The Blog of Discord

Director's Cuts - Doctor Hubris Goes to the Science Fair

2008-08-07T02:48:00.002-04:00

Sometimes, when making a webcomic, I'll do a joke or draw a panel that, when I'm done, I'll decide might not have been the best idea. It's still perfectly good and probably could go up without any further fussing, but I know you can do better, so it's back to the drawing board, both figuratively and literally in many cases.

I've decideded that when the original is good enough (but maybe not great) and turned out significantly differently from the final product, I'm going to post the proto-comics here as extra special bonuses to you loyal blog readers. This is the original form of the comic from Monday...

As you might notice, the text in the fourth box is decidedly different than it wound up being. While this text actually makes a lot more sense in the terms of the comic itself and what you're seeing, I'm not a big fan of self-ref humor. It's something you either have to go with from the very beginning, or not at all... I've slipped a few mentions in here or there, but nothing this big or blatant... so for the final version, I decided to play it straight instead. Enjoy.

March of the Flying Rat Bat Monkey Possums

2008-08-04T05:16:00.004-04:00

I am now the proud owner of three flying rat-monkeys... I'm being told the official name for them is "Sugar Gliders". A friend of a friend of Mrs. Kallisti's mother used to breed them, and these were the last ones she had when she decided to quit. We have Peek (the daddy), Boo (the mommy), and Untitled_Baby_Project (their daughter), whom we have code-named 'Deathscream'.

Don't get me wrong, I love the little things... however I promise that owning them will not turn me into the blathering moron that Sugar Glider ownership seems to bring out in most people. I will not call them "suggies" or "shuggies", will not berate people for not taking proper care of their bat-possums, and will do my best not to sound like a 80-year-old house-bound catlady.

I reserve the right to post pictures, however, especially cute ones... possibly lolcatified.

Gayzilla Wallpaper

2008-05-15T19:52:00.002-04:00

Just for you guys, decided to do up a Gayzilla wallpaper, available in a variety of popular flavors. If someone would like it in a different size, just drop me a line and I'll make it happen.

1024 x 786
1200 x 800
1280 x 800
1280 x 1024

The Electric Spotted Unicorn of Truth

2008-05-01T23:49:00.003-04:00

Cameorific Spectacular!

2008-04-18T04:04:00.005-04:00

Today's comic is the final culmination of all the free speech stuff this week... a big huge comic full of cameos leading into cheap shot against mimes.

I wanted to thank (and credit) all the characters making cameo appearances. If you can't tell who someone is, here's a handy guide:

Panel 2 :

Evil Couch of The World's Worst Webcomic fame

Panel 3:

Martoff the Destroyer of Roomies on Bass
Jamie of 67th Avenue on Drums
Trent of t-n-t on Guitar

Panel 4:

Max of Indifferently Evil
Chooken of Chooken

Panel 5:

Jenny Everywhere of... er... um... everywhere.
Sir Vivor of Redshirtia from The Apple of Discord

Also, since I used Jenny, I have to disclaim her, as she belongs to teh interwebs:

The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition.This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere,in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.

Re-Code Accomplished!

2008-04-17T21:51:00.002-04:00

Ok, so those now using IE 6 should be fine. IE 5 and 5.5 are still having some problems, but the comic is at least viewable, so I'm going to hang a big banner up and say "Problem Solved" at this point. Later, when I have time, I'm going to make up a 'low-fi' version of the page which those using antiquated or otherwise malfunctioning browsers can still use to read AoD.

Problems with IE 6 and below...

2008-04-17T03:09:00.002-04:00

It's come to my attention that there are some problems displaying the new site design correctly in IE 5.5 and 6, with the comic appearing far down the page, somewhere after the last elements but before the footer. So far, the problem appears to be limited to IE 5.5-6.... IE 7, Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, Safari, and a bajillion linux programs all say the code is fine. This appears to be another occurance of a fairly well documented (but ultimately unresolved) bug with how IE handles the "float" command. IE's troubleshooting recommendation, I believe, is to upgrade to IE 7 if at all possible.

I'm working up a workaround right now, however the whole "float" command is rather important to the dynamic layout... So if you are still using IE 5.5/6, I'm sorry, and I feel your pain. The super-nice fast nifty computers I have here at work only have IE 6.0.29xxxxx, and since they're company owned, we're not allowed to upgrade the version of IE we're using.

If you are able, at all, to upgrade (or go to a different platform, such as Firefox, which I won't even bother linking to) now would probably be as good a time as any, since it's only going to get worse from here out.

I admit it, I'm weak...

2008-04-15T11:00:00.001-04:00

Hello, my name is Adam, and I have a problem.

see more crazy cat pics

I'm addicted to lolcats.

Free Speech Week

2008-04-14T01:50:00.003-04:00

As a person who used to work heavily in various forms of media and as a person who now has a comic which (hopefully) pushes the occasional sociopolitical button, the first amendment is near and dear to my heart... so this week's comics all have a common theme of Free Speech.

I've re-applied to Project Wonderful, so hopefully in 24-48 hours I'll have some ad spaces that are actually usable... the tower ad on the side, of course, and maybe a 4x1 grid of buttons along the bottom of the comic before yon newspost... assuming they decide I've now done enough comics to merit them wasting their time with ads on the site, that is.

Also, I'm working up a Cast page. It's not easy, given that while I have a few recurring characters amidst a storm of chaos and disorder, however there've been a few who inquired about crossovers and whatnot, so I feel I owe it to them to give them something to work with. Maybe.

2008-04-07 : Week In Review

2008-04-12T00:40:00.003-04:00

I'm going to try this here and on the forums to see which one gets more response... if, you know, any...

The basic idea behind the Week in Review is that sometimes I want to comment on my own comics... difficulties I had working something out, origins of a joke, interesting things you may not have known, alternate versions of punchlines... stuff like that. Also, since I often will draw the comics first out in pencil/paper (usually just a storyboard to script action and placements out), if I have a really good rough sketch I might post those here from time to time.

This week was "Big Things" theme week, a week dedicated to objects larger than a
prehistoric man-eating breadbox:

Title: The Terror of Gayzilla
Date: Monday, 4-7-2008
Style: Experimental (Neon on black)
Creation: The style mostly came about from two sources... I was playing around with PSP's "Neon" Picture Tube tool trying to come up with something neat to use it for (other than lightsabers) and decided to make a frame for the comic. Then, some buildings... then the rest just sort of happened.
Notes: Obviously a riff on Godzilla and the other kaiju which were formative in my youth. This was actually the 3rd AOD comic I ever wrote, and one of my personal favorites, however for some reason I kept putting off putting it up until now.
The Apple is hidden on the guy's shirt in the last panel.

Title: Fowl Play
Date: Wednesday, 4-9-2008
Style: Standard (Color on light texture squares)
Creation: Played around with layers a bit for the squares here. There's two layers of transparency, each with a different gradient, the bottom one slightly smaller than the top. That's how the edges of the squares have that weird gauzy drop-off effect. Other than that, I did some shading... that's about it.
Notes: I'm a big fan of "misunderstanding" jokes. This is actually a play on the classic "Duck!" joke, except in reverse and with a giant pissed-off chicken. The guy in the hoodie is named Art, and he will be back.
The Apple is hidden in the logo on the truck in the 3rd panel.

Title: Curse of the Giantess
Date: Friday, 4-11-2008
Style: Standard (Color on light texture squares)
Creation: This one was a pain in the ass. I drew the entire thing once in vectors, then before I had a chance to color it (or save it) Windows Vista decided that it was time to restart my computer. So then I drew it again. Grrr. Then again, I think the second one may actually have come out better.
Notes: The return of the knight from the Law & Order comic a couple weeks ago! Once again, he's getting the short end of the stick. This comic was inspired by my good friend "Mike"... I don't remember how this came up, but I said something about a giantess using a sheep in an "alternative to normal sheep usage" method... and he recoiled in horror... and then it was a webcomic.
The Apple is hidden as the jewelled top of the king's staff in Panel 3.

Out of Curiosity...

2008-04-07T22:00:00.000-04:00

Has anyone actually looked over here and seen that I have a blog yet? It's got an RSS feed and everything.

I just wondered.

Anyway, while The Apple remains in a perpetual state of "under construction", I can attest to the fact that real actual progress has been made within the last week or so:

Links page is up and running... and almost completely set up correctly.
AOD has officially joined the ranks of [i]nsignificant comics.
AOD now has a forum of it's own with my new friends over at [i]nsignificant comics.
I registered AOD for TopWebComics. The voting button is conspicuiously hidden on the main page.
Started a rather successful campaign of ads on Project Wonderful
AOD got Stumbled... by his Lord of Noddyness, NobleSavage, no less.

So, coming off that, I'm officially announcing this week to be "Big Things" week, with three themed comics all pertaining to things bigger than a giant mutant radioactive breadbox. Enjoy

Testing, testing, 1...2...

2008-03-18T18:56:00.001-04:00

This is a test of the new "Blog of Discord".

If it worked, you're seeing text here.

If not, maybe a monkey or something.