TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

This is an approximate representation of what the doctor told me would happen if I became more stressed. My body's partially giving up, mainly because of the stress. What stress? I won't talk about it. Ever. Suffice to say, one of those sources of stress is Yet Untitled (Or rather, the compromise of delivering a new Yet Untitled twice a week). Some sources of stress will be relieved soon (I hope), so, until those things are sorted out, this thing is on hold. We'll be back in brief, if I'm still alive.

XIII Page 006

Surprise, surprise! OK, not really. Even I saw that coming. My excuse? It was at first sight. Seriously! There's more to this than meets the eye, though. See Page 9 and 10 for details. HAHAH!

On a more real note, I am currently working on ART for an Exhibit. And a poster for said Exhibit. An AWESOME poster. It has Elle, Robots and Nintendo! It's also the first time in forever that I've actually colored artwork. It's actually looking kinda nice. Maybe I will post it here at a later date.


More on the story of XIII, this time focusing on character design and symbols. Have you noticed howwe never see the eyes of the Male Protagonist? No one ever does. It's not that they can't see them or that they're not there... They just aren't noticeable. You look at the glasses first (Which technically are a deep shade of red), then at everything else. If you come out alive, that is. This is a guy on a mission, a guy with style. Do you think he likes doing what he does? Maybe he doesn't. Maybe it's just duty. Does he feel remorse? Probably not. All the weapons he uses for his mission are numbered with a roman numeral (Can you guess where this is going?) and are "bladed" weapons. No arrows, lances, or guns. Just knives and swords (Usually not too large, though). Around Page 9 there will be a more interesting bit of trivia about the weapons he uses. Also of note: All the weapons he uses have been designed already. They're based on real swords and knives (Just like the guns are based on real guns), though not very accurate (My weapon-drawing skills are lame and poor! POOR AND LAME).

XIII Page 005

I'm sick. No, seriously. Typhoid Fever. It's not going away. It's making me think about things. It's making me horribly depressed. This isn't stopping me from drawing, though, because it really does take my mind off the depressing things that compose my typhoid-full life. I hope I am not sent to the hospital, which will happen if the meds don't work. I am totally scared.
Let's talk about healthier things, like how this comic came to be, and how much it sucks ass. First, I am a whole day late. This is no coincidence (See previous paragraph), but it was unplanned. Second, this comic was heavily influenced by the music I listen to. In particular, the pacing and mood was heavily influenced by the Silent Hill 4 soundtrack, though the story itself has its roots mostly in Tool's Aenima and Lateralus. Aenima and Lateralus influenced mostly the concept of controlled aggresiveness, a certain anger and fury that cannot be contained, and also the use of allegories and ambiguity to express a message. Silent Hill influenced the pacing and mood, somehow distant, yet melodic, and also kinda sad.
As I write this, I am watching the Yahoo MatchCast of the Portugal - Mexico game of the Fifa World Cup. I expect Mexico to lose. Current score is 2-1, Portugal winning, and I expect it to remain that way. Way to be optimistic (I blame the depression worsened by the typhoid fever, and the many things it makes me think).

Now, local comics talk!
Someday, I wish I could publish a comic. Even if it's done independently, here in Juarez. We can have an industry! We need to make a bigger effort! The Yume guys have done a great work, but they need to get their priorities straight and implement some kind of quality control, or else they're gonna be blown away when the big players get on with the program. 656 Comics has Infestacion already; I've read it, and let me tell you that it rocks too fucking hard; we're also working together on an animation project that may also rock the casbah to the moon. Changolion is hopefully releasing a sketchbook soon, but I do expect them to release a bigger, badder comics compilation soon (They've got the people, they got the technology, and hopefully, they got the material to make it move forward). Many independent comic-makers here are eagerly awaiting news of the publication of the collective work called "Comiquero", to which I contributed my first public, crappy, totally unprofessional and extremely amateur comic (And, if I finish XIII before the deadlines, I may even include it there!). There's also the guys at El Paso and Las Cruces, which 656 is contacting already. Big things are brewing in the local comics scene... I will report more on this at a later date. Meanwhile, I expect to post the next page by Friday, if I am not in the hospital and am alive.

XIII Page 004

A bit late, isn't it? I apologize for that. It's been a busy Sunday, and I'm inking page 8 (I think it's page 8, though it might be page 7 or 9, whatever), which is, along with the next 2 or 3 pages, a complex page with some perspective things to work out. Let's continue talking about how XIII came to be, shall we?
The original "Guy travels around the world with runaway girl" kindof story didn't work out. Seriously. There was no reason for them to be together. But when the story evolved and became "New girl becomes an intern at a library with an asshole of a boss" it became considerably more interesting. That's where the characters got the glasses, to tell you the truth, though they have now been inverted (The guy had smaller glasses in that old story).
As almost anything I do, I scrapped that concept after some time passed, the reason being that, well, the characters were just plain DULL. It was seriously boring as hell.
Another story that ultimately served as inspiration for XIII was one of Elle's sources' story. Particularly the 7th one: Elle, in that story, had a mission to kill these creatures from the darkness that haunted the darkest places of the world and pretty much hunted people. This guy gets involved, and tries to help her all he can, but she always denies his help. The inspiration that came from this particular story is the concept of the Hunter, a character that, for whatever, reason, has to look for prey, and when another person gets involved, is forced to make a choice. For XIII, somehow the choice changed, and this guy who had always been a loner now finds himself with a willing partner.
For the record, by this page The Girl and The Guy have been traveling around the world together for 8 months already. Just a little teaser of bigger things that will be explained in the next post, which will proably be made Tuesday evening, before my yougest sister's High School graduation. It's a miracle! All jesting aside, I congratulate her wholeheartedly. She deserves it, after all the effort she's made.
MORE NEWS! I'm going to Anime Expo by the end of June. XIII will probably be left hanging for nearly 5 days. But fear not! After that, we'll have a lot more things to talk about! Like the strange world that breeds inside the Anime Expo, and the bizarre creatures found within. Forth we go!

XIII Page 003

As I said, Page 3 is a Title Page. See? I wasn't neither kidding nor lying. I'll have more real pages this weekend. Does Sunday sound nice enough to you? It does to me. Sunday it is.
More about the creation of this particular story:
This story has its most basic origins in a story I developed nearly 6 years ago. It was about a guy who got fed up with his job, quit and decided to tour around the world (But he didn't kill anyone! Big change there! And not the only one). During his travels around an imaginary country, he meets a girl who lives with an abusive father who runs away with him (Another huge difference! Hah!). The guy's at first reluctant, but ultimately acquiesces, and thus they travel the world!
Over time, this story slowly died, its elements incorporated into other stories, until ultimately the idea for this story came... Which is also derived from ANOTHER more complex story. But that tale will have to wait, or else I won't have much to say on Sunday.
On other Comics I'm working on:
* DREAM(LESS) is definetely on hold. I can't figure out the direction of that story yet. It's a huge challenge, mainly because it's LONGER and more COMPLEX than almost any story I've ever thought of. I love the concept, and how much it has changed (It feels more mature now than how it felt, say, 2 months ago), but something tells me it needs to rest a bit more. Like good wine.
* Regular, funny Yet Untitled will return after XIII. I was seriously out of ideas for YU (Or rather, the timing for most ideas was off). Now everything seems to have been somewhat fixed, thankfully.
* I I sent a submission for the Scary Go Round Idol, which was obviously not selected. Oh well. I have no regrets. I work colorless, and am nothing but a beginning "comiquero". At least I tried! I will post the comic here after XIII, though, so you can bask in its bizarre suckiness (It's not that bad, really, but it is... Weird. My kind of weird, mind you).
Oh well. Gotta paint stuff! But first, WORK!

XIII Page 002

We continue today, with page #2 of XIII. This week, instead of the regular 2 Comics Per Week thing, we get MORE and MORE pages! It's true! I'm working non-stop after getting out of work, now. As a matter of fact, I have pages 3-5 completely finished and ready to post right here, right now. But I won't. Not until Friday, anyways. Be warned, though, that Page 003 is a title page, which is a bit forebodding about the events in page 004.
What I like about working on "XIII" is that I can apply the concepts I've learned from the Comiquero project and the other strips here (Including the whole Megatokyo thing). The one thing I consider the most relevant about "XIII" is that it is a short story, and as such, the pacing is quick, sometimes leaving many things unexplained. Like names, for example.
When I conceived "XIII", I was planning for it to be around 50 pages long. In fact, these two pages were supposed to be around 5 or 6 pages! With names, more background and dialogue. However, as time passed, I began to realize that most of what was said in those 5 and 6 pages could easily be narrated, which is why we read what the girl thinks about the situation. She has become the narrator, and as such can choose to ommit unnecessary details. She was also supposed to assist him more than twice (4 times, I think), with varying degrees of assistance. The first time she helped him, though, has a much better pace now, and introduces a couple of lines of dialogue I had not considered in the original idea. Something tells me the end is gonna change.

XIII Page 001

After a week of rest (More than a week, actually), Yet Untitled is back! Fanfare! Today we return with... The first page of something else. Something outside the regular numbering: A short story called "XIII". I've been kicking around this story for nearly a year, and I figured now was the time to try and get it out, once and for all. It's not the best work I can do with it, but it's sufficient. It's still practice. This page is probably the worst I've made from it, so far. Anyways, one of the things I like about this kind of format (Short story comic) is the pacing. Sometimes you don't need to explain everything, you can leave details out and focus on actually telling the story. So far, I've finished 4 pages and will probably finish one more tonight (As well as starting the next one). I predict this will last for 10 or more pages, and be a good measure of how fast can I pump out comic pages. See you sooner than you can expect it.

XIII Page 000

Intro page. This is actually being posted on July 10th, but the story started originally on the next page. After a brief hiatus, I decided the story needed a new intro, something of a mood-setter that "dwell" a bit more on some of the subjects of the comic. So I drew this page and retro-posted it on the site. It's a bit of a brutish tactic, but it works, so sue me!

013 - Metaphorical Representation of Your Average Internet Discussion
(A.K.A. Twisted and Surreal Tribute to Akira Toriyama)

This is my humble guide in which I detail how to argue on the internet. First, you state how right you are and how the other person is wrong; you will receive a likewise similar response. This stage can last a long time, because both participants will insist about the rightness of their points and the wrongness of the others', until one of them starts with the unavoidable provocations. These might be veiled in the form of sarcasm, or direct verbal attacks against the person. The most common form of insult relates to the other side's moms, GTFO, n00b, and similarly infantile appelatives. The insults rise up in heat and, if they're not moderated, they get to the point in which each character will brag about their size of their ego for hours. HOURS. All this last part of the discussion will obviously be about how the individual in question has experience in said topic, and how the other side knows shit about it. They continue doing this until they're both totally pissed, popping, like, a million angry raging boners in a second and being total dickwads. The battle ends when one of the parties leaves the discussion, which usually means that the party who stayed in the end feels like they won... But so does the party who left right there and then. In reality, nobody wins, 'cause they're douchebags.

Anyways, I grew up watching Dragon Ball Z. You could say it was my inspiration for a short while, in Middle High. Then I grew out of the whole DBZ look. It would take a while to grow beyond your average Anime look, though, and I'm still working on it. I remembered Dragon Ball because they're airing it on Cartoon Network Latinamerica during Toonami (At 11 PM at night, local time! Awesome!).

Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, I did not pencil this comic. It was straight to ink, with no planned dialogues and... Anything, actually. It just sorta popped in the page. It shows. It stinks. BAD. Oh well, it took me 30 minutes to do it (One Dragon Ball episode, actually! It was the 3rd one, if my memory serves me right, in which Gokou gets the golden cloud), which was ok considering the RAGING HEADACHES I've been feeling. Doctor says I'm sick, I'm getting analysis done on Saturday. I hope I'm not dying or anything.