Herald_zlm.DeathBeforeDisco

Don't believe the hype!
Zero Like Me #74
Zero Romance #14:
Ransom Dan Pt.3: Death Before Disco
<- Previous Comic...Next Comic->
-First Comic-
Easter Eggs: Romance 14 in panel 1, Jane, shoutout to third of three YDN EICs this week (completing my collection), new challenger named after the OGs. 1933 counts, right?

Fun Facts: Today's setting is loosely based on just outside the Silliman Master's house (creepy dark skinned guy wearing all black snapping photos of your house...check!). This is based on a writing exercise I did, a fake news article about Ransom Dan's implosion (hence the heavy text).

I had this reporter character stored away in my notes and felt this was the best time to pop him out. He wears rabbit ears to get better reception because he's a TV newsman and he uses a carrot instead of a mike so he can have a snack after covering his story while remaining in theme. I thought it was a nice Eiichiro Oda sort of bizarre touch.

Baa: From what I gather, Lady Gaga is a fashion dynamo and her outrageous style is pretty neat. The Crayon had a show where they warmed the crowd up by having us sing a Lady Gaga song, and I was like the only person in the room who had no idea what was going on. Pretty ridiculous.

One of the biggest motivations to do this comic was because I love puns and I noticed that I could make a RuPaul reference, but also I wanted to try this weird news format since I wanted to kill Ransom Dan. A lot of improvised nonsense thrown in for good measure, too. I want to make higher concept comics, like how Gerard Way runs the Umbrella Academy with such high fiction. Above is the banner I ran all week leading up to the Ransom Dan World Tour, with the following dates:

Jan 30 Jonathan Edwards (Secret Basement Show), Encore - Woolsey Hall :: Feb 5 Timothy Dwight :: Feb 6 Pierson :: Feb 12 Davenport :: Feb 13 Berkeley :: Feb 19 Ezra Stiles :: Feb 20 Branford :: Feb 26 Calhoun :: Feb 27 Silliman :: Mar 5 Trumbull :: Mar 6 Saybrook

So that was a fun concept to start with.

Reuxben

YDN_zlm.Cancer

Be a man, Zero, bottle it all up!

[Update: See Top for Final Art]
Zero Like Me #29: Cancer
<- Previous Comic...Next Comic ->
-First Comic-
Easter Eggs: Memorial to Mrs. Lang (plus two flowers for each year she was my teacher), and "Yale" in panel 1.

Fun Facts: Today's setting is the JE swing. I saw an interview on Youtube where Gerard Way talked about his song, "Cancer," and how it is about how anything can be a cancer--mental, physical illness, smoking, etc. So that also played a part in this comic, which is about how lives are important and it sucks that they are taken for granted so easily and often.

Baa: Although this comic is closely tied to the loss of my own real-life physics teacher to cancer, this comic is a response to the unfortunate Annie Le case. Death is so outrageously sudden and shattering, and there's no way to know what this means unless you've actually lived through someone's death, especially someone you thought would have so much more time.

Since the news was so immense, I had to postpone today's scheduled comic, but we'll get back on schedule now. And I'm really excited for an upcoming storyline I've been working on--we're introducing a new character! Her design finally clicked last night.

Reuxben

Fun_NoWay

Check out YDN comics all week! I planned something special for us and you.

So this is an old drawing plus a fashion study.

Easter Eggs: "Way" on coffee.

Fun Facts: I want to do incredibly violent things to people who smoke in front of me, but I can't deny it looks cool.

I don't always drink JE, but when I do, I prefer Dos Temptations.

I bumped into my dean while hurrying to eat at JE and split (I'm self-conscious like that) and he complimented me on my Temptations cover. I instinctively said, "Thank you," and started to scuttle away, but then stopped and was like, "Wait, what?" thinking, Did I draw a cover for Temptations...?!

He told me my sig's on the cover and thought I'd drawn it. I was completely weirded out, but noted they've "stolen" art before. Anyway, I found the issue, and man, that is funny!

Pretty clear who actually drew it, but just for fun, like last year's mystery Swing Space vomitist, here's why it's not me:

I HATE writing in caps and RARELY ever use THEM, especially WHEN drawing. I don't color (much). I don't draw such...creative t-shirts. The best part is the freakishly good signature: it's dated in ink as 3/24/09, a Tuesday, but I only ever ink ZLM then, and I always embed my signature when I ink comics. And what's with the R? I love the letter R and would never write it so not-cool.

Anyway, this was really fun. Good job, Temptations.

Fun Fact: My FroCo-reverence dwindles every year as I realize, Wow, these people are who freshmen are supposed to look up to? It really makes me wonder what my FroCos were like in other peoples' eyes.

I see like two, maybe three people I'd trust and one who'd make me want to transfer to freaking Morse or something. Haha.

Reuxben

Food_SupaStuff

These are the other two pieces of Food from my final assignment batch for the Rudd Center this past year.

The first one is about how some markets end up causing health problems that their pharmacies have to deal with later.

Easter Eggs: Hairstyles from Apu, Philip Fry, Tracey Sketchit, Princess Peach, and Ezekiel Zick. Plus Lil' Gerard Way.

This one is about how scarcer markets make finding healthy food harder to come by.

Easter Eggs: The little emo kids have the hairstyles of Jojo (Horton Hears a Who) and Violet (The Incredibles).

And that's it for Food stuffs until next year.

16 days till Japan,

Reuxben

Fun_PixieDust

This is an unused cover for the collected edition of Darling Find.

So sophomore year is finally over for me in just about an hour.

My consolation prize is thinking of all those stupid freshmen who couldn't stop time. Enjoy Old Campus while you can, jerks; it's over. You'll be forgotten and 2012 will be Yale's latest darling.

...Take care, safe trips, etc. etc.

Fall on your tongue like pixie dust, just think happy thoughts and we'll fly home. --Gerard Way
Traffic will tank over summer, but I'll keep posting art. Plus I'll be in Japan soon.

Reuxben

Fun_TakeOut

There is no more Herald this semester, so until we pick up in January, we're going to have to make do with sketches and other oddities I have laying around.

Up first is a series of doodles I did on a discarded Chinese menu while in a very boring Record meeting. For a humor magazine, the meetings are pretty dull.

So there's a bandit!

No, I don't like Chinese food.

But I do like My Chemical Romance.

So I drew a guy based on Gerard Way's old "look" from Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge.

I practiced drawing emotions I was feeling during the meeting, and exploring my own style as well as trying out new styles based on Humberto Ramos and Francisco Herrera. This emotion screams, "Get me Out of Here!!"

"Blah...BLAH!"

"Ok, ok, pay attention, pay attention.

This doesn't concern you at all, but try to be a team player."

"Ugh...zombie."

This is a sketch from the recent Purple Crayon Midnight Madness performance. Really enjoyable, although there were some dull spells and the ending fizzled.

I was thinking of Herrera when I drew this one.

This is a cat-like creature wearing a bowtie.

Of course.

Reuxben

Fun_SketchySketcherson

I didn't think the Daily Post Challenge would actually challenge me for content, but without a scanner, I'm scrounging around my computer for latent artwork!

So here's a first: basically a completely unaltered page from my sketchbook.

I had to trim the top because for some odd reason I had written a phone number there, and I don't think whoever owns that phone number would appreciate that. But now I want to know whose number that is...

This was another What Not to Wear drawing session, of course. No real stories behind any of the sketches, really. Except the guy at the bottom smiling and throwing his arm out. That was modeled after this picture of Gerard Way where he's psychotically unveiling Frankie tied up in a Houdinni-type water trap. Everyone in My Chemical Romance was themed after Victorian period magicians.

Also, the big, hulking guy smashing earth on the far left was modeled after one of the lamest characters ever: the Hulk.

Gobble gobble,

Reuxben

Herald_MCRMCS

It's Herald: Week III. I haven't yet seen the printed Herald this week, but I have a strong hunch the printing is going to be terrible (UPDATE: it is). I'm hoping for the best (UPDATE: don't be stupid).

Well, I wanted to do a non fanatical comic about My Chemical Romance, but after getting transfixed on Motion City Soundtrack thanks to an old Northern California chum's enthusiasm, plus an actual conversation involving panel 3, I went with this idea.

Easter eggs: Conan O'Brien's hair, Arctic Monkeys' old logo's M, MCS's "The Future Freaks Me Out," and MCR's "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)."

"Fun" Facts: Some expressions from Johanne "Rufftoon" Matte's "Sokka Sheet." I watched/listened to "Zaboomafoo," "Wishbone," and "The Simpsons" while inking this in the Swing Space TV room. This is our first color comic and although I don't like coloring, it was actually pretty fun, so thanks to Loide's markers.

UPDATE: Here's the printed version of the comic--it's not as easy to see here, but trust me, the thing is blurry as heck and pixelated.

Note the Herald Editor-in-Chief told me, "Yeah, it'll probably be just fine, ok *dashes off*," after I showed her a noticeably pixelated proof in the office.

Being Comics Editor isn't as pleasant as I thought it would be.

"If this is the coronation, I ain't feelin' the love." --Gerard Way

Reuxben