W to the O with a Y and the L. 4.11 edition

You know the drill. Hit the comments for my list, feel free to post your own.

New promo stuff on the main site. There will be another new one tomorrow.

Next week is coming along well according to Josh. I need to fire up our new 11x17 scanner and make sure it is up to the task of being awesome.

Happy Wednesday.

-alex.

Wha...??

Um. So.

We're taking a week off. Nothing drastic happened, we just decided to take a bit more time to get things where we want them.

Regular strips will resume next Monday, and be five days a week again.

Think of it as a break for spring. A spring break even.

In other news, there will be a few piece of art you all have not seen yet on the main site. At least a couple, maybe more if I can find them.

In other news, I placed 18th this weekend in my Nerdtastic card game tournament. It was an enjoyable time, and gives me a place to start from for next time. You need to place in the top 4 to get an invite to the Nationals, so only 12 places to go.

Happy Tuesday everyone.

Tomorrow has the lists.

See you then.

-alex.

Out the door.

Quick post today, I'm trying to get all my crap together for this weekend.

Sneak Peek:

Alex: It’s my turn!

Hartley: Bite me. You got to go first last time!

Have a good weekend.

I'll toast all our readers at our FiestaEaster.

-alex.

Tiiiiiiiimmmmmmeeeee(machine)

TimeMachine
Originally uploaded by AlexGates.

Oh yes. It is as awesome on the inside as the cover implies. And there is a secret bit of awesome that I'll tell you about next week.

I'll have some interior scans Monday or Tuesday. The insides are literally too cool to digest. You may need medicine.

Tomorrow will be a short sneak peak, as I have a crap ton to do to get ready to meet with Josh and hit the Grindhouse. Saturday is Nerdtastic Card Game weekend part 2. Sunday is the FiestaEaster.

Monday back to the fun stuff.

Thursday Smurshday.

-alex.

WOYL? 4.4 edition.

Hit the comments for mine, complete with commentary!

As always feel free to post your lists.

Tomorrow, a few Time Travel thoughts.

Also, the strip today looks kinda janky. That's my fault. Kinko's made me copy the strip instead of scanning it. Our new scanner shipped today, so I may be able to go back and clean up the scan a bit.

-alex.

Kink-No's.

My visit to Kinkos earlier.

Me: Hi, I'd like to scan in this 11x17 art please.

Nice Lady Behind the Counter: Is this original art?

Me: Yes.

NLBC: Is it your art?

Me: Yes. Well, it's for my website. I'm the writer and my artist cohort drew it.

NLBC: So you didn't draw it?

Me: Uh, no.

NLBC: Well we have to have this copyright paperwork filled out by the artist.


And that's how I ended up fighting a copy machine to get the art re-sized, rather than paying the $9.95 for them to scan it in.

Hopefully our new scanner comes by Friday.

Happy Tuesday everyone.

-alex.

Welcome back.

It seems as though we all survived Zombie week in one piece.

Fear not Zombie fans, Alan will return soon.

This week: A bit of Time Travel. Also we learn who really runs the store.

Other notes: Josh changed to 11x17 paper this week, so scanning things in with my not-11x17 scanner has been tricky. Thanks to the magic of the ebay, I have ordered a bigger scanner which will hopefully be here by next week.

Last night I watched the end of Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars on Sci-fi. Man I miss that show. I don't remember how I first heard of it, if I caught a random episode or if I just happened to get the first disc from Netflix, but once I started watching it I was a Farscape Fiend (FoF? Fiend of Farscape?). I would get a disc, watch all 4 episodes and have it back in the mail before the next time the postal officer graced my apartment building. It was good stuff. I have not gone back and watched those again, though I have a lot of them on DVD. I was physically ill when they just 'ended' the series, I literally could not bring myself to watch the end of it. But then the movie got announced and a real ending was to be had. Watching the very end of the series made the think back to the beginning. I may pop the first few episodes in later in the week.

This week: Grindhouse. Needless to say I'm excited and Amber is not. Thankfully I'll visiting Josh so we'll go catch it Friday night. I'm stoked. It has been fun to read interviews about the movie.

Also this week: I finally get around to ordering trades. Why this week? Because I have to spend money on Un-Fun things this week, so to balance out the universe I'm going to splurge on some Trade action.

I hope you all made it though April Fools in one piece.

Tomorrow: Random Links? Maybe. My goal for the week is to post something every day. We'll see how long that lasts.

Stay tuned.

-Alex.

In the Wild!

08.11.06
Originally uploaded by AlexGates.

Here we see another of my daily drawings I did last August.

The story:

I had seen ads for Capcom's Xbox 360 game Dead Rising for months. It looked pretty, and I do love me some zombie kiling action (See Resident Evil 1-4 and various offshoots). But, was it enough to purchase what was then the most expensive console system? I held my ground, thinking that buying an xbox for just one game was madness.

Then the videos started showing up. And the list of things you could kill zombies with started to grow. Bowling balls, 2x4s, axes, swords all screamed out to me. Then came the lawnmower (Warning, slightly violent conent. Click only if you can handle zombies dying in brutal blade action).

And so my gaming zombie genocide contiuned. There is more to the game that I will talk about later. For now I must go finish tomorrow's last part of our Zombie week.

Tune in tomorrow.

-alex.

Zombie Q&A.

Amber works a lot. More than me for sure. So in the moments before sleep, I of course decided it was time for a little Zombie Q&A. Enjoy.

Amber’s thoughts on Zombies.

Amber: They’re green and smelly. And serve no purpose to the community. Plus they’re creepy.

Have you ever seen a zombie movie.

Yes. 28 days later. Scary!

What you do if you saw a zombie?

Tell you to kill it.

Do you know how to kill a zombie?

I think you chop its head off with a silver bullet axe, or something.

Why do you think people are fascinated with zombies?

I really didn’t know people other than you were.


There you have it.

Tomorrow: Zombies in the media.

-alex.

WOYL? 3.28 edition.

Zombie stuff later today.

Hit the comments for the lists.

Mini review of Miami Vice: Zzzzzzzz.

-x

Z is for...

zombie
Originally uploaded by AlexGates.

When I was a kid my brother was the artist between the two of us.

I did manage to mangle my way through Draw Squad one year, only getting about 1/3 of the way done before I gave up.

Two years ago I decided I was going to 'bust my cycle' and do some drawing. I practiced and participated in the 24 hour comic day that year. Since then I've done a couple of months of daily strips here and there.

This is none of those things. It is what happens when you have the undead on your mind.

As far as my current drawing skills go, you may get a glimpse of those soon. Consider yourselves teased.

Tomorrow: WOYL and maybe some zombie pictures?

We'll see.

-alex.

Zombie, Zombie, Zombie weeeeeeeek.

Oh yeah it is.

Normally I'd say something different, but again with the pg-13.

And I promise this week's strips will maintain that, at the same time giving you some fierce Comic-Shop on zombie action.

This week was fun to write, Josh had a blast drawning it, and I hope you all have a good time reading it.

We have some outstanding stuff for you on the blog this week as well. Tomorrow I'll show you some Zombie Art (part 1). Wednesday we'll talk a bit about Zombie movies. Thursday might have some Zombie Video game action. And Friday, if we all survive that long, is still up in the air.

Check out the Myspace page for more Zombie action.

Tune in tomorrow for something that gives multiple meanings to the word Horrifying.

-alex.

WOYL? 3.21 Edition.

It's a light week.

Happy New Comics Day.

-x

Jumping Right In.

Sometimes starting in the middle of something can be thrilling. Knowing it is either sink or swim, that you have no plan B if something doesn't work can be exhilirating.

I just get frustrated and want to throw things.

Thus starts my second day of Post Production.

A bit of background.

Josh draws the strip. Pencil and Ink and all that. I take them, scan them, and up until Monday would use a web based photo program to alter the contrast and that was it.

Monday I started messing with Illustrator to add the text and try to change the contrast. Text was not much of a problem (I still can't make conjoined word balloons yet, or make them flush with a border) but the contrast thing was a tad more difficult.

Luckily there's a new feature called LiveTrace which takes the lines you have on the page and 'inks' them digitially (I may be way off on what it actually does, this is what it 'seems' to do). I'm not sure if I like the effect yet. We'll see how the whole week looks.

I also tend to get cranky when something I did in a program worked yesterday, then trying to do the exact same thing today doesn't work at all. I realize it is 99.99% likely that it's my fault, but that doesn't make me feel any better.

In good news, I bought 3 shirts today. More on that later.

Happy Tuesday everyone.

-alex.

Monday? What happened to...

It is all new. All different. A new week. A fresh start.

Some things new.

But first, a bit of the old.

Um. What happened to Sneak Peak Friday?

Well, I could say I was sick (sorta true). Or I was busy (not true). Or I did not have the artwork for this week yet (True!!) and that it was not my fault (erm....).

I'll make it up to you this week.

And now, to the new.

New story!

This week marks the first 'story' driven week. The first week was Josh meeting the store. The second week was Josh meeting a few of the players. This week Josh meets...

Well you'll have to wait until tomorrow to get her name.

(A small side note. This is not the same girl that was on Hartley's arm last week. That's Percy. She may or may not be a Russian spy.)

New Process!

I finally got Adobe Illustrator installed. I am learning how to use it. Today marks the first day I've tried anything with it.

New Letters!

See above. Tomorrow will feature word balloons done by me as well. Today's were still drawn by Josh.

New Myspace!

It's Turtles week on our Myspace. What? You're not our friend yet? You know you want to. And for even more Turtle awesomeness check out Josh's profile.

It's a new week everyone. Go out and enjoy it.

-alex.

Old School, New Look.

It's no secret I've been playing a lot of Xbox360. I have a post brewing about the Achievements you can get in those games, but today I have dusted off an older machine and plugged it into the front of my TV.

The trusty PS2.

This is actually the trusty PS2.1, as the trusty PS2 got old and busted. And as something old and busted usually does, it got donated to a friend.

So NewStation and I have had a falling out of late. We enjoyed bully when it came out, and we tried to get through FFXII, but only managed to get a few hours in. So it sat, under the tv, to be brought out when guests clamored for music but largely untouched.

Until earlier this week.

If you have picked up a comic or a magazine in the last few months you have seen the ads. There is a galaxy where things are roguish. But, even with this onslaught of media I did not look any further. It was, for that old dusty system, the one kicked back under the TV. But then Best Buy intervened. In its brightly lit aisle it showed me a glimpse, a mere few moments of playtime, and with that I was converted.

And so, 6 hours in, I can say this is the most enjoyable RPG I have played in a long while. And there are things I have just begun to see. It has a Pokemon type insect catching and raising, which then leads to a chess like game with your Insectors.

Oh it knows my nerd passions, and it sings to them, sweetly, in the dark. Under the TV, kicked to the back.

-alex.

What's on Your List??!? 3.14 edition.

Another Wednesday, another list.

-alex.

Sneak Peak Monday??!?!

Sneak2
Originally uploaded by AlexGates.

Yep.

I'm a slacker.

Hope you enjoyed Today's strip. This week is a bunch of single day strips, with a return to a week long story line next week.

Happy Monday.

-alex.

Sneak Peak....delay!

Sneak Peak Friday will be Sneak Peak Saturday this week.

Hope you all can hold out till tomorrow.

Happy Friday.

-alex.

Yesterday I had to call my Mom...

And tell her Captain America had died.

Me: Hey mom, I just wanted to be the one to tell you, so you didn't hear somewhere else first. Captain America died.

Mom: *Gasp!* No way! How?

Me: He was shot.

Mom: Well, he'll be back.

Me: Yeah, maybe. But the way Marvel is talking, maybe not.

Mom: Should we make armbands?



I won't quote the conversation Josh and I had about it. I like to keep things PG-13.


-alex.

What's On Your List? 3.07 edition

Hit the comments for mine.

No Buffy this week. Lame.

And, that other big thing that happened. Sigh.

-alex.

A bit late, better than never.

strip1.1
Originally uploaded by AlexGates.

A bit more history.

Orginally the strip was envisioned as a typical comic strip, like you would see in the paper. This is one of the panels of the first day. Josh had the idea to do the strip as a comic page, and we took it from there.

At some point I'll post the actual first strip, as it totally different than the opening.

-alex.

Myspace - Josh 1

Myspace1
Originally uploaded by AlexGates.

Seriously, if you have a Myspace page, friend us.

We'll give you a cookie.

-alex

An Oddity by any other name.

Hopefully everyone's weekend was spent doing things you like, with people you enjoy.

The strip today is a bit of an oddity. It's our first real 'comic' strip. Yet it's the most recent strip I've scripted. How did such a thing happen? I'll explain (with pictures!) tomorrow.

For those of you how have not been to our myspace page (tsk tsk, link to it on the mainpage) I'll post a picture from that later today.

Happy Monday.

-alex.

Fry by Day.

So there you have it. The opening credits. The stage has been set.

I hope you enjoyed it. Next week has dialogue.

Here's a sneak peak:

Josh: Is that a monkey writing down next week’s comics?

Monkeys?!?! Fun stuff indeed.

See you Monday.

-alex.

Live in 3...2...

And there you have it. Our first strip. Day 1. One down...

Tune in tomorrow for a sneak peek at next week.

-alex.

What's on Your List? 2/28 Edition.

Hit the comments for mine.

Happy Wednesday everyone.

Our first strip hits tomorrow.

Fingers crossed.

-x

Normally they scare me.

Today I’m thinking outside the box. My horizons have been expanded. My mind opened up to other possibilities. I am a new man.

What caused this change in my outlook? What event made me rethink my past ways and be open to the thinking that there is a different way to do things?

My Xbox 360.

I’ve played Pac-Man (and his Ms.) many times over the course of my life. From the stand up, to the sit down, to the home arcade, I’ve eaten my share of pellets. I watched the cartoon, I had the stickers, and I have taken the piece of pizza out and done the noise.

Now usually when I play I avoid the ghosts completely. Even when I can eat them I just use the time to eat more pellets and get to the end of the level. I’d rather see the next level than see the ghosts sent back to their pen to regenerate.

However today I am a changed man. I’ve been trying to eat ghosts. Making it my mission to chomp down on some wispy pixilated haunters.

What made me change my ways? 15 points.

All Ghosts: Eat all four ghosts in succession after eating a Power Pellet! 15 Points.

For those not familiar with Xbox 360-ness in each game you can get points for doing certain things. These are called Achievements. Lots are things you would normally do in each game (beat bosses, get past certain points) but some push you outside of the way you play the game. Make you think differently about the game you are playing.

So today I’m thinking outside the box. And there’s a small check next to something I had never done before.

-x

A weekend of progression

With less than a week until our official launch date things are coming together nicely.

Josh came to visit on Saturday and we got some work done. We even updated our ‘tin can’ method of long distance communication, something that should make things easier as we progress.

Keep an eye on our Myspace page, as we’ll be putting different things on it as we go.

I hope everyone had a good weekend.

Happy Monday.

-alex.

End of the week, Start of the line.

PreviewWeek1
Originally uploaded by AlexGates.

It's Friday.

That means it's time for a short preview of what's coming up next week.

I hope all of you continue to tune in next week for the coundown, and Thursday for our offical first strip.

I'm jazzed.

I hope you are.

See you Monday. Have a safe weekend.

-alex.

Crackdown Crackup.

Last night I was playing Crackdown, a new game for the Xbox 360.

For those of you not familiar with the game, it’s a sandbox game where you can beat the snot out of criminals. You are essentially a super-cop, who in the course of the game becomes more super. There are lots of guns and explosions and leaping about. It’s fun stuff.

One of the Achievements in the game is scaling to the top of this huge building. Skyscraper tall, you have to leap from ledge to ledge up to the top.

I have a small fear of heights. So much so that even looking at a tall building from the ground gives me a feeling of falling.

And leaping up this building, just watching it on my TV, hearing the imaginary wind whip past me, filled me with the very same feeling. I had a physical and emotional reaction to something that was very much not real. My palms got sweaty. I had to stop a lot and try to calm myself down. A video game gave me the same feeling as if I was myself trying to climb to the top of this building. In the end I only made it about 75% of the way (its not an easy task even without the fear of heights).

So that got me thinking, what other games have had the same effect? What games have produced a strong emotion, either positive or negative?

Next week I’ll give you the first of the ones I came up with.

I’ll give you a hint: there are dogs involved.

-x

(Tune in tomorrow for Sneak Peak Friday.)

What's On Your List? 2/21 edition.

So here is the first installment of What’s On Your List?

Here’s how this works. Each week I’ll post what’s on my comic buy list. Some weeks I may even write something about the titles. Everyone is welcome to post their lists, though I would ask you do not spoil anything for those who have yet to pick up their books.

Hit the comments for the list.

Happy Wednesday everyone.

-x

Ruby Tuesday.

Some History, part 1.

Once upon a time, I worked at a real life comic-book store. It was, without a doubt, one of the best jobs I've ever had. While there, I imagined writing a comic strip, about a comic shop.

Josh likes to draw. He puts his pencil to paper and pictures just appear on the page. Some might say it is not unlike magic.

So we schemed and plotted and came up with 5 or so strip ideas. A few got drawn and all was well.

Then I moved away. And like a summer project in the 4th grade, all of this was forgotten, locked away in some forgotten trunk. Until…

(To Be Continued)

Have a good Tuesday everyone.

Tune in tomorrow for: What's On Your List?!?!?

-x

Monday Monday...

I am a tired man.

Over the course of the last few days I have managed to break/fix/rebreak/refix/re_super_break our website. My poor laptop has feared for it's life more than I care to relate.

But, thanks to not only the marvels of customer service, and my own steadfastness, the website appears to be stable and in working order.

So Welcome.

On the main site you will find our promotional image. On March first you will find the first of many strips.

In the coming days I will talk about our plans, treat you with some insight into the creative process, let you take a look at some early art, and ask: 'What's on YOUR list?'

Think of the main site as the dvd, and this blog as the behind the scenes extras.

So Welcome.

We hope your stay is pleasent.

-alex.