Human Behaviour: Comic Commentary

Link: March 29, 2005
Source: WoW.com Fourm Stupidity
Notes: Obviously based on the MMORPG "World of Warcraft," which has sucked up all my free, relatively sane time.

Rant: A lot of people's problem with druids boils down to the fact that they want to play one, but don't want to play a night-elf or a tauren. I personally love both races (they're my favourites) so I don't see what the big deal is. Anyway, I got to thinking hey, there's weird little differences for each of the druid's forms on each race, what would stand out on each one? And then I got to thinking about how a bear is s'posed to be all ferocious and such, and how interesting it'd be to see this little gnome suddenly be a rather large bear. Nah, that couldn't happen. It'd be an iccle bear... like a koala. YES! Then I sat on the idea forever, being too busy playing. Go go server maintenance X);;

Link: November 13, 2004
Source: Actual Conversation with self (internal).
Notes: And Appelachiaña makes the scene, rounding out our recurring character list to three... if one can say that three is rounding.

Rant: Our phone and DSL lines both went completely dead on the twelfth, at around one PM (according to my mother; I was asleep until 10PM or so). I couldn't connect to the internet by any means, as the built-in modem required a phoneline, which was also down. I spent a good hour and a half or more being routed around an automated answering machine only to find out that they knew what the problem was (but wouldn't tell us) and would schedule a repairman (but none were available until the twenty-fourth). Yeah, can we say EXPENSIVE cellphone bill? Anyway, after being beyond the point of tears on the phone, I just curled up on my bed and tried to make myself feel better, coz' "it'll be back, it'll be back, it'll be back..." and I kept saying this as a more rational part of my brain was like "dear lord, woman, you sound like your lover has left you or something." Hence where this comes from. Apple just happens to not have a mobile, is all.

Link: November 10, 2004
Source: Actual conversation, heard via unintentional eavesdropping.
Notes: The first appearance of the Inverted Purple Skunk and her nearly-permanent "...oookay~ moving right along o_o" expression, as well as being the first actual HB comic made with HB in mind.

Rant: When I showed this comic to a friend of mine, we exchanged the following dialogue:

Her: that comic is disturbing
Her: please dont tell me that its based off of real life
Me: It is o_o;
Her: omg
Her: thats disgusting

And that pretty much sums it up. And I know what you might be thinking—that the coughing woman was faking it so that the kid would pay attention and get the sarcasm (as kids, I've noticed, aren't very bright on the whole and tend not to pick up on sarcasm and such anyway). I tell you now, I know stage coughing when I hear it, and this was genuine "I've killed my lungs by smoking while I have bronchitis" hacking. She was also still in the bathroom when I went to wash my own hands (still coughing), and she looked absolutely terrible. Moral of this story? Don't have kids and don't talk to them if someone else has them.

(As an aside... when I was drawing this, I depicted the wrong bathroom—there used to be two of the chain of mexican resteraunts that this happened in in the area; this is the bathroom of the one that was closer to my house and is now closed and torn down for a steak house, while it actually happened in the much more spacious bathroom of the one that still exists down by highway 101.)

Link: September 13, 2004
Source: Inspired through extensive observation.
Notes: Same Whine, Different Results (previously known as Art vs. Goth) was the first of many "society is dumb" comics that I had the idea for but didn't actually ignore the drawing of, and thus marks the first of the Human Behaviour comics. It also introduces Crazy-Random Cosplay Chick, and a pretty retarded looking human version of the Inverted Purple Skunk—which as you probably know is just a furry version of myself, so this is just a non-furry version, or as close to a self-portrait as you're going to get. It was properly inked, base-coloured with Copic Markers (as the following comics continue to be), and shaded on the computer—two steps (inking and shading) I decided to forgo for later comics because I didn't want to bog myself down in stuff that wasn't important at all and that would eventually lead me to give up on the thing entirely.

Rant: If there's something I've noticed in my years as an artist—online and off—it's that we have not gotten the short end of the stick. We as artists will sit around and whine to get attention... and actually get it. As far as attention whores go, we've got it made. People can whine and whine about how their lives suck and not get a shred of the attention they're after, but if you get frustrated (or pretend to get frustrated) at how a drawing is coming out and say that you don't like it, invariably you'll have people rioting because you're such a liar, how can you say that, it's so goooood, yada yada.

What we do is simply this: we are pessimistic, yet we crave acceptance. There are two possible outcomes to saying your work isn't good in a public forum (a la Elfwood). On the one hand, people can agree with you, in which case your feelings are validated and you feel good. On the other hand, people can disagree with you, which means that they like your work, and thus YOU are validated (and as you and your feelings are one and the same, it amounts to the exact same amount of mince).

I, for one, am tired of putting myself down in the name of acceptance. If people don't like it because I can like some of my work, fine, let them not like it or me, as I've given up caring what they think and find myself a better person for it. True, there is still a vast majority of it that I don't like, but no longer will I let myself say an average picture is crap. It's just average. I've done far worse, and I would do well to remember that and not get depressed about not churning out masterpiece after uninspired masterpiece.