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When The Beasties Are Coming

by ArdRhi on April 8, 2013 at 3:17 pm
Posted In: Comic

Well, lookie here, an UPDATE!  It has been a long time coming, I know, but I was really blocked up and it took me a while to get the rocks out of the creative stream and get the ideas flowing again.  The end of 2012/beginning of 2013 has not been especially kind to us, and it was just a matter of turtling up and getting past it.  A trip to the Comic Geek Speak Super Show last weekend really helped charge me up, too. I saw lots of old friends — Dawn Griffin of Zorphbert & Fred, Danielle Corsetto of Girls With Slingshots, Megan Lavey-Heaton of Namesake, Chris Flick of Capes & Babes, and lots of old friends I never met before (that’s a better way to think of people than “strangers” — I’m awfully strange, myself).

I have artwork for a few more pages beyond this one already shot.  I’ll work on the scenes for the next ones after that, and try to build a rhythm again.  I think I have my energy back, but with this neck of mine, I can never be sure when I’m going to feel the bag of concrete fall on it and be going “ow, Ow, OW!” and not feel like doing anything besides sitting with a heating pad and a bottle of painkillers.

Suffice to say, I’m still here, and I’m still telling the story.

A final word about the Chinese phrases in the story — I’ve done my best to make sure I’m saying what I think I’m saying, barring finding a friendly Chinese-speaker to vet it for me. I have a program that checks each symbol to verify it is at least saying what the website I got it from says it means, so I’m not getting “Mr. Kwon’s Pro Station and Penicillin Clinic, Deliveries In The Rear” when I think I’m saying “Mind your own business.”  My source is the venerable Firefly Pinyinary, which was already vetted six ways from Sunday before they aired the material in the TV show. I’m only picking what I think are phrases that fit the scene appropriately.

Not that these scenes ARE “Firefly”.  Nope, not at all.  Just a scene in a parallel universe with people who talk a mix of English and Chinese. Some of them wear long brown coats.  Some of their buildings are rustic. Not “Firefly” at all.  For one thing, they have hyperdrive, and can go to other star systems.  So it CAN’T be “Firefly”, which is stuck in one highly-terraformed and stellarformed system.  Don’t sue me, Evil Fox Executive, it’s just a coincidence.

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Guest Comic and Great Con

by ArdRhi on September 24, 2012 at 7:52 pm
Posted In: Blog

InterventionCon 2012 was excellent! It was great seeing everyone, and finally meeting Danielle Corsetto and Jennie Breeden after all these years!  They’re both wonderful, and of course their comics are fantastic.

Speaking of comics, I have a guest comic today over at SuperFogeys! Check it out!

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Things Are A Bit Sketchy

by ArdRhi on September 21, 2012 at 9:42 am
Posted In: Blog

…Inasmuch as I’ve been doing a bit of sketching lately.

Sorry, it’s early, I’ve only had one cup of coffee, and I’m trying to come up with a blog post title. Ok, I’ve been working on a story page, but the creative juices haven’t been flowing very well after the funeral trip. I just got a bit of a creative kick in the pants, and am hoping the trip to InterventionCon will really stir things up a bit.

I’ll be at InterventionCon this weekend, but don’t look for me at a table, I’ll be buzzing around in my powered chair, bothering people. I might set myself up in a corner somewhere, just sketching or something, but that’ll be entirely for fun and enjoyment, not because I’m part of the Artists’ Alley or anything. (Maybe some year.) I love InterventionCon for the incredible array of creators that show to share their works, and the panels are some of the best I’ve seen. I would be really torn about getting a table, because that would mean I’d have to sit there all day and not take part in all the other cool things going on, and that would make me crazy!

So, if anyone is near Rockville, MD this weekend, that’s where I’ll be. If you’re at the convention, look for me, and say hi!

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A Family Emergency

by ArdRhi on September 1, 2012 at 11:25 am
Posted In: Blog

My apologies for the long delay in getting another comic out.  My mother passed away last weekend, and I’ve been away from home for the last week, dealing with the funeral and other arrangements.  I’ll work on a comic as soon as I can. Bear with me.

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Mutant Weasel Alert…

by ArdRhi on June 9, 2012 at 5:01 pm
Posted In: Blog

“Flash! Be on the lookout for giant, heavily-mutated weasels, which appear to have an inordinate appetite for comic artists of all sorts! These beasts can snarf up a comicker quicker than a frat boy can suck down a chilidog, so be careful out there, folks. If you’ve so much as scribbled a caricature on a napkin, one of these creatures can sniff you out at a distance of six blocks, and according to Professor Everett T. Mungbat of the Academy for Creatures that Eat Cartoonists, which we find to be wholly gratuitous and rather convenient, the word ‘weasel’ is one of the funniest words in the English language to say.  Stay low. Be careful. Don’t scribble on anything.”

No, I haven’t been eaten by a mutant weasel.  I’m working on the next page, and will have it posted in the next few days. Things have been slow, with many days of discomfort, wedged between an online comic class and a drawing tutor coming once a week. The treatment I got on my neck helped, inasmuch as my right arm no longer feels like it is being chewed on…well, by a mutant weasel… but there were side effects I’d rather not describe, because they’re annoying, and just as the pain went down in one part of my body, it popped up worse in another. So while my drawing arm is in better shape, my neck itself feels like someone smacked it with a crowbar.

But I’m still working on the comic, and will post it as I’m able. I haven’t given up.

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A Bit Stretched Out Of Late

by ArdRhi on February 17, 2012 at 9:15 am
Posted In: Blog

You’ve probably noticed that I’m having some issues with the weekly publishing schedule.  This is largely because I’ve got more stuff taking up more of my time, the weather has been more mercurial, which makes my body more uncomfortable, and the pages I’ve been doing have been very challenging, requiring lots of special effects and digital painting that I can’t model in the base art. It all adds up to not being able to get the page done in a single week.

Rather than rush it, and produce a lower-quality page, or push myself too hard and hurt myself, I’m going to say that the target is a weekly post date, but if the page isn’t ready, it will be up the NEXT post date.  I can’t let myself slide too far, or I’ll just slide into oblivion, but I have to be realistic and give myself extra time when I really need it.

This week’s page is very complex and very important to the storyline, so I want to take some extra time to do it right.  It won’t be up for Monday, but WILL be up for the Monday after that.  I’m going to be spending a bunch of time getting the next arc put together as well, so we’ll see how time comes together.  I may need to ask for some guest art if anyone is willing to contribute some.

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