So just I saw (wrote) this movie (comic) about an unpopular Baron (Count) who underhandedly kills his brother, only to be meet his death by his victim's hand later, figuratively (literally) speaking. As if those similarities weren't uncanny enough, I had already decided to name the villain after Boris Karloff, the star and co-star of "The Black Room." The characters in my comic aren't twins, and the victim brother in the movie isn't an actual vampire, but there are the comparable themes of lordly feuds, the public appeal a leader has with his people, and resurgence from death, so this is all a little weird.

I swear to Glob that I had finished the skeleton plot of "Revenant's Realm" and started on character designs and dialogue long before seeing this movie. I'll try to keep the movie in mind during the rest of the project, so as to avoid putting in even more similarities. Oh, and... spoiler alert.

New year! I don't celebrate it. I know that New Year's resolutions can be a really good thing for those who set realistic goals, but it doesn't work for me. On the cosmic scale, only a new couple hours has passed, and the universe doesn't give a fluff if that couple of hours is how some insects on some rock decide is the end of an old unit of time and the start of a new one. Nothing changes on New Year's Day. But I, I will begin, againnn. I always try to come up with strategies to turn my bad habits into good ones, and this time of the year is no exception.

Wanna hear me rant about my job for a bit? No? Then you want the paragraph marked "projects." Life is a process of self-discovery. ... Oh wait, no, it's actually a phenomenon existing within particular compositions of planet-bound water, and persists by its own perpetual replication. But some people like to say that it's a process of self-discovery. Whatever. I think I've discovered about myself that I can't do certain jobs that sound easy. Maybe it's because they sound easy, that they turn out to be so difficult.

Last Thursday, I started an assignment at a farm, to take egg cartons off a conveyor belt and put them in boxes. Sounds easy, right? That's probably why there was one worker on two belts, instead of one to one (they said that usually it's one worker to two and a half belts). I have to think that either the factory was designed to have twice as many packers, or that the people who use the factory are making the belts spin way too fast. I don't like the idea that there's a legitimate chance to fail at something so basic as putting a thing into a box without making a mess, but that wasn't what made me throw in the towel on that job. Sure the activity itself was annoying, and I felt like I got duped in regards to how much work I was getting paid for, but then I got sick. Sick and tired, and I'm confident enough to say that the work conditions were to blame more than myself. I probably had a bad reaction to the smell of the place. Never upchucked, but seriously thought that I might. The nausea coupled with the backache I got was enough to slow my process by a ridiculous amount, equatable to being drunk. The contract was one of those sly "7 'till finished" shifts, which meant that you'd work until a certain quantity demand was fulfilled rather than time obligation, so I don't know why it was such a big deal to get things done so fast. I surmise that The Man just wants half the workers to do twice the work. Anyway, I managed to go eight hours before I had to call in sick.

Something that bugs me is that I don't know whether or not I should get mad at the temp agency. maybe this is exactly the kind of work that their workers are used to. The second job they got me was pretty laid back, too. But I don't want to keep rambling about this, because the more I think about this, the more frustrated I become. I want to watch some Adventure Time on disc to cheer up, and then get back to this journal entry. Good Grodd, I love Adventure Time. That show makes me happy.

Projects! Last time the temp agency called, I told them that I'm taking some time for a personal project, that being my comics that I keep going on about. See, with school and/or jobs in the way, my productivity was utterly mutilated. I only ever got around to actually doing something truly productive in some off-moments when I'm not A) sleeping, eating, washing or other essential things, B) occupied with the things I do to relax, or C) slogging through that ever-boring obligation that I don't really need or want. With those working hours freed up, I might actually be able to get the comics completed in full.

Which reminds me, I've really neglected to keep posting my conceptual and practice drawings online, so that's the first order of business this week, after which I'll finally draw my own profile icon.

EDIT: Having perused my sketchbook, I've decided that the potential enjoyment one could find from the practice or conceptual isn't worth the time it takes to upload each and every image. I'll draw my profile icon today, then start the comics in earnest. I do still want to post the occasional off-time product, but these should be complete standalone pieces, not my pathetic little scribblings. Stay tuned for those, then.

I'm now on PaperDemon! be sure to check the links on my page, and stay tuned for some real content.