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| Ricing my humid salt | May 29, 2020 10:53 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Re: yesterday's sad tale of a burst of seasonal humidity clogging up my salt shaker and leading silly me to a bout with dehydration, it turns out that dry grains of uncooked long grain white rice in the shaker—up to 1/3rd of its contents, maybe—will absorb the excess moisture (mine seemed to take about 5-6 hours), and then the salt will flow when shaken again. : )
Apparently this is pretty well known in areas with regular high humidity; I lived most of my life in Seattle and don't recall ever having my non-riced salt shakers going on the fritz there—Seattle doesn't actually get all that humid, generally. I *think* I recall finding rice grains in a salt shaker at a restaurant once, but I thought someone had just been messing with it. : P
Anyway, science! : D
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Salting away the day | May 28, 2020 8:31 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:This is the page that took me two days to get posted, and it was just because I'm a goofball.
The end of our little spring rainy season here and outbreak of the first almost summer-y weather two days ago produced a sudden surge of relatively high humidity: wooden doors stuck in their frames, my watercolor paper stayed limp, and salt clumped up trying to come out of the shaker.
I cook all my own meals from scratch, clumsily (I'm no cook—it's mostly oatmeal, chicken sandwiches, apples, and frozen veggies :d), and salt from that shaker is pretty much my only significant source of sodium. Not being able to dispense it normally, I tried sprinkling it from a spoon but, after having rendered a few meals a bit on the salty side in a few damp days previously, tried to go easier...and apparently severely underestimated how much I needed to add.
The body needs sodium to retain water; without enough of it, water goes right through you, carrying any remaining sodium away that much faster. I woke up with a slight headache, and, figuring it was dehydration, started drinking more water—which made things worse. :P By the time it came to sitting down to draw yesterday, the headache was pretty bad, and I guess I was kind of out of it, because it took me two hours just to pencil out something that looked like something. By that time, the headache was raging and I could barely think straight.
Finally I realized I was really dehydrated, must be low on sodium, and started drinking salt dissolved in water (eventually followed by regular water, after I felt salted enough—ie, after the salt-infused water started tasting disgusting instead of curative). That was the cure, and after a while of that and a bit of a lie-down I was together enough to paint the page. By the time that was done it was nearing bed time, and I still wasn't sharp enough to sit down and work in front of the computer. So, the rest of preparing and posting the page had to wait until today. Also I repainted her nose three times. :-D
And now I'm erring on the salty side of things until a bit more summery weather gets our humidity back to normal. : P (I guess if it keeps up long enough I'll just get decent at spooning on salt, and then I'll never need a salt shaker again! /thrifty)
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Ugh (back tomorrow!) | May 27, 2020 10:11 PM PDT | url |
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No page today, got myself all dehydrated and headachey. Managed to get the art done (I think) but the head is now demanding sleep, so all the scanning and formatting and blogging will have to wait until tomorrow.
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| Not like a boss or anything | May 26, 2020 10:48 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Got a page done and that's about it. : D
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| I forget but it got inky | May 22, 2020 9:44 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:
^ Inked sketch for a reader supporting the comic through my Patreon campaign. : )
Thanks everyone for your support and/or reading the comic! : D
I will be playing hooky on Monday for the Memorial Day holiday. Back at it on Tuesday!
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Always have a jack for your nuke | May 21, 2020 9:15 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:
^ From "The Coming of...Sub-Mariner!" in The Fantastic Four #4, Marvel Comics, May 1962. Script by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Sol Brodsky, colors by Stan Goldberg, letters by Artie Simek.
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| New shot of possible AB Aurigae planet birth | May 20, 2020 8:59 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:The ESO has just released an eye-catching optical image, taken by their SPHERE instrument on the VLT, of bright swirls of gas and dust in the disc of material gathering around the star AB Aurigae, with a "twist" in the swirls suggesting the location of a newly forming planet. Their annotated versions of the photo show the scale the pick out the salient points; the potential planet orbits the star—which is about 2.5 times the mass of our Sun—at a distance roughly equivalent Venus' distance from the Sun.
The ESO spotted first spiral formations in AB Aurigae's protoplanetary disc with their ALMA radio telescope array in 2017; the spirals are what is predicted to form in the wake of a large mass like a proto-planet orbiting through the disc of gas and dust.
AB Aurigae is about 531 light years from Earth.
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Font rendering is so important these days | May 19, 2020 9:20 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:I changed my Photoshop thingies so the comic's subtitle text comes out a little smoother. : P
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Rick Jones notices Dr. Banner dyed his hair | May 18, 2020 8:32 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:
^ From "The Coming of the Hulk" in The Incredible Hulk #1, Marvel Comics, May 1962. Script by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Paul Reinman, colors by Stan Goldberg, letters by Ray Holloway.
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| You just put your lips together, and | May 15, 2020 10:38 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:
Inked sketch for a reader supporting the comic through my Patreon campaign. : ) Thank you! And thanks to everyone supporting the comic, it makes a huge difference! =D
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Science vs military, etc | May 14, 2020 8:59 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:
^ From "The Coming of the Hulk" in The Incredible Hulk #1, Marvel Comics, May 1962. Script by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Paul Reinman, colors by Stan Goldberg, letters by Ray Holloway.
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Man Talk | May 13, 2020 7:44 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:
^ From "The Coming of the Hulk" in The Incredible Hulk #1, Marvel Comics, May 1962. Script by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Paul Reinman, colors by Stan Goldberg, letters by Ray Holloway.
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Running late, but... | May 12, 2020 11:14 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Got the page done though : )
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| The big money's on cobalt | May 11, 2020 8:52 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:
^ From "The Man Who Blew Up the Earth!" in Tales to Astonish #29, Marvel Comics, March 1962. Plot by Stan Lee (?), script by Larry Lieber (?), pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Dick Ayers, colors by Stan Goldberg, letters by John Duffy.
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Bangs & Ennui | May 08, 2020 9:01 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:
^ Pencil sketch for a reader supporting the comic though my Patreon campaign. : )
Thanks to everyone who's making this comic possible! : D
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| /shakefist | May 07, 2020 9:20 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:
^ From "The Man Who Blew Up the Earth!" in Tales to Astonish #29, Marvel Comics, March 1962. Plot by Stan Lee (?), script by Larry Lieber (?), pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Dick Ayers, colors by Stan Goldberg, letters by John Duffy.
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| A black hole only 1000 light years away | May 06, 2020 8:28 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:"Nearest black hole to Earth discovered" - The BBC reports that scientists with the ESO have spotted, only 1000 light years away (for comparison, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy is about 26,000 light years away), two stars "orbiting an unseen object every 40 days"; calculations show that it would take a mass four times the mass of our Sun to make those stars whirl in tight orbits like that; the object cannot be seen, thus, it must be a black hole.
The article points out that most black holes are detected by bursts of energy from material falling into the black hole, which is far easier to spot than watching the motions of stars over time. Our galaxy's central supermassive black hole, radio source A*, was confirmed by the star-orbit method, though—this is necessary when the hole is not actively feeding.
This new black hole is the closest known black hole to Earth. But, says a scientist quoted in the article, "In the Milky Way, the idea is that there should be about 100 million black holes. So there should be perhaps a couple more that are closer by still."
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| The less we know? | May 05, 2020 8:46 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:
^ From "The Frightening Fog" in Tales to Astonish #28, Marvel Comics, February 1962. Script by Stan Lee, art by Steve Ditko, colors by Stan Goldberg, letters by John Duffy.
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| He has the nattiest cape | May 04, 2020 7:56 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:
^ From "The Man Who Captured Death!" in Amazing Adult Fantasy #9, Marvel Comics, February 1962. Script by Stan Lee, art by Steve Ditko, colors by Stan Goldberg, letters by Artie Simek.
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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| Levers with levers | May 01, 2020 8:20 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:
^ Ink sketch for a reader supporting the comic through my Patreon campaign. : ) Biiiig thanks to all my supporters and readers, you make this comic possible!!
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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )
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