Pop Culture Psychosis

Look at that. A real, actual, Wheezy original comic. Huh.

Thanks for sticking in there with me. With the end of my schooling coming up here in November, I'm going to be busy working on my demo reel pretty much non-stop for the next five months or so. I can't guarantee comics every week, but I'll certainly keep posting videos and some of my own work, and I'll do my best to get a comic up when I can.

Enough of that. Today's comic is actually part of a collaboration from a ways back with Enliv. Each one of us wrote the script for the other's comic... this way we had to do some writing with other people's characters and stretch our comedic horizons a little bit.

The idea for today's comic came from Mr. Johnny Nguyen. Enjoy!

You can see the rest of the collaborations here and here.

Coco the Dog - Explained

I imagine that most of you have heard of the long standing comic strip "Marmaduke." Somewhat dated, but certainly one of the most popular comic strips of all time, Marmaduke has developed something of a cult following at a blog called "Marmaduke Explained". That site provides the extremely useful and hilarious service of explaining exactly what is happening in a given Marmaduke strip in layman's terms, in case you didn't understand the, typically obvious, premise of the gag.

Check it out. It's good for a few (not always family friendly) laughs.

My boy Ross pointed out that blog to me a few months back, and in tribute to Ross and his dog Coco, I am proud to present "Coco The Dog."

If you'd like, please leave your own custom "explanation" in the comments. Fan mail for "Coco the Dog" can be sent to:

cocothedog@gmail.com

AD isn't coming back, is it?

Have any of you ever been involved in some sort of Nielsen Media Research? This is the company that decides what shows get made, and as far as I know they're in charge of figuring out ratings once a show has been put on the air.

I've been involved in some form of their data collection twice. The first experience I had was with Ross, Maggie, and emily while we were in Vegas. We saw a sign for "Free Starbucks to Watch TV!", which, of course, I immediately decided was a good idea.

Turns out I was wrong. The girls didn't fit the demographic they were looking for, so they we subjected to a rerun of "The Biggest Loser" while Ross and I were subjected to the pilot for "Blade: The Series."

I think the emily and Maggie got the better end of that deal.

Not only that, but the "Free Starbucks" was a coupon for $2 off any single purchase - which means that we might have been able to get a cup of water.

Well recently while I was at the mall getting my laptop taken care of, I was pulled aside and offered $20 to do the same thing. Apparently I rarely learn from my mistakes because I immediately accepted the offer, and bore witness to yet another pilot. The following comic is based on those events.

No joke. Jurassic Fight Club. To make a long story short, I gave it a thumbs down. If it manages to get on the air, remember today's post.

Did I mention that "Blade: The Series" was canceled?

My boy Mueller has a post with his opinions on the WNBA. You could go check it out.

Where's Pat Morita When You Need Him?

et·i·quette
noun
The practices and forms prescribed by social convention or by authority.

I realize that this comic didn't have any words, but I swear I'm trying to break out of the "sight vs. write" mindset. Next week I'll depict the third act of Mel Gibson's Macbeth to make up for it.

Come back Thursday for another Featured Animation!

And then I pull out my GUN....!

I know that technically last week was supposed to be the end of the "Sight vs. Write" thing, but I had one more idea that I felt needed to be committed to digital ink before I moved on to comics with art in every cell. In a way this is a fitting conclusion, for it harnesses both the power of the written word as well as an artistic rendering, thus bringing me to the conclusion that I probably won't start painting miniature 800 pixel watercolors nor penning minuscule novels formatted into 3 to 4 individual panels. When it comes to webcomics, team work seems to be the key.

If you're not sure where the punchline is, it's entirely possible that you were watching a rerun of "Saved By the Bell" during 1991, so you might find these enlightening.

Or maybe you just thought it wasn't funny, in which case I will refer you to my comedic safety net. Be warned - following that link might lead to what those in "the biz" call an infinite loop.

May the Ring Be With You

Today ends the Sight vs. Write event that was conducted by myself and the fellas over at Enliv Comics. This week we tackled the "Write" portion of things by creating a comic that depended solely on the writing for the punch line.

Like many of my comics the idea for today's strip stemmed from real life. I'll leave it up to you to connect the dots as to which parties might be represented, but suffice it to say that the next time emily and I have 28 uninterrupted hours with no plans, we'll be watching a few trilogies to make sure everybody has their o' so nerdy ducks in a row*.

And thus concludes Sight vs. Write. Which was more difficult for Wheezy?

Although the write side had its difficulties, mainly in thinking of a decent idea that translated directly into word bubbles and still made sense, the art end of the deal presented a greater challenge. In part because it was a forced limitation - but doing the setup, follow through, and punch line for a gag with no words at all was difficult. I was constantly battling the urge to throw a clarifying label on different areas of the art (like "Testing Facilities" or "Urinal Cake Holders Inc."), just to make sure that the audience understood what I was going for.

Did I mention that I've done something similar to this before? That idea lent itself to a "no-word" strip (unless you count the webbed "BFF"). Last week's was a little forced.

With the writing, the biggest challenge was due in part to an oversight when we thought up this whole sight vs. write thing. By limiting the art to "eyes in a dark room", it really pigeon-holed the comic into something involving two people in a dark space. In retrospect, I think that a rule of just "two people talking" using simplistic characters would have opened up the playing field a bit. That being said - this week was awesome for me because it took like, ten minutes to "draw."

And now I'll leave you with an ADDITIONAL comic. Two Wheezy originals in one week? What is this, 2004?

This was an alternate idea I had for this week's strip, and since this is really the only time I'll be able to get away with the lack of art without it being considered a lazy complete cop out, I figured that I'd just double your comic pleasure for the week.

Last week there was some good discussion in the comments with regards to the Sight vs. Write concept - what do you guys think of the results for myself and Enliv? Was one method preferred over the other?

See ya on Thursday for another Featured Animation.

*In the interest of full disclosure, emily didn't confuse "Star Wars" with "Lord of the Rings", but rather mixed up a few plot elements of "Star Wars" and "Space Balls", referencing the "schwartz ring" when discussing the "force". I thought she was talking about the One Ring to Rule them all, and thus the muse of cartooning struck.

Upstream Engineering

This week marks the first of two comics for a little thing me and the boys over at Enliv are doing called "Sight vs. Write." For anybody who didn't catch last Monday's post, the idea is to challenge ourselves to make a comic without words, depending solely on the art to convey the gag, and then the following week depend completely on the writing itself, with minimal art to back it up.

I have to apologize in advance, as I'm not sure that the females in my avid readership are necessarily going understand today's comic. I doubt many of you ladies have had this particular type of experience, but hopefully the guys can relate to the sinister underpinnings of America's public sanitation industry.

Also weighing in on the "Sight vs. Write" debate, we have a submission from Mr. Andy Fenley, a co-writer on last week's comic. I'm inclined to like this one better than the original.

Certainly better than Mr. Brandon "Rick-Roll" Vasquez's similar attempt from sometime last year ;).

Don't forget to check back on Thursday for another animation from around the internet, and Monday for the completion of our "Sight vs. Write" challenge.

And if you're still looking for good entertainment - go see my utter thrashing in MM's first Skeet Thrower Fantasy Draft. Don't worry. It's safe for work. Although I guess my parents don't really have to worry about that anymore.

No Man Left Behind

While I've been attending Full Sail I've found myself completely immersed in video game culture. Almost everybody at this school is obsessed with video games, and since most of these folk want to work in the video game industry after graduation, I suppose that it makes sense.

I enjoy video games as well. However as I meander through more and more games it's become apparent to me that I rarely ever actually finish a game. I can only think of maybe five off hand where I've seen the final credits roll by.

Most of the games I play I enjoy - it's not a matter of them being good or bad. It's just that sometimes I have to put away the games of childhood to embrace my other more important... responsibilities.

Yesterday on the blog I mentioned an "upcoming web-comic related project" that I was excited about. Recently a forum over at HalfPixel.com prompted me and the guys of Enliv Comics to discuss the importance of comic writing versus comic art. With sites such as XKCD and Dinosaur comics (literally the same clip art every single week) enjoying incredible popularity, one starts to wonder if the art is even a major factor when it comes to comic strips.

If I only spent an hour throwing together some panels instead of my fairly standard four, resulting in lessened artistic quality but containing the same gags, would my comics be as effective?

Well we decided to challenge ourselves over the next couple of weeks by participating in something we're calling Sight vs. Write (Clever, I know. Thanks Lance!).

On March 10th the Enliv crew and I are going to post comics that contain absolutely no words whatsoever. On March 17th, we're going to be posting comics in which the visual element of each panel is nothing more than two pairs of eyes in a completely dark place (Scooby-Doo style), but with as many words as we'd like.

The point? Just to see which is more difficult. To challenge ourselves a little. Is it harder to make a comic funny without words? Or without pictures.

Anyway, stay tuned to find out. What do y'all think? Is the textual writing more important to conveying the joke? Or the art? Drop a comment and let me know what your mind is a cookin'.

Thanks to Andy and Megan for helping shore up this week's comic idea.

Oh, and look at that. Still Monday. Looks like my banner doesn't lie after all.

Mustachioed Machismo

After the initial unveiling of the "Dan" character, I had a pretty good response from my readership. I started incorporating him in my comics more often, eventually phasing out the "Chad" character altogether.

Turns out there was a reason that I used Chad instead of trying to draw myself when this all started. He was easy to draw. "Dan" on the otherhand, was/is not. Initially I tried to redraw Dan every week so I would eventually become proficient, but as you can see by exhibits "A", "B", and especially "C", I wasn't getting the best results.

So I started cutting and pasting the "Dan" from previous comics instead of drawing him every week. I have to imagine this is frowned upon in the cartooning world, (it definitely is if you want to improve as an artist) but I'm certainly not the only one who occasionally falls into this bad habit.

At any rate, after my laptop died last week, I realized that I had lost all of my previous comic work - and thus, I didn't have my "cut and paste" crutch to lean on.

Relearning to draw myself was ... troublesome.

Thanks again to Mr. Mueller for helping me hash out the details of the comic this week.

Also, for those interested in Apple's customer support, I took my busted laptop into the Apple store on Saturday, and by Thursday morning I had a package containing my fixed laptop in my hands. Not too shabby.

Of Macs and Men

My laptop died on Saturday. The fella at the Apple "Genius Bar" tells me it's my hard drive, I can't recover anything, and I'll be without laptop for about a week. It kinda felt like he was punching me in the stomach when I heard the news.

As far as gut checks go though, he was pretty cordial about the whole thing.

Fortunately, I only lost a few files that were "mission critical" for classes on Monday, and they were something that could be redone in a day. In that respect, I consider myself extremely lucky. I did lose quite a few files I would have rather held on to (like the original Photoshop files these comics y'all enjoy and my school work from the last year) - but all in all, things could have been worse.

On the bright side, I get a free upgrade to Leopard, whose features might come in handy. And from this tragedy I feel like a decent comic has been born, if I do say so myself.

Have a good week everybody. May your data stay undamaged and accessible to you in the coming months.

Thanks to Mr. Curry for letting me borrow his laptop in the interim.

A Job Really Well Done

Friday marked a fairly significant day in the life of the Weilands. While I have been documenting my journey learning a craft and finding a career on this very blog, my parents have been closing out their own careers and moving on to a life without alarm clocks.

On February 8th, 2008, my Dad retired from his management position at JCPenney. For my entire life and longer both Mom and Dad have been working at JCPenney, going along my idiotic Christmas wish lists as well as my life changing decisions with love and support, and I couldn't have asked for better parents. Now they can just kick back and relax.

I guess some other things happened in the news on Friday too, but I haven't really been keeping up. Doubt it was anything important.

Happy Retirement Dad. Love you.

The New Chivalry

gen·tle·man
–noun, plural -men.
1. a man of good family, breeding, or social position.
2. a civilized, educated, sensitive, or well-mannered man: He behaved like a true gentleman.
3. a man of good social standing, as a noble or an armigerous commoner.

Hey - make sure you check out my friends Johnny and Kevin's joint web comic and comic art site here. That's thrice the home grown web comic goodness every Monday!

Nefarious Scheming

I don't know how many people actually check out my "Interesting Internets" links in the sidebar, but I suspect the number is rather low. Which is understandable considering the infrequent nature in which I shuffle things over there.

But once in a while I link to something I feel is note worthy. One such tidbit was a video with regards to a movie in the works called "Choke". This is a movie based on a novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk, who also happens to be the author of Fight Club.

Palahniuk has many other novels as well, one of which (Survivor) was on its way to becoming a movie around 2001. It never made it because the subject matter of the novel involved the hijacking of an airplane... sensitive material around that time. Donnie Darko suffered a similar fate, being limited in the number of theaters it was released to for the same reason (Darko would later enjoy brisk DVD sales that elevated it to a somewhat cult status).

Sometimes I think that perhaps the terrorist threat isn't as straight forward as we had originally imagined, and that a mastermind had schemes of a more sinister and unpredictable nature.

Don't forget to check back on Thursday for another animation video.

The Best Laid Plans

Over this last weekend a group of my good friends from Texas and Nebraska came down to the Orlando area to visit little old me, which was awesome.

I love it when people come to visit me, but the one apprehension I have about such gatherings is figuring out how best to entertain my guests. Should we go to Disney? Universal? What other Orlando attractions might pique their interest? It's always hard for me to decide.

Luckily, this particular crew didn't have any qualms about lounging about the house for a few days, eating out and playing video games. These are friends of the highest calibre.

Throughout the weekend a few ideas for unique Floridian entertainment did crop up, but it seemed like every time something kinda threw a wrench into our impromptu activity brainstorms.

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Thanks again to Ross, Maggie, Blair, Andria, Matt and Andrea. I had a blast and I hope you did too. If you guys decide to make a couple of purchases at Best Buy maybe we can get the band back together before too long.

Back in the Swing of Things

-----------COMIC BOOK SPOILER ALERT-----------

I'm about to reveal something about the world of Spider-Man (comic book Spider-Man, not movie Spider-Man) that may ruin some plot points for anybody who is attempting to stay caught up on Spider-Man related things, specifically the series called One More Day.

The only person who I know of that reads my blog that this might apply to is Mr. Fenley. For the rest you who don't care about the Spider-Man plot lines, read on good people.

Recently in the world of Marvel, Spider-Man and Mary Jane broke up. Specifically, Peter and MJ made a deal with a character called Mephisto, a villain who essentially represents Satan in the Marvel Universe. This bargain was struck not to avoid a sticky settlement in divorce court, but rather in an attempt to save Aunt May's life.

Now that Spidey is unattached and on the prowl, I gotta wonder how a super hero goes about looking for love. The traditional means can be difficult even for the suavest of wall-crawlers. I imagine that technologically savvy guy like Peter Parker might try out the latest and greatest in social networking options out there.

Then again, those present their own unique challenges.

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Big thanks to Double M for helping me flesh out the comic this week.

The More Things Change...

Hopefully everybody else had a wonderful break from the normal grind for a week or so around Christmas and New Years. I know I did.

As usual I went home to Nebraska for the holidays to spend some time with my family, which I always enjoy. Lots of great food, movie watching, and in particular quality time with Mom and Dad, which I wouldn't miss for the world.

Of course anytime I'm at home, my parents have inevitably come across some technical problem that they'd like for me to take care of, since after all, I grew up with technology and have been working with / studying it for going on 8 years now. Should be easy, right?

The weird thing is that my parents always manage to find the most ridiculous, impossible, never-been-heard-of-by-anybody-else kind of problems. And I'm not just talking about an extra hour or so of Googling to figure it out.

Their technical problems can become rather.... severe.

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Love you Mom and Dad. I'm always happy to help with anything - even if it involves calling in Sigourney Weaver.

Guest Comic to bring in the New Year

I'll be on planes and my internet status is unknown to me for the next few days, so if you're sitting at your computer hitting refresh you're rewarded with a comic a day early!

Another year has come and gone, and another Johnny Nguyen comic original is laid before your comedy yearning eyes.

One thing that I've come to understand as the maker of a comic strip is that the majority of ideas spawn from some sort of real life events. It's pretty rare that an idea just pops into your mind from out of nowhere, with no prompting as you sit idly watching TV, (although many ideas do spawn while sitting on the toilet, at least in my case. (No "idea" is not a metaphor for "poop" Ben)). So with Johnny's latest offering I have to assume that this situation or something similar to it happened somewhere along the line.

You gotta find a new place to go dancing bud.

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Hope everybody had a merry Christmas, Kwanzaa, or Hanukkah, and has stupendous 2008.

Miracles Do Come True

Well another holiday, another wonderful experience in the world of commercial airlines.

Really though. Not even being the least bit facetious.

Admittedly, my flight was delayed getting into my connecting city, about an hour or so - which meant we touched down the same time my connecting flight should have been taking off. Fortunately though, that flight was delayed as well, allowing me just the right amount of time to get on board before it took off.

On top of that, one of my buddies from Full Sail was on the same flight, in the seat next to me - so I had some company that wasn't crazy or odorous. Plus, he had been given two drink vouchers for moving seats on the previous flight, and since he didn't drink he gave them to me.

In conclusion - made it to Omaha without being stuck in another city, plus a free drink. Honestly the best outcome I could have hoped for.

Well, maybe not the absolute best I could have hoped for.

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Merry Christmas!

What Writer's Strike?

I'm as surprised as you are that I haven't mentioned anything with regards to the whole writer's strike thing that is going on. I've kind of been avoiding it since the rest of the internet is completely ablaze with talk, but recently I was made aware of a movie trailer that had me thinking about the future of Hollywood. Ever hear of 10,000 BC? (The movie, not the year). Me neither, but check out this trailer.

I'm not sure what history books Warner Brothers is reading, but last I checked Dinosaurs, elephants, and Egyptians didn't really go together. I'll be the first one to admit that going to the movies requires a suspension of disbelief, but you gotta wonder how that movie was thought up and who was behind it.

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Don't forget to check out my latest animation if you haven't already. Thanks for all your comments (via messenger or official commenting methods)! It's encouraging to hear that you guys don't think my stuff is garbage.

Might not be Pixar quality yet, but I'm really enjoying it. Have a good weekend.

Two Weiland Originals

Hi everybody. I'm not going to bother making up excuses today, I have no Wheezy original ready for you, again on account of school (ok - I did make an excuse). It seems like this month all my deadlines are hitting early in the week, and so I've had to just push things off a little tiny bit.

But don't worry, this week is PACKED with goodness from the ol' blog. Look for a new 3D animation on Wednesday, as well as a new Wheezy comic on Thursday. Not only that, but as the title of this blog might suggestion, today you are getting 2 never before seen on the internet Weiland original comics, done my very own mother!

Back when my cousin Heather first began college, she wasn't enjoying things quite as much as she had expected (not all colleges give you homework involving watching cartoons and playing with juice boxes). My mom, being the wonderful person that she is, decided to create a series of comic strips that she then sent to Heather to lift her spirits a bit.

This was quite some time ago, but I remember when I saw my mom making these comics I thought it was awesome. So after she discovered my little comic endeavors online, I asked her if she still had the old "Heather" comics. She did.

So here you have it - 2 Gail Weiland original comics for your reading enjoyment.

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Keep checking back for more stuff later in the week.

3 comics and a 3d animation?
Show me a blog that gives you more original stuff than this one and I'll eat my hat.

Luckily for me my hat is made of fruit roll ups.

Did I mention that this is my 100th post?