New Domain! Same host!

I am pleased to announce that I now have a permanent domain name!

www.MildlyMiffed.com

All of the old links should still take you to the corrected site name. In fact, you are already here! So, functionally it is no difference, but it is easier to remember. In the future, I will be able to change hosting without any updating on the end user's part. Yeah!

Also, MildlyMiffed works better as a brand name. Eyes of Solace is just the title for one particular comic project I am doing. (www.Eyesofsolace.com was taken by some band). I want to associate MildlyMiffed with whatever creative projects I happen to do.

Ooooh I could create a logo! This just feels so official. I think I should hire a webmaster, those are a dime a dozen. As Tim Miller once put it, they are willing to work for less than a cent with eleven other people.

Why I read comics

This is sort of a rambling news post.

First off, I have been examining my old works, and I will, hopeful, put the lessons learned into my next post. I'm probably just going to give up on flat perspective comics. They aren't as much fun and they never look organic. Also, they get really busy really fast, meaning that backgrounds need to be left bare. I like treating the background as a free space to fill in whatever environment I want, so it is back to perspectives for me.

OK, every so often I read a comic that forces me to say "this author just plan gets me." Recently there have been a number.

Such as this GSW and this PhD Comic. Note: I do not endorse all (almost any) behavior portrayed by GWS)

The big thing about these is a very simple theme in graduate school. The base level response of most frustrated scientists when they are stuck in a tedious long-term project is to do something creative and unrelated to their fields of study with instant gratification (The other response is to go to football games.) Baking is an awesome escape, and we can still use our analytic ability, but we also have to trust our instincts. I think QC put it best.

Of course, since dissertation projects are so long with an extended feeling of impending doom, we craft fantasies that our escapes will somehow be awesome if they become are our full-time jobs. Isn't chasing a fantasy what got us into gad school in the first place? We ignore that we are taking the stress of working for the approval of our peers, finding funding, deadlines, and the overall success of the project,  and trading it with with the stress of trying to meet the approval of the masses, trying to thrive in what is inherently a luxury industry, and being self-employed with a very low cash-flow.
Now, most graduate students want to find a way around this. We say that our career goals are to marry someone rich and open a restaurant. I am not joking about how often I have heard this.

(If you are a rich woman with some good child-bearing years left you can contact me. Actually, I am desperate enough that I will not take financial accounts into account.)

 The point is, that because we are stressed and feeling hopeless we look to our escapes to figure out what we want to do, even though being a rocket scientist is pretty freaking awesome.

What does this have to do with comics? Well there are two fantasies that comics offer. The first is the fantasy of the comic itself. The escape world that it offers. I want to be a baking scientist. I want to fight bad-guys. I want to cause random trouble in the name of enlightening the world.

The other fantasy is that I want to be the artist. I want to add to what other people have done and contribute to the great comic movement and culture. That being said, I know that I do not want to be a self-employed artist. Part of it is because I don't like the idea of charging for my work. (I'm going to put everything I do under a creative commons soon unless otherwise specified).  The other part is that if I am going the self-employed route then I am going to use my other set of skills that I have been developing that will make me a whole lot more money. I either need to be independently wealthy, or do this as a hobby.

So that is a little thought about comics, creativity and escapeism, but I woudln't take it too seriously.

I mostly just read them because they are visually stimulating and funny with good characters. Why else would I read them? I love pretty pictures that tell stories.

-Crow

EOS 33: Pie to the Face?

Here we go, again. I apologize for the late update. I was busy talking with my about research.

This comic only took a couple of days, unlike the last one which inexplicably kicked my butt. This series of comics will last for foreseeable future. I don't have much planned for the next few months.

Perhaps I will talk later this week, about slapstick. Perhaps I will not. I haven't really developed completely how I show action in my comics. On the other hand, I could also talk about violence. It is something I am trying to avoid in my comics, especially violence towards women. That always rubs me wrong. Threatening or manhandling a women really bothers me, and those people are seen as villains. That being said a soft bag of fluff to that face that causes you to fall over with no harm done is still slapstick in my book, especially when the character is a personification of me, and I feel that I need a sleeping bag to the face as well.

The evolution of Faye Whitaker

I noticed that my characters tend to change from strip to strip. That being said I am still working on my consistency. Then again, many cartoonists change their styles over time. I was thinking about one in particular. While I was waiting for the red eye last night I put together this little collage.

I give you the Evolution of Faye Whitaker in 50 strip increments.
Faye is the female protagonist of Questionable Content, a strip that is sometimes too racy for my taste, but I am addicted to the characters. Seriously, who doesn't love Faye? I also love that her wardrobe does repeat.

EOS 32: In Need of an Excuse.

Here is the final product. Normally, it takes me a weekend and Monday night to finish. I am not really sure why I am taking so long on this. Since I will be traveling the rest of the week. I will have the next one to you on Friday the 14th, marking the 7-monthaversery of EOS!

I think it turned out well, and I had fun with the background, except for one part (try to guess which part). I also think Sylvia is finally getting to the appropriate level of cuteness, that I need for her. Nat and Mark aren't that bad either, but they need work. We will be seeing a lot of them in the next couple of weeks. If you want to see the evolution of the strip check out the last post. It has pictures of all major steps.