20100131 (4) – The concentration-breaker I whinge about in the next page’s metadata is still in effect, though I’ve been given a (probably brief) respite – the First Transport Is Away or something, and the dog has finally quieted down. If this is a straight-up move-out, upstairs neighbor will need to be past tense by midnight. I intend to be out of here between 1930 and 2000, so anything that happens after that point I could care less about – if he’s Going, he should be Gone by the time I get back. Which means that Monday will be a day of Much Rejoicing.

Also chores – rent and phone bill and groceries and all that jazz.

A “sparse” page – all of the real work was in panels two through four, and most of it was re-bubbling, using the existing type, growl, and icons as a base. While I’ve done this with several pages of DCR.1, it’s a destructive process and makes a “rollback” to the previous script a difficult task, should it ever be necessary. Odds are it won’t be – even on minimal pages like this, the type improvements are massive. Bubbles are finally anti-aliased, for one thing. “Tails” actually point at mouths, kerning is correct… it needed doing. And much like The Dualist, that was the initial reason I used to justify the re-write.

Though after The Dualist and after a re-read of DCR, I hardly needed one.

Eventually, I’ll figure out what’s up with Space Ninja’s right arm – his cybernetics are optics-only in Whitehouse’s flashbacks, so the upgrade from “view slit” to “goggles” and the acquisition of the left arm exo-sheath – and the damage indicated in panel eight – come Later. His left arm isn’t prosthetic – it was heavily damaged and the sheath exists as either a cover/healing aide/nerve booster for the damaged limb, or it’s a “working cast” over a replacement limb graft. While the how and the what are ultimately irrelevant to the actual story, it’s one of those little details that’ll be fun to figure out – the fact that his eyes were damaged during military service and he’s wearing a VA prosthetic in Whitehouse’s flashbacks isn’t necessary to know, but this fact does add flavor to the scene that I plan to mention it in.

20101225 – Original page metadata:

Ghost ninja. From OUTER SPACE!!!1.

There’s just no way in hell your alarm clock is even half as cool.

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2008.04.19 – Cropped, cleaned up, and slightly recomposed. I think the new version flows a lot better than the old one. Also, replaced the stock MacOS bomb and watch icons with a homebrewed bomb and hourglass. Same message, just mine instead of… you know, not.

20101225 – Original strip metadata:

Strip 030, 20051014 –

I rebuilt the Bomb and Watch icons at four times their actual size using a four-pixel “brush” so they’d scale down to Exact Size for the web version of the strip.

As for Fey Victus!, well… Blood Omen was cracked out Zelda with glacial load times. Glacial load, great music, the last sprite-based* RPG I played and after awhile it got horribly frustrating. Grind, grind, grind, cheat. A man’s got limits and games are supposed to be fun, dammit. I eventually got around to trying Soul Reaver and was extremely disappointed with it- subjecting myself to a Hot Topic Tomb Raider just isn’t my idea of a good time. Keep your crate puzzles, fuckers.

Bomb icon and a period gaming reference. Ph34r.

That aside, I think I need to get more anime with the eyes – the pupils just kind of disappear at webscale.

* Star Ocean doesn’t count.

Strip 031, 20051017 –

You knew it was only a matter of time until ATC production values started working their way into DCR.

Even if you didn’t, I did. I just wasn’t expecting to do it this early in the story. Since I’m working in grayscale, one of the things I aim to play with is use of detail/shading/lighting in place of ATC’s internally consistent qabalah – light sourcing and the like only when it’s actually Relevant.

Strip 032, 20051018 –

I spent more time on this one than I’d care to admit. I also spent quite a bit of time Saturday night doing sketches, narrowing down and compacting the presentation into something that gets the point across.

Burn damage certainly ranks up there on the difficulty scale…. which is probably why I’ve been drawing the character with an exo sheath for the past eight years, rather than the mangled spaghetti yuck that’s under it.

Strip 033, 20051019 –

Ooooh, that’s gotta hurt.