I know I said I wasn’t going to insert Sketch Ups of backgrounds, but it was a lot faster in this case for Panel 2. The original wasn’t really salvageable…
Yay speech bubbles!
Location: Edona College
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Intermission
Ref: Ayn Rand referenced | Shower needed | The start of Jorocks and Holly | Percy has matured | Holly is serious about Jorocks
Intermission! A brief fun break before THE FINAL ARC.
John Troutman’s Sporkman makes a cameo in Panel 2. I’d been looking for an excuse to cameo Sporkman for a while, as he stars in one of my favorite comics (found here or here). Incidentally, while it is difficult to see in the panel, Sporky and Roark are at the state capitol of Wisconsin in Madison, the city where many Sporkman stories have taken place. Troutcave Comics and Spoofy Randomness actually have a bit of history, with a guest strip of mine appearing in Lit Brick (let’s not discuss my unsuccessful imitation of Troutman’s art style, but hey, Spoofy Randomness cameos!), a tweet of mine wound up inspiring the Knorkman, and I commissioned a Blight Way Lit Brick because that is one of my favorite series. Incidentally, Sporkman’s comment about timelines? The little guy has messed with his timeline more than the Doctor through various reboots and shenanigans, all of which are canon to Sporkman if I understood correctly.
I considered actually showing Nikki in the shower with the anti-fanservice block, but given that I just used that joke last week… Or maybe I just like to tease you guys.
Come back Monday, when Spoofy Randomness: Anthem begins!
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Matt Smith
This probably would have made its way into the main comic as a mini-arc if I was still updating three times a week. I realized as I was writing the script for 2014 that Matt’s imitation of the Eleventh Doctor would no longer be immediately relevant, and he had a tradition of dressing as the new Doctor. However, it was one thing to have him start to dress as Smith’s Doctor, but moving from an actor who shared his name to Capaldi would not be an easy transition for Matt. Therefore, I decided to make him a brand new costume! His costume is based mostly off of what I often wore as a DM when I was in college; a red sweatervest over a white V-neck sweatshirt and a navy suitcoat (I was mad stylin’, yo). His hairstyle is also similar to mine in college, although longer as he still had his Matt Smith haircut. (I briefly considered giving him my glasses too, but decided against it.) At one point I had tossed around the idea of making a fake 12th Doctor trailer using that costume, but I never did.
Chris’s line at the beginning amuses me; remember that his costume is based somewhat off of the male protagonist from Pokémon Crystal (and at one point, Pokémon SoulSilver). Obviously Sally does not watch Doctor Who; many people are confused as to what “companion” actually means if they have not seen the show.
Fun fact: you can actually make Matt’s new screwdriver (yesterday’s comic has a better shot of it) using this set.
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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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Campus Security
Ref: Percy gets attention | And again
A while ago on Twitter I mentioned that I wish I would have given Percy ear hair. I satisfied this urge with Jorocks’s elf form. I was happy for a change with how the sizing turned out with the elves. Chris’s face is a little off though. In a way, I like it as he kinda looks like his dad this way.
Having a bit of trouble with my mouse. Apparently when I updated to OSX Maverick, the Logitech driver doesn’t play nicely. It makes dragging text boxes a royal pain. If anyone has a fix to cover this until the driver update comes up and can explain it to someone who still isn’t quite familiar with Mac programming yet, I’d love to hear it!
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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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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!
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The Next Test Subject
Ref: Percy is short | Elf Nikki | Lord of the Necklaces reference
This commentary really has nothing to do with the comic above, but a general announcement that I’m rather excited about. At the end of the next story arc, I will be putting Spoofy Randomness on hiatus for a month. Why am I excited about this, you ask? Because I will be working on developing a new comic, with the working title of On the Origin of Idiots. My intention is to have this second comic be focused on a discussion of the ridiculous scientific misconceptions that our society has. As such, the art is not the focus and it will likely just be a copy-pasted mashup, hence why I’ll be able to run two comics at once while still teaching and not go insane.
Oh hey, I colored elf-Nikki from Percy’s internal dialogue! There. Now this commentary relates to the comic at hand.