{"id":4707,"date":"2009-08-25T09:21:49","date_gmt":"2009-08-25T13:21:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=4707"},"modified":"2009-08-25T09:23:05","modified_gmt":"2009-08-25T13:23:05","slug":"stolen-pixels-119-after-curfew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=4707","title":{"rendered":"Stolen Pixels #119: After Curfew"},"content":{"rendered":"

Took me a little while to realize why I was making a “Tonight Show” styled comic starring Dr. Breen. It wasn’t until I was done that I realized I still had the movie Funny People in my head and thus had an itch to write (bad) stand-up comedy. You can see the result here<\/a>. In fact, you should go do that now<\/a>. You just passed up two links to the comic. This one<\/a> is your last chance! You missed it again? Hmph. Your loss.<\/p>\n

Of course, stand-up comedy is actually really inappropriate for a comic strip format. The segues and set-ups and banter eat up lots of words but not much time. Except, in a comic, words are<\/strong> time. A five-minute routine would fill a graphic novel if you really tried to adapt it and not just cram a paragraph of text into a balloon next to a smiling head. (Which is sort of what I did today.) While making this I realized just how much the audience reaction is part of the routine. (Hence the faux-closed-captioning. It just felt like he was by himself without it.) <\/p>\n

This is the first time I had to make a map for one of my comics. I just didn’t have anything that could pass for a stage, so I made a little box theater and a red curtain using the Source Engine tools. Once the comic was done I kept going. And going. Six hours later I had the makings of a TV studio set:<\/p>\n

The classic ‘Tonight Show’ layout. Guest couch, host’s desk, obviously faux-cityscape in the background, a stage area for the opening monologue and sundry skits.<\/td><\/tr>
The classic ‘Tonight Show’ layout. Guest couch, host’s desk, obviously faux-cityscape in the background, a stage area for the opening monologue and sundry skits.<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

I think I was doing it because I wanted to learn how to use Hammer. (The Valve level editor.) Remind me later to unspool my rant against that thing. Sheesh. No wonder Episode 3 is taking so long. Their tools seem to run directly counter to their design mentality. <\/p>\n

It was really, really fun to be making scenery again, even when the tools were cumbersome and I didn’t know what I was doing. It’s been ages since I did any polygon-pushing.<\/p>\n

A closeup of the host’s area.<\/td><\/tr>
A closeup of the host’s area.<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Six hours<\/em> for this. Man. I need to think up some more stuff for Breen just to justify the time I sunk into the set. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Took me a little while to realize why I was making a “Tonight Show” styled comic starring Dr. Breen. It wasn’t until I was done that I realized I still had the movie Funny People in my head and thus had an itch to write (bad) stand-up comedy. You can see the result here. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-column"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}