yes! i am back. i didn’t lie to you in that last post, i’ll be posting regularly once more.

you might notice that the colors look a lot different. this is not because i’m using a different toned set of prismacolors, but because i’m using a different scanner and editing program. this is not a choice, but out of pure necessity. i am back in a committed relationship with kit’s scanner and i’m using arc photostudio (aka shitty mcshitterson) rather than legitimate adobe photoshop. i kind of like this look better, though … maybe because i actually put some detail into the panel.

here is ahmed, who will stand in for pete for a little bit until jimmy and pete stop being such babies. ahmed is one of my favorite characters (next to alice), so i’m really glad i get to use/draw him. liam asked, “why would a tattoo artist know about mondrian?” and that is the beauty of ahmed. complex back stoooorryyyyy

i made the sweetest mix ever and i think you all should listen to it. here’s the playlist:
1. “the power of love” – huey lewis and the news
2. “where you’ll find me now” – neutral milk hotel
3. “extradition” – pavement
4. “i believe” – the real tuesday weld
5. “g-man hoover” – van dyke parks
6. “where i’m from (remix)” – digable planets
7. “slow down” – bowerbirds
8. “gene autry” – beulah
9. “just because” – elvis presley
10. “why sting is such an idiot” – allen clapp and his orchestra
11. “cars can’t escape (rhythm)” – wilco
12. “earth angel” – buddy holly

i call it the “back to the future mix” because of the first and last song. if you don’t get that reference, shame on you.

tangentially, i just realized that this comic only makes sense if you are not from new york, because i absolutely hadn’t heard of the jacob javitts center until new york comic con.

sorry guys. mad stressin’. here’s a page colored at the social security office getting my fifth social security card. god, i’m halfway to the limit you can get in a LIFETIME. i clearly suck.

apartment things are looking … better. i don’t want to jinx anything. why i’m so stressin’ is because my parents told me if things don’t work out, and people default on the lease … i’m out of school, because i’ll be too much in debt. so, basically, i’m worried.

yes, jimmy is slamming dickie with baguettes. DEAL WITH IT.

in other news, does anybody know someone who needs an apartment in brooklyn? leave a comment and we can hook each other up.

sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. i’m sorry, guys. stressful shit is going on in my life, what with going back to new york in a little over a week. we’re scrambling to get an apartment and money and murphy’s law is pretty much fucking me in the ass. i’m waiting to catch a break, but i’m pretty sure i won’t until my shit is moved into an apartment and i know i am officially NOT HOMELESS.

in better news, i’ve scripted out most of the second arc’s plot line (aka, the one we’re on right now), so now it’s just a matter of drawing the art, etc. we’ll finally meet legitimate villains in this arc. i know you guys are pumped because i am!

oh, and because i always seem to transiently mention what music i’m listening to … right now it’s husker du. and a black flag revival on the side. husker du is more fun than a barrel of rowdy monkeys and black flag is, DUH, black flag.

and does anyone want to buy shoes for me? i’d love you forever.

the thought of jimmy’s penis is like a basilisk … it turns mortals to stone.

this was pretty much my last weekend in chicago. next weekend i’ll probably be in wisconsin (gross). that also means i probably won’t post next week because i won’t have access to a scanner, and i’m way too busy this week to try and doubletime the comic. (i’ve got to pack for my long journey back to new york.) right now i am so tired i could die.

sorry this page is a little sloppy, guys. i was running a fever yesterday and the day before and my hand couldn’t be trusted not to wobble. i was just glad that i finished this page, honestly. auuugh.

dickie returns! and although i sort of love his pathetic, trying-so-hard-to-be-in-charge character, he is REALLY HARD TO DRAW. i am so used to drawing fatties and manboobs that my skinny person skill is going downhill. damn it!

that’s all you get today. besides the recommendation to listen to mahalia jackson, if you’re not already. DO IT.

ALSO:

so punk he bleeds barbed wires.

this is a page where the pitfalls of doing everything by hand becomes completely evident. for example, the right hand side of the first panel’s background is, uh, “mottled” … because my prismacolor cool grey 50% was running out of juice. also, in the bottom row, farthest left, you can see where some greasy stain got on there, and REFUSED to be colored over. unfortunately, the only mistakes i know how to fix in photoshop are those with a white background, so i was a bit shit out of luck for those.

tangentially, my hits have reached 10,000 viewers! whoo hoo! me, i think that’s fucking AWESOME. my old deviantart account (I WILL NEVER TELL YOU ITS NAME) from mid-high school doesn’t even have that many hits, and it’s been around years longer.

oh ho ho, it’s a cop out page! well, not entirely, but i did have a fairly busy weekend, so not much time to throw something elaborate and story-driving together.

my friends pointed out to me how INCREDIBLY GAY this cover is. and … ok, yeah, it’s pretty gay. but it’s like, dumbledore gay, not reach-around gay. this comic is part superhero story, part socially charged narative, and part bromance between pete and jim.

for the record, that’s jim as a young punk holding the stereo and pete as a young emo kid (fugazi-emo, not modern-emo) circa 1994. in rural illinois, even classic punk kids and derivative hardcore kids can get along.

and just when you thought this story was going to be all about whiny aging art kids … she’s baaa-aaack.

TO BE CONTINUED.

that’s right, that’s the end of this chapter. we’re through the first plot arc, guys! only several million more to go!

just to warn you guys a little, there’s going to be a lot of racial and socioeconomic shit going on in this webcomic. hopefully i won’t make it “crash”-style didactic, but uh, yeah. i don’t know, i just realized that a lot of artists get into a lot of shit for how they draw different races while i was drawing victor (paola’s kid who’s half black), but you know, it’s boring to draw everyone with the same features and different skin color. just because someone has a different facial shape or facial features doesn’t make them any less human.

i could also see people getting angry because paola leads a sort of stereotyped life (teenage pregnancy, what amounts to essentially a high-profile maid job). let me explain — i once read this story about this puerto rican actor who complains how he can never get any complex roles other than the “anonymous gangbanger #2.” i want to be able to write roles — good, complex, and real — roles that someone like him, REAL people, could play. paola isn’t the stereotypical “SASSY LATINA GODDESS” you see in so many movies (because how many pretty people — of ANY race — really exist?), but she’s much, much deeper than the archetype of “ILLITERATE MEXICAN MAID” too.

i’m probably overlooking some element of this. after all, i’m a middle-class white girl; i sometimes get shit for being female but i was born with privileged skin. you can point out my ignorance, i love being taught that what i think is not definitive.

whatever, race in america is way too complicated. fucking slavery.