On certain days, when I pass by a trash can full of rotten fruit and children's vomit, I get a very strong sense memory of being inside Jambalaya Jim's

This storyline started with Part 1.

Video: The Last Spaceplane

Here’s a Wondermark puppet animation that I made a while back but never posted online for some reason!

It is an ACTION STORY about a SPACE EMERGENCY.

It was written by Zach Sigelko, and performed by Zach and myself:

THE LAST SPACEPLANE

Over on Patreon I’ve posted a link to an enormous folder full of more experimental puppet videos that Zach and I made!

The above was basically the culmination of this period of experimentation. The archive videos chronicle the early beginnings of our efforts as they gradually grow more refined.

Zach also guested on the latest episode of Malki on the Mark, in which we discuss these puppet videos, and why we made them, and so on.

It was chatting with Zach for this podcast that reminded me that I never really posted many of these online. So thanks, Zach!

The Gax Tax ?

A while back, reader Brian O. sent me these photos of a breaking story on his local news!

What I want to know is, is this story about the public’s reaction to the ‘Gax Tax’, OR is it about Gax’s reaction to a tax?

Because the second one is much more likely to turn ugly. Maybe that’s why it made the news.

Thanks, Brian! Sorry it took me five years to post these

Check out: Vader and Obi-Wan Duel, Reimagined

Back when the original Star Wars movies got a remastering for DVD in the mid-2000s, one of the things I wondered if they’d change or update was the lightsaber fight between Vader and Obi-Wan on the Death Star.

By that point, the prequels had firmly established a balletic lightsaber combat style that in comparison, made the original duel from 1977 look pretty dull.

The original has its own sort of tension, to be sure — but I still couldn’t help but wonder what a version of that scene shot in the fighting style of the later movies (or even the higher intensity of Empire or Return of the Jedi) might look like.

Well, now someone’s gone and made just that! Check out this fan film:

It feels much more like the Vader of any other movie Vader is in.

BONUS LINK: There are a million Star Wars fan films out there. I haven’t seen the vast majority of them. But one that I have, and that I think is well done, is VADER: SHARDS OF THE PAST.

BONUS LINK 2: This is a pretty deep rabbit hole to fall down, but one Czech fan’s passion project for years has been hand-reassembling a perfect version of the three original Star Wars movies.

Perfection is defined in this case as:

  • the highest resolution possible
  • containing the desirable fixes from the various remasters
  • eliminating the undesirable changes from the various remasters
  • as well as fixing additional things that none of the remasters bothered to.

Petr “Harmy” Harmáček’s quixotic quest to composite, remaster, and integrate scenes, shots, and even individual frames from various DVDs, laserdiscs, Blu-rays, film prints, deleted scenes, and the like has resulted in The Despecialized Edition.

(You can also read about it on Wikipedia.)

11 portraits of me from Alaska

I am back from the Alaska Robotics Mini-Con & Comics Camp in Juneau, Alaska!

(I wrote about camp previously here and here).

It was a great time. But here is one very specific thing that was fun! Celebrated likeness-capturer Scott Campbell had the idea for a group of artists to break into groups and draw portraits of each other.

Here is Scott hard at work on some of them (with bonus Raina Telgemeier):

And here are a bunch of Scott’s portraits, next to a bunch of other people’s portraits of him:

I didn’t have the presence of mind to take pictures of all the ones I drew. But here are the ones people drew of me! I love seeing all the different styles and perspectives. Click any image for a closer look.

CREDITS:

1. Kerstin LaCross @Kerstinlacross
2. Mike Grover @mikegrovercomics
3. Colin Anderson
4. Tony Cliff @TangoCharlie
5. Scott Campbell @scottlava
6. Averyl Veliz @averylveliz
7. Chris Yates @superyates
8. Hollis Kitchin @hollis_kitchin
9. Payton Francis
10. Megan Baehr @nonesuchmegan
11. Haley Boros @hihaleyboros

…For reference, I actually look like this:

(Kate Beaton, April 2008)

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