My Writing Process

As I've been going through the initial writing process for Since It's V Day, I found it interesting to note how monumentally helpful a simple thing like a text editing program can be. I can't imagine the headache involved in trying to organise scenes written on paper, after you've jotted them down in the order they came to you. So I thought I'd detail here how I go about writing a story and why the easy functionality of WordPad is a fucking godsend.
 Basically what it comes down to is the ability to get the basic plot events marked down with several blank lines inbetween so I can easly insert content in its chronological place as it's formulated. Using this method I can begin to fill out the document with more detailed plot points and scenes, small bits of dialogue, character moments, descriptions and notes. It also helps to easily signify where I still have gaps in the sequence of events that require filling in.
 Now rather than set time aside for dedicated writing sessions, I'll usually just go about my day and, as I said in my last post, when an idea is new and exciting, it tends to fill my mind at every silent moment. This makes it easier for ideas for scenes and such to come more naturally as I mull over the plot, and I can simply insert them into the document as I go.
 Once I feel like I've got enough material, I'll begin stitching the scenes together, figuring out how they'll flow into each other, etc. Then, once most of the events and dialogue are written out, I'll go back to the top and begin systematically figuring out how each sequence will break down into comic panels, and begin producing the pages as I go. This is also how I wrote Two Guys Walk Into the Internet....

Since It's V Day

Something incredible has happened. Something amazing that I never imagined would happen to me, or rather, I often imagined would never happen to me. I... have had an idea. Yes, an idea. Phenomenal. But, as I say, it was a kind of idea I never thought possible. Not an idea for a joke, but rather something... else.
 I woke up at about 9pm last night, and for whatever reason, just lied in bed for a while, letting my mind wander. The tapestry of a small story began to weave itself into existence without permission. I considered it carefully, molding and refining it, and before long I knew I had to get up and write it down. Being new and intriguing, it filled my mind at every silence, and so ideas begat ideas, the story began to grow, and my excitement mounted.
 I've now just spent all night and day typing notes, thinking about characters and designs, and sketching out storyboards for a climactic scene towards the end of the story. A purely dramatic story is, once again, something I never even dreamed of attempting in all my days, so this will be completely untested water for me. Maybe I'll suck at it and it'll be terrible. But I'm not gonna find out by thinking about it.
 I'm making this post to mark down in the history books the day this project was birthed and pre-production began. I'll be quite interested to see how many superhero reboots have happened by the time this thing is done. This is a story called Since It's V Day.

3x22: Through the Looking Glass

28. Screenshot Comic #1

A few years ago on IMDb's Lost board there was a little fad for a while where someone would make a comic strip template out of Lost screenshots and a bunch of people would take it and insert their hilarious captions. The dialogue for this first one jumped out at me pretty much as soon as I saw it, except for the third panel, which took a while to figure out, but I'm pretty happy with how it ended up. I'm glad I thought of something that actually uses Ben's pose, instead of just ignoring it and telling the story through dialogue.
 Also, the M&M's are peanut.

We're Gonna Skip and Hold Hands

27. Big Brother

Why is there reality TV? Jersey Shore of all things has just started showing on 7mate. The promos boast hot tub promiscuity and general trashiness. Somehow I don't think this is what they had in mind when television was being invented. Part of me wants to talk at length about reality shows and why I do and don't like Big Brother, but another, more reasonable part just wants to say that The Mole is awesome and then never think on the subject again. So I will. The Mole is awesome.
 About the strip: I'm really happy with how the staging turned out. The view of the action is from the PoV of the diary room camera, which allows for some interesting shots of the character as he moves around in a static frame. This along with the BB watermark in the corner sets up the final panel, which is inspired by all those wonderful Simpsons stand by cards, particularly this one.
 The more I think about this premise, the more absurd it seems. Somehow this guy has made it onto Big Brother without ever realising he would be constantly filmed. Also, the diary room camera is the only one in the entire house that isn't hidden in any way, so it doesn't even make sense that he takes a little while to notice it. However, one thing's for sure: Greg is not loving himself sick.

Make It Up as We Go Along

25. IMDb's Lost Board

Back when Lost was still going on, I used to spend a huge amount of time on IMDb browsing the show's message board. As is the case with most forums, it didn't take long for an extremely tight-knit clique to form, and with it came a veritable laundry list of in-jokes and memes. One day I went to the (dead as it'll ever be) Via Domus board on GameFAQs and started posting a bunch of those memes in a thread. As of today, the thread is 338 posts long and locked because I ended up forgetting to bump it often enough.
 Why this ever became a Masterpiece, I don't know. It certainly doesn't meet my current quality standards, but I'm not about to go and change the numbers on all the ones after it, so here it is. In an attempt to compensate, I'm including the next Masterpiece in this same post.

26. LOST is Lost

These two Masterpieces kind of go hand in hand, anyway; this one is also inspired by the Lost board on IMDb. I suspect that the particular thread I ripped this dialogue from might have just been someone trolling, but people say similarly stupid things pretty much constantly on this here innernet of ours, and it still captured everything I was looking for. It even had that horribly tortured pun I've come to loathe so much.

Well There's Your Problem

24. MythBusters

I really love MythBusters. It's interesting, entertaining and generally a whole lot of fun. But there is this one flaw that I fear will irk me until the end of time. They go into that one room with a whole bunch of crazy crap on the walls, and start asking each other questions and acting ("acting" being used quite loosely here) like they don't know the answers. When they're out in the field actually doing something, they'll explain things to the camera almost constantly, and it's great. But then they (particularly the Build Team) always return to the Acting Room for one last review of their results.
 I don't know that there's much more I can say here without echoing the strip, except that I miss the original Buster.

Mais Oui? Mais Oui!

23. The Internet Adventure #3

 Two Guys Walk Into the In'ernet...

Episode 3: Lost in Translation

The first site on my Favourites list, and I apparently wasted no time in expressing my fondness for Tim Buckley's work, with no hint of irony or a joke of any kind. Perhaps not the best tactic for keeping people reading, but I still wouldn't take it out because, regardless of what some people think of Tim personally, his work has been a pretty huge inspiration to me, second only to that of Matt Groening.
 The other thing in this strip that I'm not 100% sure was a good idea is the curious Doorway of Unexplainedness, which pops up out of nowhere for no reason and somehow acts as a portal between webpages. The original plan was for Red & Yellow to literally go into my Favourites list as a means of hopping between websites, but I guess I decided it would be too much fuss to put together, so I came up with these Lanes Between-esque corridors which Red & Yellow immediately accept and trust without question. Then I was going to actually show them walking through these corridors, with various choice webpages projected on the walls, which I also decided would be too much hassle to put together, and scrapped it. In later episodes, the characters tend to travel via actual links anyway.
 And then, I was pretty much burnt out on the whole idea. With no direction and few ideas, there was pretty much no motivation to spend time working on it. I realised I needed a story. Of course, that meant writing one. Throughout that year I did come up with a few ideas, such as having a character from some famous web series play the villain (Dr Octogonapus, for example), having him kind of lurk in the shadows while Red & Yellow visit a TV Tropes page about villains, and emerging into view after they leave.
 Another idea was to have Red & Yellow find a time machine (also on TV Tropes) to go back in time where I could use screenshots from the Wayback Machine to have them explore the internet's roots. But with no actual conflict or goal to drive any of the characters' actions, I couldn't make a plot come together, and there was nothing to really get me excited about putting this beast back into motion. Until one night, sitting on the floor with my new puppy...

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.

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.

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.

Deeper and Deeper

19. Deep

so tihs is lyk a foto i took of myself wich i fel is quiet deep and shows how sum ppl r vry dep an filed wtih powerflu emotons dat tehy haf 2 del wif in rl

This is pretty much the only Masterpiece where I feel like the stuff I wrote in the little deviantArt blurb thing is an actual part of the artwork, like it would be incomplete without it. I wanted to make the bathroom here look as perfectly normal as possible to give the feeling that this is the kind of kid who has a perfectly comfortable home life, yet likes to get on MySpace and bitch about his tortured soul. I think that's just an overblown stereotype, though. Even teenagers aren't that stupid.
 I'm not sure if this would be better or not with the camera changed to a mobile phone. I guess it works either way. The glare on the mirror, however, could definitely be a little neater. Also, I don't know where I would be without liquid soap.

Bloggio Commentary

Starting a blog was something I had in the back of my mind for a while, but I could never come up with a topic that would be able to constitute frequent postings. Something else I had been wanting to do for a while was make little audio commentaries for the Masterpieces and put them on YouTube. I never started doing that mainly because I didn't want to bother with the technical aspect involved.
 Then, just a couple of months ago, I had the inspired idea to marry my two problems into one beautiful and matrimonious solution. An additional plus of going in this text commentary direction is that I now have a blog available if I ever want to write about whatever (such as death, it seems), but not feel like I ought to do so regularly.

"This is a Quote from the Episode"

18. The Amazing Race

I love it when a joke can be delivered in an extremely efficient manner. A single panel, minimal dialogue, and a large visual element to the gag. It makes everything feel very slick and witty. Insanity Streak is a good example of a comic strip that does this as much as possible.
 I'm gonna go out on a limb and say I probably came up with this while watching The Amazing Race. Frank (who appears to have both eyes on the same side of his head) was named after the main character of the show Franklin.

Am I Really That Fat?

17. Pixar Does Good Work

It's funny to think that both these movies were known to exist nearly two years ago, but I guess that's just the way Pixar does things. Well, Toy Story 3 was predictably amazing, but as of now, Cars 2 is still about eight months away. As the comic implies, I still don't see anything "important and worthwhile" about the film's premise, but that's certainly not to say I don't have faith in John Lasseter. He seems to have a lot of passion for Cars as a franchise, so I'm confident this movie will be entertaining at the least. My problem is that the movie sounds like a feature-length version of the Cars Toon series. Obviously it's not fair to judge a film by a two-sentence summary, so I'll just have to wait and see what Pixar comes up with.
 As to the Masterpiece itself, people seem to have trouble understanding what actually happens in this strip, which I think is due to the copied panels leaving all the acting up to the characters' faces. So, my bad. Here is how it's intended to be taken: Buzz has just mentioned Pixar's rule about having a perfect story for a sequel, when who should show up but Lightning McQueen, the guy with the seemingly frivolous sequel coming out, which creates an awkward moment where Buzz and Woody aren't sure what to say to him.
 Art notes:
- I increased the length of Woody's legs about three times before he looked the right height next to Buzz.
- Lightning's eyes are the same in both panels, but the altered mouth gives them completely different meanings.

Do You See What I See?

16. All You Need is Love

The Beat Panel Pals make their glorious return and establish their positions as pretty much the only recurring characters in the Million Masterpiece Project. The silent beat in this strip is interesting in that it goes out of its way to show that the characters stare into each other's eyes, since that's the part that the joke relies on, rather than the general awkward moment that a beat is usually used to convey.
 This Masterpiece basically came from finding the most cliche, sap-filled, Hollywoodesque line I could think of, and seeing if I could twist it into a joke. I was particularly attracted to this question because I personally think the concept is ridiculous.

Pink Walls Are So In

15. Roomies

I have no idea how or why I came up with this strip, but I did so here it is. And I think it's pretty good, personally. I don't particularly like this song, but since it's Beyoncé, it of course received a huge amount of playtime when it was at its most popular. Which I guess kept it in my head long enough for me to conceive an alternate scenario for the lyrics. Speaking of which, these lyrics seem really silly and oddly specific to me. I think must people would just say, "Your shit's over there."

Muggle Pants

14. Potter Puppet Pals

For this Masterpiece, I knew I wanted to do some kind of Harry Potter spoof, but I didn't really have any good jokes in mind. So, without much direction, I started drawing Harry in the typical Masterpiece style (i.e. a ball stuffed onto a triangle) in the hopes that a brilliant spark of inspiration would come along and give me some ideas. Sure enough, it wasn't long before I noticed that my Harry was looking quite similar to his Potter Puppet Pals incarnation, so I made the floor brown, threw in my favourite line to make the connection and there you have it, one Masterpiece. Now if I could just get Colin to show me how to make the characters move. Oh, wait.

13

13. Halloween

Most Masterpieces have reasonably interesting stories behind them. Others... don't. I guess Halloween was coming up and I was like, "Hey, maybe I'll do a Halloween themed strip," but then I remembered I don't care about Halloween even the slightest bit. The result is a kind of weird anti-joke where you expect the first guy to protest or be surprised or something but he just accepts it. Also, I feel like things would read better if he said "for Halloween" instead of "on Halloween," but hopefully it's clear enough as it is.

The More You Take Out, the Bigger It Gets

12. Holes Don't Exist

The first line of this strip is something a kid from primary school used to say, which I recalled while sitting around one day trying to come up with an idea for a joke. And yet, I'm not really sure there is a joke here. It just seems like some stuff that goes on. The one guy brings up this somewhat interesting piece of logic, which prompts the other guy to ponder the very nature of the universe.
 These two guys (who later became known as the Beat Panel Pals) have since become sort of the de facto protagonists and mascots of the Million Masterpiece Project (see the top of this blog), so I guess it's fitting that this is the first multi-panel comic strip Masterpiece. It's funny how they've ended up coming so far (even going on to star in the Internet Adventure), since it certainly wasn't planned in any way. By a mighty stroke of luck, I think these guys are also the most aesthetically pleasing of all the standard Masterpiece characters, possibly due to their being symmetrical to eachother.

The Three-Pronged Poiuyt

11. Devil's Pitchfork

I love impossible shape/structure illusions (I'm a huge M.C. Escher fan), so for this Masterpiece I aimed to pay tribute to the whole marvelous idea of a drawing that really just doesn't make sense. This particular object was chosen because it's just so damn awesome. Also, I like the name "Devil's Pitchfork", to which Wikipedia offers several alternatives, including the one coined by Mad.
 Another thing I find interesting about this shape is the conundrum one faces when attempting to colour it. Clearly, I decided to cheat. This is why I stuck the blueprint on there, which led to yet another interesting discovery about this particular shape: if the prongs are too short (so that you are able to focus your eyes on the whole figure at once), much of the illusion is lost, because it becomes too easy to see exactly how it is drawn. That's the effect it had on me, at least.
 A few notes about the guy on the pedestal: he is the last of my Masterpiece characters to have discernible feet, and one of very few to have hair; he has sideburns, but no ears; he possesses a rare multicoloured shirt and he has the most detailed hand I had MS Painted at the time (complete with prop).