I’m considering doing a little experiment with Moose River and video art. In that, I’m thinking about, as a test, taking the first chapter of Moose River and converting it into a very simple piece of “video art”… not even animating it much. I’ll throw in some sound, music, voices, and see how it all comes together. If it’s any good, I might do the entire book that way. But we’ll see.
Another video by Akino Kondoh:
Reading about how Scott Kurtz of PvP fame apparently threw a tantrum over a review of his (and three other guy’s) book about how to make webcomics titled “How To Make Webcomics” inspired me to write this post.
Also please excuse if any part of this post sounds like I’m being extra full of myself. I’m just… sort of in the right mood at the moment. You try being humble all the time and not letting yourself go on an ego trip once in a while!
THE TL;DL VERSION:
The webcomics world forms this giant inside joke that I don’t want to be a part of. By being on the outside of this, I don’t have to seek the approval of the participants of that giant inside joke. This in turn allows me to create and maintain a unique story by which the quality of it is what legitimizes me as an artist as opposed being legitimized based on the webcomics I associate myself with. I don’t want to have to socialize if I don’t need to, and I feel I don’t need to in order to be known by others.
THE LONG VERSION:
For the most part I’m not really interested in schmoozing with other webcomic artists. I like where I am right now: on my own and on the outside, writing my story the way I want to write it. Sure it does mean that not a whole lot of people even know I exist, but I’d rather be known by word-of-mouth stemming from people recognizing the quality of my work versus socializing for its own sake in order to get some big webcomic guy to plug me as a “favor”… and then living from “favor” to “favor”.
For most of my youth I’ve been something of a loner and a bit antisocial. I had avoided people–groups, cliques, scenes–largely because people had in turn cast me out. Being the new kid in third grade who wore glasses and braces really didn’t help my social standing much. This antisocial behavior stuck with me all the way until sometime during high school. I’ve certainly grown out of that since then and have learned to be an upstanding citizen.
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Crap! APE is some two months away and I haven’t even gotten Chapter Six finished. See, the plan is to finish Chapter Six in time to get Chapters Four, Five and Six in book form to sell at APE. But at this rate, that’s not gonna happen. Therefore, finishing Chapter Six is gonna get my highest priority. It’s gonna be comic TRIPLE time now! I need to finish some twenty pages in seven weeks. Can I do it???? Tune in and find out!
EDIT: Well instead of sleeping last night, I stayed up and began to flesh out the script for the rest of the chapter, which previously existed only in scraps-of-notes form. I pretty much have it all worked out, and I think I can get it done in about 20 or so pages. Having that script worked out in this way cuts down on a lot of the guess work which’ll make completing the rest of the chapter that much easier. I might even have to cut down on some of the post-production work in order to cram in more pages. Hmmm….
In other… “news”, Orson Welles said that in order to write Citizen Kane he watched John Ford’s Stagecoach forty times. I’ve unintentionally followed suit; while writing Moose River, I’ve been watching Neon Genesis Evangelion a lot… maybe I’ll eventually end up watching it forty times? 
ALPHA:
There’s something fundamentally wrong with webcomics about furry, Bishoun-whatchamacallits, high school students with God-like powers, high school student shape shifters, high school students with superpowers, aliens, or just generally any genre-specific webcomic labeling itself as a “slice-of-life” comic. I don’t think those people know what “slice-of life” means. I mean, just because it involves high school doesn’t make it “slice-of-life”.
BETA:
School started Tuesday, so what little time I had in my life to work on comics just got slimmer. … I also seem to find myself in the same God-damned cycle I’ve been in for the past year and a half. It takes all my strength and energy to break free from it, but the second I’m out of it, I fall right back into it. What the fuck is my problem?
DELTA:
Oh my God, this comic is actually half-way dec(ad)ent! Too bad it’s not updated often. 
OMEGA:
OK, after a good conversation I had with my Sister-In-Arms Jen (of Mystic Revolution fame) I’ve been prompted to sort of refine my position on Westerners using the Japanese manga/anime style.
BASICALLY there is nothing really wrong with Westerners using the manga art style. It’s an art style like any other, with its own unique artistic merits and unique weaknesses. BUT! I would say there’s a big difference between legitimate use of the style based on those unique qualities versus use of the style because it’s popular, exotic, trendy, or some other illegitimate reason. The best analogy that I can think of for this is thus:
Here’s the half finished page, but I’ve been up for like 36 hours so I’m gonna hit the sack early tonite. Fortunately I don’t work Friday until the evening, so I should be able to finish this page when I wake up today. Mmm kay?
I was able to get this page finished before I expected I would have been able to. I also updated my method that converts my old 2×3 pages into the new 3×2 format much quicker and better. Nifty!
BTW, I will admit this page is a little wordy. If it’s too wordy for you guys, I’ll consider spreading out the text out across a second page.
The Yeti Skydive Lodge is based off the Bigfoot Lodge, of which there are two locations between San Francisco and Los Angeles. “Yeti Skydive” however is the nickname of my friend Dave… I tossed it in there as a fun little reference. 
Oh and just so you know, Shea’s jope-induced lover is Shawn of Apes To Astronauts. I think she has a crush on ‘im!!!!!!