I noticed that somebody added references to OHP at TV Tropes. Awesome!

How do you reconcile your day job with your art?

Is it even possible long-term? Can you have a life outside, too?

Most days I'm so tired I can't even see straight. Sometimes I don't even remember falling asleep. Caffeine and energy supplements rarely keep me awake. I find myself taking sick days just so I have time to collect my thoughts and draw. Surely this is a bad sign.

Or maybe I'm just doing it wrong. Tell me your secrets.

Some people have this weird sense of entitlement when it comes to webcomix. I've never really understood it, but it occasionally rubs me the wrong way, even when it's not my own comic in question. Lemme break it down thusly:

Getting involved in a webcomic and its community = Good!

Expecting a webcomic to revolve around you and your needs = Bad!

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Also, my fellow Americans, please get out and vote today if you haven't already. Voting is one of the easiest things in the world, and it's one of the few ways to make a difference in this country. This goes double for the younger folks: it's time to shake the label of Generation Apathy.

Do your civic duty and rock that vote!

Hahah! Oh, webcomics! Not even you are safe from Croshaw's wrath!

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/108-Webcomics

OHP is startin' again on February 9th!

Just sayin'.

I just realized I've been neglecting this poor El Jay. Some of you might be curious as to what exactly I've been doing that's been keeping me away from the comic (and arts in general), so here is a handy list of some of the video games I've been working on, each followed by a one-sentence verdict. Obviously, I can only talk about the titles that have already shipped, but more will be forthcoming.

Electronic Arts, wherein a corporate juggernaut mashes the very soul out of the gaming industry...

The Godfather (PSP, 360, PS3, Wii) - I'd rather have my fingers broken by the mob than work on another one of these.

The Sims 2 Pets (PSP) - A crime against humanity and animals in a convenient portable package.

Tiger Woods 07 (360) - Somehow, they managed to make the sport of golf even more boring than the real thing.

Superman Returns (360) - The superhero who can't jump and looks for stray kittens in his spare time.

Medal of Honor: Vanguard (Wii) - I don't think there are enough crappy World War II shooters, can we please have another with waggle controls tacked on?

Sega, wherein a once mighty company has been reduced to making embarrassing licensed games and Sonic spinoffs...

Sega Rally REVO (360) - It is completely impossible to not power-slide in this game.

Virtua Fighter 5 (360) - I knew that eventually, I'd get put on a good game by mistake!

The Golden Compass (360) - This was my punishment for enjoying Virtua Fighter 5.

I hardly ever post to this here LifeJournals anymore. So here's a panel from the latest comic.



I have finally reached a point where my job doesn't bother me anymore. I guess I passed the threshold, or something. I just wish I had a way to work on OHP while I'm here.

Our Home Planet got listed on Portal of Evil. Good times!

I'm not sure whether or not I'm in the minority on this, but I really can't stand it when artists who draw adult content suddenly get it in their minds to go 'legit', and subsequently nuke all traces of anything pornographic they've ever done. I realize that there are certain employment situations in which being identified as a 'pornographer' can put a person at a disadvantage, and really, no artist owes it to anyone to continue doing something they no longer enjoy... but the things you've created in the past are part of what make you what you are today. To try and pretend like it never happened is, in a word, disingenuous.

How did I not hear about a Day of the Dead remake until like, 5 minutes ago? I'm not too sure what to think about this. Day of the Dead is easily my favorite in the Romero Saga (not to mention the fact that it has a truly fantastic soundtrack), so a remake seems... blasphemous? But that might just be my inner nerd talking.

Ving Rhames is back and playing a different character, but it looks like a totally different crew otherwise. I had mixed feelings about the Dawn remake. It was definitely a lot more polished than the source material, but the original had the most hilarious helicopter decapitation ever.

On the subject of Romero movies, Diary of the Dead is slated for a vague 2007 release. I just don't know about a Blair Witch style zombie movie. It IS Romero, but...

Whoah, I finished something!

I'm already growing dissatisfied with a couple of the tarot cards I made, so I've started redoing several of them. One of these days I'm gonna be happy with something I do!



This pose is much less impossible, which is always a plus.

For the longest time I was skeptical about the practicality (nay, the very feasibility) of using a large-format tablet over its smaller, more lap-friendly cousins. I mean, the last two tablets I was using were both 6x8 (an ArtZ II, and then an Intuos 2), and they seemed to get the job done perfectly well. Did I really need all that extra space on my desk taken up by some plastic colossus? Who'd use the whole thing, anyway?

After using a 12x19 for about a month, I can safely say that there is no comparison. The level of control, especially at the pixel level, is so much more precise that going back and doing the same thing with a smaller tablet feels like I'm drawing with mittens on. Maybe even boxing gloves, gauntlets, or Hulk Hands.

I guess I'm officially a believer! Thanks for being my Friendly Neighborhood Pusher Man, Wacom.

The iTunes Music Store is now offering both Mother 3 albums for sale in their US store.

Mother 3i

Mother3 +

I think that's totally awesome. This should help pass the time a little until that fanslation gets finished... especially since it looks like Nintendo stuck their legal ding-dong all up in their website. CURSES!

CARTOONISTS: Why isn't more emphasis being placed on dynamic composition in webcomix these days? There's way too much boring, static art out there.

If you're guilty of this offense, STOP IT. This is the cancer that is killing us. But it's correctable if you act now!

We need less poses and more movement. Less talking heads and more body language. Less shots from the waist up and more shots from all over.

Be a director of your art for a change.

The 2006 hiatus seems to have killed off a hefty portion of OHP's readership (no surprise there). I hope it comes back at some point.

I wonder if this would be a good time to start running ads on other comix sites again.

They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery... but this is a little weird. Making my once-a-month troll through Google to see if anything interesting has been written concerning OHP, I stumbled across...

Bizarro OHP. In role playing form.

For the impatient (or lazy), here's the meat of it.

Finally, after years and years of hoping (and praying) that this series would come out on DVD, the time has arrived.

Captain N.

Let me say that again. Captain N is finally coming to DVD. Put February 27th on your calendars and prepare to relive the glory days.

I'm considering closing down the phpBB forum that I've been using because of the recent ridiculous influx of spam. If there's one thing modern man is good at, it's making extremely annoying ways to inundate the Internet with unsolicited ads for shit that nobody wants. Absolutely nothing I've tried to stop the flow has worked, including IP bans, (thanks to a nearly infinite number of proxies that these assholes are using), keyword bans, Turing tests, and what-have-you. Every time I turn my back, twenty new spam messages get posted, and taking the necessary steps to clean up the board can take anywhere from twenty minutes to half an hour.

Does anyone have an effective way to put an end to this shit? It's driving me nuts, and if it doesn't stop soon, the forum's history.

PRESTO