1374 Watson.

by

When I was writing the next group of pages I skipped over part of what should happen. No one reacted to John choosing not to tell his story. Which would be insane. So I renumbered the pages and added this one. It is the first page to be created completely in Manga Studio EX 5. I decided to do it on a whim, but it’s nearly identical in style to one made in photoshop cs 1. The upside however is that it didn’t try to crash constantly when I used the lasso tool. That may seem like a small thing, but I use is a lot. Coloring was also easier. Setting the text wasn’t, unfortunately. That’s a big failing for MS5. I also had trouble with the word balloons. Still, it went more smoothly than usual, so it looks like I can transition to the new software at any time. Manga Studio is much much faster than Photoshop and doesn’t make you pay for it every month. It’s also cheaper by a very significant percentage. (Although thanks still goes to my patrons, who essentially paid for the new software. If not for your support I would likely still be hobbling along with photoshop.) MS5 can also handle massive file sizes with no problem at all. Way larger than I need them to be. Which is good because I can make high quality prints if I so desire. Hopefully I can bring you all a higher quality experience with my new tools.

Reggie’s middle name IRL comes from a guy who literally declared me to be his nemesis when we were teenagers. In spite of the fact that he hated me I had to respect the flair he had. Ultimately I was a worse enemy to myself than he ever was to me, but I honor him by naming my sometimes antagonist after him. I don’t know what happened to him now. At one point a mutual friend said he was doing fine, but that was almost a decade ago now. For the record, the reason he hated me was that the girl he loved, loved me, at the time anyway. It happens to be the same girl that Dawn AKA “Constance Willowbrook” is based loosely upon. In actual fact I liked the guy (in as much as I like anyone) and if things had been different we might have been friends someday. He’s certainly part of the reason why I don’t like writing antagonistic characters who are just mean for no reason. Perspective is a big part of life. I’m sure in his version of the story he was the hero and I was the loutish brute who had the girl he deserved. In all honesty, his version may have be the correct one.

My life seems to follow Dragon Ball rules in so far as I seem to end up being friends with people I initially hate. As far as I know none of my friends has ever committed genocide though, so it’s better than making friends with Vegeta.

Check the underblog for a Rex Manning Day picture!

49 Comments

Hows MS5 compared to MS4?

MS4 is set up very much for making black and white manga style comics. Pretty much every aspect of it is geared toward that. In fact, it does some of the comic specific stuff better than 5 IMO. It gathers pages in a way that makes more sense to me than in 5. It has a very Asian style about things too. The order things are presented to you is reverse of how westerners do it. MS5 does that too, but some of the settings can be changed to reflect western preferences. They are both a little obtuse, but 5 is easier to get into if you want to do color stuff. The basic controls are more or less standard photoshop controls. The masking layers and whatnot are still a mystery to me. Also, the symbols used to designate yes and no are nonstandard, which took me a minute to adjust to.

On balance, if you are going from PS to one of the studios going to 5 is easier. I wish I could pick and choose parts from each though. They are both good. If you’re doing mostly BW work you could get 4 and be perfectly happy.

…If we don’t get a page some day with the quote “Elementary, my dear watson” I will beg!

Or…
Go to his patreon,
Give generously enough,
And eventually Crave will feel guilted into making such as You request.

You know, it’s funny. I’ve recently been watching Dragonball Z Kai and it doesn’t appear Vegeta killed anyone on his first trip to Earth Besides Nappa, and everyone on Namek he killed got wished back (I think, hard to say. Did he count as one of Friezas men when he killed them?)

Vegetas kill count of innocent civilians (Who didn’t get revived later) seems to be standing at 0. However, in the last martial arts tournament of the original Dragonball Piccolo leveled the entire Island the tournament was being fought on, and you KNOW some residents didn’t evacuate in time. I’d say Piccolo is the bigger baddie in terms of murder.

… As far as nemeses go, I never had one, but I sort of wish I did. Not like someone who tries to destroy you or anything, but like Gary Oak. I think it’d be sort of validating if I had someone who thought highly enough of me to personally set themselves against me.

It’s been a long time, but I have a vague memory of someone explaining that Vegeta and Nappa have been doing the planet destroying gig for a while before they appear on earth. And in the old cartoon Vegeta destroys at least one populated planet that may not have fallen under the wish back to life stuff. Of course depending on how they worded the wish several planets worth of people suddenly appeared in space where there planet used to be and died seconds later. My memory of that stuff is vague at this point.

After reading this and then the comments and then going back again, something familiar was niggling at the back of my mind. Then it hit me. No, not the Buick. It was a flashback. It flashed so far back that it was in black and white.
So was Jackie watching a bunch of Marx Brothers around the time or just channeling them when writing this particular script? In either case the dialogue is gold and I look forward to such nuggets in the future. [hint hint – AWESOME™]

@Crave:
About MS5’s “massive file sizes”…
Does this mean patreon supporters could get a billboard sized panel of Nina now?

I love the way this comic looks coming out of MS5. The lines are sharp and clear; for whatever reason, the middle panel seems to have more depth to it. Reggie and Alex feel like they’re a bit 3D and it’s an awesome effect.

Also, starting to get too used to Reggie with those ears. He’s gonna look weird to me once they come off!

I really like the way today’s strip looks. It seems a little freer, almost airy. Maybe the hassle of using P0rn0Sh0p has been weighing it down.

Holy crap. I love the little “highlights” that you’ve got on there. The lighter bit for the underside of Reggie’s nose, the collarbones, the shirts… really. I like it enough that I had to get on here and tell you about it. I love it.

The differences are so subtle for me that until I read this comment and went back to look, I didn’t much notice them. Then again, I’m mostly caught up in the outstanding story telling so I tend not to notice the excellence of the artwork sometimes.

Glad to hear that MS5 is working out for you, I was really hoping you would be able to adapt to it’s idiosyncrasies, as it’s entire purpose is creating comics. And I think the page looks good, I like how it turned out. I really don’t understand why people insist on using Photoshop for drawing comics, it was not designed for that, plus MS is way cheaper. The biggest problem I am having is adjusting to 5 after getting 4, I suspect it would be easier if I had skipped 4 and gone straight to 5.

My friend says that he plans to have another two children after his first, he says he is legitimately considering giving them the middle names of “Adventure” and “Danger”. He’s gonna be a weird dad.

There’s a true story about a mom naming her 2 kids: Jerry…the doctor and Timmy…the lawyer.
I think she gave them those names so they would be encouraged to aim for big jobs. *shrugs*

Damn, today’s strip looks awesome! Also oh my god Reggie what are you even doing right now. “It’s actually Watson.” You sound like a twit. xD Reginald Watson Boothe. That…that is quite the name.

Well, it doesn’t seem totally out of character for Reggie to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory … he’s started to feel good about himself and forgot to keep his inner chihuahua muzzled, self-defensive arrogance is not an easy pattern to break out of even once you’ve had it brought to your attention (yes that just might be based on personal experience) … I expect that it will take some practice before he learns how to ‘win’ without alienating everyone around him (after all he’s had a lot more practice at losing)

If I may ask, what’s up with midle names? They are like second names your parents choose? Family names? Everyone has them? I don’t quite understand. In my country (Brazil) you usually have a first name and two last names (one from each parent). Your first name also can be a composite, as in two names, something like Jose Carlos ( In this case your frist name is Jose Carlos, not Jose). It would be something like that? Also you can have more than two last names, some people got realy long names because sometimes they want to keep their grandmothers last names.

The reasons behind middle names vary by culture. Some people use their middle naming as a way to keep a maternal last name. Like if they were from a powerful family. Sometimes it’s a way to keep a family tree more clear, like In my family where there are 3 living Jackies. Jackie Elton, Jackie Ray, Jackie Thomas. My uncle’s name comes from his uncle. My middle name comes from my great grandfather on my mothers side. Thomas Wright if I remember correctly.

In some cases the tradition comes down to us from the middle ages when those who converted to Christianity took on a new “non-pagan” name at their baptism: their “Christian name”, as it were. So now we have your “Christian” (first) name and your “birth” (second) name. In modern practice, it’s just a way to honor more family members by giving your kids more names.

That’s how breeders name things in their breeding books.

Dogs name in the breeding book: King Remus Birdkiller Artful-Dodger III

What they call him to get him to come: Buck (or Buckie)

The art is significantly . . .cleaner, that’s the word i want.
Interesting story, and also Boothe is my favorite for a reason!

Insofar as Watson declaring you his nemesis, Jackie, it’s far more likely that he was being a self-entitled douche about the mater. As you said, you were your own worst enemy (same for 99% of the rest of us)

But it is true that most people consider themselves the heroes of their own stories.
9:44 helps give us some perspective on this sort of attitude. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o268qbb_0BM minute

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