151 replies to this topic

[stephanie familiar]

I apologise for this but, in my head, I have long seen the Two Davids as a version of the Spitting Image Two Davids from the 80s, with Meadows as a more mellow, phlegmatic Owens and Chapman as a dyspeptic, bellicose, crotchety version of Steel, on a mix of speed and acid.

*wipes tear*

[garjones]

[Ogul]

Huh.

Ogul: What’s your avatar all about and why do you never change it?: He's Shikamaru from Naruto, my favorite character in that series (pulled from one of the show endings and originally animated) and I think it's a cute avatar. It's not the most representative of the "current me," but I don't change it because I like to keep a consistent "face" on the board. Every time one of you guys changes an avatar I have to relearn what you each "look" like.

Also, what are three things you couldn’t live without?: Hmm, aside from the basics, my computer, Wikipedia, and family.

[Jim Ohara]

My question to Jim:: How the hell do you find the time???

Finding the time has been very difficult actually. Each strip is about 4 hours work, from planning what panels to use, to scanning, cropping and scaling panels and blanking the word balloons. Then I just write the strip on the fly in GIMP (I can't write it in advance as I can't make the words fit from a script). The hardest part is making the words fit, and making panels from different pages (and sometimes different issues) work together. I picked Norman this time as he has a wide range of comics to work from - like Max Lord last year.

The longest time however is the administration. Noting the votes, tracking the roster changes, calculating the results. Takes hours. Each week there's around 1000 individual votes cast, and with changes and people not voting clearly it's a lot of work. But the game is tremendous fun and alot of the owners also put in lots of time, so I'm not complaining. I am finding myself getting up 2 hours earlier on a Saturday to prepare the weeks matchups though.

I apologise for this but, in my head, I have long seen the Two Davids as a version of the Spitting Image Two Davids from the 80s, with Meadows as a more mellow, phlegmatic Owens and Chapman as a dyspeptic, bellicose, crotchety version of Steel, on a mix of speed and acid.

That's beautiful. Now I want to cast the board as Spitting Image versions of famous people.

For Garjones: do you still prefer British food, or do you now prefer Asian food. What would your last meal be for example?

[garjones]

For Garjones: do you still prefer British food, or do you now prefer Asian food. What would your last meal be for example?

I probably prefer British food more now because it's more of a rarity. I'd look forward to a Chinese in the past but now I eat it every day, whereas a roast dinner would be par for the course in the past now it's an amazing treat. I never used to eat crisps very much but now get all excited if the expat supermarket gets some Hula Hoops in. It's a bit daft really.

So yeah the last meal would be an Evans pie and chips from Brian's chippy.

[Todd Gross]

Jim: When you moved from Ireland to the US, what was the hardest thing to get used to over here? And what surprised you that you easily took to that you expected to be harder?

[craggy]

gar: what is evans pie?

[Jim Ohara]

Three things stand out:

1) Food. I thought the food would be the same, but it's quite different, particularly with junk food. I missed British food something terrible as a result, and when I finally got to go back home for the first time (which took about 3 years from the time I left) I brought suitcase and filled it with cereal, crisps, chocolate bars, bacon and so on. All ex-pats miss the food, almost more than missing your family.
2) Not drinking at work. In the UK going to the bar for lunch and a quick pint at 5 o'clock was normal. Not so in the states, where everyone went home or they made a big deal about going for drinks (it needed to be scheduled and crap like that). It was only when I moved to sales & marketing that it because a regular thing again.
3) Not swearing. The Irish say 'fuckin' rather than say 'umm' when talking. I had to relearn how to speak for the states.

The thing that I took to easily was sports. When you work in a new place you can only really have 3 conversations: your kids, older TV shows or sports. Otherwise you just talk about work all day. I had no kids, watched different TV shows when I was young so I had to learn sports. It took me about 3 years to learn the NFL - who the teams were, who the players were, who Jonny Unitas or Vince Lombardi or Brett Favre were. Which teams were good, which were bad. You can sound like a real idiot if you don't know the fundamentals. And I became a far bigger NFL fan than I ever was a soccer fan back home. I've since learned MLB (but it's so uninteresting that I just don't care anymore) and now I'm onto NBA.

[garjones]

gar: what is evans pie?

A pie made here:



The bricked up building on the right is where Sir Anthony Hopkins grew up. Bit of celeb trivia there in with your pie news, all part of the service.

[craggy]

ah, i see. i thought it was some special recipe or particular filling that we didn't have here. like you guys won't have a forfar bridie, or arbroath smokies. i thought it was a regional thing, and whilst it clearly is, it isn't as defining a one as I'd have expected. rambling, because i'm thinking of pies.

[Martin Smith]

A pie made here:



The bricked up building on the right is where Sir Anthony Hopkins grew up. Bit of celeb trivia there in with your pie news, all part of the service.

Is there anything interesting about the out of business riding equipment shop next door?

[Will]

Jim: is there going to be a Fistful of Comics 2?

[Adam Wednesdays]

It's part of the Curse of the Davids. I have never been in any group of friends/classmates/colleagues where there hasn't been at least one other David. Where I sit right now there are three other Davids within ten feet of me. I'm constantly turning round to answer random questions not directed at me.

Tell me about it.

Long story short, my real name is Nick. Nick was the most popular boy's name of the year I was born, so there's a lot of us.

At my current job, which I started last week, they have me go by "Alex" because there's another Nick on the job already. It would be bad enough having to learn to call yourself and respond to a different name, but the other Nick sits in the cubicle directly across the walkway from me not three feet away, so every time one of them comes looking for him I start to respond, and then get weird looks from my coworkers who only know me as Alex. And on top of that, my supervising manager is named "Allen," which sounds a lot like "Alex" to someone just learning to respond to that name. And people are constantly calling for him, and when their across the room and I have a phone headset on it can be very difficult to distinguish between when they're calling for him and when they're calling for me. I think I'm due for a psychotic breakdown any day.

[Tonycal]

If I meet any of you will you buy me a beer?

[garjones]

Is there anything interesting about the out of business riding equipment shop next door?

No.

Sorry.

[Jim Ohara]

Jim: is there going to be a Fistful of Comics 2?

Probably not. But I won't say no. It took up lots of time, and with the business time's getting tighter. The VFL was ok at the start, but now I'm really struggling to find the time for it. Summer looks like it's going to be crazy. However, I did enjoy helping people get in print - I just won't try to do the whole thing in 3 months next time if I do it. I'm not sure there's the same artist community here either right now - maybe things will pick up as Mark gets more hits with his new books coming out this year. I'd give it a 15% chance.

I am however thinking about making a VFL book, featuring all the art and strips from the game this season. I'm not sure how many people hit the VFL other than the owners, but I though it might be a fun thing to do. Luckily with Ka-Blam there's not much difference between printing 10 copies and printing 500.

[T Masters]

Here's a question for all:

If you were a bird what bird would you be? And why?

Okay so it's technically two questions. Stop being so pedantic!

[David Meadows]

Neptunian Eagle.

Because they're invisible.

[Arjan Dirkse]

A magpie, because I download so much stuff.

[craggy]

Here's a question for all:

If you were a bird what bird would you be? And why?

Okay so it's technically two questions. Stop being so pedantic!

A robot owl, I'd have adventures on the high seas, and hang about with barechested Greeks.