Some of you may not realize that when I create panels in UnCONventional and The Chronicles of Crosarth I actually draw each element completely separately from the other elements. I do this for a couple of different reasons, but mostly because I tend to combine different kinds of digital elements (and it lets me fine tune things -- if I messed up a tiny thing in a panel, I can just fix that one thing instead of redrawing the whole image).
What I end up with though are small details which may not be visible at all on screens when people read the comics. Because of that, I thought I'd share with you a few bits which have shown up but you may not have noticed.
Also, I like pie.
- Traegorn
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 One of the hardest lessons I had to learn throughout my twenties was that I only had so much time to work on my creative projects. Rather than try to work on the twenty ideas competing for brain space in my head simultaneously, completing each only a little at a time, I had to pick just one or two to devote myself towards and complete.
I've done a pretty good job of it, throwing myself behind my two webcomics with the occasional dalliance here or there. But what that means is that there are still 18 other ideas rattling around my brain at any given moment wanting to get worked on.
And it's frustrating.
It's especially so when I find myself inspired and have a new fabulous twist to a project that I haven't worked on in years. I know I don't have time to complete it, but I know it's a great idea. At my disposal I have the tools, I have the ability, but I lack the actual time to get it done (or at least get it done right).
There are so many things like that it's kind of amazing. If you've ever wondered why I stopped producing short films, that's why. Or why I stopped working on my novel. Or why I stopped producing 3DO to Go. Or why I don't write as many articles as I used to. Or why I haven't tried starting a new convention.
I lack the time. And it's sad.
Clearly what needs to happen is that I need to find a way to win the Publisher's Clearing House so I can leave the workforce and just dedicate myself purely to my creative and artistic pursuits. Of course, I think what would happen then is that I'd just get super lazy and fill the extra time with more sleeping.
Because I need to get more sleep while I'm at it anyway...
- Traegorn
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 This last weekend I drove up to Milwaukee to see my parents. While I was there, I managed to hang out with my friend Chris. Chris has been one of my best friends since high school, and was the best man at my wedding - but we hadn't seen each other in quite some time. We'd texted a few times in November, but this honestly may have been the first time the two of us were in the same room for well over a year.
And this got me to thinking about how terrible I am at keeping in contact with people. I mean, I'm better than I used to be -- I actually do keep in semi-regular touch with my parents these days. But I am absolutely terrible about making calls, shooting emails and texting with friends who aren't in the same town as me.
I used to beat myself up about it (and had more than one person get mad at me for it), but then I came to a realization. As Chris said to me Saturday night, he hadn't called me either. For every person I don't think to call, they don't think to call me. In truth, a lot of us are really bad at keeping in touch with other people.
So I think we all need to be a little more forgiving -- both to ourselves and to those we care about who are far away. It can be hard to find the time to reach out, and we're all just as guilty of it as everyone else.
Does that mean we shouldn't try harder? Absolutely not. I for one am going to try to keep in touch with Chris more (as he's an awesome dude and hanging out with his is a lot of fun). We just can't get mad at ourselves when we come up a bit short from time to time.
- Traegorn
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Today, for the first time since chapter three, General Baker makes an appearance in The Chronicles of Crosarth. The style of the comic has evolved a bit since his last appearance, so I used it as an excuse to update his character's appearance.
When he last appeared it always bothered me that he looked too young. General Baker is in his sixties, and he looked like a thirty year old in a wig back in chapters two and three. In the update I tried to more accurately portray his age (while still making it obvious that its the same character).
So this is what I ended up settling on.
- Traegorn
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 So this weekend Crysta and I went out to the drive in and saw "Star Trek into Darkness." I'm not going to go too in depth on the film, but overall I loved it. It wasn't perfect, but what kind of Star Trek fan would I be if I didn't have nitpicks? In any case, if you haven't seen it already, go do so.
What this got me thinking about though was what I've been missing from Star Trek these last few years - and that's the quiet, character driven pieces. J.J. Abrams two films are very action driven, and that's great - but you never really get to soak in the world surrounding that action.
This is, of course, to be expected. All of those character driven pieces were television episodes. Heck, they were the TV episodes produced mostly to save money. Those pieces would feel very weird as stand alone films, and producing a "bottle movie" makes sense to no one really -- not even me.
And that's the weakness to only having a film series right now. We're getting the action filled two parters without the character pieces in between. This is why, really, Star Trek needs a new television series.
I don't care if its in the Alternate Reality or the Prime Reality. I don't care if it follows a ship, a space station or a team of misfit Starfleet Intelligence agents. Heck, it could be a Klingon Political thriller for all I care!
(You loved "House of Cards?" Well you'll love "House of Mogh!" I think we have a pitch here...)
Really, I think I'd take any Star Trek series I could get right now - because being a Star Trek fan isn't just about loving one series or having a favorite captain. We're in love with the world itself that these series and films play in. And I really, really want to see more of it.
- Traegorn
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Between reading Yo, Is This Racist? and the bizarre reactions to the very possibility of a black guy playing Human Torch in the next Fantastic Four movie, one puzzling thing has been sitting on my mind. This one thing baffles me to my very core, yet keeps happening time and time again. It seems that when you point out to a lot of people that they've said something racist, they freak out and demand it isn't.
In the case of comic book characters they'll try to sell you a "true to the original source material" spiel, but often there are huge flaws - like in the case of the Human Torch, his ethnicity never played a part in his characterization, so as long as the Character is "American" whether he's black or white shouldn't matter. No one complains that Hugh Jackman is a foot too tall to play Wolverine, or that Ra's Al Ghul was played by a white dude in Nolan's trilogy (when the character clearly isn't in the comics).
In the end, they said something racist - but they freak out at the very idea that you've called them out on it.
The reason is simple - we're told our whole lives that racism is bad. The reasoning for this is, frankly, quite simple: racism is bad. But when you core program that into someone who also has a racist idea or view point, they develop a dissonance between the idea that they might think something racist and said racist thought. When you call them out on it, and attempt to resolve the dissonance, it causes them to get angry -- and rather than blame themselves, they'll blame the person who pointed it out.
Now thinking or doing something racist doesn't make the person necessarily a racist, but refusing to recognize your actions might. A non-racist person will recognize that they said or did something racist and realize they should stop. Maybe said person will apologize even, but in any case they themselves will recognize the racism in their behavior.
A racist person on the other hand will refuse to recognize their own problematic behavior. This person will decide everyone ELSE is wrong.
I guess the lesson here is don't be afraid to self examine. If you refuse to do so, you might end up continuing to perpetrate problematic behavior. This applies to more than just racism, but that's what's on my mind today.
The other lesson is "don't be a f***ing racist."
- Traegorn
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 Starting yesterday morning, I decided to quit drinking soda altogether. I'd had some pretty bad heartburn lately, so for my own comfort and health, it seemed prudent to eliminate the constant source of acid from my diet. As this was the sole source of caffeine in my diet, this also meant though that I was simultaneously going cold turkey on that substance as well.
That has made this a whole lot of no fun.
First off, I'm sleepy as heck right now. I've been living with an almost constant flow of caffeine for years, so dropping off hard has left me not super-alert. It's the sort of thing that happens when you cut a stimulant out after this long though -- it will take my body a little while to adjust and adapt.
Secondly, I am without the psychological comfort of grabbing a Diet Coke, hearing the pressure shift as I open it, and holding it in my hand. I'm compensating a little with bottled water, but half a dozen times yesterday I found myself scrounging the kitchen, realizing that what I really wanted was a soda that wasn't there.
It helps that there isn't any caffeinated soda in the apartment right now.
The headaches haven't kicked in yet (as they have most of the other times I tried quitting caffeine), so I'm looking forward to those. I can tell I'm less focused -- you have no idea how hard it is for me to type this out. I've had several sentences that I've had to reread multiple times to make sure they made sense (this one included). In a few days I'll be back to normal, but I'm nowhere near that stage yet.
The next few days are going to be a whole lot of no fun, really.
Wish me luck.
- Traegorn
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 Last night the Season Four finale for Community aired. As it's still up in the air whether the show will be renewed or not, this may very well be the final episode.
I have mixed feelings about that.
Season Four had a rough start, the first couple of episodes were fairly weak as the series found footing under its new showrunners. It found its way home though - the heart returned, and while it wasn't the same show it was before, it was pretty damned close. The last several episodes I would put on par with anything from the Dan Harmon era. Considering how highly I think of Dan Harmon's writing, that's saying something.
And with that we have a season finale worthy of being the series finale.
I have to ask myself then, would I be okay if the show ended this way? If the show is renewed, and then later gets cancelled, would the next "ending" be less satisfying? Might I actually be happier if the show ended with last night's wonderful finale?
The answer of course is "screw that, I want more Community."
So I sit here waiting, every once and a while searching Google News for information (which, by the way, is friggin' annoying when the name of the show is common English word). I have the small consolation that my other favorite Thursday night comedy has already been renewed (Parks and Rec) so I only have to worry about one show and not two -- but the suspense is still driving me nuts.
Maybe this is just a distraction - it's been a long week both personally and work-wise (you have no idea how much I'm looking forward to just collapsing this weekend). But I hope Community finds itself into a fifth season, because with all of this week's stress, the season finale was a wonderful escape for a half an hour of it.
And we all need an escape sometimes.
Edit: Renewed for season five! Woot!
- Traegorn
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 This weekend I drove up to my parent's house to clean out some of my old stuff from my old room. Most of the stuff that was there had been untouched for about a decade -- and digging through it I found quite a few things I thought lost forever.
There was the normal stuff, like my comic book collection and copies of Fanboy. I was happy to find my Transformers were intact as well. There was also some unusual things as well, like a bunch of "Rubies of Eventide" pop up promotional "rubies" from Gen Con 2002. Within the bowels though was a mess of artwork from various periods of my life... which was just weird to look at.
The stuff was diverse, from concept artwork from "Mirror Mirror" (a video game project some friends of mine were working on) to old Room 825 scripts that never got finished (Room 825 being my first webcomic, to which UnCONventional is an indirect sequel to). With all this old crap, I must have never thrown anything out. Some of the stuff is downright awful, while other stuff (like the original artwork for the No Brand Con 2003 program guide cover) isn't all that bad.
I also found remnants from other creative projects, like the manual for the Fantasy RPG I tried to develop when I was in high school (whose rules eventually evolved into Super Awesome Action Heroes).
Man, if it weren't for The Chronicles of Crosarth I'd start to suspect that I ran out of good ideas a decade ago.
I loaded up the car, and right now the back of it is still filled with boxes of stuff. It's weird to have my stuff (mostly) out of my parents house (there's still a couple boxes I couldn't fit in the car that I had to leave behind), but it had to happen sometime I guess. I mean it's not like I've lived there since I finished college... but still.
- Traegorn
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Starting yesterday morning, I decided to quit drinking soda altogether. I'd had some pretty bad heartburn lately, so for my own comfort and health, it seemed prudent to eliminate the constant source of acid from my diet. As this was the sole source of caffeine in my diet, this also meant though that I was simultaneously going cold turkey on that substance as well.