Okay, so here’s another comic. These things actually take up a fair amount of my time, so I’m not sure how often I want to do one… maybe I should just keep making them until I get really fast at making them. I also I wanna get some illustrations done too, but those take up slightly less time so that’s not too difficult… just a mater of coming up with a good idea.

Anyway, I’ve never entered the Mandarake in Ikebukuro, mostly because my friend told me going in there “makes you gay.” I have wandered through the josei-muke floor at Mandarake Akiba with people before, and it’s really not as bad or as in-your-face as the dansei-muke floor, but it is quite… emasculating. I would like to try fujoshi nanpa there, but I don’t really have the nads to do something like that. Also, they’re probably more interested in the dudes featured in the books they’re buying.

Augh! I am so late! And this comic sucks, too! It’s not drawn well! I don’t even know if it’s funny!

But it is based on something real: One time on Twitter I remarked that I liked slutty Mugi doujinshi, and out of nowhere some dude made it clear to me that I was BLOCKED.

Not as good as what happens in this comic, but the same sort of thing.

I actually have a few ideas for future comics, it’s just a matter of drawing them… I want to try for at least two a month… that look good. A perfect world would be weekly, but I just can’t work that fast yet. I really should practice drawing…

I don’t want to become one of those webcomic authors who has to constantly apologize for late updates, so I’m… not going to do that. I used to be concerned with how many visitors and stuff I get, but now I don’t really care. If you like this comic enough to keep up with its crappy update schedule, you have my thanks!

Speaking of crappy, this comic doesn’t look too hot either. I think I tried to take characters’ positions into account by drawing one bigger than the other but it just looks weird. I probably could have resized things a bit but… I forgot.

Anyway, Rets is a horrible person.

It’s been a while! Sadly, I still can’t promise regular updates at this point, but I’ll try my best to put stuff out (that means comics, illustrations AND blog posts) in a regular fashion. As my hobbies are both time consuming and involve staying indoors, it’s hard to really attend to them in any big way while trying to make the most out of living in a foreign country.

And just for the record, I have sung this at karaoke. It wasn’t my idea, though!

(I was gonna put this up tomorrow, but I couldn’t resist updating on 11/11/11…)

Since nearly a month had passed between making the last comic and this current one, there’s a distinct drop in quality due to me not having any real opportunities to draw between when I left the States and when I moved to this country. I’ve started drawing again, but it’s hard to get back to the level I was working at, which was already quite low.

Anyway, this comic takes place in front of a very specific shop in Akihabara. If you know it, you’ll appreciate the reference, if not, it’s not really worth explaining. But if you go there, you will know. There’s also a smaller reference hidden in the background of the first panel which is obvious if you read Japanese and know my taste in music.

I’m thinking of taking a short break from comic making just to focus on practicing drawing and putting illustrations out, as well as thinking up ideas for future comics. Rather than constantly put out crap, I’d like to put some effort into thinking up stuff that’s actually funny and looks good, so I think I may skip a few fortnights worth of updates. But I haven’t really decided yet. If there’s no comic in two weeks, you’ll know!

Gosh I drew this like… a month ago? Probably more, since I drew it before I came to Japan. Anyway, since I’ve been here for a while at this point, Rets and Tina are tagging along.

Hopefully I’ll have a comic ready for the next update! I’m still getting used to my new schedule!

It’s been a while!

Since posting the last comic, this past month has been an absolute whirlwind of events, and at the end of it I somehow ended up in Japan once again. So yeah, I’m here now, and I’ve actually got a comic in the can about Tina and Rets coming over here as well…

That said, you’re getting this Otakon report first. This is my first time drawing in nearly 4 weeks, so this comic was something of rehabilitation for me. And I don’t think it turned out too bad! As the “Rets and Tina Go To Japan” comic looks pretty good, I hope this bit of rehab can help me draw the follow-up just as well.

Soon I’ll also be putting myself through writing rehab when I finish up my written Otakon report, which should hopefully be up here soon.

Also got tons of anime to catch up on…

This comic marks my return to sketching comics out on paper, then cleaning them up on the computer. For the past couple of months I’ve been sketching comics digitally, but in order to keep my eyes off a screen for a for few extra hours per week, I’ve gone back to traditional sketching. Also, lines are just easier to draw on paper.

I liked how this comic turned out at first, but am less enthusiastic about it now. As for the joke… well… this comic doesn’t aim very high. It’s free, after all.

Seeing as this post will be auto-posted when Otakon is getting started, here’s the Mistakes of Youth meet up details.

See you there…!

Saturday at around 2:30 looks good. The con schedule is pretty packed with interesting things, but that looks like a good dead area. We’ll meet at the Starbucks near the registration desks. Look for the guy in the Zawa/ざわ・・ shirt.

I don’t expect much to happen outside of a short meet ‘n’ greet before I rush off to the Shinkai Makoto Q&A…

While Mistakes of Youth is mostly sex jokes about otaku anime, the main idea behind it in the first place was to try to offer up some kind of real deal criticism in comic form. However, doing that AND being funny at the same time is rather difficult, hence the wealth of lame sex jokes that makes up the comic. I’m not sure how funny people may find this comic, but it does address something I find interesting, that being Nichijou’s sales numbers. One would expect a KyoAni show to sell gangbusters, but between a lack of discussion on 2ch, a lack of fanart on pixiv and a lack of sales numbers to match, seems like Nichijou is something of a bomb for them.

I stand by the theory Brad asserts in this comic. Nano and Hakase are the most moe characters, and they’re getting the most play as far as fanart go. While the rest of the cast isn’t super realistic, I feel their interactions aren’t painted with the kind of sugary moe brush seen in Lucky Star and similar shows. I honestly think the main cast of Mio, Yukko and Mai–well, just Mio and Yukko–are too rough around the edges for most otaku to really get behind.

I don’t read too many anime blogs, so I don’t know if this point of view is common or not, so I’m curious about what other people have to say.

Oh, and I’ll be going to Otakon this year, as usual. Details here.