I found a large pixel art image recently and decided it would be fun to print out a small section of it every day and tape it to a wall in our living room. It was originally in 20×20 but that is a few too many pages, so I combined them and it is now a 10×10. Here are some photos of the first two days.

Isn’t that amazing? I will also try to post the images I am printing in case anyone else wants to follow along.

I plan on adding one page every school day. That is 5 days a week and there are approximately 25 weeks left. Plenty of time!

The question is, do you guys want photographic updates every day? Every week? Every two weeks (1 row)?

Gallery

Nodwick

I have been reading Nodwick for quite some time. It follows a small group of adventurers in a fantasy world. The main character is Nodwick, a henchman capable of carying an infinite amount of loot. His companions include a wizard who is constantly trying to improve his magic which generally involves blowing stuff up, a brutish warrior who enjoys drinking and taking on monsters too strong for him, and a priest who likes to de-naughtify dungeons and uses duct tape to patch Nodwick back together after the wizard and the warrior use him as dragon bait. This comic probably won’t make much sense if you aren’t in tune with RPG’s. If you are though, it is quite an enjoyable read.

Full Frontal Nerdity

This is another comic by the same artist and was started rather recently. It follows four middle aged men who enjoy playing table top RPG’s with each other. The slogan pretty much sums it all up: Four geeks. No lives. Roll for initiative.

Both comics only come out once a week on Thursday.

In the second day of my web comic extravaganza, I will be writing about PvP Online. PvP takes place in the office of a game magazine company and follows the employees: Cole, the owner who relishes nostalgic games; Brent, a cynical writer and Mac enthusiast; Jade, an online RPG addict and Brent’s girlfriend, Francis, a high school student who spends more time practicing his gaming than working; and Skull, a mythical troll who can only be seen by the employees and is officially an “intern.” There are a few more characters, but they take back seat to these main characters.

The story progresses in blocks at a time as opposed to following one plot, or changing every day. It really is the interactions between the characters that gives this comic its charm. Often on each other’s nerves they fight with each other a lot. They always manage to have a lot of fun doing so, and that is why this comic is so enjoyable to watch.

Scott Kurtz is fairly well known among web comic artists and it is easy to see why. The panels are well drawn in black and white, though they will be in color if the comics lend themselves.

This wonderful comic is updated daily. On the RaydenUni scale of comic wonderfulness, I have to give this one a 5.

CAD is one of my daily checked web comics. After reading it for probably over a year, I enjoy it just as much today as I did back then. The comics begin back in 2002 and are released several times a week.

Drawing and art is important in a comic and the author of CAD does a brilliant job. The strips are noticeably more beautiful now than when they started, but the characters are still recognizable. It bugs me when characters go through an entire paradigm shift and resemble their former selves.

This comic focuses on two guys, Ethan and Lucas, who live together and play games. There are several other characters, a third roommate, a girlfriend, coworkers, but Ethan and Lucas are the focus. Ethan is your stereotypical gamer who is not entirely in touch with reality and goes to great lengths to improve his gaming experience. Lucas is more mature and is continuously attempting, miserably, to save Ethan from his own adventures.

Not only does the comic tell the story of those two, it occasionally has a single strip that takes place in a game. These are generally completely unrelated to any other strips and speak of the author’s most recent gaming experiences.

If that is not enough for you, there is one character who does is not part of the main plot who has his own series of strips. Words cannot describe these.

CAD is one of my favorite strips and if you enjoy video games, you should check it out. I must admit if you are not a gamer, it probably won’t interest you. (Don’t worry, I have some comics for you too!)

On the RaydenUni scale of comics, where 1 is abysmal, and 5 is reserved for my very favorites, this one has to get a 5.

Over the last few years I have begun reading web comics. When I lived at home and there was a regular newspaper to read I read those comics. Now that I am at college I don’t have daily access to a newspaper. But I have found that there is an abundance of great web comics. I would like to share some of these with you. If I can open your eyes to only one of these, then it would be worth it. So for next few days, until I run out, I will be writing a short piece on some of the comics I read.

Fam is a friend of mine from IRC. He has helped me learn PHP and write good, clean, standardized HTML. This inspired the “Fam Approved” icon I had temporarily put on a project last summer. At that time, he didn’t have much of a website, but he does now.

He has created several sets of beautiful icons, free to use by anyone and they have quickly gained popularity amongst the developer community. Fam just told me that he has “passed 8Gig of icons just from the one icon pack.”

A few applications and sites using the icons include:

• Ruby On Rails Workshops
• Framewerk
• Pathetic.org
• Rails Weenie

As well as many others. Go check out the icons!

I installed Gallery2 last night. I am very impressed with the admin panel. My only complaint is it all seems a little slow. I do not know if this is just my website being slow, or if Gallery2 itself is slow.

Go check out all my photos.

Check out the drawing a friend made in the lobby. It began as just a smily face.

Image

I am taking a popular literature class this quarter. We are reading several genres, including detective, horror, fantasy, and thriller. I just finished reading “The Hedge Knight” by George R.R. Martin, the author of the Song of Ice and Fire series. “The Hedge Knight” is actually a sort of prequel to that series, taking place in the same world. I have played A Game of Thrones, the board game, and so I have heard the names of the houses like Lannister, Baratheon, Tyrel, Stark, and Greyjoy. The short story was quite enjoyable, if not particularly thought provoking, and I am considering buying the series.

Memento

I saw the most amazing movie last night. I have long been encouraged by friends to see Memento, but the cover made me think it was a horror movie and I delayed. I finally saw it and I am enthralled. It is not a horror movie, instead its a sort of detective thriller. The plot itself is… unique. I’m not sure if its even worth discussing the plot because it depends so much on the way it is presented. The plot twist takes place halfway through the story.

Let me explain. The first scene in the movie is the last in the story. The next scene is in black and white and is the first scene of the story. The next scene is the scene immediately before the last scene of the plot. It alternates back and forth, color then black and white. Let me explain another way. If the story is in 10 chronological chapters, you watch then in this order: 10, 1, 9, 2, 8, 3, 7, 4, 6, 5. Once the “future” and the “past” as it is easy to refer to the color and black and white sections, get close, a “past” scene fades into color and you watch it continously from there. Do not assume that this is most of the movie. Only the conclusion is done that way. Practically the entire movie is edited in this swapping form. Most of the real action is done in color, while most of the black and white is sort of backstory.

Why is the movie edited this way and how does it contribute to the plot? The main character suffers from a condition where he cannot make new memories. He remembers everything that happened before the “incident,” but anything after that fades within a few moments. He write notes to himself, mostly on the back of polaroid photographs. His other form of “communication” with himself are the tatoos he has of the most important notes. I won’t tell you what they say, or what the conflict is, its not too terribly relevant to realize the brilliance of the movie. I will just say the hero is looking for someone. Because most of the actual plot happens in color, and thus “backwards,” you know as much as the hero about what happened five minutes before. Several times a scene begins with the hero asking himself why he is doing something, which is revelealed in the next color scene. But until then you have as much of an idea as to what happened in the previous time, as the hero does. The format may seem cumbersome, and it very well could have, but it was brilliantly pulled off.

The brilliance is truly giving the viewer a sense of not knowing what happened a mere minute before, just like the hero.

The plot is very messed up. There are hilarious scenes, that are only possible because of the editing, but these are the exception. The movie deals with violence and drugs and language is present, though I wouldn’t say any are excessive. Due to the editing, this movie requires more concentration in order to figure out what happened. It is one of those movies you watch and then immediately want to watch again so you can understand all that happened. Like I said, the plot is messed up. It’s not disturbing in the way that you feel sick after you watch it, but there are scenes that you cannot believe a character just did what they did. Because of this I cannot recomment the movie to everyone. On the other hand do not get the impression that this is an emotionally difficult movie to watch. It simply requires a greater concentration than most movies, and is not light.

If you are interested in a truly original artistic movie, executed in a near flawless manner, go watch Memento. In what other movie is the plot twist halfway through the storyline?

Here is an animation of someone drawing a defragmentation. The author is DOOManiac, a friend of mine from #naturalselection.

Defrag

I just watched an interesting, disturbing, and sad short film. Watch it.

Plug