First World Wonderings

Well how about that, a satisfactory sketch of Devon. I think her exceptional height is at least suggested, her hair is what I wanted and I even managed to avoid the dreaded crummy boobs.
And another one of Clive.
Not to mention this one of Ben, whose expression I find oddly charming. I guess I find apprehensive fear charming? I also rather like his hair.
So I've been frigging around with the wacom tablet a lot and though I think I'm certainly capable of at least doing a good tracing job over one of my sketches....I cannot seem to find a drawing tool in GIMP that doesn't produce super pixelated lines. I'm trying to work very large and then shrink things down, as Jeph Jacques recommends, but I think that my not having a gigantic monitor is making this very difficult. It's a shame because I was hoping that when tracing onto another layer, I could fix anything which my non-computer inking may have blotched.

The learning curve is also holding back the site itself, though steady progress continues to be made when time can be allocated to it.

At the end of the day, though, I find that the art can be beautiful but if the writing is poor then I just do not give a flying fiddlers fuck*. I could find dozens of examples of this but A) I don't want to get into the habit of slamming other webcomic folk and B) I'd have to look up a bunch of comics I no longer have the URL's bookmarked for, then relive the disappointment. Meanwhile, fretting about getting the writing PERFECT for the first five strips is also absurd, given that it always takes a webcomic (or TV series, for that matter) time to find it's feet - and feet ain't found except by using 'em!**.

There is also something to be said for just getting the damn ball rolling. So sometime (probably late) tomorrow, the first official strip of First World Problems will go online and I shall link to it here.

*Sheesh, MORE cussing.
**This metaphor almost works. Almost.

At the end of the day, this is all you need.

In a fit of frustration, I did up a fake job listing to post here which would encapsulate as much of the rampant stupidity you get in said listings as possible. But when I was done, spent and panting while collapsed over the keyboard...I realized that such vitirol was unhealthy and perhaps a bit too soon since I dropped a ten pound cuss in my last post.

But I did keep the shining jewel of what I wrote and so I encourage you to Follow This Link To Apply Online

One Hundred, No More, No Less

Hooooo boy did I get my time wasted by the University of East London today. Apparently it is okay for their people to tell lies over the phone to get you to come by for a job, but then be told there is only some kind of six month un-paid training on the table. I would like to write these people one hundred letters and these shall all begin with "Dear Cunts".

I got pretty wary when I sat down and was asked to fill out a poorly photocopied form which asked for all sorts of information that they should theoretically already have had since they found me through my CV on Monster. In all my life, that has been about as good a sign as if I were to walk into a prospective employers office to find him impregnating his sister while watching pro wrestling on the tee-vee.

But at least when I got home I had a letter from Spain, a letter which made this recent Overcompensating strip seem all the more special.
Addendum: Paul Pope writes something dear to my heart.

So something a bit surreal happened to me last Monday and I wasn't sure if I wanted to mention it to anybody, though obviously now I think I do.

In the evening I went for a walk around the neighborhood and generally enjoyed stretching my legs after a long day of spending too much time in front of the computer. On the homeward bound stretch, I came across The News in a medium other than word of mouth, newspaper, radio, television or internet. It was in the form of a shrine to a young boy of about twelve who had been stabbed to death by a peer, on that very spot.

About six feet high at the tallest section and about twelve feet long, it is composed of about a hundred small candles, several wreaths, photographs, a football jersey and a plethora of notes on paper and the supporting wall. Classmates, teachers, family and friends had all contributed. I couldn't tell you why but, when I was able to stop looking at it, I counted the steps back to my front door.

One hundred and eighty-six. That's not a lot, really. Try counting that far the next time you stray from your door, to get an idea.

A lot of conflicting thoughts came about from this. But they aren't terribly interesting or novel and that's not really the point of my sharing this - it would be rather self centered if it was. I just think it's improper of me to gloss over this when I'm trying to provide a full glimpse of London, as seen by me. I saw this. It is part of London.

I contemplated taking a photograph of the shrine but kept shying away for fear I'd be turning something terrible into pornography. Tonight, knowing I'd built this up a wee bit in yesterdays entry, I figured "No, no I really should take a picture if I'm serious about giving the full view of this city". So I took my camera and set about those 186 steps.

But when I got close I saw four girls all around twelve or thirteen, looking upset and pacing around the the front of the shrine. Two were crying and that was that, really. I crossed to the other side of the street and walked right past, not wanting to intrude. I overheard a little of one of them talking to the others. "...I guess we could pray..." she said, not sounding entirely sure.

Also!

He was my hero when I was six years old

Sorry for being a bit quiet folks, I'm really trying to nail that thirty second advertisment script as I really want that Junior Copywriter job in Soho. The deadline is tomorrow though, so I reckon some healthier updates will be along the way. There is, in fact, a post I've been meaning to put up for four days but when you see it you'll understand why I wanted to take the time to word it carefully.

Until then, here is the dude, the dude who everyone should know talking about the topic we all need to be engaged with. I don't mean George Strombolpolobolopbolopblopobus.

LDN

It's been a while since I posted some pictures from around the city, so here are some I took between some shopping in the afternoon and drinkin' in the evening.Here we are at Leicester Square, which intersects with Charing Cross road (where all the bookshops are and hence myself on many a day). There are also several theatres and independent shops - the big chains haven't penetrated this area very much by comparison to, say, Oxford Circus.Later on party A (including myself) were going to meet some folk (B) on Cannon street but the nightclub (C) got a very low grade based on it's exterior (D). Thus a migration was made over to the Thames.
Beer, fun was had. True story! Now I have to wrap my head around that durn instant cappuccino commercial...