Everything's going to hell!

Hey guys. There have been some major family issues going on here so in the coming days, I don’t know how much I’ll be around. I’m hoping that these work themselves out, but it doesn’t seem like it.
Also included in personal endeavors is my endless amount of medical issues! Yay! So, I have kidney stones again and a possible infection. I saw the doctor the other day and he requested an IVP to be 100% sure as to what’s going on. I also went to a new eye doctor to get tested and mainly discuss surgery because he’s affiliated with Will’s Eye in Philadelphia which is supposedly an amazing place. Of course, though, my eyesight boggled him, so he referred me to three other doctors to see what they think about surgery. And finally, probably the smallest of the three, I gotta get my wisdom teeth out soon. Well, it doesn’t HAVE to be soon, but it’s a good idea because even though at the moment they’re not really a bother, get this: they’re coming in SIDEWAYS. If I wait, I imagine it’s going to be a whole lot worse, haha.
Oh, and in about a week or so, my insurance will no longer cover me. That’s good to know, for someone who always has some kind of medical problem going on at one point or another.

Weas has been the wrong color for 4 years

Yep. When Geoweasel began as a comic in 2002, Weas was orange, and even in 2004 when he was redesigned for the animated series, he still wore an orange suit. This was Weas' first appearance in the updated design, and he still had the orange suit and black 'stache. Here is one of many subsequent traditionally done drawings with the same colors (more or less). He soon appeared in animated form on October 6, 2004 with the same general design, and a brown mustache, because I thought it would go better with the orange than the black did. Then, finally, I redid the designs because the ones in the previous picture were horrid, Nar's in particular, but even in this lineup that was released only a week later, Weas still appeared in the same orange suit, now with the red-orange mustache he has today. And then I disappeared for a while, only to come back in late December of the same year with the Geoweasel pilot and...a brown Weas. It was a sudden change, but why did I make it exactly? I wanted to distinguish Weas from his counterpart in the old pixel comics, as he was just a sprite of Mario in his Tanooki suit from Super Mario Bros. 3. But what I didn't realize until much later was that Tanooki Mario was brown; not orange like I used in the comics. I had confused the colors with the characters and ended up making Weas look even more like that Mario. Now it's not as if Weas hasn't occasionally appeared in his orange duds between then and now, but those were always either for jokes or experimental purposes.

And yet, for some reason, this concept of Weas being the "wrong" color this whole time only really hit me like a ton of bricks...just last night. As I was straightening the sheets on my bed to go to sleep, I found myself staring at the big Geoweasel 5 Year Anniversary poster on my wall. I just looked at the stupid thing for damn near two minutes, my eyes fixed on the large Weas in the center. I was thinking about his similarities to Mario (even though all the characters have some). I always think that when people see Weas, the first thing that comes to their mind is Mario. But while looking at this picture, I didn't see Mario. Well...okay, I did see Mario, but not in the poster; just everywhere else in my room. You can't look somewhere and not see Mario. But that's beyond the point. I finally looked away from the poster and was thinking to myself, "I don't know why I worry about him looking like Mario. Even with the similarities, he's still pretty different." And right then, a rusty, cobweb-covered gear inside my head started turning again, and I said to myself the most obvious statement ever: "Holy crap, Weas isn't orange!" The way I said it was as if I had given someone else total control over Geoweasel in 2004 and never saw anything of it until just then.

I keep finding myself wanting to make major changes to characters, but especially with Weas. Between this and the hatted Weas idea, I don't know what to do. It's too far into the series to make either change, much less do both. Many people have said Weas is fine as he is, regardless of any similarities to other characters. Yet for some reason, no matter what Weas looks like and no matter what people say, I actually lose sleep over the matter.

It's kind of pathetic, really.

_____ Dig Cartoonists?

I just want some input here. I planned on having at least one “Chicks Dig Cartoonists” shirt for sale in the Geoweasel store (whenever that becomes available), but when I was thinking about doing more types of shirts, including shirts for women, I was wondering if I should make other variations of the phrase. It’s not like a girl can’t wear one that says “Chicks Dig Cartoonists,” it would just imply that they are the girl that the phrase refers to. But then I thought if I should make 3 different ones: “Chicks Dig Cartoonists,” “Guys Dig Cartoonists,” and “I Dig Cartoonists.” I have no problem making different ones aside from the fact that I can only make ONE of each type of shirt. So there can only be one ringer T-shirt, or one dark, or one women’s, etc. and I don’t know which phrase should go on what, or if I should just keep the same phrase that I’ve been using this whole time

With apologies to Mr. Inafune

Earlier this month while working on a music video tribute to Mega Man, I posted this picture with a few drawings of Mega Man that I had done over the years, but I was puzzled because I could've sworn I had drawn him way more in between 1996 and 2001 but couldn't find anything. Well, today, I found some of those...in-between drawings and I thought I'd post them for your entertainment (and my horror). Click on the thumbnails for larger images.

This first one is definitely from 1996 because it was in a notebook from the same grade as the drawing in the previously mentioned picture. It...appears to be some kind of level design. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that's Air Man up top.

This one (and the following ones) is from around 1999, I think. Cut Man looks like he's...retaining water. More than the other characters anyway. The only thing that's pretty accurate is the little Bunbi Heri in the upper right there.

Here's a bunch of bosses from the first three games. I like how almost all of them have initials written on them, probably so you would have an inkling as to who the hell they were. And then I ended up writing their names under them anyway.

This drawing of Top Man is not much worse than the one in my video, actually...

There's more drawings of things other than Mega Man in that 1999 sketchbook, but...no, I just don't have it in me to reveal those. I think I may burn it, in fact. I know they say you should keep all of your art over time but...seriously. You'd want to burn it too.

I keep getting messages about geoweasel.com

Someone really wants me to buy the geoweasel.com domain. I got a few emails last week from someone that just said something like “Hey, Geoweasel.com is open and for sale for $99.” Today, I open my mailbox, and there’s a postcard (and I got excited for a sec because I thought it was a new Frederator card) but it was just a blank one and on the back was simply written “For sale. www.GeoWeasel.com. $99.” I don’t know who this one was from because there was no return address, but according to the postal mark, it came from Salt Lake City. The only person I know out there is Tara, and this definitely isn’t from her. So that’s weird, because someone else out there apparently knows my address. I don’t know why I’m getting these sudden alerts when the .com domain has been open for about a year and a half.

2006 "Focus" Interview

Click here to listen to the interview

Crazy corrupt Flash files!

This has only happened to me on two occasions. For some reason, the FLA file for the Geoweasel episode "Fate's Fault" is corrupt, meaning a lot of things are missing (audio and visuals) when you load it, which is going to make this a tough one to get on the DVD, since I normally go in and edit the FLAs to change audio and output settings before converting the SWF. Oddly enough, when I look at these raw files with pieces missing all over the place, it looks like a totally different (and frankly more interesting) cartoon. Below are some screencaps of some of the corrupted stuff. Click on the images to see a larger version as well as a description.

Wow, how'd I mix that up?

I thought I was having surgery on my eyes on the 24th. Turns out it's just like a...pre-surgery appointment with the new doctor, and then we go from there, I guess. I don't know when I'll actually get the surgery. In one way I'm kind of worried because I've never had surgery before but on the other hand, my eyes just seem to keep getting worse; it's hard to do a lot of things, even simple daily tasks like reading, and I can't legally drive, so in another sense, provided the surgery goes well, it'll be good. I'm also glad the surgery's not on the 24th because, apparently, that's the same day Mega Man 9 comes out, hahah.
As far as other stuff goes, I might be heading up to New York again sometime soon, possibly around my birthday in October, but I don't know for sure yet because of all this surgery stuff. Other than that, I don't think there's much for me to add Geoweasel-wise or...anything else interesting.

8 More Bits!

I teamed up with Ben Ross again (from our previous collaboration on The Meth Minute 8-Bit) to help do some music for a game based on his creation, Flying Pizza Kitty. If you don't already know about FPK, I suggest you check it out!

Flying Pizza Kitty Website

FPK in Attack of the Jetpack Lizards (game)

I wonder if this would work?...

I think that it's pretty obvious that I'm excited for Mega Man 9. I think the only time you'll see me more excited is if they did something like this with Mario (they kinda did with New Super Mario Bros., which is one of my all-time favorite games, but it's just not quite the same). But I haven't heard anything about the release date for the North American market. I do know that Japan is getting the original soundtrack released on the 12th, and it's being released alongside the game. So, my question is...would this work?

Get in contact with someone in Japan who owns a Wii and exchange codes and when Mega Man 9 is released there, have them send it to you as a gift! Of course, you can reimburse them by sending them a game as well for the same amount. Flawless! ...Right?


I don't actually know, haha. For one, uh...I don't know anyone in Japan. Also, I don't know if you can send gifts from different regions because of different release dates. I checked Nintendo's website about Wii gifting and nothing says you CAN'T do that...so that leaves me with one final question:

Anyone here from Japan?!

A Rockin' Tribute To Rockman

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

Finally, something new! I finally finished up this tribute music video to Mega Man. If you like Mega Man, classic video games, or just video games in general, check this out. It includes gameplay from the old, 8-bit games, original animation by myself, and some amazing original music by Game Over. Show it to friends, help promote it! And thanks to everyone for their support!

Pixels of the past

When I first launched the Geoweasel site, I wanted to have games as a feature among the cartoons. I had a program appropriately titled "Game Maker" from the pixel comic days (I'll return to that in a moment) and I wanted to have just some cheap, quick games for the site, one for each of the main Weasels. Here's a sprite sheet of the characters in an Atari-esque form (although I guess NES form would be more accurate, since the sprites have three colors plus transparency...whatever) :
Obviously, because I'm...me, none of the games ever got made. I do remember starting Nar's game, but I can't find anything from it. Anyway, the idea of games faded into oblivion for a while, and then I did eventually go back and wanted to make some real adventure games for Geoweasel. Here was the first concept for one of them:


This "Super Coolventure Thing" game was supposed to have like...a fairly long level dedicated to each of the Weasels, and then you had to go fight Dr. Schnoz or whatever. I don't remember the plot, and obviously it went nowhere. Slightly more recently, there were two simple games on the site called "Agility" and "Bounce," and they were just simple games that were fun for maybe 5 minutes. So really, Geoweasel's never fared well with video games. Or did it?


So yes, as I said earlier in this post and countless times in the past, Geoweasel was once a pixel comic and it had some of the same basic plot as it does today, but it also took place in the Super Mario Bros. universe. And with these comics so easy and quick to make, I was able to dedicate some time to making not one, but two adventure games. Although, they are for the most part completely dead now, floating around somewhere in cyberspace. The first game was Nario's Adventure, which was just a simple, sidescrolling platformer with no real fun and tons of glitches. It was complete with Super Mario Bros. graphics, characters, and music. I don't think I could actually call any part of the game my own except for the levels and the blue in Nario's sprite. The only evidence of this game I can find today is this small conversation on DeviantArt and this drawing I did for it, years after I actually made the game. And then came the next game, Nario's Adventure 2.
This game was significantly improved over the first, at least in the realm of fun and gameplay (not originality, though). I released a demo version of the game that included a level and a boss from each of the first 5 worlds (I think it was 5). Early on, there were some annoying bugs, such as falling through slopes and Nar would always face right when he stopped moving, but I fixed them sometime after the demo release. I actually got the game about 95% finished; I clearly remember making the final levels, which were actually an easter egg if you took an alternate route earlier in the game. It was psychedelic, took place in space, and used Shadow Man's theme as the music. And I thought that was awesome. But as I was closing in on finishing it, my computer crashed. So now, all that remains is the demo. Wanna play it? You can download it here. I have been told that this only works on Windows; I'm not sure though. As for controls, just use the arrow keys. You should also know that pressing F5 will create a savestate and F6 will load that state. Since the demo still had bugs in it, I highly suggest using them, heheh. Especially on the Wiggler boss. Sometimes when you jump on him, you hurt him, but you die. I think that sums up the quality of my coding skills.