What can I say? I felt like drawing a robot.
Machinery like this is heavily inspired by Mattias Adolfsson. He's a Swedish illustrator who makes the most amazing sketchbook art I've ever seen. He does robots, buildings, animals, creatures. . . I can't even begin to explain how astounding it is, so please go check out his website!
Like this much older Billy strip, this one has a very Calvin and Hobbes-y vibe, with Billy fantasizing about snow. I kinda disguised it this time, though, because it was just a dream here, whereas in Calvin and Hobbes they're all daytime fantasies.
Having this much snow in the strip made it much easier to color. Coloring is probably the most tedious part of this strip's creation, so having all this white gave me a couple more minutes of free time.
Ahh, paradoxes. This is a pretty common one, but it can be really fun to look some up. They really mess with your head.
Here's one that'll make you stop and think for a while:
A cat is inside a dense, soundproof box with a hatch to get in. Also in the box is a barrel of gunpowder. A person does some tests with these. He closes the hatch and waits a minute. In this time, the gunpowder has a 50-percent chance of exploding, killing the cat.
Sounds simple enough, right? Well here's the paradox: You never know whether the cat has died or not until you open the hatch. During the time the hatch is closed, the person cannot know whether the gunpowder has exploded or not. Opening the hatch ultimately decides the cat's fate. So, until the moment someone looks in, the cat is both dead and alive.
Hear that? That was the sound of your mind imploding.
(That was called the Schrödinger's Cat paradox. You can find some other web pages on it that have explained it much better than I did.)
Hope you guys are having a grand Memorial Day weekend!
This joke came out of real life. Someone told me some fact and I responded the same way Billy does. I like this joke for that reason. I think this is the first time that's happened in the strip.
I'm really not sure which kind of comedy suits this strip the best. Do physical, slapstick jokes work more, or do more thoughtful, verbal jokes fit? I guess it's better to have a mix of both, but personally I find verbal jokes come more naturally. This is one of those slapstick moments.
(On an unrelated note, I think the sign on Billy's sign is funny. I laugh every time I hear someone say "5 bucks a pop." It's such an outdated expression.)
I really like this one, personally. These are all questions I thought of at one time or another. Whenever I conjure one up, it always makes me feel like such a clever person. Like, "Dang, Cole, you're gonna be a breakthrough philosopher one day" or something. I think all of these are pretty good questions (with the exception of the tree one. That one's kinda dumb).
This one's stupid, but I like Pete's line in the last panel. It's strips like these that make me question my own mental state.
But, it would explain why so many are afraid of spiders. I'll admit I sort of am too. But the other day I saw one in my house and had the guts to take 'im down. Oh yeah. I'm one macho man.
Blecch. This strip's a mess. Oh well.
The idea for this strip came out of, oddly enough, a video game. There's a game being made right now called Miegakure in which you can actually move through the fourth dimension! After looking into it and pondering a bit, I found that the fourth dimension is really interesting (Perhaps because I'm a nerd). I began thinking about it more and more and this strip came about. I can barely say I understand it myself but it's really intriguing!
So Harley wasn't going to leave at all! He was just trying to get some peace and quiet. And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling Billy and Pete.
What's interesting about Pete is how he's changed over the course of the strip. Towards the beginning, he was a stupid, sissy turtle, and while he is still kind of dumb today, he has become a lot more complex. He is a very sympathetic character, caring about the environment as well as other people, but most notably he hangs out with Billy a lot now. Before in the strip, Pete would only have small conversations with Billy, but nowadays the two are always affiliated in stories, just hanging out or going on adventures. Of course, these are only a couple bits of Pete's personality. There are many aspects of these characters that I don't even understand (That's probably a bad thing if you're trying to keep consistency, heh).
Anyway, this ends another Billy the Pop story. Hope you liked this one!
Harley is leaving without Billy and Pete?! . . . Or is he?
God, I really should look at a car once in a while and learn how to draw them better.
Oh no! Things are going wrong! What will happen next?! The only way is to. . . stick around and find out!!
I liked drawing this series, mostly because it's got a pond background. Ponds, streams or anything water-related are so much fun to draw, and although I'm not quite good at it I still really enjoy doing it just for the sake of getting better. My favorite places in nature are always streams or ponds.
For those just tuning in: Harley, as usual, is making Billy and Pete go on a trip. Billy, as usual, is not handling it well.
Oh boy. Billy's really done it this time. But that's exactly what he wanted!
Guys, I know I say this a lot, but it would be a gigantic favor if you'd spread this blog around for me. I'm happy to say I have a good readership right now, but I want to get as many people interested as I can. Thank you!
We continue our story. As usual with Billy, he is making Harley wish he had never taken them on this trip.
I tend to have problems with facial expressions. Harley's face in the last panel is just a mess of unnecessary lines. And still, he just doesn't look angry enough. One day I should learn to get better at that.
Also, if you'll notice, when Billy is being sarcastic he has a wavy line underneath his words. This is a continuation of an old technique I created back in this strip. The wavy line suggests sarcasm, something I don't think has ever been tried to be visually represented in comics. If you happen to draw a comic strip, it would be great if you passed the technique on! Who knows? One day, it could be everywhere! It could even be named after me!
Ugh, never mind.
Thus begins a brand-new Billy the Pop storyline! In this one, a simple fishing trip takes a turn for the worse! Stay tuned.
Next Comic, Last Comic and Home links are up here!
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