Starting over on starting over.

Today I was making the long drive to my other office and the thought of "Just One More" came to mind. When people see Bitmap World, they think of pixels and smilies. Most don't realize that I had/have another comic which I actually draw. Now, I never said I was any good at drawing, but I managed to create some passable art. The strip is about...gasp...a large family. Unlike BMW, it is real-life. It wasn't quite meant to be autobiographical, or even semi auto-biographical. Still, it was going to be an outlet where I did explore some of the real aspects of raising a large family. When I started JOM, I had never done a webcomic. I wrote tons of fiction, so I thought it would be no big deal leaping from one medium to another. I was wrong. First of all, incorporating a story and pictures was not quite as easy as I thought. More importantly, there is a true art to writing a comic strip, particularly in pacing. I did JOM on a pretty erractic schedule, partly because I didn't really have a focus. I had some story elements and things I wanted to explore in the future, but each strip sorta flailed around. I hit certain notes I wanted to, but there was no song coming from the composition.

Bitmap World has been a great thing for me as it has taught me tons about not only comicking, but writing. I have learned to be succinct. I have learned pacing in a new way. I have learned how to force myself to be funny. It was through doing this comic that I realized all the blatant flaws in Just One More. I had every intention of starting the strip over, but expanding on it, giving it more depth, but my foray into Bitmap World made me realize just how much I needed to do. Still, I was ready to do it, and had already done some extensive work on it.

Then came the car ride where I started to think about Bitmap World and Just One More, looking at their likenesses and differences. I realized that one of the things that makes BMW work is that a lot of our life experience is put into there. Write what you know. I then realized that while JOM was never meant to be about my life, by putting more of my life into it, I could really bring it to a level I always felt it deserved.

So, here I am. Ready to reboot a comic, and realizing that I need to reboot it again. Rather, I need to start over again. That means throwing out a lot of what I have. It's both exciting and scary. A part of me still wishes I had a great artist to do the drawing part which would give me time to focus on the story. As it is, I'm embarking on 2 adventures. A revamp of the strip and a change of style and strip structure. I really have no idea how it will turn out, but I'm eager to start and find out.

I don't expect to have something tangible for the next month or so, but I'm working on it. Wish me luck! I'll be sure to post here when I have some rough draft for everyone to peek at.

Current Mood: artistic

Merry Christmas from us to you!

Our Family's 2007 Picks...

Every year as a neat, fun gift, we send our family a list of our Top 10-ish videos from around the web. These are actually picked by all of us, including the kids. It's amazing what is out there on the Internet, and we are always psyched to find a new gem. This list actually contains entries from our 2006 and 2007 compilations. I thought I would post it here so that you could all enjoy it too! Feel free to leave me a comment and let me know how you liked them!

• PIPE DREAM - This is just an amazing piece of animation. The music is great, and we all watch it over and over, enraptured by the concept and the imagery.



• SNOUT - My kids love this one, and this was Becca's pick this year.



• IT'S HARD TO BE A STORMTROOPER - We recent found this and think it is hysterical! Apparently it is so popular that they are making a second one.



• THE M MAN - This is really a quirky movie, but we found it last year and it's one of the kids favorites. Tess and Linus insisted this be added to the 2007 list.



• OUR HOUSE - Monty heard a variation of this song on a commercial last year and kept humming it, so Jim went and found a link to the original video. My kids love this one, especially Raif who knows the choreography and dances to the music when it's on.



• THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE OUT OF STYLE This is neat little movie. The ending may be a tad creepy for little ones, but particularly for us kids of the 80s, it's really funny! This was Emma's pick.



• ROCKFISH - This was my contribution. When I first saw this, I was just floored. It's amazing animation, but the story is just awesome. I hear they are making a full-length movie based on this. No surprise to me.



• TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR - This is such a sweet piece of animation. It's Paige's pick, and she affectionately calls it Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Girl.



• ANDREA ROSE AUDITION - This is a short but cute clip. Apparently the animator used her daughter for the voicework.



• ANDREA ROSE'S CHRISTMAS LIST - Another cute short. Tess wanted these added to the list. It's also our only decidedly holiday mini-movie on the list.



• THE EGG SONG - Chibi cartoon about eggs of all things! Saw this last year and the kids love it. Very cute and catchy, and perfect for little kids (this was Violet's pick).



• OK GO--HERE WE GO AGAIN - The chorography on this is amazing. A thanks to Kate for showing me this one. This is one of Raif's favorite, and the one he wanted added to the list.



• SKIPPY - The story behind this cartoon is that the animator actually knew the little boy and he told her this story (which is supposedly true) and she loved it so much, she had him re-tell it, recorded it, and animated it. My sister is a 2nd grade teacher and she insists that this is how most of the kids in her class actually tell a story!



• TAKE ON ME - Jim's contribution. A great classic video from the 80s, and particularly cool to us comic people.



• HUMAN SPACE INVADERS - This is an incredible video. It's done using stop-motion photography using real people!



• CHAD VADER - Yes, it's got some colorful language, but Chad is hysterical. This year gave us episodes 5-8 and the end of Season One. You don't need to be a Star Wars fan to like this oddball series.



• CODE MONKEY - This is a video that was done using WoW computer graphics. It is an awesome song (runs through my head all the time). There are a couple of cuss-words in the song, but not too bad, but just be warned.

Lost Cat!

In today's strip, the Bitmap World neighborhood kids go out in search of their neighbor's cat. I really had fun putting this "gaggle" of kids in that panel. They are just standing there, but the reader gets a sense of what's happened. Basically the Pixel kids went out to look for the cat, and presumably got all of their friends involved. This was also a neat way to throw in one character who has not been formally introduced yet.

I don't know what it is, but there is great fun in searching for a lost animal. A few months ago, our cat, Waffle, ran away. We were very distraught, and a resulting search of the neighborhood ensued. The funny thing was that when my kids went out to search, the very first thing they did is went to their friends' houses and asked them to join on the expedition. It's true that more eyes are helpful in that type of thing, but I think in this regard it was just more exciting to have a big group looking. Probably safer in this day and age too, but ultimately more fun. Plus, it's less sad dealing with the situation of a lost pet when your friends are around to support you. Incidentally, my kids never did *find* the cat--he ended up coming back home a week later, very distraught. I can only imagine he ended up having an adventure similar to the cat in the comic, though without the kind old lady to care for him.

Anyhow, getting back to the search for run-away animals, this brought to mind a time in my own childhood. I was probably in 4th or 5th grade. I was hanging out with the neighborhood kids when this stray dog wandered in. We had no idea whose dog it was, or where it came from. I don't even think the dog had a collar, so there wasn't even any guarantee it belonged to anyone! Still, without any prompting, we decided to catch the dog. Much like the kids in the comic, we went and enlisted a bunch of our friends. We took off on bikes and foot, trying to corral this pooch. Looking back, we were crazy. We had no idea what we were actually going to do with the dog if we caught him, but it was great fun trying. We ran around for hours, chasing the dog, cornering it, and then cursing as it got away. I'd say we were terrorizing that poor canine, but it seemed to be having great fun, waiting for us to get close before running away. And if we ever lost sight of it, that dog would end up coming to look for us so we would continue the chase.

We never did catch that dog, but we had a blast that afternoon, and it makes for a great memory.

If you haven't read the current storyline, we have been featuring the neighbor's cat, Nyanko (which means kitten in Japanese). It's been a lot of fun utilizing sight gags for these past few comics. I still get a thrill at how expressive thos little smilies can be. If you're wondering what I'm talking about, start at this strip and see for yourself.

Current Mood: nostalgic

It's been a while...

My life has been busy with web-design and stuff, meaning I have sorely neglected this blog. I intend to change that as of now. I have been wanting to put up a few posts, so hopefully over the next week I'll manage to do that. Just a note, I have had a few people tell me that they use Blogger and would love it if I moved this blog there. Well, frankly I like Livejournal, if for nothing else that fact they give you the ability to set up a huge "mood icon" gallery. But, in the interest of making it easier for people to read this, I have created a mirror of this blog on Blogger. So, now whichever system you prefer, you can read Pixel Pushing! Though, that's as far as it goes, everyone. If you use Wordpress or Typepad or whatever else, you'll just have to click-through to Blogger or LJ.

Here's a link to the LJ blog if anyone is interested (if for nothing else but to see the title graphic I put up on there): Pixel-Pushing Livejournal Version.

Current Mood: busy