September 6, 2013

page 57 of this.
imagine I generate this for ten more years. Will something happen or will it just be a matter of getting from one unpleasant service interaction to another? How long can i show nemitz being annoyed at elpse being annoyed at lope before it becomes implausible for them to be together?

Unfortunately elpse is only too plausible to me. I constantly resent people who really have no hope of ever not annoying me. people like me who really should not. Elpse does not represent me nor does the lizard represent anyone else, though. They are only their own brightly colored punchable selves.

“close-up” frames save a bit of time but I keep feeling like i am missing opportunities to show background silliness that are best to do in frames where nothing is happening in the foreground – the reason it is possible to be close up.


The last few pages I used no real ink on because that took a long time. Not to do, just to think about, because I am so terrified of mistakes, and then the backgrounds always held me up, whereas if I only used computer lines I could figure the setting out as I went along. But I bought a huge bottle of ink about two years ago, during a period when I was inexplicably confident in my ability to use it, when I also had no time to use it, that I now need to justify the purchase of. I felt like the characters looked more interesting with the real ink, also. Do they? Assuming you have been following along, you probably didn’t even notice that I had stopped! (unless I said so, but that would also mean you read my accompanying dull ramblement) Still, in an attempt to sort all that out, I this time put ink over just the characters and stopped once it started to get annoying, and imagined I would erase the pencil lines underneath just that ink and fill in less important matters later. So it happened that at the scan phase this nemitz was just a head and an indistinct, not-quite matched torso, and it looked like a barely mobile, segment-operated boss foe from a super nintendo game. That took longer to say than it was worth.

I refrain from commenting on the justifiability of this.



5 Responses
  1. 1
    10:35 pm, September 7, 2013
    A non-sibilant fricative sez:

    It did not occur to me until this page that Burrito, aside from providing the transportation services directly cited here, had also been the bowling ball vendor whose wares Nemitz had previously been hurled into by a speeding eater of muffins. Clearly not a merchant to put all of biv’s entrepreneurial ova in one basket.

    I will confess that I did not notice the absence of inks. If indeed they are a bother, perhaps they would be well worth dispensing with for efficiency’s sake. Nothing like refining a process by removing unnecessary steps.

    I honestly doubt think the audience is especially likely to find Elpse and Nemitz’s continued comradeship improbable. It has, after all, been established that they have a long history together, being isolated refugees from a community that somehow dissolved in a great catastrophe; that’s the sort of thing that tends to build bonds strong enough to survive a few minor disagreements. Secondly, Nemitz has surely noticed that Elpse appears to genuinely care for (to the point of sometimes being overzealously protective of) zuh, to the point of physically carrying biv down the road for the past day and a half. And as this page shows, Nemitz would indeed tend to share such affection.

    Moreover, I imagine the two are aware that they tend to compensate for the other’s respective strengths and weaknesses. Nemitz is more personable and gets along better with others, and also tends to see the simpler solutions to problems when they exist, yet tends to be more naive and less self-sufficient, and rather more open to exploitation by others. Elpse, conversely, is a bit more worldly and street-smart, and better able to recognize and respond to dangerous situations, but tends to also be excessively suspicious, both to the point of being rude even to potential allies, and to the point of attempting to nearly always approach a problem from an oblique angle, even with a more straightforward approach would indeed be more efficacious.

    Neither of these sets traits is particularly surprising considering (what we know of) the characters’ respective backgrounds; Nemitz is, after all, suggested to have been in stasis for an extended period, including whenever whatever calamity occurred was calamitating, resulting in a more carefree and uncontaminated worldview, whereas Elpse, it is implied, has had to survive alone on the road for several years, where a more jaded and suspicious world view could quite easily develop, and would, perhaps, even be rather more beneficial in the circumstances. And while neither Nemitz nor Elpse is necessarily the most introspective nor reflective of individuals, it’s not unreasonable to assume that they still have at least some general understanding of these facts, and make allowances for the other’s behavior as a result, especially in light of their past history, and the fact that each is the other’s only really firm landmark in the present.

  2. 2
    8:14 pm, September 8, 2013
    Heapinfrimp sez:

    Oh yikes. I have no recollection of drawing burrito into that old frame. I must have looked back there when I drew the watermelon page, but I have no recollection of doing that, either. However, I also forgot to draw burrito’s feet in two of the three pertinent frames here and additionally failed to notice that at any useful point prior to now so maybe my memory is going for a walk.

    Once again you prove to have a better idea what is going on than I do. I do not believe I have ever gone straight through every page, and can forget minor or sometimes major details. This also occurs with pages I have not yet made. I forgot my initial reason for having nemitz be electrocuted several times during the hospital section, and so last week at last ordered myself to come up with a reason. Surprisingly, I succeeded. Shortly after recording that in my heap of comic notes, I discovered a totally different reason I came up in the absence of the original, which I had also forgotten about.

    Your perception of the elpse-nemitz relationship may be more functional, story-wise, than what I had imagined. I had thought they were only on “the road” for about a year or so, and their home still exists, it merely flew away as a security measure. Due to bizarre propaganda, ignorance or xenophobia, the residents believe the world outside is instantaneously lethal and so they did not attempt any rescue. Elpse wishes to return and clear up some misconceptions. It is the sort of thing where I realized rather late that I should have found an excuse to explain it earlier, and gradually, to not need a sizable lump of flashback all at once. Or perhaps even have had it in a prologue. My substitute idea was to have it explained to lope, but that came before I had conceived of most of the detours that would occur before they met or had a chance to compare explanations after meeting. My failing to zoom in on the weird money until a page after it is acknowledged is a miniature example.
    Although i remember reading Treasure Island and being annoyed that some of the pirates were not identified by name until after they were dead or about to die and I have not encountered that complaint elsewhere, so perhaps late information is not a major problem.

    I trust in the elpse-nemitz relationship more so than the group of three which includes lope, though I did change my mind over whether nemitz was annoyed at elpse (tapping elpse) or the vendor (tapping mitzelf) in the pointing frame. At some point I will need to make elpse be nice to lope, but I only “need” them to be together until partway through the next “day” or whenever the beet-eating contest occurs, which is the latest specific act that i know lope must participate in while in the company of the other two.

    This time, since I only used real ink part-way, more of a nuisance [re]appeared in the removal of tiny specks that result from the occasional mar on a page that is dark enough to not be filtered out, or any area where I did not fully remove the pencil. Pencil removal suddenly became a cautious matter (though not as much as ink-application) because I still needed to leave the parts I would be drawing over later. I prefer the look of the ink when I see the pictures large, during the color-application phase. I wonder what a difference it would make after printing. But perhaps I should not, since that is not a wonder that helps anything.

  3. 3
    10:28 pm, September 9, 2013
    [ð] sez:

    I never saw anything odd about Muffineater following Elpse around; if anything Elpse seems like precisely the sort of individual Muffineater would want to win the favor of, even if their personalities don’t match as well as those of Muffineater and Nemitz. Why? Well, firstly, Elpse is one of the few assertive-personalitied individuals in the comic who has not tried to bully or exploit Muffineater. Not only that, Elpse’s first interaction with the baked good fan was actually to defend biv against one of biv’s habitual tormentors, which presumably left Muffineater with a positive opinion of Elpse, despite that latter’s grumpiness. And it’s not exactly an inaccurate one, either–for all biv’s brashness and short-temperedness, Elpse really doesn’t like to see bullies in positions of greater or lesser authority abuse those weaker than them, even if biv wouldn’t necessarily want to hang out with the latter group of individuals in biv’s free time, either.

    Furthermore, I suspect Muffineater probably on some level wishes biv could be a bit more like Elpse at times. There are some similarities between Elpse and Muffineater + Hat (see their respective interactions with Kumquat). Like Muffineater, Elpse is not a person of great power or social influence in this society–not a doctor like Inchwelm, a tycoon like Treco, or a weird mad scientist with access to all sorts of bizarre machines and other arcane technologies like Kumquat. In fact, Elpse probably has a lower social standing than Muffineater biv’s-self, who at least has an apartment and at least occasional employment; Elpse, conversely, is a hobo. And yet such a position of social weakness does not prevent Elpse from standing up to biv’s self-proclaimed betters when they attempt to walk all over zuh. Biv doesn’t always win, of course, but biv always puts up a fight. And unlike behatted Muffineater, this all comes naturally to Elpse, and can’t simply be taken away by swatting away a conspicuous ornament, as Inchwelm does to regain the upper hand in confrontations with the loping one. And one of Muffineater’s major character traits throughout the story thus far is trying to learn to be a bit more naturally assertive–and perhaps biv hopes Elpse could be the one to teach this to zuh.

    Truth be told, I actually rather like this trio. It’s actually a good thing that the respective personalities of its constituents don’t match up perfectly; it gives them something to play off of, whereas three highly similar characters honestly might as well just be one individual. And what’s more, each member seems to have traits that are well-suited to affect the others’ development as characters in the story. It’s always more fruitful to search for for hidden possibilities in a scenario rather than potential flaws; one make be surprised what one can find by only slightly turning about the elements involved.

  4. 4
    3:30 am, September 10, 2013
    MineralRealgar sez:

    The people commenting before me seem to have a better grasp of this story than myself, and I’m on a cell phone, but I can say i really enjoy the the relationship between Nemitz and Elpse. I also find Lope’s desire to fit in, relateable. I’m not sure what your plans are for character developement, or where you intend the characters to go, but it does break my heart a bit to read that you intend to seperate Lope from the two best friends. Nemitz needs to learn to speak, while Lope needs to learn he doesn’t need a hat that seems to be using him. That he instead needs friends. Elpse, I like most of all, becuase he is perhaps the most faulted, he’s agressive and acts superior to eithers but is also quite defensive. Nemitz appears to be aware of this but seems to get frustrated and literally can’t put into words what he thinks is wrong with Elspe. And Lope, geniunly seems to like Elpse, and posses the greatest potential to warm Elpse’s heart, in my opinion. They are all quite different, and yet they posses qualities that can assist one another. They seem to me to have the potential for an entertaining and lasting relationship. also i’m not very elequant. i hope im at least understandable

  5. 5
    7:22 pm, September 12, 2013
    Heapinfrimp sez:

    Thank you for finding that sort of value in my imbeciles! I used to be worried that they were too similar in appearance, and am glad to know that at least two people whom I surmise do not know each other could independently conclude that the creatures have distinct attributes apart from their visual statuses. I do not necessarily “need” to separate them. Not permanently, certainly. I simply cannot do it before a certain point. I liked drawing them together even before I wrote them together, despite lope being a clear outlier in a number of ways. but nemitz also outlies through not bothering to speak coherently.
    I have surely emphasized in the past elpse’s connection to hobos, and perhaps you are even referring to that, but I should definitely reiterate


    There really is not much story to grasp. Up to here I have only implied that there might eventually be one.
    Elpse is supposedly more useful in a fight than the other two, but I am not good at arranging or drawing fights so little evidence has arisen.

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