I released a new comic today, which is a bit out of order from my usual Monday-Wednesday-Friday pattern. The comic is about this guy called Fancy Chef, who is the biggest thing since Salt Bae. I'm not that into cooking, but I understand why people find these guys simultaneously hilarious and offensive. I look at cooking through a utilitarian lens, I don't care much about what I eat beyond the nutritional content and if it tastes good. Not great, just good.
Because I released a new page today, I will reformat and repost one of my older ones on Monday and Tuesday. There are still many that I need to correct to make them more easily readable in mobile format, which was something I did not think about when I first posted. The three panels side by side look great on my work monitors, but it hadn't occurred to me they would appear better on smaller screens separated into individual images.
This comic is a true story. My parents really wanted me to be a lawyer, and before 2019 I was on the path to becoming one. I graduated top of my class in Criminology and Pre-Law, and the next step was a law degree. My education is a combination of social sciences, homicide investigation, and police procedure, and my interest was mainly in being a death investigator, which is a prosecutor who specializes in cases where wrongful death is suspected. This is not entirely off the table yet depending on how things go with the comics, but after Covid, I realized that I would regret it the rest of my life if I didn't give this a shot. Comics were in my plans, but somehow I had worked it out in my mind that I would write these after I retired from the justice system. You know, after I was old, tired, bloodied, and broken from the inevitable traumas of that work. This sort of thing gets me thinking about the multiverse, that there is an alternate version of me out there who went the other way, and that his day-to-day is traipsing through scenes of gore and courtrooms while daydreaming of one day writing comics.
I was not aware of FlappyBird until recently, I love gaming but most mobile games cannot hold my attention. I love beautiful, immersive, complex settings and stories to accompany gameplay, and I can't wrap my head around most of what's on the app store. That said, I'm not at all against mobile gaming, but I don't think that it's okay for a company pushing crypto to acquire an IP abandoned by its creator for mental health reasons. It may technically be legal, but it's also multiple layers of messed up. There will be additional things I have to say about crypto and NFTs in the future, but I'm still working on how to find the funny in between all of the conning and ruined dreams this newfound industry is rife with.
Nintendo's lawsuit against Palworld is confounding to me because if you were going to get upset about something being like Pokemon I would think it would be TemTem. As I said in the comic, don't alert Nintendo if they aren't already aware, but because this hasn't happened I'm guessing those two companies already worked something out behind closed doors. Nearly every creative thing I like draws inspiration from one source or another, and even for the oldest of stories. Batman was inspired by Sherlock Holmes and Zorro, Wolverine was inspired by Clint Eastwood characters, and Solid Snake and Big Boss were supposed to be a combination of Snake Pliskin and Wolverine. Star Wars is a more cartoonish version of Dune with additional biblical and chivalrous elements. In the comic, I draw a parallel between my comic and PA, because both are nerdy comics largely about gaming and pop culture which follow the classic straight-man interacting with a chaotic clown format. As I continue, the two comics become more disparate, my voice is very different from theirs, and I talk about subjects they will not discuss in ways they will not discuss them. However, if they choose to they could take issue with my work and force me into a legal battle. I've interacted with Mike and Jerry online several times, and I've met Mike in person so I know they would never do this, but if I had been inspired by less cool artists it would be a possibility.