Funemployed!

So after almost three and a half years of working there, I (along with some other cool folks) got laid off today from Meteor Games. Sad day, as we worked on a lot of Facebook titles together. There were good times, bad times but as long as you work with people you like and laugh at each other, you can tough through anything.

But sometimes, in order to move on, our walls have to come crumbling down first! It's as much an opportunity as it is a loss and I've got nothing but wonderful things to say about my coworkers.

Anyways, I've decided to take the rest of the year off. I don't anticipate a lot of business getting done from any company around Christmas as it is and, call me selfish, but I think I could use a break.

In the mean time, I'm gonna be hanging out with my wonderful girlfriend, working on some pages for Lumia's Kingdom and dabbling in a few personal game projects. So looks like I'll be working from home for a while!

Expensive investments

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted something on this blog. How you guys doing?

I apologize for the lack of updates lately both here and with the comic. There are a mixture of reasons why I've not been as productive lately:

• Work got a bit crazy and dramatic as of late
• I became obsessed with my personal game project
• Flat out laziness

With that in mind, I'm constantly thinking of ways to try to improve the speed of which I do the comic. Several strips ago, I tried digital inking and I was pleased with the results but had to fight with my Wacom Intuos to get what I wanted. As a result, I abandoned digital inking in favor of pen and paper. But this, too, is time consuming as I'm not a very fast inker and it makes it harder to try to keep at something when it takes so long.

As that was going on, I set a goal for myself financially--I wanted to get my savings account up to a certain amount. I figured I could do that by the end of the year and then I could use whatever was left over to get something nice for myself.

I met my goal earlier than I expected a few weeks ago.

So when my next paycheck came in, I gave some real thought to one particular question: should I get a Cintiq?

I'm not talking about the huge $3,000 one. I mean the small $1000 one, the Cintiq 12wx.

I have a bit of a bad habit with investing in technology and then not using it as much as I'd wish (my DS and original Intuos tablet are evidence of that). Also, I wasn't sure that I'd truly like having a Cintiq.

After much deliberation, I came to a particular conclusion: I'll go ahead and get one. And if I don't like it, I'll sell it to one of my friends who could use it.

Of course, Wacom was sold out on their website. I saw it listed that the Fry's in Burbank had some in stock, but upon visiting it we found out that the sole Cintiq still said to be in the store could not be located. No biggie, I figured. I'll wait.

Then I went home and checked Newegg. And surprisingly, they had it in stock.

So I dropped a grand and had it shipped to me at work. I expected it to come in a packaged box with "Newegg" on the front.

...It came in the original box from Wacom, with "CINTIQ" written and pictured on the front. Just poorly wrapped in clear plastic.

...And in the front where all the artists at work could see it.

It was an awkward walk to the back of the office.

So I took it home, stuck it in my room and then... went with Daniella on vacation for a week.

We got back and spent some time just resting.

Then, I finally dragged out that box and hooked up the darn thing. I had read a bit about it and thought I knew everything to expect from it tech wise.

Except for the handy back stand. That I did not expect :3

So far, it's been pretty useful. I configured it to work with GIMP pretty well and I've liked what I've seen (except that, since GIMP opens multiple windows on the desktop, I open a window on from the tablet and it appears on my other monitor. A bit annoying.) I'm currently thumbnailing/penciling page 178 digitally and it hasn't felt too laborious.

Well... that's not entirely true. There is one side affect; my back hurts now.

The handy stand allows me to prop it up on my computer desk to draw. Except, like any desk, it sits lower than one can comfortably draw at. So I have to hunch over a bit to get eye level with it...

My spine doesn't like me now -__-

Writing the beginning of your story

I got an email in my inbox this morning from someone who had been reading my work ever since I was drawing Blue Zombie. I don't really have permission to divulge everything that was brought up in the email he sent, but this snippet should explain everything:

"I need help with [the beginning of my webcomic], and was wondering if I pitched my story to you sometime, you could suggest a good way to open it up? I can get everything else to work just fine(action scenes, the works) but i'm just pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to open it up!"

And, of course, me being me, I wrote a huge response about things he should consider when starting his story and how to approach going about it and even examples of TV shows, comics and video games that have done it very well.

And then, right when I was about to hit that "Send" button, I thought "Hey, this would make a good blog post!"

Now, before I begin, I will say that while much of what I have written in this post is truthful, it doesn't necessarily mean that I followed all of the advice myself. Much of Blue Zombie and Lumia's Kingdom (...well...okay, MOST of it) is made up as I go along. But while I might not be the shining example of the practical application of what's written here, there are several thousand examples that do take this path and shine brighter than anything I could ever write.

So without further ado...

When writing the beginning of your story, be it a novel, a comic, an animation or even a character-driven video game, your first goal is to hook your audience as quickly as possible. These are some (but not all) of the things you will want to consider in order to effectively pull this off:

• The mood you want to convey
• Past/future events in your storyline
• How you intend to develop your character
• The current social climate of your character's world

The mood you want to convey

The beginning of your story is what will ideally hook people into sticking with you. With that in mind, you should try very hard to give a good idea of the mood you wish to convey relatively early on. When you choose to do it is up to you; you don't have to convey the mood right from the get-go, but I don't think it would be very wise to switch your story from super serious in the beginning to slap-stick mid way through the entire plot.

Is your story humorous? Then it might be best to lead in to a funny or silly situation. It could start off super serious for the first few minutes/pages, but then have a really wild and hilarious twist that makes your audience roll in the aisle with laughter.

Or perhaps it's not funny at all; perhaps it's super dark and very gruesome. To illustrate the contrast, you could show something beautiful and bright, showing what the world could have or used to be like and then segue into a dark, rainy world where hope is hanging on by a thread.

A good example of this is the beginning of Shaenon Garrity's webcomic Skin Horse. The first two panels of the comic explain the situation our heroes are facing; they're in the Washington D.C. National Zoo facing down a genetically altered African lion that has escaped from its enclosure. There appears to be a person standing fearlessly a few feet in front of the lion. He mentions that there's a sniper on the roof poised to shoot the lion a moment's notice. How does this sound to the reader? Dangerous? Yes. Intriguing? Heck yes. How did the lion get loose? How is it genetically altered? We want to know.

And what do the next panels show us? We focus on that person standing in front of the lion. It's a man with a folding chair. Huh. Why does he have a folding chair? Why not a club or a katana or a rifle? And he's wearing women's clothing?? What kind of guy is this??

Finally, we get to the last panel. This man, who has been thinking to himself the entire strip, lets us know that despite the seriousness of the situation, everything is under control. Confidently, he reveals his title to us: "I'm a psychologist."

Why is a cross dressing psychologist facing down a genetically altered lion in the nation's capital? I don't know, but I do know that the story is extremely silly and that this man, whoever he is, is confident in his ability to bring a stop to the chaos and is willing to do so dressed in a skirt and some high heals. At this point, the reader can decide for themselves whether this story is their cup of tea. As for me...well, I'm game :)

Starting with the past or the future

One way to start the story is to start off with a flashback or show events further ahead to in the series and then segue into past to show how everything unfolded up to that point. This provides a bit of intrigue for the audience; they're given a glimpse of what has happened or will happen and they will want to see how it effects or is effected by what's going on in the story now.

Take Joss Whedon's sci-fi series Firefly; the beginning starts off with a massive fire fight between two opposing forces on the planet Serenity. We're introduced to our valiant hero Malcom Reynolds as he tries to rally the troops and stand up to the Federation. He has his partner radio for aerial support only to find out that his side has given up the fight. We pull away in slow motion as the federation bombs his troops to death and see despair and hopelessness in Malcom's eyes.

And now we're in the present--we are plucked from the battlefield and presented with Mal and his (new?) crew several years later. Who lived through the ordeal? What are they doing now? How have they changed since the events that have taken place on Serenity? I want to know.

How you intend to develop your character

Regardless of if you've given your audience a glimpse of what your character was like or what they're going to be like in the future, you'll need to plot out how your character develops as time goes on. Are they going to become incredibly strong throughout the course of the story? Then they should start off relatively weak or put in a position where they have trouble fending off the opposition. Or perhaps they're already strong, but need to fall in love or become compassionate. Then they should start off refusing to get attached to people. Maybe they find skillful ways of avoiding interactions and commitment, or maybe their a bit of a hard-ass who simply tip their hat and walk away from people's problems.

Okay, bare with me for a moment, because the freshest thing I can think of right now is the first episode of the rebooted My Little Pony series. In the beginning, the main character is a pony named Twilight who seems to prefer the company of library books to dealing with other ponies. Her behavior has proved to be quite useful, though; through reading the books, she learns of dark prophecy that could prove to be disastrous to all of Equestria if not brought to the attention of those in charge. Despite her efforts, though, the prophecy is brushed off by her superiors and she's sent to another village to prepare for a ceremony. There, she meets up with several other interesting ponies who, against her will, try to befriend her. She struggles to deal with learning about friendship just as the events of the prophecy manifest and their darkest fears are realized.

The episode ends on a cliffhanger. What will happen to Twilight? Will she put her issues aside to band together with her new "friends" and save Equestria? Do you even care? I do, and apparently so do millions other people.

The current social climate of your character's world

The character and the mood aren't the only thing that are important to beginning of the story. It would also benefit to give a glimpse into the social climate of the world we're looking at. What are the people most concerned about? What makes them happy? What makes them sad? Are they thriving or are they dying and why?

One of my favorite video games of all time is Michel Ancel's sci-fi action-adventure game Beyond Good and Evil. Starting a new game opens up with a news reporter immediately talking about an alien race referred to as the Domz attacking a faraway planet called Hillys. From there, we're given the image of a what appears to be a relatively quiet planet and a strange object comes rocketing towards it at high speeds. Then, we're taken to a rather pleasant scene where our main character Jade and her orphan companion are peacefully practicing meditation under a tree. As Jade opens her eyes, we see the sky turn dark as the alien object enters the atmosphere.

What's Jade's response? Contrary to what we may think, it's not "What's going on? Why did the sky go black??" Instead, she says "They're coming!" She, and the rest of the world, already know who "they" are. And she knows enough to gather up the orphans and take cover. Whoever is coming, the people of Hillys are scared of them and know to run away when "they" arrive.

In summary...

These are just a few of the things you should think about as you start writing the beginning of your story. There are, of course, several more aspects that that you could and should take into consideration, but for the sake of brevity, I will simply end the my list here. As I stated before, the goal here is to try to hook your audience as quick as possible. The results will vary and the each medium will have a different set of expectations associated with it. But regardless, there is one definitive fact that holds true to them all; if it takes you more than an hour or several hundred pages to describe the setup of your story and/or introduce your characters, then I'm going to take my attention and time elsewhere.

If anyone has any other suggestions on how to go about starting a story, want to talk about what's written here or simply have a question, feel free to leave a comment below.

Very ill timed

If you've been reading the comic up until now, you know that I try to keep it very funny and light-hearted for the most part. However, even I sometimes dare to venture into darker territory and strike up a violent cord or two. No where was this more evident than when Violette went berserk a few pages ago.

This particular incident was not an isolated one--I do indeed plan for more violence to occur in the comic. Some of the characters I have planned are very sinister and gruesome and I have no intention of censoring myself as long as I feel the timing is right.

At this particular moment, I am inking page 150. It is an incredibly violent page. And it could not have come at a worse time.

In case you've had your head under a rock these past few days, there was a very serious earthquake that struck Japan last Friday. Entire towns have been wiped off of the map by very devastating tsunamis that struck shortly afterward. Mere words cannot describe the destruction wrought by all of this but I don't want to link to any images of it for you guys to follow. I'm sure Google is swamped with enough of those at this point.

So, after a lot of thought, I decided to hold off one week to post page 150.

I simply think that, in light of what has happened, I should put some distance between what I am going to show and that which has occurred in our world.

That is all.

Valhalla Jones and Valkyrie Love

So I took a break from doing a webcomic last night to pursue even more absurd ideas...



Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the next great Blacksploitation concept... VALHALLA JONES! On the underside of Midgard, the gang wars have always been particularly bad. But now, the dwarves are smuggling ice giants on Valhalla Jones turf. Aw, snap! Looks like it's time for VJ to whip out his mighty pimp hammer and lay the smack down on some shiesty muthas! Joined by his companion VALKYRIE LOVE and his trusty six wheeled Cadillac SLEIPNIR (not pictured), VJ will stop at nothing until the dwarves have been put in their rightful place! Concept by: Tamar Curry and Daniella Orihuela-Gruber. Sponsored by: Raven-Ban, the official sun glasses for Odin's birds.

(Don't worry, I will get back to comicing next week :P )

Tales from the workplace

I try not to talk about work too much because of many reasons. One being that I try to comply with my employer's wishes and avoid hinting at what company I work at. Two being that some days are sorta frustrating to me and I want to forget about them when I get home.

Regardless, I have made many friends and met a lot of interesting people at my job. I do enjoy working with these guys, though sometimes things can get a little...out of hand.

Like last Friday.

You see, one of the perks of the workplace is that every Wednesday we are allowed one vote per employee on what to eat for lunch on the coming Friday. Then, the company actually gets whatever we voted on. When lunch arrives, everyone lines up for, eyes and hearts set on the prospect of tasty food. Food that came to us without having to escape the confines of our office and venture out into the restaurant-less area our building is located in. Food that we didn't have to pay for.

Over time, this voting system has become very polarized, with people cooperating with each other and voting for specific items en masse. The results are still tasty, but get tiresome after a while. I can only take eating Mexican food so many times within a two months span before I chuck that tasty burrito at the incredibly large window that I sit near.

That said, For the past seven weeks, I have been continuously voting for one elusive meal: Chinese. We hadn't eaten Chinese on a Friday for quite some time. I might also add that I am addicted to sweet and sour chicken. I expect that when I die and the coroner performs my autopsy, he will not fine blood, but tasty sweet and sour sauce congealed in my veins.

Last Wednesday, however, I had to give up my vote. The reason? I wasn't going to be there on Friday. Instead, my girlfriend, her mother and I were going to be in Las Vegas, celebrating my girlfriend's father's birthday. So I asked my supervisor what he wanted me to vote for. Like me, he desired for Chinese.

I casted my vote for him and then proclaimed rather loudly: "If Chinese wins this week and I'm not here to enjoy it, I'm gonna be so f*cking pissed!"

As I was preparing to leave that Friday, I checked Facebook to see that my supervisor left a message on my wall, detailing the top two choices for lunch day:

"Votes: Chinese 20. Pasta 10."

Flippin' great.

Posted underneath that was a comment left my another coworker:

"we're going to put some chinese food in your desk drawer for you. No need to thank us."

I thought nothing of it as I packed up and left for the weekend.

This was a mistake.

I came back to work on Monday and did my usual business: look at code, gripe about what the programmer before me wrote and how he cut corners, realize that I was actually griping at code that I wrote, cry a bit, fix some bugs, yadda yadda yadda.

Around noonish, though, something odd happened. I started to smell a faint scent. I wasn't sure exactly what it was or where it was coming from. I figured something had been spilled by my desk and that the cleaning crew would probably find it and clean it up later. After a few hours, I started to think that maybe the smell was coming from me? I just changed deodorants. Maybe Arm and Hammer produces a rather undesirable scent when it's been sitting in my pits for a few hours? Flippin' great. Wonder if there's a better deodorant. Will have to look into this later.

I came back on Tuesday. The smell is worse. What the hell? Where is this smell coming from! There's nothing in the trash cans, I didn't smell this before I left the house so it certainly wasn't me, there was nothing on my desk or the desks around me!

And then I thought back to my coworker's comment.

They didn't...They wouldn't!

...Would they--?

What played out next was like a bad horror movie:

Check the bottom drawer.

Nothing.

Close it slowly. Move my hand to the middle draw.

Pull it open. Nothing. Phew. Two down, one to go.

Flip open top drawer.

Scream bloody murder.

Fade to black.

One last voice creeps out from the void before the credits begin rolling:

"Oh god! The SMELL!"

The chopping block

As you may or may not know, one of my greater passions is making games on the side. In fact, when I think about game design, I tend to get this look on my face that I can only assume tells people "I am either thinking about something VERY HARD or have to take a REALLY bad crap." (Hopefully more of the former than the latter).

In any case, I had some ideas churn up over the weekend that I really wanted to get down the code for. But I wasn't about to ditch my comics for the week to do this. So I decided to hammer out both thumbnails for this week and enlarge them so that I could tackle them on Monday and Tuesday.

I don't do scripts anymore. This isn't really out of laziness as it is I tend to change my mind a lot about the story. When I started Lumia's Kingdom, I wrote about 60 comic pages worth of scripts. I got half way through them before I altered the story incredibly. Now, we couldn't be any further from what I originally wrote than we are now. Nowadays, my thumbnails are really my first stab at writing anything for a page. And for the most part, I'm alright with this.

Tonight, I was driving home and thinking about my current story arc--the retelling of Knaddian history. It's a doozy, considering I cover a lot of different characters and how they contribute to the current situation. I often argue with myself over how long I should focus on one event before moving on to the next. I know I got a bit too narrative heavy in some pages while perhaps spending too much time focusing on the earlier stuff.

In any case, it dawned on me that I could cut out what was to be Tuesday's page entirely and simply cut to what was going to be Friday's page. Tuesday's page would have focused on the moment-to-moment events between three of the characters. Instead, it cuts straight to a more narrative page that describes what happened quicker and moves the story along faster. I debated it for a while--did I need a page explicitly expressing how Myriam felt about Lumiere's decision, or could I get away with simply alluding at it in the next page?

I talked over it with my girlfriend. She seemed to agree that I didn't need Tuesday's original page and as long as I took the time to properly word the narrative for a smoother transition, the edit would work just fine.

This isn't the first time I've done something like this. I once cut a six page mini-arc in Blue Zombie in half. Not because it was laborious, but because I found out that the first three pages had served the purpose of the entire arc and the last three were redundant. And there were some pages of Lumia's Kingdom that I got part way through and then ditched and redrew.

Now, I'm not claiming the be the greatest when it comes to self-edits, but I can't help but think that a lot of comics could also benefit from this kind of editing (including a large number of action-oriented manga). I realize that so much of it is to build up suspense and a lot of it is mitigated by having a more consistent and frequent release schedule, but MAN, if I had a nickel for everytime I wish Goku could've just shot his enemy in the face with a pistol and be done with it or wondering why it's so hard to get deported from Japan... I mean, don't those guys have bills to pay?

In the long run, LK needs a lot more editing like this...I'm a 140+ pages in and I've only covered about a week in their world. A lot of comics need to do the same, I think. But I don't think the lot of us will realize this until we take a step back and thought really hard about what's really needed and what's fluff.

Here's hoping I get to Lumia's inauguration before I hit 300 pages.