Man of Many Doorways

Pal TV effect fits this one. Clean pixels on Pixeljoint.

Here's some CPC eye-burnage for you too, courtesy of Ptoing.


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Talk is not conversation.

I'm told I am twenty-six years old and although I do not remember any real difference from when I was sixteen, that's probably the ghost of sentience giving me a false sense of continuity. I must have mutated a lot since then. Part of this process is reportedly maturation -- I am not certain on whether this is a real thing or an imaginary effect embroidered by thousands of years of literature, but I generally give these common knowledge concepts more the time of day now than I used to in the past. Does that prove something? I guess I'm less angry, less determined to change the world and more stoic and trying to accept the world as it is now. Is that what maturity's supposed to feel like? I don't know. I don't feel wiser in any case. Just more sensitive.


Here's a thing I'm more sensitive about lately. As most of you readers know by now, I'm an overthinker and an introvert pressuring himself to be an extrovert. I find social situations difficult and I've tried to stick to methods I feel work in order to get through them relatively unscathed. I avoid - if I can - gatherings of people where I have to interact with too many of them at once - not good at spreading myself thin - and when I talk to a specific individual, I try to have a real conversation with them. I always used to think this is a no-lose strategy as far as honoring the social code goes, even if they didn't end up liking my personality per se at the end of the meeting.

I'm slowly realizing that that's a wrong approach. It has to do with the discrete social differences between talking with someone and having a conversation with them.

I'm an introverted person who turns to the arts for self-expression. When I make something, a picture or song or comic or whatever else, that's enough in itself as far as self-expression goes. This is the reason I often make art and do not show it to many people at all. This makes sense as it is cowardly. A conversation with oneself really, art. The person who is not artistically inclined would have to suffer much greater risk when they want to express something: they'd have to talk to another human being face to face.

So when I do engage in conversation with people, what I'm after is not a lot of self-exposition, I don't discuss to turn the conversation on me even if I talk about my experiences a lot. It's always building towards an extrnal construct to be scrutinized by both parties, tinkered with and disassembled for mutual interest. Because I find other people fascinating through the subject, I learn a lot through this, a lot about them, their sense of reality and in informs my own point of view and reality as well. I don't express, I am impressed upon.

So when people talk to me, I often default to engaging in conversation with them, instead of just listening to them until they're done. Those of you who are like me probably immediately know what I'm talking about when you read this. With age I'm beginning to realize that whereas, when I am comfortable with someone, I want to converse with them on a topic with a degree of rigor and achieve a positive movement through the argument, when most other people are comfortable with someone, what they want to do is express themselves in that safe space. They get really ticked off - though they don't always show it - when the conversationalist is trying to move their self-expression towards argument time.

The social code for these two situations is very different. One encourages and rewards rhetoric and logical gambits, it's almost a game of 'let's see who can find the smartest solution on what we're talking about'. The other rewards patience and non-judgment until some serenity is achieved. One state is problem-solving, the other is problem-accepting. Both are very valid impulses.

Most people who do not make art do not have a direct way to work themselves out, that is, to problem-solve the art coward way, without needing other people and their hanging judgments. Their mirror isn't painting or music or writing, it is other people. Fractures hang in the balance when they express themselves in that space.

So slowly I'm adopting a new mode of social interaction with new people (and some old people I've perhaps misunderstood). When they talk to me, I don't mistake that for a conversation. The implication is that people want to talk to me - sometimes at length - and I should mostly keep quiet. They'd never say that out loud but that's what's going on. If they want me to tell them my opinion, they'll nudge me for it, it's not taken for granted that because they're talking to me on a subject that appears within limits, it really is.

This probably reads as painfully basic to half of you. Just think of the other half that's struggling to realize this social nuance for decades.

Also it might be too late for me to change my social persona on this level. The people that know me and hang out with me are usually logical debaters. Like seeks alike and all. If I start to go quiet they'll take that a sign of boredom or frustration. So I'll have to choose when to test this out well.

For people like me, when we're told something and we do not have something to reply with we feel unease and almost anxiety, as if we're failing some social test and we'll not be liked and popular because we didn't have something profound to offer. On the other hand, for those that seek self-expression through talk, the constant barrage of the opinion-nerds is suffocating and exhausting.

I'm not going to be a therapist for every person I meet. But instead of taking sociality for granted, let's instead keep this as a reminder: when people want to talk and self-express, even if there's violence or ignorance in their mode, that's still part of human interaction. The choices should not be binary: either even-handed logical analytical debate or abject silence. It's a difficult thing for me to internalize, but I'm trying.
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Cat Castle

I'm cat sitting for this cat. And he's awesome.
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ASCIIpaint... descent into a deeper pit of nerddom

Yeah, Melly made a tool called ASCIIPaint.

It's pretty rad.

Here's an image I made using it. The first of many.



(god, click it. Click it before it dies!)

Follow thread, app development and make your own art by getting the tool from here.

I have no idea what this looks like to people that don't immediately get how the picture is composed. As a long-time pixel artist, I find this method of work very refreshing because the pixels are LARGE and the symbol characters smaller, so there's a degree of reversal of pixel art methodology to this. Which probably means I'll make more art for it.



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Work-related troubles, some c64 art and other talk

Hi. Remember when I used to post regularly on my blog? Ah, those simple times.

The reason I've been sparse lately is because I'm trying to get stable work in the Greek magazine arena. It's proving difficult. The job I thought I had at Plus magazine is out, apparently. It's an interesting little cautionary tale so I'll recount it briefly for those of you who are also looking for work in the same field. Good to know what's going on out there, right?

I approached Plus to publish comics and do illustration work for them. They said yes, they want an illustrator (as a stable member, who'd work on a few pieces a week) and after a few months when Plus can support it, we could talk about putting some comics in there too.

We explicitly discussed payment, and the plan was this: I wouldn't be paid much of anything until the magazine was stable and drawing advertisement funds. Then I'd be paid as would befit a professional. It was a gentlemanly agreement, and one that is somewhat common with starting up magazines. I don't like these arrangements, but the financial climate in Greece is very difficult now so I hoped to get in on the ground level and work my way up to a humane wage by doing good work. Does that sound simple-minded? I worry about my world-view sometimes.


I supplied art for two of the issues, which I've reposted on this blog for your assessment. I didn't get any calls back for the third issue, and I e-mailed the guy in charge with something like "hey, I guess there wasn't anything to illustrate on the third issue?". No reply. A day later, I call him up and he says "...there wasn't anything to illustrate on that issue, but there'll be more work for you soon, for sure." The fourth issue ran a reprint of a story from a different magazine, and when I was asked to illustrate it, at the very last minute I was canceled because as they found out, when you reprint a story from a different mag, you have to carry the photographic material from it as-is. Those are the breaks, no worries, right?

Well, the last words I heard from the person in charge there, were "There's going to be more work for sure, I'll call you in a couple of days". Here we are a couple of weeks later and there's been no follow up. I take it as a given that this job has therefore fallen through. Any imaginary wages for past work are forfeit, obviously. I've began looking for work elsewhere (though I'm hesitant to post about that yet because I fear the same stop-starts don't make for fascinating reading. If something becomes stable, I'll let you know.) I fear it'll be a repeat performance of this, however.

Here's what's there to take from the Plus situation.

1) Obviously, my work isn't good enough for me to be a sought after artist. Or perhaps more importantly, my name doesn't carry enough weight to be treated with respect by publishers and editors. I will find something positive to take from this realization. I'll become better -- as good as I can get until publishers are proud to have me and pay me for my work. And I'll publish my ZX comic and promote it as much as I can withstand before I go to anyone and ask them to give me work.

2) That said, I should expect and familiarize myself with the reality of employment: professionals acting unprofessionally, not returning calls or giving feedback, canceling me at the very last minute, demanding art at unreasonable time frames, of course not paying me if they can get away with it and finally dropping me without as much as a phone-call. I am not an idiot, I realize employers are not my friends, but you'd expect fields like the arts (which are about specialist skills, it's not about flipping burgers which anyone can do) to have at least a standard of courtesy and communication about the common goal.

3) I get a very strong sense that what was expected for me in that situation was to constantly pester the editor in chief for more work; Call every day, beg and plead for him to throw me a bone, and be glad when I got it. For work that I wouldn't be paid for. I find the ramifications of this employer-worker dynamic very bothersome and do not wish to stoop at this level. I am not in danger of poverty at the time being because my father supports me. I can afford to treat myself with a degree of self-respect... but for how long?

I'm not going to lie, this sort of thing has its psychological toll. Last time it happened to me (the Paraskevi 13s fiasco) I dropped out of the comics world for a full year. It took this blog, and the readers of it letting me know my stuff's worth a damn over and over to get any sense of artistic self-esteem back. Now I have to suffer diminished repeats of the same performance a few times in a row... it won't be as bad because wisdom comes from understanding pain but it doesn't stop it from being very disorienting.

The worst aspect of it is might be that it's not really promoting my work as a comic artist. Getting 'your name in print' is not worthless, of course, but getting it connected in people's minds with what you consider your signature work is the most important goal. Illustrating a piece of text, no matter how smartly or beautifully you do it will not help with publishing comics. It might pay some bills but... the jury's still out on that one. I fear that in my journeys as illustrator-for-hire I will not be achieving much. I am pondering on my further choices in this light.

So, take this as a word of warning: unless you're an amazingly super-talented blindingly awesome artist that is great at self-promotion, has a following and know how to sell yourself and pressure employers... be prepared to be swindled and disappointed by the Greek press over and over. I sincerely hope you don't, but I have to be honest with my own experience if it's to be worth anything to the reader.


On other news, I've started inking and coloring my 24hr comic and I'd have posted a page or two here already here it not for job distractions. On some level I'm just waiting for my current employment plans to fall through too so I can focus on my comics again. Comics, that's what I wanted to do when I started all of this, right? Must realign vector. Anyway, expect a page soon-ish.

I also made some new c64 artwork, it's a pleasant variation on days on which you're not receiving the calls you should be receiving. Here it is, just four colors out of the 16 color commodore 64 palette this time:



(click for pixel-appreciation-time)

If the motive piques your interest, you could do worse than read this very much related piece of writing on my other blog. You see, it's all connected, but so what.



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I return with a 27 page comic!

...which might become a 30 page or so comic once I ink it. It's only pencils for now.

The question is, should I post it as is (and as was submitted to the compo) or should you wait until I've inked it and - gasp! - possibly coloured it?


The pencil version is pretty bare, look like this:

(click for big version)

The obvious advantage of posting the pencils is that they're finished and can be posted en-masse, whereas if I ink and colour, we're back to the one page per week regime. Up for democratic vote, guys and girls.


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Decided I'm going.

So hey, if any reader wants to meet me or whatever you can come to the 24hr comics event that'll be hosted in Metropolis Live Stage (Πανεπιστημίου 54, 3ος όροφος). More details here. There'll be lots of nerds talking about and drawing comics (also something called 'cosplay' which I am not sure about, and a marathon of the work of the great, late, Shatoshi Kon), if for some mysterious reason you enjoy belonging to that situation.






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