Unwinder's Tall Comics

Most of us take not wearing lavender pants for granted.

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 02:34:52 -0800

I imagine that some of you have been wondering where I have been, and also, what I have been up to.

That's pretty understandable. Especially since my last news post was so fatalistic. Perhaps some of you thought "maybe he gave up."

But the truth is, I've just been working really hard on a stupid project that no one could care about! I'm sure that I've directed some of you to The Gutterscape at some point. See all that weird art in there? I'm in the process of turning pretty much all of it into a crappy, but huge Game Maker game. At first, I figured that the game would only be a little bit larger in scale than the Cain and Abel game from last year, and I figured that I could spend three weeks on it, link it here, and say "This is my 'update' for the past three weeks! Enjoy!" but as it turns out, I decided that the game should be really huge, and contain several hours worth of content instead.

I have been so obsessed with this project that I have barely communicated with anyone in this time period. I should have actually communicated. You know I'm not so good at that.

But yes

Anyway

This comic!

Check it out, guys. I didn't think I'd bring Soncho Michez back (though I did plan on a series of strange Sonty Mick alter-egoes or relatives), but I was thinking about Pierre Menard, and how I really wanted to pad out the new comic to make it really tall, and there you have it.

Note how I'm following through on my new year's resolution of using the character's as more of an ensemble, and less as a series of individual foils for Unwinder. Uploaded at 20:32 on 18 Febuary

Normal Al is actually a pretty good idea, but I used it in this comic so that I wouldn't have to actually write good lyrics.

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 06:53:47 -0800

Hello 2012!

I'm feeling pretty not-busy these days, so it seems likely that I can get back in the swing of things.

For Christmas I got a Wacom tablet. Gimp didn't have very good support for it, so I had to also get Photoshop Elements. This was a tricky strip for me to color, because I had to get used to new software, and a new input medium, but I think it came out decently nice.

I'm going to continue doing the basic art in pencil, because I think I've finally gotten this comic to look the way I want it to.

I've been thinking a lot about Tall Comics lately (don't worry, it's not on the chopping block or anything), and also I admit, I've wasted some valuable comic-making time consuming entertainment over the past month or so. There are two entertainment franchises that I've found particularly relevant to the current state of Tall Comics.

The first is NBC's Community, which, if you are interested in the topic at all, you know is in a pretty shaky position right now. I read a few articles about why the show doesn't have a big viewership, and why it can never have a big viewership, and why it needs to embrace not having a big viewership, and I kind of felt like all of those articles were talking directly to me about Tall Comics. I mean, pretty much every criticism I've seen applied to Community also applies to this comic. It's full of callbacks, shout-outs, obscure references, "theme" episodes that probably appeal to like five people in the world, and I imagine that anyone who's just tuning in, even for an episode that's not dependent on continuity, probably thinks it's really weird. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with this information, but I guess I am finally starting to accept that Unwinder's Tall Comics is a niche product (which is something I've always been in denial about).

The other entertainment franchise that's been on my mind is The Muppets, the new film of which I really liked. I guess I don't have so much to say about it here, but on watching Community and The Muppets I've been kind of struck by how much better both of them are with managing their ensemble casts than I am. I mean, I have a lot of really good characters, but I feel like aside from a few odd pairings, the only glue that holds the cast together is Unwinder, and I've decided for some reason that this may be a bad thing.

So I guess, what I am thinking for 2012 is that I'm going to work on using the cast more as an ensemble, and less as a variety of foils for Unwinder. Let's call this my new year's resolution.

(In past years, my resolution has always been to get Tall Comics up to a reliable weekly update schedule, but since that has never worked, I decided to come up with something else this year.) Uploaded at 23:56 on 08 January

Dr. Minivan's Tall Comics: Another Double Feature

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 17:17:34 -0800

Hey guys, I was going to do a big writeup, but man, I do not feel like that right now.

If you're new (sorry, by the way), I'm calling all the way back to this old strip.

I tried to get the same font and stuff for the titles even, but when I was laying it out, I was having trouble with my connection and couldn't download stuff. I imagine that everyone is furious at me for defaulting to Aller Display as usual, because I like to pretend that I am under a huge amount of scrutiny. Uploaded at 03:09 on 19 December

The apple falls far from the Realtree

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:29:19 -0800

Truck us on RealreeEnergy.com!

Basically my premise here is that to my children's generation, saying you did something ironically will be sort of like saying you did something because of hair metal.

OK, so, this has been a crazy, weird year, in which I've had some really good runs, and some really bad dry spells, and I almost feel bad saying it when I'm still kind of getting back in the swing of things again, but HEY. My computer's broken, Christmas is coming up, I need to buy a huge number of wholesale shoes in order to sell them at a trendy store (which is something that I've actually been invited to do), and overall I could use some money.

So I'm having a sale again at the store. If you're so inclined, swing by and buy a pair of shoes. Include the phrase "I know about your code thing" in the order form, and I will refund you ten dollars per pair of shoes. In the next couple of days, I'm hoping to release a brand new Tall Comics-themed design, so watch out for that sucker.

In other vitally important news, Kimberly Kubus is back again! (And is still exclusively for mature, thick-skinned adults) Uploaded at 21:25 on 17 November

The monster is a naked woman who seduces men and then eats them. Carnalvore, people.

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 23:38:41 -0700

Hey guys, WHOOOOOOA!

Did I just... stay up all night to finish this stupid comic because I was sick of delaying it alllll week?

I guess I did.

I guess

I'm crazy.

For the sake of time, Mildred is OK with PG-13 movies, as long as it's Halloween. I know somebody's going to get me on that continuity error if I don't mention it.

Putting out lots of bait for TV Tropes today.

Could this land me a quote on the Halloween Cosplay page???? Uploaded at 05:26 on 04 November

The Silver Gavel

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:35:56 -0700

Pretty sure someone's going to come along and say, "Uh, that's not funny dude, that's actually the exact premise of X fantasy novel."

Important announcement: I've got a new-and-improved RSS feed that will actually show you the comics, rather than just linking them. But it's a completely new feed, and if you're still subscribed to the old one, then you're not going to be getting any new features.

I had a more ambitious strip plotted out for this week, but man, it got TOO ambitious, and I need to wait for a collaborator to send me some photos before I can finish that one. Big fun. On the Facebook page, I asked everybody what characters they wanted to see in a new strip. These characters weren't exactly high on the list. Sorry guys. I swear, they were in the original, ambitious strip.

I wrote another sample from the Judge of All series, but it seemed like it took some steam away from that last line when I put it in the comic, so I'm just putting it down here. It's still canon, it's just not in the comic, because man, I want to hang onto my comedic timing.

Charlie felt himself begin to tremble. Surely Bindlegrin was joking. "The Judge of All?" he croaked. "Is it even possible to sue him?"

"Don't look so surprised, Charlie, everyone is accountable to the law. Do you honestly believe that it's legal to allow so much pain and suffering to go on?"

"But he created the law! Some say that he is the law!" sputtered Charlie in disbelief.

"An interesting choice of words," said Bindlegrin, coldly. "As it implies that he isn't above the law."
Uploaded at 01:19 on 09 October

Club Toad is founded

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 20:17:53 -0700

notes

OK, so this is the real, actual club I was in as a kid, and you'll probably be seeing a lot of it, because I have a lot of stories from it that I think would make pretty good comics.

This one here is based on a true story, but not 100% accurate. We did indeed put toads in a hole, and wait for one of them to touch a lid, but we weren't using them to make decisions. We called it "Toad Wrestling" and it was a contest to see which toad would stay off the lid longest. I dug some really deep holes, and made a big deal about the awesome new arena that I had constructed, but in the end, not a single toad ever actually lost a toad wrestling match, nor did a toad ever win one. To this day, I have no idea why we didn't just turn it into a contest to see which toad could climb out the fastest, because that was always immediately what they tried to do as soon as we put them in the holes.

Thanks for being patient with me for the last long time. As a rarely-employed freelancer, work is pretty feast-or-famine for me, and I just got like three really big feasts in a row. Talk to my friends man. I have not done anything fun in the past month (uh, except go on vacation for a couple of days). I fear that Tall Comics may always be kind of an off-and-on thing, though I don't want it to be, and will try not to let it be.

The good news is, I'm out of my creative slump, and suddenly I love all those scripts I wrote and hated this summer. Uploaded at 21:51 on 22 September