Tag: comic

Concerning Mortality & Learning

Posted on February 11, 2025 by Byrd

This blog post builds off a previous blog post (“Humans, Elves and Buggers”), where we discussed the different ways mortality influences how we teach and learn knowledge. I use classic sci-fi/fantasy tropes like humans, elves, and buggers to explain this idea. I use this theory to describe some of the larger influences in the Imbibe Universe. The KRB represents Elves, the Raven Council represents buggers, and I use Titus represents humans.

I’m not sure Titus truly fits the definition of a human. Titus is a parasite, one who consumes others to obtain their knowledge. In a way, Titus is a 4th thing in the “Humans, Buggers and Elves” theory.

Humans (Beasts), ones who die, who learn by continuously passing knowledge on.

Elves (Bots), ones who do not die, who learn knowledge once and know forever.

Buggers (Boos), ones who die, who learn by being born into a pool of knowledge.

Yeerks (Bloodsuckers), ones who do not die, who learn by consuming knowledge.

Concerning Sharing & Birthdays

Posted on January 27, 2025 by Byrd

Happy Birthday, Godson! You and your sisters are thought about daily. I hope you’re having a good birthday and that you’re getting everything you want and that it’s a good experience for you. We love you.

Last week marks the last of the Algorithm Interview content I had to post. But, 2024 was an odd year of growth and discovery. When I started posting this last year of content, I fully intended to illustrate the entire script as a comic. But, then I switched to this illustrated novel, and figured these early comic pages would just sit in the Algorithm Interview section. But the illustrated novel is finished, and I think there’s room for these comic pages to live in the novel. So I’ll be taking those out and inserting them into the printed book. I’m in the process of tidying things up, illustrating a few things here and there, and then it’ll be done, and I can start on the next novel “Post-Apathy”. And that’s very exciting.

I’m also doing a lot of thinking about self publishing. A lot of my career has been a lot of expecting success to just happen, and not taking action on my projects because I felt it wasn’t time, I wasn’t ready, or I didn’t have permission. Like “Oh, I can’t make that movie, I haven’t made my practice movies yet”. Or “I can’t start on that project, I need a budget”.

Comics were both the realization that I can’t wait and it was the answer to getting it done. My thoughts about publishing (self and otherwise) have fallen into the same rut of thoughts, “gotta wait till the world says okay, now it’s your turn”, “gotta wait till someone qualified says you’re good enough”.

But, there’s only a limited amount of time, and unless you’re sharing your thoughts, nobody is going to dig for them.

It makes me think about this poem I read in high school. I tried googling the user and poem, but I couldn’t find it. You can find it if you use the waybackmachine and query for poetrytetto. It was an odd website that existed in the late 90s, early 00s.

here we go
gnormal

all the people make the sparks
with ink and water railing
wailing soft as we can blare
we’re spinning fast and flailing

people decompose with love
everything we make is heat
believing that we might be warm
we burn our skin
and smell the meat

all our paintings, all these poems
photos, songs, and artful groans
tapes and logs, and stapled tomes
smoke that’s cooking our own homes

it’s all we weep, our glowing wake
we heave it when we sigh
all we are is all we make
saline across the sky

warm and red on cold and black
we leave our steaming trails

you and me are comets we
are comets with streaming tails

when you die, no one is going to look at your hard disk.
staple your poems to phone poles, wherever you go.

Concerning Style

Posted on December 2, 2024 by Byrd

It’s funny, I put a bunch of time into creating these model sheets, but my style and ambition changed pretty significantly. It was still good to get these looks out, even though I’m now illustrating in grayscale, and I keep having to ask myself “which shade is Robert’s beard?” and “does Samantha have shorts or stockings?”.
You’ll note that originally, Robert and Patrick were brothers. They are no longer in the series I’m producing now.

Concerning Celestial Horror

Posted on April 23, 2024 by Byrd

In my earlier writing, celestial higher beings were benevolent and kind and all-knowing. The older I get, the more they’ve become alien and unknowable and horrific. Horrific in the sense of never knowing or understanding these higher beings.

Celestial horror for me is a mix of the impossibility of establishing communication (Orson Scott Card’s Descoladores) the cosmic unknowable (H. P. Lovecraft’s Cosmicism), topped with a bureaucracy that is crushing and insurmountable (Douglass Adam’s Hitchhikers Guide).

I’m sure not all of that communicates in these, but I’m working on it. These are the beings that Zenith calls to Earth in This Bitter Earth.

Concerning the Hiring Practices of Absolution Corp

Posted on April 2, 2024 by Byrd

This guide is to be used in interviews for potential testers of Total Virtual Reality (TVR.

Interviewer: Welcome to TVR Debugr Training! We’re glad you’re here. What’s that you ask? How do you know this isn’t a TVR simulation? I’m glad you asked!
QUESTION: Do you believe in god(s)? Y/N?
– If yes: Do you believe in a kind god(s) or malevolent god(s)?
– If no: congratulations! You have been offered conditional employment as a TVR Debugr!
– If kind god(s): why do they allow bad things to happen (Multiple Choice)?
1) Because we need bad things for a believable simulation = REJECT CANDIDATE
2) Because god(s) are testing us = REJECT CANDIDATE
3) Good point, if I were god(s), I would make a better simulation = ACCEPT CANDIATE
– If malevolent gods(s): congratulations! You’ve been offered a position in our live simulation
validation division; where you continuously validate that all bad things happen for verifiable
reasons, thus validating that no bad things happen because of the choice of malevolent god(s),
thus proving this reality is not a simulation.
Interviewer: At Absolution Corp, we continuously validate that our reality is the prime, so you can rest easy, knowing that your work is fulfilling, rewarding and most important of all; REAL!

Concerning First Contact

Posted on March 26, 2024 by Byrd

“The purpose of life is to consume the energy of the Grand Producer. Creatures who learn to cultivate the Grand Producer inherent the Mantle of Domination. We are not here to witness the universe, but to imbibe it.

The Eruenik Race is one such creature. In our vast and expansive travels of space, we are the only creature we have found with such a holy appetite.

But these hairless apes, they do as we do. They cultivate and they dominant. They elevate their imbibement of the Grand Producer to an intelligent level.”

Excerpt from Daily Logs of Absolution Values Agent Pakasha
Aggregated First Contact Logs, Earth

Concerning Minutes

Posted on March 12, 2024 by Byrd

It’s been a minute since I last posted, been focused on prepping for my next series, which is going swimmingly. I spent a week in Oregon rewriting the script and I’ve learned lots of things doing Enter Cedar, I’m really looking forward to 2024. And having all this other content to draw on (the Algorithm Interviews) has allowed me to get ahead of the postings, which eases some stress.

Things are so easy right now that I’m exploring some boiled line animated sequences, maybe one for each chapter. I watched a lot of Science Court and Home Movies growing up.

I dunno, it’s kinda fun, and doesn’t involve a lot of frame-by-frame animation, just a minimum of 3 tracings. And I could probably use the work on the comic itself. This would allow me to work with some music and dialogue, both things I sorely miss working with since moving away from live action and animation.

Concerning Percolation

Posted on September 11, 2023 by Byrd

I have a part-time gardening job. My employer is very proud of her garden, but she still has a hard time appreciating it. For example, it’s being considered as part of a garden tour show, and it’s in the top percentile in terms of quality. She was quite surprised by this assessment by the garden show committee, but admits, she’s a bit too close to provide an impartial opinion of her work.

Frequently, with my own work, I have to immediately walk away from it once it’s been expressed. If I don’t, I’ll think it’s shit. But I’ve found that if I leave it alone for a while, I can provide a more impartial opinion.

So there’s 2 legal pads sitting below my desk with a script called This Bitter Earth written on them.

I wrote this script because I really liked the idea of an orphan boy living on a ferry in the Puget Sound, using the car deck for skate boarding, and spending is free time reading books, drinking tea, and feeding mutated orca whales.

Earth’s sea levels have risen substantially and the dominant life form is mold and fungus. This monoculture of fungus is choking the planet and Zenith spends his days sending signals into deep space, a practice handed down to him from his father. The lore goes that a scientific expedition left the Earth long ago, and that if they can call that scientist back, they can help fix the planet. But, fungus doesn’t want that…

Percolation is also a great method to make coffee.