Sidelined

So, last Tuesday I'm about to start my shift at the service desk when my back starts to hurt. I take some advil and start my shift, but the next time I have to get out of my chair, there are shooting pains through my lower back. I go home early, and basically didn't get out of bed for the rest of the week 'cause it hurt too bad to sit or walk.

I discovered during that time that few things turn off those creative juices more than being in pain. It seems, at least for me, that artistic creativity is sustained by periods of time where I can concentrate and focus on work, uninterrupted. On a good day I will be able to work on a piece and forget about the passage of time, coming out of my 'zone' once the piece is complete. I'd never really taken the time to think about my creative process like this before, so there was some positive gain from this time out of the game. It does mean, however, that I'm not positive if I'll be able to post the next strip this week. I'm able to sit in a chair with less pain now, which is a big improvement, but I also have to go to work, which means that when I get home, I've been sitting for 9+ hours without a break and I usually need to go lie down to give my back a rest. So, we'll see.

I just wanted to give everyone an update, I hope you are all well. Later!

eli

Search and Research #80

Ok, so it turns out that every now and then a comic strip artist (and his friend who helps him write the strip) need to take a month and a half off. August and September are the busiest times of the year for me at work, and I've had various family in town, which has been nice. My buddy Jason welcomed his second daughter into the world, so he has been understandably distracted from writing.

Anyway, we're back! Tell your friends! I'm hoping to post a new strip at the beginning of each week; I think that will be a much more realistic schedule for me these days. This strip is sort of poking fun at me and Jason, and imagining what our characters are doing while waiting for us to come up with new strips. Just in case there is any confusion, this is Marc out of his costume, chillin' in his crocks and listening to his iPod. Enjoy!

Search and Research #79

Well, we had to do one more. We felt like the gnome was interesting enough to keep around, so we had to have a way to let everyone know that he wasn't going anywhere. Plus, now that Marc is off of his back, we felt that SCOM wouldn't really care if the gnome got up to hijinks at night, so we needed a way to show that they're on better terms. That is my attempt at the old TV batmobile there in panel 1. Enjoy!

Search and Research #78

And...we have conclusion of the library gnome saga. Or is it? We'll just have to see. I like this character and he seems a good foil for SCOM, although a different sort of foil than Marc. I apologize for the longish wait for this one, but as I said last time, I've had a brother moving into town, and a brother leaving for college for the first time, so it's been a busy week. Next strip will be sooner. Enjoy!

Search and Research #77

We are almost to the conclusion of this little story arc! My youngest brother is leaving for college in a week, and both of my other brothers will be in town in a couple of days, so for the first time in a couple of years, our whole family will be together, and you'd better believe that I'm going to be enjoying that for all it's worth. I'm going to try to get the concluding strip up late next week, but I hope you will all understand if it's a little while. I'm a big believer in the importance of family, and I've got a great one, and now that everyone is growing up, times when we are all together are becoming rare.

This has been a super busy and full summer. Once school starts up again, I'm looking forward to having more time to devote to these strips. Until then, please enjoy this one!

Search and Research #76

Hey! I'm back! and I think I've finished my big commitments for the summer. It was a real pleasure to get back to drawing this strip, I must say. A big thanks goes out to Jason Watts who took it upon himself to try to keep a little activity going in relation to his blog. If you look back at strip 17, you'll see a picture of his character, TurtleWax, on the wall.

This is technically a color strip, because the markers that I used to fill in the dark areas was a warm gray, which I was using in the hope that it would sort of indicate the transition from the dark of night to the lighter tones of early morning. It's still dark in the library, just not as dark. You get the picture. Anyway, scanning that in as grayscale (which I usually do) made it a cool gray which I didn't like nearly as much. So, its in color to preserve that warm gray. We are nearing the end of this story arc, I promise!! Enjoy!

Oops, I almost forgot. For more information on Gene Roddenberry (who was referenced in the strip) click here.
(Marc is clearly a devout Trekkie)

Ha Ha! I hijacked Eli's Blog!

Hey that's what happens when you don't post a new strip for 2 weeks!

Hey everybody... at least I hope there's still an 'everybody'. You guys might have thought we dropped off the planet. And I KNOW you are hung in deep suspense wondering how the Library Gnome thing is going to turn out :-D.

Eli has had a very busy summer. He made a presentation at a library conference in Miami last week, and next week he's one of the leaders in a summer camp outside Nashville.

So while he's out, I'm going to try and keep you guys entertained with an old strip I toyed with in college. By 'old' I mean I did this in Spring of 2000, so over 7 years ago. I only did 5 strips, and I will be posting a few of them on my blog for the next 10 days or so...

So check me out at foolish-wiseman.blogspot.com, or click my name over to the right under contributors. Enjoy!

-Jason

Search and Research #75

Can it be? It is! A new strip! Being that this was number 75, a color one, I wanted it to be worth coloring. I want the color to enhance the scene in some way, to be necessary, so I either craft the story lines so that an important scene falls on the colored strip, or, if I can't rush a story in order to do that, I'll do a strip that is outside of the story arc, which is what I'm doing with this one. I'm not much of a colorist yet, and I didn't want the backgrounds to be white, but adding the dark gray tones of our shelving really made it seem sort dark for a party. Oh well. Also, the colors of colored pencils always seems sort of weird when I scan them in. I'm not sure what to do about that.

My friend Bryan, a co-founding member of this strip, is moving with his wife, to Virginia this week, and so I wanted to commemorate him in the strip in some way. Bryan has always pitched the idea of 'Snacks In The Stacks' as a library function to welcome new students, an idea which we all find humorous, but has never been implemented. So, as a tribute to Bryan, I drew it into this strip.

Some of you may recall the watermelon reference as a story left as a comment back in strip #29. Bryan and I both found this story hilarious, and my buddy Jason thought this was the perfect place to put that into the strip as well.

So, farewell for now, Bryan. I hope that Virginia will prove an interesting, fulfilling, and rewarding place for you and Laura.

eli

Search and Research #74

Ok, I was able to finish my project and get back to the drawing table. I call it an art project, but it relied heavily upon me using Adobe Illustrator. I have version 8, and it was, at first, completely incomprehensible. I couldn't even draw a line without having to look in the users guide. I was able to figure it out in the end though. I apologize again for the extended absence, and encourage you to read the past few strips, starting at strip #69, if you've forgotten what's happened so far in this story arc. Enjoy!

Search and Research #73

I like drawing SCOM at different angles because he's got such a distinct angular look. It usually doesn't make sense to draw him at angles most of the time when he's on the desk, so that's why I try to move him around. My wife would also like to point out that SCOM's face in panels 1 and 2 really show how I look trying to wake up every morning. Enjoy!

Search and Research #72

Looking at this one now, I realize that in my haste to lay this strip out and ink it, I drew the figures 3 different sizes. I'll need to pay more attention to the character sizes when they aren't at the service desk. The desk seems to help disguise a lot of size flaws throughout the strips. I hope that doesn't keep you from enjoying this strip.

Search and Research #71

So, here's our character I showed a few days ago. You'll notice that he no longer has those weird pointy toed slippers. Those turned out to be hard to draw at angles and didn't really look all that good...a lose/lose situation. So they were axed in favor of no shoes or feet showing. Enjoy!

Search and Research #70

I can't think of anything to say except, Enjoy!

Graduation...

I was going to try to get a strip done this weekend, but my grandparents are in town for my youngest brother's graduation from high school. I don't get to see my grandparents much, so I spent time with them and got a late start on this strip. I had to design a new character before I could do the strip, and it took me too long to design him, so I won't get the strip done tonight.

However, I'm debuting this character design today to whet your appetites. Who is he? What purpose is he going to serve? These questions and more will be answered in upcoming strips!

*Edit* - I mentioned my younger brother in this post, and I've posted a likeness of him that I drew and inked at my art blog. Check it out if you want.

Search and Research #69

Thanks for hangin' in there with me everyone. I should be able to get at least a couple of these up per week for the next little while here. My buddy Jason and I are cooking up a sort of extended story arc here at the beginning of the summer. We have a beginning we like, but haven't worked out a middle or end yet, so at the moment, this is an adventure we are all on together! Enjoy!

Search and Research #68

Maybe some academic libraries are different, but finals week always seems like our busiest week, and then the following monday the library is completely empty, heralding the start of summer. There's no gradual decline...once those exams are over students never look back. Welcome to the summer everyone (in the United States)! Enjoy!

Search and Research #67

Aaannnndddd....We're Back!!! It's finals time around the country and I think that I can safely say we're all ready for summer! It's interesting to hear some of the phone conversations students are having during this stressful time...relationships and studying around the clock don't seem to mix. The stress levels of some of the students inspired this strip. Enjoy!

*edit* I just realized that I never finished darkening that dude's hair in the third panel. Nuts!!!

It's been a little while....

Hello, hello, it's been a while since I've posted a strip, and I WILL be posting new ones this week, but I thought I'd pop in and show everyone what I was working on in my absence. The church I attend hosted a 'Spring Marketplace' over this past weekend, and about a month ago, I was invited to share a table by a friend of mine. I accepted, and then realized that I had almost nothing to sell. Thus, all my free time turned into 'art time'.

I work full time at a library, so I had evenings and weekends to do this art. I was also volunteering one night a week for a few hours, and had a couple of regular meetings every week, as well as a second job that takes about an hour every evening, so obviously I didn't have time to do this art and a strip.

Now that the marketplace show is over I thought that I'd post a slideshow of the art I created. You can view it here: Eli's Show Art

If anyone is interested in purchasing any of this art, you can find my email at my website and contact me.

Search and Research #66

So, all of this started with me reading a book about coincidences. I thought "Marc could start having coincidences, and get more and more agitated. It'll be great!" But, it turned out that the coincidences were sort of hard to visually translate. For instance, in this one, I tried to indicate that even though two different people were holding different conversations, they said the same exact thing at the same time. But I'm still not sure if it came across that way. Also, I had to start asking myself, where am I going with this? I was sort of stuck, so a big shout out goes to my friend Jason, for bailing me out of this story line. New story next week. Enjoy!

Search and Research #65

Many of you probably noticed that last week was pretty spotty in terms of getting strips up. I'm afraid (and also delighted) that I'm starting to get art projects to work on outside of the realm of comic strips. As a result, the next couple of months may see fewer strips. I apologize for this, but it is a situation that I've been hoping to find myself in. I also apologize for not updating that strip viewer in a while. I've had time at home to get online to check my email and that's about it. I'll try to get it updated soon. Ok, that's all the housekeeping business I have right now. On to the strip! Enjoy!