Comic for Monday December 1st, 2003

"I Have No Voice" Sunday - November 30th, 2003

No, I'm not talking about my artistic voice. I'm talking about my real voice and currently I have none. I have barely anything that resembles one going back to about Saturday and it sucks pretty bad. I also have a bit of a fever I feel and I will be going to bed right soon and taking some bad ass medicine so I can get to work in the morning.

I would love to regale you all with tales of this past Thanksgiving weekend. Even sans voice it was the bawm dot com. An action filled adventure if you will. But alas I am not feeling well and really do need to be getting off to bed. I will most likely post a better post sometime tomorrow night and will let you know all what happened during the weekend on Long Island.

Oh, and I'll be sure to mention a bit about everyone's favorite friend Joe's development sheet as well. As mentioned there is no comic today, but the action will return this Thursday. I hope everyone had a great weekend and I hope to have some semblance of a voice and post come tomorrow.

Night all.

River is feeling not too well and has no voice.

"Thanksgiving Report 2003" Monday - December 1st, 2003

So here I am a day later, still voiceless. I feel a tad bit better even though I had the world's worst headache at work earlier. I did promise this post so here I am. So without further ado I bring you the River Thanksgiving Report 2003 edition!

The Kelly and I left Syrakas after we got out of work. Real time this meant we left the city at around 7. The drive itself was rather uneventful. We reached my parents house at around 12. The Kelly went straight to bed. I on the other hand had an obligation to fill to you loyal readers. So I ate some Ebi Fry (Japanese Shrimp Fry) that my mom had lovingly left for me to eat. Very tasty. I then sat down at my brother's wheezing and infected computer (see above post) and went to work.

It went as well as one can expect on a computer bogged down by spyware and with 15 programs running in the background. Like I mentioned I was very proud with the end result. The moral of this story is that should ye like a drawing, ye should be sure that you bring the CD you copy it to. In plain English it means that I burned all the image files to a CD to bring back to my home computer, but forgot the CD when I left. Bummer.

Thanksgiving was the day of kicking back and not doing much of anything. We played some video games with my brother, read some books, helped with the cooking, and watched some TV. The turkey dinner was amazing as usual thanks to my mums. After dinner we relaxed some more. It was then that I decided that I should start calling people and making plans for the following day in which The Kelly and I were planning to make the trip into the city. I called Joe and Kris and made the plans to go to the Met and Rockefeller the next day. Then with nothing to do we decided to go to the movies and since my brother hadn't seen Revolutions yet, we went to see that with Joe.

The next day The Kelly, Joe, and I rode into the city on the good ole LIRR and met up with Kris at Penn station. We then went to the Met and had a grand time looking around. The Kelly had never been and I only had been there once before. It's an awesome museum that should you be in the city, you should go visit. After we walked around the Met for a few hours we hopped on a bus to get to Rockefeller where The Kelly had been looking to purchase an ornament at the NBC Experience. Afterwards we said our goodbye to Kris and headed back to Long Island to have dinner at Gasho's with my fam.

Upon our return we were able to meet up with Dave who had moved to New Jersey and was also home for the weekend. Dinner was swell and afterwards we drove out to George's. While at George's I got to play Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup and the new NHL 2004. Both games were superb and I am itching to play them again. I didn't think the Quidditch game could work, but it was surprisingly fun and it looked very much like a Quidditch match. It was far from perfect, but it was a good starting point from which EA could build. As far as NHL 2004, all I can say is I have to get that game as soon as humanly possible.

George also busted out a rough copy of his band Sprout's new CD. It was definitely a bit different from the last CD, but that could be because of a new singer. Although the songs were still in a rough format, they sounded great and I can't wait to get my hands on the finished deal. If you want you own copies be sure to head to the Sprout webpage!!

We also got another treat as George showed us the commercials for Computer Associates he worked on. A lot of you may have already seen them on TV. He had written the amnesia one as well as the bald guy one and co wrote a few others. He was also up for an Emmy for one of the commercials. We also got the inside scoop on the bald guy commercial. The version you see when the guy is trying to log into his computer and it asks for a retinal scan and then a hair sample is actually an edited version of George's original version. His original had an additional scene which they had him cut out of the final product. The cut scene was right after the man tries to find a hair on his bald head. As the scene was switching, George informed me that there was a sound of a zipper being pulled down as if to imply that the man was trying to get hair from another ermmm.... region. I thought that was pretty kick ass. He's definitely a funny and creative guy and I think many of you can see that in the commercials and his work with Sprout. So go check him out!!!

Speaking of plugs, when I got to hang out with Dave he gave me a present from Joe's brother Mikey. Mike had been writing a fantasy book for some time now and he had wanted me to have a copy of the final version. I was pretty floored to say the least. I knew the guy was imaginative, but this was some heavy shit. The book looked great and though you can probably only get it around Long Island or through Mike himself I would recommend it to anyone. I'm about 3/4's of the way through it and I am very impressed with his skills as a storyteller. The story has me hooked line and sinker and I have to say that I couldn't put it down for a few chapters there. Anyway I'm going to email Mike and if he let's me I'll post his email in case you too want a copy of his book.

Anyway, on Saturday The Kelly and I went to a Japanese market plaza in New Jersey with my mom and bro. We had some good eats and I purchased some manga titles that I needed. Which ones? How about Captain Tsubasa Road to 2002 Number 7, Evangelion #7, and Fooly Cooly 1 and 2. I suppose I could've gotten the English versions of Fooly Cooly, but I'm a purist at heart and while it might be a touch harder to understand I prefer reading them in Japanese. I also got the first Harry Potter in Japanese for my dad.

After we got home, The Kelly and I went out with Joe, Jay, Colum, and Dave to an Italian Bakery slash coffee shop. It was right around this point that my voice took a turn for the worst and was pretty much non existent. Unfortunately the coffee shop happened to have a live jazz band playing and that dampened my ability to have much of a conversation with people. I did however manage to get Dave's profile information and that had been updated on the Dave Btwys-y-Cawr cast page. I also sketched out a pic of a chibi Kelly and Joe in Kawasaki High cheerleader outfits. One was happy and the other was mad. I'll leave it to yourselves to figure out which was which.

After the coffee shop we went to a small bookstore and then headed home. After we got back we went right to sleep. We woke up, packed, and drove back to Syracuse and arrived at around 7:30. We relaxed and then I came back here to put up the production sheet for Joe Lockhart.

Which will now segue into my bit about Joe Lockhart the character. Joe was actually the first character I drew in Ninja Spirit. I had doubts on whether I could do Joe well enough to even warrant this comic, but it turns out that I liked Joe Lockhart so much that this comic was greenlighted in my mind's eye. As you can see Joe hasn't really changed much since his first sketch work to the final product. As for why his forearms are so huge in that one pic of him, I don't know.

As for the origin of the name, I had wanted something really grand, expansive, and just obnoxious for a name for a character that would be essentially the total opposite of that. The first thing that popped in my mind when I thought about what Joe was short for was actually Johannesburg. It was like one of those strikes of lightning up your proverbial cornhole. Michelangelo came from the real Joe's Italian roots and his appreciation for the late great Michelangelo. The Lockhart is a dual reference to both the first letter of Joe's real last name and the awesome Tifa of the same surname from FF VII. Him being the tenth Johannesburg Michelangelo Lockhart was the icing on the cake. As the image above clearly states what everyone should be on everyone's mind. "Just who does that to ten generations of kids?"

Anyway I hope that provides you all with a glimpse into both my holiday weekend and the character we all sorta love. be sure to come back on Thursday for the return of the real comic. No Key Lime yet, but we do see some other people!! Righteous.

Vote for Ninja Spirit!!

River is feeling all tired out.