One of my roommates figured this out and in an expedient and paternal way, put a stop to it before we killed ourselves.

In the midst of all this, I get an e-mail from the lead designer of Descent III telling me that he likes my artwork.

This was a big deal. It was like staring at a stain on the wall for three hours, just to have Frank Lloyd Wright come up and congratulate you on your posture.

Sean Lynn's a cool guy, and politely withstood my barrage of questions and youthful assumptions about the video game industry. It turns out, my father was his advisor back in college, so he recognized my last name when he saw it on Gamasutra.com's student gallery. I'd submitted some drawings to it a while back, and they evidentially got accepted.

I drew a nearly endless supply of pictures like these between 2005 and 2008. It tied into a narrative about persecution and land rights that I remember people tuning out when I talked about it at the dinner table. I'll probably be digging up more of them as time goes on.

New Romanticism

2011-06-04T17:03:00.000-07:00

Some days, I wish I were born a Victorian. Until I remember how poor, unhealthy, and generally miserable most of them were.

I dedicate this picture to Greg Scott, who doesn't like it at all. But he's a good guy.

The All-New GiveMeAReason.net!

2011-06-03T19:59:00.000-07:00

Well, it's hardly "new," but it looks less like a Xerox copy than ever, and that has to count for something.

Tune in every Monday for a new comic, and God help you throughout the rest of the week!