VIDHERO WEB STRIPS

INsights: i love arrows.
It occurs me, as I start writing this, that a friend of mine showed me a strip years ago, which he’d crafted back in highschool, wherein there were just a bunch of happy arrows. that must have subconciously influenced this strip. not sure if that’s good or bad. hmm.

anywho. a few days back this idea hit me. I wanted to make backgrounds, but didn’t know where to go with it. Since the main “characters” are abstract representations of storage mediums, it didn’t feel right to try and represent reality. plus i kind of hate making backgrounds. It’s like making parsley. from scratch.

So it struck me that viddy should note a giant arrow in the background. perhaps give it a name. Then perhaps kill Disky with it. I wondered why i was drawn to arrows.

Tonight, i’m recovering from an insane bit of overwork on some storyboards. and i kept drawing these damned arrows everywhere to show motion and camera movement. I may have actually failed to drawn enough arrows. eek. that’s a different story for another venue.

so this had to be the strip. and again i wondered why i like arrows. I used to suggest a lot of designs at NaturalPoint that incorporated arrows. And they were always shot down. for some reason they just aren’t good for anything but directing action. I don’t think they can serve as art. In the same way that the phone book can’t serve as poetry. Maybe there’s some neat shit in there, where a series of names add up to some crazy verbage. but even then, people would notice you were reading the phone book, and tune out. too functional. bad example maybe. heh.

anywhooo. when wondering why arrows are just damned great, despite being useless artistically, I recalled that they’re always phallic. like a gun is always phallic, ONLY MORE SO. And I was instantly angered at the  thought. I once drew a picture of the Maxx fighting off tons of Iz. and when my dad looked at it, he immediately pointed out that it was super phallic. and i was super pissed (internally). the fuck whast he talking about? i see nothing phallic! DAMNIT. and after debating for days that he was out of his mind, i realized he was totally right and was deeply embarassed. And for some reason, that anger seeps into this simple thought about arrows.

So it was perfect. A great reason to realize violence. strip written.

Initially i was going to have Viddy chopping Disky in half with an arrow. but I didn’t want to be yet another vehicle for the “they died last week, but they’re fine this week”. because i think that conceit is getting over done these days. cop out. Plus when i drew it, it was confusing. the arrow was chopping down, but pointing side ways. and since we so rarely see these guys’ arms, it was lightly confusing to show one at the end of a big swing. or maybe i drew badly. can’t say i’m that proud of what’s in the strip ultimately, either. but it’s better, trust me.

so this is the first strip i’ve freehand drawn something for (as reference, then i traced it in Illustrator). Felt good. I really wanted to do this, as i’m starting to feel embarassed about all the obviously reused art. Sometimes i look at a strip and just see the face from some past strip. and when i go off a-tweaking, i tend to end up with some weird shape or look that isn’t ideal.  and i wanted to try another angle of Viddy which better emphasized his VCR tape shaped head. kinda failed. but whatever. … heh. i also thought it would be mysterious to show that the back of his head has rewinding reel holes. and so do his shoulder blades.

obviously, way too much thought going on here. heh. eh. hmm.

I went a little nuts with the punching arrow too. color wise. but there’s something about really gayly colored rainbrow bright color orgies. just saying. :)

word wise. nothing much to report. I toyed around a  lot with where to say what. originally the third panel was going to be silent, as the rage built inside Viddy. then i had words in each of the first three, so the punch seemed more left-field. but then you couldn’t really see the background they were referring to. so i crammed the first two panels’ dialogue into one. I also jotted down some phrases for Viddy to be yelling in the final panel. like “Ginsuzie!” and ”chop bite kick!” but. meh. just random bullshit, so why bother. he’s obviously punching him. bleh.

i should note that there’s obviously something going on with shoving a phallic symbol in the critic’s face. only to note that i know it’s there. it wasn’t an accident. I’m still really very sure that i am not gay. sorry boys.

anywho. i’m tired. verrrrry tired. see the main vidHero’s site news bloggery for more details. but the tiredness has no doubt contributed to the excessive overthinking in both this comic strip, and this babbling about said comic strippery. erf.

sleeeeeep.

p.s. the title is meant to be a play on Arrows.