Blog

Posts tagged "comics"

crappy phone camera picture of my advent candle holder with three of four candles lit

What has happened to the year? I’m not really sure what I’ve done in the last three months. I did NaNoWriMo, and although I didn’t win, writing turns out to be a huge amount of fun and I’m going to keep doing it. Maybe my ~creative energies~ have recharged, or maybe I’m just getting my act together, but I’ve got a lot of ideas lately and I’m drawing again, and getting a start on some other things I’ve been meaning to do in my copious free time.

Endless leisure is still not my favourite situation to be in, though, and so far there’s been no success in the jobsearch. I am doing some German > English (and the other way as soon as my test gets approved) translation on MyGengo, and as usual it’s a lot of fun. Unfortunately the jobs aren’t really pouring in so far; in the last week I’ve done two, one of which was only a sentence long. Made almost $30 on the other one, though, and requested a payout (to make sure it actually works). I hear the experience from the customer side is pretty good, so if you need a translation you should consider them. And consider doing it via this banner, because then I get referral money. ;P

myGengo | Simple human translation

Something that has raised my unemployed spirits is that the library they’ve been building near our flat since before we moved in has finally opened. I still think it looks kind of like an ominous looming spaceship.

the strange trapezoidal shape of our local library from behind some bushes

The non-fiction section is a little lacking, but the fiction selection is good — they fit a lot more books into that building than it looks like there’s room for — and they have a nicely sized graphic novel section, too, so I’m finally getting around to reading all of those comics people have recommended to me.

The first time I visited last week I took out volumes 1 to 3 of Fables. It’s fairly good so far. The writing seemed a bit stiff to me at first, but I think I’ve gotten more used to it now. They get points for having their ladies drive the plot a lot, but I haven’t been able to really get into any of the characters, and I’m not sure why. They just seem a little obvious to me; it’s like they’ve taken fairy tale characters and turned them into the cast of a soap opera. Or maybe it’s because most of them are rich and US American that I get that vibe. The premise interests me enough to get the next few volumes, though, and maybe when more of the back-story is revealed I’ll become more invested in the characters.

I also got out a few volumes of Hellblazer, which is always fun in a creepy way. (Although the hippies in The Fear Machine annoyed me a lot, for various reasons.) I have no idea of what order they are meant to go in so I just got out two at random. That Wikipedia article probably has the publication order in it, doesn’t it. Maybe I’ll go with that from now on.

What other comics should I check out? I have a long list somewhere from various Eastercon panels, but I am always happy for more, since I know you guys have good taste.

11. 12. 2011 9:55 pm | Personal | Tags: , , , | Comment


That is a representation of an actual car I saw last week. Well, that one was... "anatomically" correct.

Anyways, we owned England on Sunday, so everyone can put their flags away and shut up now.


And now I will go play some Katamari. And maybe later I will scan the rest of my sketchbook and write about France. Or maybe I'll just play Katamari all night
[Dreamwidth mirror]
29. 6. 2010 8:35 pm | Personal, Syndicated | Tags: , , | Comment
I did another set of hourly comics yesterday, for shits and giggles, as they say. I tried to do them as quickly as possible, thus they are very messy and not particularly pretty. Not an entirely pointless exercise, though! Next time I'll try to strike a balance.


I have lost count of the number of times I've not paid close enough attention to where I was going in Damascus and accidentally jumped into that fucking river expecting it to be a street. akfbhdjkfhdsjfk;hds. I always pay attention where I'm going in Damascus now.


Tomorrow, my parents and I are flying to America! :D So excited. I've been packing:



For once I think I neither under- nor over-packed. Yesssss.


I spent my last Audible credit (I'm going to cancel my subscription for now, for the recovering health of my bank balance) on Unseen Academicals to listen to on the flight. It feels like it's been ages since I last read a Discworld book. I'm pretty excited about that, too. :3
[Dreamwidth mirror]
Hourly comics! There aren't as bad as I thought they were; I got so frustrated yesterday. ¬_¬ I got behind in the afternoon, and trying to catch up kept me from actually doing any of the things I wanted to do. Like play Assassin's Creed for hours.




So everyone has been getting formspring accounts lately. You can ask people anonymous questions, and stuff. Somehow I don't think there actually is anyone who anonymously lurks my online existence and has burning questions to ask me, but I got one anyway. Because I have a sickness where I am compelled to make an account on every webservice I come across, just to see what it's like. So here you go: Ask me anything.


Oh wait, I drew a comic about today, as well:



I have a new favourite. XD
[Dreamwidth mirror]
I went to my UCL interview on Monday, and it went well! I was incredibly nervous and ineloquent, but I got an email the next day saying they've recommended me for an offer, so I must have made a fairly good impression. Haven't got the official letter from the college yet, but it looks like I'm going! :D :D

Ummm, what else. I went to see the Staffordshire Hoard after the interview. It was pretty cool. Sparkly, shiny things. I'll blog about it properly later, right now I've got a cold and my head is a bit foggy.


Some links:

The Desert Peach - I rediscovered this the other day. The greatest piece of historical fiction set in World War 2 that exists, in my opinion.

Choice of the Dragon - A very well written multiple choice text game. In which you play as a dragon:


What more could you want, right? It's got a great attitude on gender & sexuality. I noticed it when I was playing, and then I checked their blog and read the most recent post at the time, which confirmed how much thought they'd put in it. It's so refreshing not to have presumptions shoved down your throat: you can chose the gender of the dragon, and the dragon you futilely attempt to mate with (I will get the right combination of stats/actions one day), and it doesn't go "'knight' obviously = 'he'", either.

Their quest to introduce meaningful choices into games pleases me, too. It makes the whole thing instantly many times more engaging and entertaining. My only criticism is it wasn't long enough. :P

• One of my favourite fiction series, "Union Dues" by Jeffrey R. DeRego (as seen on Escape Pod and Clone Pod) is apparently being pitched as a TV series. I think that's brilliant. I'm not of the opinion that everything that's good should eventually be made into a film and/or TV show — TV is not the end-all of storytelling media — but I also don't have a problem with different versions of stories and things jumping form medium to medium and taking on new forms (I mean, look at Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). In fact, I encourage it. If I find a fictional world I love, I want to experience it through as many different lenses as I can, to see all of it's permutations and facets and flavours.

Also TV probably has a larger audience than podcasts, and I think something of quality deserves to be seen by as many people as possible. (Or maybe rather: Everyone deserves to be exposed to quality entertainment.) I've never been into superheroes much, and I love "Union Dues". It's definitely worth it.

• I also have a key for the Star Trek Online beta! It's currently downloading. Very slowly.


Pff, I started this entry thinking I'd only list a handful of links, since my head hurt, and I ended up rambling all over the place anyway.
[Dreamwidth mirror]
The weather!
As you might have heard, the UK has been covered in snow lately. Of course the infrastructure of the entire nation is on the verge of collapse, but luckily I'm a layabout with nowhere to go, so I'm free to enjoy how nice everything is.





I bought a brush-pen a few days ago with some of my birthday money! I'm not very good at using it yet (can you tell? XD), but I've been practicing, and I think it's gonna be really good for my drawing.

Here's some of my practice doodles that aren't completely terrible. :P


My birthday!
I'm twenty-two! My birthday was fun—Tim and I were going to go see the fireworks in London, but while the tube is free all night, the first overground train is at 6-something AM as usual, so we decided to wait until next year, when we'll probably both be living in London, anyway. Instead we stayed at my house and played Cranium (superfun) and had some epic fireworks of our own.

I got really good presents, as well:


I forgot to put a few things from Tim in that drawing, actually: he also gave me Vol.2 of the Darker than Black manga, and the bag also had these totally rad ¥1000000 playing-cards in it:



My parents also gave me some money to be spent at Uniqlo, with which I have bought myself some delectable attire.


On the 2nd, we went to the theatre. :3



We had pretty bad seats—all the way on the left, almost all the way at the top—but the show was so good. ♥ I sort of want to get the soundtrack. XD

University!
I have an interview at UCL for my MA on Monday. I'm nervous, but pretty confident I'll do alright. I was looking over the info about the programme and the professors on the UCL website in preparation, and got twice as excited again about going there. It's going to be so amazing, you guys. I really really can't wait.

Anime!
I have not been keeping up! It's been about a month since I've downloaded any anime, so I haven't seen the end of anything yet. XD I'm at Tim's house atm, though, so I've seen a few of the first episodes of stuff from the new season.

There's one about some cat-girl demon protecting a teenage boy with a jealous childhood friend blah blah lots of stupid fanservice &c. &c. that I really couldn't care less about. There's also Chu-Bra!!, which is about a girl who likes wearing and designing fancy underwear, and is obviously an excuse to look at girls' underwear a lot, but also has messages like "you shouldn't judge people by how they dress", and "girls can look pretty for themselves, not just for men"... except for the fact that it's also an excuse for the male audience to look at 2D girls' underwear for 25 minutes a week. Anime is weird.

But, there is also Durarara!! (double exclamation marks are in, I guess?), which is going to be so badass. :D It's already my favourite thing. The storytelling and pacing and art are all greatly to my taste, as far as can be seen from the first episode, anyway. :) :) :)

In Conclusion:


Foot brush!

[Dreamwidth mirror]
I watched the first episode of Season 6 of House just now. I only saw bits and pieces of S5, but this season looks interesting. I think I'll follow it. Following a TV series on actual TV, guys. :O Craziness or what.

The trial at Costa went pretty well, I think. I mainly collected dirty dishes, and washed dishes, and carried clean dishes back downstairs. Also made some coffee, which was actually pretty fun and easy. I'll find out by Friday whether they'll hire me. *crosses fingers*

That's all, really. Everything is covered in dust from the new stairs and floor being put in. It's a really nice staircase, though. I enjoy walking on it. (What? I can enjoy a staircase.)


PS: You guys should totally read Hanjuku Joshi. The beginning is so-so, but it gets better and better as it goes on. Fffff, it's so adorable, it makes me grin like a stupid person.

I have to do that post about the gory, dark (but wonderful ♥) book I'm reading soon now, to balance out the fluffy yuri rec. XD
[Dreamwidth mirror]
When I was finishing my new website design the other day (have I blogged about that, actually? MY NEW WEBSITE IS UP. 8D) I saw my Hourly Comic Day comic, and it made me want to do more. So I did yesterday! Except I didn't do much except have a cold yesterday, so it's not very exciting. >_>





AND THEN I GAVE UP.


It was meant to be a sort of practice for drawing quickly, but I think I might just give up on drawing quickly, tbh. XD But hey, it looks nicer than my last hourly comic.

ALSO. I had a job interview at Costa on Saturday, and I have a trial on Wednesday. EXCITING STUFF. I just really want my account to be in credit again, srsly. ;_;

Going back to blowing my nose every 10 seconds now. See ya.


PS: [info]giving_ground & [info]firescribble, I was working on sketches for you earlier (probably email you what I've got tomorrow), and look what I found while looking for reference pictures. HOW'S THAT FOR MANLY POSING.
[Dreamwidth mirror]
Gods, I'm sorry this took me so long to put up. It is warm. I am lazy. ¬_¬

So, when I left off we were staying in Bozen/Bolzano and doing walks in the area. Bozen is a really pretty town:



Read More →

[Dreamwidth mirror]
19. 8. 2009 6:25 pm | Personal, Syndicated | Tags: , , , | Comment
Yeah, I finally finished inking those comics, so it's recap time, what what.

Before I get to the meat of the post, though, I would like to recommend an anime to you: Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. Go find a torrent of that now. If you have a good connection, the first episode might've finished downloading by the time you're done reading this entry.

It's about an earthquake hitting Tokyo (you don't say!), and two kids trying to get back home to their parents. I really like disaster stories, if they're well-researched, and this one definitely seems realistic... or if it isn't they're doing a good job selling it as such to me. XD It has a kind of art style I really like, as well; simple and stylised, but solid and based in realism. It suits the story well.

Also every second episode or so makes me almost cry. (The latest one definitely did ;_;)

I really hope it gets licensed, so I can give them some actual money to show my appreciation.


Right, now then!


This part's theme: I am really really unfit.

Read More →

[Dreamwidth mirror]