jephjacques
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Directember: A Night At The Improv
🕑 Added 2024-12-26 21:13:01 +0000 UTCFinally, another truly ancient comic! Back when Faye didn't use contractions in her speech because I thought it sounded cute (ugh) and I was painstakingly drawing in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet (uuuuggghhhh). I actually don't hate the art in this one, it's kind of charming in a "drawn with a felt tip marker" kind of way. I also hadn't figured out how to draw speaking mouths with visible lips yet. It's wild the stuff you'd think you'd instinctively just Know How To Draw and then it turns out whoops no it's way more complicated than that. It took me DAYS of practice before I could wrap my head around drawing glasses as though they were sitting on someone's nose instead of plastered directly onto their eyeballs, for example. I have absolutely no inherent talent at drawing, everything I can do was learned through sheer stubborn repetition and effort. I really believe drawing is a mechanical skill that anybody can learn if they put their mind to it. Give it a try! You might be surprised at what you can do! You might be horrified to find out how hard it is to draw a stick figure! Either way you're having fun.
Comments
Ross
And in no sense would me attempting to draw be "fun". It would result in total destruction of the paper, the drawing implement, and possibly any passersby within range.
Ross
I deny that everyone can draw. I can't, for instance.
Ross
I believe I have proof that you are wrong. Nothing that I can produce can be labeled as drawing by any sane human.
darthfinality .
Everybody CAN draw, but not everyone can draw well.
Ross
Howard Taylor pissed me off (and still does) for his expressed "not having children is a sign of failure as a human" attitude.
Ross
No, it is absolutely not true that anybody can draw, no more than that anybody can cook.
Alasdair Mackintosh
Stick figures are insanely hard. Anything that looks like a human being is insanely hard. Arghhhhhhh!!!!
Kristi Siedow-Thompson
Lol I love how we all missed Faye saying “don’t” in the third panel tho
Jon Wilson
Oh yeah, that's a pretty long lifetime, actually. At the speed of light, a particle with that lifetime would travel about a centimeter. I have friends who are searching for such long-lived particles. The top quark, on the other hand, has a lifetime of about 1e-24s
Amit Arnon
Well, if not Photoshop and Wacom, how do you currently draw?
Yelling Bird
I thought it might have been, but I don't know if it was ever confirmed.
Robert Heinig
Off-topic: Did you know there's a Korean Sci-Fi flick (https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/581389) that features a combat bot named "Bubs"? Must be a licensed hommage then.
Hugh Eckert
Pretty sure that was Faye’s justification for it, too…
Angie Penrose
Yes, this. I started reading a bunch of web comics at the beginning, when the art was amateurish (to be kind), because the characters and the writing were fun and made me want to keep reading. Watching an artist get better and better as they go is very cool, actually. Howard Taylor (Schlock Mercenary) mentioned at one point that he had zero art background before he started doing SM, and it frankly shows. It was fun, though, and as he got better at both the art and the writing, it grew to be freaking awesome. Sluggy Freelance started out with okay art and got a lot better. Even on the syndicated side, Lynn Johnston (For Better or For Worse) started out with decent beginner level art, and got very noticeably better over the years. If you practice, you get better, and watching artists get better is a lot of fun. Comics aren't just about the quality of their art, anyway. If that were the case, XKCD wouldn't be one of the most popular web comics around.
Mitsuki Ayane
La LO La LO! ~<3
legobil
Also: that language! I did not expect such words from you Marten Reed. Do you kiss your mother with that filthy mouth of yours? Wait. Maybe that has some weird undertones with Veronica’s occupation.
Captain Button
La lu li LO!
legobil
We can now tell, the only reason this heist worked out for Marten is that the shop keeper had already seen the faeries of this town.
BookBeard
Hey, sometimes you can be very passionate about particle physics and still end up as a janitor. https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4858
Yelling Bird
After I moved out of West Virginia I eliminated contractions from my speech for a while because I was trying to hide my accent. Accents come out particularly in contractions.
Ursus Ridens
Sorry-not-sorry Jeph, but I found the strip, well, charming from episode one (when I went back to it). It's not just your art, but your engaging characters, story-lines, and gags. So there. Back to work!
Ursus Ridens
I'm not sure, but suspect that since about 1920 the particle physicists have just been making it up as they go along. ("That particle existed for ~3.4X10e-11 sec. We may have found the...er., uh, down phuon!")
Charles Hirst
The Theatrical remark is " Talent is the next best thing to having a pushy mother!"
Captain Button
This is using Firefox on a Win10 computer: Click on "Jeph Jacques" at the top of this comic, or on the left side under "Memberships". Click on "Home" under his name at the top. Click on "Filters" in the center-right below the line with "Home." Scroll down to the "Date Published" section and pick the year you want. You may also want to select "Oldest First" in the "Sort by" section. Click on "Apply Filter." The page should refresh with the comics from that year. Read down, clicking on "Load More" as needed. (I haven't checked, but your computer may become cranky as the page gets longer.) When you've finished the year, go up to the top and click on "Filters" again to select another year. Note that you can only go back to 2014, and posting the daily comics doesn't seem to start until 2016 (comic # 3136). Also at least for me now, the comic image quality is poor before Aug 9, 2016 (3284).
Carl Fink
Occasional contractions slipping in would be *more* realistic to me. This isn't Faye's natural speaking style, it's one she assumed because she is ashamed of her southern origins.
Carl Fink
I found Special relativity easy. Tensors and General Relativity defeated me.
Minzoku Bokumetsu
shit, I'm still waiting on mine from like last month! 😡
Joseph Loder
Particle Physics 'might' be a stretch, but in general I agree with you.
Charles Hirst
As someone who now rarely uses a plume to communicate, I have a nom de clavier. Jeph would probably need a nom de stylet.
John
I like that this one works as a stand-alone. You don't need to know anything about either of these characters and it's still funny.
Veronica Jane
If QC had taught us anything it's that you can always change your mind about things like fingernails and lips several years later
ValdVin
At the start of any animation or webcomic it has to be decided if the characters have four or five fingers, and if fingernails are part of the physiology.
Jon Wilson
I think this is a thing that all highly skilled people think. I always think that anybody could learn to do particle physics if they just worked on it for a while. But I also know that most people do not share that opinion.
dcy665 .
Where is the archive via Patreon? I was reading 4008 and he suggested reading it here to it in its full glory
BookBeard
Nooooooooooooooooo! https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2652
enchantedsleeper
Re: abnormal speaking styles, it's funny that with Bubbles Jeph seems to have the opposite problem, namely that it's too strange to have her using contractions or casual speech. We got Bubbles saying she'd talk more informally for a couple of strips before she went back to normal. Though, I'm not complaining - it's a big part of her character and it adds to the humour of many of her lines.
Darius Jenai
I want to live in the city where glasses are made same-day, instead of taking 2 weeks to come in.
SilverbackRon
Yeah, she was hit and miss here and there.
enchantedsleeper
Would love to hear more about Bubbles' adventures in glassblowing, actually. I bet she's a dab hand at it.
enchantedsleeper
So close, and yet so far!
Miyaa
I remember when Faye discovered she now speaks like a Bostonian. That was the day.
Miyaa
*Claire intensifies*
Veronica Jane
Drawing glasses sitting a face is not nearly as hard as the "fuck, how do hands look when they're holding something?" that needs to be worked out for panel 3.
Ye Olde Phart
I have to admit, the comic number made me chuckle a bit. :)
Chelsea Watson
Huh, Faye does have a contraction in panel 3!
enchantedsleeper
It's so weird to read old dialogue with Faye's non-contractions xD I can't imagine speaking like that, it seems like such an effort
Fr0thgar
What do you draw in/with these days?
ValdVin
As women in glasses are a thing for me I appreciate Jeph's acquired ability to get to that point. Also I have no idea how much effort it takes before Jeph, or any of my faves, to get confident in the ability to put a webcomic up, but I appreciate it. Unlike working for the big animation studios during the Studio Era, it's all under your name (if not a nom de plume).
BookBeard
Oh, is Bubbles in there too? I suppose that would explain the *bonk* "Ow!" https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3276 https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3461
Timothy Roller
I loved this art style.
Ben R
Early Marin side-eye
John Fiala
Why is Faye in the closet? *looks at giant girlfriend*
Angie Penrose
Talent is like a +1 bonus. When you're a Level 0 newb, it seems like an amazing boost, but in the long run (or even the mid run) it really doesn't make much difference. If you want to get good at drawing, or anything else really, it's all about practice and study and practice and taking classes and practice and reading books and practice and watching videos and practice and checking out work by people better than you and practice and practice and practice.
James A. Whitney
A lot of people see good art and say "wow, you're so talented!". I try to remain very much aware of how much blood, sweat, and effort went into getting as good as the art I see in front of me and acknowledge that. Speaking as someone who got praised for their artistic skills as a child and then literally never put in any effort to improve so now I'm 40 with the artistic skill of a maybe-talented 5-year old. :P Also, to all the people saying "bUt ShE dId UsE a CoNtRaCtIoN iN tHiS oNe", grow up and get a life. You clearly have no idea how hard it is to actually make that kind of abnormal speaking style manifest in writing continuously over a long period of time with little opportunity to edit.
BookBeard
Nothing wrong with a bit of casual insurance fraud between friends.
Joe White
Talent is over-rated and over credited. When I look at anything artistic, I no longer see "talent", I see The Work.
Joel Bateman
Huh...I forgot how cute OG Faye was.
Benjamin C
It's a contraction contradiction! Further contraction contradictions are contraindicated.
TV4Fun
Few things can convince an unskilled artist how good it's possible to get like reading through the QC archive.
Elberik
But Faye uses a contraction in the third panel
fluffy
Faye does use a contraction in this one though. Also the lack-of-contraction affectation is super good for a certain personality type, but definitely not Faye's.
Jonathan V
I'm definitely on the horrified by how hard it is to draw a stick figure end of the scale
Argus
“I sucked, and it’s okay for you to suck too, that’s how you get better” is one of the best motivations to get people into doing some kind of art.
Damian
It's amusing that you mention the not using contractions in one of the rare comics where she did use one.
