Wonderful timing

Today was jersey day and school, and since I don't own a jersey I got a lot of glares, mainly from one person whose name starts with a J and ends with oel Tallerico. He is the quintessential high school sports fanatic, to the point of dementia.

Click for larger sports

Sorry it's so faint. I think my scanner really sucks, I may have to hire a new one. I should start looking on monster.ca. Great place to find up and coming scanners.

Anyways.

I have to memorize some lines for my audition tomorrow and fight a Jhen Moran, so I must be off.

Be brave, be strong.

That Could be a Pokemon

As I said earlier, all of the new pokemon have been forced upon us, despite Nintendo's best effort to stop people from sharing information on a game that has already been released. It seems like the people in charge of thinking up new pokemon were running out of ideas, at least, until one of them went on a faithful walk.

Click for larger version

As you can see, I have made use of box people, in order to clearly distinguish my art from the far superior chainsawsuit. I was planning on getting a tablet today, but due to me thinking that there was an apple store where there clearly wasn't, I was disappointed. No worries though. I shall get it in the next week or so *crosses fingers.*

Okay now for something serious.

...

I got nothing. 

I am going to start blogging a bit more often, going for a "whenever I feel like it" style schedule to compliment my already existing M/W/F one. 

Now I'm off to- OH CRAP I HAVE TO LEARN SPANISH CATCH UP ON RELIGION AUDITION FOR A PLAY DO MY EXTENDED ESSAY AND WRITE THREE ARTICLES FOR THE SCHOOL PAPER. 

I may be busy these next few months.

Sick as a slug (a sick slug)

I've been pretty sick the past week, and believe me it has not been fun. Have you ever tried running a 4k race while sick? You shouldn't, it leads only to despair.

Which in turn leads to the dark side.

So for halloween this year I'm going to a rockin' party and I am thinking of dressing up as Gandalf. Originally I was just going to buy a costume but since it costs $80 and looks like crap I've decided to make one. So in the next couple of weeks I will need to buy/find:

• A grey bath robe
• A grey blanket
• A pair of grey gloves
• A fake beard
• A hat, which will probably have to be the officially licensed Gandalf hat

So yeah that isn't too bad. It should be a bit cheaper and most likely look infinitely better. On a side note, my birthday is on October 31st, and the party is on the 30th, so as soon as it turns midnight I will declare myself king of the party and ascend to my icy birthday throne.

Basically this.

In other news, our school is doing a performance of Makebeef by Bullion Snackspear, a charming culinary parody of Macbeth. 

Actually no we're doing Macbeth. 

I am auditioning, and although I would be happy with any part, I would very much like to be someone who uses a sword, preferably a claymore. I mean this IS Scotland we're talking about here. 

That's all they use.

I understand that this post has been a little all over the place, please forgive me. I will have a much more coherent (and perhaps serious?) one prepared for tomorrow, along with a fresh comic, picked straight from my brain tree.  

Mmmmmm. Fresh brain fruit. 

Reach for the Stars

I am currently playing Halo: Reach and it is pure fantastic-extract. Everyone should play it or be thrown in space jail (don't space-drop the space-soap in space-jail or you'll be space-raped). The armor abilities are a great addition, but who would use anything other then jetpacks. I mean, come on.

It's a jetpack.

Click for larger version

So I started drawing the rough draft of this but I liked it so much I just decided to clean it up a bit and use it. It's still pretty messy, but redrawing it would've taken forever and I am a busy man. Hopefully when I buy a tablet things will be easier and the comics will be nicer and more plentiful.

Hopefully.

All of my two other friends with blogs have been doing "serious" blog posts recently, which I find pretty dry but I guess I have to be popular so here it goes:

My dream is what many, many people would call a silly one.

To make a career based around webcomics.

See? You probably laughed. And you have a right to. I have never told this dream to anyone for multiple reasons. Among these reasons are my lack of artistic prowess and the difficulty of making it in the webcomics business. I realize that these are both valid issues, but to my credit my art is improving quite a bit, and it will continue to improve as long as I keep working at it. As for the whole "making it in the industry" thing, well, that's completely accurate.

It is after all a dream, and dreams don't often come true, but if I can keep making comics on a regular basis through university and afterwards, I have a not-bad chance of picking up a decent base of followers and a steady stream of income through advertisements and prints. This will in no way be my sole source of income, but even being mildly successful in this field would be fine with me. It will just be a thing I do on the side while I'm out fighting pirates on the back of mighty eagles with a great sword forged from the bones-

DANGIT. 

Well look at that. I almost did two whole paragraphs about something serious. New record?!?

Now I have to get back to thinking of a product for my Junior Achievement group. I still think we should sell bags of these, but apparently selling terrifying hairless rodents to office workers is a bad idea. Their loss.

Voice Communication Activated

I got my friend a headset for his birthday, so now hilarious banter during Starcraft and TF2 is much more convenient. Also, yesterday I realized that immortals are my favorite unit, and combining them with stalkers makes for a wonderful ground force. I mean, just look at them. Look at what they do.

Our cannons shall sing.

In other news, I just finished a political cartoon for social class.

And here it is.

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I like the professor. 

In other other news:

• I think I shall go as Gandalf for Halloween this year, but I will make my own costume. I will not pay $80 for a piece of crap store-bought one.
• I want this. I want it so much.
• All of the new pokemon have been revealed. Mostly hit and miss, my favorite is the bug that is also a knight. 
• I recited the Black Gate speech at club-day. Read about it heeeerererereeee

+2 Strength

I have been working out a lot.

Like a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot.

It is not uncommon for me to run in cross country and lift weights on the same day now, and the results are just starting to show. I'm still horrendously skinny but literally every inch of fat has been replaced by muscle, which is actually terrifying. I have a lot more self-confidence now, which is good, and maybe I'll finally be able to tank Onyxia (WOW REFERENCE LOL).

On a completely different topic, if I had to live in one topographical location for the rest of my life, it would be mountains.

The rocky mountains to be specific.

LOOK AT THEM

I love Canada. I love the cold. I love raw, untamed beauty. PERFECT

Also I am currently more busy then I have have ever been, its eight at night right now and I still have to draw a comic, write stuff for social, and work out. WHAT HAVE I DONE

POSTERS EVERYWHERE

I am the Master of Propaganda of my school's executive committee so I had to do some posters for club day. LOOK AT THEM

Click for larger version

Click for larger version

Click for larger version

JOLLY GOOD

Anyways, tomorrow I shall be talking to a rowdy bunch of grade tens, telling them what high school is like and not to huff paint and all of that. Hopefully I don't accidentally utter a dark incantation that drives them all mad.

I've done it before.

AND I SHALL DO IT AGAIN (Metal starts playing)

Time for bed, I have to wake up at 5:30 tomorrow so I can run and be miserable.

Tears

Welp, looks like I gone went and wrote another vignette. HOW DARE I. But yeah I got this idea in a social class, from a drawing I made (wasn't a box) and it took off from there. I may post a cleaned up version of the drawing on Monday, if I can get it just right. Anyways, hope you like this.

Tears

Yesterday one of my old acquaintances invited me over to his house, claiming that he would show me something I had never seen before. He brought me down into his basement and there was a cage, and inside the cage there was a monster. A lump of dark, oblong flesh, with a horrible set of pincer-like horns on one end, and a rounded stump on the other. It had three muscular, writhing limbs, each a different size, which it used to drag itself around in a fashion that was as pathetic as it was repulsing. It was covered in bulging veins and bloody slime, like a giant tumour that somehow came to life. Between its horns was a hole I assumed was a mouth, and from this hole poured a clear, slimy liquid, that coated the floor and everything around it. It had no visible eyes, ears, or nose, but somehow it detected us, and started banging its limbs against the bars of the cage while shrieking at us like an angry child. Stammering, I asked my friend if it was dangerous, and he said that it would kill me if it got the chance. It would grab me with its arms and bash me against its horns until I died, and then it would squeeze the blood from my lifeless body and absorb it into its skin. I asked him where he found it and he said that it wasn’t found, it was made, and that more are being made. I staggered back, not sure what to make of the man I thought was my friend, and this monster writhing and twisting before me. He told me to relax, that they were not weapons or fiends, but merely creatures to be used for science and medicine, for organs and fluid and muscle. He fed it cows to keep it alive, and it was always hungry, always seeking to kill and feed. I chuckled nervously and asked if that was why it was salivating to such a degree. My companion smiled and told me that the liquid coming from what I thought was the creature’s mouth wasn’t saliva.

And as the monstrosity turned towards us I saw that in the hole I took to be a mouth there was in fact an eye, and in this eye I saw a torment greater than anything living has ever known.

It wasn’t saliva.

It wasn't saliva

A Fey Mood

Today I thought about the end of the universe.

One day, probably a long time from now, the universe will end. Everything inside of it will be ripped apart as it pops like a bubble. And literally everything humanity or any other civilization has ever done will be rendered meaningless. Everything we create will eventually be destroyed. Not a very happy thought.

After contemplating this for a bit I started feeling incredibly depressed. "What is the point?" I thought to myself, "If everything will be destroyed then why should we bother doing anything at all?"

After moping around for a bit I was forced to put on a smile and work with some friends for an English project. After school, when I was walking to my bus, I realized that I had completely forgotten the end of the universe. And for the last hour and a half I had been happy.

And at that moment, surrounded by the beautiful buildings of downtown Calgary, inhaling the air recently freshened by rain, I was very happy.

I wondered "How I could possibly be this happy, when everything I do lacks any sort of meaning?"

Then it came to me: I can't do anything about the end of universe, so why should I worry about it?

Sure, in a few billion years the universe will burst like an overinflated balloon, but it's not like we can stop that. We are destined to oblivion no matter how much we complain about it. As long as we're here, in this little slice of the void we like to call Earth, we may as well enjoy the time we have.

And enjoy it I shall.

Also, I tried the Final Fantasy XIV beta, and it left me stalwartly unimpressed.

Terrible, Terrible Movies.

Today's comic isn't a straw man argument. This is literally what happens to me every time I try to convince someone that a terrible movie they are a fan of is in fact terrible. Apparently there is something inherently wrong with me and every person who doesn't enjoy this movie that stops us from reveling in it's sheer genius.

A sense of taste perhaps?

But I digress. I hope you enjoy today's Box Comic.

Click for larger version

I have been reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontosaurus, and although romance isn't exactly my forte, I am enjoying it, despite half the book being rich people whining and banging their cousins. I can't wait to finish it so I can get back to A Game of Thrones, which is currently sitting at my desk, tempting me with it's irresistible allure. Soon, George R. R. Martin. Soon.

IN OTHER NEWS

• THE TEMPLE is coming along quite nicely.
• My friend is trying to start a D&D club at our school, he has my sword.
• My English teacher this year did his university thesis on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I was exuberant.
• Kick Ass is a wonderful movie, for the whole family.

 

Hostage Friendly Programming

So yeah. This is baffling, in more ways then are immediately apparent. For those who are too uppity to click links, a man with a penchant for raccoons waltzed into the Discovery Channel HQ, took some hostages, and tried to force Discovery to air more environmentally friendly programming. You would think that Discovery Channel already offers a wide range of environment-based programming, since that is their philosophy, but apparently it wasn't enough for Captain Planet here.

Anyways, despite his mission failing miserably, I think we're onto something with this.

Click for larger version

I've stopped using a straight edge to draw my boxes, I find that takes all of the personality out of them. I've been practicing my drawing, and hopefully I will eventually be able to draw people. What a day that will be!

I picked up A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, after hearing many, many good things about it. I've only read the prologue and a bit of the first chapter, but already I am thoroughly engrossed. I think I may have stumbled upon a rare jewel in the vast garbage heap that makes up modern fantasy.   

   

Dungeons May or May Not Contain Dragons

I'm gearin' to go back to school. I can't stand being cooped up inside the house, like an elderly parrot inside a cage. I'm ready to partake in learning.


I am a very inexperienced Dungeons and Dragons player, but I have seen enough of the game to know it's something I would like to do much more often. While many may be quick to dismiss the game because of the social stigma it is associated with, they don't know what they're missing out on. This is a game where you are actually living inside of another person, saying what they would say and doing what they would do. You have to improvise constantly, and creative solutions are always rewarded. I think anyone who wants to be a writer, actor, or any kind of artist should try it at least once, it's an experience unlike any other.

I was thinking of picking up a D&D Essentials Starter Set when it comes out next week, and seeing if anyone in my improv club at school would want to try it out. The good thing about the Starter Set is that it's perfect for beginners, with simplified rules that ease new players into the game, while still delivering a fun experience. It would also give me a chance to run a game as a DM, something I've wanted to do for a long time.

On an unrelated note, my drawing skills are slowly getting better, and I have discovered the wonder that is T. S. Eliot's poetry. The urge to go back to the destroyer of souls has been strong lately, but with luck I'll pull through. I fear that if it claims me again, I will never escape.