First of all, thank you to everyone who sent well-wishes this past week. I had a couple of scary days there–almost considered going to the E.R. But I’m fine now and that’s all that matters. Thanks for being understanding and such loyal fans. You guys rock!

I have wanted to write a bit more detailed comment about some of the strips, but life has been kinda crazy. I figured the Booyah would be a good time, so I’m going to backtrack a bit.

Issue 158 - The orange joke was totally inspired by the art. Those oranges are some Japanese pixel art which I used for the strip. When I saw it, the gag immediately jumped into my mind. It is SOOOO appropriate for the Mayor.

Issue 159 - I am a little bummed the second float was blurred. I had done some great “celebrity” smilies for it and they are obscure. 5 points in the forums if anyone can guess who it is! I do hope to feature them in another strip down the line. Also in 159, I love the line “Hey, Mac.” Double play on words there.

Issue 160 - I am really proud how this strip turned out. Not a word spoken, but everything is said loud and clear. I really wanted to do the last panel justice, and I went over a lot of ideas on how to depict it. The long-shot shadow definitely worked best, and I love how it turned out.

Issue 161 - I already commented on this one in an earlier blog, but I did want to note Jim’s favorite line is the cop chiding his partner about wanting to shoot the volcano.

Issue 162 - I think it is so funny, and convenient, how there is always a reporter in the crowd anytime something exciting happens in a movie or on t.v. I thought it would be great to have something happen and there NOT be a journalist around.

Issue 163 - Rasterman was not our first choice for the superhero name, but it was in the top 3. I totally wanted to do the spotlight shot for the second panel, and made sure to use a snazzy comic font for the wording. I just crack up when I see the paperboy ready to bean the superhero to keep him from flying away.

Issue 165 - We debated how we were going to have Blip get a newspaper in this strip. We thought of having the paperboy deliver it, but that would have distracted from the story. We toyed with him just having the paper on his front step. Eventually, I went with the idea of him going out at the crack of dawn to get one. I wanted to do a news-stand, and went searching for pictures for inspiration. The stand I did was replicated from this picture. The Times New Roman is a great name for a newspaper and I’m psyched to have come up with it!

Issue 166 - Designing a new set is always stressful for me. I really try to get something that will reflect the characters. Since this is the first time we see Blip’s wife, I wanted it to be extra special. Originally I was going to go with a different look, but once I got the retro-modern blue theme going, it fit the best and I ran with it.

Issue 167 - The mayor is such a hopeless dope. He was supposed to be a small supporting character, but he has totally developed beyond that and we have a special place in our heart for him.

Issue 168 - I wanted to have a nice strip just showing Pixel life. It was kinda inspired to have Smiley in there cogging it up. While I was doing this strip, all that kept running through my mind is the Simpsons episode where they have all the major league baseball players, and Bart is heckling Daryl Strawberry (I think that was who it was). ROFL!

Issue 169 - Yes, the first three panels are identical to Issue 39. That was totally deliberate, and not simply to be a cheat. I just felt it best illustrated Harry’s transformation from psycho newspaper boy hound to indifferent and rational smiley.

Issue 170 - Are we really only 30 away for Issue 200? I know we poke so much fun of corporate American in this strip, but we can’t help it. Have you ever seen the movie Mystery Men? Captain Amazing is covered in endorsement badges and does commercial. I just think the idea of that is wild. Seriously, would any good, upstanding superhero stoop so low?

Actually, more like *several* days late. Though, the dollar part is argueable. Despite being a bit behind, our Booyah is up and we’re pretty pleased with it. 

Of course, fresh off the frustration of a server move, I am tempted to spend a page and a half ranting and raving.  Honestly, the move went relatively smooth.  The problem is that our new server has more advanced security, which is good from a general standpoint, but not good that a large number of our scripts and programs didn’t work properly.  That included this blog and a bunch of other stuff.  Not to mention that BMW had a longer time propogating than some of the other sites.  Ah, but I promised not to rant, so suffice it to say it was a pain, but we’ve got it (mostly) taken care of now!

It’s amazing that Bitmap World has been around a year! It truly doesn’t feel that long at all. There was so many plans we had when we started, and we’ve only begun to explore some of them, and there is so much more to come.  We had hoped to start one storyline in particular with this Booyah, but instead decided to do a “birthday” strip with Issue 134. Wanting to do an Easter strip too, we figured we’d just do a few stand-alone strips and will begin the planned storyline next week.

Speaking of the birthday strip, this is again one of those comics that is more real-life than not.  Our kids LOVE bubble wrap and fight over it.  While I have never actually gotten them a roll of it, I’ve considered it.  And I have to admit, I love popping it to.  Why the heck is that so much fun?!  Whatever the reason, it is.  I can totally see my kids having a great time with a big roll of that stuff.  I’m not sure if Jim would be like Harry, thought I’m sure he’d pop a few anyway.

One of the big complaints about some comics in general is that white space is not good.  We have always held that Bitmap World is deliberately minimalistic, since we want to invoke the feelings of the old computers of days past.  Still, adding some additional color is something we have wanted to do, and have made the leap to give many of our “sets” a splash of colors. In all selfishness, we didn’t want to have to go back and color all the past strips, so a convenient little explanation was crafted.

If you visit YouTube, be sure to look up the song, Code Monkey.  It’s a great song written by a talented free-source musician, Jonathan Coultan Jim and I both love that song, particularly since we are the programming types.  I have dreamed of doing a mini-movie to the song using Bitmap World characters.  I may still yet…perhaps when I get more time in the future (whenever that will be).  Still, I wanted to somehow give a nod to the song and did so through this comic.  This is another slice-of-life strip.  My kids can’t stand when we like their stuff, even though we’re the ones that got them interested in certain types of music/movies/shows.

Last, the Easter strip. Honestly, we didn’t plan this one to be a big commentary piece. We were just talking about the Easter Bunny and then the idea was tossed around about the Macrohard bunny being at the mall, and then it went from there.  That said, both of us do find it ridiculous that there has been a trend of companies to “claim” holidays, and even seasons, as their own.  Did you know that Country Time Lemonade, Corona, and Borden’s Ice Cream all claim to be the official sponsors of Summer?  I wonder who they pay royalties to, Mother Nature?

There’s a ton to this Booyah, so remember to check out our News page for details.  We actually had more planned, but our server woes had to come first. The good news is that next month we’ll have a nice Booyah too!

Happy Spring, everyone.  And Merry Easter, too.

At my last job the big push was to get everyone certified. Honestly, the company really didn’t care if you knew how to do the work, they just like to brag that all of their employees were certified. I took classes, and I boned up with study manuals. I passed tests too. Though, to this day if I had to recall much of it, I couldn’t. I can program. That’s something I can do. I’ve been doing it for 27 years (I’m not that old, I started when I was 11). My last several jobs were programming jobs. Yet, when I went on interviews, I was constantly being asked to take these tests to prove I could code. Granted, I know there are a lot of script monkeys out there who manage to do okay writing little scripts and such, and they want to weed out the casual coder from the hardcore programmers. Still, I hated being treated like I didn’t know what I was talking about when I had done this for how many years. So, what did I have to go and do? Get certified.

I guess my big gripe is not certification in general, but the move Corporate America has made to have *everyone* certified. That whole idea that it’s not good enough for you to do your job, but you have to have a piece of paper to prove it.

Oh, and the fact that all of it COSTS so much. Seriously, thousands of dollars for classes, hundreds of dollars for study materials, and two or more Ben Franklins at a crack just to take the test. Frankly, I think it’s a big conspiracy to make all of these testing companies richer. But, hey, that’s just me.