busybee comics | January 2009 | Journal, Womble, Unity, Sketchbook

Journal: 2009 (2009/01/01)

Because saying '1920x1200 on desktop, 1440x900 on laptop' has been done to death

fluffy narration: Some new years' resolutions:
[[fat fluffy scowling, thinner fluffy smiling]]
fluffy narration: 1. Lose some weight

[[fluffy sitting on the couch, playing PS3.]]
dotted line to fluffy's right: You could be here!
dotted line around fluffy's lap: Or here!
fluffy narration: 2. Get a cat and/or partner

[[Venn diagram]]
Medium-size circle: Comic ideas
Smaller circle: Music ideas
Even smaller circle overlapping them both: Useful completed stuff
Huge circle: Weblog, twitter, and forum content
fluffy narration: 3. Blog less, create more

Womble: Four square (2009/01/03)

Perpendicular universes, each one 61.8% the size of the last.

[[The Duchess is holding a remote control. The Womble sits nearby in a meditative state.]]

[[A blue portal begins to open beside The Duchess with the green toes and white tail-tip of an alternate universe Womble barely visible. A purple portal opens under The Womble, rousing him from his meditative state.]]

[[The Womble, a panicked look on his face, begins to fall through the purple portal. A green Womble shoots out of the blue portal, startling The Duchess.]]

[[The Womble is gone. The portals are shrinking to nothing. A green Womble and The Duchess look at each other with blank expressions.]]

[[The first four panels repeat infinitely in a golden spiral, rotating 90 degrees counterclockwise each time. The sets of panels cycle through four radically different color schemes. Each time, the Womble that emerges from the portal is the Womble that disappeared in the previous set of panels.]]

Unity: Visitation lefts (2009/01/06)

Crazy, serious, certain — really, pretty much any way Tamu's sentence was going to end works.

Juni: Hello, Edward.
Ed Lombard: Juni! You are still alive!
Juni: No thanks to you. I hear you tried to kill me.
Ed: I didn't! I was trying to help you!
Tamu: I still fail to see how that fits the evidence, Captain.

Ed: Does he have to be here? I think that we would discuss this matter in private.
Juni: And waive the right to use what you say in the tribunal?
Ed: This is not for the board of regents' ears.
Juni: What could--
Ed (quietly): The square root of love is happiness.
Juni: ...

Juni: Tamu, please leave us.
Tamu: What?! Are you--
Juni: YES.

Sketchbook: Captain Ed Lombard (2009/01/07)

Last seen directly waaaaaaay back in Unity #9.

A quick character sketch of Ed Lombard in the jail cell

Unity: A threat (2009/01/08)

And technically he's not making a threat, that's just what it'd sound like. It's in quotes, after all.

Juni: H-how do you know that phrase?
Ed Lombard: What? He's gone. You can drop the amnesia act.
Juni: What act? That phrase was a personal joke. Why would I ever--
Ed: When you said you'd forget everything, I thought you meant it metaphorically.

Juni: I said...?
Ed: Oh, raspberry. Well, did you at least accomplish what you needed?
Juni: What was that?
Ed: Breeze if I know. You were in a hurry. You just said you and Sam needed to be scared into disappearing.
Ed: Look, you kessel, we had a deal. You promised you would fix this. If you got me stuck in here I swear I'll get someone to kill you for real.

Juni: Is that a threat?

Ed: No, it's hyperbole. A threat would be more like, "I'll release all our plans to the press. Try to play that for sympathy, you Homin-loving eunuch."

Unity: Sending regards (2009/01/13)

There seems to have been a fatal flaw in Juni's plans.

Juni: Well if that's how you're going to be-
Lombard: [[talking over Juni]] Juni, wait.  I'm sorry, I'm just tired and frustrated.  I'm not being fed well and it's hard to sleep in here.
Lombard: This stupid perch is so slippery, and these chains...

Juni: Okay, fine.  What can I do to help?
Lombard: I don't know.  Get me out? Heh.  No., I guess we're not in a position to go public just yet.
Juni: Go... public? With what?
Lombard: Seriously?
Lombard: Maybe just... recommend me for a psych ward or something? You have a lot of sway with the board, Haring especially.  Since you're the "victim" of this, right?

Juni: I'll see what I can do.  Frankly, I might have to join you in there.  My sanity isn't exactly in high regard at the moment.
Lombard: The other thing you can do is just remember .  I know you have it all locked way somewhere.
Lombard: I hope.
Juni: I'll try.

Unity: Unfit (2009/01/15)

He can move pretty quick when he has to, as long as it's warm anyway.

Temu: Well? Did you get anything useful out of him?
Juni: No, he... he seems mentally unfit, and delusional.  Talking about "plans" and the like.  I think we should consider a psychiatric-
Tamu: Oh? An interesting idea.  Scan his brain, run a simulation?

Juni: What? No!  He's being tortured in there.  I don't think he was acting in malice.
Tamu: Juni... he tried to kill you, a senior officer.  Or had you forgotten that important fact?
Juni (muttered): I dunno, maybe I was supposed to.

Tamu: Supposed to... forget?
Tamu: Juni, I think it's time we had another theapy session.
Juni: Hmph. I'd rather not.
Tamu: That was not intended as a request.

Unity: Talking Heads (2009/01/20)

Juni could feel like a clone, but it already knows that technically, it IS one.

Tamu: Juni, what's the earliest thing you remember from the past, oh, several days?
Juni: Waking up in the hospital... I felt sore all over, and for some reason I could not remember my name.
Tamu: Yes, that was after a seizure, after we decided to try a temporary memory suppression.
Juni: "We" meaning... ?
Tamu: You and me, of course.  Who else?

Juni: Tamu, may I ask a question which might seem a bit strange?
Tamu: You've never needed my permission for that.
Juni: Mmh.  Am I the original Juni Melrose?
Tamu: That is strange.  Yes, of course.  Who else could you be?

Juni: Sometimes I feel like I'm just a puppet, that the real Juni is trying to control me.
Tamu: I see.
Juni: And it's getting rather frustrated.
Tamu: I... see.
Juni: You do?
Tamu: No, not really.

Unity: True Stories (2009/01/22)

I had recorded a video of me making this one from start to finish. Unfortunately I had technical problems and the second part's screencast was blank and the camcorder video got cut off. Big frowny face. Anyway now I know that it takes me about an hour and a half total to make a comic!

Tamu: Why do you feel like you're not the real Juni?
Juni: Many things. "Randomly" ending up in Kajoshu when I was trying to just go North, other-me telling me I needed to bring my mother here... and she says my [sparkle]'s different. 
Juni: And then I've been having these dreams lately.

Juni: I'm always in this... space, and there's another Juni, who I think is the real one. Sometimes it tells me cryptic messages, but lately it's angry and it wants its body back.
Juni: Oh, and in Kajoshu, other-me said, "The real Juni is still alive!" That's what got me thinking, maybe I'm "the other Juni?"
Tamu: Well, Juni...

Tamu: Dreams can be influenced by many things, often taken out of context.
Tamu: For example, the simulation said that to *me*, about *you*, and mind you I *still* don't understand how it was able to relay between us. But perhaps you simply misconstrued it.
Juni: Hm, well, it *did* say it in blue...
Tamu: ...
Tamu: Yes, quite.

Unity: Therapeutic (2009/01/27)

This is about as close to exposition as I'd like to get.

Tamu: Tempting as it is to ask you about that relay, this is therapy for you, not an interrogation. So. Go back further. What is the last thing you remember before your first seizure?
Juni: I don't know, it's pretty hazy. I guess Officers Corentin wanted help with something, some sort of big boxy thing with an odd sort of [sparkle]. The repository?
Tamu: I've heard that word before. What exactly is "[sparkle]?"
[[Flashback: Juni has entered the Corentins' apartment.  The autistic one is hugging the heck out of Juni.  Their [sparkle]s are portrayed as colorful sparkly halos around their heads; the speaking one's is yellow, and the autistic one's is purple.]]

Juni: Oh, sorry. It's a Kajoshi word, for the sensation of a creature's electric field. I guess a literal translation would be like "sparkle" or "shimmer."
Tamu: I see. And what was so odd about this thing's "[sparkle]?"
Juni: Well, it wasn't a creature, for starters, and for some reason I could... smell it. Like I can smell other...
[[Flashback: Juni sitting in front of the information repository, rubbing its forehead as if having a headache.  The repository's [sparkle] is a large green cloud, and there is a small haze of the same green over Juni's eyes.  The autistic Corentin watches on, its thought processes in overdrive.]]

[[Back in Tamu's office]]
Juni [softly]: Wait, so why *did* I find that odd? All [sparkle] has a scent. Yours is like lemons.
Tamu: What?
Juni: ANyway, then I remember thinking, and seeing you but not in person, and I got a... a bit frustrated.
Juni: And then there was the other me...my body, and I... wait, that was after the hospital. Never mind.
Tamu: I smell like lemons?

Unity: Fragments (2009/01/29)

That joke is so old, it's in the fossil record back on Earth. Literally.

Tamu: So, is it fair to say that you don't remember anything between encountering the Homin information repository and waking from the seizure?
Juni: Other than the fragments from the simulation? No. That's what, four decs that I'm missing?
Tamu: About that, yes.

Tamu: You should know that a lot happened in that time. You did some rather... curious work, rather obsessively, shall we say.

Tamu: Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you finally decided to work with the other organeer heads, and discovering Sasha has been a great help.

Tamu: I should have paid more attention. Your neural interface project... I should have realized that was a step too far.
Tamu: Incidentally, I don't suppose you know what you did with it...?
Juni: No, but maybe if you hum a few bars...
Juni [thought]: What the breeze does *that* mean?

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2009/01/07: Womble on Kidjutsu

I am pleased to announce that the first "collection" of Womble (1-12) is available on Kidjutsu, a comics portal for kids. If you have kids who like comics and want a safe place to read them online for free, check out Kidjutsu, as there's a lot of excellent stuff there. I'm not sure what model we'll go with for future updates (since Womble updates so sporadically) but we'll deal with that when we get there. (Unity may end up there eventually, although there's a few concerns about the subject matter, what with the walking, talking, naked monotremes having implied quasi-sexual relations with transsexual boviforms and so on.)

Also, Brian (the founder/programmer/etc.) is happy to hear feature suggestions, bug reports, and other improvement requests.

2009/01/03: Site disruption

Sorry about the site problems today. I was tweaking some stuff and didn't realize that Movable Type is case-sensitive with its category names. Oops.

If anything else appears to be broken (pages missing comics or the like), please let me know.

2009/01/01: The power of reevaluation

So I looked at this site in MSIE for the first time in a year or two and saw how badly things were broken. I wonder how much of a turnoff that was for people. Fortunately, it turned out that there was just a bit of overcomplicated legacy stuff in the header which was no longer necessary, and removing it somehow fixed the stuff on the rest of the page as well. Hooray for IE, I guess. Anyway, sorry if that was turning off the ~~80%~~ 30% or so of readers who were trying to navigate the site via IE.