They don't make 'em like they used to

Comics: What I Got

I forgot that Fables #58 is drawn by Mike Allred. So even though it's the only thing good that came out this week, it's still well worth a trip to the comic store. And since I hadn't been to the comic store in a few weeks, I also picked up:

Strangers in Paradise #88, The Walking Dead #35, Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil #2, American Virgin #12, Jack of Fables #8, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born #2, and DMZ volume two.

Sundays panel

To prove I actually am drawing The Sundays. Page eight and nine are a double-page spread, and there's a huge panel with a lot of background buildings and stuff that is hurting my head. So for the time being I'm moving on to page ten, which is WAY easier. Just for today, then I'll go back and complete the last one. Anyway, here's the first panel of page ten.

Ricky Gervais talks about the bible

Comics this week.....

Fables #58. That's it. Kind of a crappy week for comics.

Suicide Girl sketch WIP part 2

Here's another hour's worth of progress on this sketch:

A lost LOST sketch

I did this sketch about a year ago in my friend Joel's sketchbook. I just found it on my old Photobucket page, so I'm adding it to the sketches gallery. There's Locke, Mr. Eko, and Charlie from LOST teaming up with Spider-Man.

Warm-up sketch WIP

This is a work-in-progress I started as a warm-up sketch today. I worked on it for an hour before I decided I needed to move on to other things.

The PlayStation4 will plug directly into your ear canal

I know it’s not something you hear or read about every day. A San Francisco, California-based company has debuted the first-ever commercial controller that can process human thoughts. Emotiv Systems, which specializes in brain computer interface technology, said on Wednesday that it has created the first brain computer interface technology that can detect and process both human conscious thoughts and non-conscious emotions.

...

The company said that it will primarily target the electronic games industry, following its announcement on Wednesday with the launch of its Emotiv Development Kit for game developers. The kit will enable games to respond to the players’ emotions and allow players to manipulate objects in the game using the power of their thoughts.

This is an amazing breakthrough, and is wonderful news for disabled people, but this is the exact wrong direction to go in for video game consoles. The direction they need to be going in is that of the Wii. I don't want to put a helmet on my head and sit still for an hour while my brain controls Link. I want to actually be swinging a sword (or a remote control-like approximation of one) or pointing at the screen to simulate a bow shooting arrows. I want to break a sweat killing goblins, dammit.

New Comics Wednesday

I haven't gone to the store yet, but this is what I plan on getting:

The Dark Tower: Gunslinger Born #2, New Universal #4 (shit, I still have only read the first issue), Shazam: Monster Society of Evil #2.

Flight of the Living Dead: The Movie

There is a movie called Flight of the Living Dead coming out soon. Until last week it had a different title.

I have nothing to do with it. It has the same premise as my comic and will be released direct-to-DVD sometime this year. I have been talking to the producers of the movie for the past week, and they are releasing the movie with that title despite my wishes.

Flight of the Living Dead

Page 16 is up. This is the final page of chapter two, and the comic is on hiatus for the next two weeks.

Flight of the Living Dead hiatus

Hard to believe I've been at this for two months now...

Anyway, the final page of chapter two is going up tonight. After that I'll be taking a two week hiatus in order to catch up on my other comic, "The Sundays," and chapter three of FoLD will be starting up March 19. Chapter three, much like chapters one and two, will be eight pages long. Starting with the fourth chapter, they're going to be much longer.

Rachmaninov Had Big Hands

Found in James Randi's latest column.

The Spirit of Troof

My theory is that this guy is the greatest comedic genius of our time.

The Sundays Preview

Also at Intelligent Brian.com but now here as well! The first seven pages of The Sundays #1, written by Kevin L. Sheath. The next two pages are a double-page spread and are coming soon.

Click here or click on the big Sundays button over to the right. -->

Comics coming out this week

Not everything coming out tomorrow, obviously, but the stuff I plan on getting:

American Virgin #12, Jack of Fables #8, and The Walking Dead #35.

Q: How many naked Japanese girls does it take to fill a phone booth?

A: This many.

Google

I just did a Google search on "Flight of the Living Dead," which I do from time to time to see who's linking to me. For the first time, the comic itself is the #1 result. It used to show up on page two or three, behind posts about it on message boards, an interview with Simon Pegg, and some guy saying the movie "Red Eye" should have been called "Flight of the Living Dead."

I wonder how many pages it is before Neil Gaiman shows up? (A joke for Penn Radio fans)

New page of FoLD

Page fifteen.

I have saved one day of my life

By quitting smoking, according to this Quit Counter program. I don't know what they're basing that on... is that the time I used to take every day to smoke?

Anyway, yesterday was the four week mark, and two days from now (according to Quit Counter) is the one month mark. On March 2, I'll have saved $100.

The major thing about Quit Counter I dislike is that it says "My name is Scott, and I am a nicotine addict.
I have stopped nicotine for 29 days, 8 hours, 40 minutes and 3 seconds (29 days)." Seeing "I am a nicotine addict" pisses me off every time. Don't talk for me, computer program. I know how to uninstall.

There's a new page of FoLD going up tonight

And one next week, which is the last page of chapter two. After that, I may take a couple weeks off from FoLD to get more Sundays pages done, and to do some projects that I've committed to but haven't had time to work on.

Some photos of Studio-Like

Studio-Like as a whole
And my specific little corner of it

New nudie girl sketch... for sale!

Hey there. I just did a new sketch from Suicide Girls. This one's of Aiden, and for the first time ever I'm selling art on eBay! Let's see how this works out. If you want to buy it, head to http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320086478502 and take a look.

Also click on the below image to see the sketch bigger.

Flight of the Living Dead announcement

Recently, while re-writing the script for FoLD, I found myself needing more space and lengthened the original idea for sixty pages to ninety-six pages. My plan was to eventually start doing two pages a week in order to have everything finished up by December 31, 2007, but I see now that would be impossible. It's hard enough getting one page a week done, especially while trying to get The Sundays done as well, so I've decided I'm just going to abandon my original plan of ending the comic. Now it'll just be done when it's done. I may end up lengthening it even further from it's current ninety-six page incarnation as well, but I haven't decided yet.

Putting zombies on a plane ended up being a bigger and more involved project than I had originally planned it to be.

Mii

Trailer for The Simpsons, Year Zero

The Simpsons Movie. Looks like it might actually be good, which is surprising.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/thesimpsonsmovie/trailer3_large.html

And for whatever reason, there's a trailer for Year Zero, and it has no music in it. I don't get it, but here it is:

http://yearzero.nin.com/yearzero_hi.html

FoLD print update

Unfortunately, I didn't have enough pages done on time to get the first two chapters of FoLD printed professionally for the New York Comic Con (this weekend). I still want to put together copies of the first two chapters, but they will most likely be Xeroxed copies, and they'll just be for editors, not for people to buy.

For the San Diego Con in July, though, I will have real comics printed up, and I'll have those available to buy.

FoLD page 14

Here it is.

Flight of the Living Dead

There's a new page of FoLD going up tonight at midnight. I mean, that's when it's supposed to come out, but I missed last week's update so I'm just letting you know.

New sketch

I did a brush sketch last night of a Suicide Girl. Click to enlarge.

Oh Don Piano

You don't know me!

Take this test about me! We'll see who knows random facts about my life.


Create your own Friend Quiz here

Suicide Girls

I just joined everyone's favorite home of naked punk girls. After spending a few hours hanging out there, I can't imagine why I didn't get join before. If you, reading this, are a member, why not visit my page and add me to your friends.

How could I forget this one?

This is the first eels song I ever heard. Now I can't get enough of them. This isn't my favorite song of theirs (that would be "Last Stop: This Town" from Electro-Shock Blues), but that video's kind of lame and this one rules.



eels - Novocaine for the Soul

I lied, one more video

This one's so great. Made up entirely of clips from El Santo films.



Danger Doom - The Mask (feat. Ghostface Killah)

One last music video

Finally, my favorite White Stripes song, and my favorite video of theirs coincidentally enough.



The White Stripes - My Doorbell

Another great music video

This is the song that turned me into a Radiohead fan, and to this day it remains my favorite Radiohead song. It's also got a great video, and it has some of my favorite Radiohead lyrics. The last verse is simply Thom Yorke singing "Phew, for a minute there, I lost myself" over and over. It's almost as good as "I don't know why I feel so tongue-tied, I don't know why I feel so skinned alive."

Best verse:
Karma Police, arrest this man, he talks in maths
He buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio
Karma Police, arrest this girl, her Hitler hairdo
Is making me feel ill, and we have crashed her party


Radiohead - Karma Police

Second best music video of all time

This one's by Belle and Sebastian, one of my favorite bands. Unlike the Leonard Nimoy one, I love this one in a completely unironic way. The lyrics are great and I love the artwork they used in the video.

I'll make a rough plan to sleep around, I'm in a rut
I need a change, I'm a lazy rat, if I am honest
But my bold change of tact will fade out with the summer
I've got no appetite and all the girls are bummers

I love it.



Belle and Sebastian - Your Cover's Blown

The best music video of all time

Leonard Nimoy - The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins

I beat Final Fantasy III for Nintendo DS

Started playing in November '06.
Final time: 42 hours, 30 minutes.
Final level: 68/69
Final party:
- Luneth: Ninja (job level 42)
- Arc: Magus (job level 32)
- Refia: Sage (job level 31)
- Ingus: Dragoon (job level 75)

This is the eighth Final Fantasy game I've beaten, along with I, II, IV, VII, IX, X, and XII.

I love PennRadio

I listen to Penn Jillette's podcasts regularly, although I haven't listened to any of his shows this week for one reason or another. Just now I went to iTunes to get the new episodes and I see two episode synopses that blow my mind:

Joe Rogan debating the "moon landing hoax" with Phil Plait

And an hour with James Randi discussing phony psychics.

And although I haven't listened to them yet, I am literally giddy with excitement now that I've seen the episode titles.

I am such a nerd.

An addictive game for fast typists

QWERTY Warriors

I go 30,000 points on "impossible."

Kubert School being demolished

FoLD Characters

When writing the script for Flight of the Living Dead, I came up with nine main characters that the story would center around. I just realized that with the new page that went up this week, we've seen every one of the nine characters that will shape the story over the next eleven months. I will not tell you who they are, but I will tell you their names:

Kat, Mandy, Geanna, Matheson, Peter, Chloé, Ed, Marie, and George.

June is the second flight attendant we've met. She was not in my original cast of characters but she has become a major character in the script that I've been writing for the story. So you can count her as the tenth main character.

Français

It has been brought to my attention that the French spoken by a new FoLD character on page 13 (who will have a little more prominence in pages to come) is complete gobbledegook.

This is what I get for trusting Babelfish.

I'm going to correct it for the print version of that page, and try to figure out a different way of translating English into French for future scenes involving that character.

Flight of the Living Dead

Page thirteen!

Holy shit! New Nine Inch Nails album!

Did anyone tell Trent it's only been two years since the last one?

Album five: Halo 24: Year Zero.

April 17, according to NIN's MySpace page.

Flight of the Living Dead cameos

On the left is Killer Rian Miller, and on the right is Chris Yezek.

Flight of the Living Dead

Page 13 shouldn't be too late this week, but it will be late. I'm not going to be able to finish this page before midnight.

FoLd

I wrote some more of the script tonight. A lot more, in fact. I'm up to page forty now.

Sam Jackson shows up on page twenty-three, and the snakes on page thirty.

A thought concerning FoLD

Flight of the Living Dead may not end up being sixty pages, after all.

Right now I'm thinking more like ninety-six.

I'll let you know how it's going to work.

I just beat Final Fantasy XII

I started playing a day less than three months ago, on October 31. My final time was 92 hours, and my characters were at level 69/70. I completed the license boards for Balthier, Fran, and Ashe. I killed every Mark except for Ixion, Shadowseer, Fafnir, Behemoth King, and Yiazmat. I did not get the Zodiac Spear.

This makes the seventh Final Fantasy game I've beaten, along with I, II, IV, VII, IX, and X.

Flight of the Living Dead in print

I've decided for the New York Comic-Con I'm going to have a preview issue of Flight of the Living Dead printed up, so I can hand them out to publishers and other creators.

I'll also have them available to anyone who wants one, for around 2 bucks or so. Within the next couple weeks I'll have info for anyone who wants to buy a copy.

I'm having them professionally printed, so they'll be good quality, but it's going to be a pretty low print-run (I'm thinking 50-100 copies), and it'll have the first sixteen pages of the comic. I'm also thinking I'll do a second issue with the next sixteen pages for the San Diego con in July.

I'll also... probably... do a new cover for it. I shall keep you abreast of any new developments.

Flight of the Living Dead

Page twelve is up.

FoLD cover

Well, I was already considering redoing the cover of Flight of the Living Dead for when it gets published, since a lot of people told me it's not as good as the interior artwork. Now I'm certain that I will:

The Sundays link

I forgot that the Sundays link over there --> doesn't work just yet. It's going to be a preview of the first few pages of the first issue, but I haven't put the preview together yet. If you want to read them anyway, go to http://www.intelligentbrian.com/sundays.htm.

Finished the new layout

Everything should be switched over and working now. If something is broken, please let me know.

Restaurant group offended by commercial.

A restaurant trade group says it is insulted by a Super Bowl ad that stars Kevin Federline as a fast-food worker.

Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.'s spot shows K-Fed, Britney Spears' ex, performing in a flashy music video. It turns out he's daydreaming while cooking fries at a fast-food joint.

The ad amounts to a "strong and direct insult to the 12.8 million Americans who work in the restaurant industry," National Restaurant Association President and Chief Executive Steven Anderson wrote in a letter to Nationwide. The ad "would give the impression that working in a restaurant is demeaning and unpleasant."

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

Flight of the Living Dead

Page eleven.

Page twelve goes up in about thirty-six hours.

FoLD: Two pages this week

Page 11 is going up tomorrow (Sunday) and page 12 is going up on Monday.

I promise.

FoLD Merchandise?

The idea was brought up to me a few days ago of making Flight of the Living Dead t-shirts. I'm just wondering if it's worth my time to put something like that together. If you'd be interested in buying one, you can reply to this message by clicking on "comments" underneath this (if you're a Blogger member) or just email me at ewen.scott@gmail.com. Or email me ideas of things you might like instead of t-shirts, and if I get enough replies, I'll see what I can do.

More of me in Old Bones

Two more pages of my cameo appearance in OLD BONES, art by Killer Rian Miller. On page 11 I appear to be checking out Joanie's ass. Click to enlarge.

FoLD

I'm almost done with this page, but one reason I've been dragging my feet on this is because it kind of sucks. I'd rather put up a page late than have one I'm not happy with, so I've completely re-written the page and the next few pages, and I'm going to redo this. Hopefully I can get it done soon, but it might be another couple of days.

I'm confused

The pageviews on my website shot up over the weekend. Sunday I had more hits in one day than I get most weeks. And I didn't put up anything new. What is going on here?

In other news, the new Shins album is pretty good. I like "Oh Inverted World" and "Chutes Too Narrow" more at this point, but it could just be because I'm more familiar with them. I'll decide how "Wincing the Night Away" stacks up with more listens.

FoLD

Well, it looks like the new page will be going up tomorrow. I had to work today and didn't have time to finish it before the midnight deadline. I'm still working on it right now, but it won't be done in time to get on Serializer for tomorrow, and I need to get some food right now.

I've also spent much of the last couple hours in an Internet argument about PETA. Which sounds dumb, but it's how I spend my time.

FoLD

Still working on the new page. It'll be a little late.

Web Sight

Okay, the main page is done, pretty much. I'll start moving the other pages over to the new layout soon, but right now I gotsta sleep.

Web Site Redesign

I'm going to start switching stuff over to the new layout. Things here might look screwy for the next couple hours.

More of me in Old Bones

Rian Miller has drawn me into "Old Bones" as a supporting character. Click to see the whole page. From Rian:

"It would appear that your job in the book, as well as in real life, is to make funny faces. You can also find Steve, Von Hook, Joanie, Yezek, and Joel on this page. "

Rian has also done this week's Intelligent Brian strips, and done a fine job at that. Go check 'em out.

Old Bones starring Scott Ewen

Here's the final inks for my cameo appearance in Old Bones #1, art by Killer Rian Miller. Also appearing are Steve McBride (far right) and one of my roommmates, Joanie. Click to enlarge.

Flight of the Living Dead

Page ten is up.

New FoLD page going up tonight

This one, much like the last one, features a zombie, and a flight attendant. There may be blood as well. Expect it around midnight or so.

Working on a new layout for the site as well. Hopefully it's prettier and more user-friendly. Should be finished with it in a few days.

I'm totally radical.

My political leanings, at least, according to a quiz on the Internet, which as we all know are always right. I attribute the extreme-ness of the result to my picking "strongly agree" or "strongly disagree" for pretty much everything. I've got no time for shades of gray.

Links

Here are places I visit every day, or at least once a week:

It's the Cat's Ass Forum (private board, no link)
Angry Naked Pat Forum
Flight Comics Forum
PencilJack
Digital Webbing Forum
Serializer
Penny Arcade
Penn Fans
James Randi Educational Foundation
Warren Ellis
Homestar Runner Wiki
The Phoenix Project
deviantART
MySpace

In no particular order. I also tend to spend way more time than I should reading Wikipedia.

FoLD

Still working on page ten. A couple weeks ago I started re-reading all the Harry Potter novels in order to get ready for book seven. The first two books are good, but I'm able to put them down and get on with my life when I need to. I started reading Prisoner of Askaban yesterday, though, and... man, I'd forgotten how great this one really is. I'm about halfway through it now, and even though I've read it already, I can't seem to put it down. I really need to, though, and get back upstairs to the studio.

This comic is hilarious

Dinosaur Comics

Flight of the Living Dead has joined MySpace

You can be a friend of a webcomic.

http://www.myspace.com/flightofthelivingdead

Serializer is officially caught up

Serializer.net, which also is running FoLD, is now caught up with the comic here. For the past week, it's been one or two pages behind, but now they're all there.

FoLD pg. 9 reference

Click to make big.

I'm in a comic book

Rian Miller has drawn me into the comic book he's working on. Click for a larger version:

Flight of the Living Dead Hour Two

Hour two begins. Next page goes up next Monday.

Flight of the Living Dead

Page nine is about halfway done. Going up tonight.

Flight of the Living Dead

Page eight

Comic Book Recommendation of the Week

THE SPIRIT #1
By Darwyn Cooke

I have to admit up front that I've never read a single issue of Will Eisner's original run of The Spirit. It's something I've always meant to get around to and just never did. But my love of Darwyn Cooke's art and detective stories meant picking up the new Spirit #1 an easy decision. I know this comic came out, like, a month ago, but I haven't been to the comic store in a while so it's new to me. It's a great set-up to the character and premise, and tells an entire story in one 22-page issue, something that's pretty rare nowadays.

Also picked up:
All-Star Superman #6: Fantastic. I've never been a fan of Superman, but Morrison and Quitely make me care about him, even while using characters from the forgettable "DC One Million" crossover from six or seven years ago to tell a touching personal story about Clark's last minutes with his adopted father.
American Virgin #9 & 10: I'm liking this comic even more the further it goes. Becky Cloonan only did a few pages of art for #10, though, which is kind of disappointing. Not that the fill-in artist didn't do a great job, but I love Cloonan's art.
Astonishing X-Men #19: Faaaaaaaaaaaaaantastic.
Ex Machina #25: Great, as always. This issue focuses on Bradbury, and I was surprised to realize that we never really knew that much about Bradbury's life before the events of Ex Machina #1.
Fables #56: Fuck, this comic is so goddamn good. A stand-alone Christmas story dealing with Santa Claus visiting Fabletown that manages to set up events to come in the war against the Adversary, while rewarding readers who picked up the recent 1001 Nights of Snowfall hardcover with details that people who didn't read it won't necessarily get.
Nextwave #11: This issue blew me away with its string of double-page splashes. Love it. I understand Immonen won't be drawing it anymore after issue #12, which makes me very sad.
New Universal #2: Haven't read it yet, actually. I liked the first issue, although I don't really like Salvador Laroca's art. I do like that he obviously drew one of the characters to be Sawyer from Lost, though.
The Vault of Michael Allred #3 of 4: Self-explanatory for those who know me. I can't pass up anything with Mike Allred's name on it, unless of course it's about the Book of Mormon.

True Loves 2

I saw this comic on Serializer.net and I like it a lot.

http://www.serializer.net/comics/trueloves.php

Re: Serializer again

The Serializer page looks the way I want it to now, and I think we've gotten the update situation sorted out. The pages are going up one per day, so by next week it should be caught up with this page. Page four went up today at Serializer, and page seven went up early this morning here.

As far as new pages go, page eight is going up tomorrow, and page nine is going up on Monday. From that point forward, it's one page per week, always on Monday. Page nine probably won't be done in inkwash, although I'm not sure yet which medium I want to do it in. I know eventually I want to do a chapter in color (probably chapter four), and I want to do a chapter with a dip pen, since I use a brush for almost everything, and a chapter using only my Wacom tablet. But I don't know yet what chapter two is going to look like.

FoLD

Page seven is up.

The Sundays

It occurs to me that I've been getting a lot more visitors to this site recently because of Flight of the Living Dead, so maybe I should post these pages again for those that may not have seen them. Flight of the Living Dead is a "spare-time" sort of project, something I'm doing when I'm not working on my main project, which is a comic book called "The Sundays." It's written by Kevin L. Sheath and I'm handling the penciling, inking, and lettering. We don't have a publisher yet, but I do have the first seven pages for you to read.

Serializer

Okay, upon closer inspection, not all the comics at Serializer.net require a subscription. Flight of the Living Dead is free there, and will remain free here as well. Still trying to get the layout of the site to match the way it looks here, and for some reason only the first three pages are up there. Hopefully pages four through six will appear soon, but you can always read them here.

FoLD

Page seven is going up tonight.

Regarding Serializer.net

While setting up my Serializer page, I just realized that this is a pay site. You can read new strips, but only subscribers can read the archives. I feel kind of bad about making people pay to read my silly zombie comic, so I think I'm going to keep the comic going on this site as well, for people to read for free. So... if you want to pay $3 a month to read Flight of the Living Dead, you certainly have that option. But you don't have to.

FoLD at Serializer.net

I've been invited to host Flight of the Living Dead at Serializer.net, an online anthology of webcomics. Right now it's basically a mirror site for the comic (meaning it's exactly the same as what you get right here), but eventually I may just make that the main page for FoLD. Here's the URL, although the layout's not exact yet and only the first two pages are up so far, although I've uploaded pages four through six and they should be up soon.

http://www.serializer.net/comics//fold.php

FoLD

Page six is up.

This is awful

Why should skeptics go after psychics, and faith healers, and alternative medicine practitioners? What does it matter if what they do is real or not, as long as they are giving sick people hope, and making people happy, who are they hurting? Here's the answer:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1981151,00.html

"His children, Bryan, Justin, Olivia and Christian, have issued a lawsuit for wrongful death against Mrs Bishop because they claim she persuaded Perry to stop chemotherapy and rely instead on God's healing. "

That sentence makes me angrier than I can put into words.

Blurb about FoLD at Newsarama

I just saw a blurb about Flight of the Living Dead at blog.newsarama.com :

"Scott Ewen has launched a webcomic, Flight of the Living Dead. I really like the art, and you can probably guess from the title and cover image what it’s about. It’s set to update each Monday."

And also a blurb at poormojo.org :

"Beautifully drawn webcomic that seems like it'll be about a zombie outbreak on a plane."

P.S. Sixth page is going up tonight

FoLD

Page five is up

FoLD

About Flight of the Living Dead pages 5-8, I was hanging out with friends last night for New Year's, got a little drunk, and didn't finish the pages for the first update, then passed out until 4 o'clock this afternoon (oops). I am sitting at my desk right now though, finishing them up, and I will have them up soon. Page five will definitely be up tonight, six through eight soon after. Next week the comic will be back on track.

Website daily report for December

Here's a chart showing the number of hits I've been getting on this website every day over the past few weeks. On the right is the oldest date, and on the left is December 31, the day Flight of the Living Dead started. I average about 200-300 hits a day here, and yesterday there were over 3,000 hits.

Holy shit.