Archive for February, 2008
14 items.
A little personal time with Vampirella…
February 28th, 2008 |Posted In: My Other Websites, New Comic
Boy, I don’t know… for a while there, I thought I might make Friday’s an unofficial “color comic strip” day for Capes ‘N’ Babes but man, I am one slooooooow colorist. Actually, it’s more like I am one picky cartoonists that is way too perfectionistic for his own good when it comes to colors.
Let me know what you think. I’ve been doing a few extra steps in order to try and get the best line quality out of my strips. For example, I love the line rendering in Photoshop but I hate dealing with trying to make word balloons in Photoshop. It’s so much easier to do that in Freehand.
So, I have been coloring or shading all of my line art in Photoshop, creating all the word balloons and text in Freehand and then dragging the Freehand balloons into my Photoshop document. And in order to make sure all of the text and word balloons match the panels, I import a rough tiff of the strip into Freehand to help me determine the placement of everything.
This is an old graphic design trick I picked up a few years ago. It’s a little bit of extra work but I think the work shows in the last copuple of strips.
What do YOU think?
Currently listening to Lionel Ritchie’s “All night long” on Sky.fm in iTunes…
-Chris
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For whatever reason, sometime last week, I remembered the scene in “Trading Places” where Dan Akroid is trying to hock his watch to Bo Didley in Philly so I started wondering what would happen if a Green Latern fell on hard times. What would he do? And this scene popped in my head.
Listening to “Only the young” by Journey…
-Chris
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Anything is possible – INCLUDING finding every last bit of porn on the internet.
Didn’t know if I was going to be able to make my Monday post in time with this one. I had way too much stuff to do over the weekend and my normal schedule got really out of whack. Generally, since I’m married with kids, Fridays are no longer the great “date night” as used to be the case with me and the wife. Instead, that night is usually reserved for working on either my Capes ‘N’ Babes strip or my weekly CMX Suite one. If I’m really in a groove, I can get work done on both.
But this past Friday, I decided to participate in my gym’s tennis social. Spent three hours playing doubles. Then on Saturday, my wife’s been feeling sick so I watched the kids while she rested. Still no work being done. And then for today, a friend at work has a son who was receiving his Eagle Scout award… so a handful more hours away from doing any cartoon work at all.
Somehow, I did it though. I not only got this cartoon posted but I also have my Tuesday CMX Suite strip ready to go for Community MX as well.
And all just before a few minutes before 12 midnight. I’m hitting the “Publish” button in WordPress and then I’m heading for bed.
-Chris (one tired cartoonist)
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I’m a baaaaaaad, bad cartoonist…
I’m probably going to get some slack for the cartoon above but before I do, the nice thing about having a blog below the cartoon is the blog gives you a chance to read what’s going on inside my head. So, with that being said, let me just say that I have absolutely no problems with any kind of “alternative lifestyle” whatsoever. In fact, I have many friends – and relatives – who are, in fact, gay. I understand and see the difficulties and challenges of what they go through on a daily basis. And I also know all too well that the above depiction could be considered a terrible stereotype. Pink Hulk is not meant to be an insult to anyone. Instead, it’s supposed to be light hearted fun just as when my gay friends and relatives poke fun at my balding head or my inherit “redneck-ness”.
If we try hard enough, we can easily find things that insult, mock or ridicule us. That’s the easy thing. The hard thing is being comfortable enough within our own skin to realize every stereotypical depiction of a homosexual, a redneck, a Jewish person or any other minority is not necessarily a personal slap to our face. Mel Brooks proved this in “Blazing Saddles”… that sometimes, we have to make fun of stereotypes and bigotry in order to prove exactly how ridiculous they truly are.
Pink Hulk is not a representative of homosexuals. He just happens to be an overly muscular pink dude that enjoys maxing his credit card out on massive shopping trips.
No more. No less.
Currently listening to Stevie Nicks…
-Chris
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The other day, we got a magazine in the mail that advertised a whole bunch knick-knacks and things you generally use around the house. I’m sure you all have gotten similar ads or magazine. This one was pretty thick though so it took me a little while to get to page 117 where I saw the ad above.
Of course, as soon as I saw the ad, the “dirty ol’ man” in e immediately began to chuckle. My wife wanted to know what was so funny so I handed her the ad and said “Do you see anything wrong with this picture?”. It took her a moment or two before SHE realized what she was looking at as well.
Congress really needs to stop focusing on Major League Baseball. If anyone is using Human Growth Hormones, it’s the kid in the ad above!
I actually came up with this idea during a Thing art jam over at the R3 forums a long time. That was just a single panel illustration though. I think this one works a lot better in cartoon form.
Also, I am happy to report that my ARCHIVES are now working properly. Thanks in no small way to a great amount of help from Steven Seiller – a fellow Community MX partner! So thanks once again for your gracious help, Steve!
I will also try to post the pictures I took from Katsucon soon. There aren’t that many but I’ll post what I shot yesterday.
-Currently listening to silence (no current tunes playing)…
-Chris
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The Ghost Whisperer… the end of the spoof
February 18th, 2008 |Posted In: My Other Websites, New Comic
And so ends the Ghost Whisperer spoof. I hope you all enjoyed this long arch.
Also, I am going to make a public plea for any WordPress and/or PhP experts that might be out there. I understand there are some real funky things going on with this site. That’s due to the fact that I am not a PhP programmer and yet, I still attempted the gigantic task of putting a custom face on my ComicPress WordPress theme. Somewhere along the way, my Archives have gotten very screwed up. My sincere apologies.
But that’s why I am asking for your help. If any of you out there are PhP programmers and would like to lend me a hand, you can send me an e-mail at capesnbabes [at] gmail [dot] com.
Thanks!
And lastly, today my daughter and I attended the last day of Katsucon 14 in Washington DC. This wasboth of our first times at an anime convention. We both had a blast and plan on attending next year’s Katsucon 15. If Heroes Con goes well in June, I might even decided to have a table at next year’s Katsucon!
Currently listening to “Objects in the rear view mirror (may appear closer then they are)” – Meatloaf, Bat out of hell II.
-Chris
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The Ghost Whisperer – part six… the evil eye!
February 15th, 2008 |Posted In: My Other Websites, New Comic
For all the guys out there, I hope you all have never, EVER made fun of any show your girlfriend, wife or significant other enjoys watching. If you have, then you are all too familiar with the last panel.
The “evil eye” indeed!
Listening to Diana Ross’ “Upside Down” on Sky.fm in iTunes…
-Chris
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I’m just imagining that if the ghost can’t have Jennifer Love Hewitt as a ghost whisperer, then he’d probably amuse himself watching her husband get beat up like this. 
On a side note, I’m surprised I can even post this entry as Northern Virginia is having quite a bit of freezing rain right now. When bad weather like this hits, that means my cable connection normally goes out – but thus far, it’s still on. And I just saw a TV report where they said there are currently 53 accidents currently on the road right now (it’s 11:45pm!) with a dozen more that had just been reported.
Looks like it’s going to be a loooooooooong commute tomorrow morning. Sigh…
Currently listening to “You’re the best around” by Joe Esposito from the Karate Kid soundtrack…Â
-Chris
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Well, this is what happens sometimes when you do a strip in advance. You decide to poke fun at your frustration over the fact that there’s a writer’s strike with hardly an end in site and the day or two before your strip has a specific reference to that strike, it ends.
So, I had yo go back and do a little “re-working” on the dialog portion of the strip. We don’t want the strip to seem “outdated” even if is brand new, after all, now do we?
On a side note, last night, I caught the very tail end of “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” on cable. It was the finale where all the “ghost” knights fight the Nazis in England. It’s amazing how well those special effects still hold up. Disney at that time was sooooo far ahead of everyone else. Normally, when you see a film as old as “Bedknobs”, as an older person, you can generally spot bad editing or notice a few strings or flubs in the filming process. I couldn’t the other night. The only thing I kept thinking was “Man… those were really cool effects for THAT day and age” and I should know because I STILL remember seeing the movie as a very young boy years and years and years ago. I remember being completely engrossed and fascinated with some of the armor styles of the knights.
Currently listening to silence as I typer this blog…
-Chris
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