Jeph Jacques's Blog, page 26

New Song

Very different from my typical metal stuff. A nice change of pace.

https://deathmole.bandcamp.com/track/shes-a-monster

QA time once again

Now that you’ve expanded your universe so much, do you find it difficult to write for Marten? How has your perception of him changed against the backdrop of other characters?

I don’t find him particularly difficult to write, but as the scope of the comic has broadened he has naturally become less of a focus. Plus, Marten’s got shit to deal with, and there are no instant fixes for him, so it’s gonna take time. And that definitely factors into how I write him.

Dude, does ear cheese really actually happen? Is that for reals a thing? I’m asking cause I want to stretch my lobes and need to know what to expect. Can this be avoided by thorough, daily cleaning?

All you gotta do is wash your ear-holes and it goes away. It’s gross but not a big deal, just a hygiene thing.

Hello! Big fan of your work! I have a question: In the Acknowledgements section of Holly Black’s newest book, “The Coldest Girl in Coldtown,” she credited Jeph Jacques as being a friend. Is that actually you?

Yup, I have been pals with Holly for some years now! That book is really good, thank you for reading it and supporting her.

I really enjoy how Dale doesn’t seem to be easily intimidated by Faye like how other people usually do. This isn’t so much as a question, I know, but I really wanted to say something about it because it is a nice change and makes me think Dale has faced tougher shat to not be so affected by Faye or something. Not saying that Faye’s ability to automatically strike fear into the heart of her enemies (and friends) is a bad thing, but another part of me hopes this thing with Dale doesn’t change.

Dale is pretty chill

sooo in comic 2550, why do Tai’s pants change from being full-length in panel 4 to capris in panel 5?

the singularity

In the event of your demise, are the final pages of QC drawn? If you were rendered unable to continue QC, I believe the final arc should be put up and the in-between should be left to the imagination.

I have thought about writing a text file called HowQCEnds.txt or something in case I get hit by a bus, but I’ve never gotten around to it.

Besides, it’d probably just say “AND THEN THEY ALL FUCKED”

You probably have been asked this before, but what kind of drawing tablet do you use/recommend?

I use a big fancy Cintiq but all the Wacom models are completely fine. Yiynova apparently makes good ones too but I haven’t tried them.

So I was waiting to get paid, so I could back the Deathmole kick starter, but then I missed the final date! How will I go about buying the album to support you after-the-fact? And will you put up any of the cool Deathmole gear for sale? Because I totally want a patch!

The album will go on general sale once it’s done and backers have received their copies. I’ll probably sell some of the other swag as well.

I know you have quoted both Kiyohiko Azuma (I’m reading through the complete Azumanga omnibus right now, my college library is so cool!) and Iain M. Banks as major influences on your writing. Are there any other authors who have particularly influenced you as such?

Charles Schultz, Bill Watterson, Berke Breathed, Frank Herbert, Alastair Reynolds, Danielle Corsetto, Sam Logan, Jeffrey Rowland, Rich Stevens, John Allison, Ryan North, Jerkcity, the guy who did Lucky Star whose name escapes me

why do anthropcs store their personalities in their physical units where they’re vulnerable to any damage they might incur? it would make much more sense to have a big computer somewhere which stored their minds and communicated wirelessly with the bodies, presumably with multiple backups elsewhere in the world just in case some natural disaster ruined the place.

bandwidth concerns, also cock latency

That “what flavor of trans?” question is horrible and as a trans* person, I’m deeply offended by that asshole. Thank you for not even trying to answer it and for making Claire a complete character, and not a cliche.

But I did answer it! She’s a redhead!

Around how tall would you say Dale is? Hanners has always struck me as a pretty tall girl and I noticed he seems to have a good amount of height on her

Dale is a pretty tall dude

Hopefully you have not been asked this 100000000 times already, but what are your thoughts on applications like Comic Life? I’m in a Writing for Graphic Novels class this semester, and we’re required to use it. At times it seems pretty neat to me because it has a lot of drag and drop functionality and simplifies putting everything together, but I’m worried that it’s either A) making me lazy or B) negatively impacting the quality of the product. Just wanted some thoughts from a pro that I admire!

Never used it myself. Tools are tools, it doesn’t matter what you use as long as you constantly push yourself to do good work and improve.

So are the Permanence tracks on Bandcamp now just demos or what?

I hesitate to call them “demos” since I’m quite happy with how they sound, but they’re not as good as the finished album is going to be. So I think of them more like “early versions” even though that’s largely a matter of semantics.

Would you ever consider a separate QC tumblr that updates with the comics at the same time the main site does? (It was a really pleasant surprise along my dash, and could see a lot of people getting behind it. Could expose the comic even more, due to reblogs and such, as well. Just a thought.)

If there was a simple way to automate this, sure. But I already have enough trouble remembering to keep the RSS up to date.

oh my god it’s me on high school graduation day with the...

oh my god it’s me on high school graduation day with the rest of the band I was in O_O

a lil’ fanart for...

a lil’ fanart for cknoor

(http://www.twitch.tv/cknoor_)

(http://www.youtube.com/cknoor)

Question Time, Answer Time

some of these aren’t questions but WHATEVER I DO WHAT I WANT

Which panel from which QC strip are you most proud of?

Generally a random panel from whichever comic I drew most recently. I can’t look at my old stuff.

Any suggestions on a decent-but-relatively-inexpensive software I can use? Preferably looking for something I can do multitrack editing with, but not looking for high-end ProTools type stuff. Thanks, and rock on! XD

I don’t really know much about recording software on PC, but I love love love Logic Pro X and it isn’t ridiculously expensive. If you need to go even cheaper, Garageband works well and is easy to use.

I recently named my two pipes Faye and Tai. Faye is metal and has a cool clear purple center and looks badass as hell, and Tai is blue and has a rainbow swirl. Do you mind? Would they mind?

Tai would be flattered, Faye would probably make fun of you for naming an inanimate object.

This is kind of random and out of nowhere, but I was kind of wondering what flavor of trans Claire is? Cause I’m curious.

She’s a redhead

Occasionally when you talk about how someone’s new album sounds, I look for it and find it hasn’t been released yet. HOW DO YOU DO IT, this is an important question.

Internet Powers

hey mr jeph sir person, love QC have for years etc, slightly unhappy about something. The link to Oglaf is no longer on the QC homepage. Have you lost your liking for it? Pls respond

I had to take it down to comply with Google AdSense’s “no linking to adult sites” policy. AdSense is a significant portion of my revenue and I couldn’t afford to lose it. Which is a shame because Oglaf is really really really good. :\

You should record your other album here: Earth Analog Studios (www earthanalog com) It’s Matt Talbot’s studio in Tolono,IL just south of Champaign.

That studio looks amazing and Matt Talbot is literally the reason I started playing guitar. But honestly considering how much of my work is digital it would be kind of a waste of resources. Maybe someday if I get an actual drummer.

I first read the sign in the piercing place as: “You must be 18 or have a Canadian present” and thought it was funny! Good luck at SPX!

Shit, that WOULD have been funny

Unsure if this has been asked and answered before, but what kind of power supply do anthro pc’s have and how do they recharge?

NANOMACHINES?!

i noticed for the deathmole kickstarter, nobody pledged enough for the “lunch with you” tier. do you feel relieved? I certainly would have breathed easier knowing i wouldn’t have to have lunch with a stranger haha

That tier was basically just so that we’d have SOMETHING ridiculously expensive, I didn’t really expect anyone to go for it.

So I just moved to Northampton a little over a month ago and I’m FREAKING OUT because I can actually recognize the backgrounds in QC now! Like in the first panel, they’re right down the street from Faces (where I work!) And Lucky’s! And ASDKFJADLSKFJAKSDL. Sorry, this is super exciting to me. I’ve been reading QC for about 5 years and I even met my best friend because I had a Math is Delicious bag. It makes me feel like I moved to Hollywood or something.

It’s only a matter of time before I inadvertently draw you in the background of a panel somewhere

you play Shadowrun too! it’s such a brilliant game! what character type do you play?

I’m playing a stealthy cat shaman, which is a nice change of pace because I have never played a caster or a support character before in a tabletop game!

How difficult was it for you to offer the $5000 reward tier (dinner with you) on your Kickstarter, given your social anxiety?

See above answer, and Ativan exists for a reason.

I just gave you a dollar so I could look at a picture of Marten’s butt I don’t even know anymore okay

(_!_)

Hello Jeph, I am a huge huge fan and you are the main inspiration for getting me back into drawing. I wanted to ask, do you ever have any plans for doing prints of your actual comics?

This is one of those things I keep meaning to do and forgetting about/not having time to implement. Maybe someday!

Hello! I was wondering if you ever thought about changing your panel composition in your ten years of QC? If you have answered this question before, please direct me in that direction, as I am a newly indoctrinated reader! I believe I read all of QC to date in about a week and a half. Fell in love from the get-go. Thanks for a lovely comic.

I’ve thought about it, but I really like the advantages of the vertical panel format and I’m comfortable in my drawing routine, so I doubt I’ll suddenly go all Dresden Codak on you guys.

So David Willis has decided against having a bowl of cadbury and cream eggs with milk with me, supposedly for the sake of his health. Would you like to sit in front of him and eat them with me and try to entice a crowd into chanting “butts”?

Man I can’t even eat one of those things without feeling like I’m gonna die

I’ve been seeing a lot of that “You Obviously Like Owls” being ripped off all over the place, the latest offender being a magnet by Spencer’s Gifts, and obviously not licensed by you. Just thought you ought to know, buddy.

Yeah, I know. I can’t really prevent it and don’t have the time to chase down and C&D every single uncreative asshole out there.

Hey Jeph I need some writing advice if you’d be kind enough to give it. You’ve been writing your characters for 10 years and really seem to enjoy them, but everytime I write a character I always get so sick of them to the point where I’ve abandoned about 90% of what I’ve written because i cant stand the characters. Is there some sort of solution to this i can work toward with writing or would you say this is probably more a personality sort of issue?

If you’re “getting sick of” a character, there’s something wrong. I don’t know any specific advice to give you, but one of the advantages of having such a large cast in my comic is I can shift focus whenever I feel like a certain character is getting a little stale or overexposed. I guess I’d say just keep writing until you find someone you really like? Writing is weird and hard.

Do you name your guitars?

Nah, I don’t name inanimate objects.

Hey, so, I think one of my closest friends might be depressed, and I’m not really sure what to do to help her. According to her mother, she does have some family history of it, so it would make somewhat more sense if she did inherit it, if that’s possible, I mean. I know I could just find some internet doctor online or something for advice, but I look up to you and you’ve got firsthand experience, so I figured you might be able to give me some tips?

I think the best thing you can do is let them know you’re there for them, and will always be happy to talk. You can recommend they seek professional help, but I wouldn’t get too pushy about it.

Whenever May says anything outside of the “Master…” bit, I imagine it’s the voice of an aging man who smokes cigars, drinks cheap beer, wears wifebeaters all the time and has entirely too much body hair.

This is going to completely out me as an anime nerd but I imagine her to sound like the voice actress for Akira from Lucky Channel, only speaking english.

here’s Monday’s comic while my site is down

here’s Monday’s comic while my site is down

What I Learned From A Week Recording An Album

As you may know, I spent 50 hours in a recording studio this week, working on Permanence, the new Deathmøle album I recently had a successful Kickstarter for. It’s the first time I’ve been in a proper studio in 12 years, and the first time I’ve ever been in a studio working on one of my own projects. I was pretty nervous coming into it, but the entire process was an absolute blast and I’m tremendously pleased with the results. Here are a few things I learned in the meantime:

Abandon your preconceptions. I’ve been working on and living with these songs for a year, and had a pretty strong idea of what I wanted them to sound like. But since the whole purpose of this project was to bring in a skilled professional to improve on my work, I went in with an open mind. If Justin (my recording engineer and an absolutely stellar guy, both personally and professionally) had an idea, we’d talk about it and try it out. And 9 times out of 10 it worked, improved the song, and never would have occurred to me on my own. This leads in to the next lesson:

Trust your engineer. If you’re at a good studio and working with someone who knows what they’re doing (which is ideally the case), you have to be able to take their word for it sometimes. When recording the guitars, they sounded way too midrangey to my ears, but I had faith that Justin knew what he was doing and it would sit well in the mix. Guess what, he was right. If I had spent who knows how long trying to get that starting tone to match what I THOUGHT it should sound like, it wouldn’t have worked at all in the final mix. Knowing when to take your hands off the wheel and let your engineer steer not only saves time and stress, it results in a better final product. That being said, you can’t disengage entirely- these are YOUR songs, after all. And that brings us to the next tip:

Trust your ears. My hearing is actually quite seriously damaged due to a lifetime of loud music, health problems, and congenital hearing loss. So I was concerned that I wouldn’t be qualified to make tough judgement calls about the sound of the record. On the other hand, I’ve been playing guitar for two thirds of my life and have been recording instrumental metal songs for 8 years now. As it turned out, not only was my judgement far more sound than I had expected it to be, it proved to be essential. I caught things Justin didn’t hear, he caught things I didn’t hear, and it balanced perfectly in the end. Because of that, I have a record that I’m happy with and am confident Justin is happy with, and that’s the best possible result.

Anyway yeah, recording was super fun but MAN I am glad it’s done, 50 hours in one week is a pretty brutal schedule. I’m looking forward to mixing, and hope you guys will enjoy this record as much as I do when it’s done.

jessfink:I made some more little Picard sketch cards, they’ll...

jessfink:

I made some more little Picard sketch cards, they’ll be for sale this weekend at the Small Press Expo.

See this foxy shit for yourself:

Season 4, episode 14: Devil’s Due
Season 6 episode 18: Starship Mine
Season 3, episode 19: Captain’s Holiday

I’ll have this for sale at SPX! And maybe Topatoco...

I’ll have this for sale at SPX! And maybe Topatoco afterwards. 11x17”, super friendly.

Talk to a Dog, via Qwantz

Talk to a Dog, via Qwantz