With thanks to Martin Zalba for the stock photo. Merry Christmas everyone!
Character: Nikki Aidale
A secondary ed/english major at Edona College who enjoys medieval fantasy stories. Is a storm spotter for Forth County and works for Sheriff Whitebucket. Has a guinea pig(?) named Ichabod. Dating Percy. Fun Fact: All of her outfits have her trademark “swoosh”.
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North Pole Arrival
The wooden crate behind Percy is the bathroom, FYI. I know that was need-to-know information.
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Psychology
Ref: Using parts | PIZZA!
This comic may be one of the most interesting in terms of production. I made this comic at my mother-in-law’s in Colorado, 550 miles from my not-very-portable desktop computer. Using a crummy school laptop (my own laptop has all but died) and the LogMeIn program, I controlled my home desktop to make this comic. The wonders of the internet!
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“We All Live in a Yellow Submarine”
Ref: Leonardo | Sleigh is waterproof | Yellow Submarine (you’re welcome)
And Leonardo is back! I retrofitted the inside a bit; there’s now only two seats but the back is a portable lab of sorts. I also unfortunately lost the pink curtains.
This comic was drawn entirely digitally; while not a first for me, this is a first in terms of it being good quality (i.e. not the iPad). As I’m using backgrounds more, I’m finding it helpful. If I had a drawing tablet, it would be even better, but for now I’ll take what I can get.
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Intermission
Refs: Roark | Mikhail and Stefan | Not being left behind | Monica
I was quite pleased with how this comic turned out, in terms of both dialogue and art. I even managed to make the Mulinix Hall nameplate visible!
Next week begins a new arc!
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Jorocks Used Growth!
Ref: Glove
I like how Percy’s short speech ties everything back to the dreams in The Fountainhead. It also amuses me that both times that Jorocks has been called the titular name of this arc, he hasn’t actually been wearing a feather at the time…
I was FINALLY pleased with how the size comparisons came out. Pity it had to happen on the last comic of the arc! I debated about having the anti-fanservice block back, but decided the ongoing frizzy Jorocks joke was better because his hair cracks me up. Disagree? Let me know (nicely) in the comics and maybe it will return!
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North Pole Obtained
Refs: Gogol | First appearance of Gabriel | Ding-dong? | Left behind
I know, I know, you all wanted to see elf-Jorocks. He’s still getting dressed. But hooray, Percy now owns the North Pole! Yes, there would probably be a huge pile of paperwork involved. No, I’m not going to show it. Paperwork isn’t usually funny.
This wound up being quite text-intensive, which is something I’m working on. However, in this case I felt it was justified, especially as I cut a large amount of material out to make this whole legal matter go faster, and hey, there’s a lot of details that needed to be presented but don’t need to have a whole arc devoted to them. If the comic updated three or five days a week, I would have spread that out more, but once a week calls for a different scripting strategy, especially when I know what needs to happen by certain dates.
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More of Jorocks Than Anyone Wanted to See
Ref: The Shadow! | The Shadow? | THE SHADOW.
Couldn’t resist the link pattern above. 🙂 It is, of course, a reference to The Gamers.
Nikki is really hard to draw shorter than Percy! She’s a little too tall in this strip. Her face in Panel 3 as she’s attempting to follow Percy’s example and make scientific observations but at the same time REALLY wanting to look away is priceless.
This comic had its issues. First, I couldn’t get GIMP to play nicely with my newly installed OSX Maverick. Then, thanks to Brianna, I got it working and finished the comic well ahead of the deadline…only to realize that in taking that one weekend off, all of my dates were off a week and I had drawn NEXT week’s comic! Then as I was frantically trying to finish up this week’s comic (by this point, it was already late…), GIMP crashed on me and, being the nincompoop I am, I hadn’t saved my last hour’s worth of work. But hey, it’s done now and I have a buffer for next week!
No sketchbook this week, though. I want to make sure the main strip gets some love.
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Graduation
I drew this in May 2012 while waiting for my fiancée’s (now wife) graduation to begin. Our school had just gotten iPads for the teachers, and I was trying to figure out if it was viable to make comics off of it. (No, it wasn’t.) I was playing with this while sitting with my mother-in-law waiting for the UNMC department graduation to commence. It was held at some fancy auditorium in Omaha (the Orpheum, maybe? It’s been a while) that was rather large with fancy ceiling work that I cannot replicate too well on an iPad using my finger to draw.
But yay, my wife earned her second bachelor’s degree! She had earned her B.S. in Biology at Doane College (where we met), and this program allowed her to earn her B.S. in Clinical Laboratory Sciences. I think I’ve got that right, anyway. They keep changing the name.
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Percy’s Costume Shop
Chris putting on the sunglasses that he found is a reference to Pokémon X and Y, where the default character design has sunglasses on his or her hat. Personally, I thought they looked dumb and switched the hat decoration immediately, but it is a little more recognizable.
It’s weird drawing a character shorter than Percy!