Friday, December 23, 2005

Happy Holidays!

Comic is going to resume on Monday (I promise :p)

hehe also expect to see Xiao Bao's first Christmas experience! I even bought him a stocking.

Holiday time can be a jolly time and depressing time for some.

-Wallet is empty.
-No romance for the holidays.
-Family drama.
-Loss of family.

But remember the good always comes with the bad....yes ying and yang. With all the trouble I got this year, I got Xiao Bao ^^. So I guess the main moral of the story is to get a guinea pig lol.

Have a wonderful and safe holiday my cyber friends!

2 comments:

E.A. said...

So. . .The Long Night, eh?

I was going to make the most tasteless, crass, juvenile crack any commenter has ever posted into your comments section, but something tells me that as a family-friendly moderator you might’ve wanted to keep this to a PG-13. So, according to MPAA guidelines, I’m allowed to get away with two f-words, about fifty to sixty “shits”, and numerous milder profanities (“damn”, “hell”, “ass”, “bastard”, “dick”, “pussy”, “balls” and yadda yadda) and such. I sincerely hope you don’t mind as I am about to push the rating to its limit (and you can tell me later if I ventured into “R” territory or not)!

So it begins with the long-awaited continuation, “The Long Night”. In panel 4 of page 45, I see that Sierra finds herself in a dress fit for a Queen. In fact, it even belongs to the Queen. My interpretation, of course, is that you might be planning to do what 4Kids is doing with their animated properties—get kids hooked on the accessories hawked in the episode so that they can beg their parents into buying it for them when it comes to their local toy store! (Hee haw, lame joke!) Okay, moving on, next wacky theory. . .

The dress looks elegant. And I think Sierra looks hot in it! (Okay, I might be on the fence here with that last comment, since Sierra looks like jailbait and I’m, like, 20. . .ooh, I’m racking ‘em up here, aren’t I? And she’s a cartoon character! Double strike-ee! Shit!) But, I’m genuinely puzzled as to why she doesn’t think the dress isn’t right for her—

Page 46, pimp daddy Alazar (okay, now I’m just being obnoxious) is setting up Winsor with Sierra, if I am not mistaken. Seriously, with those long locks and that Mediterranean earring, he could pass for that dimension’s Huggy Bear. In fact, you know what? A rap song just entered my mind.

“Alazar’s got the pimp juice
He’s gonna pull that mighty deuce
Alazar’s scribin’ that playa’s book
And givin’ Sierra that porn actor look!”

Yeah. I think I’ll leave that “porn actor” part in. Anyway, pardon me if I think Winsor’s a wimp. If he’s being set up, why doesn’t he try to untangle himself? I’m sure it would make sense that he would allow these guys to treat him like this, but if I were this Winsor cat me and Ala-gay-zar would have to have a talk before I’d let myself be party to his lame-brained scheme.

That little gal in panel 3, offering a running commentary on the entire affair, looks too cute for words. Put her plush toy look-a-like on shelves and BOOM! You have yourself the next Tickle-Me-Elmo.

This special-edition Wonder-Marker looks great, BTW. Lines are bolder and lil’ mo expressive. Keep on usin’ it!

I just now realized that in your Hitchcock (heh) aside, you were talking about Alazar possibly making things worse. Right on! That’s what I’m thinking. I think other readers would agree, as well.

Page 47, you wrote that image detail is a challenge, especially since you have such a short time to bang out the comic and shove it out the door (so to speak). Yes, the deadline. The Deadline is our most formidable foe, causing us to involuntarily excise vital components of a work—be it good grammar, spelling or important narrative elements. After all, examine War of the Worlds, Exhibit A in my example. In eighteen months (an unimaginably short time frame), Spielberg and his crew managed to get both War of the Worlds and Munich in the can without passing out. Many still wonder how they did it. Well, some say that Worlds was a rush job. It showed. Munich gobbled up more than half of that tight eighteen-month time frame. It was, of course, a more complex film to shoot. Yet, the effort paid off in spades. Award nominations, likely box office success, and Top 10 List darling, oh my! Yet, for all of its laudable traits, not even Munich is completely and thoroughly flawless. To be eligible for Oscar consideration DreamWorks had to have the film ready to be screened on the top of December, even though the film began shooting early September. (Spielberg & Co. managed to get a few shots the month before). Well, that blew for the DreamWorks team, but hey, that’s the way that the ball rolls. Frankly, I’m astonished that the final product turned out as good as it did, because there was only two months to complete post-production, including the Sound, which is notorious for eating up huge portions of a production’s overall schedule. Rush jobs usually end up like The Hot Chick did. The less said about that film, the better.

E.A. said...

(Part II. Here we go!)

But, anyway, deadlines force you to make some compromises. But, as much of a bitch as the Deadline is, deadlines—as I am learning—make you better. I think. As a professional, as a person—everything. So, Page 47 may not look like a Fragonard but it moves the story—and, isn’t that good enough? Now, being artists it is only natural that we want to be perfectionists. Sometime later, you might develop a desire strong enough to make you want to improve upon what you hath wrought. Which is dandy—just watch out for those other pesky obligations like eating and sleeping and showering and changing the lightbulb and drinking and trying to walk on the side of the wall like Spiderman, and refilling your web cartridge—okay, there I go again. But deadlines keep you from pumping out Da Vincis. So you do the best you can and put the bowtie on it! And with Page 47, that’s exactly what you did. The day will come when you will embarrass Don Bluth with the sheer amount of your productivity and the quality of your final renderings. To be more specific, I as a reader need just enough image detail to help me figure out what’s going on. I saw Winsor stand up to Alazar and thrust the crown back into Ala-mack-zar’s hands. I saw Alazar utter a cryptic message, then leave the room to wank hims—er, uh, I mean, uh—take care of his other matters. I saw Winsor tell off Sierra. WHAM BAM! Good enough, Melon.

I guess what I was trying to say is—continuity’s the most important detail to be mindful of. This comic wouldn’t be as entertaining if, say, for example, we found Alazar kicking it with the ladies of Rio de Janeiro in Panel 2, only to find him in Berlin in Panel 3 without any rhyme, reason, logic or other acceptable explanation. That’s probably what Michael Bay would do if he were drawing Day Dream. Come to think of it, that would be hilarious. . .

What a cast of characters on Page 48. Please don’t take me too seriously when I say that the guy with the tubes sticking out of the back of his neck doesn’t look too menacing. In fact, he looks like your run of the mill FedEx delivery guy! (Whoa, low blow!!!! Just kidding, FedEx buddies!!!!)

Anyway, Page 49 represents something of a milestone, to me, in this entire saga of Winsor—it’s almost like, he’s slooooowly becoming Stallone. You’re right. I like where this is going. . .

And Tube Guy here put his hands on Sierra! I was expecting him almost to, like, try to get to second base, but. . .yeah, yeah, PG-13 and all that. I can’t wait for the Blitz to get down!!!@%#$!!!!!!! Get that shit down! Yeahhhhh!

Ahem.

So now I come to your post. Damn straight, the holidays can be rough for some and rougher still for others. That’s why people often find me counting my blessings. I always think of the guy or gal who has it worse than anyone else. Last year, for example, I had many worries. This year, though, many of my holiday presents came months earlier—and I don’t have so many worries. (But, I still worry. It’s the only human emotion that helps me to continue to kick the ass of Captain Procrastinator.)

As long as you continue to maintain your blog, you’ll always have readers who will keep you in their thoughts. Just like you kept us in yours. And there’s nothing like family.

So keep your chin up, Melon! And take Day Dream to a whole ‘nother level! And I’ll keep writing weird and wacky and risqué comments! And comments that could have got me banned for life in any other forum, which would then lead to cops kicking in my door and arresting me!

Happy Holidays and a Merry New Year, Melon!