Hey, look! Wallpapers!

800×600 | 1024×768 | 1280×1024 | 1280×800

Based on a recent update from my artblog! I felt like making wallpapers, which is a feeling I haven’t had for a while.

A roll of the dice

While listening to the latest podcast of Webcomics Weekly (#62), laughing at how Kellett, Guigar and Straub are poking fun about how the same topics keep coming up in every cast they do, I decided to skim through my list of bookmarks on Delicious. One of the sites I skimmed through was SPLITREASON.COM, a site that has some pretty good geek apparel.

One of their partner stores is for Tim Buckley’s Ctrl+Alt+Del (CAD), which has been with them for a while. As a good number of webcomic readers may know, one of his story-arcs in the past year was a pretty drastic twist in the series.

While some of the criticisms were hilarious to read, such as Mike Krahulik’s (Penny Arcade) description of Buckley as an “art criminal,” one that stood out was Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw’s video discussion on webcomics on Zero Punctuation. It starts off like an ironic stab at a form of gaming-culture entertainment, but then it later feels like it’s more of an angry stab against just CAD. Unlike his poke at Penny Arcade’s sacks of infinite money, his criticism against Buckley’s comic seems almost genuine.

Fast forward to today, where I realize something I didn’t notice before, but has possibly been there for a while.

click to enlargen image

Apparently, CAD and Zero Punctuation are sharing the same vendor for selling merch! From what it looks like, they’ve been doing so for a while, but I don’t really know if it was before or after Croshaw’s video, nor do I really know if Croshaw’s whole anti-CAD anger bit was just another folly made by him to fool us all.

Either way, it’s frickin’ amazing.

Even to those who don’t read webcomics so much, I think I’ve supplied enough info for discussion. Any thoughts?

A case of the lucky!

The general way the auto licencing system works here in Ontario is like this: a graduated system, including two novice levels (G1 and G2) and the completed level (G). In its entirety, the novice-level licences share in total 5 years in validity. I was in a bit of a pickle today, going to the DriveTest centre to remedy my ability to take my G Road Test.

You see, I had my G1 for about 4 years. This meant that when I graduated to my G2, I had 11 months left in my entire novice term. The problem with this is that I need to hold my G2 for 12 months until I can take the test, and if the card is expired, I can’t renew it and would have to requalify for everything from scratch. That’s another $125, another G2 Road Test, and another few years of driving and practicing menial things.

Fortunately for me, I was able to extend my licence expiry date. Whether it’s basic protocol or not to extend a novice licence if brought in before expiry, I at least feel lucky, considering the attendant I was talking to said the word “requalify” and scared me a bit.

But yeah. I’ve got a few more years on my G2. And I like driving now. I never thought I’d say it, but I like driving now. It’s a good feeling.

…well, that is until hovercars are invented. Then I’m fucked.

A case of the stupid.

My weekend so far has not been the greatest of times.

First off, I realized that I signed up for the wrong driving test to gain my final G licence. As well, I finally considered how stupid the written duration on my licence is; I got my G2 in July or August, and it expires in more than a week. Note the SNAFU here. I’m not allowed to actually sign up for the G Road Test until I’ve had my G2 for 12 months or more. This is something I need to sort out on Monday, and it’s pissing me off.

Other than that, everything’s great.

The best break since forever! TCAF, ARTWORK!

Hey, guys! It’s been a while, I know, but I just got internet back at my place! It’s been down for a bit, but we got it up and going again. So many things, I can share with you! But let’s try to keep it simple.

TCAF 2009 POST-REPORT!

Amazing. Almost perfect, even! It was such a great event, and the list of people there was mind-boggling. Highlights from the trip include:

• Meeting Scott McCloud, who actually liked my gift-art and mini-comic I had for him.
• Being able to give every artist I made gift-art for their cards and making other comicists laugh in enjoyment from the artwork (i.e. Ryan North, Kate Beaton, Scott Campbell).
• Having two friends go in knowing little about the event later wanting more after the exhibition was done.
• Buying North World Vol 2: The Epic of Conrad and the Scott Pilgrim “Toronto” t-shirt, which is awesome!
• Giving out more than 20 copies of my mini-comic.
• Being able to see the Toronto Reference Library for the first time, and feeling proud to be in a country with a library that has such respect for graphic novels.

There are few gripes I have about the event, though:

• Seeing a re-enactment of the Reference Library fight scene in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
• Not having time to go to the pre- or post-events, save for the opening gallery at the Harbourfront Centre.
• More comicists to say hello to at event which did not attend

Other than that, it was stellar! See you guys again in 2011!

Keep an eye out for updates on my artblog, by the way! I’ve posted up images of the gift-art cards I gave to the comic creators I met at TCAF; all 19 of them. I, uh…kinda lost a lot of sleep doing them. Heh.

And there’s still my mini-comic, how to live, that you can check out if you haven’t yet. Funny story about that comic, by the way. It took about a week and a half after it was done until one person noticed Annie’s engagement ring is on the wrong finger! I found it kinda funny, considering I’ve poked at engagement-ring tradition before in Impression, but this time I did it by accident. I’m probably not going to fix it; it’s funny it’s like that, but the comic still works with it there.

And that’s it for me! Stay tuned for more updates this summer from me!