The Daily Blink

Hey, all. I hate writing this post, but I have to. As you might have noticed, we haven’t been updating since last Wednesday. Fact of the matter is, life interceded on comic writing time, and priorities had to be set. I have some new projects on my plate, and they have to take precedent. I haven’t even touched WoW in a couple weeks, which makes it a lot more difficult to think of new material.

So, for now, The Daily Blink is on hold. How long? Not sure. I’d like to think it’ll only be for the summer, but I refuse to make promises on this one. When the strip does come back, we’ll be sure to let everyone know.

I didn’t wanna be one of those comics that updates once every two months while pretending to still be situation normal. For my tastes, it’s either meeting the publishing schedule that you promise your readers, cutting that schedule back, or taking a break. For me, it’s the latter.

Everything’s going to stay up, the twitter feed isn’t going anywhere, and hopefully the strip will be back better than ever. But until then, thank you for making this strip as rewarding as it’s been so far. It’s a real treat to entertain all you geeks out there, and I hope that you’ll hold a spot in the raid for us when we get back.

Thanks,
Chris

I am writing this post from home. I don’t wish to give away anything too early, but my computer is functioning for the most part again, and I am an idiot.

Now, I want to be clear: There definitely *was* something wrong with my machine, we just happened to be a bit off. So, as my buddy Mark (@ghodamus) worked on my machine, we diligently tore things apart and tried a spare power supply he’d brought over in the hopes of eliminating mine as the culprit, which we thought at one point was the case. The RAM came out okay, the mobo was doing alright. But the fact that the motherboard was pretty much posting normally and then everything just seemed to just not want to go the next step just was puzzling for everyone involved.

So, finally, after all of this, everything started working normally, even though we really hadn’t changed anything. A couple reboots after a windows update, and once again it wasn’t working. And then, a thought.

“Try plugging the monitor into the onboard video.”

Nothing. “Well, we need to set back up the-”

It was at this point that we plugged the monitor back into the video card, and everything worked fine.

“Well I’ll be damned…” the problem wasn’t the machine. It was the MONITOR. When it was being asked to change display modes or resolutions, it was flaking out completely instead. After testing out a few different scenarios, it was pretty clear. In short, my monitor is dying. For the next few weeks, I’ll be starting up my computer, unplugging the monitor from the video card, and plugging it back in: And everything will be fine, if you consider such a workaround “fine”.

This is why you keep a spare of everything for your computer, so that you can test this crap out instead of freaking out about which part of your tower you’re going to need to swap out for expensive replacement parts.

Thanks to Mark for helping get me back up and running, and for having the open enough mind to eventually realize the real issue at hand. I am off to find you guys a new strip for Wednesday.

By process of elimination, you might have guessed that our last cover will be dedicated to Hunters. There’s one small snag at this point: I don’t have a hunter to pose for the cover yet. And, to up the difficulty:

1) The shot that I want requires a flying mount, meaning I need to do this on my own server rather than creating an alt somewhere else

2) I would really like a Night Elf to pose, and I’m Horde, meaning I can’t just spam chat looking for someone

3) I’m on Cho’Gall, where there’s maybe a couple hundred active Alliance players at a time anyways.

So, internet, I turn to you: I need a NE Hunter on Cho’Gall. If I can find someone, we can coordinate over vent and get the shoot done rather quickly. Later tonight (Saturday) or Sunday afternoon is going to be my best shot at getting this done. Please spread the word!

-Chris

A few weeks ago, feeling a bit cocky at how the strip has been doing lately, I was looking to cause trouble. Scott Johnson had started his new experimental strip, Shmerp, and I felt that I owed shooting off a challenge. I wanted to try something a bit different at the time, and thought that doing Shmerp with WoW screenshots would be a blast. And so, I sent Scott an email: “I challenge you to a SHMERP-off!” Scott was kind enough to accept, following with, “The only rule is hand drawn only.”

Huh.

So, as an aside, a few words on artistic skills.

I know we don’t talk much about what we do outside of the exciting, fast-paced world of MMORPG Screenshot Manipulation, but I’ve been using Photoshop since 3.0, over 10 years now. During that time, I’ve worked as a web producer, graphic designer, visual effects artist, and game artist. And the tragic (yet strangely amusing) irony is that I can’t draw. At all. I’ve tried to get better, but my visual creative outlet remains Photoshop. I can use a Wacom tablet with the best of them to do what we do here at the Daily Blink, but don’t ask me to make a doodle.

With this information at hand, I still told Scott yes, though giving him fair warning of my handicap in this area. Scott was still gracious enough to accept my partnership on a Shmerp series and let me stretch my legs a bit. This is proof positive of my continued philosophy to look before I leap and force myself to do my best in a situation that might not be the most comfortable for my skillset. A freehand drawing may not be my ticket to a steady living, but I will do my best this week to fake it.

In any case, new Shmerp panels will be appearing all week, and I just sent off my first contribution for inclusion.

This is my roundabout way of saying: I don’t usually draw. You’ve been warned.

I hope you enjoy the first of what is to be a series of parody magazine covers we’re calling Classic Periodicals — we’ll be doing ten, one for each WoW class. The first is Warlocks, which came from an idea suggested over twitter by reader Ghodamus, one that we liked a lot and we’ve brought from concept to final image.

I have no idea what order we’ll be putting these out in, but we’re going to have a lot of fun with them over the next three weeks. Our parody cover featuring Sylvanas has remained our most popular, and I think there’s a lot more we can do with that idea.