Radiant Comics

I don’t like buying a new computer. Spending all that money is the first thing that bothers me but there are other things too. I make my living on the silly machine so it has to be done sooner or later. I prefer later.

I bought my first computer back in 1996 (December 1995 technically but it didn’t arrive until the new year). It was a Power Computing Mac clone from back in the days when there were such things as Mac clones. It was a clone of the Macintosh 9500 model minus the three extra PCI slots. All together I dropped five grand on the thing including monitor, Syquest drive (how’s that for nostalgia), and eight (or was it sixteen) whole megs of ram. It was a nice machine. With upgrades to the ram, hard drive, and processor it lasted me until 2002. That baby was tricked out and smokin’. I didn’t really want to get rid of it because I had it just the way I liked it but it was time. It served me a good long while but I needed more power. Still, six years was a long life for a computer. Don’t let anyone tell you Macs aren’t a good value.

So in early 2002 I dropped three grand on my current machine. A dual processor (2x 1gig) “Quicksilver” Mac. It’s now maxed out with a gig and a half of ram and has all sorts of hard drive, SCSI, USB 2.0, and Firewire 800 upgrades. I have no problems with it. All these years later it’s still fast enough to get the job done. I work in Photoshop on it all day long pushing around big files with no trouble. Sure it’s not as fast as the beasts they got out there today but I don’t care. How fast does it need to be? Gaining two seconds on a “file rotate” command really doesn’t matter to me. Yet, I’m going to have to get a new machine sometime in the next couple of years. Oy!

I’m just starting to bump into things that I can’t run on my ol’ Mac. Fairly recently Mac switched to Intel processors inside their computers. This means nothing to me except now some programs, such as iMove 08, won’t run on my old style processors. I don’t even use iMovie but it’s a sign of things to come. Programs my “Quicksilver” can’t run are only going to multiply. It’s a matter of time before things reach critical mass.

I also want a new monitor though because I still have an old CRT tube style monitor and would like the extra room of an LCD monitor. Apple makes an amazing looking 30 inch monitor but it won’t run on my computer. The video card won’t support it. Dell makes what is supposed to be an amazing 30 inch LCD monitor (I’ve not actually seen that one) but it won’t run on my computer. Both monitors run about $1500-$1800 so they are too expensive for me anyway but having to buy a whole new computer to run them, $2500 minimum, makes it impossible to afford. I’ll have to set my sights on a smaller and cheaper model.

At least Apple makes it easy to transfer all my programs and settings onto a new computer. Just plug the two machines together with a Firewire cable and it’s a painless automatic process. I did that when I got my laptop in 2004 and it was easy breezy. I don’t make my living with the laptop so I don’t care as much about what it won’t run. As long as I can type and surf the web my laptop is good to go. No pressure.

The new Mac towers are really, really pumped up machines built for pushing around video and 3D animation. So at last we’re at the point where I don’t have to spend for the top of the line model (me being a graphics guy and not a video guy). My other two computers were top of the line because that meant more power and longevity. That still holds true but pushing around graphics programs is easy for today’s low end mac desktops. Tomorrow’s programs that demand better specs will still run fine on them. That is unless they start using some other processors and change the rules. Filth flarn filth flarn!

Greetings. As I sit here and ponder the universe I’m secure in the knowledge that the universe does not ponder me. What that has to do with anything I don’t know but it’s my thought for the day.

So I’m not yet sold on buying music online. I’ve purchased a few songs from iTunes over the years and even a whole album or two but when I buy music I still like a hard copy. Something physical I can own undisputedly own. Something severed from the teat of the music companies. I could burn a hard copy easy enough but that is still one more step and still could be disputed. If there is one thing I know it’s that all those record companies don’t give a damn about me. No corporation does. Only people can care and despite their legal status corporations aren’t people.

I’ve bought plenty of music over the years. From vinyl albums to cassette tapes I have purchased a variety of formats. I’ve even had some eight tracks. They all wear out. Does the record company care when my tapes are no longer operational? Nope. Buy another copy is their philosophy. They make no promises about forever and don’t want me to own anything. They don’t want you to copy their music for back up. Music companies tried to get cassette tapes outlawed way back when. That’s how much they care about me.

So when I’m offered some online music to buy I’m skeptical. I don’t trust record companies. Before the age of the internet (late 90’s) the cost of a CD was minimum $17.99 in every store I went into. Twenty bucks for one CD! How is that possible? Prices were pumped up and kept there. There were law suits, music companies settled, and refunds went out. I never got any but I always knew there was something wrong going on. I’m still suspicious.

Every week I read a story about record companies trying to get iTunes to raise the prices on music. Or start charging more for hits. Record companies have no idea about the law of supply and demand because they are used to being monopolies. If you want to buy an singer’s song then you have to buy it from the record company that has the rights to that song. No other record company can publish it. They can charge whatever they want. Pay the price or tough luck. That’s the record company philosophy.

Record companies are also not used to people being able to buy individual songs either. They keep trying to put an end to that on iTunes. Record companies would prefer you give them more money as you have to buy a whole album to get the song you want. It’s as if Fruit Loops were only available in those multi-packs and if you wanted them you had to buy five other cereals as well. I’d prefer to buy just a box of Fruit Loops.

And software companies. Don’t even get me started. Have you ever actually read one of those license agreements that pop up? You have to agree to them before you install purchased software. I know these companies are trying to protect their intellectual property but according to those agreements I don’t actually own anything I buy from them. I don’t own the CD I just bought and can run the program only at their say so. Anytime they want to take their marbles and go home they can. I have no say in it. That’s all the stuff you are supposed to agree to after you’ve bought their product. Imagine buying a new car and when you get it home and go to start it up a message appears that says you have to agree that you don’t actually own this car in order to start it. Crazy. No one would be expected to put up with that.

I can’t even give my old programs away since I don’t own them. I’m not talking about copying them. I’m talking about buying “Program A version 6” so I no longer have any use for “Program A version 5”. According to the license agreement I can’t give the disk to a buddy who might get some use out of it. Yeah, right. Every time one of those license agreements pops up I push the button that says “I Agree” while saying, “No I don’t Agree”. Just because some software company says so doesn’t make it so. The Pharaoh they are not.

It’s enough to turn a boy into a pirate. They treat you like one anyway.

I’m waiting for some paint to dry. Literally. That’s no euphemism about boredom or the tedium of life. I need some paint to dry before I can go on with the painting. So meanwhile here I am conveying all this excitement to you. That and whatever enters my mind.

I got a DVD in the mail yesterday. It’s the movie “Prime Gig” (2002) with Vince Vaughn. It’s a movie that I hadn’t heard of until I caught it on cable a couple of months ago. Imagine that, a Vince Vaughn movie without a ton of advertising. I saw it for sale on Amazon marketplace for 99¢ plus three bucks shipping. What the hell. I ordered it.

One of the reasons I like the movie is its downer of an ending. Usually every movie ending is a happy little thing. Not this one. Even a lot of sad endings have that ray of hope to take the edge off. Not this one. It’s also not a real tragic, tear jerker of an ending. There is no “Sophie’s Choice”. It just has a bit of a hopeless ending. No ray of hope is to be found. But that’s okay. To me the movie says that hopelessness is a part of life and we have to deal with it. It’s not the end of the world. Anyway, it’s one of those movies that’s all dialogue. I like ’em that way but most people prefer explosions and gunfights so watch this one at your own risk.

I’ve been drawing in charcoal lately. I haven’t done that since my school days. I bought some Pitt Pressed Charcoal and man is that some good stuff. It’s the blackest, densest, sweetest charcoal I’ve ever used. It flows onto the paper smooth and dark. It’s hittin’ the spot in a project I’m working on and it’s fun to be using some charcoal again. It’s even a bit nostalgic. Give it a try.

I read mostly non-fiction these days. Besides comic books that is. I finished Christopher Hitchen’s book “God is not Great” which I enjoyed. It’s a collection of arguments pointing out how religious BS gets us all into trouble. After that I tried to read some fiction, Phillip Roth’s “The Plot Against America”. Being that it got great reviews (including some NY Times book award) and was historical fiction I thought it would be right up my alley. It wasn’t. Seventy pages in I was bored and gave up on it. A disappointment all around. Now i need a new book to read.

I pre-ordered a Halo Special Edition XBox 360 this week. I’ve been wanting to get a 360 but the whole “red ring of death” thing has kept me away. For those not in the know Microsoft has been having problems with the 360 because they were built poorly. They say it was only one plant in China that was having problems but I read too many horror stories on the internet. This Halo one should be the latest build model and have all the problems worked out of it. Now they come with a three year warranty so I should be okay. It doesn’t ship until mid September though. Then I gotta get “All Pro Football”.

Now I just have to go out and get a new pair of shoes.

Sometimes I have the opposite problem that other people have. It’s when I can’t concentrate on anything but work. I can’t sit and relax with a comic or a book or a movie because my mind won’t focus on any of them. Of course by work I don’t mean what people generally think of as work such as digging a ditch or consulting tax tables. I mean my own artwork. My drawing or painting or any other creative pool I dip my toe in.

This is really not a problem when I have the time and energy to indulge my compulsions. But when it’s getting late at night and I have already worked all day that I get tired and wired. My mind is still going at a million miles a minute but my concentration has dissolved into the fatigue of the day. But still I persevere and do more work. Or pace back and forth. That doesn’t take much concentration.

The problem is that if I’m not careful I will tire myself to the point of collapse. Not dramatic English drama fainting in a heap of “Ohhhsss…” collapse. Just, “I think I better lie down, now I can’t seem to get up, maybe I’ll just nap for a bit” collapse. It’s not a regular nap; it’s a warning to take it easy nap.

I am a morning person and am up and working early so late at night comes early for me. Usually around ten o’clock. Post meridian. That’s when tired and wired can set in. Nothing to do but sit and twitch. It doesn’t help that I stand and work. My drawing table, easel and desktop computer are all at standing height. I find it much more comfortable and less tiring to stand than to sit. Easier on the back too. Of course after eight or ten hours of standing when I’m tired and wired working is much more of a challenge. This laptop I’m typing on helps. I’ve taken up sitting and writing when I can stand no more.

It’s not the worst problem to have and it beats when I have no time or energy for my own work and I can feel my life slipping away in the service of others who have no greater goal than to enrich themselves at who-ever’s expense. Mine included. Tuppence for you time, sir? That is pain and waste.

I’m tired and wired right now, as I’m writing this.

And there is a glimpse into being me.

Way back in my freshman year of college I had a typography teacher, Tom, who had a running joke with the photo teacher about how Tom hated photography. He treated photography with no respect. I found this a bit extreme so one day I brought up the subject with Tom. It turned out he really did like photography. And he hated it. More precisely he hated that fact that cameras were so easy to operate, this was 1984, that everyone who had one thought they were a photographer. After being forced to endure endless piles of bad snapshots from friends and acquaintances he just couldn’t take it anymore. It was an offense to his senses.

Tom’s solution was to start saying he dislikes photography in general. He took this tact because of its blanket immunity. You see, if you tell someone their snapshots are boring and badly taken they get insulted. Plus they get mad at you for your “rudeness”. After all, they’ve got a camera and think they’re photographers.

Tell a person their cooking isn’t very good and they will usually admit that they are not much of a cook. People know cooking takes practice and skill. Tell someone that their quadratic equations are bad and they’ll tell you that they’re not a mathematician. But everyone with a camera thinks they’re a photographer. And can be oblivious to the fact they aren’t. These are the same people who see the photos of a photographer who has some skill and say, “You have a really good camera”. In many peoples’ minds it’s the camera that takes the picture and not the person behind the camera.

Enter the age of digital photography. I see more digital cameras around than I ever did film cameras. No film to load, buy, or process so you can get instant results. People love instant gratification. But unlike almost all snapshots taken with film most digital pictures only exist on computer screens. With film getting snapshots printed was part of the developing process. With digital it’s an extra step. So how do you to show people your digital snapshots? With photo sharing services such as Flickr.com.

A photo sharing service is a web site that lets you upload your photos to their servers and invite friends, family, and even strangers to come view them. Not a bad thing in and of itself but now everyone with a digital camera invites you to go see their photos online. Their uncropped, unedited, untouched-up, snapshots. They’re as painful to look at as as pile of film snapshots. Here are a few of the usual suspects:

Peoples’ heads in the middle of the photo instead of at the top. These are by people who really don’t know what they’re doing. This is the first thing you learn. There is a lot of bad composition in snapshots and this is where it starts.

The “snapshot lean”. Most cameras have pretty wide lenses these days but a lot people don’t know that so when asked to pose for a photo they lean in to the person next to them. People stacked like teepee poles. The photographer has to tell them to straighten up. Not always easy task for the casual photographer though. I too have plenty of teepee people but I edit them out.

Bad composition is the most common thing in mediocre snapshots. I could go on and on about it. But I’ll spare you.

Pictures taken two seconds apart posted right next to each other. Edit one out. We don’t need nearly identical pictures except someone’s head is turned three degrees in the second one. Pick the best one and go with it.

Every picture taken from the exact same angle. Camera at head level from about six to eight feet away. Mix it up. Drop to a knee and then take the picture. Shoot from waist level. Shot from ground level. Shoot from over head. Anything would be a change from big headed, little legged, barrel distorted people.

I could ramble on even more about the faults I find but instead here are a few simple tips.

Only post two out of three of your pictures. This will teach you to look at them closer and edit out the mediocre ones.

I do find it odd that the first thing everyone brags about is how many megapixels their camera has and then they are perfectly happy posting the pics on a site that uses a tiny fraction of those pixels. So anyway: crop. Everybody’s camera has at least three megapixels and most sites only post them at about half a megapixel so try using the cropping tool to create a better composition.

And when you crop use whatever aspect ratio you want. Don’t stick with what the camera gives you. If you think it looks better as a tall skinny photo then make it so. Free yourself from the HD and SD aspect ratios. Play around. Make your own “panoramas” just by cropping out the top and bottom. You have plenty of pixels. Get rid of some.

Anyway, hardly anyone will listen to these tips because most people just want their pictures to be easy. Not win awards. Doing nothing but uploading unedited photos is the easy thing.

I know, you’re saying, “Simple solution. If somebody send you a link to their photos just don’t look at ’em”. That’s solid advice and I usually follow it. But then sometimes people what to discuss their photos and know where mine are posted (nowhere, I hate the usability of these sites, but that’s another rant) so occasionally I gotta look. But if I don’t please do not get insulted. I don’t get insulted when you don’t want to hear my bad singing.