Archive for February, 2010
10 items.
Ohhh that Munter!
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See you next week!
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Bonus comic time.
Hope you enjoy. Come back tomorrow for a new AMA page!
Thanks for reading,
Marc
Hello. Did you enjoy your weekend?
Mine was good. I finished up work on a new page for this webcomic, and I was also able to catch up with a good friend of mine. That was rad. Any weekend you can hit the trio of art, hamburgers and beer has to be a good one right? It was busy, but in a good way. After seeing Faith No More, I think it was just what the doctor ordered.
I got an order for a new custom cover. So I got that busted out over the weekend as well. It was fun to get some traditional art done for a change. Nick G, hope you enjoy!
Hope all is well in your world!
Thanks for reading
Marc!
Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.
Faith no More was an excellent concert. I had fun. Like most live events though your enjoyment of a show can really hinge on the audience itself. I’ve been to shows where because the crowd was lacklustre, the band was the same. It works the other way round too. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Faith no More I am pleased to say had the crowd eating out of their hands. The only thing that threatened to derail the show for me was “Missing Toof Guy”.
About two thirds into the set everyone is getting their groove on, and just enjoying themselves. I was in the General Admission area, because this didn’t seem like the kind of show I would want to be seated at. Most people that had seats were actually standing anyway. A big burly dude appears in my immediate proximity and recognises a friend of his who was standing right next to me. Dude had come from closer to the stage than we were, and was absolutely drenched in sweat. He kept going on about how he lost one of his teeth in all the action closer to the stage. It wasn’t the most eloquent of exchanges.
“Bro! Missing Tooof! Haaa Haaaa Haaaa!”
He was extremely obnoxious and arrogant. To make matters worse, he was rolling into people bowling them over and at the same time to greasing them up with his sweat something akin to how “Slimer” would goo someone from Ghostbusters. The slightest touch and you too were dripping wet from HIS sweat on one side. Unfortunately someone in front of him reacted to this moisturous effect. Turning around disgusted he pushes Missing Toof Guy. Missing Toof Guy (MTG) suddenly goes from happy go lucky mode into bar room brawler mode. He is not a small guy either. Things start to get very ugly, with the guy who pushed him immediately recognising it was a big error in judgement, and starts to back down. MTG needs to prove he is the Alpha male though and continues to pursue the possibility of a fight. I’m standing directly next to both of these guys, so now I’m totally out of the concert experience for at least two songs. I know that if shit goes down, there is a big chance I’m getting caught in the middle of it, whether I like it or not. All of this is happening while the song “The gentle art of making enemies” is playing. There is irony there I guess.
Like Murtaugh from “Lethal Weapon” – I can recognise that I’m too old (and crippled) for this shit.
Things eased a bit when MTG took off for a while. I was relieved. Turns out he only went for another beer and to bring some of his boys closer to the fight action. Great. He even made a point of tapping the pushing guy on the shoulder to let him know he had returned to start some shit after the show finished. I’ll give credit where it is due though. Before the encore had even begun, the guy who did the pushing bounced, and MTG and his brawler friends had to choose between their love of fighting, or the concert experience. They chose to stay. I was able to enjoy the rest of the show, and decided that not making eye contact with MTG was wise, seeing as he had that lost opportunity of a fight slip through his fingers, he’d probably look to start more shit if he could.
I might have missed two songs or so, but I am happy nothing transpired from it.
Be safe out there. Heh.
Thanks for reading!
Marc
Last night I was lucky enough to catch one of my favourite bands from my youth, Faith No More (who for the sake of my laziness will be referenced to as “FNM” in this post). The anticipation and expectation of their self proclaimed second coming had set the bar high. I think everyone was expecting a lot. To make things less complicated I actually took the day off work and spent the day drawing, slowly psyching myself for the upcoming show. By 6pm, I finally got my ass down to a local fast food joint and then after a rushed dinner made my way to the venue, Vector Arena in central Auckland.
Parking is always a pain in the ass, but I found a good spot. Not long after entering the venue, the first band Eagles of Death Metal came on to warm the crowd up. By the time they were down they had definitely accomplished that task. “Can you dig it?” and “Ladies!” seemed to be their catch cries of the evening. They were just good old rock n roll. It was fun. However the crowd were definitely there to see FNM. So…did they measure up? Quite frankly. Fuck yes.
The intro had the band playing a cover of “Reunited”, before Mike Patton strutted on stage in a pimping suit with a cane for walking aid to add the vocals. It was great. They quickly got into “From Out of Nowhere” to start proceedings off. I got pretty much all the songs I wanted to hear – except for “We Care A Lot”, can’t win them all I guess. There were even some unexpected songs thrown into the set. Very welcome. Some were the bands own. A couple were not. A brief cover of Lady GaGa’s “Pokerface” had the crowd amused before blasting into “Chinese Arithmetic”. At the end of the set the band gave us two encores. On the first they ended with Crowded House’s classic “Don’t dream it’s over”. Encore number 2 they came back and asked if the crowd wanted more. A rapturous cheer let the band know the verdict. Again, they launch into the same Crowded House song. They do this another couple of times before drawing some boos. Ha ha! Mike Patton replies to the criticism with a “what? – you said you wanted more – I thought we were giving you what you wanted?” It was awesome.
The crowd was definitely reflective of the bands longevity. I doubt there was anyone under the age of 25 at the venue.
It was an amazing concert. Some other things worth noting. The backdrop was simple velvet looking curtains being back-lit with different shades of lighting. It helped keep the casual mood. At one point someone threw a shoe on stage. Which Mike Patton picked up, huffed a couple of times, before throwing it back out into the crowd. The set was stopped for two minutes, with the band urging the crowd to chant “Tom Jones!” in an effort to coax the man from his hiding place. The attempt was in vein. Tom Jones never showed up. “I guess he ain’t here” – General Patton said. We put in all that effort and the bastard doesn’t even show up? Rude.
Photos of this concert are on my Flickr page.
The people surrounding me were mostly well behaved. I’ll post on this more tomorrow.
If the band is coming near you. I very much recommend attending the show.
Thanks for reading
Marc!
I enjoyed drawing this comic.
See you next week!
Marc
Hello all.
I figure I’ll weigh in with some thoughts about February 14. For once I’m finding that the day is far more tolerable as it is not only on the weekend, but also sharing the day with Chinese New Years. Valentines Day is a funny concept to me. Possibly it is because I am a dude? I write a comic about a guy who is a hopeless romantic though, so I figure I should give my take on it.
First of all, this is just me. If you celebrate Feb 14 – and you enjoy the day for what it is. That is awesome. I’m not an old curmudgeon or anything. I could jump on the tried and true – “oh it’s all just commercial bullshit”. That would be too much of an easy dismissal. I think the day serves its purpose. What is that purpose? Why to remind us males to show affection if we had forgotten to throughout the whole previous year prior to. It’s the get out of jail free card.
Myself. Well the ladies at my workplace believe I should be hung, and wonder how my wife married me, because I do nothing on Valentines. It can be a point of contention every time February 14 rolls around on the calendar. However I will hold to it, and I have always been consistent with not doing anything for it. Now before anyone jumps on me for being horribly negligent of affection towards my spouse. Allow me to explain myself here. For me, the idea of being told to be romantic on a certain day is a bit of a sham (again, just for me it is). I don’t want to be told when I should buy my wife some flowers. Instead – I think the better way to go is hold out on Valentines, and then be spontaneous at other times throughout the year. If your partner doesn’t see it coming, and its a genuine surprise, then I think you get a much better result. Much more romantic in my mind.
Does that excuse fly with the wife? Hell no. I had to compromise somewhat this year, and make her breakfast in bed. Ha ha.
Maybe I’m just anti-authoritarian?
Hope your day was nice irrespective of whether you care about the day or not, and Happy Chinese New Years too.
Thanks for reading
Marc
I had never heard of the word “Tuque” until I met Adam. I like the word though.
A lot of the time I get asked if I based it on Spider-man’s costume. While I do read comics, no, that was not why I draw it like that. Adam actually had a hat like this one, so I just drew it.
Come back next week for page 3.
Thanks for reading!
Marc
Welcome!
Hope you enjoy this new series! Come back next week for page 2.
Thanks for reading!
Marc
Chocolate Dip for an extra 60 cents – IT’S A TRAP!
February 1st, 2010 |Posted In: Blog, Uncategorized
Hello, welcome to February! This is it, the month the comic launches. In two days time in fact, you will see an all new brand spanking new page up! Awesome. It has been too long. Thereafter you should see a new page every week. I’m looking forward to taking Adam in some new directions. Building some storylines up, adding new characters, sub plots. It’s gonna be fun. Working in full colour has also been a challenge for me. It’s been great to experiment and try and learn that. You’ll get to see soon enough on how the first page turned out.
Being Summer, I have been hitting our local Ice Cream parlour with the intensity of a thousand burning suns then amplified through a gigantic magnifying glass and focused on a population of ants. There have been some excellent hot days, which just demand a nice cookies and cream in a cone. Well a couple of days ago I was down there again. The problem as always is too much choice. There are a dozen flavours of Ice Cream. 2 choices of cones, or you can have sundaes. Maybe if you are just after a drink, you can get either a milkshake or a thick-shake. Pretty much like Captain Planet – the POWER is yours.
I decide to be adventurous on this fine summer’s day. I see a gentleman opting in for the chocolate dip option at the cost of an extra 60 cents. Immensely impressed with the addition of the hardened chocolate on top of the already lavish ice cream cone, I decide this is a move I have to follow. The flavour – Caramel Fudge. The chocolate dip would it accompany it perfectly, I say to myself.
4 minutes later I’m outside the store deciding on which angle to attack this mammoth ice cream. Even at the one scoop option, I have a generous serving. Unfortunately my man Admiral Akbar wasn’t around as the Chocolate dip was a TRAP.
I realised this after my first bite. The hardened shell of chocolate gave me the appearance all would be okay. However, under that shell the ice cream was already melting. Once I bit in, it was like a dam had burst. Ice cream started flowing freely down my hand. The shell had to be eating quickly for damage control. Too little too late, the avalanche of ice cream was already in full force.
Next time, don’t get carried away, just go for the plain ice cream.
Thanks for reading
See you in a couple of days for the new page!
Marc