There's nothing to see here.

Thanks to the glorious web design vision of Cody Kratzer, I now have a shiny new website for my comics that I am overly pleased with. Also, my head is swimming a bit, as I just spend the past several hours changing code and basically transposing this blog onto it. So please, go check it out! I even set up a little RSS feed for it, because I know some of you like that sort of thing. I will not be updating this blog any longer. You know where to find me.

Dinosaur BBQ

This is a composite. A conversation that was relayed to me, that I then tweeted, that was then responded to.

They recently opened up a Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in my town.
Joe: I don't get where they're getting the dino meat. They've been gone a long time.
[face palm]
AOA: Glaciers.
{{title text: I wish he was kidding}}

Hourly Comic, 11/9/10

There is this meme among comics that is the hourly comic. It is a spawn of the 24-hour comic day (a challenge invented by Scott McCloud for Steve Bissette)

So the idea is, every hour you make a comic about something that happened that hour. Every hour you're awake anyhow. I decided it might be a fun challenge.

Observations:

When I have time for making comics, nothing interesting is happening & vice versa.

It's a lot of pressure to choose what deserves to be included. Maybe something more interesting will happen in the last 10 minutes. I never inked until after.

Are there ethical responsibilities within comics? For some reason, I felt like I had to use realism in place of metaphor / symbolism.

I also became a little too cognizant of how I was representing my life. I could make myself seem very social or very anti-social just depending on the parts of my hour I chose to represent. I left out the part where I went to Kinko's and was a jerk about the weight of the paper and the light splotches in my field of black. I left out the part where I went to the record store to drop off a couple comics and ended up buying three dollar records. In other media I don't think that it is necessary to show the whole truth, but for some reason, it became a concern here.

Babysitting

The grass. It's greener.

This happened over the summer. Or maybe in September? It's still summer for me until I start working again, which is usually mid September.

Two little boys on dino thingies on the playground in Albany: WOO HOO!
Smaller little boy on his own dino: Not fair!! Someone ride with meeee!!
One little boy: WOO HOO!
[smallest little boy looks dejected]
{{title text: I saw that coming}}

Generation gap.

In case there is any confusion, my comics are autobio. That is, if any of my comics purport to be fiction, they are probably just thinly veiled autobio as well. And I'm a substitute. And this happened. Last week. On Friday.

Student: This class is wack.
Emily: Wiggedy wack?
Student: Yea.

WRONG

"Nope. Just regular type."

She didn't pick up on my Teen Girl Squad reference.
{{title text: well that was entirely unsatisfying}}

NEWW Diary

I went to New England Webcomics Weekend this Saturday, which means I finally get to participate in the post-con-diary-comics meme. Also, I get to try my hand at image mapping. Check it out! Click a panel to be brought to a related website. Sometimes. I'm figuring it out.

Emily: Do you mind if I butt in your conversation?
Tom McHenry!
Emily: My name is Emily... my twitter handle is-- (Did I really just say 'twitter handle'?)
Tom: OfADoubt!! You're the girl who got so excited about my drawings!
Emily: That's me.
Spike: Which Emily are you? What do you do?
Emily: (No Emily you've heard of.) Um...I ....Well....I have a site called 'Someday I Won't Suck.' Here.
Spike: Nice inking! But so few pages!
Emily: I'm just starting out.
Jeph Jacques looks nothing like Martin Reed. Why am I surprised??
Emily: Wanna trade?
Magnolia: Uh? Sure. I've never been asked that before.
Trying to place his accent.
Frank: ...New Zealand...
Books I couldn't afford to buy: Dar! Drawn To You. Questionable Content.
T shirt: The cake may be a lie but pi is forever.
Aaron: aggressive saturated primary color bullshit.
{{title text: some snippets from NEWW 2}}

Sharable snippets

This is an edit from a journal comic I hadn't planned on sharing.

Emily: Dude, that's not me at all!

I'm totally not making things weird.
{{title text: it's so hard to make things and not share them. i totally fail. would it be better if i didn't share at all?.}}

Costume

Poor Chris gets no breaks [from me], even in comic form.
If you want to see a photograph.... click here.

[[a true story, October 30th 2010]]
Kyle: Hey Emily! What are you?
Emily: [flatly] I'm just a sweet tranvestite.
Chris: Oh! I could have sworn you were someone from Rocky Horror!
{{title text: He clearly hasn't seen it.}}

Duck on the Charles

I find some moments too funny to NOT immortalize in comic form.

[[a true story, October 16th 2010]]
Brianne: Do you ever wonder what it'd be like to be a duck? It seems like it would suck. I mean...
Brianne: If you get cold, what are you gonna do? You're a duck!
Emily: I don't know, my chickens huddle and they do this thing where they puff out their feathers to create a warm pocket of air next to their bodies.
Brianne: Smeh. I don't wanna be a chicken.
[Emily and Rich proceed to do the entire Chicken Dance while Brianne's mood changes from slightly amused to a tiny bit annoyed]
{{title text: CI can't believe you guys did the WHOLE dance!' -Brianne}}

Outmoded

[[a comic about my beloved old cell phone]] I bought my second cell phone, like my first, while I was in high school. Camera phones weren't a viable option yet, but this phone was still fancy at the time. [It had a full color screen]. It was one of the more expensive models. I boughtn a USB cable for it so I could upload pictures & midi files onto it from my computer. I bought a leather case so it'd feel more substantial in my hand. I made a midi version of Aha's 'Take On Me' my ringtone. Incoming calls spawned impromptu dance parties. [Da nununununununu Nana nuh nuh!] I was more than satisfied with my phone. It worked great for seven years. I refused every upgrade, especially during the years flip phones were in. [Flip phones suck.]When it wouldn't turn on anymore, I wont for the closest replacement. It was thin, light, cheap-feeling. [What do you have like this?] I keep the old one in a desk drawer. I can't help but think of it as a dead hamster. Oh well. At least no one picks on me for the size of my phone anymore.
"Hey Emily... Zack Morris called. He wants his phone back."
"How'd he call if I have his phone?"
[deadpan] [grin] heh. [heart!]
{{title text: Comebacks: better late than never}}

Centralia

I hereby reserve the right to take anything funny you say to me or around me and make it into a comic. Additionally, I reserve the right NOT to.

[[a comic within a comic in front of a photo]] Centralia was an old mining town. A couple decades ago the mines caught fire. The government did their best to evict everyone but some people refused to leave. The mines are still burning today.
Justin: They should have seen it coming with the surrounding town names. [Ashland pop 3091] [Burnside pop 280] [COAL county]
Eric: [YourTownsGonnaBeOnFireville pop 1087]
{{title text: The ground. It is smoking.}}

Can I Buy You A Drink?

[[A woman and a man talk at a bar. A woman and a man talk on the street and in a corner store]]
Man: So, what do you do?
Emily: I'm an artist. I try to encourage people to make things by hand.
Man:Oh...Hm.... Can I buy you a drink?
Emily: Sure
Emily: Thanks.

Man: Emily. huh? So, Emily, where you headed?
Emily: To the store for some milk.
Man: So what do you do for fun?
Emily: I make videos on the internet. I'm an artist. You?
Man: I rap. Wanna hear me freestyle?
Emily: Sure.
[In the store, the man attempts to pay for the carton of milk]
Man: Lemme get that.
Emily: No, no. I'm fine. Thanks though.

Red Plates

[[Inside a car somewhere in Vermont]]
Emily: {This guy is going so slow. Also, I've never seen a red plate in VT} {Oh nice! He's letting me pass!} [The word POLICE is visible on the side of the vehicle] {Oh ffuuhhh---}
Emily: I've misplaced my license. Here's my passport.
Cop: You've misplaced it?!?
Emily: I'm sorry
Cop: I don't care about you're sorry. I still feel like writing you a ticket.
Emily: I can still say I'm sorry.
5 Minutes Later
Cop: Apology accepted. Now, I don't care how you drive in New York. Here in Vermont we're nice to each other. You're unsafe! Don't tailgate! It's not nice!! And your earrings are weird.
Right.

A Tip

I like mnemonic devices and I always try to spell it 'exercize' so I this is how I have to think about it.

I googled it, and it doesn't seem like anyone else has thought of this, sooooo you can get this one as a T shirt if you're so inclined. I set up a little spreadshirt shop and everything.

What Is Art?

I made this a couple of years ago.... it's a sort of mind map about my concept of the meaning of art.

Emily in a Nutshell

And I'm thinking: "how does he know??"

[[Emily in a car on the phone with Dylan.]] You don't use a GPS, do you? I bet you just have a map with a chicken drawn on it.
{{title text: The Best Description of Me I've Heard in a While}}

Leah's Wedding

That's a pretty nice haircut.

31DaysOfAPM

Here's a little something I made for something else made in collaboration with my friend SharkeyeJones.