That's why they have books...

Yesterday I ended up picking up a jumpdrive at Wal-Mart. $30 bucks, no big deal (except that it probably means I won't be getting Revenge of the Sith for a few weeks...grr...), but the REASON is kind of irritating. As I've mentioned, or at least inferred, my wife and I don't live on campus at the U of O (where she goes to school and where I work). In fact, we live so far out that they just started offering DSL in my area a couple months ago (of course I can't afford it now...), so we've been on dial-up as long as we've had phone service (I didn't have a phone in the house when it was just me...I hate phones). Well, for class, Andria needed to download a PowerPoint presentation her professor had put together to study for the mid-term. Funny thing was, no matter how long she sat and waited for it, it never showed any progress. So she asks me to save it to a disk at work (since I'm already on the school's network and can get it from the public drive), to which I reply, "ok".

Not ok. The file was 77 meg!

I don't know about you, but I don't carry around 54 3¼" disks with me, and Hotmail caps their attachments at 10 meg. That's a wee bit shy of of 77.

Well, I got smart, opened up PowerPoint and chopped it up into 9 chunks and tried to email them home (sure, it'd take forever to download all of them, but at least they'd be there). Does that work? NOOOOOOOOOO! The network at school is down. Well, downish. It's not 100% down, but if you're doing ANYTHING that requires more than viewing TEXT, it ain't happening. That means, no emailing.

You know, by the opening of this post how I solved the problem. I don't mind buying techy things. I LIKE technology. Gadgets are my friends! I just don't like being forced to do stuff because people can't be practical about things (like making the stupid presentation a manageable size) or get their crap together (and make the bloody network WORK).

I can't be too mad at the professor, though. She likes Star Wars.

Not too much to ask...

A quick request. If you happen to be driving down the dirt road my house is on, I'd appreciate it ever so much if you'd refrain from stopping to have sex on it. I know how dirt roads can be such a turn on and all, but think of all the wildlife you're mentally scarring. And, if that's too much to ask, could you at least keep your underwear inside your car. I don't want a reminder of the day you kept me from getting to my house in a timely manner every time I drive by your discarded unmentionables.

By the way, whoever you are, I hope you get a disease.

Finished! Freakin' Finally!

This is the finished version of Tuesday the 18th's comic. Also available for viewing where it rightly belongs. Use the calendar on the sidebar to get there.

Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting.

I've finally arrived!

I got the wierdest call today.

You see, secretly...well, to anyone who is a little on the slow side its a secret...I would really like for this to become something that makes money. Like a business. Not that I think we'd ever go pay (not that any subscription services are knocking...so very sad...), but if this could all translate into a paying gig for us, that'd thrill the pants right off me.

So today I got this call. It was from a rep for Sam's Club. Said she'd like to meet with me to discuss getting a business membership for Dim Bulb Comics.

I would've laughed, but it was too stupid for even me.

Sam's Club, you people are idiots. And also, you're too close to Wal-Mart to not be unclean.

Edit: Also...woohoo.

Raw Meat

So...today (Tuesday the 18th)'s Vapor Lock probably looks a bit odd. That's because it's not inked or colored. My wife needed the computer all last night (bad timing) so instead of inking I went out shopping during her Women's Ensemble practice (singing thing) and bought some healthier foods (turns out my cholesterol is 206, which is a bit on the high side...came as a complete shock to me...shouldn't have...most of what I eat is crap...no, not feces...junk food) so as to bring my cholesterol level back to a liveable number. Anyway, I COULD have finished it all, even after that, if she didn't have a large paper to write, but she did, so I didn't. We have a second computer, one that's supposed to keep this from happening, but it apparently decided it didn't want to work and if we didn't like it we could stuff it.

Also, if it comes up, which it should, I included some Demon Hunter Zendariel sketches of my own. I figured, I had some extra time after finishing the pencils, so I'd try to make it up to you for an unfinished strip with some extra doodling. Hope El Chuck doesn't mind me taking a shot at it.

BONUS LEVEL!

Just wanted to let you know (those of you who just chill on Dim Bulb waiting for an update...you should know by now that the page updates at midnight every day we update, except when it doesn't) that tomorrow, in addition to your usual Crooked Halo goodness, I've also added a strip that I've been wanting to do for the last week. It's different. I apologize for it in advance.

Except to Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, who had it coming.

Spasmastic!

Just want to apologize for the quality of this strip. It's better than some I've done, but I feel like I phoned this one in. My hand's been having spasms lately (should've figured after I commented to my wife about how I was finally feeling back to normal) and it affected a lot of what I was capable of doing.

Well, without hurting too much, anyway.

It Was Clever...

It was witty. It was well-written. It was short-lived.

I'm referring to my post all about the book Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. Great book. Well worth the time it took to read. The post, however, got lost somewhere. Not sure how, but it ain't here. Rather annoying. Anyway, the book was good. I like the way he writes. Kind of like hearing a story of something that happened from a good friend. Only the good friend tells stories REALLY well.

This is compared to Douglas Adams, the previous holder of the title "Author I Most Recently 'Discovered' That I Really Enjoyed", who writes like a good friend telling you a story really well even though he's a bit drunk.

I'm going to try and get my hands on American Gods which apparently takes place in the same "world" (though its set on our Earth, it works within the same framework that Anansi Boys) and Anansi is even supposed to be in it. Though I don't know how much.

You should probably pick up something Gaiman has written. It'll be worth the time.

Sheep, and the Counting Thereof

It's no secret that we, here at Dim Bulb Comics, are fans of Count Your Sheep. Cricket's sent in a fan strip and I've had Travis wearing a CYS sweatshirt on a couple occassions. It's a well-written, slick looking strip that taps into that same part of the heart that Calvin & Hobbes did (Adis is probably tired of being compared to Calvin & Hobbes, but that sense of what its like to be a kid is present in both). All in all, I'm glad Ping Teo turned us on to it.

However (why does that word always seem to imply gloom and doom?), Adis is flirting with something I'm not sure the strip can thematically handle. Let me give you the rundown. Things we know for sure are:

1. Ship, the sheep, is Katie's imaginary friend/counting sheep
2. Ship was originally Laurie's imaginary friend/counting sheep (Laurie is Katie's mother)
3. Laurie is a single mother, 27 years old, and Katie's father, Marty, is no longer alive
4. The strip's pallette is in shades of blue or purple depending on whether it takes place in Katie's or Laurie's childhood, respectively
5. Though a number of the strips are bittersweet, the emphasis is more often than not on the sweet.

The problem is that Adis is eventually going to tell the story of how Marty died. It's almost inevitable at this point. He's dropped too many hints and even said he was going to in the accompanying commentary a number of times. He hasn't yet, though, and that's a good thing. You see, from one point, I can see why he would want to tell the story. It seems like a necessary thing, you know, to fill in the blanks between the purple and the blue strips. Unfortunately, since the story essentially focuses on childhood moments with a comical bent, the death of a parent, even if it is one we've never met (at least in memory I don't think Marty's ever been shown, I could be wrong). Eric Burns might call the move "Cerebrus Syndrome", though it seems that Adis has been aiming towards this for a while, so it's hard to say that he'd be changing directions (from funny and light to more serious with more "character development") because he was bored, as in true Cerebrus Syndrome. Still, a shift like this could seriously injure the strip because of the thematic incongruity.

Or it could be a thing of beauty. I'm not saying the strip can't grow. I'm just afraid that the gentle nature of the strip could overshadowed by the heavy material. Either way...I REALLY like CYS (and all the Beatles references lately!), so I'll be following this closely.

What You're Missing

So here's today's comic. I'll leave it up to Cricket to decide if he wants to patiently wait it out and let you see yesterday's comic in the archives.

I'm not sure when this will be worked out, but keep checking back!