So, from time to time, I like to point out awesome things being done by people I know. Why? Because as previously stated, they are awesome. I don't understand why you have to make this so complicated...
Anywho, today I want to share with you one of these awesome things. It's the webcomic Parking Gulls created by my friend Erika Flanagan.
Parking Gulls tells the story of a bunch of college guys living in a house together. The house in question bears a striking resemblance to one which Erika used to live in. Which happens to be a house that, before Erika ever lived there, Crysta and I used to live in.
So yes, it's a bit strange to read something where the lead character sleeps in what was once my old bedroom.
But personal strangeness aside, the comic is well drawn and the writing is surprisingly good. Those who know me well understand that you don't get a much higher compliment out of me than that.
The art is simple black and white, with a feel somewhere in between manga and indie comics of the 80s-90s. Honestly, I don't know if this is a conscious choice on her part, or just the natural evolution of her style. Either way, it's one I enjoy. With the proliferation of either straight manga or overly cartoony comics on the web, it's almost like coming home to read something that looks like this.
As for the story itself, the comic holds up as well. Which is, y'know, hard - because there are a million well drawn but poorly written webcomics out there. She introduces a large cast, but has paced out their appearances so far where it's not overwhelming - and the characters are visually distinct enough where there's no problem telling them apart.
Considering how many large cast comics fail doing so, that's no small feat.
The humor is very slice of life, and while it seems to focus on the trials of being an art student, most of it is very common to the general collegiate experience. These are people you know, these are people you can relate to. These are people doing things which you have likely done yourself at some point.
The comic only updates once a week (Tuesday Evenings), and it's still early days so the archives are thin. But if you're looking for a well drawn, clever webcomic, you need to check this out. You can either start at the beginning or jump to the latest page.
Do it now.
Like, right now.
Go already!
- Traegorn
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 Whenever there's a major awards show, especially for film or television, there's about a 50/50 chance I'll tune in. Initially I was interested in the Oscars this year because it was clear they wanted to take it in a more relevant direction than it had been for a while... or so I thought. See, Saturday night - while watching a cheesy (yet awesome) movie on SyFy with Crysta - I saw an ad for this year's academy awards. The ad had a line in it which was "The first Oscars guys will enjoy" (or something close to that).
At that moment, I knew the award show was going to be absolute garbage, and I decided not to tune in. See, here's the thing - I have found that 90% of the time, when something is advertised as "for guys," what it really means is "for douchebags."
First off, advertisers don't mean "guys" when they use that word -- they mean "cis-gendered, straight men." Because, last I checked, there's a segment of the population that stereotypically loves the Oscars. I'm not saying that the stereotype is true, but it had to get started with at least more than one dude. And more than one dude qualifies as "guys" last I checked.
Which, apparently, these men aren't considered as such by the advertisers.
I also knew that it meant that the awards ceremony would end up littered with misogynist bull-feckle. Why? Because that's what marketers think "guys" want. And these days, being a complete douchebag is supposed to be edgy.
"Edgy" meaning "Hackish and Uncreative" in reality, but whatever.
And was I right? Was the awards ceremony full of misogynistic, sexist tripe? Oh yes it was. Very much so.. There was a friggin' joke about Roman Polanski's sexual assault of a 13 year old girl.
What. The. F***.
So reading about what happened, I'm glad I didn't tune in. I'm glad Crysta and I spent the night watching stuff on the Roku. I'm also done with Seth MacFarlane. This is one 18-49 year old cis-gendered, straight male who won't tune into any program he's involved with anymore - award show or not.
(Also, I heard there was some racism too - which makes all of this worse... but when you've already decided someone is human garbage, it's hard to have a lower opinion of them)
- Traegorn
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So normally I don't do fanart ( as I said yesterday), but I've had this randomly in my head for a while.
For those unfamiliar, this is a simple mashup of anime series Full Metal Alchemist and Ranma 1/2. Ranma 1/2 is personally notable to me, as it's the first series I really got into. Full Metal Alchemist is, frankly, only notable because it was the last anime series I actually watched.
Complicated, I know.
And let me tell you, it's difficult to draw in Rumiko Takahashi's style. I've actually never done that before. You have no idea how many drafts of Ranma's head I did...
- Traegorn
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So today I bring you an exceptionally random piece of "random art." 99% of the time when I post things under this header, the art is related to either one of my webcomics ( UnCONventional and The Chronicles of Crosarth), and as far as I can remember I've never posted fan art.
I could be wrong on that point, but even so - it'd be a rare occurrence.
That said, I decided to do something a bit different today. I used to seriously be into superhero stuff, and still occasionally dip into it on occasion. When I was a kid, superheroes were all I ever drew, frankly. With that in mind, I decided to dig back and (just for kicks) draw a random DC comics character -- in this case, Batgirl.
I chose to go with a classic Barbara Gordon look for the character, as she's been retconned back into the cowl with DC's New 52. I'll always prefer her as Oracle, but what the heck.
It's just a quick doodle anyways.
- Traegorn
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So most of us know that when someone messages you on Facebook but you aren't friends with them, their message will go into a separate folder labelled "other." I never look at it, but yesterday I was kind of bored after work and decided to take a peek. While sorting through it, I found - from almost a year ago - this particular gem:
Yes. This happened. I presume I had written a comment on some random tech blog using Facebook comments about how I like my Apple products (I do), and this guy got so mad he went to my Facebook profile and privately messaged me weird harassment.
From his actual Facebook account.
 Now this strikes me as dumb on a lot of levels. He has no clue who I am, he doesn't know if I'm some crazy guy. For all he knows I'm an axe-murdering psychopath who he just picked a fight with for no good reason. If this were some anonymous email address, it would only be mildly dumb... but let's show why it's REALLY a bad idea in this case.
First off, this guy has his privacy setting set pretty low on Facebook. A lot of his personal information is right there, plain as day. Secondly, by googling his full name, I quickly pulled up his LinkedIn and Google+ pages. Pages with some fun information on them. Between these two pages, I now know where he works, where he lives, and where he went to college.
Dude's a Cellphone Salesman. I used to be one of those.
He also uses the same Twitter username as he does on Facebook, so that profile was easy enough to locate. It revealed one more exceptionally critical piece of information: his approximate birthdate.
With this information, I was able to confirm wayyyy too much stuff (including the names and ages of several relatives - hey Rafael, tell Esther I said hi!).
This whole "cyber stalking" though? It didn't take any effort. I literally did only about five Google searches. There wasn't any skill on my part, this dude literally broadcasts everything. Like, even more than I do, and I broadcast a lot. A lot of people send out this much stuff into the ether, but that isn't the problem. The problem is he sends out his much stuff, and then proceeds to harass strangers.
Which is not, y'know, a good idea. Because what if it was someone as smart as me who isn't harmless?
Then stories like this might not have ended with useless blog posts.
- Traegorn
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 One of the strangest things to any sort of notability one earns in life is finding out that other people think of you more than you think of them. I've experienced various degrees of this throughout most of my life (I'm not claiming any sort of real fame here, but everything in life depends on scale), but this post isn't really about me.
No, what got me thinking about this today is something that happened to someone else.
Some friends of mine do a recurring panel at cons modeled after a talk show. I guess that's the best way to describe it? In any case - they do it, and it's quite entertaining. The host is one of the four people I model Max from UnCONventional on. That will probably flatter him too much, but whatever. It's true.
Anywho, a mutual friend of ours expressed appreciated for said panel in a Facebook status. Perfectly innocuous, and not at all unexpected. What was unexpected was a response comment posted to it, dripping with vile douchery by someone who I will refer to simply as "The Douche."
The Douche made some, as you guessed it, highly insulting comments about the panel. I, of course, being the nosey jackass that I am, inserted myself into the conversation - calling The Douche a... well... douche. I was super mature.
Anyway, The Douche proved his monicker immediately after that, and said some rather nasty things about me along with more nasty things about my friend's panel. What was clear throughout all of this though, was that these were very, very personal feelings to him. He had, in some way, gotten very personally angry not just about my friend, but myself as well (dropping a piece of personal information about myself I don't talk about publicly these days).
I know this was a rather long set up, but this got me thinking. Here is this guy, this guy I don't even know. This guy I'm fairly certain I've never spoken to, and who I'm fairly certain has barely spoken to my friend who runs the aforementioned panel. This guy who really seems to care a lot about us though.
He's sitting there, focusing all this emotional energy on us. He's bothered to research me, and hunt down errant statuses about my friend. Even if this is just a micro-fraction of his life, it's still there occupying brain space. He cares about us.
And I wouldn't recognize him on the street.
Now, there's nothing wrong with dedicating brain space to things you like. I may not have a huge number of readers, but they exist - and they dedicate brain space to me. Likewise, there are fans of my friend's panel who he doesn't know that dedicate brain space to him. This is fine, because (as previously stated) these are things that bring you pleasure. Likewise, there's nothing wrong with dedicating brain space to negative things that actually matter - injustices in the world, elections, etc.
But unless people are personally involved in your daily life, there is zero point in dedicating brain space to those like my friend or myself. We do fairly unremarkable things that like minded people enjoy, and that's that. If you don't like us, why think of us at all?
What it shows is that the person has a life so small and unremarkable that they have nothing else to fill it with. And as they are so filled with bitterness, they cannot think of things they love, but instead waste their time indulging in hatred of trivial things.
With every word they betray this. With every whispered innuendo about people who don't know them, they prove how small they are.
People like this don't realize though that they are incapable of hurting those they rail against. I know my value and worth, and any time this stranger posts things - so personally angry - they merely verify my certainty of their unremarkableness.
They hope their words will evoke anger and hurt in me, but instead they only cause me to feel one thing.
Pity.
- Traegorn
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Over half a year ago, I posted an airship comparison chart for my webcomic The Chronicles of Crosarth. The chart itself still holds up, but it needed a mild update.
So, as a new airship was seen a couple chapters back (and another will make its first appearance Monday), I've updated the chart.
That air pirate concept design is still on the chart, and eventually that ship will show up. I originally promised it "soon," but I reworked the story a bit so it'll be a little delayed...
But hey, it'll be worth it when it shows up.
- Traegorn
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Since tomorrow's valentine's day, I thought I would share with you these simple UnCONventional valentines you can print out and give to people you may or may not like! It's fun and exciting!
I put these together fairly quickly admittedly, but I think they're fairly entertaining. I would have featured some with Phil and his wife Patty, but since I was reusing old art, I soon realized I didn't really have many shots of Phil and his wife together. Heck, she's barely appeared in the comic at all.
I had other stuff of Max and Tara I could use, but I didn't want to recycle art that I didn't actually like - and the first year and a half of UnCONventional looks kind of terrible.
Ah well - at least I was able to come up with an Awesome Roy one instead.
- Traegorn
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Above is a series of four images collectively called "Sunday Morning." They feature the four "leads" of UnCONventional drawn in my "normal" style (depending on how you define normal). The idea was to capture the same moment for all of them - a winter sunday morning in Eau De Puanteur, WI. I put the one with Lynn and Megan on Tumblr this weekend, but saved the rest for today.
I started doing this because I looked at some old drawings I did a few years ago of the main cast, and I sort of cringed. When I started doing UnCONventional I honestly hadn't picked up a pencil in years. I used to draw a lot, but had stopped.
Since then though, I've drawn a heck of a lot -- including my other comic, The Chronicles of Crosarth. Because of that practice, I've gotten back to old form in my artwork... so I thought I'd have another go at the UnCONventional main cast.
The pictures are pretty simple, but I think capture the lives of the characters. Phil is shoveling snow (which is admittedly common for anyone in Wisconsin with a driveway), and Tara (the college student) is fast asleep. Lynn is mid conversation with Megan in their apartment, and Max is... at work.
I'm realizing this is the first time I've publicly shown people what Max does for a living. I thought about doing some reveal in the strip a while ago, but couldn't really find a good excuse to mention him being a nurse.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this.
- Traegorn
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Now this strikes me as dumb on a lot of levels. He has no clue who I am, he doesn't know if I'm some crazy guy. For all he knows I'm an axe-murdering psychopath who he just picked a fight with for no good reason. If this were some anonymous email address, it would only be mildly dumb... but let's show why it's REALLY a bad idea in this case.
