The comic for Monday, 13 July 2009 has been posted to Out of phase tomboy. A color version of this page will appear in a couple of days, one way or another.* This page turned out to be way more complicated than usual, so much so that I didn't think I could successfully ink it using multiliners. Before I went the route of inking it in Manga Studio, which would have taken me a long time, I decided to dust off my ink pens and try that. After throwing away most of my rusted nibs and finding that the only decent bottle of ink I had was blue, I went ahead. Not bad, considering that I haven't touched a crow quill in something like twenty years!

In fact, this turned out enough better than using a multiliner that I think I may continue inking with real pens. I'd still probably do the panel rules and most of the lettering with multiliners. But I want to see how coloring this goes. If using pens results in stuff I can't color with Copics, hmm, need to think this through.

But right now, I need some FInal Fantasy time, food and Madlax.

* I fear this is fated to be another one of those experimental pages that I color in several ways.

After spending the morning wrestling with boku o tsutsumu tsuki no hikari, I broke down and ordered a book about colloquial Kansai Japanese. Boku tsuki is set in Kyoto at the beginning, and one of the main characters (Kachiko, Mikuro's daughter) speaks in heavy Kansai dialect, which is driving me crazy because I have only a little information about it; it's not included in standard dictionaries.

I've finished drawing the next comic, but I'm waiting until tomorrow to ink it. There are still some things that need adjusted, and a couple of things I'm thinking about changing. This has turned out to be one of the most complicated pages I've ever done.

I may finish this page in Manga Studio. There's so much detail in it that inking is going to be difficult, and coloring this with Copic markers . . . I dunno. I've done over 20 pages using multiliner and Copic marker; maybe it's time to return to doing the final stages on the computer, at least for story comics, now that time is not a big issue and I'm leaving the mental and physical basket case stage of existence I was in for most of the spring. Will think on this, but right now...

I'm going to go play Final Fantasy, then watch the third DVD of Madlax.

Slept almost ten hours last night, which is a good thing, because I've been too busy to take naps recently.

I didn't play FF today, though I kept thinking about it. Now that I've stocked up on potions and antidotes and spells, I want to head back to the marsh. Last time there I barely managed to get my mostly dead party back to town for resurrection and restocking. I have better strategy now, I think.

I've made peace with myself about Madlax and am simply going to take it in the spirit in which it was intended. (I look forward to the N.A. release of El Cazador de la Bruja, too.) I have great respect for Houko Kuwashima (Kirika and Margaret); she's a voice actor in many of my favorite anime, and has done some original work that I like. If she was okay with Margaret saying, 「おいしょ」in episode 2, then so am I.

Going to go read more of the Furuba fan book, then eat tuna and rice and watch the second DVD of madorakkusu.

"Tomorrow will be 1m 19s shorter." Yes! Soon it will be over!

I am insanely busy! In addition to drawing my comic:

I'm plugging away at reading boku o tsutsumu tsuki no hikari, the sequel to PSME, in Japanese. It's very difficult to read. There's a lot of dialogue and text, and the dialogue is full of slang, colloquialisms and dialect. But I badly want to read this series, so I'm sticking with it, and learning a lot.

I'm enjoying reading all of Fruits Basket, at last. (I enjoy it even though it's sad in places; I know it has a more or less happy ending.) Tohru Honda has been my hero for several years.

I've begun watching Madlax, with some trepidation because of its supposed similarity to Noir. The question is whether the similarity, especially of Margaret and Kirika, is going to annoy me to the point of making me dislike the series. We shall see.

Having made it through Gurumin, I'm now playing Final Fantasy on my PSP. I played Gurumin at the beginner level because it was my first PSP game, and there's a lot I didn't do, so I will return to it after a break. FF is fun. I like old games from the "it all fits on a floppy disk" days!

The best thing is that none of this has any socially redeeming value whatsoever!

The next comic is up on Out of phase tomboy.

This comic is dated 09/07/07 because when I was drawing it my websites were all off the air due to the Seattle data center fire / power failure and I didn't know if I'd be able to update today. Mais, yoisho!

My websites were still down when I got up this morning, but when I checked about 10:00 am they were all back up. I finished inking the page I drew yesterday, scanned it, cleaned it up, printed it, colored it, cleaned it up and it's done. Most of it turned out pretty decently, I think. I'm actually cooking something today that isn't rice. I started with instant gluten-free miso soup mix, added a can of mixed vegetables, a package of firm cubed tofu, and a cup of gluten-free pasta. That fills up my small Crock Pot and adds up to 700 calories. I just ate a bowl because I'm hungry* from smelling it cook, and it's not bad. I'll save half of it for tomorrow.

Just kind of spinning my wheels now until my kids come over. It's about 70 F and still overcast (for like the sixth day in a row). It's raining in Chicago and over Lake Michigan, but I don't think it's going to rain here.

( * Diet Diary )

The city fireworks display is launched from the park across the street from where I live. We went out and stood by the train tracks.

( Fireworks over my building. )

The latest comic is up on Out of phase tomboy.

A new comic is up on Out of phase tomboy.

Finished Kurogane Communication. It goes on my favorites list for many reasons, especially for the ending shown during the final episode closing titles.

Wednesday night I watched Last Quarter and stayed awake through it this time. It's a good movie, if a bit slow in places. The male lead, Hiroki Narimiya, also plays Nobuo in the Nana movies. Hyde is cute and can sing but . . . is a little too full of himself for good character acting.

When M&B were chez moi Thursday we watched a couple of the old Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies (Carys's favorites). Good times!

Last night I began watching The Third: the girl with the blue eye  for the fourth or fifth time. With luck nothing will interrupt me and I'll finally finish it. I like The Third for many reasons, not the least of which is that Honoka is an uber tomboy.

Been sleeping a lot, with some pretty heavy dreams. Volume one of Global Garden induced a particularly interesting dream, which I took as justification to try to find the remaining volumes. There are many reasons why this series interests me.

New Oopt comic page tomorrow! Oyasuminasai.

with a story comic, no less. This is Friday's comic, but as the last two pages I posted were fillers—more or less— I figured I'd put it up early.

Yet another filler is up on Out of phase tomboy, but it's a special occasion; I began this web comic one year ago, so we're . . . one year old.

Here are Jami, Carys and Tam, the main characters from my Queer Circle novels, wishing the freaks over at Oopt a happy birthday.

Out of phase tomboy has been updated with a special filler for Michigan Pride 2009:

A new comic is up on Out of phase tomboy.

Thursday I let M&B sleep until noon, though I was up by 8:00. We played the Munchkin board game and had a good time though we all died valiantly in the end. Then we took a break and ended up watching several episodes of Danger Mouse, an old British cartoon that spoofs a large number of British spy series.

Thursday night I slept a solid eight hours, took a two hour nap yesterday afternoon, and slept a solid eight hours again last night. Finally feeling less tired. I simply have no stamina any more!

So I didn't do a whole lot yesterday other than futz with my web sites, read and think. I ended by watching Into the Faraway Sky, a rather odd and very long (145 minutes) movie. There are parts of it I liked a lot, but it could have been edited into two rather different 100 minute movies. It's like there were too many ideas all crammed into one movie.

On my agenda for this weekend is drawing the next MMD page and thinking a lot about what if anything I can do with my web content to attract more readers and draw attention to my books (which have not been selling at all lately). Going to QD soon, before it gets too warm.

Asynchronous interrupt: In my email this morning was a frantic cry for help from A, who has had an unfortunate series of disasters with her computer, so I'm making a complete copy of her website right now, for starters.

Edit: tomorrow is a comic priority day. I hope it rains; I think best with rain or snow.

This Friday's comic has been posted to Out of phase tomboy.

A new comic is up on Out of phase tomboy.

This morning I drew and inked the next comic, from yesterday's rough sketch. This afternoon I colored it, and it's ready to post for Monday. If I don't turn the computer on tomorrow, it'll go up Monday morning.

Thursday evening I read the most recent Enola Holmes novel by Nancy Springer. It was really good! I hope there will be more.

I also finished the third volume of Sunshine Sketch. I was reading it slowy because I like it so much. Friday the July issue of Shojo Beat was delivered, along with the latest issue of Yen Plus. This is the final issue of SB, so I'm waiting until tomorrow to read it, because I know doing so will depress me.

Last night I watched Omoide Poro Poro. I have the Korean release. (Disney will not release this Studio Ghibli movie in North America for reasons I will go into in another post.) Watched Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love this morning. As it's the subject of the next comic, I won't say more.

Monday GM files for bankruptcy. I grew up in Oklahoma, a dust bowl state turned Oil Capitol of the World; I wonder what's next in store for Michigan? Maybe we'll in fact invent the spindizzy. :: sigh :: I so wish!

I think this is Ataru Nakamura's best album; I love it!