Brevity is the Soul of yada yada, lets just make a post title that's longer than the actual post because it's something to do and there's nobody who can stop me, mwahahahaha! Narf.

The lastest page of The Word Smith is up in the usual location.  Go read it, because that's what it is there for.

Otherwise, nothing else to say today.  Short post, yo.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Cleaving Vans

I have recently returned from a short trip to Vancouver for a short conference.  The conference itself was ok:  there were some interesting talks and some not so interesting talks and some talks that could have been interesting except that their presenters were not.  On the whole, I find sitting through two days worth of talks to be rather trying to the patience, regardless of how interesting the talks actually are.  My overall take away from the conference was, I think, that I'd like to have the chance to go back and visit Vancouver again for an actual vacation wherein I'd actually have some time to do something other than attend a conference.  That will, however, have to wait until I have the budget for it.

As it was, I did have some time to walk around the downtown area a bit - I went through Gastown and walked along the Waterfront a bit.  Nothing too exciting, but it is what it is I suppose.  I would have loved to have gone hiking somewhere but there was, alas, no time for that.

The trip back from the airport to my humble abode was... interesting, for some definition of interesting.  I took one of the out-of-town shuttle services and ended up in a vehicle with just the driver, an elderly gentleman who was otherwise retired, and one other passenger, an elderly lady, also retired.  And O. M. G., they were both stereotypical cranky old people.  Well, cranky might not be the right word, but I ended up listening to about an hour of nearly constant "Young people today and there things..." so, yeah, stereotypical old people.  Also, super awkward.  (None of this was targetted at me, I should say, but still...)

Anywho, I shall cap off this post with a few pictures that I took around Vancouver.

A couple of views along the waterfront.  There's actually a nice bike path along there with places to rent bikes that I would have liked to have had the time to take advantage of...

A plaque along the waterfront that amused me.

The Water Street Cafe in Gastown.  I include this since I used a picture of the cafe as the model for the Street Meat Cafe in episode one of The Word Smith - I hadn't realized that it was in Vancouver originally, I was just looking for a picture of a "street corner cafe" or something to that effect.

This is another picture from Gastown.  Featured (in theory) is the steam clock which is some sort of landmark or something.

And finally, here's a building downtown on Robson Street that's associated with UBC in some capacity.

Well, that's all for now.  Work will resume on The Word Smith in the near future, though there's no set timetable at the moment.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Pagination

The latest page of the Word Smith is up in the usual place.  It took a bit longer than I had expected to put this page together, for no particularly good reason.  The next page will likely not put in an appearance for another two or three weeks on account of me being out of town for the latter half of this week and, thus, I shant have a chance to work on it until I get back.  Alas I have no buffer or filler to post in the mean time so followers of The Word Smith (like, one or two people tops) will have to suffer.

And that's all there is for now.  Stuff will happen when it happens.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Flashback

The second page of episode 7 of The Word Smith has taken a bit longer to finish up than expected, but it is now online.  This page is a flashback to episode 1, so maybe go reread that, or not, whichever works best for you.

In other non-Word Smith news, it has recently come to my attention that the new Sailor Moon series (called Sailor Moon Crystal) has started airing (to speak of flashbacks.)  The series is a reboot (but not a ReBoot) and hews closer to the original manga in terms of overall story/pacing and art style.  Only the first episode has aired thus far (it's airing the first and second Saturday of each month with the second episode going up tomorrow) but I enjoyed it.  The nostalgia is strong with this one.

Anywho, that's all for now.  Next episode of The Word Smith will be up whenever.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Forecast

It looks as though the first page of episode seven of The Word Smith is up in the standard location.  It is a page wherein things happen.

In other news, it is wet outside today.  Enjoy.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Best Served Cold

It's Canada Day!  If you do one thing on Canada Day, you should go watch some fireworks.  If you do two things you should, I dunno, just enjoy the day off or something.  But if everything else falls flat, you should go check out the title page to the seventh episode of The Word Smith, which makes it's exciting debut on this national holiday!  If you don't, Sir John A. would be disappointed in you.  Or maybe he'd just get drunk(er).  Either way would be a remarkable feat since he's long dead at this point - my point being, don't sweat the small stuff.

Or something.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Unfaq Vol 3

Well, it's a bit later than I had intended, but it's time for the next volume of "questions you never had in the first place."  Nothing much to ramble on about right now so lets dive right in.

Episode 6 - Literary Criticism

The T-rex on the title page is inteded to be the same one that appears in both episode 2 and 3.  There really can't be that many T-rexes just wandering around, after all.  Also, why does that one guy have a snorkel?  He just does and reappears throughout the episode (along with most of the extras on the title page.)

The computer that The Word Smith uses inside the Word Cave is a Commodore PET, with an extra cooling tower.  The text that appears on the screen is various random things from a natural language processing text book that I have - it's not just gibberish!  It just has no particular meaning when mashed all together like that.

The first exterior shot on page 4 is based off of a branch of the Waterloo Public Library.  I leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out which one, exactly.

The whole Dielight thing (page 5) is, of course, meant to be a spoof of Twilight.  The text on the book may be a bit hard to read so here it is in full:
Dielight
- A Tale Of -
Sparkly Zombies
And Other Things
With Sparkles!

And beside the zombie:
Can't See!
Too Many
Damn Sparkles!

For the record, I'm not really a fan of zombies, I think they're kind of boring.

The reveal on page 6 where the villain of the day is actually The Pen's mother was something that just happened whilst I was working out the details of the episode 6 script (it wasn't in the overall outline.)  I don't recall why I went that route, I think it was just an idea that popped in my head whilst I was working out dialogue.  Fun-ish fact:  I briefly considered making The Word Smith The Pen's father, but decided against it.

Of course page 8 has a Sailor Moon-ish transformation sequence (with sparkles!)  I based The Author's outfit on actual 80s workout clothes (according to a google image search) and there's actually more garish/ridiculous looking stuff than what I went with.

I believe I mentioned it in the page 9 blog post/comments, but it bears repeating:  drawing crowd scenes is annoying.  Coming up with a relatively unique look for that many people can take a bit.  And me being me, things sneak in like ducks on peoples' heads.  Also, if one looks in the lower right corner of the last panel (ie, the one with the crowd scene), one may notice a couple of cameos of characters from previous episodes.

The pose that The Author gets stuck in is based on a real gymnastics pose, though I've probably not rendered it entirely correctly.  Gymnists are freakishly flexible.

And this episode also starts to hint at the overall plot of the comic (yes, there is one!)  Dun dun dun!

Whelp, that is all for this volume of the unfaq.  The script for episode 7 is basically written (minus some dialogue and editing) so I'll be looking to resume the comic in the next week or two so stay tuned!

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Dun, dun, dun!

And with the latest page of The Word Smith in the usual haunt, episode 6 now comes to a close.  The comic will be on its usual between episode hiatus for the next month or so as I finalize the details for episode 7 and possibly do some other stuff.

I may post some other stuff here in the interim depending on motivation and whatnot.  So until next time...

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Hadanaginuffzort! (Troz)

Hello Word Smith tolerators!  The penultimate page of episode 6 is up in the same place it always is.  I'm  going to see if I can get the last page of the episode up a bit quicker than I've been posting pages of late, but no promises.

In other news:  nothing!  At least, nothing I feel sufficiently motivated to say anything about at the moment.  Stuff is really rather routine 'round here right now.

Freak out,
-TFitC

A Post Rises From the Grave

The next page of the Word Smith has snuck unto the interwebs at the usual location.  Notes from this page:  drawing action sequences is hard and gymnasts are freakishly flexible.  Very much so.

In other things, here is a picture from a recent hike:

And that is all for the nonce.  Tune in next time for the continuing, exciting and somewhat odd adventures of THE WORD SMITH!!!  (dun, dun, dun)

Freak Out,
-TFitC