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
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
2025-01-13 22:20:02 +0000 UTCI deny that everyone can draw. I can't, for instance.
Ross
2025-01-13 22:18:55 +0000 UTCI believe I have proof that you are wrong. Nothing that I can produce can be labeled as drawing by any sane human.
Ross
2025-01-03 21:35:51 +0000 UTCEverybody CAN draw, but not everyone can draw well.
darthfinality .
2025-01-03 21:25:07 +0000 UTCHoward Taylor pissed me off (and still does) for his expressed "not having children is a sign of failure as a human" attitude.
Ross
2024-12-30 14:36:57 +0000 UTCNo, it is absolutely not true that anybody can draw, no more than that anybody can cook.
Ross
2024-12-30 14:35:50 +0000 UTCStick figures are insanely hard. Anything that looks like a human being is insanely hard. Arghhhhhhh!!!!
Alasdair Mackintosh
2024-12-29 08:29:06 +0000 UTCLol I love how we all missed Faye saying “don’t” in the third panel tho
Kristi Siedow-Thompson
2024-12-29 03:17:54 +0000 UTCOh 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
Jon Wilson
2024-12-28 03:41:14 +0000 UTCWell, if not Photoshop and Wacom, how do you currently draw?
Amit Arnon
2024-12-28 01:14:22 +0000 UTCI thought it might have been, but I don't know if it was ever confirmed.
Yelling Bird
2024-12-27 20:47:25 +0000 UTCOff-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.
Robert Heinig
2024-12-27 18:24:39 +0000 UTCPretty sure that was Faye’s justification for it, too…
Hugh Eckert
2024-12-27 17:38:00 +0000 UTCYes, 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.
Angie Penrose
2024-12-27 11:39:17 +0000 UTCLa LO La LO! ~<3
Mitsuki Ayane
2024-12-27 09:40:35 +0000 UTCAlso: 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.
legobil
2024-12-27 08:46:49 +0000 UTCLa lu li LO!
Captain Button
2024-12-27 08:16:13 +0000 UTCWe 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.
legobil
2024-12-27 07:34:11 +0000 UTCHey, sometimes you can be very passionate about particle physics and still end up as a janitor. https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4858
BookBeard
2024-12-27 07:13:16 +0000 UTCAfter 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.
Yelling Bird
2024-12-27 05:11:18 +0000 UTCSorry-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
2024-12-27 04:55:40 +0000 UTCI'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!")
Ursus Ridens
2024-12-27 04:50:18 +0000 UTCThe Theatrical remark is " Talent is the next best thing to having a pushy mother!"
Charles Hirst
2024-12-27 03:50:44 +0000 UTCThis 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).
Captain Button
2024-12-27 03:11:34 +0000 UTCOccasional 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
2024-12-27 03:10:59 +0000 UTCI found Special relativity easy. Tensors and General Relativity defeated me.
Carl Fink
2024-12-27 03:08:34 +0000 UTCshit, I'm still waiting on mine from like last month! 😡
Minzoku Bokumetsu
2024-12-27 02:25:18 +0000 UTCParticle Physics 'might' be a stretch, but in general I agree with you.
Joseph Loder
2024-12-27 01:43:47 +0000 UTCAs someone who now rarely uses a plume to communicate, I have a nom de clavier. Jeph would probably need a nom de stylet.
Charles Hirst
2024-12-27 01:39:30 +0000 UTCI 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.
John
2024-12-27 01:02:34 +0000 UTCIf QC had taught us anything it's that you can always change your mind about things like fingernails and lips several years later
Veronica Jane
2024-12-27 00:22:31 +0000 UTCAt 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.
ValdVin
2024-12-27 00:14:09 +0000 UTCI 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.
Jon Wilson
2024-12-27 00:10:51 +0000 UTCWhere is the archive via Patreon? I was reading 4008 and he suggested reading it here to it in its full glory
dcy665 .
2024-12-27 00:05:24 +0000 UTCNooooooooooooooooo! https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2652
BookBeard
2024-12-26 23:41:30 +0000 UTCRe: 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.
enchantedsleeper
2024-12-26 23:29:59 +0000 UTCI want to live in the city where glasses are made same-day, instead of taking 2 weeks to come in.
Darius Jenai
2024-12-26 23:29:01 +0000 UTCYeah, she was hit and miss here and there.
SilverbackRon
2024-12-26 23:28:56 +0000 UTCWould love to hear more about Bubbles' adventures in glassblowing, actually. I bet she's a dab hand at it.
enchantedsleeper
2024-12-26 23:23:46 +0000 UTCSo close, and yet so far!
enchantedsleeper
2024-12-26 23:22:26 +0000 UTCI remember when Faye discovered she now speaks like a Bostonian. That was the day.
Miyaa
2024-12-26 23:06:23 +0000 UTC*Claire intensifies*
Miyaa
2024-12-26 23:04:40 +0000 UTCDrawing 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.
Veronica Jane
2024-12-26 22:56:54 +0000 UTCI have to admit, the comic number made me chuckle a bit. :)
Ye Olde Phart
2024-12-26 22:41:53 +0000 UTCHuh, Faye does have a contraction in panel 3!
Chelsea Watson
2024-12-26 22:14:33 +0000 UTCIt'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
enchantedsleeper
2024-12-26 22:10:59 +0000 UTCWhat do you draw in/with these days?
Fr0thgar
2024-12-26 22:03:43 +0000 UTCAs 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).
ValdVin
2024-12-26 22:01:45 +0000 UTCOh, 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
BookBeard
2024-12-26 21:55:10 +0000 UTCI loved this art style.
Timothy Roller
2024-12-26 21:54:57 +0000 UTCEarly Marin side-eye
Ben R
2024-12-26 21:43:41 +0000 UTCWhy is Faye in the closet? *looks at giant girlfriend*
John Fiala
2024-12-26 21:42:02 +0000 UTCTalent 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.
Angie Penrose
2024-12-26 21:39:51 +0000 UTCA 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.
James A. Whitney
2024-12-26 21:35:52 +0000 UTCNothing wrong with a bit of casual insurance fraud between friends.
BookBeard
2024-12-26 21:24:49 +0000 UTCTalent is over-rated and over credited. When I look at anything artistic, I no longer see "talent", I see The Work.
Joe White
2024-12-26 21:22:47 +0000 UTCHuh...I forgot how cute OG Faye was.
Joel Bateman
2024-12-26 21:22:22 +0000 UTCIt's a contraction contradiction! Further contraction contradictions are contraindicated.
Benjamin C
2024-12-26 21:19:20 +0000 UTCFew things can convince an unskilled artist how good it's possible to get like reading through the QC archive.
TV4Fun
2024-12-26 21:19:05 +0000 UTCBut Faye uses a contraction in the third panel
Elberik
2024-12-26 21:17:30 +0000 UTCFaye 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.
fluffy
2024-12-26 21:16:36 +0000 UTCI'm definitely on the horrified by how hard it is to draw a stick figure end of the scale
Jonathan V
2024-12-26 21:16:19 +0000 UTC“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.
Argus
2024-12-26 21:15:47 +0000 UTCIt's amusing that you mention the not using contractions in one of the rare comics where she did use one.
Damian
2024-12-26 21:15:40 +0000 UTC
