Search and Research #89

It always feels good to get one of these strips done, especially when I've been putting it off unnecessarily. I spent most of my weekend, and my evenings this week, playing video games with my wife and losing track of time. Here's a tip for you aspiring artists out there...it's hard to feel creative with a video game calling your name (especially if you have to sit on a very comfortable couch to play said video game, which happens to be my situation). But, I managed to overcome my propensity toward laziness and get this strip done. Next one is a color strip, so we'll just have to see how long that takes! Enjoy!

Search and Research #88

It feels good getting this strip up each week. I wanted to try to get this one done yesterday, but watching the Packers lose to the Giants (talking football here for those of you who may not know...) really sort of ruined the rest of my evening artwise; I just couldn't seem to find any creativity in me the whole rest of the night.

It was good to get to some of our other characters as well. I really like drawing all of our characters (except Randall, whose first appearance is the only time I've drawn him well) and the past few strips have mainly been SCOM and Marc. And Wai Fai too I guess.

Having scanned this in, my first thought was, "Look at all those Jelly Bellies. That must be at least $50 worth!" Stuff I don't really think about when I'm drawing the strip. Anyway...Enjoy!

Search and Research #87

Welcome to the first strip of the new year!!! The new year is a time to reflect on our lives, make changes to our habits, routines, and in some cases, personalities. :0)

I am starting to try some new things with my pen and ink technique. As these strips go along I'm going to try to drop in some backgrounds and things behind our characters that, while being unobtrusive, will hopefully work to fill in the blank spaces. For instance, I liked how #86 came out, but I can't help but look at it now and notice all the blank white space behind Marc and Wai Fai. I usually don't draw backgrounds because they tend to clutter up the main action (at least my backgrounds do) but I think I need to branch out. So get ready. See you next week. Enjoy!

Search and Research #86

Well, well...I did actually get this done tonight, so here it is. This will be the last strip of 2007. See you all in 2008! Peace!

eli

Search and Research #85

Last week was exam week for my wife, which meant that I spent a lot of time fetching water and chocolate, and not drawing. But, she's done now (yay!!) until spring so I'm back to getting this story line together. I added the cool little powering down flash effect on SCOM's screen in the last panel by filling in the screen black, and then making a flash with a white out pen. Once the white out dried, I came back in with a pen and made the ends of the flash pointy. It was pretty cool (at least to me.) Enjoy!

Search and Research #84

Wai Fai? Eli, what does that even mean? Well, it's pronounced Wi Fi...ahhh...now you get it. I don't know, I just thought it was funny. And, just to show you that I didn't totally go off my rocker, here is a gentleman listed on IMDB with this name. Why does she have a sword? Well, in my initial doodle, she had one. I don't know, it seemed funny. Totally implausible, but I like drawing samurai swords, and how else would I be able to draw one? I guess it helps her fix things. Where is it in this scene? Well, Marc couldn't very well allow here to just leave it on the desk while she fixed SCOM, so he is keeping it safe for her in his office. I think that's about it. Enjoy!

Search and Research #83

Introducing...a new character!!! All colleges have (or should have) a dedicated ITS person handling computer issues, and here is ours. We're going to try to keep working her in, as well as our other staff characters (who, it has come to my attention, are not showing up very frequently but will be soon). I've included the initial character sketches I did for her for your enjoyment. If you are celebrating the American Thanksgiving holiday, Happy Thanksgiving!!! If you are not, I hope and wish you a wonderful week! Enjoy!

Search and Research #82

It's good to be back to drawing the actual strip again instead of the whole "behind the strip" thing. We've got ideas for the next few strips which is good too. Based on a conversation I had with my buddy Jason, I decided that the hardest part of doing these strips is coming up with a workable idea. Ideas that are funny, and that will play visually, while staying in the context of the world we've established is pretty tough.

I'm also posting the character sketch I did for the guy checking out the book. I usually work out the visual quirks of new characters on a sheet of typing paper before going to the strip. It also allows me to work out any problems before I get to the nice sheet of paper I draw the strip on. I hate messing those up because of something that I could have worked out earlier on crappy paper but didn't. Enjoy!


*P.S.* - Some of you may have noticed that our little image viewer for the previous strips (in the list of links above) has been sort of out of whack for a little while. I've corrected the problem (it was my fault) so that is back up and running. And up to date.

Search and Research #81

This is the last one of these "behind the scenes" ones we'll do. Back to our nice, disorderly library next week!! Enjoy!

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.