Over at Overcompensating, the Magical Adventures in Space crew has made a reappearance. Topato is looking particularly scrumptious, browned to a crisp. (I think he would look even better with some butter, sour cream, and chives. Except for the poison…)

It’s clever as always, and appropriately air-headed. Princess Dongle has been indulging in the intoxicol again, and so we’re off on a new adventure…

I don’t know if any of you realized it, but I crossed the pond. Maybe you’re in the same school of thought as Gary, and don’t believe I’m real, but I assure you, I am. I wouldn’t be paying this much for the tube if I weren’t.

So, I’m minding my own business, reading my comics while eating digestive buiscuts for breakfast, sipping my English Breakfast tea, and I read Scary Go Round as I do every morning. And it hit me. It’s supposed to be read with a British accent. Forgive me if you’ve had this particular relevation before, but seriously. It makes it about ten times as funny, if only because they pronounce all the vowels without an American drift and it’s different.

Some hints, if you want in on the hilarity: vitamin is pronounced veet-a-min, not vite-a-min. Quasi is quay-zi not quoi-zaye. And of course you know about the crazy lack of z (which is “zed” not “zee”) in words like organization.

Oh! This also means that I will be trying to catch the McCloud Tour in London on November 10th. Anyone want to join me?

Okay, considering my own faux pas in the past, I’m assuming that the current Rob and Elliot is aimed at me. Maybe not directly at me, I’m not that egotistical, but… at least people like me, who blog about the comic and mix up the characters. (Are there many others like me? Other Haggard Wordbeasts excluded.)

Anyway, kudos to clearing up confusion in a comedic manner and making it canon.

Paul Taylor at Wapsi Square has welcomed a son into the world. Due to health concerns, explained here, he was born early.

He’s worried that his readers might not understand some spotty updates. If you’re a member of his forums, congratulate him and let him know it’ll be all right. If you’re a fan, leave him a note here. He’ll probably get it.

As from me: Don’t worry, Paul. I’m more than willing to wait a bit for your story.

Have you ever noticed when watching a television show that cameras can only focus on the foreground or the background? And for the camera to focus on what’s down a road, for example, the person looking down the road has to go fuzzy? (I always notice this particular technique in Star Trek: Next Generation episodes.)

I bring this up because over at Friendly Hostility Sandra’s “camera focus” was on Colin, sleeping on the floor, and the guy who got the couch (Arath, I believe) was out of focus, because they were above Colin.

Genius!

Maybe I’m only impressed because I wouldn’t have throught of it. I certainly couldn’t have pulled it off if I had thought about it.

That’s why I blog about webcomics, instead of making one. I’ll just keep admiring other people’s artwork.

So… the most obvious person to pick apart when looking at changes in art is Jeph Jacques over at Questionable Content. He has even said, in one of his sidebar messages, that when he starts feeling too comfortable for the style, it’s time to change it up. And I’ve had friends who promise themselves that they’re going to take a pause in reading the archives when the style changes, and they’re not so lucky in finding exactly where the style changes.

I won’t attempt that feat, but I thought we’d look at the evolution of Jeph’s art. Starting from Tuesday’s strip, which Jeph was particularly proud of, we’ll go back six hundred strips and then forward one hundred each to be back at Tuesday’s strip. Hee, we’re time traveling!

Warning, fond mockery below!

Strip #82 — Jeph’s style starts with overly large eyes. In fact, Faye’s eyes are her glasses. The clothing is smooth, and the hair is helmet-like and monochromatic, giving the impression of Lego people. Lego people with wittier quips and better clothes, but the impression of Lego people.

Strip #182 — Here, Martin looks supremely uncomfortable on that stool, like he can’t bend at the waist. He must be a sloucher, but slouching on a bar stool and on a couch are two different things. The hair is more three dimensional, and the clothing has folds, Faye’s eyes are behind her glasses, but the main characters don’t have human coloring — they’re zoooombies! Maybe indie kids are all supposed to be paper white? I’ll ask my indie friends.

Strip #282 — The apartment has depth, and that’s cool, but the shadows on the walls give the appearance of an unknown light source that’s perhaps a bit too bright and too high to be useful. Steve is slouching correctly for someone sitting on a couch, and the t-shirts hang on the characters as if they’re being worn.

Strip #382 – Same problem with the walls, but the shadows on the clothing make a pretty cool effect for wrinkles. Faye’s eyes are becoming seperate from her glasses! The pupils of the characters are kinda tiny and squinty…
Strip #482 — Pupils are more proportional, and Faye’s glasses look great. Good, natural movement from the characters, Jeph has a good awareness of the character’s movements (which I would imagine would be hard to hammer down in a comic…). Check out the mirror! That’s pretty darn awesome.
Strip #582 — Jeph has pretty much perfected the shadow-wrinkle technique. It looks pretty cool. MAN is Dora skinny. And Raven’s hair has pretty awesome texture. Dora’s crossed arms are very well done — you can even notice where she’s pulling her sweater over her bra. Cool.

Strip #682 — Check out the light effect from the light in the alley. It effects the background more than it effects the characters, but the fact that it’s there is a very thoughtful addition. I wouldn’t want to meet Faye in a dark alley when I had been a cowardly boy. The coloring of the hair and the clothing is superb.

So, in conclusion? Art and artists evolve. Does that mean that anyone is finished developing their craft? Why do you think I have to write Fleen every day? Thought experiment concluded.

I have a plugin for Firefox called StumbleUpon. I have indicated comics as one of my interests, and usually all that yeilds is pages of people singing Calvin and Hobbes’ praises by posting, hosting, and memorializing their favorite strips.

But recently StumbleUpon has shown me a project by David Gauntlett called A Drawing A Day. (David admits it’s more like a drawing every other day.) He draws to improve his own drawing, but also to make a website with pens.

It’s interesting to watch his progress. There is one series of drawings, drawn on 12/8/05, track the changes he makes — the strokes become more sure, he becomes more comfortable with the shape of her lips, more comfortable with the shape of the eyes. It a becomes a likeness, but is not his best work. People are uncomfortable to draw, as our features are often defined by shadow as much as shape.
However, David becomes very skilled at still life — check the difference between an early view of the London Eye and one drawn six months later.
So … it got me to thinking about changes in skills of webcomic artists. Tune in tomorrow.

At Questionable Content Jeph Jacques is working on Secret Things, but he should know that if you want something to be secret you don’t post it in your LiveJournal.

One of the Secret Things is a cast poster. The picture has excellent movement – your eye is drawn to study every one of the cast members, starting with Raven making moves on Sven to Jimbo horrifying Pizza Girl. The character are spaced perhaps too regularly, but over all the poster does a good job of putting everyone in one place, hanging out and interacting. It’s like having a Giant Panel of QC to hang on your wall.

I want to hold caption contests.

The LJ says that it’ll probably be put up for preorders Friday and the first printing will probably be 8/21. Look for it. It’s good wall bling.

Webster’s dictionary is rather useless if you look up the word “literature.” It goes off mostly in generalities about the culture surrounding literature, the only useful part being: writings in prose or verse; especially : writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest.

It becomes a question like “What is Art?” What is Literature?

Maus is being taught in university classrooms as literature.  If the definition if literature is dealing with words written in prose, how do we deal with works like Maus and Persepolis? It is a certain style and pacing?

This particular musing comes from my viewing of kris dresen’s Grace, in which is she combining her forceful use of sequential art as well as dialogue to create a story which could be literature. Her pictures portray longing, thoughtfulness, desire; universal concepts all– but does that make them art? Or literature?

Graphic novels and webcomics seem to be at a juncture where they don’t seem to be art because they are telling a concrete story and they don’t seem to be literature because the story is driven by pictures. While the popular webcomics seem to be mostly gag-a-day and long drawn out storylines, is there room for finite creations? For people who create works just to convey human experience?

What is literature? And are webcomics literature as well?

Professor Smith over at Piled Higher and Deeper is out for two weeks on vacation, and obviously the lab has gone on vacation as well. (It isn’t as if he’s having a good time of it, it seems that he forgot his ear plugs.)

What I like about this comic is that the highjinks so plausible they make you cringe and hope they’re not true. Considering the hand writing of some professors, it wouldn’t be hard to believe that they handed red pens to their children and told them to go play.

So, as summer is winding down and we all start considering going back to the winter grind — including school — remember Piled Higher and Deeper. They suffer with us. Actually, they’re grad students. They suffer more.