Tag: webcomic

Concerning the Wiki and Happy Birthday, Ophelia

Posted on September 12, 2025 by Byrd

Happy Birthday, Ophelia! I hope today was joyous as well as placid 🙂

Today I finished the last panels for the second chapter of my new book, Apathy. It took entirely too long to make this chapter. I have 7 episodes outlined for illustration (this was originally supposed to be a live action television show), which will be interspersed with narrative chapters.

And at this rate, I won’t be done for years.

So, I need to really nail down exactly what I want to illustrate and balance that with what needs to be illustrated from each chapter. If I want this done by end-of-year, and I can do 3 pages a week, that’s 48 pages. Divided by 7, that allows me 6 pages per illustrated episode.

Time to get focused. I think choosing only things I want to illustrate will increase my enthusiasm, leaving the stuff I don’t really want to illustrate to be narrative.

Concerning Writing Things Because They Sound Cool

Posted on June 30, 2025 by Byrd

I’m having to do some retroactive…development.

I thought I had the gods pretty well thought out for Enter Cedar, but I’m finding that there are some nuances I didn’t quite flesh out. And that’s becoming problematic, as the story I’m writing now is having more interactions with the gods.

And sometimes, I use words because they sound cool…like, what did I mean by the “Original Phantasms”? Now I’m having to justify it…It’s annoying.

Look, you can even buy it as a sticker…

The series has also reached a point where I’m writing a new thing and I think to myself “oh, shit, what did they say in that scene”, and I’m having to reread parts, or reference something. And I don’t have a great setup to reference things. Do I need a wiki?

I might enjoy writing weekly wiki articles more than writing blog posts.

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 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.

Concerning Humans, Elves and Buggers

Posted on September 6, 2023 by Byrd

So, I’m done illustrating Enter Cedar. There’s still an epilogue to sketch and ink, but I think I’ll wait to finish those 15ish pages before posting. So it might be a minute before I add new content to the comic on this website.

In the mean time, here’s a concept I’ve toyed around with, that I think applies to some of the “big picture movers” of the upcoming series. I call it “Humans, Elves and Buggers”. Or, the Imbibe version would be, “Beasts, Bots and Boos”.

Humans (or “Beasts”) are beings with finite lives. They must procreate to proceed forward in time and they must teach knowledge to subsequent generations. Titus Waiting is not entirely human, but he is a parasitic being who needs hosts to live. This, combined with his reliance on human culture to build his technology, makes him pretty human.

Elves (or “Bots”) have infinite life (think Lord of the Rings). While they still procreate, they don’t do it to further the species. However, elves still need to be taught knowledge. But because they live forever; once learned, forever kept. The KBR is an infinitely living robot who definitely has no urge to procreate, but continuously learns through this knowledge retention programing.

Buggers (or “Boos”) like humans, have finite lives and must procreate to continue their species through time (think Formic Queens from Ender’s Game). But because they have a hive mind and collective knowledge, they don’t teach or pass down knowledge, they just know everything. Cedarface is part of the spiritual hivemind. While his mothers may not procreate, Cedarface was made. It is quite possible that Cedarface’s golem nature may make him mortal. I haven’t figure that one out yet.

I’m not sure if these 3 characters perfectly resemble these 3 definitions. It could be argued that Cedarface, the KBR and Titus Waiting all have infinite live and don’t spend time procreating, which makes them all Bots, which makes the Imbibe Universe a story of Bots vs Beasts, with no Boos present. But it could be argued that Cedarface’s mothers are Boos, because while they live forever in human minds, they are ultimately reliant on the mortality of those human lives. Cedarface’s mothers must cultivate belief of themselves within humans to continue existing