It’s a DISNEY KIND OF AUGUST!
We’ve done Disney villains before, but we’re doing more heroic characters this time. The patrons threw down some suggestions, and you’ll see the results in the coming weeks!
VOTE TO PUT THE MAGIC BACK IN THE KINGDOM!!!
As for this comic…
This comic sadly required a markedly different angle of the nerd store compared to what I’d drawn previously, which meant that I needed to draw, ink and color another background. That means I finished this comic about three minutes before posting it, after spending WAY too long on it.
Was it worth the effort? No. Definitely not.
Mmm Emily, Mmm Creamsicle 🙂
That is clearly what Colin is thinking in panel 1. He’s only human!
Limited time flavor, of course.
I feel like it’s a good thing that Disney’s Ariel wasn’t as wonderfully endowed as our favourite fairy. On Puck, seashell slippage looks almost guaranteed.
I’m sure the plot armour will keep everything in place – unless it’s funny.
It is the least practical top ever, really. Only in animation.
should i even ask what “Code Yellow” means in this comic strip?
It’s Pac Man. Because Cy had bet an arm or a leg. He found him. I don’t know how they did it, but they found Cy.
I like the way your brain works.
Hee hee. Thanks man.
We will find out next week.
Hot nerd girls with brains know how to work that subconscious hook.
The hook is subconscious?
Maybe the coffee is stronger than it looks.
I’m not sure how strong it looks, really.
Do we want to know how the tail I’ve never noticed before is attached to Emily?
Assuming it’s not her biologically actual tail (perhaps she’s a very young kitsune?) my guess is that she’s wearing a belt or a T-back undergarment with a comfortably semi-rigid T, made of whalebone or whatever those modern kids are doing with their materials technology today.
Perhaps working out how to get the skirt to drape right is how Emily struck up a conversation with Phoebe, who is something of a legend in Hamilton cosplay circles.
Phoebe doesn’t even know what the cosplay circles are. Yet.
Once she finds out that cosplay is all about making your own costumes…
It’s a horizon that will be crossed. At some point. If the comic goes that long
Oh, talk about an arc. A rise. A fall! A dennu . . . something in Frnech! Or French! Something.
I’m terrible at French.
Sacre Bleu
“I’m terrible at French.”
Even the French hate how the other French speak French.
Because of course she is.
Actually, with the ears being red/orange and the relatively thinness of the tail, she’s dressed as a neko (cat) not a kitsune (fox).
Yes, neko all the way. I think Emily would be very upset to be mistakenly classified as a kitsune.
My bad! No one wants to upset Emily!
Some kind of clever and altogether wholesome way.
Er . . . grafitti artist displaying Electric Gecko-level talent? Works for me!
??? Graffiti?
Well, she is staring out at a street scene, so I imagine somebody with spray paints creating wall art that is of Electric Gecko level, requiring somebody to immediately make sure such talent becomes part of comics lore. Think of Theodor Seuss, and how fortunate the world is that his artwork was recognised just in time! A world without The King’s Stilts, the horror the horror! (The King’s Stilts, because that is the Dr. Seuss work I as a child read over and over and I hate that I don’t have my copy and haven’t found another one yet, and anyway, The Cat In The Hat is overused.)
The King’s Stilts? That’s a Seuss deep cut. Almost as deep as the 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.
Think of the new background as an investment. So many future events to happen in that very doorway!
Maybe. Most investments I make are bad.
You can’t fool me. “Code Yellow” would just be regular Mountain Dew.
Hey, you’re not wrong.
Isn’t this the wrong comic for that?
anecdatum: Puck (Irish: Poc, Puc, plural pucai) was the Irish term for Pan/Zagreus, the goat god, before the hegemonic speakers of English transformed it. Same happened to Ari’el (“Lion of God”, the feminine of which is Arielle) as epitomized in the likes of Disney. Oh By the Way, Solomon’s queen had a name, “Biltis” – she was the documented queen of Saba in the Yemen, and a priestess of the Great Goddess according to extant Yemeni inscriptions.
And now they are one. For a brief moment.
The colours on her outfit are brilliant! I’m really enjoying the crisp artwork 🙂 Creamsicle, indeed!
Thanks, man. I like things crisp.
And coming from you, that does mean something.
I appreciate that Thanks!
You should add Cy and Emily to the characters list.
Yeah, I REALLY do need to do this. It’s just a real pain in the butt with the Comic Easel plugin I use. I keep forgetting/procrastinating on it.
I KNEW she had a dark and terrible purpose! She was going to move the plot!
What’s wrong with creamsicles? I’m not exactly a FAN, but eh.
I thought the art was great and totally worth it. Would read again.
And yes. Yes it kind of messed up. She looks great though.
The artificial leg has a spring-assist. It’s hard to use for full-on running because he’s missing the knee, but it’s useful for a short burst forward. Just heave a bit of body weight down and back and angle forward.
(Yes, I have simulated it. That’s just how my brain runs).
Code Yellow calls for an escape.. incoming nerd with a trivia bone to pick? Or is it family?
No complaints on the outfit.. but dang it Jim! I’m a coder, not an artist!
Coders are more useful in this world. Artists are pretty useless.
Generally, sure. But graphics do make a difference. Like say.. Legacy of Kain: Soul Eater (yeah, try to stop me from talking about the series). A lot of crazy trickery went into jamming as much detail into the models. To this day, it still looks pretty good for PS1-era graphics, the models look like.. figurines. Not to mention what difference texture mods do to games.. it doesn’t affect gameplay, but a new coat of paint can get a lot of mileage.
(Autocorrect.. in post) Sorry, that was Soul Reaver. (though you’ll eat plenty of souls)
I’m pretty sure he’s running *towards* the front door, not away from it.
I’m betting that a Code Yellow is someone peeing on the outside wall of the store.
He’s running to a side door behind the counter (which we haven’t seen yet), so escape IS the goal here. But all will be revealed.
I now understand that the “choom” cloud is Cy getting the heck out of dodge. But for the first couple of hours, I thought it was steam from a latte being made….
I have no explanation for why I got that impression. But I think it may be psychological….
It is very hard to communicate some actions and events with still pictures. Or maybe it’d be easier if I were better at it. Or had more than four panels.
Not a critique. Except concerning my observational skills.
You’re too kind. I think the fault is likely more with the image than your observational skills.
This is really interesting.
Fleshing out a feline character, who previously was only eye candy, is very amusing.
Purrrrrrrr ……
Well, gotta put some meat on them bones, as it were.
So is ShortGirl Pokefan … Cy’s daughter? Little Sister? Beneficial owner of The Mystery Machine?
It could be that Cy is just generically allergic to Pokefans in general (?are there factions in fandom?) but he’s got a box of cards clearly displayed in Panel 1 – it this a necessary compromise to economic reality that unfortunately results in endless conversations over a single sale?
The story is evolving but will it ever reach its final form?
It’s Satan and his consort Tracee. They’re terrible tippers. 😉
I feel like evil people are often great tippers.
I’ll be honest with you EG, if you want to cheat a bit to make backgrounds easier, 95% of your audience won’t notice (attention and focus is always on the character art; a perfect background is virtually ignorable) and the remaining 5% wouldn’t be put off by it if they did notice. Backgrounds are often complicated and you have a posting schedule to keep.
This might not work for you, but nonetheless:
Something we’ve done for years over at ranmabooks.com (*) is build 3D environments for all our most common locations. This took more time initially, but once complete, any background shot we want is achieve merely by pointing the camera in the right direction; the work of minutes at most.
The 3D backgrounds find a beautifully balanced niche between fully hand-drawn, and photo-realism that would clash badly with the hand-drawn character art, and as a background should be, are thoroughly ignorable if your only paying attention to the character art, yet nothing’s really “out of place” of you choose to focus behind them for some odd reason.
(*) a website focused on making comics and pinup art for the classic anime series Ranma 1/2, the URL for which has been under my posting name in every comment all these years. I’ll politely advise it IS an adult oriented site, though I’m quite proud of how we’ve kept comedy and characterization as high a priority as the sexy art. Made by and for True Fans of the Ranma 1/2 series!
I don’t draw myself, but I’ve done some writing, pinup design, and webwork for them for many many years now.
Yeah, I do cheap out with backgrounds all the time by endlessly reusing them. I’d love to have the know-how to generate 3D backgrounds but I’m not that good.
I find ways to be as cheap as I can be while still keeping backgrounds in.
Well, any food ever whines about that, point out to them that the alternative is updates 1/2 to 1/3 as often.
I’m betting you don’t hear a peep on the subject though. 😛
Fool. I meant to type fool. -_-
(I must say I DO miss the comment systems that allow one to edit their own posts. Ever consider installing something like Disqus?
They let you do some modest image embedding too (for when you want to respond with clinking beer steins and such.)
There are plugins for such things. But I’m afraid of plug-ins because this site barely works as it is. I live in fear of the proverbial straw falling on this old camel’s back.
People don’t complain about the pace of updates. They just complain about things that result from the update schedule, like a story arc taking two years to finish.
Hey, at least I finish it.