Facebook and the Inner Soul

Two comics today!

Full Size Image HEAH

I'm not claiming that everyone in the world goes home and cradles themselves because of a yawning, bottomless void of self-doubt haunting their subconscious. I'm just saying that people, all people, experience insecurity from time to time.

Every once in a while when I read a biography, listen to an interview, or read a great comic (http://boxbrown.com/?p=733) I realize that those little pangs of "What the hell are you doing" aren't something that I alone experience. For a long time I believed that I was the only one to feel that way. But these days I realize that it's a part of the human condition! I see it in biographies of history's greatest and in those friends of mine who I thought were forces of nature but who have breakdowns just like every other common man.

That's why it's awesome that we're all insecure. Because it makes being insecure less of a lonely thing.

This comic is a little out of order because I have another story arc going on, but I wanted to get it in there. Also, those people in the comic are on a train... I'm not sure that came across.

Next!

Full Size Image M'YAH

Ah... topical humor. 60 years from now when we are all part of the Hivemind this comic about "internet" humor will make no sense whatsoever.

Facebook does make it very, very difficult for you to permanently deactivate your account. Even if you quit, all the data remains on Facebook and can easily be reactivated. Facebook blocks online services that remove all of your friend information and change your password/email combo. DEAD PEOPLE have trouble getting their accounts taken offline. This is because Facebook makes its money by selling data about its users, and is loathe to allow people to take away this data. Also, Facebook hates dead people.

It's not too sinister if you're ok with the idea of a free exchange of information... but it is a little disturbing if you weren't aware of how much of your personal information actually belongs to Facebook, not you.

I just think it's funny to consider Facebook, not as a greedy company trying to stop you from deleting its money-making resource, but as a Good Samaritan trying to stop you from doing the unthinkable and *gasp* engaging with the real world.

First use of color in a Repiphany! strip, by the way.

Peace!

Derek

The Search for Renown

A new Repiphany! strip: The Search for Renown

Full Sized Image Here.
(Please hit the link - Last week I made it to the top #300 of #13,000 on my host's website!)

It's fascinating to watch this comic evolve as time goes by. Looking back its clear - at least for me - where my big influences lie... how strips like Calvin and Hobbes, Penny Arcade, and xkcd have shaped my own particular brand of panel humor. My work is my own, obviously, and on my best day I am nowhere NEAR the genius of people like Bill Watterson, but it is interesting to see how, consciously or unconsciously, I've tried to adopt things I've liked about these strips into my own endeavor.

One influence I've definitely noticed is the way that I've shaped punchlines. At least in newspaper comics, multi-panel strips usually follow a basic formula. Each panel essentially serves as a build up to the final image wherein the joke is told, and aren't necessarily funny in and of themselves.

Online you'll often see something very different. Penny Arcade strips, for example, often follow a very different comic structure. Most of the time the strip just flows like a funny conversation between two people, (Which in fact it is - take a listen to their podcast and you'll see this is exactly how it the strip gets written!)and each panel is a joke in and of itself. So the final image ends up not being the place where THE joke of the strip is told, but an especially silly or crazy panel that ends off the strip.

Anyway, I've often caught myself following the latter structure. Today's strip, perhaps not so much, but check out #18 on nanotech and you'll see what I mean. I can also see myself trying to capture what's funny about xkcd or touching about Calvin and Hobbes. Success is not always mine, but it is the journey, after all, and not the destination that must provide satisfaction. It's good to learn from heroes.

And one of these days, I'm going to have to figure out the main characters name.

Peace.

Derek

Dynamic Architecture Comic

Here is the new Repiphany! page:

See what I've done here? I've taken the building of the future and turned it into a phallus joke! Mother would be proud.

I am learning that putting a lot of detail into your comic takes a LONG TIME. I've either got to revert to my old, simple format, or just do the drawing over multiple days. This 3-hour comic is not going to fly.
Dynamic architecture is actually an idea, by the way. YouTube the phrase and you'll see what I mean. check out this link, too, very fascinating.
Peace.