The sketch you see filling the comic space is, in reality, a band-aid. Oh sure, it looks like a sketch of Meg, but that's only what I wanted you to think. See, I scrabbled around the HTML so that where the comic database script was, I inserted a direct reference to the image you see there. I'm good with HTML, and CSS, so this works - except for the fact that this image isn't technically part of the archive and the navigation system won't recognize it (I'll bet that if you were to go back one strip and click on "current", it'll take you not to this pic, but to the last comic you're used to seeing by now - just tried it - sure enough, I was right).
Anyhow, this bad news for the site does have a silver lining, which actually has to do with the above sketch.
I've had more time freed up to learn more about how to improve my craft through self-study and a few choice instructional books picked up on Amazon. This sketch is the first application of what I've learned so far regarding the strip (been doing a bunch of traditional figure drawings up to now). I consider it improved in many ways from the work I had been doing prior.
I've also started a DeviantArt account to upload art and maybe a few comics in the interim while the slow gears work bit by bit to restore function to the main site.
All the best to you and yours, and a Happy New Year.
I'm somewhat competent with HTML. I was able to pick up enough knowledge of the language to design this site, but not every component. One of the components I picked up from elsewhere was "Comikazie", a webcomic PHP (server side program) that manages the calender, stores and archives the comics as well as uploads new comics, manages the comic titles, yadda yadda, and so on and so forth.
As of last Saturday, when I last tried to update with a new comic, the PHP gave me an error saying my permissions on two key Comikazie folders were incorrectly set. Turns out that after a bit of investigation, I was informed by my site's host that they no longer allow that permission setting for any files or folders, and they were changed for me.
Wonderful.
Considering I know practically nothing about modifying PHP script, let alone anything about this particular one because I didn't program it, there is little hope that I can fix the program to adapt to my host's new requirements without some significant study on the subject (which I don't have time for in my schedule).
Finding a suitable replacement PHP and making the switch is also something that would require a great deal of thought and preparation with the always ever present threat of disaster as it manages the whole archive.
I'm going to need a while to fix this, if I can at all, and until I do I don't know what else to do except call a hiatus until a resolution is found and implemented, upon which time, I'll advertise the site anew on the various webcomic lists (think "the Webcomic List", etc.)
I appreciate all of those who keep reading this strip week after week, as it gives me encouragement. I'll be working behind the scenes to keep an inventory of new strips coming even if you won't be able to see them for awhile.
Wish me luck,
J. Miller
As you can see by today's comic, the design has been altered once more. This has been done in conjunction with the news I alluded to in the last entry. I'm working again, and while that takes time and energy away from this site, it has contributed in giving some of it back as well. I've recently purchased some hardware that has streamlined the process to the most I can expect it to be. In short, the process is now an entirely digital one (well, except for coming up with the gags, naturally :).
So there you have it. If I'm able to work up some breathing room, I may even be able to increase my rate of updates.
There you have it. The good, the bad, and the same-old, same old.
The last week and a half were very significant for me and occupied my attention for that duration. I'm back again, with gags written a bit ahead (for me at least) and also a new wrinkle in my schedule which I'll go into in more detail in a few weeks. Suffice to say my life just got significantly more "busy", but that in the long run it should represent a boost to this site and productivity if all goes well.
Without going into too much detail, life has been particularly hectic this past week, involving a good deal of physical labor around here, which has unfortunately taken it's toll out on the strip.
We'll be back on track ASAP.
Point of interest in the second panel. The pose Meg is taking to do that jig is inspired by this site. If you've never heard of it or the guy who runs it yet, check it out. It's really rather inspiring.
Unexpected delays involving shucking a bunch of corn today combined with a backfire in trying to shorten my comic-creation process has resulted in having to update tomorrow.
Sincere apologies, and I still intend to get the promised "two comics a week" out before weeks' end.
Thank you,
The management!
No, I didn't forget!
Please check back later tonight for today's update :)
For those new to the strip, today's entry references this storyline from a while back.
It's a plot element I think it's probably worthwhile to revisit sometime in the future. Lots of possibilities there.
For the absence of comics this past week...
I'm in the process of both improving the site and trying to get ahead enough on strips to give me a comfortable buffer. I have this week's comics finished and am now working hopefully on the next two weeks worth. The further ahead I can work, the better I can work, and under less pressure. Pressure for me rarely results in the best results, so I'm hoping this temporary delay will yield greater results.
I'm grateful and thankful to all of you readers who still find my work worth spending your time on.
Thank you.
As of this time, I am merging my LJ page with my comic site. I've come to the conclusion that it makes no sense for me to keep my two most prominent web presences separate any longer, and considering I've got a lifetime LJ membership, it just made that much more sense.
What this means is that this LJ will be used more for news and updates relating to "Inc.'ed" and general musings and a little bit less on political issues (I still get that out of my system by posting occasionally on the political LJ pages.
The page will remain open to both friends and non-friends alike, hoping that more people who read the comic will stop by and chat here. I'm also hoping on entirely re-vamping the forum page, but that's a much bigger task than simply embedding an LJ page.
The last post brought to mind one of my favorite political thinkers, Frederic Bastiat:
"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.
We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain."
This one's appropriate for the upcoming election:
"The plans differ; the planners are all alike..."
And lastly...
"If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?"
"Our research suggests that inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives," the researchers write in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science, "apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light."
I have only but one thing to say in response to this article:
I suggest that state servitude takes a greater toll on conservatives (and libertarians) than liberals, apparently because conservatives (and libertarians) lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame state servitude in a positive (or at least neutral) light.
Apparently, there are no differences in perspective, there are only those who rationalize themselves into happiness and those who mope their way through gritty reality. There can be no other explanation. So it is written, so it must be!
As I've said before, once you can get away with labeling an ideological opponent as being defective, you no longer have to deal with pesky issues such as dealing with arguments intellectually.
Itunes has just released the music that plays over the end credits of "Cloverfield".
I really can't recommend this piece enough (titled: ROAR!, appropriately enough), which I've been waiting patiently for over the last few months. I've been fast becoming a fan of Michael Giacchino's work. From "The Incredibles", to "Ratatouille" and now this, he's a name to keep an eye out for.
Put it this way: This piece (at 12 min. 15 seconds) is good enough that I would pay real money to hear a live orchestra perform it - and it alone - in a concert hall. It really stands on it's own that well (and it should, considering it wasn't written to be timed to the events in the movie itself). This is classic movie scoring at it's best.
Look up the lesser quality youtube versions yourself if you need to be convinced before spending the two dollars on Itunes, but at least give it a chance.
Spike has been showing all the Star Wars filmed episodes.
I'm always open to re-considering films I have earlier panned - at least when the opportunity to see them free on television arises.
Sometimes the second viewing proves my initial viewings were unfair, and have improved my opinions of them - but that isn't happening here. If anything my already low opinions have been even further degraded. Something I didn't even think was possible.
The effects haven't aged well at all. In fact, they're bordering on embarrassing. "Jurassic Park", released nearly a full decade earlier, has effects that have held up much better perhaps because that film wisely didn't fall back on blue screen backgrounds nearly as much as the prequels did. It goes to show that you have to know which types of effects (digital or "real") effects are best used in specific scenarios - and there are many situations in the prequels where a real, built effect would have performed better than doing it digital.
Of course, the dialog is just as weak as it was the first time I saw them, and if there is one rule about a Star Wars lightsaber battle it should be that it should never inspire unintentional laughter (I'm looking right at the Yoda/Dooku battle, for reference). If Lucas intended the banter there to slyly reference old westerns, then he forgot the 'sly' part and skipped right to unintentional parody. These battles were much more dramatically effective when they didn't look so effortless - when they looked like it took real fortitude to engage in lightsaber combat. It's why, to my mind, the battles at the end of "Empire" and "Jedi" will always be superior to what was on display here.
Of the few remaining bright spots I remember, they're still there. Seeing the first generation Star Destroyers take off for the first time is still chill inducing, but only because we know the dread that they represent from what was established in the later (and better) episodes, and Ewan McGregor still outperforms the rest of the cast and seems to be directly channeling the late Alec Guiness's performance - so he still gets kudos for acting like there was a serious film going on around him.
It's no accident, I think, that the best Star Wars episode wasn't even directed or written by Lucas.
I'm becoming somewhat a fan of Frederic Bastiat's writings. He was succinct, to the point, and often brutally honest about his convictions. It also helps that he makes a great deal of sense out of what can be, on the surface, appealing ideals which hide hidden and very unpleasant consequences.
I've only recently come to find this short parable of his which demonstrates that what we often don't see is often more important than what we do see, and the light it can shed on the moral implications of all manner of social policy often touted ever since the early 20th century, if not earlier.
Consider for a moment, how many government policies, activities, programs, etc... fall into this trap... (a prime example would be the WPA projects of the Roosevelt administration, just for starters).
How many can you name?
The forum is open.
So some politician in Kentucky wants to make it illegal for you to post anonymously to a website hosted in his state.
Does it really have to be pointed out how insane this is? The punishment gets leveled against the site operator for each instance of violation, thus creating a huge urge for any website operator in the state to feel the need to relocate. How does the average website owner even have the ability to invade people's privacy and track down and verify the real names and contact information of the people leaving messages on their site? It's not like they're the federal government! (oops, s'pose I'll be put on a watch list for that one now).
Seriously, and I thought the law being pushed by that state rep in Mississippi banning fat people from eating at restaurants was the height of stupidity.
Yes, internet bullying is annoying. But it's just that: Annoying. If we were to make that an illegal offense, the first casualty should be legislators, being near the top of the list for royal annoyances as they are.
Also, sorry for being incommunicado for so long here. Life is busy in a good way.
See that icon? That was me after seeing the J.J. Abrahms film "Cloverfield" this evening. And that's a good thing!
How can I describe this film? Others have had a hard time doing so, but I believe I've got it nailed.
You know that nightmare you get sometimes where you're always running from something? Something terrifying? There might be a respite here and there, but before you know it, and without warning, you're in imminent danger again and coming very close to being "killed". You know how it goes, how you can wake up in a start and need to take a moment to regain your senses?
That nightmare is this film - without the waking up part. J.J. Abrahms just produced this one.
The movie has tapped into something so primal it works at that level of fear and anxiety. A lot of that has to do with the hand-held camera approach, which while irritating in other movies, is absolutely indispensable in this film. It gives you an immediacy to the events that simply cannot be replicated with any standard film making technique.
Bottom line: If you're looking for a city-stomping monster film, this film wins the gold medal amongst all such movies to date. The movie also comes in at a brisk running time, so even when there are lulls, they don't last long.
The movie does exactly what it sets out to do: Scare the hell out of you. And it does it really, really well. A lot of films don't live up to the hype. Here is a pleasant (if you can call it that) exception to that rule.
Final score: 8.75/10
EDIT: Can anyone tell me where I can buy Michael Giacchino's terrific pieced titled "ROAR", which plays over the end credits? (the film proper is, as expected, without musical accompaniment) I can't seem to find it on Itunes.
I'm going on record right now as saying Michael Giacchino is the heir to John Williams brilliance. After "The Incredibles", "Ratatouille", and now even with this brief piece, has cemented himself in my mind as the preeminent musician scoring films in his generation.
I hope I'm not the only one around these parts who remember a film way back in the dawn of the 80's called "Xanadu". I hear word now that there is a Broadway Musical based on the 1980's financial flop, which has achieved critical success by taking the original material and sending it up in a fairly over-the-top fashion.
But what of the original? It was a film of contradictions in quality. The screenplay was all over the map, and reportedly they started filming it without a script. I recall it being very disjointed in many ways (as one would expect, yet the basics of a good story/musical were all there).
Then I caught a few Youtube videos from the musical segments and they stand up very well, much of it done by Olivia Newton John herself and the rest done by the terrific ELO.
There was one segment in particular (that was just as disjointed as many other elements) that was animated by Don Bluth, who had brought audiences "The Secret of NIMH". It had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie, but it got me thinking: "Why didn't they just make the whole thing an animated musical?" Even that scene that seemed so out of place in a live action film would make more sense if the whole thing was animated. The story is practically a modern day fairy tale in itself.
Seriously, feature length animated musicals have proven themselves in the decades since then and several of those have become Broadway shows. The story lends itself to some way-out visuals that could appear less out of place in an animated film, if handled by a director with a more consistent vision.
With some stylistic re-tooling/updating (lose the weird neon grid representation of Mt. Olympus, for example), a few changes in details, and a script written by a competent scribe, there is no reason that a studio like Disney, who is now getting back into the hand-drawn animation field (thank God), could pull this off with John Lasseter still heading the creative development department. You could even keep most of the music - which as I mentioned, was the best part of the original, as album sales vs ticket sales proved. Listening to it now, it's not as dated as the visuals were.
Maybe it's just me, but when I see a movie that has the basic framework of a good film and squanders nearly all of its potential, it just makes me want to see someone else take a stab at it and do the idea justice. Not having seen the Broadway send-up inspired by the movie, I can't say for certain if this was the best that could be made of the material, but I doubt it.
Anyone else agree? (If anyone else even knows what I'm talking about when I said "Xanadu".)
What other films can you think of where the concept was solid, but the execution made you wish someone else would do a "Reboot", as its become known now.
...but at what point do you actually own the music you buy so that you can use it for your own personal use?
So now RIAA says you can't even take music you've purchased legally for yourself and yourself only and copy it to other devices you own (ipods, your computer's library, etc). Or at least if not that, then they at least reserve the right to prosecute you for doing it. What, do they expect us to buy a new copy of the same song every time you want to use it on a different device? Talk about killing the market for digital music players and online music stores. One of the big selling points is transferability between platforms and devices.
I suppose by extension this means they don't want you to burn music you've purchased digitally to a CD?
This is ridiculous.
I don't even have a problem if someone copies one or two songs for a friend or family member (I don't mind if someone copied a few samples of my comics and give them away, properly attributed.) It's when copying and reselling are done large scale that it has an impact on the author. If someone is altering the original and distributing it as the original author's work, that's also a problem copyright is useful for, but this?
Prosecuting for thousands of dollars and threatening financial ruin is only going to kill the digital music industry.
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