0206 - Sledding Virgin

Notes on today's comic (27 Dec 2010):

My digital counterpart now has the advantage on me... I mean, I'm nearly 40 years old, and I've never been sledding! Mind you, considering the worst snow we had in England was in 1976, there weren't many opportunities to slide down a snowy hill when I was growing up!

I had a nice little brainwave with panel 3... I was looking online for some sort of snowy font I could use, and came across some Shutterstock images that appeared to be drawn in the snow. But I can't afford to buy that sort of thing - and then I remembered there was a huge stock of the stuff outside, all for free! So I dressed up warmly, went onto the side porch of the building where I live, and drew my own damn lettering! After some cropping and tweaking of light (though it's not as good as I'd like because of the uneven lighting from the overhead porch light), I was good to go! Nice part was that I wasn't outside long enough to freeze!

News, Views and Just Plain Schmooze...

Wednesday 22 December 2010

TWO YEARS! I'm amazed I've been able to do the strip for this long... Admittedly, there have been a few downtimes, but in terms of quantity, I've still managed to do so many that I'm only three short of two per week for two years (208), so I'm pretty happy with what I've managed to do. Thanks to everyone who has visited since 2008, and a special thank-you to those of you who keep coming back! It's been hard at times - especially when I think I've not got anything I can use - but I'm enjoying it!

When I sent a copy of Monday's strip to my lovely web-comic-artist friend Bridgett Spicer (you really should check out Squid Row if you haven't done so already), she said it put her in mind of the "Keep Calm And Carry On" poster, created by the UK Government in 1939 and used to very popular effect since 2000. So, I decided to put one together, and decided to post it to my Flickr stream!

Monday 20 December 2010

The computer is in a usable state, though after all the updates, it's running slower than it was than right after I wiped it and put Windows back on (though it's faster than after I installed XP Service Pack 3 - damn that Indexing Service!). I don't think it's a touch of rustiness on my part that the mouse control under Paint.NET is not as good as it was on the laptop; I've had to change my drawing practice in order to accommodate this.

Until I can get a new computer (or I can get this one upgraded), I may have to resort to strips with little detail for the time being. I hope you'll still like the strip anyway.

Wednesday 15 December 2010

I'd had a feeling that sorting out the computer would take so long that I'd be unable to do a comic, but I hadn't imagined how long it would take! I'm nowhere near done, so the comic will have to wait until Monday, I'm afraid. If I'm not done by then, I'm in trouble!

I'm very grateful to Mike for helping out with donating a PC. Unfortunately, I'm going to be stuck without Minecraft until I can either upgrade this PC or buy a new one... I tried playing briefly, and it was running at ONE FRAME PER SECOND! Ah well. The machine looks like it'll be able to do what I need it to do, and for that, I'm very grateful.

So, tune in Monday for a real comic!

Monday 13 December 2010

As you can imagine, I was pretty depressed about my laptop dying. I shouldn't really be surprised, because I've had it in the order of about four years or so, and it's had a lot of usage. Still, when it's your primary source of entertainment, from doing this comic to watching video online, it hits you pretty hard.

I have a spare computer, that I rescued from a friend who was throwing it away - that's how I managed to get this update to the site. But here's how old the computer is: my pocket computer has more memory than the PC... and I found it easier to do the above picture on that pocket computer (no mouse on the PC!)

All being well, the computer my friend is kindly donating to me will be able to do the business, at least until I can afford a new one. But given that I've got more important financial obligations than buying myself a new computer (no matter how important the computer itself is to me), the whole issue hangs in the balance. As I say, please keep your fingers crossed for me.