September 06, 2009
Before the Dawn of Man
Alden and Robbi are celebrating this holiday weekend with early afternoon naps, and so I have been free to draft my second web comic.
Here's hoping you're outside enjoying the day instead of reading this.
Posted by bogenamp at 12:43 PM
September 04, 2009
Ruffians
Due to the endless wisdom of my employer, which periodically grants 4-day weekends to augment the restful implications of certain holidays, I do not have to work today. Robbi is off running Iggy in the nearby farmlands, and I am home with a few idle hours to spend on a new project, that of writing a Web comic.
Those of you who don't read Web comics may not know that they are a well-established phenomenon. Rather than bothering with newspaper publication, a lot of smart, funny people are posting serial comics to the web, cultivating an audience, and scrapping out a living by selling t-shirts, books, and other schwag to their fans.
Robbi and I want a piece of the action.
We like our books and lots of other people like our books, but relative to Web comics, which are free, books are expensive, which limits the audience to people who like our stuff enough to share their hard-earned money in exchange. We will continue to publish books, but we wonder if there might be people who might be compelled to see what we're up to if the cost of doing so were reduced to "free". It's hard to argue with "free". It's a rather appealing concept.
And so we thought it might be fun to try putting together a Web comic. I like to write things but am pitifully ungifted when it comes to drawing them. Robbi likes to draw.
The obvious question is whether we have something to say.
The answer is that we may not. But will this stop us?
Here's a faltering attempt, which pleases me in spite of its lack of earth-shattering revelation. The plan is that Robbi will take this pitiful husk of an outline and make it nice to look at. (Click on the image to make it bigger.)
If you find this so painful to look at that you cannot bear to read it, do not feel guilty or despair. Robbi's version will be posted soon. When it is, I'm certain that the earth-shattering implications will be revealed.
Posted by bogenamp at 11:31 AM
April 14, 2007
Who Needs Robbi?
Emboldened by the flood of positive responses to the illustrations I posed in yesterday's entry (at least I assume this flood will soon be coming), I have decided to post my first two comics here.
The first was penned while sitting in Two Keys bar in Lexington a few weeks back. I cannot now recall why I was compelled to write a comic. As I remember, my system was straining to digest the mega ho triple. Perhaps sufficient blood had been diverted from my brain to aid the stomach in its monumental task. I cannot say. But here it is, a gripping modern parable titled The Problem Remains.
I wrote the second comic lying in bed a few nights back. I had not recently eaten, but it was about 3:00 in the morning, so I can blame fatigue for any fault you might find with this one. The title, though I did not realize it at the time, forms a nice bookend to comic #1. This one is called, The Problem is Solved. Looking forward to my comic writing and drawing career, I should pay heed to the fact that my impulse in conceiving comics seems to be problems and their resolution or lack thereof. Perhaps by waffling back and forth between these two extremes, I could keep my readers interested? The question reamins, would anyone ever tolerate my horribly rendered figures? Would anyone ever be able to read my tortured scrawl.
The Problem is Solved
I showed my comics to Robbi, hoping to demonstrate to her just how expendible she has become to me. I expected to see cold blue fear in her heart. Instead, there was something like pity.
In other news, the Satire and Comedy Festival here at Washington College is in full swing. Which means that I get to go to a reading by the amazing George Saunders today.
To promote the festival, the guy who organized the whole thing ordered a bunch of whoopie cushions printed with the festival logo. We lucked into a handful. Thinking it was probably time to educate Iggy on the virtues of practical jokes, we put a few under her "tuffet", the overstuffed round thing that sits by the front window.
Now, Iggy is such a gassy dog, that I wondered if she'd even notice when the things went off. To the contrary, she was quite terrified, sprang backward through space, leaving us wrenched with feelings of guilt and conflict. Would she ever love her tuffet again?
The answer was yes, though the next time she lay down upon it she was careful, canny. She gave us one of those long sideways admonitory glances. We felt contrite.
In moments, all was forgiven or maybe just forgotten.
Posted by bogenamp at 10:16 AM