Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Comic Announcements!

Hello everyone, this is Leigh. I usually let Jason do all the blog posting, but I have a couple of things I wanted to mention.


Some of you have probably noticed that the page dimensions for updates have changed. This is part of the website redesign we’ve been talking about. In the upcoming months we’ll be making changes to the website design as well, all hopefully for the best. We’ll keep the updates coming as they are for the next several weeks but our plan is that beginning November 1st we will be returning to our original Tuesday/Thursday update schedule.

That’s right, two updates of Wayfarer’s Moon each week! As Jason has mentioned in earlier posts we will also be adding a second set of stories in the Wayfarer’s Moon Universe. These stories will be featuring various artists and we hope you’ll like them. In order to run more than one storyline and not create huge amounts of confusion we will be making changes to the website itself.


In addition to these other announcements, I have to admit that I have been negligent. I never mentioned that Shon Burke has been helping us out by inking several pages for us, specifically Wayfarer's Moon pages 154-156, 157 and also 160-162. He’s a talented inker and we’ve been lucky to work with him. You can see more of his work here http://barquiel.deviantart.com/ where he also has links to purchase some of the original inks he did for us. I’ll also be putting links up for that this week in the links section.


We expect to be working more with Shon on some of the upcoming stories we mentioned as well as future projects that we hope to be able to tell you about soon!


Thanks Shon!

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Assassinate Your Cavities: Part 2

We take two of the most feared creatures in the universe and then combine them into a force for good. Like the old saying goes, two wrongs make a right. Or is it don’t make a right? I forget. This may explain why my brother was so upset when I lost one of his Matchbox cars and then hit him to make up for it.

Moving on.

Combining ninjas and dentists would give us an unstoppable, nigh-invincible, and above all, stealthy method of eradicating our cavities.

Think about it. You’re at home, eating dinner, when suddenly the world goes black. You wake up two hours later and discover that you were face down in your spaghetti. After staggering to the bathroom to wash the marinara off your face, you realize that your teeth have that ‘just scraped by a metal object feeling’ and that there appears to be a new filling in your #21 molar. The bill taped to your shirt confirms it. You were just visited by a ninja dentist, who knocked you out, drilled and filled a cavity, and then billed your insurance (the cleaning was done by a ninja hygienist).

NOTE: I decided to look it up dental numbering. I was close. According to the FDI World Dental Federation Notation, molars are labeled 18, 17, 16, 26, 27, 28, 48, 47, 46, 36, 37 & 38. I also learned that there are multiple ways of numbering teeth. Also, the World Dental Federation sounds like a league where dentists wrestle each other and have names like ‘The Masticator.’

It would be perfect. You’d never have to worry about scheduling checkups, as your checkup would come to you. And you’d never have to be worried about the pain or inconvenience, as you’d be unconscious via subtle pressure point manipulation or a good old-fashioned bludgeoning.

Once people get accustomed to ninja dentists, the demand will go through the roof. Now I just have to get the funds for my Ninja College of Dentistry and Assassination.

Cheers,
-Jason

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Assassinate Your Cavities: Part 1

I just had the best idea ever. Even better than the last one ‘best’ one about constructing humungous diapers to put on giant monsters. Admittedly, I still don’t know how you’d get Godzilla to stand still long enough.

Like I said, this one is better, which would make it ‘bester.’ ‘Besterest?’ ‘Gibesterest?’

I’ll stop now.

Quick! What are the two most terrifying things on the face of the planet?

No, not clowns, though that’s a good guess.

I’ll give you a hint: the first one sneaks into your bedroom at night with malicious intent. That’s right: chickens. They wait for you to fall asleep, and then creep in on clawed feet, nothing but hatred in their tiny, tiny brains. They climb onto your bed, nestle down, and they prepare to lay an egg of doom upon you!

Whoops, sorry. The correct answer is ‘ninjas.’ Ninjas sneak into your bedroom, turn off your alarm, put knots in your shoelaces, and rearrange your underwear drawer. That way, you get up late, you can’t find a clean pair of underwear, and then have to spend precious seconds sorting your laces out. Oh, and they murder you, which kinda makes the previous points moot. So yeah, ninjas are the first most terrifying thing in the world.

The second is: chi- No, nope. Not going to go there again. The answer is: dentists.

Everyone fears the dentist.

NOTE: I apologize to any dentists who might be reading this. I know you perform a valuable service and that oral hygiene is a vital part of staying a healthy, productive member of society. It’s just all the, y’know, PAIN.

Now I shan’t bore you with all the reasons everyone fears the dentist, which are numerous and well documented. What you really want to know is: why am I telling you all this?

Simple. What if we combined the two?

Tomorrow: Part 2

Thursday, August 19, 2010

FRIDAY!

And yes, I'm continuing the 'ALL CAPS' theme this week. Next week, maybe I'll try something else, like fish references.

"CARP!"

Then again, maybe not.

It's been yet another busy week at Single Edge Studios. Comics were written. Pages were penciled. Bodies were . . . nothing. Absolutely nothing was done with a body or bodies. Seriously. There are no bodies anywhere in our vicinity. At least, not anymore.

So, how about that local sports team?

At any rate, please have a fun and safe weekend. We will be back with our regularly scheduled updates and blogs.

Cheers,
-Jason

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

REVENGE!

If you have not noticed, the theme for the week is apparently titles in all-caps. I didn't plan it that way, but there you go.

Anyway.

Some of you may remember a short film called 'The Red Balloon.' It was a very . . . French. In it, a young boy is friends with a sentient red balloon that follows him everywhere. For reasons unknown, other boys want to kill the balloon and the entire movie revolves around them chasing the boy and his balloon and (SPOILER ALERT) eventually managing to pop the balloon. However, other balloons from all over the city then band together, swarm the naughty boys, lift them high into the air, and then let them fall to their deaths.

I wish.

NOTE: The balloon's death is very dramatic. It gets hit with a rock, which causes a slow leak. It then drifts slowly down, despite its best efforts to float back up. Once on the ground, the bad boys then stomp on it. I'm not kidding.

In actuality, the other balloons lift the good boy up and take him flying across the city. Now, my school system owned a copy of this movie, so I saw it roughly a thousand times as I went through elementary school. I assume it was supposed to teach us about the strength of friendship or something, but being a ten-year-old boy, I was much more interested in the strength of napalm and hand-grenades.

And yet, I have always remembered the movie. It seems that other people remember it as well, as Leigh sent me this funny video of revenge most red.

I give you: Revenge of the Red Balloon:


I especially liked the bit with the Easy Cheese.

Cheers,
-Jason

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

LOKI!!!

You may not be aware of this, but the Pacific Northwest is undergoing a terrible heat wave. Stores are sold out of fans and air conditioners. Ice cream shops are running out of product. Participation in wet t-shirt contests has quintupled, simply for the opportunity to get splashed with cold water.

In fact, last weekend it almost reached 90 degrees Fahrenheit, which is something like 4(!*x(spoon)) in Celsius.

NOTE: Yes, I could have looked up the actual conversion. Yes, I am that lazy.

In the past, I’ve blamed these heat waves on Canadians, penguins, and a variety of starch-based foodstuffs, but I’ve discovered the true culprit: the Norse God of Mischief, Loki.

You see, Loki is using his nefarious powers to subtly alter the delicate geothermal balance between the tectonic plates via pinpoint manipulation of solar flares, which are caused by an inordinate consumption of beans and other legumes by our sun, therefore minutely . . . ummm . . . discombobulating something science-y or . . . yeah.

Fine. You got me. I pretty much decided to just blame Loki for everything. I was at work the other day and after yet another computer crash, I shook my fist in the air and shouted (albeit quietly) “Damn you, Loki!”

It felt good.

So the next time something went wrong, I did it again. “Curse you, Loki! Spawn of Fárbauti and Laufey!” I exclaimed, after dropping my notebook. I felt better, though I did scare the crap out of most of coworkers, seeing as we were in a company meeting when I did it.

Despite a short, pretty much one-sided conversation with my boss, wherein it was suggested that I not do that anymore, I have not given up cursing Loki. In fact, I made a small sign that says ‘Damn you, Loki!!!!’ just for those occasions when a more exuberant display would be frowned upon, such as weddings.

Now, I realize that Loki is probably not actively working to make my life difficult. It’s just that ‘Loki’ is such a shoutable name, second only to ‘Khan!’ for the sheer exuberance you can put into it. And, honestly, it’s rather nice to have someone to blame for all of life’s petty annoyances. So, the next time your computer goes down, your car won’t start, or a giant, ravenous wolf tries to eat the sun, just shout ‘LOKI!’ and you’ll feel much better.

Cheers,
-Jason

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Thursday!

Welp, it's Thursday again, which means that tomorrow will be Friday, followed rapidly by Saturday and Sunday. This is (I would expect) not news to any of you, but you can never know.

It has been a busy week here at Singe Edge Studios. And yes, our company is actually called Single Edge Studios. Wayfarer's Moon is but the first of what we hope will be many more comic-based products.

Though, truth be told, Wayfarer's Moon was not our first idea. We were originally going to have a strip called 'Panda on an Iceberg' which would feature the titular panda sitting on an iceberg, musing about the works of great philosophers. In binary.

NOTE: Panda's being black and white are rather binary, being either 'on' or 'off.' Well, it was either a panda or a zebra. We went with cute and fuzzy.

Let's just say it tested poorly.

And so, you got Wayfarer's Moon. And soon, though no date has been decided, you'll be getting Wayfarer's Moon: Tales. And even more not soon, there will be a new, mystery strip. Only six people in the world know about it (well, maybe thirty or forty), but they're not talking on pain of . . . something. It's never been established.

So, enjoy your weekend. We'll be back next week with the usual blogs and updates.

Cheers,
-Jason

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Murder Most Delicious

My mother came for a visit last weekend. As my longtime readers will know, my mother is a woman of impeccable charm, style, and wit, who also tends to forget who I am, generally when she’s holding a shotgun.

Now, my mother didn’t actually tell me she was coming. I just got an email with her flight details and a note to pick her up ‘or else.’ Obviously, I did. I may not fear ninjas or Cat-Men from Pluto, but yeah, I don’t mess with my mom.

I took the day off from work and spent the morning furiously cleaning my apartment. I even cleaned the fridge. Yes, I actually took the shelves out of the fridge (not hard, as there was nothing in there), and went at its innards with a sponge. I didn’t just dust things, I picked them up and dusted underneath them. If it was fuzzy, I vacuumed it. If it wasn’t fuzzy I wiped it with a sponge. If it moved, I caught it, buffed it to a mirror shine, and then let it go, which resulted in a couple very confused spiders. And then, when I was done, I cleaned the sponge and the vacuum. My place was so clean it hurt to look at it.

Later that day, I picked my mother up.

I knew something was up when she hugged me and called me ‘honey.’ We chatted amiably the whole way home and then went out and had teriyaki. Afterwards, we got ice-cream, and then picked up some snacks for later. The next morning, we went out for breakfast, then lunch, had a snack of hot pretzels, then went to dinner, and had more ice-cream afterwards. This continued throughout her whole visit. It was a gastronomical Mt. Everest and we were all out of Sherpas.

NOTE: Yeah, that didn’t make much sense. I was originally going to do a Sherpa/Sherbert joke, but that one was even less coherent.

It was around lunch on the first day that I figured it out. My mother’s a devious one: she was trying to murder me with food. Yes, be it through cholesterol, high-blood pressure, or gall stones, she was trying to do me in. It all fit.

Granted, it’s an improbably long, convoluted, labyrinthine (took three tries to spell that one right) way to go about killing someone, but who would suspect? Even if she was questioned, all she had to do was say ‘but I’m his mother! I just wanted him to make sure he was eating!’ Who would argue with that?

So I was determined to outfox her. Whenever her back was turned, I would exercise. At home, I took some weights into my bedroom and did a couple dozen reps every hour. I did wind sprints in my hall. When we ate out, I would excuse myself, go to the restroom, and do a bunch of sit-ups and push-ups. Trust me, you don’t want to touch the floor in a men’s room, but I did. My very survival depended on it.

And after three days, my mom left and I could claim victory. Despite all the eating, I’d actually lost three pounds.

Unless, it was all some sort of weird scheme to get me to exercise more. In which case, I lost, but I’m not sure how. She could be trying to get me in shape to harvest my organs. Or maybe she’s planning on moving and wants me in top shape so I don’t drop her credenza. I’ll definitely have to think about this one more.

Then again, she might have just wanted to see me and make sure I was eating right.

Nah.

Cheers,
-Jason

Friday, August 6, 2010

Cat-Men from Pluto

It’s been a busy week here at Single Edge Studios. I apologize about the lack of blogs, but I was away from my computer. You see, I was in space.

It all started on Monday morning. I got an excited call from Leigh, who said the government wanted to see us. Assuming it was about the whole ‘crossing state lines to fight vampires’ thing, we quickly prepared to make a run for it.

And by that I mean we ran in circles, crying, until men in suits and sunglasses picked us up. We were taken to an undisclosed location behind the Taco Bell in Kirkland, where we learned that the government needed our help.

It seemed that a force of Cat-Men originating from Pluto was heading towards Earth, bent on destroying us in a hail of asteroid-sized chunks of used litter. The government officer in charge, one Major General (that was his name, Major General of the Philadelphia Generals), explained that the Cat-Men were upset about us changing the classification of Pluto from planet to Kuiper Belt object and were thus intent on our destruction.

When asked why there were Cat-Men on Pluto, Major General explained that that was merely a humorous coincidence and had absolutely nothing to do with a plot by the Dog-Men of Kitten III. Major General went on to explain that only a crack team of comic-book creators could hope to stop the Cat-Men. The Cat-Men, he said, loved comics and only a superbly written and drawn comic could convince them to spare us.

After staring at him for a good thirty seconds, we were forced to then ask why they picked us for this most important of missions and Major-General explained that everyone else was busy and that Neil Gaiman gets motion-sickness in space.

So, there we were, the fate of the entire world in our hands. We had a scant four days to produce the greatest comic ever seen in the history of mankind, get launched into space, and then set-up a table at the first ever Space Con in the International Space Station.

Needless to say, Leigh and I set to work. I wrote as fast as I could. In a matter of hours, I burned out three keyboards, drank four cases of Coke, ate a pound of beef jerky, and consumed seven boxes of Everlasting Gobstoppers. Oddly enough, I then spent 90 minutes in the bathroom, but I digress.

When I was done, I handed the script to Leigh and he went off and did things with a pencil. No, I didn’t stay and watch (see the bathroom comment above), but I’m sure something magical happened, because some time later, the pencils were done.

And we did it. We had our comic, written and penciled. Major General whisked it off somewhere and after a light dinner, a finished comic, inked, colored, lettered, and printed was in our hands. I then pointed out that ‘equilibrium’ spelled wrong on page eleven and two hours and one gunshot later, the new comic arrived. We were set.

I will not bore you with the details of going into space (I only threw up twice), the difficulties of setting up a con table in zero-g, or how hard it is not to giggle when you meet a six-foot, eight-inch talking Cat-Man in battle armor and learn that his name is Boopsie-Tiddles.

And, as you may well have guessed, seeing as we’re all still here, we were successful. The Cat-Men decided to spare the Earth and we returned to the secret base behind the Taco Bell for a celebratory feast of Baja Gorditas and Nachos Bellgrande. Oh, we did enquire about a reward, seeing as we’d just saved the Earth, but Major General suggested that they would continue to overlook some of our more questionable activities (trying to transport flamethrowers into Florida to battle were-frogs, for one) in lieu of cash.

Seeing as we were in a heavily guarded secret government facility, we agreed.

And our comic? It’s safely locked away in case it should ever be needed again. We started to complain about that, but like I said: heavily guarded secret government facility.

Anyway, that was our week. Look for the usual blogs and updates next week, assuming the Fanged Lemurs of Epsilon IV don’t need to go walkies.

Cheers,
-Jason