Muskrat Ramblings
Three-Minute Warm-Up Sketches…
posted by John

The idea for the morning warm-up sketches came from my pal, Stacy Curtis. He began posting his morning sketches on his Facebook page and I, frankly, had fallen out of the habit of sketching.

There’s little I emphasize more to kids who want to become cartoonists than “Sketch, sketch, SKETCH!” Well, that and learn to live on Ramen Noodles. Still, “Carry a sketchbook on you at all times” is what I’ll usually tell younglings. And yet, here I was, failing to follow my own very good, solid and sensible advice.

Warming up in the morning has also proven pretty important for the rest of the work I get done that day. It seems to shake the cobwebs out of the old noggin. Some sketches are more successful than others, and none of them are supposed to look GREAT (though I’m thankful when sometimes they look cool). I give myself three minutes to come up with anything: more sketching may follow, but that first one of the day needs to be done in less time than it takes to boil an egg. I doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, it just has to be DONE.

Anyway, here’s this morning’s Three-Minute Warm-Up Sketch (which actually took two minutes – leaving me a full minute to, say, boil an egg): CAP’THULHU AMERICA!

There’s probably a line somewhere about him being “the first IA-venger,” but I’m not touching it.

If you click on the image, you SHOULD see a larger version of the drawing.

John

Muskrat Ramblings
Fifteen Years and One Sketch Later…
posted by John

So I’m working on some art for the 15th anniversary of Dork Tower next year. But right now, it’s athe 10th anniversary of Munchkin. So I thought I’d do up some promotional cards and postcards and the like.

Here’s the art: Dork Tower and Munchkin: two great tastes that taste great together.

Here’s what it will look like, as a postcard:

In both instances, click on the image to see a larger version of it.

I’m pleased with the piece. It’s far more dynamic than the original sketch I did for the anniversary.

Coincidentally, it shares some similarities with Today’s Three-Minute Warm-Up Sketch. These help me loosen up a little, before approaching more ’serious’ drawings. I’m only so-so about this one, but for a very quick piece, I suppose I shouldn’t expect too much. But I thought yesterday’s sketch was more successful. Anyhoo – Matt and Gilly, as Batman and the Huntress:

John

A NOTE TO NEW READERS ABOUT THE CURRENT DORKTOWER.COM ARCHIVES:

I hate those click-thru full-page ads more than you can possibly know. Read all about it here: http://www.dorktower.com/2011/11/22/muskrat-ramblings-november-22-2011/

Also: the archives are broken. VERY broken. We’re working on it. In the meantime, I hope this helps out at least a little:

The entire archives, with links, earliest to latest – https://serialist.net/archive/1159

The first strip itself can be found here: http://www.dorktower.com/2001/01/01/comics-archive-1/

Changes coming as soon as possible. Honest.

Muskrat Ramblings
Between a rock and a hard Munchkin deadline…
posted by John

This is a busy, messy week for me. I’m between Munchkin projects, and between major holidays. As a friend of mine cleverly pointed out, Thanksgiving in the US is the point where we switch from complaining that Christmas is being celebrated too early to complaining that Christmas is coming too soon.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that this week, Dork Tower will run on Tuesday and Thursday, as I work on getting a backlog together. I’ll try and get a third strip up, but can’t promise anything in that regard. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, here’s this morning’s Warm-Up Sketch: “A Girl and her Dragon.” I don’t think I had a young Anne McCaffrey in mind when I quickly doodled it, but I don’t wonder whether her passing last week was why I had dragons on the mind.

Wouldn’t it be nice to think so?

If you click on the image, you SHOULD see a larger version of the drawing.

If I post more such things in the future, would you prefer to see them here, in the blog, or on the main website, where the comic strip appears? Just curious.

John

A NOTE TO NEW READERS ABOUT THE CURRENT DORKTOWER.COM ARCHIVES:

I hate those click-thru full-page ads more than you can possibly know. Read all about it here: http://www.dorktower.com/2011/11/22/muskrat-ramblings-november-22-2011/

Also: the archives are broken. VERY broken. We’re working on it. In the meantime, I hope this helps out at least a little:

The entire archives, with links, earliest to latest – https://serialist.net/archive/1159

The first strip itself can be found here: http://www.dorktower.com/2001/01/01/comics-archive-1/

Changes coming as soon as possible. Honest.

A NOTE TO NEW READERS ABOUT THE CURRENT DORKTOWER.COM ARCHIVES:

I hate those click-thru full-page ads more than you can possibly know. Read all about it here: http://www.dorktower.com/2011/11/22/muskrat-ramblings-november-22-2011/

Also: the archives are broken. VERY broken. We’re working on it. In the meantime, I hope this helps out at least a little:

The entire archives, with links, earliest to latest – https://serialist.net/archive/1159

The first strip itself can be found here: http://www.dorktower.com/2001/01/01/comics-archive-1/

Changes coming as soon as possible. Honest.

Muskrat Ramblings
Full-page click-thru purgatory!
posted by John

A message came in – late, because my website sucks. But here it is:

I read webcomics all the time, and I make it a habit to donate after a web crawl.

It’s your website and your work. Do as you wish, but know that THIS customer is taking his custom elsewhere.

I suppose I could take umbrage at the tone of the message, but, you know, I really can’t, since – as previously noted – my website sucks.

Anyway, my reply, essentially, ran something like this (edited a bit, but essentially the same):

Trust me…nobody hates that full page click-thru ad more than I do. To make matters worse, I get nothing from it. It’s a Gamespy thing. It even pops up when I try and load a new comic! (In fact, I had to click through it just now, to post this.

We are in the process of changing to a new site, one that will be totally full-page click-thru ad-free. We had hoped the change would have been before now. In any case, or should be very soon.

John Kovalic

I’m hoping the change will be in a matter of weeks. But I’ve been hoping that for the last couple of months. Still, it’s a top priority, and I’ve got the help of some really good people on this. It’s just taking longer than expected.

In the meantime, I struggle with even a simple post like this one, as even a slight revision will send me to the click-thru ad, and play silly buggers as the admin portion of the page leaps into a perpetual full-page loop. It is a despicable thing. I hate it like poison.

I won’t miss the click-thru ads in the slightest – I can almost hear readers being lost every time the accursed thing pops up. I’m truly sorry my host went to this format, but if you’re hanging in there with me, I can’t thank you enough. Really.

I may miss the irony of some of the ads being for Visene eye-drops, given the sheer ugliness of it all.

But not much.

I may even add a “Donation” button, just so folks who angrily declare they’ll never donate will actually be able to actively not donate, instead of just saying it as an abstract concept.

Because I care.

****

Seriously, my website sucks. Can I apologize enough?

****

I’ll also be blogging more, once the new page goes up. Given the difficulty the teeny text lends to reading the current blog, though, it seems a bit of a time-waste, at the moment. To say nothing of the teeth-gratingly loopy hijinks the full-page ad re-route ensures, both in updating and viewing. So most news of my professional life goes up either at my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/johnkovalic) or on my Twitter feed (https://twitter.com/muskrat_john).

****

Onto happier matters: my birthday is this Thursday. My only wish is it be celebrated with turkey feasts and football games in the USA. Possibly a parade or two. Sound do-able?

John

A NOTE TO NEW READERS ABOUT THE CURRENT DORKTOWER.COM ARCHIVES:

I hate those click-thru full-page ads more than you can possibly know. Read all about it here: http://www.dorktower.com/2011/11/22/muskrat-ramblings-november-22-2011/

Also: the archives are broken. VERY broken. We’re working on it. In the meantime, I hope this helps out at least a little:

The entire archives, with links, earliest to latest – https://serialist.net/archive/1159

The first strip itself can be found here: http://www.dorktower.com/2001/01/01/comics-archive-1/

Changes coming as soon as possible. Honest.

A NOTE TO NEW READERS ABOUT THE CURRENT DORKTOWER.COM ARCHIVES:

The archives are broken. VERY broken. We’re working on it. In the meantime, I hope this helps out at leasta little:

The entire archives, with links, earliest to latest – https://serialist.net/archive/1159

The first strip itself can be found here: http://www.dorktower.com/2001/01/01/comics-archive-1/

A NOTE TO NEW READERS ABOUT THE CURRENT DORKTOWER.COM ARCHIVES:

The archives are broken. VERY broken. We’re working on it. In the meantime, I hope this helps out at leasta little:

The entire archives, with links, earliest to latest – https://serialist.net/archive/1159

The first strip itself can be found here: http://www.dorktower.com/2001/01/01/comics-archive-1/