Monthly archives: August 2009

Plotting and scripting the space comic

This entry was posted in Comics Point of Contact on by

I’m putting together the plot and script for the space comic, lining up the scenes I’ve already thought of and seeing what connections they suggest. I’m using software called ywriter. It’s quite good for breaking a story down into chapters and scenes. I don’t think I could use it for a whole project, but it was useful for initial scripting of some of the Venn scripts and collecting and ordering Sounds of Soldiers from the published scraps so I could complete the first draft.

Of course, my approach to putting the comic together is going to be more slapdash than the use of ywriter suggests. I’ll probably start doing layouts for the first few pages and character designs at the same time and the whole shape of the story will change a bit as I go along.

The other thing I’ve been considering is a title. The only ones I have at the moment revolve around Contact. Contact itself and First Contact have been used already. Point of Contact, or Contact Point are possible, but they don’t jump out at me. The project remains the Space Comic until I find a title I’m happy with.

BMX racing in Platt Fields

This entry was posted in Bikes flickr photo Platt Fields on by

BMX racing in Platt Fields, originally uploaded by spinneyhead.

I only had my camera phone. But there’s more tomorrow, I may get some better photos then.

The Female Gaze

This entry was posted in erection erotica magazine penis prudery on by

From research we’ve learnt that what most women find erotic does not at all match what is typically thought of as an erotic image of a man designed for women. For example, on average, women prefer:

* men who are not muscle-bound
* men with more feminine face shapes
* men with attractive faces
* images that show the subject’s character and the environment he is in.

We also know that women’s tastes vary quite a lot, and we aim to cater to that variety too.

I should consider this for future erotic comickery, as I want to make stuff that works as well for women as it does for men. This is taken from the site of Filament magazine, which I learnt about through Warren Ellis’ blog about the problems they’re having with printers.

Explicit images of women are available at any newsagent, but Filament, the world’s only magazine featuring male pictorials designed for the female gaze, is finding itself between a rock and a hard place when it comes to printing explicit images of men.

Filament only prints explicit images when these are of high photographic and erotic quality, and clearly designed for women – we won’t ever be putting hard cocks on every page. The problem is, all the printers that a small, independent magazine like Filament can afford have said they won’t print images of the male of the species in a state of obvious arousal. Reasons given include that printing these images may cause offence to ‘women’s groups’.

If they get enough pre-orders they’ll be able to take their magazine to a printer that does larger runs and is less squeamish. You can support them here.

How will the USA end? 2

This entry was posted in Fiction Future Sounds of Soldiers USA on by

Slate asked the Global Business Network to come up with scenarios for the end of the USA as it currently exists. With Sounds of Soldiers I’ve already put forward my version of the collapse scenario. I have no plans in the near future to examine any of the other possibilities, but I may come back to them in the future.

via io9

Barack Obama’s real birth certificate finally revealed 1

This entry was posted in American Idiots Barack Obama USA on by

Or Nirth Certifikit, as Little Green Footballs calls it. LGF used to be home to some of the most hateful, uninformed, racist arseholes imagineable (based upon the few times I visited, which were unpleasant enough to keep me away for a long time). Now it seems to be one of the few relatively sensible right wing blogs in the USA. Anyone who upsets the idiots at Stop The ACLU is fine by me.

The rules for debating with climate change deniers 1

This entry was posted in deniers on by

Climate change deniers have rules that they expect you to stick to when debating their latest weak attempt to disprove the theory. They look a lot like the ones posted here.

And please note, that when I say evidence, I mean:

1) Nothing that was recorded by instruments such as weather-stations, ocean buoys or satellite data. Since all instruments are subject to error, we cannot use them to measure climate.

2) Nothing that has been corrected to account for the error of recording instruments. Any corrected data is a fudge. You must use only the raw data, which is previously disqualified under rule #1. Got that? OK, moving along…

3) Nothing that was produced by a computer model. We all know that you can’t trust computer models, and they have a terrible track record in any industrial, architectural, engineering, astronomical or medical context.

4) Nothing that was researched or published by a scientist. Such appeals to authority are invalid. We all know that scientists are just writing these papers to keep their grant money.

I still occasionally interact with some folks online for whom the rules above aren’t satire. A good response- which they’ll still ignore, of course- is given by one of the commenters on the post-

Mole, you’ve also got to factor in the consequences of inaction into the assessment of data.

If, for example, despite the existing scientific evidence, you personally would ONLY be satisfied by a longitudinal study over the next 30 years – well, what if it turned out todays’s scientists were actually right, and waiting for that study took us through the tipping point?

Why would policy makers be wise to adopt your approach?

See – even if I am wrong, cleaning up carbon emissions will do no harm. Clean the air up a bit, less pollution, fewer illnesses among kids, etc. No problemo.

If you are wrong, however: life on this planet could well be reduced to a few green sites supporting half a billion people – instead of 6 billion – by next century.

You see why doubt-mongers are losing this debate? And that that is a good thing?

Technorati tag:

Creationism in the UK

This entry was posted in Creationism Education Evolution on by

We should be better than this, and we should expect more from organisations like the National Recognition Information Centre, which has announced that a creationist course taught in religious schools should be considered equivalent to an A Level. This is an insult to everyone teaching real A Levels and all the youngsters taking them. This isn’t the USA or some other backward country. We need to demand that children are taught science, not fantasy, and anyone dressing up indoctrination as education should be punished, not accredited.

Helmandblog photostream

This entry was posted in Afghanistan army Comics flickr photo Point of Contact research on by

DMOCCCT-2009-004-I-102, originally uploaded by Helmandblog.

I’m looking for photo reference for my next comic, part of which will take part in Afghanistan. Luckily the Army has its own Helmand blog, and that has its own photostream on Flickr. I think this should be good for making the kit and vehicles accurate.