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.

Just Doing my Civic Duty

Not often, but every once in a while I get a little burnt out on this whole "comic" thing. I'll have days of comedic writer's block, when even Carlos Mencia seems mildly humorous, or I'll spend 20 minutes trying to draw something really simple before I get anything that actually looks good, and even that is sometimes debatable.

There are a couple of things that really help me put my head down and power through those moments of doubt. One of which is my blog statistics. I have a couple of utilities that keep track of how many people read my blog on any given day, the majority of which are usually visitors from Mueller's blog, since he tends to link to this site more often than Arrested Development won critical acclaim.

The other thing that gives me motivation to keep at it is when people leave comments on my blog. I figure if somebody takes the time to actually type in a comment, then they must have enjoyed it a little bit more than the average item they find on the web.

Apparently, this motivation boost is a two way street. In case you don't read the comments people leave on my blog (and you should, Mueller usually leaves a smattering of hilarious links), last week yielded a fair share of good ones. There was one I found particularly interesting:

"Matthew Johnson said...

Your comics make my Tuesdays worth living :-)
July 10, 2007 10:56 PM"

Wow. With responsibility like that - I really have no choice but to keep saving people's lives.

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Thanks for reading everybody.

Family Values

I'm not going to lie. I love television.

Just like my boy Mueller, I watch a lot of TV. I'll be flipping the channels, and all of a sudden BAM! - Wheezy gets sucked into a weekend marathon of Law and Order: SVU. These things happen.
And if it's in HD? Forget about it. I'll watch anything in HD. UFC, dolphins (the football team or the aquatic mammal), guys getting tagged in the family jewels, doesn't matter. If it's in High-Def I'm all about it.

Once in a while though, I'll accidentally hit something that churns the very soul. If I had some way of avoiding these shows without sacrificing TV altogether, I would.

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If you didn't catch my Show and Tell post from Saturday, check it out quick.

Because "Plagiarencia" doesn't Have Quite the Same Ring to It...

It seems like I've been hitting the topic of comedy plagiarism quite a bit over the last few months in my Interesting Internets feed, and not in small part because it's already happened to me once in my fledgling comedic career. In case you didn't see it or just plain ignore all the stuff on the right hand side of the blog page, here's an example of what I'm talking about.

Pretty blatant, if you ask me. Ned Holness Carlos MenStealia Carlos Mencia has been hit particularly hard by these various accusations of late, and I have to say that I can understand where he's coming from. I too know what it's like to have the constant pressure of creating comedy gold, and as quite a few people are aware, (in particular the proprietor of a little blog called Skeet Throwin' (SFW)), I often turn to friends for help with new ideas.

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Now Mr. Mencia certainly isn't the only famous comedian who has been caught using other guy's material, but I think the main reason that he is getting more flack than some is that when he isn't telling other people's jokes, he couldn't even make these people chuckle.