Sunday, November 28, 2010

Joined at the Hip

22. Conjoined
This Masterpiece seems rather small and simple compared to the somewhat grander scale of the last two strips. I stumbled upon the inspiration for this idea while constructing a previous Masterpiece (most likely one of those last two), copy/pasting and flipping images like a right lazy bastard, when I placed the flipped character's eye over top of its identical original. The rest, as they say, is bleeding obvious.
 The "hey" is something I thought was pretty funny, as if they've just met up and have not spent every waking second staring at each other.

Friday, November 26, 2010

I'm Feeling Lucky

21. The Internet Adventure #2
Two Guys Walk Into the In'ernet...
Episode 2: I'm Fee

Wherein the situation is assessed, and Yellow shows off his short temper for a moment. This strip was intended essentially to set up the then-planned series of only loosely connected in'ernet shenanigans. Not really having any idea what exactly I would or wouldn't be able to come up with going forward, I used the final line to kind of say, "Okay, maybe "epic journey" is exaggerating a little."
 The title of this episode used to be "Think of it Like an Adventure" or somesuch, which is absolutely atrocious, partly because it's a quote straight from the strip and partly because it's awkward and boring as a title. Then I noticed the Feeling Lucky button in the fifth panel. It's better than the alternative, at least. There have been a few times when I've sat for several minutes on the deviantArt submission page, a title the only thing still evading me.
 Also, did panel three just break the fourth wall? I think it just broke the fourth wall.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Let Me Google That For You

20. The Internet Adventure #1
Two Guys Walk Into the In'ernet...
Episode 1: Enter the Googlix

In this pilot episode, the two protagonists (for the purposes of this blog, let's unimaginatively call them Red and Yellow) first enter the internet, and they appear to be floating. Hereafter I decided it would be better to have the characters walk and climb across webpages. I had them floating here because I imagined their entering the internet like being trapped in a dimension that is devoid of anything. Specifically what I had in mind was the scene at the end of the first Futurama anthology where Fry, Al Gore, Stephen Hawking, Nichelle Nichols, Gary Gygax and Deep Blue are floating against an empty white backdrop.
 The Beat Panel Pals were selected to star in this series simply because I knew it was going to become something special, and so called for characters with a little something extra. And of course these guys had been the only Masterpiece characters so far to show real promise with a recurring role, so the choice was easy.
 I wish I could remember what it was that initially sparked this idea (it's possible the Print Screen button had a hand in it), because I think it's one of the best I've ever had, and it's certainly led to one of the projects I'm most proud of (at least in writing if not in art). Originally, the concept for this series was simply for Red and Yellow to travel from website to website cracking jokes and generally mucking about. Every strip or two would focus on a new website, and I was going to basically just work my way through my Favourites list. Not surprisingly, it got old fast, but I'll talk about that in a few posts' time.
 Something I've always expected due to this comic, but never received, is hate for using Internet Explorer. Maybe I just hang out on the wrong forums, but people usually seem to jump at the chance to dissuade anyone from using it for even another second. Also, my toolbar isn't a cluttered mess like in some people's screenshots I've seen, so it's at least aesthetically pleasing enough for webcomic purposes, regardless of IE's debated practicality.