Friends

*peeks in*

*waves sheepishly*

Yes, I'm back. I'm not going to say (as I have before) that I'm back on track and I'm ready to start fresh. We'll be having none of that nonsense. But I'm posting today and I plan on posting the rest of this week and hopefully that will be enough to get me back in the habit. Because here's what happened: I convinced myself that I had a handle on my eating habits and that I certainly didn't need to keep a picture journal or even a written journal. May I just say I was so, so wrong? I need the public accountability or my weight inexorably starts creeping back up. Oh, my weight? *whistles* I haven't weighed myself for a while. I'm still in my size 14s but not as comfortably as I was before.

It's been a difficult time for me lately. I've started a challenging and stressful new job. We've all been plague-ridden since the first of October. I'm more tired at the moment than I can remember being in my entire life and that incluldes right after Zack was born. Unfortunately, my first instinct is to overeat when I'm stressed or ill or tired. I'm also entering a dangerous time of year with our wedding anniversary in October and then Halloween with its evil miniature-sized candy bars and then Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's. So many opportunities to let myself go, and I know the only way I will eat sensibly is if I have someone watching me via this journal.

Enough babbling. Tonight my maxillary sinuses are trying to escape my skull via my eyeballs, or at least that's how it feels. So a quick picture post and then I'm going to bed.

( Pictures... )

Yeah, I bet you’ve always wanted to wake up around naked bodies yourself.

Before you get too eager for upcoming pages, I should mention that this whole sequence is not going to involve any full-frontals. Mainly because when I asked le editor de GS about its policy on nudity, he was all, “I shall smite thee with the power of a thousand suns!”

And I was all, “You don’t have a thousand suns.”

And he was all, “I said the power of. Don’t argue with me, woman!”

And I was all, “Fine, but I’m going to stick a naked tush there and that’s final.”

And he was all, “Oh hell yeah.”

. . . Well, okay, I’m paraphrasing. A lot. Don’t tell him I said all this.

Anyway, ‘tis a Bitters Past update. Go read!

Also, advanced notice that there won’t be an update next week. Why? Because it’s my birthday, and I’m taking the week off to celebrate! Bitters Past will resume week after that. But hey, as a consolation, you folks get a bonus below! I’d mentioned to Kat that I’d taken some in-progress shots of the previous page because I loved the middle three panels so much. Here they are for your enjoyment!

I'd best mention this now since I won't be online tomorrow: Tuesday With Everything In It update is tomorrow, so go read it then! And same deal, advanced notice that there won't be an update for it next week on occasion of my birthday. It'll be back week after!

Bats Day Update 10-15-08 - Dark Park Fest & Ghoulish Gala

Greetings everyone,
Here is another great update for you. In this update you will find the following:

- Bats Day in the Fun Park Presents - Dark Park Festival

- Bats Day™ Pre Event, Ghoulish Gala, Last Day to purchase tickets is Oct 31st


Thanks for reading.
Noah K



Spread the word. Use this banner on your Live Journal, MySpace or website.
Make the URL link back to Http://www.batsday.net
Copy this code for your live journal and myspace codeing.

<a href="http://www.batsday.net"><img src="http://www.batsday.net/home/infobanner.gif" /></a>

( Batty info under here )

People have been linking to this debate clip from the classic Batman series that reveals how McCain's current campaign speeches have been taken straight from the Penguin's playbook! Especially now that McCain has gone back on his promiseof a "respectful campaign" and started condemning his opponent for his tangential ties to shady criminals.

And watching the clip it's hard not to compare Batman's debate style to Obama's debate style (calm, cool, wry detachment, overintellectualizing etc.)

See for yourself!






SIDE NOTE: How awesome was the original Batman TV show? Supposedly the composer for the series just past away.

I thought this would be a typical work day - food wise - but after the usual two cappuccini in the morning, I got dragged into a business lunch.

We had bresaola stuffed with ricotta (? mascarpone?) on a bed of rucola, a porcini risotto, green beans and a mousse of ricotta with berries.
A small slice of bread and two half glasses of wine.

                 

I had a walk about after lunch - to dissipate the effect of wine - and since I had my camera, snapped at plants and cats.

Dinner was pizza with a glass of beer.
  (I had four pieces of that size - i.e. one third of the two pizza I baked)
And I shared a pomegranate with Cesare.

This gag by cartoonist Chris Schweizer, appears in our Bigfoot themed Comic Book section this month!



Actually, we had Chris come up with a slightly toned down version...so to see the final gag (and a bunch of other Bigfoot themed comics) be sure to check out the October issue of Nick magazine!

Chris also has a new hard cover graphic novel about PIRATES! out now from Oni Press. It's called Crogan's Vengeance!

http://www.curiousoldlibrary.com/vengeancepage.html

SEEDLESS online comic updated!

Like usual, this is my favorite one yet!!

( Expanded thoughts about Seedless & Comics )

Thanks to all the plugz my last shirt got, too!

Heck yeah: www.girlamatic.com/comics/mell.php

Also, Skin Horse now has a Wikipedia entry! My favorite part is that Konstantin the Russian cop has his own little section.

Here's what I'm working on at the mo. It'll be 14 pages once I've finished and appear Somewhere That's Been Announced But Not Sure If I Can Mention I'm In It Yet.

Also not sure how finished these colours are at the moment. We'll see.

I fixed up the store at my site and made the single volumes of Love The Way You Love cheaper so if you've got some holes that need filling then stock up now. Also Ellerbisms.com got a bit of an update and it looks like we're going to launch (hopefully) next week.

Hello JEM Fans/Friends!

We're looking into finally adding links to all the amazing and stunning JEM fan art that is out there and we just received a link to a stunning page that made us gush looking at it.

Lina Toro of Facebook sent us this link today and we were so impressed with the illustrations that we just had to let everyone know about it. Above are two examples of the artist's work. They are renderings of fan favs 'Stormer' and 'Danse.' The detail and colors are truly remarkable.

You can visit the gallery by clicking the artwork above or by clicking the link below.

http://www.petite-madame.fr/gallery/fan-art-the-holograms.html

Stop by and check out the rest of their JEM fan art. You'll be glad you did!

Stay Outrageous!

Jem's Space

Hey, maybe this lecture won't go so badly after all!

...or not. College students can be flesh-eating predators to young faculty in particular. Folks starting out their teaching careers in the university system as we speak: God bless you, and hang in there.

NEXT WEEK: it gets worse. Or does it???

For those of you who missed it: new notes!

And I have a full podcast recorded, but my podcast hosting service is being difficult. I'm having Words with it.

This page feels a little washed out to me: in a future revision I'll try to push the values a little more. Balance in this comic is tricky - I only like to use black when I really MEAN it.

But sometimes monotone coloring can lead you into too many subtle gradations without enough anchor.

Well, looks like I get to vote after all. Despite my NOT sending in a request for an absentee ballot I still got one. Interesting....

So I filled it out and went to put it in the envelope that I have to sign certifying I did it all in secret and that's when the glitch happened. I looked at the statement I'm to sign which says I live at my old stateside address and I'm just not going to be around for the voting on the 4th. I couldn't sign it given it was false, so I wrote a letter with my own statement and signed that instead. I attached it to the envelope and mailed it off yesterday. Who knows if they'll count my vote, but I guess I can at least say I voted. Certainly was interesting.

I posted some of these links a couple of years ago but they all got taken down; lucky for me (and maybe you? Were you a kid in 1987?), somebody posted all of Disney's DTV Monster Hits on YouTube in 5 chunks:

Part 1
(Thriller, Ghostbusters)

Part 2
(Huey, Dewey, and Louie Trick or Treating; Bad Moon Rising; Monster Mash)

Part 3
(Somebody's Watching Me; The Great Mouse Detective [which had recently come out when this aired]; The Headless Horseman; Evil Queen Transformation sequence from Snow White)

Part 4
(Evil Woman; Donald Duck's Friday the 13th; Superstition; Snow White's would-be assassin; You Better Run; Sorcerer Mickey)

Part 5
(That Old Black Magic; Dreamtime; Heffalumps and Woozles; Sweet Dreams)

This is, like, my 10-year-old self in a nutshell. We taped it off TV and my sister and I watched it over and over and over, regardless of it being Halloween or not. The framing device is cheesy as heck, but the editing is really well done and I still get chills watching it. I consider myself a pretty huge Disney nerd, but as Dave and I have been going back and watching a ton of the original cartoons lately, I find myself remembering the DTV versions better than the real things, and sometimes more fondly. I am a product of the 80s, no doubt.

Anyway, THIS is Halloween to me.

Kiel West came and dropped off his HP 3670 and the difference in scan quality is amazing. The heighth, width and depth of the Mustek are consuming a good chunk of my floorspace. Thanks everyone for the advice. I'll be using the HP for a bit until I can get an LIDE90.

Much to my amusement John Keogh has put me into the current Lucid-TV. Well played! Except I've been ahead of this meme for a long time, Jfish, Satyrist, Westival, and the guys who make Panda Xpress have been in North World off and on several times, Jfish notably being a major supporting character. Maybe that makes me more like Jeffrey Rowland, but Keogh has definitley inspired me, although we'll have to wait and see how such inspiration comes out.

24 hour comics day is this weekend. I've got a goal I'm shooting for, but it's not quite 24 pages (at all).

Edit: Now I'm seeing so many familiar webcomic faces in today's Octopus Pie. What puts me to shame is that today's update is a crowd scene! While I'm not that far ahead with my inks I have unfortunately pencilled clear to next month.

If you're reading me, and you're in South Carolina or Georgia, or have pals that are, please send this along.

http://rob.orangejack.com/2008/10/14/help-missing-14-year-old-girl/




Yes, it's for real. Go!

Another two cappuccini.
And a small morsel of cake, brought by a colleague:

(you can see the size of it by looking at the teaspoon next to it...)

Lunch was fish with tomatoes and olives, a salad and a persimon.


Dinner was a sausage cooked in moscato with red onions and chick peas, plus a fat free Greek yoghurts with honey
   

(and a slice of bread plus a small glass of red wine)

I sort of like this little dayjob illustration.



In my alternate life as an designer/illustrator (as opposed to a writer/artist) I get to have a lot of fun with cartoon styles. I'm one of the speedier hand-drawers in the company, so I frequently get called on to draw for other people's projects, something I really love doing.

I'm sure I'll do an actual comics story in this light, cute sort of style at some point. For now it's fun to switch gears between dayjob and personal work, and watch both gradually improve as a result of mutual influence.