So, since I'm going to be selling in the Artist Alley at Geek.kon this year, I had to (of course) get some stock in of my books so I'll have something to sell. I wanted to place the order for my existing books as I was completing work on the second Crosarth book, so I decided to split it into two: One order of the three books I knew were fine, and then a second order of Crosarth Book 2 if everything turned out with my proofs.
As it happened, everything went perfectly with book 2, and coincidence caused both orders to actually ship on the same day.
I watched the UPS trackers closely, and for the most part they were neck and neck... until Tuesday night one of them just... stopped moving. The package was listed as being in Indianapolis (only an hour away from me), but stayed static. On Wednesday I received one of the packages, but while UPS insisted I'd get my other package that day, the tracker told a different story.
That night, I opened the tracker again, and found this:
That's right, my package apparently decided to make a detour to Fort Wayne for reasons beyond comprehension. Did it get missed on a truck? Did someone put it in the wrong pile? Were my books actually secret agents determined to infitrate... whatever exists in Fort Wayne?
I don't know.
The happy ending is that my books showed up the next day unharmed, but I will forever look at that tracking data and just shake my head.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 2 ) ]
So today's post is yet another interior look at the HMS Hummingbird from my webcomic The Chronicles of Crosarth. We've previously seen Commander Friday's Quarters and the central hall of the lower deck. Today we look at the Mess/lounge area of the ship.
(For the record, the door on the left in the central hall leads to the door on the right in this image).
The door on the far wall leads to the bunk area, and the cooking area is just behind this point of view. Not much else to say about this particular room - I mean, it's a room. The Hummingbird is a fairly spartan ship.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 4 ) ]
Can we talk about guns now, or should we wait until the next spree shooter? I mean, that's really the question here.
When I was younger, I was firmly pro-gun control. Of course, I was in junior high when one of the High School vice principals in my town was shot by a former student, and I was a senior in high school when the Columbine shooting occurred.
But slowly, over a decade, I softened. I think it has to do with living in Eau Claire for a decade, where even the left wing people are hunters... and a lot own guns for that purpose. I still opposed conceal and carry laws (which, for the record, freak me out), but I began to "understand" arguments for home protection.
The events of the last few weeks, one of which occurred in the same metropolitan area that I grew up in, has caused me to do one thing: revert.
I understand owning a rifle for hunting. I get that. That gun has a purpose. But there is no purpose for a hand gun or an assault rifle other than killing human beings. Both the tragedies Aurora, CO and Oak Creek, WI could not have happened if these weapons were off the street.
And before anyone feeds me one line about how they need to be able to "protect their home," let me remind you statistics show that a weapon you own is more likely to be used against you than anything else. And in both of these shootings, even if someone in the crowd HAD a firearm, they wouldn't have been able to use it to stop the killer -- as they'd risk hitting another innocent bystander.
You don't need a handgun. You don't need an assault rifle. You just don't. There are zero rational reasons to have them in your house, and they enable those who choose to take the path of violence to end far too many lives.
The sticky wicket here, of course, is the Second Amendment. But we observe limitations on every other amendment, why not that one as well? The Second Amendment was written by the same generation that had just fought a war of independence, and firearms were not the efficient killing machines that they are today. It's a different world, and we need restrictions on that which has no other purpose than ending the lives of our fellow citizens.
You can't yell fire in a crowded theater, why the hell should you be allowed to carry a gun into one?
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 9 ) ]
 Last night I rolled back into Lafayette, IN after spending a week on a lake in Northern Wisconsin. While it was nice to go to sleep in my own bed again, I couldn't help but want to be back up on the lake.
Those who know me (or at least have read my blog for an extended period of time) probably have heard me talk about how I go up to the Northwoods of Wisconsin every year with my family. We've been doing it my whole life, my parents originally taking my brother, sister and I to a resort on Lake Thompson near Rhinelander that no longer exists. We went to a place near Three Lakes for a few years until they went Condo, and then returned to Lake Thompson for quite a few more to a resort... which eventually also went condo.
These days both my sister and I drag our spouses along for the ride, but besides the occasional move in cabins, the experience is rather constant.
This year we decided to move to a new place, rather than rent the same cabin we've been at for over the last decade or so. It had gotten too small for our crowd, and frankly (as the resort had gone condo quite some time ago), we were getting the impression the owner wasn't too keen about continued renting. Rather than stay in Rhinelander, we went a little more north up to St. Germain - staying at the same resort my father stayed at when he was a kid.
The actual place we stayed at was a cabin that originally was just a neighboring house to the resort, but the owners had purchased it a while back to expand the grounds. After spending over a decade squeezing a group our size into a cabin far too small, it was actually kind of amazing to be in a place we fit in.
But I digress.
Right now I'm sitting in an office chair back home... and I'd much rather be sitting on the porch looking out at the south bay of Little St. Germain Lake. Sometimes coming back to reality is just no fun.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 1 ) ]
This week I'm on vacation in Northern Wisconsin. My comics The Chronicles of Crosarth and UnCONventional have comics loaded into the buffer, so expect no delay in service there.
Right now though I'm more interested in going out on the lake than updating the site - so I'll just be monitoring it pretty much.
Everyone have a good week.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 1 ) ]
If you ever bother to waste time arguing with someone on the internet (or at least monitoring online "drama" for entertainment value), you've likely heard the term "straw man" bandied about. For those not well versed in the specific terminologies of logical fallacies, the simple explanation of what a "straw man" fallacy is really just where you misrepresent your opponent's opinion to tear it down.
An example would be one where I say something like "Pie is awesome," but your response is "If we only ate pie and nothing else, we'd all get horribly overweight!"
I never said we should only eat pie in my statement. What I said was that Pie is awesome (because it is). But it's hard to argue with that, so by transforming it into "Trae thinks we should eat nothing but pie!" you've created a much easier to defeat opinion. The problem is, of course, that I don't actually think what you're arguing against.
Now straw mans, like many logical fallacies, get used in internet arguments constantly. This particular one gets used so much that people are now using the term as a verb... which just shows a lack of grammatical creativity on their part, but whatever. This prevalence though has led to many people erroneously crying wolf in any argument that they just plain don't understand.
For example, the comic Shortpacked! by the very talented David Willis often does comics which make commentaries on Geek Culture in general. One of the biggest issues being discussed in the last year or so has been that of misogyny in comics, video games and other media. The problem is, frankly, real - and kind of frustrating since it's 2012 and this crap shouldn't be going on still.
I honestly thought most of it was gone, but the sheer idiocy that I've witnessed has proved to me that I was just being naive.
In any case, Mr. Willis will often insert real things he's heard into his comics. If someone says something particularly stupid, he'll put it in some character's mouth and make fun of it. The problem is, the instant he does, some idiot in the comments decides that Willis is constructing a Straw Man.
Here's the thing - he's not.
Willis isn't saying "All geek men are like this" at all. He's not even saying "all people who disagree with me are like this." What he's saying is, "People who say the things this character says are dumb." If you aren't saying these things then, get this, you aren't what he's talking about. If someone actually holds the position that is being ridiculed in the strip, and the point of the strip is to only mock those who hold that particular position, then it's not a straw man.
Worse, by misrepresenting Mr. Willis's stance AS him trying to create a Straw Man, the person making this declaration has themselves constructed a straw man fallacy.
Thus we have achieved the amazing, ever mind boggling Double Straw Man. And you know what? That's just so stupid it's insane.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 1 ) ]
Today we take a look at another interior of the HMS Hummingbird from The Chronicles of Crosarth. This is the central hall that runs through the back half of the ship on the lower deck. The door at the end of the hall leads to Engineering, while the two on either side of it conceal the ladders leading to the upper deck of the ship.
And, for the record, the second door on the right leads to Friday's Quarters.
The door on the left leads to the crew's living space, which is subdivided into the mess and the general bunk room.
Not depicted here, as it's behind the point of view, the hall widens to three doors. The outer two lead to the loading bay (where the hull doors are, and where much of the action in the first half of Chapter Four takes place). The central door opens to the stairs you can clearly see on the Hummingbird's exterior.
So yeah, there you go.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 0 ) ]
Today's random art is a panel from the upcoming July 25th page of The Chronicles of Crosarth. I'll be on vacation that week, so I'm working ahead on comics so I have a decent buffer. I know it's a bit early to do "Random Art" entries for that far ahead, but I figure it's fairly spoiler-free as I've already previewed Friday's new character design which will first appear that week.
I'm particularly happy with the way the lighting turned out in this shot.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 0 ) ]
I've been quiet this week, mostly because I've been lazy, but I have been working on things a little - so I thought I'd share one with you.
The upcoming Chapter Five of The Chronicles of Crosarth is going to largely take place onboard the Hummingbird, so I've been creating various interiors of the craft in preparation. I thought I'd share one of these with you today: Commander Friday's quarters.
The Hummingbird is a small ship, so the only private quarters on board are Friday's (as she's the commanding officer). The rest of the crew sleeps in a general bunk room. The space in the image looks a little bigger than it's meant to, but I was trying to emulate a wide angle lens with this particular portrayal of the room (as it'll only appear in one panel of Chapter Five).
It's an odd blend of scratch built digital items, photography, and drawings - but I think it works.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 2 ) ]
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