May 2009 Archives

This weekend I was taking pictures of my unarguably adorable housepets. This is not notable in itself, but it is perhaps notable that my cat, Betamax, appeared with glowing orange eyes in almost every photo taken of him. I can only conclude that the purifying light of the camera flash served to expose his diabolical nature.

In this one, he looks like he's just suddenly been possessed (while the dog, Sadie, looks on, perhaps distracted from her meal by the sudden feeling of an evil presence behind her):

Either he's a demon, or he's charging the lasers. I can't tell which.

I know he appears to be laying calmly on top of my messenger bag on the dryer, but the fires of Hell burn in his eyes.

As a bonus, please look at my adorable dog (who is not at all Satan). Also pictured: my boyfriend.

Okay, I think this one looks all right, too. Except I drew his arms way too creepily short. But I was drawing with a dying sharpie so maybe it can be excused.

Drawing Scott Pilgrim is getting easier, and that's what counts.

I believe I mentioned I would try drawing some Scott Pilgrim fan art. So here is my first page of doodles--you can tell I started messing around in the upper left corner and kind of progressed from there. I'm actually reasonably satisfied with the one in the bottom right (the last one I drew on this page).

I will tell you something: Scott Pilgrim is a difficult character to draw, and O'Malley's style is actually deceptively simple. If I can draw versions of the characters that are at least recognizable, I'll consider my fan art a success.

He's got purple suspenders, a yellow tie (say what?)
C'mon, boys, I tell ya no lie
Green suit, black hat, funky spats
He's the hippest hip hip cool cat

I tell you no lie, this guy can't be beat
Wherever he goes he turns up the heat
So when you see 'im drive by with that big cheroot
Don't forget to shout "Hey, Mister Zoot Suit!"

Sorry, I haven't been taking these as often as I should.

Look; it's my other cat looking away from the camera at the precise moment when I hit the shutter release. I don't think I've posted any photos of him here before. His name is Betamax, and he is the best kitten. Even though he is now two years old.

When I got him from the shelter, he was about four months old, and strangely enough he had been there for about a month, getting overlooked. He was tiny and black and could probably have fit into a VCR if I really wanted to push it--thus, the name. Now he is twice the size of a man's head and weighs nearly twenty pounds. Unlike Maisy, he does not have obesity, so all that weight is from his big, strong kitty muscles.

Betamax will also allow you to carry him around on his back like a baby. It's adorable, I assure you.

The long weekend is upon us, and that means it is time for me to give you an update on what is going on in the wacky world of MY WEBSITE.

In case you were wondering:

• I have not been able to find a copy of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus at any of my local video stores, despite the fact that it was supposed to come out last Tuesday. This is kind of surprising, because the video store down the street from me already has such masterpieces as Boa vs. Python and, in fact, probably every other crappy creature film ever made. I thought they'd have Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus on the first day. How disappointing!


• Before you suggest it: No, I will not buy Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. This is not a movie I need to own.


• One of my older drawings, "My Preciousss," is now featured as part of the online fantasy choose-your-own-adventure game Age of Fable. Check it out!


• I'm going to draw some Scott Pilgrim fan art, so you can expect that to start showing up here over the next few weeks.


• There will be more drunk postcards, but I may not post them here. Because I want you all to buy the final zine.


• That secret comic I've been working on? It's coming. I'm putting together a webspace for it and working on the first couple pages. It will happen soon. I can feel it.

I'm not usually into horrible direct-to-DVD movies, and I admit I would have completely overlooked Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus if it hadn't been for the fine people at CHUD.

You see, they recently posted the completely mind-blowing trailer for this movie. I'm not sure about the last time I saw a giant poorly-rendered CG shark bite the Golden Gate Bridge, but I am sure that it was too long ago. I'm wholly aware that, particularly for this kind of movie, the whole special effects budget is in the trailer. I don't care. This looks amazing. I'm sure that the relatively low percentage of Mega Sharks and Giant Octopodes in the footage will not impede my enjoyment of this clearly terrible movie.

If I watch it, I'll review it for you all, gentle readers. If I watch it drunk, my review will probably read like a sick child recounting a terrible fever dream.

So on Wednesday it was my boyfriend's birthday. We didn't do much, but we did go out to dinner with our friend Blake (who is moving next week, sadly) to a place called Jax Fish House in Boulder. Steve really wanted to try it out because the head chef had won popular television program Top Chef. As it turns out, the food at Jax Fish House is mostly pretty good (Blake's entree was kind of over-salted though; don't get the scallops), but not anywhere near how good it should have been for being so expensive. I am reasonably satisfied, but I do not need to return to Jax Fish House. These are my feelings about Jax Fish House.

Anyway, besides the overpriced dinner, I bought Steve a copy of Carcassonne (this is a board game that is said to be especially good with two players). I also made him this fine card:

I don't know why I drew those terrifying, nightmarish toes on the Goomba. Or on Toad (below). It was kind of a whim thing.

Well, because I have no self-control when it comes to joining social networks, I now have a page on ComicSpace, which I guess is like MySpace but for comics creators and fans. MySpace sucks, but this site seems to be pretty okay.

Speaking of social networking, I have also taken the liberty of doing some old-fashioned social networking (that means HTML linking) to some of my friends' websites in the right-hand column of the main blog page. These guys are pretty cool. You should probably look at their websites and subscribe to their RSS feeds and listen to their music and view their drawings and read their webcomics.

Also, you guys should comment now and then. Really. Having commenting set up but no one commenting is lame and dumb and fat. You can either sign up for a commenting account here, or you can use your OpenID/LiveJournal login if you already have those.

Okay, well, that's all I got for the time being. There are still secret comics in the works. One of them has a couple strips up, but I don't want to link to it until we have more than that. The other is still in the works, very close to getting started (and will probably be more on schedule than the other one).

If you know me, you also probably know that my friend Adrian Choy has been away studying abroad in Australia for the last semester. What you probably do not know is that he and I have been playing a game called "Drunk Postcards," in which we get drunk, write postcards, and send the postcards to each other.

The only real requirement of this game is that we write while drunk and do something to the picture side of the card (drunkenness not required). However, I am a daring lady who likes to blaze new trails, so for the last two cards I took it one step further: I used watercolor postcards and drew the pictures, in ink, while drunk. These are the admittedly confusing results:

The only real explanation for these that I can give you is I DON'T KNOW I WAS DRUNK OKAY.

Adrian and I are compiling these together into a little 'zine that we will be selling copies of (he is taking his copies to a 'zine fair at the end of May, I am told). When copies are available, I will tell you. And you will buy one. Are we in agreement?

Good.