My horrible, horrible summer class has turned around in a kind of predictable but still frustrating way. Two of the four original students vanished, and once they left and we were joined by a half dozen of my regulars from last term the remaining two (both boys) started to loosen up. One is smart, funny and super creative, with a real desire to actually create and draw that wasn't apparent before. The other is a very nice and talkative, but unfortunately can't seem to concentrate on anything for more then about 5 minutes at a time.

With a group of veteran students in place the focus of teh class has shifted from "drawing for idiots" to the more free form workshop and studio structure that I'm comfortable with. Plus we're doing Soul Caliber tournaments in the last half hour of every class. Bailee continues to be the class champion, spamming quick punch and kick attacks with the fast female characters.

As comfortable as the whole thing has become, I've just realized that we're entering the last week of class and I haven't actually done any teaching. In my regular classes I employ a "learn by doing" philosophy, where the students learn to make a comic by actually making, publishing and selling a comic. With this summer class we never had a goal, or enough time to really complete a project, and now at the end of it I'm regretting not actually doing some actual teaching.

Oh well.

On the other hand, my Saturday class continues to be  a lot of fun. My regular group has been joined by a pair of ridiculously talented sisters, and we've started a group Deviant Art page where we can show of our work. I'll post a link once there's anything to show. Each of the students has been showing a remarkable amount of improvement this summer, and I'm really excited to see the art they'll be choosing fro our next class book, which will be available at the Portland Zine Symposium.

Fate Stay Night did not go over as well as I had hoped it would. In fact, the younger two Underwoods started heckling the show as soon as the title screen appeared. I was made to promise that I'll never bring the DVD to class again. Powerpuff Girls went over much better, with only the 7 year old Tovah declaring it stupid and unwatchable. 

The Indie RPG Awards are coming around again, and my game Ocean is up for consideration. While I never spent a lot of time talking about it, I am pretty proud of the game and I totally think it's worth your time.

Did I mention  you can get the game for free?

Anyway, I've won the Best Free RPG award two years in a row, and I'd very much like to win it again. That would be a hat trick, right?

Cut and past from Barry's LJ post:

Cartoonist Rachel Nabors needs jaw surgery (ouch!). To help pay for this (the surgery alone costs $18,500, not including the hospital charges), a sketchbook that I and many other cartoonists contributed to is being auctioned on ebay this week.

The cartoonists in the book include Bryan Lee O’Mailley, Raina Telgemeier, Andy Runton, Hope Larson, Jenn Lee, Dylan Meconis, Jake Richmond (who also colored the Hereville graphic novel), Brendan Douglas Jones, Derek Kirk Kim, Bill Mudron, Steve Lieber, and many more.

Back to Jake:

I can't remember what I actually drew in the sketchbook (it might be a sketch of the Witch Hunter from Yeld), but I spent a long time looking through the book and it's full of really great looking stuff. If you have a bit of money to spend and want to acquire a totally unique and interesting artifact, this is totally worth a months pay check.

*Oh, I just looked at the auction, and my illustration is one of the ones featured. I don't remember drawing that at all. It is pretty cute though.

Witness my horrifying spelling/grammer:

The Teus/Thurs class is shaping up. Two of the deadweight kids bowed out, and we were joined by some alumni from the old class, 4 kickass girls named Bailee, Jas, Mac and Leah who brought a bunch of art and spend the day drawing Inuyasha characters. Two thirds of the Underwood family joined us from the Saturday class, and we spent our time learning to do crazy things with color pencils, eating cookies and having a Soul Caliber tournament. bailee kicked all ouyr asses. Mo one could touch her.

The two hold overs from the first week of teh class were just totally bewildered. they didn't know what was going on. One of them slowly adapted, but the other kept trying to recite lines to me from the single episode of South Park he'd ever seen (He's been doing this non-stop since he joined the class).

Anyway, better than last week.

Went and got my bike after leaving it locked up in Chinatown for the better part of a week. It was still there. Was it too crappy to steal, or too awesome to approach? Or is Chinatown the only part of Portland where bikes don't get stolen?

This week my crappy class will be learning to draw hands, while my awesome class will be drinking coconut soda, eating donuts, working on their comics, planning for the Zine Symposium and watching Fate Stay Night. That's not my lesson plan. That's just what they decided to do.

Hey.

So I woke up yesterday morning in a pile of broken glass, with a big, jagged shard pressed against my throat. I had been having a dream about being strangled by a Terminator robot. Turns out my lamp had fallen off the dresser in the night, and the glass shade had shattered.  Amazingly I hadn't cut myself as I slept, although I did as soon as I tried to pick any of it up. I do have a little scratch on my throat, but after a day it's already fading.

- - -

Classes this summer are a strange mix of soul crushing and wonderful. My Tues/Thurs class if full of brand new (to me) 11-14 year olds who have zero interest in drawing, manga, video games or pretty much anything else. They've all been forced to attend the center's youth program and had to choose between swimming, martial arts and my class. And I guess the other two were already full.  I spent our first class trying to figure out what they were interested in drawing and trying to decide how we were going to spend the next few weeks. It was pretty daunting. One of the kids spent the class texting. Another fell asleep. The other two followed along with the lesson, but clearly weren't interested, and when I told them that they could spend the last half hour drawing whatever they wanted one asked to leave early and the other just stared at the wall.

I brought donuts to the second class. My intent was to win them over with bribery. Donuts, Mountain Dew, a stack of comics and manga and a Gundam DVD. I figured we'd relax, do some casual drawing while we watched some Gundam and I'd have a chance to engage them individually. It didn't work. they didn't eat  the donuts. I've never seen that before in the 5 years that I've been teaching these classes. they weren't interested in watching the anime. One of them actually asked why we were watching it at all. They weren't interested in the manga. We drew spaceships for about a half hour before being interrupted by a fire alarm and having to go outside. Two of the kids never came back.

This is the worst class I've ever had. They have zero interest in drawing or engaging in any of the class activities. I have no idea what to do with them. On the other hand, my Saturday class has been great. These are students I've been working with for years, and each class is a combination of group studio and party. The kids bring snacks, show off their new work and actually talk about and work on their projects. 5 of teh 9 students in class are currently working on comics and zines that they plan to bring to the zine symposium in August. After class a few of us went to Mojo Crepes. It was a pretty good day.

- - -

I'm working on a new edition of Panty Explosion. It's coming along pretty well, although because I'm trying not to rush it it's taking a bit longer then I hoped it would. Part of that is because Matt's been too busy to work on the project, so the game text is sitting partially finished until he has time to look at it. Basiclly what I've done is take the game text and rewrote it to match the way I've been playing the game for the last three years (what I call "con Panty Explosion"). It's quicker, easier and a lot more fun. Most importantly, the new text eaves out a lot of the over complicated mechanics that kept the game from being light and fun. In my opinion it's a huge improvement.


I've redone the Atrashi Games site as well. Check it out!

- - -
Recent media that I've consumed:

Predators: An excellent first 10 minutes. Unfortunately the movie just goes down hill after taht, and by the middle it's just a dull mess.

Jonah Hex: Holy shit! Stay away!

Last Airbender: Really, really awful. Not Jonah Hex awful, but still pretty bad. Assif Mandvi is pretty funny though.

Clash of the Titans: Also awful. After this and the previous two movies I think I can see why I was actually able to enjoy Predators.

Octopus Pie: I had read most of this already, but it's nice to be able to have it all in one package. It's also a very nice looking book. I totally recommend it.

Lost: I watched the last 3 seasons in a, like, 4 days. It kind of works, but man...

Futurama: I did a little dance after watching the first few new episodes. A happy dance.

Space Hulk: I finally acquired a copy of the giant GW scifi board game. It's pretty beautiful. Super high quality. It was a game I really wanted when I was a teenager but could never afford, so it's nice to have it now.

Street Fighter 4: I'm really loving it. It plays like an absolute dream and retains all the charm of the old arcade box without sacrificing any quality. Of course, I only play Chun Li. I feel like I'm 12 again.

Batwoman: Not Greg Rukas strongest script, but holy shit can Williams draw. Totally worth the price of admission just for the art. That the script is even in English is just a bonus.

Mojo Crepes: On 84th and Division. You can google it. I had the peanut butter and fudge crepe with bananas and chocolate ice cream.

The Name of the Wind: I haven't read a novel in a few months and I'm not really a big fantasy fan, but this was pretty damn good. I'll be looking for more from this author.

My mother acquired a bike for me. As a birthday gift. On one hand, it made me feel like I was 10 (because I have issues). On the other hand, it is a totally excellent gift. I've been wanting a bike for a few years now, but I'd never gotten around to getting one. I haven't had one since... middle school? Anyway, the idea of saving an hour every day by riding to the studio is really attractive. As I learned this eveing, the 25 minute walk is a 10 minute ride.

FYI, It's orange chrome colored.

I'm pretty happy.

I accidentally bought an extra copy of High School Debut Vol 11. It's yours if you want it. If you live out of town just shoot me $2 for shipping. If you live in town I'll hand it to you next time I see you.

What: Go Play SE Portland #27

When: 6pm-midnight, Saturday May 22nd

Where: Red Castle Games

Pre-game dinner: Bar Carlo, 5pm (right across the street from  Red Castle)

Available games: None yet!

Red Castle is the new game store in SE, just feet away from Guapo Comics on Foster. The owners are friendly, the shop is clean and well stocked with cool games and Mexican Coke. The shop is open late and there's plenty of play space.

Find out more here.

I took my students to the Stumptown Comics Fest last weekend so they could show off their new books. You didn't see us there? That's because we sat up our booth in the park across the street.

I had promised both my classes that we would get a table for the show this year, but after getting relegated to the waiting list I knew our chances were slim. Faith, my excellent boss, came to the rescue by reminding me that we're Park and Rec employee's, and that there's a giant park right across the street from the hotel where the show is held. She secured a permit, van and canopy while I rallied my classes, and we showed up at Holiday Park at 11am on Saturday morning, just in time to setup in the rain.

Here's the breakdown:

16: The number of students who came on either Saturday or Sunday to work the booth.
10: The number that were there both days.
7:  The number who stayed for the entire 16 hours.
53: The number of books and zines we sold (ranging in price from $2- $6). We sold everything we brought to the show!
50+: The number of $2 buttons we sold. I lost track after 50. Some of the girls were sitting at the booth making buttons all weekend.
6: The number of prints we sold. I think the kids kept forgetting to tell people we had prints available.
0: The number of students who walked away from the show without selling anything.
1: The number of students who left the show excited on Saturday night and showed up with a new 8 page mini comic to sell on Sunday morning (barely 12 hours later)
6: The number of students who started new comics on Monday morning.
48: The combined number of unpaid hours Faith and I put in over the weekend (including the Weds trip to the IPRC).

This was a huge deal. This validated a years worth of classes and hard work from two different groups of students, showing them that their work is valuable and interesting, that people do want to read it and that they can find an audience. At the beginning of the weekend the kids didn't believe that anyone would even want to look at their art, books and zines. By the last few hours of the show we had a constant stream of people stopping at the booth to see what we were doing, buying books and giving the kids advice and encouragement.

The only time I actually spent behind the booth the entire weekend was a 20 minute stretch when some needed to use the restroom. Other then that the students handled the entire thing themselves. I just watched from a folding chair a dozen feet away.

We've reserved a table for the Zine Symposium in August, and we're looking for other venues before that.

Oh, here's the classes most recent book. Just $4!

This console generation has yet to produce one game as good as Jet Set Radio Future, Majora's Mask or Shadow of the Colossus.

Am I wrong?



We have 100 different flavors of Resident Evil 4 (the 3rd person action shooter), Halo (the first person narrative shooter), Modern Warfare (the first person competitive shooter) and God of War (the third person action game), but that's about it. Sure, there's some standouts there (Bioshock, Mirror's Edge, Bayonetta), some other genre being explored (there's still plenty of subpar racing, music and sports games), but for the most part that's it.

Okay, i guess I'm discounting thousands of games, but...

The three games I mentioned earlier were standouts in a console generation of standouts because they took the stale genre formula (in all three cases, the 3rd person adventure game) and did something completely new with it.

The only game Ive seen this gen  that comes close is Valkyria Chronicles. Do you know anyone who's played it? most people I mention it to have never heard of it.

Now... how do I get some of it?

I just found out today that I don't have to teach any classes again until April 14th (except for the one this Friday).

So it looks like I have a little over three weeks off. Which is pretty cool.

Now, I could spend this time with my new wife, but where's the fun in that? Here's what I plan on doing instead.

GameStorm: The con will take up the better part of my first week off, but it should be a lot of fun. I'll get to see a lot of people I never get to see and run some of my new games (like Elegant Revolver and Desperate Teacher Romance).

Work on Panty Explosion: I want to see if I can get the new version of Panty Explosion done before classes start again. I probably won't, but if I work hard I may get most of the way there.

Get back on my web comic: I've been working on new pages for the last two weeks, and I'm planning on posting them starting at the beginning of the month. We'll see how it goes.

Play some video games: I haven't turned on my ps2 in a year. It may not work anymore.

That's the fun stuff. of course, I have a pile of freelance work that needs to get done. So really, my three weeks off are likely to be three weeks of 8-10 hour studio days.

That's still a pretty good vacation, as far as I'm concerned.

So... do you want to marry an anime character? Maybe? Maybe a little? You need to check this site out.

Update:

Turns out it's really easy to get married. It's like a one button push. No confirmation or anything.

So now I'm married.

Wow.

At least we have plenty in common.

Certificate of Marriage

This is to certify that
Chika Ogiue
and
JakeRichmond
were married on
March 14, 2010
Marry Your Favorite Character

so far Rhinestone Eyes is my favorite track, but Stylo is a close second. Bobby Womack!

King of Thorn was one of my favorite manga from the last few years. You've heard me talk about it before. It's a really, really well done survival/sci-fi/adventure story packed into a slim 6 volumes. It manages to be scary and mysterious without sacrificing fun and goofiness. Really nice art, also. It was the major inspiration for my game Ocean.

So.. there's a movie version coming out this year. I'm pretty excited!

It totally works.

I mentioned that we'll be having 2 Sea Dracula games at GameStorm this year, but I don't think I really SOLD you on it.

Listen people, this is worth coming to GameStorm for. I guarantee it. Every Sea Dracula story you've ever heard? Totally true. We give out awards for this shit!  It's worth the drive. Shit, it's worth a plane ticket.

You'll tell your kids about it.

I might tell your kids about it.

They might be OUR kids.

It's that good!

2 sessions, one on Thursday and one on Sunday.  Sea Dracula at GameStorm has become a legendary event. If you missed last years piggyback cross-examinations or the pants off dance off... well... don't miss it this year!

http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/bfs/1584383506.html

Do you think they'd fit?

I'm pretty frustrated and stressed out right now, mostly (ehh, entirely) because of work. Don't feel obligated to read this. I just think it will help if I vent about it.

Hereville: As I mentioned before, I'm coloring Barry Deutsch's Hereville, and have been since November.  This isn't frustrating because the work is particularly hard or because Barry is difficult to work with. In fact, Barry is pretty great and the work is a lot of fun (to the extent that coloring someone else's comic is fun at all). It's just that the project demands about 6 hours a day from me, five days every week, which makes getting anything else done pretty difficult. We're supposed to wrap the whole thing up by the end of the month, and if I can keep to my schedule of 3+ pages a day I should be done with time to spare. It's just.... stressful... knowing that I have to put other important stuff aside to get this done.

Of course, it hasn't been a completely smooth experience either. Last month we accidentally deleted 15 colored pages that I had neglected to back up. Today,  I've spent the last 2 hours recoloring dresses because Barry decided that he didn't like a color choice I made several pages back. I'm not offering these as examples of Barry being difficult to work with (both are as much my fault as his), but rather of my frustration at this project eating up more time then I actually have to give it.

Class: I'm teaching two weekly classes this term, and plan on adding a third advanced class after my Hereville commitment is over. The classes are a lot of fun and the students are really enthusiastic this term. We're starting off the term by putting together and printing our books from last term, and since the laptop we used to use to do the scanning and layout in class is non-functional, it's fallen to me to scan all the student work and assemble the book in my unpaid free time. It's not a huge job (and I'm happy to do it), but it eats up a bunch of time I really don't have. In addition to that, actually getting supplies for the classes is proving as difficult as ever. My bosses are happy to pay for what we need, but because they don't know what we need (and because I can't just go out and get it and then get a reimbursement) we have to arrange a time when we can meet and go to a local supply store and purchase stuff together. Which, in the three years I've been doing this has never once happened. What I need to do is just find the stuff online, send them a link, and let them purchase the stuff like that.

On top of all that, I've had some... bad luck... actually getting to class this term. I missed my first week entirely because I was told (or at least thought I was told) that we were running classes on Wednesday this year instead of Tuesday. I was late (very late) to this weeks class simply because my bus never showed.

New Panty Explosion: I've been working on a new version of Panty Explosion for... well, for like 2 years. I've been seriously working on it, taking my ideas and notes and turning them into a new edition of the game, since November. My goal has been to release a new version of the game by May, which means having the whole thing done (text, art, layout) by the end of March. This isn't a set in stone deadline, but it is one I'd like to meet. Unfortunately, my other commitments have reduced the available time I have to work on this to almost nothing. I've been doing most of the writing on my walks to and from the studio, and most of the drawing while I wait for Hereville files to load and save (the files are really big). The other problem is that Matt seems to have no time to work on this with me. Since this is "our" project I feel like I can't just do the whole thing on my own. I don't want to leave Matt out of this, but at the same time I don't want to wait another year to get this done.

I'm not going to rush this project (and given my current predicement, rushing isn't an option anyway), but every project reaches a point where it needs to come to an end, and Panty Explosion is definitely there. After two years of testing and revising the game plays like I want it to play. The current version of text needs to be cleaned up and edited, but is otherwise ready to go (assuming Matt doesn't want to make major changes). The art is coming along nicely, and now that we have a uniform design I'll be able to jump in to finishing up the penciled illustrations I did for the project over the last two months. In other words, I need to get this done, and it's killing me that I can't move forward both because I don't have time and my design partner is unavailable.

Bliss Stage: I finished up my Bliss Stage commitment a few weeks ago. I think. I didn't really hear anything after I turned the work in, and since I've been too busy to actually do any more work on the project I'm hoping that Ben is happy with what I've doen and doesn't actually need any changes. I know it shouldn't, but the idea that Ben is doing to contact me and ask me to redo a lot of the art has been causing me a fair amount of anxiety.

Sign in Stranger: I was supposed to start on this project at the beginning of the year (lies. I was supposed to start last June), but I'm just now choosing my models and doing the initial layout sketches. Like everything else, this project is suffering from me not having enough time to work on it. It doesn't help that out of the 15 people I contacted to model for me (all I needed was head shots and maybe 1 basic pose) only 4 responded. So I may be going back to using mostly book models like I did with Ocean. Anyway, I anticipate being able to plow through this once I have some free time, but I'm afraid that won't be until March or April.

Freelance work: This is the big one. The time i have available to work on freelance projects has gone from about 30 hours a week to about... well... nothing. Since a good portion of my income comes from my freelance work this means I'm broke and (once again) not making rent. Which is stupid since I have plenty of work lined up. I mean, I have two fair sized jobs that will pay fine once I finish them. I just have no time to finish them. Similarly, I have several small jobs (mostly character portrait commissions) on hold until I have some free time to take care of them. I've been doing one of these a week just so I have some pocket money for bus tickets, art supplies and work lunches, but if I had the time I could knock out 10 of these over the course of a week and get paid for each one.

So yeah, being this busy is costing me freelance money. It's also costing me...

Creative Capital: I don't have any free time to devote to following up on new ideas or develop old existing ones. This kind of mental exercise is crucial to my mental well being and creative out put, and not having any time to devote to this has been really taxing and frustrating. A very obvious manifestation of this is that over the last two weeks I've been very unsatisfied with my work (mostly on Hereville), and very anxious for the project to be over so I can move on to something else. And even more obvious manifestation is this post your reading right now.

Most of the frustration here comes from not being able to develop personal ideas and projects. My inability to work on Panty Explosion is part of this, but also my recent realization that I won't be able to devote any time to developing the Gunner Rex idea (and my search for someone to farm it out to) and my inability to return to my webcomic, which I've been very much wanting to do for a few moths now.

**************************

Okay, so reading all that just now, it sounds like I'm saying that my commitment to Hereville is the source of my problems. It's not. If I wasn't committed to that project I would be spending my time on something else. This isn't the first time I've run into this problem, and the fact of the matter is I'm just overbooked.

I've been trying to find a way to budget my time more effectively, and to that end I've built myself a schedule. I've designated Tuesdays and Fridays as days where I don't have to be in the studio. These are days where I can work at home, run errands and spend time doing things that don't require me to be at the studio (like have a social life). It's not coincidental that these are also the days I teach. The rest of the week will be spent in the studio, and I've divided each of these days in half. The first half of every day is devoted to my current primary project (Hereville), with the second half going to one of several secondary projects (depending on the day of the week).

We'll see how that goes.

Details at the Atarashi Games site.

Pools closed.

Matt and I will be choosing a winner tomorrow afternoon. If you still have a design you'd like to enter and you can get it to me before that, we'll probably consider it.

We'll be announcing a winner asap.

Thanks everyone!

...except sometimes.

Midnight on Sunday is the deadline for the Atarashi Games Uniform Design Contest!

Here's  a visual map of what I think a session of gunner Rex would look like:



It kind of looks like a dinosaur, doesn't it? Anyway, as you can see, you start at the stronghold and work your way out by laying out cards. You can back track and take a different path if you want. It looks like in the the above example the team started by going West, then back tracked to head East and eventually North.

Update: I've posted a personal ad  for a design partner for this game. Respond if interested.

Update 2: I drew this in class while I was supposed to be teaching. I'm letting my TA doe everything this term!

Since there was some interest, here's my very rough sketch of the rules for Gunner Rex, the dinosaur mech game I was talking about yesterday. It's messy and rough and not playable (becasue I wrote stuff like "insert fighting rules here", but you'll get the idea.

Unfortunately, I don't have any time to work on this right now, but if someone wants to team up with me and... I don't know... take what I've written so far and do some more with it or polish it up or something... that would be awesome.


( Anyway, here it is... )

Okay, so....

I had this idea for a game.

You play one of several hundred people who have been stranded in the Cretaceous period. Where you find alien wreckage. That you turn into dinosaur mechs. That you pilot against each other as you compete to see who can salvage even more alien wreckage parts to improve their mechs. Plus you get to hunt real dinosaurs!

Okay, that sounded better in my head.

Out of nowhere, a dozen facebook friend requests. Mostly from story games people. I never use facebook, and I maybe get a friend request once every few months, so this is pretty weird. Why now?