Merry Snow

As vague as that is, it's not even something that applies to everyone. Not everyone lives in a place where it snows during their holiday of choice. But that's as close to generalizing everything into one phrase as I'm gonna go. And I'm just gonna say it anyway:

Merry Christmas Everyone!

The Geoweasel Pilot, five years later

At this time exactly five years ago, my family was getting everything ready for our two-day drive down to Florida the next day to visit family for Christmas. Meanwhile, I was in the basement with Flash 5 (which was an early Christmas present) on a Windows ME and nothing but a mouse to draw with, frantically finishing up the Geoweasel pilot episode. I had started it earlier in the month and began slacking off, but I didn't realize until there were only two days left to do so that I had to wrap this thing up. It seemed like hard work at the time, for several reasons. For one, it was only my third animation ever. Also, the sucker ended up being ten minutes long (which I didn't realize until I had completed it), which is still the longest cartoon I've made to date.
I was proud of the work I was doing and confident in myself. I kept thinking that this was going to be a great way to start the series and show people what I could do and that a lot of people would want to see more. All the while, I was just slapping symbols around the canvas and doing some horrible version of the "squash & stretch" method to some bad voice acting and terrible timing.
I published the finished cartoon later in the day and submitted it to the only place I knew of: Newgrounds. And I sat there, literally a nervous wreck, while uploading both parts. Soon, the views, ratings and comments started coming in and I had broken into a cold sweat, as if this was an actual pilot I was pitching to a network. But I got thrown off at first; many of the early comments and ratings were positive and those who commented said it was hilarious. So I calmed down and thought, I guess this is going to be good. I checked on it a couple more times and went to bed.
The next morning, I woke up really early (which I had to anyway since we were going to get on the road by six), turned on my computer and tried to check on the comments and everything quickly before my parents freaked out and said "What the heck are you doing on the computer!? Get ready!" I went to my submission and what I saw was completely different from the night before. There were a few people who left some constructive criticism and were nice enough to say to keep going at it, but aside from that, just about every comment was very hateful, whether they were saying it was a ripoff or it was just downright terrible. The rating ended up being in Newgrounds' mediocre range, somewhere between 3 and 3.5. And I had a whole day ahead of me sitting in the back seat of a car to think about that while I just stared out the window and listened to the 4-ish CDs I owned. I was already planning the next episode, Nar Vs. The Janitizer, and what I was going to do different about it and how I was going to try and improve my skills (or lack thereof). Actually, that was the only thing on my mind for that entire vacation. I couldn't wait to get back home and start the next cartoon. Because even though it was bad, I was determined to get better and create a series that people would enjoy. And now, here I am, still playing around with the same characters.

You can watch the pilot with some editing on the site or on Youtube in really low quality, or if you want to see the episode in its original form, check out part 1 and part 2 on Newgrounds.

Let's try it one more time, but with feeling

I've been fucking around with my laptop, and when I finally got it to stay on long enough, I reset everything again. So I went through the process of uninstalling the many unnecessary programs and bullcrap that comes standard with my computer and then reinstalling all my programs as needed. And since every virus program I've used in the past has proved to be a dud and I don't actually know any sensible people who've ever used them, so I asked quickly on Twitter and Facebook (and even my brother) for suggestions and the general consensus was MalwareBytes. So hopefully that program will keep me afloat for a little while, because I do not, by any means, considered this piece of junk to be "fixed." I'm still going to send it in to HP, which is really the only option I have, but for now, let's just say all systems are temporarily online.
And now that my time to make a Christmas cartoon has essentially expired, I'm going to have to make something minor, if anything at all. I've got four days. The countdown begins.

Remember how I said my laptop was working?

Apparently completely starting over with my laptop was not enough to save it. Out of nowhere a couple days ago, it just turned off on me. I tried to turn it back on and it would stay on for a few seconds starting up and then reset. That could go on forever, but I kept trying to start in safe mode or last known good settings and the same thing happened. So I guess we're sending it to HP...headquarters or something to fix the motherboard? I don't know, I'm really not as good at computers as everyone thinks I am, especially with hardware. But either way, my brother's is broken too (physical damage though, the hinges between the keyboard and screen are literally falling off), so we thought we'd just give in and send them on a journey across the world to get fixed. But then, a tad too late, we thought to call the local computer...fixing...place that we usually go to and ask his opinion and he said fixing the motherboard would not be worth it; it'd be better to buy a new computer. Well, neither option is exactly great financially, but getting a whole new computer, while I would love to switch over to a Macbook with the Adobe Suite and just have everything in one and finally stop stressing, it's just too much money in these times. We're not even really having a Christmas this year.
I don't know. I wish I could just make cartoons and not have to worry about anything. So much of my stress is caused from worrying about whether or not my computer is going to eat everything I ever made or any works in progress. Not to mention, for the first time I remembered to do something for Animation Block Party in advance. I've never submitted to an animation festival, either because I have nothing good or I find out too late, and I was determined to at least send something in, whether it got accepted or not. But I can't do that now. I mean, submissions open the 17th, but I don't know how long of a window I have to submit something. Will I have a computer where I'm able to animate within that time period? Will I even have time to do it? I'm not keen on anything I already have made. I've thought about enhancing the animation and some other things with An Apple A Day, but the script is still kind of dumb. I don't know, I just can't stop worrying and wonder what is so wrong about me wanting to make cartoons?

formspring.me

Hey you! Ask me something! http://formspring.me/niko

What if Weas was voiced by Brian Doyle Murray?

I decided to find out. Not to mention a good little exercise to do now that my laptop is working again.

My laptop works again. We can rebuild him.

I was digging through a lot of stuff the other day, looking for my Flash 5 disc because I was about ready to install it on the family computer and just use that on and off, and I found a little package of stuff that came with my laptop, still unwrapped. I opened it up and right in the front was "Instructions for disc-less system recovery." Apparently, the only thing standing between me and having access to my own computer was...F11. Sure enough, I started it up, held in the key, and it started re-setting itself up. At a cost, of course. I lost pretty much everything I ever had, except for two things: all my fonts were still installed, and by some miracle of the gods, Flash remained intact in its entirety, while every other program had to be reinstalled. It boggles my mind, but hey, I'm not gonna question it. The only major things I have yet to reinstall are Goldwave for recording and the like, and FL Studio and PXTone for making music. Oh, and an antivirus software. For some reason, even though I get it free with Comcast, McAfee won't install correctly for me. Not that it was helping much beforehand, but at least it'd be something until we bought something better.
As for all my animations though, long before this I had backed up all the FLAs (editable files) across two thumb drives. One had all the ones from my Windows ME (which was everything through An Apple A Day), and the other had the ones from my laptop (except for the most recent three, unfortunately). When I plugged in the first thumb drive, the zip file of FLAs was there, I copied it to my laptop and extracted everything, but for some reason, all that was there were about 15 random episodes (not even in any order or anything). I plug in the second drive, and there was no zip on there for the FlAs at all. So I no longer have access to more than half of my work now. Aside from the fact that I would just like to have them for backup or records or whatever, the main problem is without the FLAs, I can't change what needs to be changed within the cartoon to make it DVD compatible. I can't just download all the SWFs of the episodes off my site and convert them because syncing methods for web viewing aren't the same as when I convert them to video for Youtube or DVD. Not that there was really a sure fire thing about the DVDs, but I had finally figured out the right method for converting the cartoons and--before all this happened--was hoping to have a volume 1 out for the holidays. But it seems like now there wouldn't be able to be regular volumes, with all the episodes in their original order. They'd just be random selections of episodes and stuff.
Whatever though. There's nothing I can do about it, so there's no use doing anything now except to continue looking forward.

What a surprise, my computer's dead

Well, just a heads up, my laptop has completely died. It's not a virus thing where I have to wait a few days for it to be fixed, have them reinstall everything and then find out what I'm missing. It's completely dead, and it actually happened not long after my last post here. So the Thanksgiving cartoon I talked about earlier is definitely a no (not that it had much chance of being done anyway), and even if I had gotten ready to do commissions, I wouldn't be able to do them now. I don't know what I'm going to lose as a result of this. Possibly everything except for all the Geoweasel FLA files I have backed up across two thumb drives. I don't know when I'll get it fixed; it may take a while because money is very tight. And to the one person out there who always says "Just get a Mac," I would love to. Really I would. But that is just completely out of reach at this point. So I'm not going to be on a lot since I'm using another computer. I check Tumblr, Facebook, and Twiitter maybe once or twice a day, but that'll be it for a while.

I need motivation. And cash.

Hey guys. I wasn't really able to draw very well for the past week or two because of a medicine I was on. My arms, legs and neck were all shaky and weak. Just a few days ago, they took me off the medicine and I'm already feeling better in that respect. It was really weird and kind of upsetting not being able to draw right; it felt like I wasn't even holding the pen when I tried and everything was just messy. But that's getting better now thankfully.
So I want to get a cartoon done. I have an entire Thanksgiving storyboard I wrote last year, and I have like...a week to do it, but I'm not really sure if I like it. That's how I'm feeling about all my Geoweasel ideas lately. They're just things I don't think people will like or I don't like myself. And it's weird because some people say to go ahead and just make stuff without thinking and others tell me if you don't really feel good about an idea, don't do it. So I dunno. I really want to do some more casual stuff with Geoweasel, like...less scripted or something, but that's hard to do since I'm the only one doing the voices. You can't improvise with yourself. I also want to do a remake of The Dark Storm since that was the first Geoweasel episode and it'll be five years since I made it this December. Not really so much of a remake though. The same general idea is there, but it's not at all the same script. It's just if I had done that plot today, how it would play out. But I'm not really sure if I want to jump on that either. I need something that I can just get into.
Oh! Also, I've been thinking about offering commissions lately. Not that I think many people would buy any from me, but I'm seriously completely broke. I would definitely do drawing commissions, but animations, I'm not so sure. I would offer animation to people who are looking for like a music video, a commercial, or a film they've written that they want animated or something. I have no idea how to put myself out there for that though. And for regular commissions, I have to figure out Paypal and stuff too, I've never done anything like that.
I still want to put DVDs together too, but there a few things wrong with that idea. The major thing is I'm missing a lot of the original files that I used to upload to Youtube since the last time my computer crashed. Some I still have the SWF and/or FLA for that I can still convert it, but not all of them. I wouldn't be able to put together a DVD that has episodes in order for like a collection or something. I could download the MP4 versions from Youtube, but those are not good quality for DVD. It's very cheap. Plus, I don't know if it's something people honestly would buy, or if it would just be one of those things where everyone tells me "I'd buy that if I had the money." Like the shirts and stuff I made. I don't feel like wasting my time making something no one gives a damn about.

New ideas

Hey guys. Obviously I never did the Halloween thing. And oddly, like...as soon as November started, I began thinking less and less about Geoweasel. Probably because I officially started Zane & Flick on the first (just rough planning so far though), but I also have an overabundance of new ideas, which is awesome! Some are for animated series I could do, some are for certain types of cartoons, and some other one-off animations for film festivals and the like. I may try pitching the ideas of the series to online networks, because I don't want to go through any of them alone.
I haven't really jumped on any of these yet though. I still want to do some Geoweasel cartoons before the end of the year. Who knows what I'll do cartoon-wise before then? I can't really do anything now because my hands have been really shaky and weak lately and one day I went to draw and it just...didn't work. Something didn't feel right and the drawings came out very sloppy. It was like I couldn't feel my hand and it was just flopping around. I'm really upset over that; hopefully it gets back to normal soon. Plus, New Super Mario Bros. Wii comes out this Sunday, and I don't think I've ever been so excited for a game release. I'm really having trouble with my patience with this, haha. I wish I could just go to sleep and wake up on Sunday. But yeah, between my hand and the fact that I will be playing Mario nonstop, you might not see a whole lot of drawings or anything from me for a good while. But I'll try.

Happy Halloween!

I just keep thinking too much

Countless people have told me to just stop thinking and do what you want. And I’ve been trying to do that, but sometimes I can’t help it. Like now.
I think maybe I need to find a distributor for my cartoons. Doing this independently is yielding no results. I shouldn’t say none, but I definitely am not reaching the audience I want to reach. Granted, Geoweasel is not an ideal series, even for web. There’s no substance to it. In a way that can be good, but I’m not doing it right. Sometimes I want to quit it, others I don’t, because it is something that I can just do whatever I want with. But even if I made something totally different, I feel like it would go unnoticed. I have no idea how to attract an audience. Or maybe my stuff is just crap. It’s not something I can submit to film/animation festivals or shows or websites to be featured on. It just kind of sits there, and if someone sees it, they see it, but it’s not something that someone would stumble upon and say to someone else, “Hey, you gotta check out this cartoon.”
While I was at SPX last month, I talked to James Kochalka for a while and eventually started talking about this kind of stuff and just my lack of motivation, and he said maybe it’s time to move on. Later on, I talked with Jeffrey Brown and he said, “I think you should just do what you do, and not worry about other people or getting popular or anything. That just comes on its own.” Not that nobody has said either of those things to me before, but it was just two people in one night telling me contradictory things that left me confused and thinking. I don’t know what I should do. Keep going? Get help? Do something else? Quit altogether? Back when I first started it was just, “Yeah! I’m gonna make a cartoon!” and nothing else factored into it and I just went along with what I had. But then I started feeling like I wasn’t attracting more people, my stuff wasn’t evolving, I kept getting rejected from various places to display my work, and with every one of those, I lost more and more motivation. I don’t think anything ever really happened to actually bring some of that motivation back. It just kept getting sucked away until now, where I’m at the point of making a couple cartoons a year, if that.
I know not everything can be a hit, and not everything is a miss. But I think just about everything I’ve done has been a strike out. If this is what I love doing, why is it becoming so hard to do?

Here we go, a brand new one!

After two weeks of ready-made cartoons, and many weeks of nothing before that, here's a brand new Geoweasel cartoon! And I mean BRAND new. Not like I started it a while ago and got back to it. I mean I started it this weekend and got it done this afternoon, because time was ticking with this one. It's about the Balloon Boy, which I'm sure you've heard about. And the internet works fast, so I had to get it out in the open before the next big thing came along. So please go check it out and enjoy!

Another unfinished one

Here's the second (and probably last) Unfinished Episode Theater. It's a Halloween episode from 2006. I had it online briefly for some reason, so a few hardcore viewers may have already seen this. But please guys, I can't stress this enough. Since these videos are now on Youtube, you have no idea how helpful it would be to me for you guys to share the video with friends or post it on your blogs or something; anything you find fit. There is only so much I can do in the way of self promotion (without having to pay, and I can't, so it's not an option). Online video relies mostly on you guys, my friends and fans. Rating and commenting are always good, and I always like to hear feedback, but introduce some of your friends to the series. Post episodes or links on your Facebook, Twitter, or Myspace, or if you have a casual blog, maybe like a Tumblr or something, post it there too. My current goal is to have Geoweasel become a Youtube Partner series. But it's weird. Becoming a Partner helps spread your videos and gets more people to see your stuff, but you have to gain some type of popularity before you can even be a partner. And I just don't understand Youtube and how somethings can skyrocket in popularity on its own. I'm not even aiming for that. I just want to build a bigger audience, which would motivate me to make more cartoons. But I'm never going to be a Partner if most of my videos have less than 500 views. So please, if you want to see Geoweasel keep going, lend me a hand and spread the love.

New (sorta) Geoweasel Episode on Youtube

In an attempt to build myself a buffer zone to get actual new content done, this week and next will feature old episodes that I never finished. Also, I think I'm going to only be uploading to Youtube now, since that's the best place to get feedback. Also, it would really help me out though if you guys shared these cartoons with friends, put them on your blogs, leave comments, ratings, etc. Internet video is all about sharing, and I need your help!

Tumblr's got more action

If you're not already, you guys should be following me on Tumblr. You don't have to get a Tumblr account if you don't want to, but you should at least check it out or maybe subscribe to the RSS feed. On this blog where I only post if something important is happening. On Tumblr, I post all sorts of things throughout each day, whether it has to do with Geoweasel, myself, or interesting stuff I find on the 'net or through other people. If you're interested in seeing samples from my sketchbook that I don't post elsewhere, behind-the-scenes Geoweasel stuff (I've been putting up a lot of early production art lately), or just random stuff about me, head on over!

"Ridin' a Keytar" wallpapers

Here is a low-resolution version of the design for the postcards I had printed for SPX, but I also made a few different-sized wallpapers if anybody wants to use it.

1280x1024
1600x1200
1920x1200

If you’re like me, though, none of those sizes will work well for your desktop no matter if you center, tile, or stretch it. So if you want to use this and none of these look any good, let me know your screen resolution and I’ll make one for you.

Small Press Expo 2009

So next Saturday is the annual Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland, and I'll actually be there! I'm not exhibiting or anything, but I will be there. A lot of cartoonists I know of and whose work I enjoy will be there and I'm hoping to meet some of them. And the great thing is, it's (from what people have told me) a lot smaller scale convention compared to the regular comic cons and it also is pretty much focused entirely on my favorite types of comics instead of the broad range of anything remotely comic-related or even just comics in general.
Anyway, I'll be there for the full two days, so if you're going to be there too, let me know, we might run into each other. I'll be bringing some promotional goodies along too which I'd be more than happy to give you.

Kimbo guest strip

I have a feeling that a lot of my friends read Dumm Comics and may have seen this already, but if not, there's a short Kimbo guest strip up today by yours truly! Go check it out!

Can we not let the internet win this one?

"Survival of the Fetish" by Brian Bear

A long-time friend of mine is in the Fox Aniboom challenge and he's got a damn good cartoon entered in it. Unfortunately, it's being overshadowed by a lot of really crappy and unworthy entries because they made the mistake of asking the internet what they think is good. What we have here is a great short that is already of the quality that you would see on TV and while I would love to see it go all the way, I would at least be able to sleep at night knowing it wasn't losing to some like...say this, for instance. And I'm not just saying this because this is a friend of mine. Brian is an excellent cartoonist and animator and he is LONG overdue for some recognition. So please go on to Aniboom and give his cartoon a look and vote on it. Or if you honestly don't think it's worth it, at least find something else that's of this quality or higher and vote on that. I'm tired of the general internet praising and rewarding stick figures and randomness while people who have actually built up years of experience, people who put hard work and dedication into their work are left unnoticed.

Got a question for ya!

Which Weasel do you think looks the weirdest without his mustache? This is a matter of life and death, so you better answer! Also, a bonus:

Weas, mah boi

It sure is boring around here! I wonder what Dr. Schnoz is up to!

In the meantime, I need to make new postcards, get more stickers printed, come up with an idea and make a Geoweasel mini comic and buy a new bag before I go to SPX.

The more you rely on the internet, the more it sucks

Hey guys, I lost internet a couple days ago. At first we thought it was because people were cutting down trees nearby and they might’ve hit a cable line or something, but that was not the case. Apparently, our 10-year-old modem just totally stopped working. How I didn’t see that coming, I don’t know. So we had a guy come out and get us a new one, and it works, but now our wireless router doesn’t. So we have internet on the main computer, which is what I’m using now, but no Wi-Fi to get online from my laptop. So now we gotta go buy a new one of those too. Just so you know what’s going on. In case you were worried. And you totally were, weren’t you?

Also, here’s a comic I doodled the night it stopped working that’s…kinda relevant? I dunno

Geoweasel Facebook page

Hey guys, I set up a Geoweasel page on Facebook. Go check it out and become a fan!

Also, there may be an update sometime this weekend. But even if there is, don't get too excited because it's more for the sake of having new content than anything. I'm trying to buy myself some time to make episodes while also putting up something new. I need to build myself a buffer zone like I had...once, where I have episodes ready in advance, and then continue to work on new ones before those are even out.
Then I could do a "next time on Geoweasel" segment and it wouldn't have fake footage!

A little advice regarding print-ready comics?

Here's a new Chicks Dig Cartoonists strip, the first one since my computer crashed. I don't usually post these on my blog since it has its own site, but I posted this one to ask for some help.

You see, none of my comics are print-ready, so if I wanted to make a mini comic or something and printed these, they'd all be pixely or blurry. To make them at a higher DPI though, I'd half to redo half the comic.
My current process is this: I draw the comic in Flash, leave in what's solid black and white, and the rest transparent, and then export it as a PNG. After that, I open up the PNG in Photoshop to do the screentones. Because I like screentones. That makes most of the problem, though. If I export the file from Flash at say 300 to 600 DPI (for print), the screentones are going to look different than if I export at something like 72 DPI (optimized for web). Basically the way I'm doing it, I'd have to do the screentones for each comic twice. Once at a 72 DPI, and once at a print-ready DPI.
Is there something I'm totally missing here? Is there a way I can do the comic and just have it look the same in print and on the web? I've thought about just doing the comics entirely in Photoshop, but I'm not as used to it as I am with Flash, so it'll take some practice. I dunno, maybe I'll figure something out, but any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Battletoads

A comic inspired by a conversation inspired by another comic. Specifically this one. Innocent people who are legitimately looking for Battletoads will forever be screwed.

I just drew this because I couldn’t get into the feeling of doing anything actually good today..

So basically I'm fucked

I'll try to make this quick and concise.
I got a computer virus but I was able to remove it manually. Even with the virus "gone," my computer was still acting up, shutting itself down at random intervals and then eventually I got another virus that I really could do nothing about because it wouldn't let me access any programs or even get into files. So I took it in to get repaired, that took a couple days. I got it back, and found that only a small amount of files were saved. Luckily, the people I go to keep everything backed up on an external drive for 24 hours in case something like that happens, so I went back the following day to see if I could get everything else off the drive. I couldn't. Most of the files did not make it back onto my computer because they were damaged, and of course, the ones that were damaged were some of the most important ones. A lot of what was saved was music and pictures.
I am now missing the vast majority of all my animations in three different forms: The FLA files (which are most important because those are the actual editable files for the cartoons in case I need to change anything to export at a later date), the original exported SWF files, and the video files (used for uploading to Youtube and eventually they were going to be used for the DVD). Also missing are all the files for my website (images and HTML, but I can actually redownload them from the server), all of my comics (including an unfinished Geoweasel one that was eventually going to be on the site), many sound files including not-yet-used voice recordings for cartoons, sound effects, and stock music, my custom font (which I thought I could just go and redo, but I got it for free a while back and now they charge you ten bucks for it), and probably some more stuff that I haven't even gotten to yet. Because they had to completely wipe it and reinstall Windows, all of my programs were gone too, but I was able to reinstall those easier than I had expected. For a while, I could only find my disc for Flash 4, and uh...you can't do shit in that version. Has anyone ever used that one? I mean if you've used 5, you've essentially used all the subsequent versions of the program, save for a few things, and vice versa. But either way, I got Flash 8 back, so that little freakout never happened.
I'm not really sure what I'm going to do at this point, though there's really not much that I can do as far as stuff from the past goes. I guess I just gotta move forward and hope what I lost doesn't bite me in the ass later on.

That wasn't quick and concise at all.

8-Bit And Beyond photos

If you guys missed opening night of The Autumn Society's 8-Bit And Beyond show, I took a bunch of photos while I was there and posted them on my Flickr.

Autumn Society tonight! Also, computer virus!

Just a reminder, the new Autumn Society gallery, 8-Bit And Beyond, opens tonight at 6:00 PM at Brave New Worlds Comics in Philadelphia. I'll be there tonight, so if you're around, come say hi! My piece will be hanging there and available for purchase, but I'll also have some brand new Geoweasel postcards and those "Obey" stickers available as freebies. Of course, if you can't make it tonight, you can still stop by any time during the month and the pieces will be there. I highly suggest you check it out. I've seen a number of the pieces and they are truly amazing works of art. Much better than mine. If you need some info, you can check out the event page on Facebook. Otherwise, check out The Autumn Society's blog.


Next order of business...I have a computer virus! Again! According to my records (by which I mean past blog posts), I just had one in December. I don't know if this new one has anything to do with the Twitter and Facebook outages yesterday because apparently some other people got infected as well, but either way, I'm screwed. There are a number of sites that I can't access at all (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Youtube, and Flickr). I just get a message that says it's restricted. I've run full system scans a number of times with both Norton and McAfee, and the virus is still there, so I'm going to have to take my computer in to get wiped or whatever, and then continue to freak out about whether or not I'll be able to access important programs like Flash and whatnot (even though a lot of stuff was backed up last time this happened, it was still a bitch to re-active Flash and my Flash to video converter in particular, and I don't remember how I did it). So I'm just putting it out there that I won't be online a whole lot for the next couple days; I still have access with my home computer, which I'm currently using, but it's not like I can really do a whole lot with all my programs gone. I was seriously for real gonna maybe probably almost work on a Geoweasel episode this weekend, but obviously that's not going to happen. Clearly! If I hadn't gotten a virus, there woulda been like a million episodes! Yeah!

Weas enjoys The Reel Good Show

If you're not already watching Indy Mogul's Reel Good Show, you should be. And not just because Weas makes a cameo in this episode.

Recap Time!

I’ve been on vacation from July 26 until today, but yesterday I took part in the latest 24 Hour Toons challenge. Go check it out! Also, if you haven’t already seen, I’ve been working on an experimental autobiographical webcomic called Chicks Dig Cartoonists. It doesn’t have a regular update schedule, but it’ll probably update a couple times a week if you’re looking for stuff in between my cartoons. Anyway, I have kind of a busy week this week because I have a piece that is going to be in this Friday’s Autumn Society gallery. It opens on Friday at 6 PM at Brave New Worlds Comics in Philadelphia. I’ll be there, so if you can, stop by and say hi! (And maybe you can buy my piece!) After all that though, hopefully I’ll be back to working on Geoweasel. My goal is to get at least two episodes out this month.

24-Hour Toons

My submission to the love-themed 24-Hour Toons challenge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HckBShgfu1c

The Sky Is Falling!

When I first heard that the theme for the next Autumn Society show was video games, my mind went crazy with ideas. I was raised on the Nintendo and video games have always been a big part of my life, so I had no idea what I should do for my piece. But one day earlier in the month while playing Super Mario Bros. 3, I remembered how the Angry Sun used to creep me out as a kid, and it also reminded me of how when I got older, the moon from Majora's Mask did the same, and I realized how similar the two were. I figured it would be interesting to mash the two concepts together.
The show opening is on August 7th at Brave New Worlds Comics in Philadelphia. I'll be there that day (and maybe a couple other times throughout the month), so stop by and say hi if you can! For more information, check The Autumn Society's blog.

I'm on Channel Frederator!

I'd rather be in San Diego, but this'll do

So tomorrow I head down to Outer Banks, NC for about a week with family. And every year before I go on a vacation, I always end up writing blog posts saying that I'm gonna try and get a cartoon done before I have to leave and then never do. And this year really isn't any different. I don't have any cartoons for you guys, and I won't really have time to work on any over vacation, so it'll be a while before the next Geoweasel. But at least this year I have a webcomic! That's easier and quicker to work on, and since it's autobiographical, I'll have plenty material for it while on vacation I'm sure. The only problem is that the house we're staying in doesn't have wi-fi, so I might have to bum it off someone who has one of those card things for laptops, or a...cafe or something. Depending on the situation, I want to try and update the comic daily, or almost every day that I'm there. Remember, you can check it out at chicksdigcartoonists.tumblr.com. I wouldn't really bother checking my Twitter or anything for updates of my travels though; I don't have any kind of iPhone or portable device capable of getting internet (my phone doesn't even have text messaging) so I can't tell you what rest stop I'm at on the way down. Sorry. I know you guys want to know that kind of stuff.

Guess where I'm going today?

Chicks Dig Cartoonists

All my autobiographical comic strips will now be posted at chicksdigcartoonists.tumblr.com, so I can keep them organized and not have to keep uploading them to every site I belong to. I would be very grateful if you checked it out and followed it!

Geoweasel on the Radio

TONIGHT! I will be on The DJ Mashi Potato and DJ BrownHairHampster Show!

7 PM Eastern.

Stream link: http://studiolab45.net:8008/ultrasecretmashi.ogg

IRC Chat: irc://irc.dynastynet.net/ultrasecret

Be sure to check it out!

For Me?

I need to set up one of those Comic Press things if I'm going to keep doing these comics. Anyway, I got a postcard from Liz Prince after writing her a letter. I didn't actually expect anything return, so I was especially happy to actually get a hand-written reply. Here are some photos of it:

Social Anxiety

I did this traditionally because I drew it late last night and didn't feel like staring at a computer screen. I regret it now because it ended up being a bitch to scan.

With Apologies to Charlie Brown

An homage to a recurring type of Peanuts strip. I have six of them hanging on my wall.

It was bound to happen sometime

I got a Twitter. Or rather, Twitter got me.
http://twitter.com/NikoAnesti

Real-life comics

Lately I've been reading a good number of autobiographical comics, like those of Jeffrey Brown, Liz Prince and James Kochalka, and it made me want to give it a shot. This is kind of a weird one to start with, but this happened the other night and I thought it would be interesting to make a comic of because it didn't need any dialogue. I don't know if this'll be a regular occurance though. I don't have a particularly interesting life where I like...go and do stuff with...actual people. But maybe doing strips every once in a while will be good. After all, this is like the first comic I've done since 2004..

Happy 4th

In honor of 4th of July, enjoy this 30-second cartoon I made three years ago that features outdated references to New Jersey politics and Wario Land 4 music

Golden Age gallery tomorrow

I'll be going to opening of the Autumn Society's Golden Age gallery tomorrow. If anyone else is going, let me know, I'll see if I see you there!

I'm writing a book

And here's a sample of the cover. Not final though. I already changed a few things (the text alignment was pissing me off). But all those little Zane & Flick drawings and doodles I've been posting with Zane saying something really depressing and Flick just kinda there so he has someone to talk to, well, it's a little collection of those. I don't know when I'll finish it, but I figured I'd do something like this as a test before doing a comic.

Developing Zane & Flick

I have really been hell-bent on making this series. I've been doing a lot of drawing and notes for it lately. It's all very unorganized though. I need to get myself another sketchbook and use it solely for this. I'm also thinking about putting together a pitch packet for the series to show to some publishers (though I really don't know how pitching a comic works) because I'd rather not go this alone.

80s Pop Show

I went to The Autumn Society's 80s Pop Show gallery at Brave New Worlds in Philly today. Even though I had seen a lot of the pieces online already since the show's been open for a while, it was great to see them in person.
A good number of pieces were sold though, so I didn't get to see all of them, like Tara's. I expected the ones that were sold to just be marked and then the people who purchased them would come back again once the show ended to pick them up, but I guess it is nearing the end of the show, and it worked out because I got to walk home with this:


I also went inside the comic shop because, actually...I've never been in a real comic shop like that before. There's like...no such thing around here. So that was awesome. The next show, the Golden Age Gallery, opens this Friday, and I'll probably be going to that. If anyone else is going to the opening, let me know, maybe I'll see you there!

In other news, I'm trying to figure out how to get a train to NYC sometime soon, but I've never been on any major public transportation before, and NJ Transit is a complete disaster, so this is going to be interesting...

Me and my Keytar are back!

And this time, we play the theme from Punch Out! Don't forget to Digg it!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGwb4ZjxoZ0

Bryan Lee O'Malley, what hast thou wrought?

A few weeks ago I finally bought Scott Pilgrim, and that was the last time I worked on Geoweasel in any real sense. Though, the site going down didn't help either, but it's mainly the fact that I'm suddenly bent on developing a couple different comics instead of animation. I need to get back to Geoweasel because at least I have something behind that. These comics I want to do...they're nothing. They're just doodles in my sketchbooks and stories in my imagination that will most likely never come to be. And yet I keep going with them. Truthfully, I want to do both animation and comics, but right now I can really only handle one. And I think it should be animation. But there's something about these independent comic artists like O'Malley and Jeffrey Brown that I find enthralling--like I want to be a part of that scene. I don't know. Maybe I just feel left out or something. I don't have any friends in animation or comics either. None that I can hang out with, I mean; I know 'em all through the internet. And in high school I never really did anything with friends too much because I didn't really share any of the same interests with them. I long to go to events and parties and just hang out with people. But I'm stuck here. And that's what Zane & Flick is about.

This post makes no sense.

The Autumn Society

I'm a couple days late in mentioning this because there's been a lot of other stuff to post about and I'm falling behind, but long story short, I'm now a part of The Autumn Society of Philadelphia, which is a group for illustrators, animators, filmmakers, etc. around the Philly area. My posts will be on their second blog. I'm going to try to make it to their current 80s Pop Show Gallery, as well as the opening of the upcoming Golden Age gallery, hopefully. I'm also trying to look into taking a train to NYC sometime soon, and if it goes well enough once, maybe I can travel up there more often..

Anyone wanna do me a solid?

Is there anyone who’s going to San Diego Comic Con in July who wouldn’t mind taking this little Moleskine sketchbook with them and getting some sketches and/or signatures from artists and stuff? Every year I have to miss it for one reason or another, and all I ever want is to meet fellow cartoonists and people I admire. But alas, I can’t. So if anyone is interested in doing this, send me an email at niko@cartoonsdammit.com and you’ll be my hero forever.

Living Dreams

The third in what I guess is now a series of semi-depressing Zane & Flick pieces. Maybe I could do a whole book of just stuff like this. Oh, and the background is actually a drawing of a picture I took at the Delaware River a couple months ago.

Which reminds me, I STARTED UP A PHOTOBLOG, GO CHECK IT OUT.

What comes after world 8-4?

Take a trip with me to uncharted territory in Super Mario Bros.!

Geoweasel.net is gone

Okay, so I've been going borderline insane for about a day now, because Geoweasel.net expired with no warning. Now, the actual site is http://geoweasel.cartoonsdammit.com, so everything is still backed up, but it would cost $170 just to get the .net name back. That's nuts, and while just paying it would be the quickest and easiest solution, I can't afford that. Luckily, Eileen Cruz from ToonZone has been helping me out with all this (and I really can't thank her enough!) and she secured the domain for geoweasel.com. Now while having geoweasel.com will be great, not having geoweasel.net presents me with several problems. One of the main ones is that the Geoweasel Youtube username is "geoweaseldotnet". Why isn't it just "geoweasel"? Because some ass took "geoweasel" back in 2007 and has never used the account. But either way, I can't change my Youtube username, and it'd be too much of a mess to start over on a new account, so now I'm stuck with a name that makes no sense. Oh, and I also just ordered a set of 48 fucking stickers that say "Geoweasel.net" on them.

Why did I order 48? Because these stickers only come in packs of 48. That's really practical. What the hell am I supposed to do with all these now? Not to mention I have to go around to all my other sites, change links, change my emails (because anything @geoweasel.net no longer works), change all the stuff in the store...I can't even comprehend this all. It's totally not even worth it. It really isn't. All this time, I probably would have made way more cartoons and had more fun doing them if I didn't have so much other stuff hanging over my head. Now I can't even relax. I just want to draw.

Ramona Flowers

I got about halfway through this drawing last night and just stopped. I'm not sure why, I was just getting a weird feeling about it, but I left the Flash file open in case I decided to go back to it and, obviously, I did. I need to start designing more characters that don't just wear like a plain shirt and pants, but actually have detail to them. And necks. They need necks. So this drawing kind of looks like a combination between my style, Bryan Lee O'Malley's, and Octopus Pie. I'll tell ya though, nothing has ever made me feel more inspired yet completely inadequate at the exact same time as Scott Pilgrim has. Go figure. But I need to stop dwelling on that and get back to working on my own stuff for now..

New Store Items!

We got some crazy new crap in the Geoweasel store!
Like this here Obey Weas mug! Perfect for people who need a place to put their tea, their office supplies, or people who are talk show hosts!

Go check it all out!

Who's going to Comic Con?

Not me, of course. I never even make it to events around here, much less stuff happening on the other side of the country. But I think I might go and get a little sketchbook, send it to a friend who is going to the con, and see if they can get some people to draw and/or sign in it or pick up some goodies. Anyone want to help me with this?

Here's a couple

Clouds

Just a Zane & Flick drawing.

nockFORCE Guest Quickie!

So a couple weeks ago, I got to work on a guest quickie for nockFORCE, and they gave me some dialogue that was pretty fitting to my interests. This is what I came up with. This is one of the most fun things I've gotten to animate, and I can't thank Ian and Jim enough for letting me do it!

Also, I put up a bunch of photos from my Wildwood trip up on my Flickr, if you wanna check those out.

I'll be gone for a day or two

I'm going down to Wildwood for the weekend, so I won't be updating with anything this weekend. I'm sure I'll be drawing while I'm there, though, and I'll be sure to scan all my doodles and share pictures when I get back. Unfortunately, the days I'm going down are the exact same days as the MoCCA Festival, which I would really rather prefer to go to, but that's the way it rolls I guess. But if you're able to, you should go check it out. Or try and find me in Wildwood. I wear checkers. Anyway, I'll see you guys when I get back.

Geoweasel on Aniboom

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE GEOWEASEL ANIBOOM PORTFOLIO.

I've been setting up Geoweasel on Aniboom for the past couple days. I coulda sworn I had an account there but apparently I didn't. So I'm uploading a few Geoweasel cartoons to the site (mainly more recent ones) in hopes to try and get some more people interested in the show, but also to network with other animators. So if you have a profile there, let me know here or subscribe on my page and I'll return the favor! It'll really help me out!

Nar's reaction to today's E3 news

Actually that was my reaction too.
That is hands-down the most horrifying thing I've ever drawn.

My apologies

I haven't been feeling so hot lately, so my apologies if I fall behind on stuff. I've felt really depressed for the past couple days and I'm not sure exactly why. I dunno. But here are some doodles.

How does Youtube work, exactly?

This 4-second clip of a kid yelling over one of my clips has nearly 2000 views. The actual cartoon has less than 150. Can someone explain to me how Youtube works?