I’m trying to recall if I ever got a comp copy of anything.
Paradox
I’ve only ever gotten one comp copy, and I didn’t even write anything
My friend did movie reviews, but legally cannot obtain a license, so I’d drive him to movies (sometimes before they were officially out) and get to watch them with him for free
One time he gave me a copy of the thing his review was in
I mean I’m pretty sure that’s generally not how writing for a newspaper works, given that there’s a certain expectation that the news be, you know, new.
Clif
Dorothy is organized and plans ahead. She has her stories all mapped out and ready to go up to the day she is elected President.
Perdellian
Does it count as Mary Sue fan fiction if you’re using your own name?
Thag Simmons
Sometimes you write the article for something before it happens. Obituaries in particular.
depends on if she’s in charge of ‘current events’ rather than ‘op eds’ though there could be ppl she’s scheduled/interviewed weeks before the article goes up, depends on how relevant it is to campus life
We gonna get some Joyce and Malaya and Mary interactions? They’re the art people in this comic. Although that life drawing teacher is a hack and I will die on that hill!
I don’t think the comic gig was advertised well it was word to mouth. Walky only heard about it from sitting in on Jen’s meeting and Joyce only knew from Walky so I don’t other student artistic or not know enough to be salty about it.
maybe she’s not interested in art as a career b/c it’d be too ‘hippie’-ish for her?
but yueah i can’t imagine her doing anything not too preachy or repressed lust like with her bf and that halloween ‘display’
Sirksome
Mary will probably become a right wing political cartoonist with a bunch of twitter followers for her reactionary comics about President Keener.
brionl
Mary is going to be Jack Chick for the 21st century.
seen2much
Mary will become the Ben Garrison of her Generation.
Sirksome
Mary, the anime Ben Garrison! That sounds so awful I’ll be disappointed if it doesn’t happen!
Mary probably has a webcomic that’s basically Anime Mallard Fillmore.
Needfuldoer
Oops, she forgot to tell a joke. (︶︹︺)
Plain Marie
Some comics forget to tell a joke, don’t they. I can think of another one I see in the paper. All ill disguised snark and “clever” references… that is… somehow… not actually humorous or a joke. I’m thinking of Mary as a cartoonist. *shudder*
mrnoidea
Pretty sure I got disillusioned with newspaper comics at the age of 12 for this reason.
Here’s a strip example:
-crab sounds angry
-fish asks crab “Why are you angry?”
-crab says “It’s an election year.”
A newspaper editor somewhere decided that was a moneymaker.
Needfuldoer
And don’t you DARE alter the boomer humor formula, or else you’re going to get so many letters to the editor and whiny online comments complaining you made it “w o k e” while dancing around what their definition of the word actually is.
Heaven help you if you make the art more complex than Hi and Lois…
Ravian
Absolutely destroying Sherman’s Lagoon here today aren’t we? 😛
Don’t worry, it deserves it.
Keulen
I don’t read newspaper comics as often as I used to, mainly because I don’t read the newspapers that much anymore. But when I do, I usually check the comics first, and at least half the comics in my local newspaper don’t really bother to do more than the lamest of jokes. And most of them don’t have very interesting storylines either.
I disagree. Admittedly we’ve only seen him a couple of times very briefly so it’s not much to critic his teaching methods but he never offers any instruction. Mary clearly needs some fundamental instruction, but he just keeps saying “good job” which will just cause her to stagnate. The same goes for Malaya who is far more technically skilled than Mary but he just offers her praise instead of criticism or instruction. That’s not how you teach people to draw. Malaya has actually taught Mary more about drawing than he has!
It really looks to me like he just walks around looking at drawings and spouting vaguely artistic nonsense instead of instruction. Like maybe teaching Mary about the planes of the face which is a very simple entry level technique for drawing faces, but no. I guess dude’s name is Hyde but it really should be clown. I hope he does better when/if we see him again.
Tadpole7
My experience with life drawing courses often had the bulk of the instruction up front with deconstruction towards the end. Often in the middle she or he would wander through the class occasionally offering comments/guidance to students. Usually offering more concrete guidance to those who asked or were visibly struggling. Generally if a student was resistant to input they tended to let them be, with more pointed advice on completion or end of class.
We’ve not seen anything but him interacting with a student, Mary, who seems determined to keep to a stylized look and not open to change. And with Malaya who seems to have an excellent grasp of this course thus the instructor says something positive and leaves any specific nitpiks to the critique section.
Honestly we have not seen enough to tell if he’s good or bad at his job.
Tadpole7
Taking another look at the first linked comic. I would say he seems to be using a nonconfrontational way of saying please be open to trying something outside your comfort zone.
Makes me wonder if he has had a lot of anime kids who had negative experience with teachers shitting on their prefered style. He could be trying to find a way to finesse Mary expanding her range without provoking a compllete shut down or discouraging her inher first year.
pure speculation.
Sirksome
Your take is fairer than mine. It just bothers me cause when I started art school I drew much like Mary does. She probably just copied or memorized her favorite “How to draw manga” book in middle/high school like I did. When I went to art college and had my first life drawing class I learned and improved a lot because my teachers actually taught me how to draw. So Mr. Hyde just saying “good job” kinda triggers me when he could be doing more. I’d be the same artist I was ten years ago if he was my teacher.
Tadpole7
Fair point. I may be biased from the community college art courses I took
I will note that the drawing and composition courses were more like how you describe your experience.
Also a lot of my art classes had a wide mix of ages, experience and course levels within the room. Which is a very different flavor of interaction than my other classes with people my age. In addition to rarely having the same art teacher except in life drawing classes.
Funny enough, my position at that game studio was gonna be creative assistant and involve helping design / flesh out characters, including an ADHD autistic girl.
I can’t speak for what Willis means but to my knowledge “front-butt” is an anatomy mistake where you attach the torso to the legs improperly making it hard to know if the character is standing forward or backward thus potentially having a butt on the front. Or maybe it’s a reference to Futurama.
Blackdrazon
Thanks for this! I don’t suppose anyone can point at a Roomies! strip with front-butt?
Sirksome
You can find it in the first strip but I think the second strip is better. Both Danny and Joe potentially suffer from front butt….maybe. I can’t pretend to know what Willis specifically means when they use “front-butt” there are many different ways to describe art mistakes.
Proxiehunter
Well I sure hope that’s what Dorothy meant because I’ve only heard it as a juvenile euphemism for a persons lady bits.
Fnord
Same here, I was wondering if we were getting the Ding Dong Bandit’s revenge or something.
Sharaku
It’s also the simple inclusion of a horizontal line at the bottom of the front crotch area. I find it’s usually done by artists who are a little nervous of drawing creases around the crotch area that could be interpreted as male genitalia but still end up sketching a line to show the difference between the hip area and the legs (creating a front butt!).
I believe front butt is a reference to how Joyce draws a human female’s breasts. Considering Joyce draws similarly to how Willis used to, I’m guessing this strip is a critique from Willis about his own artwork.
128 thoughts on “Keen eye”
Ana Chronistic
me getting comp copies of things I worked on and already bought bc idk how things work
Queen Anthai
I do a lot of proofreading and copyediting and to this day I don’t know how they decide what comp copies I do and do not qualify for.
Clif
I’m trying to recall if I ever got a comp copy of anything.
Paradox
I’ve only ever gotten one comp copy, and I didn’t even write anything
My friend did movie reviews, but legally cannot obtain a license, so I’d drive him to movies (sometimes before they were officially out) and get to watch them with him for free
One time he gave me a copy of the thing his review was in
Needfuldoer
Technically, part of the revenue is yours, so you get a slight “out of one pocket and into the other” discount if you think about it.
milu
If you think about it yes, but if you keep thinking about it no
darkoneko
How many articles did you write for it ? 😮
jeffepp
She has a bigger buffer than Joyce.
thakoru
I mean I’m pretty sure that’s generally not how writing for a newspaper works, given that there’s a certain expectation that the news be, you know, new.
Clif
Dorothy is organized and plans ahead. She has her stories all mapped out and ready to go up to the day she is elected President.
Perdellian
Does it count as Mary Sue fan fiction if you’re using your own name?
Thag Simmons
Sometimes you write the article for something before it happens. Obituaries in particular.
And sometimes you take more drastic measures
Needfuldoer
DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN
milu
KEENER DEFEATS DESANTO
Yet_One_More_Idiot
AMERICANS SEND MAN INTO SPACE AHEAD OF USSR!
Decidedly Orthogonal
DEEZ FEETS!
Wizard
Peter Parker made a living that way for years.
anon
depends on if she’s in charge of ‘current events’ rather than ‘op eds’ though there could be ppl she’s scheduled/interviewed weeks before the article goes up, depends on how relevant it is to campus life
Doctor_Who
Dorothy has a whole scrapbook of articles about the time she was kidnapped.
It’s super healthy.
Bryy
oh fuck i’d actually believe that.
Dara
She does, but I think she calls it a “dossier.”
Reltzik
Hollywood taught me that’s not a warning sign unless you’re pinning them up to the wall and connecting them with string.
Mr D
RED string
Sirksome
We gonna get some Joyce and Malaya and Mary interactions? They’re the art people in this comic. Although that life drawing teacher is a hack and I will die on that hill!
anon
lol i wonder how many other art students would be salty that a non art major got the ‘job’ but i dunno how many electives joyce would’ve signed up for
Sirksome
I don’t think the comic gig was advertised well it was word to mouth. Walky only heard about it from sitting in on Jen’s meeting and Joyce only knew from Walky so I don’t other student artistic or not know enough to be salty about it.
Thag Simmons
Well none of them actually signed up for the gig so they can’t complain
Nono
Huh, wonder why Mary has never tried to draw a comic for the paper. Maybe it frowns on anime and/or evangelical sermons.
anon
maybe she’s not interested in art as a career b/c it’d be too ‘hippie’-ish for her?
but yueah i can’t imagine her doing anything not too preachy or repressed lust like with her bf and that halloween ‘display’
Sirksome
Mary will probably become a right wing political cartoonist with a bunch of twitter followers for her reactionary comics about President Keener.
brionl
Mary is going to be Jack Chick for the 21st century.
seen2much
Mary will become the Ben Garrison of her Generation.
Sirksome
Mary, the anime Ben Garrison! That sounds so awful I’ll be disappointed if it doesn’t happen!
Thag Simmons
Mary probably has a webcomic that’s basically Anime Mallard Fillmore.
Needfuldoer
Oops, she forgot to tell a joke. (︶︹︺)
Plain Marie
Some comics forget to tell a joke, don’t they. I can think of another one I see in the paper. All ill disguised snark and “clever” references… that is… somehow… not actually humorous or a joke. I’m thinking of Mary as a cartoonist. *shudder*
mrnoidea
Pretty sure I got disillusioned with newspaper comics at the age of 12 for this reason.
Here’s a strip example:
-crab sounds angry
-fish asks crab “Why are you angry?”
-crab says “It’s an election year.”
A newspaper editor somewhere decided that was a moneymaker.
Needfuldoer
And don’t you DARE alter the boomer humor formula, or else you’re going to get so many letters to the editor and whiny online comments complaining you made it “w o k e” while dancing around what their definition of the word actually is.
Heaven help you if you make the art more complex than Hi and Lois…
Ravian
Absolutely destroying Sherman’s Lagoon here today aren’t we? 😛
Don’t worry, it deserves it.
Keulen
I don’t read newspaper comics as often as I used to, mainly because I don’t read the newspapers that much anymore. But when I do, I usually check the comics first, and at least half the comics in my local newspaper don’t really bother to do more than the lamest of jokes. And most of them don’t have very interesting storylines either.
Tadpole7
Idk he seemed a decent sort for teaching a life drawing class.
Sirksome
I disagree. Admittedly we’ve only seen him a couple of times very briefly so it’s not much to critic his teaching methods but he never offers any instruction. Mary clearly needs some fundamental instruction, but he just keeps saying “good job” which will just cause her to stagnate. The same goes for Malaya who is far more technically skilled than Mary but he just offers her praise instead of criticism or instruction. That’s not how you teach people to draw. Malaya has actually taught Mary more about drawing than he has!
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/wrest/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/contours/
It really looks to me like he just walks around looking at drawings and spouting vaguely artistic nonsense instead of instruction. Like maybe teaching Mary about the planes of the face which is a very simple entry level technique for drawing faces, but no. I guess dude’s name is Hyde but it really should be clown. I hope he does better when/if we see him again.
Tadpole7
My experience with life drawing courses often had the bulk of the instruction up front with deconstruction towards the end. Often in the middle she or he would wander through the class occasionally offering comments/guidance to students. Usually offering more concrete guidance to those who asked or were visibly struggling. Generally if a student was resistant to input they tended to let them be, with more pointed advice on completion or end of class.
We’ve not seen anything but him interacting with a student, Mary, who seems determined to keep to a stylized look and not open to change. And with Malaya who seems to have an excellent grasp of this course thus the instructor says something positive and leaves any specific nitpiks to the critique section.
Honestly we have not seen enough to tell if he’s good or bad at his job.
Tadpole7
Taking another look at the first linked comic. I would say he seems to be using a nonconfrontational way of saying please be open to trying something outside your comfort zone.
Makes me wonder if he has had a lot of anime kids who had negative experience with teachers shitting on their prefered style. He could be trying to find a way to finesse Mary expanding her range without provoking a compllete shut down or discouraging her inher first year.
pure speculation.
Sirksome
Your take is fairer than mine. It just bothers me cause when I started art school I drew much like Mary does. She probably just copied or memorized her favorite “How to draw manga” book in middle/high school like I did. When I went to art college and had my first life drawing class I learned and improved a lot because my teachers actually taught me how to draw. So Mr. Hyde just saying “good job” kinda triggers me when he could be doing more. I’d be the same artist I was ten years ago if he was my teacher.
Tadpole7
Fair point. I may be biased from the community college art courses I took
I will note that the drawing and composition courses were more like how you describe your experience.
Also a lot of my art classes had a wide mix of ages, experience and course levels within the room. Which is a very different flavor of interaction than my other classes with people my age. In addition to rarely having the same art teacher except in life drawing classes.
Bryy
…… oh no.
you’re right.
We’re getting Atheist Joyce v. Mary.
The Wellerman
Can’t wait to see them battle! ?
The Wellerman
Funny enough, my position at that game studio was gonna be creative assistant and involve helping design / flesh out characters, including an ADHD autistic girl.
The timing couldn’t be more perfect. ?
Oh well. Self employment it is!
JBento
Wait, I thought you had gotten the job, what happened?
The Wellerman
Had to lay me off because of budget reasons and stupid European labor laws. ??
BBCC
Joyce is too damn cute here.
Her art will improve with practice, as will her storytelling, but the life drawing can’t hurt.
…Mostly because I want more Malaya and Mary shenanigans. More Malaya in general tbh. They’re an unmitigated delight.
milu
Yesssss well, only slightly mitigated by the hecklers from the comment bleachers
Shush hecklers, start your own comment thread
RassilonTDavros
Joyce can’t hide the blushing in Panel 3 behind a newspaper, no matter how hard she tries
RassilonTDavros
I hope we get a bunch of Julia Gray strips showing the gradual evolution of Joyce’s art style. Gimme that sweet overly-dithered airbrushing, and those lens flares inexplicably centered just above a man’s right buttcheek.
Clif
I wonder if young-Willis feels called out?
Sharaku
This entire strip is young-Willis calling himself out.
The Wellerman
Just what exactly is a “front-butt” ?
Chaucer59
That’s what I was going to ask. Is it a medical condition—perhaps a form of elephantiasis?
Sirksome
I can’t speak for what Willis means but to my knowledge “front-butt” is an anatomy mistake where you attach the torso to the legs improperly making it hard to know if the character is standing forward or backward thus potentially having a butt on the front. Or maybe it’s a reference to Futurama.
Blackdrazon
Thanks for this! I don’t suppose anyone can point at a Roomies! strip with front-butt?
Sirksome
You can find it in the first strip but I think the second strip is better. Both Danny and Joe potentially suffer from front butt….maybe. I can’t pretend to know what Willis specifically means when they use “front-butt” there are many different ways to describe art mistakes.
Proxiehunter
Well I sure hope that’s what Dorothy meant because I’ve only heard it as a juvenile euphemism for a persons lady bits.
Fnord
Same here, I was wondering if we were getting the Ding Dong Bandit’s revenge or something.
Sharaku
It’s also the simple inclusion of a horizontal line at the bottom of the front crotch area. I find it’s usually done by artists who are a little nervous of drawing creases around the crotch area that could be interpreted as male genitalia but still end up sketching a line to show the difference between the hip area and the legs (creating a front butt!).
Good updated example here.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/walkypedia/images/5/55/Roomies1cover.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/180?cb=20140322205247
Clif
Only two comics published and Joyce already suffers from Butts Disease.
Raen
I usually hear it to mean when butt/leg fat bunches up in front of someone’s waist.
Dr. T
I believe front butt is a reference to how Joyce draws a human female’s breasts. Considering Joyce draws similarly to how Willis used to, I’m guessing this strip is a critique from Willis about his own artwork.
Bicycle Bill
I, too, was of the opinion that it referred to cleavage.
AbacusWizard
It’s when you have butts disease, but in the front.
annarchy