OPEN YOUR EYES, PEOPLE!

I like the idea for today’s comic, but I’m not really happy with the execution (if you’ll pardon the pun). I dunno. I felt Wednesday’s comic was probably one of the better ones I’ve produced in a while. Doing the follow up is kind of like a reverse adrenaline high.

It’s 2006 and I feel a distinct need to improve the level of my artwork this year. I think I’ve gotten to the point where I can at least draw the characters and maintain a consistent look. My backgrounds still need a lot of help. Detail stuff is still kind of hard for me. But I think the major goal I want to accomplish is to learn how to color and shade better. Flesh things out a little bit more.

I think if you look at the work Joe is doing with Joe Love Crappy Movies or troll through the archives of Butternut Squash, their stuff really jumps off the page and I can’t figure out how they do it! Heck, even when Kurtz does color over at PvP, it looks sharp.

It’s like watching some dude on a souped up motorcycle launch himself off a dirt ramp. They make it look so easy when they glide through the air, but you know they had to take a lot of spills before they learned how to stick that landing.

I don’t know why I’m using motorcross analagies, but therer you have it.

Does anyone out there know about any online resources for comic coloring and shading? Any tutorials or walkthroughs? I’d be very interested to read them to learn some new techniques. E-mail me if you have any suggestions.

Much to no one’s surprise, Cami and I will NOT be seeing Hostel this weekend. Gore and torture for the sake of it? Not interested. I don’t care if Quentin Tarantino’s name is attached to it… as what? Producer? I know they’re billing it as "Quentin Tarantino Presents…"

I’m trying to understand why there has been this shift in horror movies where people are being tortured for prolonged periods of time. Used to be movie-sickos would straight up murder you (albeit in creative ways) and move on to the next nubile young thing to slaughter. Nowadays they’ll clip of your middle toe with bolt cutters and scoop out your eye with a mellon baller first. To what end? To show we’re not in control? To push the boundries of taste?

I don’t mean to position myself as some kind of elitist, but horror is a genre that I never understood. Despite the abundance of violence in mainstream American entertainment (action movies for the most part) the horror genre unto itself seems to make this it’s sole focus. In a world where real life horror surrounds us every day, it seems pointless to me to accentuate it in art. It seems redundant. The only way to make it interesting is to go so far over the top – the levels of mayhem being beyond anything you can imagine – it almost becomes a parody of death. What’s the point?

At least with the slasher flicks of the 80’s there was this kind of supernatural boogeyman element that you could tap into. A sort of background narative that begged you to ask "Who is this guy with the knife-tipped glove? Why is he so horribly burned? How is he able to kill kids through their dreams?" I could understand getting wrapped up in the novelty of that.

But some Slovakian dude that wears a bondage mask and likes to slice off fingertips? That’s just cruel and sadistic for the sake of it.