Mike's Place of Random

30 Day Wrestler Challenge 2011

2011-04-02T03:53:00.000-07:00

For the last 30 days on twitter I've been leading up to Wrestlemania XXVII with the 30 Day Wrestler Challenge. I drew one wrestler a day for 30 days. And here they all are.

1 - Ultimate Warrior

2 - "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan

3 - George "The Animal" Steele

4 - Blue Meanie

5 - Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake

6 - Jesse "The Body" Ventura

7 - Mankind

8 - Jake "The Snake" Roberts

9 - The Undertaker

10- Hillbilly Jim

11 - Sgt. Slaughter

12 - "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase

13 - Koko B Ware

14 - "Ravinshing" Rick Rude

15 - ODB

16 - Mr. Perfect

17 - Razor Ramon

18 - Diamond Dallas Page

19 - "Macho Man" Randy Savage

20 - Sid Vicious

21 - Big Boss Man

22 - Akeem "The African Dream"

23 - Ax

24 - Smash

25 - Rick "The Model" Martel

26 - Bret "The Hitman" Hart

27 - "The Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels

28 - X-Pac

29 - Golddust

30 - "Rowdy" Roddy Piper

No matter where you go, there you are

2011-03-28T21:58:00.000-07:00

The other night I had a terrible dream. I was back home. Whatever happened to make me up and run home is anyone’s guess. It started with me already there. And everyone I was talking to kept asking me when I was going back to Australia or when I was going to leave again. All in a very “we were better when you weren’t here, so could you please hurry up and leave again.” kind of way.

This dream haunted me all day. It’s been 3 days since and it’s still in my head, obviously. It just felt like no one wanted me around. It hasn’t helped that since then I’ve gotten a few comments from people that boil down to me being a dick. Sure, one of the comments I took way out of context, however I can’t help but think that maybe there was some truth in how I took it.

No matter which way you slice it, I’m a dick. (for the record I do not advocate the slicing of dicks.)

I’ve had a few realizations in this time as well. One of them being that I don’t really have anybody I feel I can go to when I’m upset. I have several people who say I can go to them, but I don’t feel I can. It’s part of this “crew mentality” that I have.

The crew mentality is that, while I have a lot of people I’m friendly with and would consider friends, I only have a small group of those people who are on a level above the rest in my eyes. I guess these are the ones who I’d want to have my back when the zombie apocalypse broke out, even if they’re not necessarily the best at fighting zombies. These people are my crew. And, to an extent, I am their captain. I’m supposed to look out for them. I’m supposed to be the one they come to when they have a problem and try to fix it as best I can. However, that doesn’t work the other way. I have to be strong for them. Which I’m not, at all. I at least have to fake it well enough. Kinda like that joke with the pirate captain that wanted his red shirt before they went into battle so his crew wouldn’t see him bleed. Or his brown pants.

I know this is all bullshit. I’ve made it very public that I’m a mess. But I think that’s a byproduct of feeling like I have no one specific I can turn to.

I can’t seek advice from any one person. So, at the risk of coming off insanely emo a lot of the time, I post my problems on twitter, or facebook, or in this blog. I can’t turn to one person, so I turn to all the people. I say “I have a problem and it’s X” and whoever gives enough of a shit to weigh in can do so and I can try to take whatever I can fro the advice they provide me. I, however, can’t call a crisis line or anything like that, which has been suggested to me a couple times. Maybe because a lot of these people are on some kind of middle tier in my life, where they obviously give enough of a shit about me to follow me, yet they aren’t fixtures in my every day life. So I guess I can fall apart in front of them knowing they’ll give advice then move on, it probably will never be brought up again. And I probably won’t ever meet most of them as cool as I think it would be to hang out with some of them.

I’ve tried to cut back on venting on twitter due to a couple requests. I tried to start another blog to replace that. A blog that I completely locked off access for everyone but me. It would become my own dark corner to bitch in. But it feels empty without anyone offering their thoughts on the situations. I guess it’s a weird battle in my brain between the anxiety ridden mess Mike and the entertainer Mike looking for the attention or applause.

I came to Australia because I was sick of Oregon. Where I was living there was nothing. A few retail places. Nothing that would have helped me further any kind of cartooning career. But I felt tied down. I thought that’s where a lot of my depression and anxiety was coming from. That I was stuck in a suburban nothingness. Even for entertainments sake there was nothing to do but get a train into the city and get drunk. Leaving nothing for someone who doesn’t drink.

But after being here for almost a year (I can’t believe it’s been that long) I have to begrudgingly agree with something my father said before I left, thinking it would cure me. “No matter where you go, there you are.”

And yeah, I’m still a self-conscious prick that doesn’t go anywhere or do anything. I’m not good enough to get paying work anywhere, and I keep hoping against hope that one day this ability to draw, that everyone says I have, will pay off in some way. But maybe it won’t. Maybe I’m just not good enough.

And no one else wants me.

So where do I go?

Where do I belong?

Being public about shit like this has helped me in the past. And I’m really hoping it’ll help now.

I really need it.

A blog about poop!

2011-02-26T02:17:00.001-08:00

The following contains talk about poop. If poop bothers you, don’t read any further. Go find a blog with less talk about poop.

My girlfriend likes to exercise. She likes to go for walks, go to the gym, lift weights etc. I really don’t. If someone else could exercise for me, I would let that happen. She tells me a lot to go for a walk get some fresh air, which I know is good for me and I should do it more but tonight I was given a great example on why I don’t.

I had the house to myself. I made some dinner, which consisted of the same thing I usually make myself for breakfast or lunch, whichever I’m awake for first, it’s some combination of stuff I find in the fridge held together with scrambled eggs and cheese. It all ends up tasting like butter anyway so it doesn’t really matter what I throw in there. After dinner I wanted something sugary. I usually have M&Ms around the house but I had eaten them all. “The store is a bit of a walk, but it’s not so far that I couldn’t walk there.” I say quietly to myself. “I’ll go up there and get some M&Ms. Then I’ll have gone for a walk and I’ll get the treats I so desire.”

I head out. Make it to the store and start back. Now, this is where I’m reminded of why I don’t go for walks more. About half way back, it hits me.

I gotta poop!

Anyone who knows me knows that when I have to poop it’s not a gradual thing where I start to feel it and am able to hold it for a while. Pee I can, and have, held for hours, no problem. But when it’s the other side, The feelings of having to poop don’t mean “hold it till you get home” it means “Find the nearest toilet or reasonable facsimile of a toilet.”

As I’m heading back this fire is growing in my belly. It’s getting more and more painful with each step. I’m starting to look around for places I could possibly hide and take care of this. In a bush. Behind a tree, perhaps. I’m not above taking a dook in the sand at a playground and burying it like a cat. I’ve done it before (on a side note, when I did that I found out that Blackberry bush leaves are both the best and worst of nature’s toilet paper. One side is covered in this wonderfully soft fur that actually works really well at cleaning one up. The other side, however, is covered in razor-sharp thorns that will tear you a literal new one.)

I think it’s okay. I can make it home. I don’t need to climb down to the bike path tunnel that goes under the street. I can do this. I start heading up the street to the house. I can SEE the house. Suddenly it’s that scene from “Poltergeist” where they’re running for the door and the hallway is ever expanding. The house, and more importantly the toilet in the house, are running away from me!

I catch the house and go inside, my house mate is home. I start out by saying “I have to take a dook you would not believe.” Somehow this registered in his mind as “Ask me how my evening went.” Instead of “I’m making a run for the toiler!”

He starts in “I thought you were going to the concert tonight.” “No, Emma had to work so we didn’t go.” “So you just went out to dinner then?” “No I ate here.” “Oh then…” “I’ll talk to you when I get out!” as the bathroom door closes.

I take care of my business. And now I have my M&Ms and I don’t want them anymore.

So now I’m here, not eating my M&Ms, tired and sweaty from the walk and crampy from having to hold it and walk.

If I hadn’t gone for the walk in the first place I would still not be eating M&Ms and less tired, sweaty and crampy.

How did that walk benefit me?

This is why I don’t go on walks.

Things in Comics that need to STOP! Part 1

2011-02-05T02:40:00.001-08:00

I’ll be honest; I haven’t read comics in quite some time. I used to be very dedicated to buying and reading comics. It started that on the bus ride home from the comic store I wouldn’t wait to read the books I had in my bag (I would have read them ON the bus but I get carsick when I read in a vehicle.) At some point life got in the way of my reading them as soon as I got home and a pile started to build. I would still buy them, and read through 10 or 20 when time permitted, but I was buying faster than I was reading and too often I found myself not caring about the characters or stories anymore. After I lost my job and was planning on a move anyway I stopped buying all together. I needed money for other things.

I’ve made attempts to keep up with what’s going on but every time I hear about the stories and the continuity they’re building and will probably ultimately retcon, I get angry that they’re feeding this shit to people. And that people are still eating it! I realized that a lot of what I get angry about are things they’ve developed over the years to maintain some kind of bullshit status quo in their universes. Things that need to stop!

Clone characters

Immediately when I brought this one up to my housemate he thought of the Spider-Man Clone Saga, and while that was bullshit, I’m talking about any time a character is thought to be the character they are portraying, only to later be revealed as a clone, hologram, shape-shifting alien, nanobot replication of the person.

In my research of trying to find out what happened with the Avengers since, last time I was reading, the Avengers were lead by Norman Osbourne, who was operating under the codename of Iron Patriot. I find out that Red Hulk, who I still had no idea the identity of, was joining the new Avengers team. I figured this meant they had revealed the itentity of Red Hulk. Thunderbolt Ross… OK, sure, but Thunderbolt Ross was looking for Red Hulk? Then I see Ross was KILLED by Red Hulk. He killed himself? What? Oh, wait, the now dead Ross was a Life Model Decoy.

Really?

There was no other way to do this? Red Hulk couldn’t have been ANYONE else making the death of Ross real and not some awful kinda retcon where he killed a robot of himself? This was the idea that was thrown around the writing room and agreed that it was the best way to go?

Now, when Nick Fury used life model decoys, this was so he could go out and do things while being safely on the SHIELD hovercraft. Fair enough there. He shouldn’t be going out and getting himself killed if he could send out a fake. But Ross in this instance has no reason to have a decoy. Why would he need a decoy to hunt himself? Cause if it gets killed he’s still safe on a military base somewhere? No! Cause he’s the damn monster! The only way to make sense of this is to chalk it up to TERRIBLE writing.

And lets revisit some of the more recent clone nonsense we’ve been subjected to.

Thor. In the midst of Civil War people were waiting for Thor’s return as he was thought to be dead. But as we know, which something I’ll get to at a later date, deaths are only done in comics so the character can make a return. So Thor, God of Thunder, shows up and kills Goliath. Was Thor siding with the pro registration team? No. Thor wasn’t even back from the dead (yet) it was a half clone/half cyborg. Reed Richards had done what every friend does and harvested Thor’s hair from the couch and used that to make the clone bit. Because Civil War hadn’t been a big enough clusterfuck up until this point that they had to throw the clone crap to really push it over the edge of true garbage.

Then there was the biggest misuse of clone usage in recent memory, The Secret War! In a story that had apparently been building since House of M, the story that was going to turn the Marvel universe on it’s head. Anyone could be a shape-shifting Skrull! It was made apparent that the Skrulls had been here for years, strategically positioning themselves to take down humanity. It, like the previous Civil War/Thor thing, was an over-the-top and underwhelming spectacle to bring back dead characters or get rid of characters who would be brought back later and it was just a terribly long and boring trip to get Tony Stark out of SHIELD. Sorry Skrulls but you were too late, bad storytelling had fucked up the Marvel World just before you had your shot. Maybe next time.

My question to comic writers is this. Why can’t these characters be the real things? Why can’t characters die? In the case of Civil War why couldn’t Thor had sided with Tony Stark and the pro-reg team? Why can’t Thunderbolt Ross be dead and Red Hulk be someone else? Why do you still think Skrulls are interesting things?

By making anyone a clone it makes anything they do immediately undoable. If they fuck up or do something out of character for them, even if they die, none of that is important because it can be written off as some kind of body double.

Nothing anyone does in these stories matters anymore.

So if nothing matters, why should we want to read it?

Art Jam 7: Crossover

2010-12-16T00:26:00.000-08:00

Sorry for taking so long to post this but I've been debating with myself over whether or not I want to continue doing these. As of yet I haven't come to a decision so I'm posting another one.

And thanks go to Emma-Jean Stewart for giving me the idea based on a few things I've been posting on Deviantart as of late voicing my displeasure with Kratos being included in the new Mortal Kombat game.

So this month's jam is Crossover. Any two (or more) characters from any franchise interacting in some way.

RULES:
-Deadline for submissions is December 31st 2010
-Any artwork is acceptable. Pencil and paper, digital, if you have a cool costume. Fair game.
-Please post links to artwork in the comments of this blog.
-Please post new artwork, meaning in December 2010 and specifically for this jam.
-Most important rule: HAVE FUN!

Art Jam 6: Fantasyland

2010-11-01T05:58:00.000-07:00

Last Month's art jam comes to a close. Great work from all involved. Still wishing I could get more participants. I love that it's encouraging those participating to draw, even if it's just for these once-a-month things. Still, wish there were more people involved.

Something that I've gotten from a few people on twitter is that they don't want to participate in certain jams because they 'can't draw' whatever it is. They say they can't draw people or animals or anthropomorphic characters, what have you. Part of this jam business is to experiment. If you're not comfortable doing something, do it anyway. There's no competition with these. No judges. No one saying 'that's rad' or 'that's crap.' None of that belongs here. It's for fun.

What's the worst that can come with trying something new? You stretch yourself artistically. And that's always a good thing.

Now that that's out of the way, on to the jammin'!

This month's topic is fantasy characters! Dungeons & Dragons, World of Warcraft, Tolken. Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Goblins. Etc.

Whatever creatures come to mind when you hear these words. That is what you draw. Draw yourself as one of these fanciful races. Or a character or your own design. If it's your own character, bonus points for coming up with some kind of back story or profile on them.

RULES:
-Deadline for submissions is November 30th 2010
-Any artwork is acceptable. Pencil and paper, digital, if you have a cool costume. Fair game.
-Please post links to artwork in the comments of this blog.
-Please post new artwork, meaning in November 2010 and specifically for this jam.
-Most important rule: HAVE FUN!

Pammy

Jaimi Kelly

Rasmus Pettersson

Mike Perry

Art Jam 5: Monster Mash!

2010-10-05T20:48:00.000-07:00

Got a LOT of great submissions last month. Hopefully we'll get the same this month.

It was suggested that due to it being October, Halloween season, that the subject be monsters! So I thought the theme would be the classic Universal Monsters. I came up with a few different things for you guys to do. You can do one, two or all three if you want.

FISRT
Draw any or all of the Universal Monsters. You can do a single monster or do a collage of all the movie monsters you can think of as long as it includes at least one of the Universal Monsters.

SECOND
Yourself in Universal Monster cosplay. Drawing, costume, whatever you got. You as a monster.

THIRD
A pulp-style movie poster, again featuring at least one of the monsters. Bonus points if you either include the above 'you as a monster' or you getting attacked by one of the monsters in the poster.

Below are some reference images of the Universal Monsters and their movie posters. If you need more reference there's always Google Images.

Creature Reference

Poster Reference

Other monsters that have been included in the Universal Monsters stable include the following.
The Phantom of the Opera
The Mole People
Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Mutant from "This Island Earth"

RULES:
-Deadline for submissions is October 31st 2010
-Any artwork is acceptable. Pencil and paper, digital, if you have a cool costume. Fair game.
-Please post links to artwork in the comments of this blog.
-Please post new artwork, meaning in September 2010 and specifically for this jam.
-Most important rule: HAVE FUN!

Rasmus Pettersson

Mike Perry

Ben Wilson

Emma-Jean Stewart

Sam Cavanagh

No Halloween and no Thanksgiving

2010-09-09T19:49:00.000-07:00

WTF Australia!?

I mean, I get the no Thanksgiving thing, that's an American thing. But no Halloween? Like even if you're not ushering in winter down here there's no day to dress up and get free candy and scare the shit out of children and old people? What sort of criminal country is this!?

Oh right..It was a prison island...

My Cintiq finally arrived! And right out of the box I started drawing comics with it, I want to take the next week or so to get a bit of a buffer on it, so the return date is September 20th!

And No Dice 100 is right around the corner. I think I'll have some kind of special desktop wallpaper or something for it. Won't make any real big to-do about it. I've noticed that a lot of times when a big deal is made about the 100th (or whatever number you wanna plug in here) that the comic starts to quickly go down hill. Like the creator said "I've made it to 100! Not gonna waste any more real effort on this one." So while I'll mark it with something, I have to remember that just because I hit 100 doesn't mean my work is done.

While you're waiting for No Dice to return (And hopefully after it's returned you'll continue to check them out) there are two comics that have gone up recently that you should read.

EmmArt by Emma-Jean Stewart
Red Tails by Katie Ryan

Both comics are still in their early stages, not many strips up in either and the sites are still getting tweaked on, but I find them both to be beautifully drawn.

Art Jam 4: You as a Superhero

2010-09-02T06:10:00.000-07:00

Last month's jam didn't get very many entries. It was kind of frustrating, but I guess Felix didn't interest enough people.

I decided I'd do something a little different for this month's jam. Instead of fan art of some character, the subject is YOU as a superhero. Maybe, if you like, add some statistics about your superhero self. Powers, weaknesses, origin story, arch nemesis, etc...

RULES:
Deadline for submissions is September 30th 2010
Any artwork is acceptable. Pencil and paper, digital, if you have a cool costume. Fair game.
Please post links to artwork in the comments of this blog.
Please post new artwork, meaning in September 2010 and specifically for this jam.
Most important rule: HAVE FUN!

Hippie P

Rasmus Pettersson

Mike Perry

Emma-Jean Stewart

Robert Perrie

Jenelle

Sam Cavanagh

Aussie Post: I got two words for ya!

2010-09-02T06:00:00.001-07:00

First, I had a job interview, which always makes me feel bad. This one went a LOT better than the JB HiFi one, but I still don’t feel I did well enough to get the job. Probably, again, because I don’t have enough experience in what they’re looking for. Even putting over what little management experience I do have, I don’t think it was quite enough.

I get home that night and my leftover packages arrived. Or I thought.

The CD case my parents sent was the wrong one. Instead of my program backups and Power Rangers collection I got a case full of the legitimate music CDs from years ago. The case full of my boy-band music from the days when my friend convinced me that getting familiar with the music girls liked would help get us girls. Buying the CDs was about as far as I got. He actually went to N*Sync concerts and shit. I don’t know that a collection of pirated Power Ranger episodes are any less embarrassing than Backstreet Boy and Mandy Moore albums, but I’m much more comfortable admitting being a fan of Power Rangers than that I was ever (and might still be) a fan of Mandy Moore.

Along with the CD case of shame, came a note saying that Australian Post was holding my Cintiq screen in customs because it’s worth is over $1000.

So, because it’s addressed to Bob, he had to fill out a few papers and I supplied him with $50 to cover the processing fee or whatever they’re charging me. So we fill those out, and plan to go to the customs office on Wednesday.

When we get there, the fat little monkey security guard behind the counter says “I got good news and bad news for you boys. Good news, you’re in the right building. Bad news, customs office closes at 3 on Wednesdays.”

FFFFUUUUUU---

Then Thursday comes. I planned on meeting Bob at the office again and we’d get it all taken care of. But, for some stupid reason, the busses run like 15 minutes later after 330. So as I’m on my way there I get a call from him telling me that he got the paperwork all taken care of.

Hooray! So I get my Cintiq back right?

WRONG!

It’s gonna take up to five days processing the papers and then another 2 shipping it from Sydney.

WHY IS SHE STILL IN SYDNEY!? They don’t have a place to hold this shit in Canberra!? Where it was headed!?

So now I have another week to wait till I can have her back.

I assure everyone that once she’s back I’ll begin working on No Dice and the comic should be back no more than a week after I have her with me.

Until then, however…

Aussie post, SUCK IT!

Job Hunt

2010-08-26T17:32:00.001-07:00

Yes, I know, I haven’t done a “Week in Australia” blog since part 2. After deciding to stay here longer I thought maybe doing a blog a week like that would get pretty redundant. Blogging about cool vacationy stuff is one thing, blogging about sitting around with your house-mate playing Left 4 Dead is quite another and not very exciting to read.

Anyway, I’ve been yelled at to blog more so I’m going to try and get better about writing something at least once a week. Maybe it’ll be about me, maybe it’ll be about something that I need to rant about, but either way I’ll try to get one up a week.

This week I had a job interview! I’ve said it to a few people before but I found it odd that I had been applying for every place I could think of for 3 months in the States. Come down here and in a week I had two callbacks.

The first place that contacted me to interview sent me a text message to call them. I called them and it said “The number you’ve dials has been disconnected.” Tried it again to make sure, got the same thing. So I missed out on spending two days taking inventory for some company that I don’t even know what they sell.

I may have been applying to take inventory of body parts or something.

The one I DID get to talk to was at JB Hi-Fi, an electronics/entertainment type shop. Think Best Buy with yellow all over the place instead of blue.

So Emma took me to get slacks and a nice shirt. Prettying me up for the interview. Despite looking “really hot” I was uncomfortable as hell in those clothes. The pants didn’t stop any bit of wind from coming through so my legs were freezing. The shirt was making me overheat. So the only comfortable bit was my middle where the shirt was tucked into my pants and they could fight over making me warm or cold.

I go in, a few minutes early, and kinda wonder around looking at stuff after telling one of the worker bees that I’m there for an interview. The boss man comes out and takes me into the back.

He looks over my stuff and asked me questions about it, you know the kind of stuff they do in job interviews. And I had to bite my tongue at two moments.

The first was.
Him: “You worked at Willamette Falls Hospital.”
Me: “Yes I did.”
Him: “So what’s that place then?”

Uhm…a HOSPITAL! They’re called the same here as they are there!

The second was.
Him: “Well, we’re actually looking for someone with more retail experience than this.”

Then why the hell am I here!? You could have told me you didn’t want me over the phone and it would have saved me getting dressed up in these uncomfortable-ass clothes and spending an hour on a bus!

So it was a little disheartening. I would have loved to work there.

But the hunt continues. So it seems.

THAT strip

2010-08-15T06:47:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday last week, Penny Arcade put up a comic strip, that when I read it, didn’t think much of. Kinda made me laugh, though I understood it’s initial context immediately. Apparently there were those out there that took the phrase ‘raped by the dickwolves’ as advocating rape. Maybe if there were such things as dickwolves I could understand their argument, but the existence of dickwolves is not up for debate in this post.

The ensuing shitstorm was whether or not the subject of rape should be used in humor. Many people who I saw comment on it found the strip, the joke, and the use of rape as a device horribly offensive. I, having read Penny Arcade for quite some time, saw it, as writer Jerry Holkins put it “a return to form” for them. But these people saw differently.

A lot of the people who chimed in on the subject are self-proclaimed feminists, is rape a purely feminist issue? Do women alone deal with rape? I don’t have any figures on the matter and Law & Order SVU would have one believe that women are the primary victims of rape, but men have been raped as well. Rape has nothing to do with what pieces you were born with or have had surgically installed. Everyone can be a victim of rape, female or male.

Now, I’m sure everyone reading this will agree that rape is a terrible thing. But should that remove it from being used as part of a joke as it is in the strip? Murder, terrorism, AIDS and cancer are all terrible things as well, yet they get used in jokes on an almost daily basis. No one raises an eyebrow to those jokes. They’re in bad taste, yes, but I’ve yet to see a blog post about an unnamed character getting murdered in a comic strip as part of a joke.

If the character in the strip were getting murdered by the dickwolves, I don’t think there would be near the debate that there has been over this.

I think that people think way too damn much! It’s a comic strip! It’s not a world-changing thing. If I hadn’t woken up this morning and seen the fallout from the strip and it’s followup I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. I read the second strip the day it went up (Friday) and had already forgotten that there was a dickwolf rape! I had to go back to see what the hell they were referencing. I wouldn’t be writing a blog about it except that I can’t express myself properly over 140 characters.

I was told that some things are worth getting bent out of shape over. Sure there are. But a line in a Penny Arcade strip is not one of those things. And you know what all this hooplah over the use of rape in their joke is going to bring down on Penny Arcade?

Not a damn thing.

I, personally, don’t think they did anything wrong. Their strip, very often, has a darker, more twisted humor to it, a humor that not all will find funny. It’s never been about being something for everyone. Even as someone who reads their strip I’m often left in the dark or just find something unfunny because I don’t know what they’re referencing.

Do they care that I don’t find that strip funny? No! Because someone else out there did find it funny. The creators certainly did when they wrote it, so in all likelihood with the 6.5 Billion people on this planet that a good lot of people loved it.

As someone who tries to write comics that people enjoy, generally I try to make them funny as well, I know how horribly difficult it is to write humor. And so far the best advice I’ve heard is to make your joke. Just make the joke. It might make people laugh, it might fall flat, it might offend some people. You can’t worry about that stuff when writing humor, especially when you have another strip to do the next day. Mike and Jerry certainly don’t and I say, good for them.

They have said it before that they make the best possible strip that they can on that day. This is true for most cartoonists, be they on the web or in print. With my stuff I’ve always held on to the idea that, to those who like it, thanks. To those who don’t, you don’t have to read it.

The only apologies I’ve made about my work are that some may not have like it, I’ve never apologized for what is in them. Sorry you didn’t like it, but I’m not sorry I made it!

Now, what can you do to show these awful, rape-joke making cartoonists that you didn’t like their comic?

The best thing you can do to show your distaste for their, or ANY, strip, because they don’t care about a blog or the 6 people who read it giving the writer a pat on the back, is to not read the strip.

Don’t read the comic.

Don’t buy their merchandise.

Don’t support their advertisers.

They won’t get your money so you can sleep soundly knowing you’re not a part of anything wrong they are doing. And it works out for us, the fans, because we don’t need to deal with you complaining about the thing we enjoy.

I wish...

2010-08-08T06:53:00.001-07:00

I wish I could be the selfish prick that I try to (and in a few cases have) convince people that I am.

Overall, since my arrival in Australia, I’ve been happier than I’ve been in a really long time. Back home, most, not all but most, of the people in my life seem to try to make me feel bad about who I am. They treat me like a failure, a disappointment, or simply not as good as they are. Funnily enough, if they read this, the people who don’t treat me this way will think they are the ones I’m talking about, while the ones I’m talking about are oblivious to the fact they do this. I find it funny when I post about ‘a friend’ who’s pissing me off and said friend will come back with “Tell ‘em to fuck off if they’re being such a dick to you.”

While I’ve met a few people here who aren’t sure they like me or not, and fair enough, I’m not only new but I can be hard to like. But these people haven’t made me feel bad about myself. They might not talk to me. That’s fine. I know I’m not going to be liked by everyone. I don’t want to be. But that doesn’t mean I want to be made to feel bad.

This post has gotten a little off topic, I’ll keep that stuff in because it still bears saying.

Anyway.

I’ve spent a lot of my time here, when I’m not being taken to various locations and soaking in what I can of Canberra, thinking about what to do next. I’m worried that, whatever I choose, I’m going to hurt someone.

I’ve been thinking of staying. But what does that mean for the people back home? My friends, my family, even the people that I mentioned up above? I don’t want to hurt any of them by not coming back.

If I leave I’ll be hurting the friends I have here. I don’t want to hurt any of them either.

If I go to California like I’ve been talking about I hurt everyone.

I have three options and I can’t see how I can pursue any of them without hurting someone I care about. I don’t want to do that.

I wish I didn’t care.

I wish I could make the choice that would make me happy and damn whatever anyone else thinks. Which is pretty much what I’ve been told by a couple people, but I can’t help but think of the people who I do care about. Would anyone else care as much about me? Would any of my friends even consider staying where they’re at, if they weren’t happy, just because them leaving would make me unhappy? I don’t know. Probably not.

So why can’t I do that?

Why am I so pathetically afraid of the negative comments someone might say to me about trying to make myself happy?

Why am I so afraid of those people who will subtly chip away at me until I give into their bidding? Asking me questions like “Why go there and not here?” which read in my head as “Why abandon us instead of staying where we can control you and keep you under our thumb?”

Why, when I’m on the other side of the goddamn planet, can I not escape your bullshit!?

I don’t know what to do.

I’m scared.

I’m confused.

I just want everyone to be happy…

Australia: Week 2

2010-08-05T16:23:00.000-07:00

All right, let’s recap my second week in Australia!

On Thursday Emma and I went to the art museum. Most of the time I was there she seemed to understand what it was we were looking at when I had no idea. I had to point out that when people call me an ‘artist’ I like to qualify that with ‘cartoonist.’ Can I tell you why a Monet is a Monet and why it’s important? No. Can I tell you that Garfield hates Mondays? Yes. Do I know why Piccaso painted women with their heads on sideways? No. Can I tell you Marmaduke is juts a big dog? Yes. But we had fun, we even inadvertently wondered into a portion of the gallery that we were supposed to pay to get in. And I got yelled at, by a tiny gremlin-lady, not to take pictures.

Then we met up with her brother Ben. We had burritos that were really good but incredibly messy. Well, Neither of them had trouble with them. I made a mess… Then we went to another gallery that was for ‘abstract furniture’ and while it was weird-looking, sure, I wouldn’t really call it abstract. Then behind it was a bunch of washrags that were being sold for $2000, not kidding.

For some reason Friday’s activities escape me…I remember I got to meet Bob’s family that night. His Dad decided to fly in and we all had dinner.

On Saturday Bob took me to the War memorial. The WWI stuff was kinda boring. Dioramas with a paragraph of what was happening in it. WWII section was closed off. Then we went down stairs to the Vietnam-present section and suddenly it got a lot more fun. There’s lights and noises and they had helicopters and tanks and replica foxholes and submarine living quarters. It gave you a bit more of a feel to what the wars were like. Then we went to the history museum that Emma and I went to last week and saw the stuff her and I missed. They have this thing where you can build a 3d house and car ‘of the future’ and it is actually super lame. You build your things, go into a cinema with your ‘$1000 electronic 3D glasses’ (Pretty sure the old fart running the thing didn’t know what he was talking about here…) and watch as you fly through a futuristic Australia with everyone else’s cars and buildings..and a koala with a jetpack. And that night Emma, Matt and Ben came over with an Aussie-made zombie/alien crap-fest of a film called 'Undead' It was fun hanging out with everyone, but what a terrible film...

Sunday we had brunch at Emma’s with a lot of her friends. We were going to go bushwalking but it was rainy and windy, not really weather for wondering the wilderness. So we played card games and board games. I had fun, though Bob didn’t want to play along with the zombie card game. Then we went to comic meet-up where I met Katie Ryan, this super talented artist/animator. After seeing her stuff I was horrified when she wanted to see mine, but she didn’t completely tear me apart over it. She was actually nice about my stuff not looking even a fraction as good as her’s. Then we went to dinner again with Bob’s family as his Dad was headed off on Monday.

On Monday I went over to Emma’s and she was frantically cleaning her place as the owners were going to come by and inspect it. So I helped in any way that I could. Pretty much just squeegying windows and helping pack cardboard up to take to recycling. Then we grabbed some Indian food and headed over to her friend Liz’s place. We got to play with Liz’s baby, Asher, who I about kidnapped. That kid is so rad. And her and Emma discussed things I had little to no actual knowledge about or anything interesting to add. So I sat quietly as they talked. That night Bob and I met up with Sam and did another Pub sketch. We also decided that on Thursday, Sam was going to have the pair of us over for dinner.

Tuesday was a bit of a mess. I was supposed to meet Bob, when he got off work, at the mall where he was getting his phone fixed. The screen had gotten pretty busted up. Problem here is that there are 30 malls in this place and I assumed it was another one and couldn’t contact him to confirm since his only form of communication was in the shop. Emma came over and we hung out for a bit as she had a game and I had to meet Bob. She dropped me off at the bus stop and I took it out to the city…then past the city because, as I previously stated, there’s some law in Canberra against visible signs! I go back to the city find the mall I THINK I’m supposed to meet him at, and wonder around for an hour looking for him. I finally give up and come back home. On the way I get a call from him saying he was back at home and we sorted out the whole fiasco. So I got to have an adventure. At least now I know where the Canberra centre is. That night he exposed me to “Red Dwarf” a British sci-fi sitcom. He told me I should watch it a few years ago and I just never did. It’s actually a pretty funny show once you get into it. The first couple episodes were good but I wasn’t getting that into it. Then it started to pick up.

On Wednesday Emma came by and took me out to the Pancake parlor. Which is pretty much what it sounds like. A pancake restaurant, a really good one though. We had these pancakes topped with ice cream and a malt shake. About went into a sugar coma. Then came back to Bob’s and he decided to attempt to make a cheese steak. He didn’t know what they were, and I knew, a bit, about how to make them. So we picked up some ingredients and I kinda told him what went where as he cooked it. And they were AWESOME! We each had 2 sandwitches and I ended up eating the leftover insides for breakfast Thursday morning.

On Thursday I tried to do laundry again. And Bob’s machine died. I don’t know what happened. Emma figures it’s the pump. And she let me take some clothes to her place and use her new dryer while she helped me make a pudding for dessert. Pudding here is more of a cake than the goo we eat in the states. For those unaware of what US pudding is, it’s like custard. Are you confused by this too? Good! Then Bob and I went to Sam’s for dinner and I made the comment that he’s even an artist with food. He’s dishing everything up so perfectly. Bob and I were afraid to eat it because it just looked so nice we didn’t want to screw it up. But again, an excellent meal. Sam is a great host too.

And that brings us to today. Bob and I are planning to go see a movie (We got free tickets with the pancakes on Wed) and go bowling with his sister and her friend later tonight. Don’t know what else is in store for us.

We’ll see.

I don’t want to leave…

- Mike

Art Jam 3: Felix the Cat

2010-08-03T19:02:00.000-07:00

Got quite a few really great entries for Last months art jam Hopefully we can get more as time progresses.

Since I am currently in Australia, it was suggested to me that August's subject be Felix the Cat. Australian born Pat Sullivan is credited for Felix's creation and produced the first Felix cartoons.

I also liked the idea for Felix because, like Mickey Mouse, he's deceptively difficult. He looks easy enough to draw, but if anything is off, the whole thing looks wrong.

Below are some reference pictures to get an idea for the character. Of course, if you wish further reference, there's always Google.

RULES:
Deadline for submissions is August 31th 2010
Any artwork is acceptable. Pencil and paper, digital, if you have a cool costume. Fair game.
Please post links to artwork in the comments of this blog.
Please post new artwork, meaning in August 2010 and specifically for this jam.
Most important rule: HAVE FUN!

Rasmus Pettersson

Peter Curran

Ben Wilson

Australia: Week 1

2010-07-28T17:36:00.001-07:00

It’s been a week since I landed here in Australia. It’s been a little over a week in the states since I left, weird-ass time differences.

The trip started out not so good, after a billion hours on a plane, which included a showing of “How to train your Dragon” which was an incredibly cute movie, I then had to spend a majority of my day at the airport waiting for the bus to take me from Sydney to Canberra. Meanwhile everyone there was rude as Hell, I thought it was maybe because I was American, but then I remembered that everyone in American airports are also as rude as Hell.

Those super-awesome baggage handlers broke the handle off my suitcase. So I had to cart the thing around lifting it by the little nubs that were left on it. At some point these nubs took a gouge out of my hand.

The charter bus company told me I didn’t need a ticket, just the reservation number they emailed me. Which caused a bit of confusion with the bus driver who, again, was a bit of a prick.

I FINALLY get to Bob’s house, but he’s not off work yet so I have to just sit outside and wait leeching an Internet connection off his wireless router, but my laptop battery died. Once he got home and I got in I pretty much just wanted to do nothing. Emma stopped by that night with some things, it wasn’t nearly as awkward as I thought it would be, but I won’t lie, it was still weird.

On Friday I spent most of the day cleaning Bob’s house. I hate to say it but it was really bad. Balls of dust the size of my hand in some corners and it was black and thick. So I got out a broom and a duster and spent most of the day getting what I could. It would shock the Hell out of my Mother to find out that I ever moved furniture to clean under and behind it. I usually tell her not to worry about those places, no one can see them, why clean them. But knowing there were creepy-crawleys living in these dark places of Bob’s house, I wasn’t taking any chances.

That night Emma came by again, she took me to her friend’s house and we watched Smackdown. Then her and I went around the city, she took me to the top of a mountain, which the name escapes me now, where you can pretty much see all of Canberra. It was really cool seeing the city all lit up in the dark. We then went to a coffee shop and got some really good hot chocolate. During these times, as well, her and I had what would be part 1 of a discussion we needed to have. But we had a good time. AND I SAW KANGAROOS! On the way to Smackdown I looked up on a hill and thought I saw some people walking around, then they were hopping. It was a whole group of Kangaroos. Then when we were going up the mountain there was one right on the side of the road. Emma stopped because apparently they’ll jump out in front of you. They’re like deer.

On Saturday Bob took me out to see the city in the daytime. We went to where he works and I got to see what he does all day. It made it all the more apparent why so much of his stuff is dirty. I kinda knew what he did but didn’t realize it till I saw where he works. He pretty much is elbow deep in mud all day. He took me to the top of the same mountain I went on the night before. Again, it was really cool to see the whole city, and now have some point of reference as to what all the sparkly dots were from the night before. Then he took me down to the river and showed me around. I saw a bunch of bats sleeping in a tree. Just hanging there.

On Sunday Bob and I went to Emma’s place as she was having a ‘Christmas in July/Housewarming’ party. I got to meet all of her friends, who are all really cool people. We talked about all the horrible Australian animals that can kill you. The birds that have learned to mimic the sounds of chainsaws. A few of them are wrestling fans as well so we talked about that. Then after everyone was stuffed, we went inside where her friend Matt had brought every version of Guitar Hero/Rock Band that he owned and we played that for a bit.

I didn’t really want to go when Bob did, but then he reminded me that we had filming stuff to do, which we got a few skits done. I also got to meet Sam who brought over a couple props he had that we needed for other sketches we planned on filming.

Didn’t do a whole lot on Monday. Was planning on meeting Emma for lunch but the bus system intimidated me. For the capital of the country and the bus system is really wonkey. It intimidated me, so I put it off. I pretty much spent that day recuperating from the lack of rest over the previous four days. Then Bob and I met Emma, her brother (Whose name continuously escapes me, sorry…) Matt, and Sam at a pub called “Pot Belly’s” for a pub sketch. Pretty much meet up, have a pencil and sketchbook ready and people hang out and draw. It was fun.

On Tuesday, I woke up and realized that Monday Night Raw was airing a couple hours after I woke up as Aus is a day ahead of America. So I found a stream of a Canadian channel and watched it. This is when Jaimi and Emma were giving me shit over Twitter for spending my vacation doing what I always do instead of exploring. But later that night Emma and I went to the Dinosaur museum, which was cool. Not a whole lot there, but some interesting stuff if you like dinosaurs. Then we went to a tea shop next to the museum and had part 2 of our discussion. And some good tea. Or, at least, I thought it was good tea. I don’t really know good tea from bad tea as I usually dump a bunch of sugar in it anyway.

Which reminds me. Coke! Holy crap the CocaCola they have here is the best I’ve ever tasted. In Portland there are a few places that serve Mexican imported Coke which tastes better because they use real sugar instead of corn syrup, however it’s usually kind of flat. Aussie Coke is just as fizzy as normal Coke, and they use real sugar like the Mexican coke AND it’s sweeter than the Mexican Coke. I couldn’t get over how different and good it tasted. And I generally don’t like regular Coke.

Also on Tuesday night, Bob and I ordered pizza from a new place up the road from his house. We got a regular hawiian pizza, which I wanted because I know I like it and can eat it without it attacking my insides. But they also had a potato pizza. If you’ve ever had potato skins at a steakhouse or something, a lot of places have them as appetizers, if you haven’t had them you should. Anyway. Everything on those but on a pizza. So we got one of those as well and WOW! It was SO good! By the end of the night the Potato pizza was about gone and the Hawiian still had half left.

On Wednesday I finally managed to figure out the bus system, and even though, because of the wacky ass system they have, I got on every wrong bus, and got off at every wrong stop because apparently Aussies don’t believe in SIGNS, I still got where I was going. I don’t know HOW I got there, but I did. And about an hour earlier than I thought I would. So I got to wonder around the Mall in Woden until Emma got off work, then we went to lunch at a Thai place she likes. I had never had Thai food before. And she knew I don’t do spicy well. So I had her order for me. And it was excellent! On the way back, again, got on every wrong bus and wrong stop but I got home. But didn’t have a key to Bob’s yet, so I had to wait for him to get home. Then his Mom came to pick up her dog, who was staying here for a bit. And she gave me her key so that won’t happen again. And I won’t pull my groin trying to climb the fence again, which I did, trying to break into the house as it looked like it was going to rain.

And now it’s Thursday here, I’ve been here for a week. Next week I’ll try to write up another one of these and inform you all on Week 2.

-Mike Perry

Ustream arts

2010-07-05T03:24:00.000-07:00

I was streaming my drawing of Rafiki which is over in the Art Jam that you should also be participating in. And when I was done, I decided that I'd do requests from the chat room. Here are some of the things that came from it.

First off my cousin came in and started going on about how he needed to buy a new X-Box 360 headset because he broke his when he died in Halo and got pissed off. He has issues...So I drew him snapping the controller in half.

Next Jaimi wanted me to draw a tomato...

Then Bob wanted me to draw Yoda on the toilet...For some reason every time I do one of these there's a Star Wars related request...

Then Rasmus wanted me to draw Mike Krahulik drawing a Penny Arcade strip. I did one better and added Jerry Holkins in as well...

Then Bob suggested I draw the Dastardly Plan crew in a band.

Art Jam 2: Rafiki

2010-07-01T17:46:00.000-07:00

I hoped to get more entries for the first jam, but I guess it went as well as could be expected for something that was just kinda sprung on people.

For the second round, I've decided to go with one of my favorite characters from one of my favorite traditionally animated Disney films. Rafiki, from The Lion King.

Below are some reference pictures to get an idea for the character. Of course, if you wish further reference, there's always Google.

RULES:
Deadline for submissions is July 31th 2010
Any artwork is acceptable. Pencil and paper, digital, if you have a cool costume. Fair game.
Please post links to artwork in the comments of this blog.
Please post new artwork, meaning in July 2010 and specifically for this jam.
Most important rule: HAVE FUN!

Jaimi Kelly

Rasmus Pettersson

Bob Perrie

Mike Perry

Ben Wilson

Andrew Messenger

Under the Boring Brick

2010-06-24T15:23:00.001-07:00

We be gettin' political!

2010-06-22T03:09:00.000-07:00

Don't know why I thought of this. But here you go.

You know what starts with the letter "B"? BP! You know what else? BOWSER! Coincidence? I think NOT!

I'll bet this thing takes a ton of gas to run!

Zoey + Witch PORN!

2010-06-22T00:49:00.000-07:00

So I was looking at the stats for No Dice and it seems there are quite a few searches for "Zoey and Witch Porn" leading to my site.

Sadly for all these people, the searches lead them to the 'Survive This' strips that are porn free. So I thought I would help these people out and deliver what they're looking for.

Enjoy :D

Censored for the kiddies. Click the preview to see the real thing.

Roof Monster

2010-06-13T15:43:00.000-07:00

Based on actual events

Cthulhu's Bar & Grill Wallpapers

2010-06-12T02:48:00.000-07:00

Something Phisch, Matt and myself came up with the other night.

Art Jam 1: Elastigirl

2010-06-04T02:12:00.000-07:00

Decided to start off the Art Jams with one of my favorite Pixar characters, Helen Parr/Elastigirl from 'The Incredibles'

Below are some reference pictures to get an idea for the character. Of course, if you wish further reference, there's always Google.

RULES:
Deadline for submissions is June 30th 2010
Any artwork is acceptable. Pencil and paper, digital, if you have a cool costume. Fair game.
Please post links to artwork in the comments of this blog.
Please post new artwork, meaning in June 2010 and specifically for this jam.
Most important rule: HAVE FUN!

Rasmus Pettersson

Matt Rogers

Mike Perry

Emma-Jean Stewart

Hosting Art Jam?

2010-06-02T18:34:00.000-07:00

I find art jams to be a lot of fun. Not just to participate in, but to see what others come up with. The problem is, I don't really know where to find new ones. I followed the ones that Mashi hosted on Deviantart and the ones on The Drawing Board. But Mashi says she can't do them for a while, and the Drawing Board hasn't updated theirs in a couple months.

So I was wondering, would anybody out there be interested in participating in them if I posted a monthly jam on my blog here?

Let me know in the comments.

Video Blogging

2010-06-01T16:55:00.000-07:00

What to do?

The Journey

Warm ups

2010-05-20T16:57:00.000-07:00

Some warm up drawings, suggested by twitter.

@scc_phisch draw a sort of kids style creature from the black lagoon

@emmajeans If you're still looking for warmup/sketch ideas: Calais, Abbie and Claudette, having a pillowfight.

More Flash Animations

2010-05-19T21:55:00.000-07:00

Was experimenting with some other cartooning styles. Decided to try a Warner Bros/Loony Toons style with my 'Guido Character'

I also did a short animation using a quote from 'Ghostbusters' Click the image below for to see it.

Stealing is bad...

2010-05-15T02:53:00.000-07:00

Saw this video (SFW) and thought of this strip.

Seriously, don't download porn. Buy it. If you don't pay for porn, than I may, one day, not be able to download it myself any longer...

Guido n' River

2010-05-14T16:39:00.000-07:00

Saw something about character design but I really had no model sheets or anything of characters I had designed. So I came up with a couple. One, based off of my cat, Guido, who has been passed for a couple years now, and River, my year-old Pug (who is still alive, BTW)

I also did a little animation of River bouncing around. You can see it HERE!

Iron Man goes to the Movies

2010-04-28T21:19:00.000-07:00

Alternate title: Iron Man gets Carrie'd Away.

Kind of a follow up to A comic I did back in the SCC days.

Also remember to check out the comic I'm doing now at http://www.nodicecomic.com/

Jar of Awesome

2010-04-20T23:12:00.000-07:00

Because the jar isn't working, you should go to The Ye Olde No Dice Shoppe and buy something to help me out! Yes? YES!

Playing with Turtles

2010-04-19T16:14:00.000-07:00

So the other day I was looking through some Ninja Turtles production art and came across some unused pieces for the most recent series. And it gave me an idea for an alternate TMNT storyline.

Will it ever be realized? Probably not. But I still felt like drawing the characters and sharing them.

Click on the thumb below to biggify!

Survive THIS! #3

2010-03-10T22:46:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the obvious is stated...

Survive THIS! #2

2010-03-03T03:56:00.001-08:00

This comic takes place in Left 4 Dead 2. I'll be going back and forth between 1 and 2, odd comics will be in 1 even comics will be in 2.

Also, Dastardly Plan Entertainment has a twitter account now where you can keep up with the creative minds behind DPE.

Today's Adventure Brought to you by Pig Iron Cola

2010-02-23T16:13:00.000-08:00

You'll have to bear with me on this post. I got behind in updating the games and this happened several weeks ago so I'm pretty much going off of what I have pictures of to tell the story. Probably didn't happen this way but we'll see...

Today's adventure brought to you by Pig Iron Cola.

After rescuing Splug from his cage, Varis puts him on a leash to make sure he doesn't run off. He's incredibly happy to have a new pet.

They went back down the hallway but heard some noise in a room off to the side. When they went to explore it, there were nothing but crates in there. Kramar blew fire and destroyed the crates. Inside was this Halfling girl. She said she was sent to kill the goblins' leader. The group aloud her to join them. She took a shine to Rowan and tried to ride him.

Down a hallway they group hears a couple Goblins playing cards.

They run in and manage to take one out, but the noise summons more.

The room got very crowded very quickly. Even moreso by the fact that DM Matt decided to leave the corpses in the room as difficult terrain.

Then a large goblin, Balgron the Fat, joined the fray, making the room even more crowded.

Thankfully he's a coward and ran off as the group cleaned house of the rest of the goblins.

After a rest, they continued down into the tunnels. where there was a quarry with archers and guard drakes, (or Raptor's as Varis calls them)

Varis told Splug he'd set him free if he ran into the room and screamed. Unfortunately Varis wasn't specific enough about what he wanted and Splug ran in and said "THEY COMING!" Alerting the room to the group's presence.

They managed to get through the drakes and archers and go further into the tunnels. Because Varis was angry with Splug, he took back his offer and kept him on the leash.

On one side of the tunnels were a few very big rats. But they were the least of the problems down here. For on the other side...

WERE SLIMES! Or A slime. it moved up on the group as they kind of attacked and retreated, which was working well until it split!

The two slimes ganged up on Rowan, almost killing him. Fortunately, they were able to kill the slimes.

Kramar and Edward were made aware of what looked like a passageway in the wall. Kramar busted it down and Balgron was in there. Kramar intimidated him into bargaining with them rather than fighting. Balgron gave them some information and was set free.

Survive This #1

2010-02-23T15:27:00.001-08:00

Click the thumb for full size.

A little background on the "Survive THIS!" project. After the first Left 4 Dead came out, Bob and I thought the things that were said and done were really funny and could make for a good comic strip. Originally it was going to be Bob, his then room mate Sean, Matt (Who was meant to come to my place to play) and Me. Well, Sean and Matt were rarely ever around and I was working on a ton of other things at the time so it never really went anywhere.

Recently, Matt and Phisch have both gotten X-Boxes and copies of both Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 and the four of us have been playing. Again the things that have been said and done have had us laughing like idiots. So we decided to give the comic another shot. Here is the first of hopefully many strips to come from this idea.

The longest encounter EVER!

2010-01-27T16:48:00.001-08:00

A few shots of the preparation before we begin :D

Our adventurers came back to town with the head of the unnamed Dragonborn who had died in the last encounter. They took it to a cleric who could do resurrections but for a price. A price the group didn't necessarily want to pay. So they got the discount package and she told him the Dragonborn would meet them at the inn.

At the inn, the Eladrin Warlord, Edward and the Wizard, Lucien rejoined the group. They noticed, though, that Father Mic, who Lucian had yet to meet, had a talisman of Orcus that he had found in the last encounter and thought looked cool. Despite his best efforts to deny the fact, he was branded an Orcus Cultist.

The group found out that there were people planning on opening a portal to summon Orcus and agreed they must be stopped. This is about when the Dragonborn came in, wondering where he was and who these people were that he was told to meet. The group was confused, how did he not remember them? When they said he was with them when he died, he revealed that when he died he was in a battle with a grand Dragonborn army. Not in a dungeon fighting goblins. But when he found that they were going to fight Orcus cultists, he offered his services.

(In reality Tarv had to move back home and I inherited the Dragonborn. But I wanted him to be MY character so I rerolled his stats, gave him new armor and weaponry and a name, Kramar.)

When they entered the first room, Kramar ran in first and immediately fell down a hole and was swarmed by rats. The group tried to help their new/old friend but goblins started showing up and causing trouble.

After dispatching the rats. Rowan tossed a rope down the hole and, on the advice of Edward, tied it to a pillar so he wouldn't have to support the weight of the large Dragonborn. Then the fight was on. Rowan, Varis, Lucian, and Kramar focused their attention on two goblins in the hallway right in front of them, while Father Mic dealt with the goblin in the room. And Edward with one up the other hallway.

After killing the goblins, they tossed the place. The Dragonborn even set fire to a room filled with empty crates just out of frustration. One of the goblins did manage to get away and they decided to follow him.

It was suggested we draw a map of the place so we would know how to get out. Phisch went a little overboard with his drawing...

Then DM Matt provided him with Graph Paper and he redrew it on there.

The group went up a hallway and into a room with several goblins in it.

Down a hallway, in a prison cell, was one goblin, screaming for help during the whole encounter.

This fight took FOREVER. For some reason, no one was able to hit anything. The monsters couldn't hit us. We couldn't hit them. It was a lot of standing around shit talking and missing attacks.

At one point Kramar tried to intimidate the goblins but it didn't do anything.

Eventually the monsters started getting hits in and both Kramar and Mic went down. Varis, having the best healing ability had to take Mic's job in stabilizing them.

Then, luckily, Lucien was able to clear the room using a scorching burst.

After killing the other two goblins and healing their friends, they decided to go and talk to the goblin in the cell. He called himself Splug, and there was a debate as to whether or not they should free him, despite his promises to be good and help them. Varis finally convinced the group to let Splug come along and told them he takes full responsibility for him.

They opened the cage and Varis tied a rope around his neck to make sure he stayed with them.

To be continued...

Ustream drawings

2010-01-20T14:51:00.001-08:00

Eventually I'm planning on doing things on Ustream a little more regularly. I'd like to have a weekly show like Lar DeSouza does. Anyway last night, after finishing a No Dice strip, I asked the chatroom if they had any requests. The results for the first drawing were Rasmus Pettersson's character Hanna, making out with R2D2. I decided to make it a little less "make out" and a little more "cuddle."

The second drawing was a guy who goes by Kwaizy wanting me to draw him from the description he gave in the chat. The description read "I look like a Viking Jesus." So Viking Jesus is what he got.

China to become Chiner

2010-01-02T01:03:00.001-08:00

Chineses people are rad pirates because they know the letter "R"

Princess...so-and-so...

2009-12-28T17:57:00.000-08:00

I haven't drawn anything in like a week and a half. So it felt good to stretch those muscles again. And I came up with her.

Don't know her name yet. I think I'll incorporate her into No Dice when it gets running.

Thoughts?

OMG JELATENUS KOOB!!!1

2009-12-08T02:30:00.000-08:00

Matt made it. Varis is gonna get eeted by it. Varis is scared. So is Mike!

Just thought I'd share. I'm both excited and nervous to face this thing...

Bag O' Dice + Adorable Pug

2009-12-02T23:45:00.000-08:00

So earlier in the week I came home to a package on my desk. When I opened it up it was a Chessex Pound O Dice. Thing was, I had no idea where it came from or who sent it. It was addressed to my Twitter avatar and from Illinois. Who, from twitter, was in Illinois AND knew my home address?

Turns out my super-awesome friend Emma sent them to me as a thanks for guesting on her RPG Podcast, Natural 20.

Tonight Matt and I broke open the bag to see what all was inside.

Also, my pug, River, is quite fat. So it was a struggle, but she managed to climb into a basket of clothes I have on the floor. And immediately fell asleep.

CUTE!

Random drawings

2009-12-02T23:40:00.000-08:00

The art store was having a Black Friday sale and I got some woodless pencils, inking pens and bristol. Did a couple drawings that I'll now share.

Captain Hook

Lord Tumble the Impaler. A character that will make an appearance in No Dice eventually.

'Nother D&D Adventure!

2009-11-25T03:04:00.000-08:00

Yet another game and MOAR PIKATURES! This game didn't have quite as much going on as the last. Matt felt disappointed that there wasn't so much story to it as much as "Thar be the monsters, gitem boys!" But we had fun, as is the point of D&D. Here's how it played out.

The Warlock and Eladrin from the last game caught the Dire Boar Flu (or H5N5) and sat this one out. But the rest of the team were commissioned into going into the woods and finding a band of troublesome goblins. But not before I almost killed Matt with laughter. When the head of the militia asked what the villagers were doing in the crater (see last game) Varis replied with "They were dying soon as we got there! Fucked their day UP!"

Our heroes go into the woods!

And are met with a hoard of 13 goblins. Father Mic Gruder tried to sneak past them and failed leading into a battle that I was sure was going to end the game right there. I have no faith in my team mates :P

The Dragonborn (who still has yet to be named) got swarmed.

Rowan also got into some shit. Didn't help that every Scythe attack he tried missed! He's supposed to be good with that thing! But he eventually managed to kill them all and get away.

But not before the Dragonborn got knocked on his ass.

He got up and we finished the goblins off. With the help of Matt's extreme suckitude in rolling three back-to-back 1's.

Then the Dragonborn pointed us towards the waterfall which he heard noise behind. He's standing in some kind of magical strength circle. It didn't really help us during the fight.

Past the waterfall was THIS scene. A dungeon filled with goblins and kobolds! But, with the help of a successful stealth check by moi, we were able to sneak in and take a couple of them out before getting noticed. And they were all weak enough as to not pose much of a threat.

Varis and Rowan scared this little guy. He peed a little.

Then THESE fuckers show up! Kobold sorcerers or whatever. They throw magic shit at you!

And this tall drink of water known throughout the land as Iron Tooth. In the last few encounters, the guys have been coming across clues about his plans to attack the city. And he's rather imposing on the game board.

So imposing, in fact, that he nearly killed both Dragonborn AND Rowan!

Varis and Father Mic ran! But still managed to take Iron Tooth down.

Then it was just a matter of cleaning up this one little bastard that was left.

Sadly, Dragonborn failed 3 death saves meaning he was dead. But the surviving members of the group found out that if they took a piece of him back into town, there was someone who could use that piece to resurrect him. So Varis cut his head off.

And that wraps up this game. Apparently though, Iron Tooth is not the baddie he seems to be. Could there be someone even more sinister that was using him? Is he only the Darth Vader to an Emperor Palpatine we have yet to come across? Only time will tell!

Or some kind of mystical bullshit.

Below are some bonus pictures of Niky working on the Effeminate Kobolds. The rule is that if you're late to a game, or forget something vital to the game, your character becomes an effeminate kobold. Nothing really changes about the character. They still have all their weapons, abilities and such, they just have to be represented by a pink kobold.

No Dice Preview

2009-11-13T14:45:00.001-08:00

Well, I'm finally back to where I was with No Dice before my laptop took a shit and destroyed everything on it. And to celebrate, here is a little preview of the first four strips.

No Dice Fan Art already!?

2009-11-08T23:25:00.000-08:00

My good buddy ol' pal, Rasmus Pettersson has done up a few drawings featuring a couple characters from a project I've been working on called "No Dice." I've got a few drawings that I've done of the characters on my DeviantArt page. But these are all Rasmus's and I LOVE them!

Abigail The Pumpkin Witch

Claudette

Calias (The elf on the left) with Hannah, a character from a project Rasmus has been working on.

D&D Fun!

2009-11-08T18:16:00.000-08:00

Last Friday my friends and I once again traversed the dark realms of Dungeons and/or Dragons. And actually found no dungeons or dragons. But rather a legion of kobolds, angry cultists, a gnome with a crossbow, a hobbit (halfling) who possessed deadly accuracy with his sling and raptors!

Matt, Andrew and I have all played together a couple times before. But this game we brought in a couple friends Travis, who we've all met online prior to his move to Oregon and playing with us. And Andrew's classmate, Michael, who not only is an old hand at D&D (However, not 4E like we were playing.) but is also practically completely new to our circle. None of us but Andrew had met him before, but it was nice to have someone in the party who has more experience delving into these worlds.

Matt wanted to focus solely on DMing so I inherited his Tiefling warlock, Rowan. Who is a good friend with my Half-elf ranger, Varis. Along with them were Andrew's Human cleric, Mick Gruder, Michael's Eladrin warlord, Edward. And Travis played as his yet-to-be-named Dragonborn fighter and his girlfriend's also yet-to-be-named Deva wizard.

I took the liberty of taking some pictures of the game as we were playing. ENJOY!

The old party meets the new party as they agree to join forces.

The group, traveling the road, run into a band of kobolds!

Me looking over the powers of both Varis and Rowan

After defeating the kobolds, the party finds a seemingly clear path.

Varis runs ahead and gets jumped!

The rest of the party has their own problems to deal with!

Rowan helps a beaten Varis.

The party battles the kobold hoards.

After defeating the rest, the party closes in on the final kobold.

A blurry shot of the party (to the left) approaching a crater where a group of cultists seem to be performing a ritual.

The cultists and the crossbow wielding gnome.

The raptors! Varis is terrified of them. He was attacked by a couple of them in their last adventure.

The party approaches the crater.

The party prepares for battle!

Here is the halfling on the ridge of the crater with his sling. And he was a hell of a shot with it. Also Andrew in the background being rude.

The halfling lines up another shot as the battle rages in the crater. (You've got to use your imagination that there's actual depth to the 2D map...)

The combination of the halfling and the gnome proves to be almost deadly for Varis. Before I even got a chance to make my first saving throw, I was half way to dead. If I hadn't had Rowan run in there to help, he would have been toast.

The Dragonborn fell, but the battle was almost over at this point and he survived.

So yeah...

2009-11-04T00:42:00.000-08:00

I've decided to set up this blog for a bunch of different purposes.

Basically I've abandoned my previous pages. They're still around but not being updated. And I realized that while I no longer update those pages, I still have things to say on certain topics that would probably go up there. So instead of having one blog where I talk about one thing and another for other things etc, I'd just set up one where I can post anything and everything I want to post! From my random reviews, to rants about professional wrestling, to artwork.