Got the script for A* episode 10 written out, and at 150-some pages of just two characters (and you can probably guess who), mysteries solved, new mysteries revealed, and pretty much wall to wall life and death stuff from start to finish--oh, and lots of explosions--I can safely say that I think this episode is going to be killer.

I promised I'd leak some lines, so let's see what we can do in as much of a non-spoilery way as possible... Gee, that doesn't leave me with much. :D Okay, here are some non-consecutive samples in random order:

- "Don't be stupid. There's no escape--no alternative."
- "It's just going to be a bowl of radiation."
- "Damn. You're too slow; hang on, and don't get any ideas."

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Aaand I whipped up some more banners with art from the last episode:







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Finally, for a contrast to the US's WWII-era nuclear "Operation Crossroads" I was posting atomic pictures of a few days ago, today I'd like to direct you to Project Habakkuk, a British project from a just a few years earlier, designed to test the feasibility of aircraft carriers made out of ice and sawdust. It started off with a bang, as the story goes--a bullet deflected from the super-hard frozen substance, dubbed "Pykrete," whizzing past the ankles of a dubious admiral--but appears to have ended up not quite as impressively. And I'll bet that admiral would rather have had some mushroom cloud cake instead.

O Monday! I realized today that having 50% more storyboards (150) for this episode (10) means that it'll take me more like three days than two to draw them, so it'll probably be more like Thursday before I can start in on the actual episode 10 comics.

And I quickly fell behind quota on them 'boards today because I decided to construct the little minidesk that's been sitting here in a box in exactly 60 pieces for a while now while I've been scribbling out drawings by balancing my drawing tablet on my knees, which is getting old! So I assembled the desk (only skinned one finger! :D), then took about a third of it apart again, and now I just need to make it some new feet, and cut the desk top down to a more convenient size with POWER TOOLS :D that I don't own. :| But I'm on non-shoot-on-sight terms with several people who do so, we'll see.

Enough excuses, gimmeh some episode 10 storyboards! Okay!



The first two of those I'm not actually going to use as layouts; they're just a little too generic in their side view / front view-ness. Three reminds me of this page from episode 4, and four reminds me of this page from episode 1, so it looks like my brain's stock of layouts it deems acceptable is pretty finite. Fortunately I've never pretended to be original, yesssss!

Got 66 episode 10 storyboards done today, so here's a double helping of randomly arranged samples:



Yeah! If I get an equal number done tomorrow then that'll finish 'em off, and it'll be on to the real comics on Thursday.

Speaking of real comics, I was so excited with construction activities yesterday that I neglected to give you a little clickable preview/link thing to this past Sunday's latest page of my weekly fairy tale comic, The Princess and the Giant:



Just look at that super-deluxe cross-hatching. :o

Shew, I'm always pretty much brain dead by the end of these pre-episode storyboarding marathons. But episode 10's is done! So that means I can start drawing and posting actual episode 10 comics tomorrow, yay. And in the mean time, here are some randomly arranged selections from today's final storyboard session for the episode; there was a lot of really potentially spoilery stuff so I can only give you lots of general close-ups for the most part:

Added 2 new A* pages:

• A* Episode 10, Page 1
• A* Episode 10, Page 2

A slow start I know but I'm still suffering from storyboarding hangover. :P Speaking of which, I stuck that last storyboard mosaic in the spankin' new episode 10 gallery. Oh yeah, and I updated the very first A* comic--the episode 1 title page--with the name "Vero," since this has been his story, but episode 11 will begin with a different name; "Vero's" always been the lead-off name on the episode list page, which is a handy index for accessing the movies, discussion threads, comics, and art galleries of each episode, but not many people look at it so I thought maybe I should point that out. ;)

Also gonna try updating some other things tonight like my old ad banners you might still be seeing hither and yon about the Internet, and my deviantART.

Apparently the cure to storyboard marathon hangover was oversleeping like all freakin' day, and then I got dragged out to an actual show with music and stuff! But I will get a page done here in the wee hours. Hm I guess I'd better go get started, okay!

Added 1 new A* page:

• A* Episode 10, Page 3

Boo only one page today! Still not back up to speed yet, we'll see if we can't do better next week.

One non-me thing I've been meaning to mention for a while now is the art of Chris Samnee, a dandy artist currently working on a Thor title for Marvel comics. Samnee has a really nice black and white style that he executes with a brush pen or something similar, dropping down thick black lines and blobs in a way that is alternately thick and graceful, both retro and sleekly modern. Check out this Tarzan he did recently, for instance. Look at those shadows! The poses! The composition that puts foreground, middle, and background together so naturally, so dynamically! Yes this is good stuff.

Added 2 new A* pages:

• A* Episode 10, Page 4
• A* Episode 10, Page 5

I found someone talking about A* on another site today! Yes I am stalking the internet! It was on the xkcd forum, where member Dauric was kind enough to include A* in a short list of webcomics that would never qualify for syndication. :D The other comics named were xkcd, Schlock Mercenary, Something Positive, and Questionable Content; if you know even just a tiny bit about webcomics, you know those are all very long-running, super-successful comics, so I'm pretty flattered to find an insane...ly awesome internet user including my little A* in such august company. Of A*'s syndication-ruining qualities, they said "Adventure comics don't go over well, and the art style is too abstract, to [sic] inaccessible for newspaper readers." Yesss! Stickin' it to The Man. And really I'm just pleased that someone considers that the comic has art, style, abstraction, and adventure. :) So thanks for thinking of A*, Dauric; you are a rad person who made my day today.

Speaking of making peoples' days, my weekly Princess and the Giant comic updated this weekend; go take a peek! Clicking on this little preview picture will take you right to it:

Added 1 new A* page:

• A* Episode 10, Page 6

Ooh, not another of these only-one-page days! Ech. On the plus side, I think I'm just about done modifying this new table thingy I've been trying to set up as a desk / drawing table; after days of altering or replacing large amounts of it, like replacing its wheel feet with tennis balls, cutting its top down to size with my dad's POWER SAW, hand-sanding the heck out of the remaining top part in my bathtub, and replacing the super-flimsy washers it came with after one buckled and caused one of the top's clamps to get screwed up (fortunately I have spares since I'm only using half the top to begin with), I've now got it into a workable state, hopefully. It even TRANSFORMS between DRAWING MODE and TYPING MODE; admittedly this is just a workaround for its total inability to stay up if you try adjusting the table height normally.

Yes it was cheap. ;) But its general frame and size looked closer to what I needed than the more expensive ones, so I figured it was worth trying to whip it into shape. If there was a manufacturer out there who actually made compact, sturdy, adjustable and affordable work surfaces for keyboards/drawing tablets, I wouldn't be having this problem. =P Not to mention the furniture-industry-wide problem of always making desks that are at least several inches too high for even a fairly tall dude like me to type on in a truly ergonomic fashion! Anyway hopefully this one will work out now; so far it's definitely better than...not having a table, which was my previous situation.

Okay I know, nobody cares about the table. So as you can see, slow page output aside, we're already springing into some action, huzzah! It sure is nice to have them out of those silly old ships. I tried making a banner out of this one:



No, I'm not at all desperate for a sexy full-width image to use in a banner, why do you ask? :P Eh... Fortunately this episode should have plenty more material to draw from now that Selenis is on the loose. Burn the ships!

Added 2 new A* pages:

• A* Episode 10, Page 7
• A* Episode 10, Page 8

The table saga continues! Now where can I get some tin snips...

Meanwhile, another day, another banner: