Say something. I'm bored.

[Darnn]

If it should happen that this forum is the one thing that survives of mankind and years in the future, some alien race finds it and tries to understand us, I'm sure that that'd be very interesting indeed.

[ZOMBIE USER 7833]

Especially since it's all stored digitally, and with no hard copy, would probably be trashed almost the instant any sort of global disaster hit any part of the internet (especially knowing keenspace). If you like we could discuss the existance of God, debating religions and such, and whether, as a result of an omniscient creator, we actually possess a thing called free will, like they're doing over in that zany Men in Hats forum.

But instead, I wonder, which is better, updating at the exact right times but having crap, meaningless filler art that breaks up the plot, or not updating at all until you have time to finish a decent comic. Just wondering, as a lot of artists seem to love nothing more than drawing giant pictures of their characters in varying costumes, as opposed to telling any story.

Also if the guy I work with mentions anything about the x-box again, I fear I may knock him out. (With my fist).

[Darnn]

I think discussing God and such things should come naturally, and not just because all the cool kids on the Men In Hats forum are doing it. :&
Also, I don't mind filler art too much, as long as it's actually funny. Take today's SP, for instance.
What you could do is make a sprite filler-comic for when you have nothing ready. Or a stickpeople one. Just so long as they're funny, even in a very cheap way, I'm good.
Don't know about everyone else, though.

[ZOMBIE USER 7833]

Hmm... sprite comic... I've always thought, "Hey, ARG! should briefly turn into a sprite comic at some point." Which is funny, because none of my characters were ever in a video game, and thus there are no sprites.



.... or are there?

[Darnn]

I'm sort of talking about the wider definition of sprite comic, meaning small crappy repetitive graphics.
Besides, I'm sure you could locate some sprites of Boba Fett from some really crappy SW games. I don't remember if he was in the NES one, but I do remember it was crappy, so it's worth a shot. There are plenty of games featuring generic anime girls out there, but I doubt they'd be the right size, or not require censorship. And I just don't know about minotaurs.

[ZOMBIE USER 7833]

I've found tons of people that fit into the category, but none of them look much like my characters. I could either make my own sprites, us sprites that look nothing like the characters on purpose (i.e. Megaman as Jaster, etc), or even just use vastly repetitive images a la Elf Only Inn, without it actually being sprites. I dunno. Not any time soon, though.

[Darnn]

You could always do what I do. Have incredibly simple characters and STEAL things from Google image search.

I'm not aiming for actual readership, though.

[ZOMBIE USER 7833]

Actually, when I occasionally mix photography in with the comic, it's almost always stolen from google images. Eventually I'm going to invest in a digital camera, though... and from there, who knows what zany backgrounds and scenarios might ensue. I carved a very cool ARG! related jack-o-lantern, and wanted to find a way to get a picture of it and work it into the strip or something somehow, but it just didn't happen. Stupid "lack of free time". Or rather, I still have free time, but there's much less of it, and I don't want to spend all of it doing comic hooey.

I'm also not concerned with readership anymore. Well, that's not true, I'd still love to have the giant army of loyal readers, and to be able to get annoyed at the amount of mail I get from them, blah blah blah, but I no longer have any delusions about it happening any time soon, like I did when I first started. I have a story that I thought up, and I'm gonna tell it, even if it takes me a lot longer than I'd planned to. This "Star Wars movie" plotline was originally mapped out to happen when Star Wars actually came out in theaters. I wish I had an artist to draw this stuff for me, who I could just give the strip ideas too, but then I wouldn't be growing as an artists, would I? Some crap like that, I dunno. Everyone has delusions of being a good writer, I guess, but then most of the reviews I've gotten have been "Hey, great writing, too bad the art sucks", but then that I also have a style that grows on you. I like it.

Hmm.... rambling.

[Darnn]

Hey, you're no Picasso, but I like the art. Better than lots of things out there that ore considered good. In fact, I was quite surprised when you firt posted the link on the Yahtzee board at how professional it look. It actally put me off quite a bit at first, since I thought it was going to be 'professional' humour, as well.

And, as for growing as an artist, do you draw anything outside the strip? If so, why not put it up somewhere on the site? People content, and if you have some lying around...

[ZOMBIE USER 7833]

I doodle, mostly. Almost constantly, but a lot of it is completely horrible, and best never to be seen by the general public, I tend to be at least somewhat picky as to what I use for a comic. Sadly, I've had no professional artistic training at all, and so I have very little in the line of completed works to show for anything. ARG! is really the first and only major project of any sort that I've done. I taught myself how to ink and color on the computer solely for this comic, and it seems recently whenever I do get around to drawing anything, it's usually just another comic. Speaking of which, I need to go do some of those...

[ZOMBIE USER 7833]

Wait, what's all this 'professional' humor? Are there people out there with humor degrees? I would love to go get a Masters in being funny.

[Darnn]

Well, I guess I mean the dark side of syndication.
And you could read a bunch of books on humour. Note: most of the people who wrote them are STUPID and WRONG and must be regarded as such.

[ZOMBIE USER 7833]

I agree. It is absolutely impossible to gain a sense of humor from a book. You can memorize jokes from a book, but that doesn't make you funny.

[Darnn]

Well, it makes you funny to the extent of how much of those jokes the people you associate with don't know... But.

And then there's Pokey. It's perfect, isn't it? Little effort with drawing, sometimes top-notch humour, almost always makes you smile. Sadly, though, much like with drawing black squares on white backgrounds, it's not that funny if anyone other than The Authors does it.