I’m tired, so I’ll make this a pretty quick update. First of all, I’d like to apologize for waiting until Friday nights to do my wisdom. The semester is winding down and I like to pretend that I have a ton of shit to do during the week… Mostly I just forget, though. But that’s not what you guys come here for. You guys come here to read about the comic, right? At least, I’m hopeing that that’s what you all come here for. Anyways, I’ll get to that in a minute.



Before I go and rant about the comic, I’d like to make an announcement: I just want everyone to know that me and the guys are going to be hitting A-kon this summer. I know that’s like a month and a half away, but I just got confirmation that we’ve got a table and I’m really excited about it. This’ll be the first time I go to a con on business.



So, most everyone has their tables there in the Komic Market… and they just sit there doing sketches and hanging out trying to pedel their goods. I plan to go bananas. I’m not sure what’s going to go down, but I assure you that we will make our presence known. So, if you plan on going to A-kon, make sure to stop by our table. You’ll know it when you see it. You won’t be sorry because there’ll be awesome stuff at our table… like Henry Rollins and Danzig and Solid Snake. And stuff. I’ll make another post about this closer to Go Time.



Right, so about the comic.



I don’t exactly remember what spawned the idea… I know it was a conversation with Pillboy about Solid Snake and Abe Lincoln. It probably went like this:



Me: So what’s going on?

Him: Not too much… I’ve got to write a paper..

Me: On what?

Him: Abe Lincoln.

Me: Oh? Find anything intersting?

Him: Yeah… Well… You know, he freed the slaves and stuff.

Me: …

Him: And gave the Gettisburg Address… And he was president.

Me: …

Him: And he beat the south in the civil war

Me: He must have been pretty hardcore, then

Him: Yeah, well… if you grew up in a log cabin and went up to Alaska to mush dogs after retiring from a life of industrial espionage, you’d have to be pretty hardcore.

Me: What?

Him: And then when they got word of a new secret weapon, they called him up and said, “Look, we need you to come down here and destroy this secret weapon before they can sell it to the russians." So, naturally, old Abe had no choice but to oblige his old commander and battle his enemies once more.

Me: Uh…

Him: So he gets to the drop point and he’s like, "If you need anything, just call me… on my codec" and then he started snapping the necks of these random guys and eating rations.

Me: Dude…

Him: But before he’s through he has to go in and kill the Metal Gear with his stinger missles… Because that’s the only way TOO kill a Metal Gear… unless you’re Henry Rollins.

Me: I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m afraid you’re facts may be a little off…

Him: You think so? … Yeah, you’re right, maybe I’m thinking of Solid Snake.



Okay… So actually it probably went more like this:



Him: So I have to write a paper about Abe Lincoln

Me: Oh?

Him: Yeah, Lincoln was pretty hardcore

Me: Like Solid Snake?

Him: Exactly like Solid Snake.



If you knew Pillboy, however, you could easily see how the first conversation could have happened. And if you combine a conversation like that with the infamous "Peter Nguyen essays” you get this week’s comic. The idea of Pillboy actually writing a paper where Abraham Lincoln is a commando/spy/super soldier the likes of which have only been seen in Metal Gear Solid is extremely plausable.



So, basically what I’m saying is that this didn’t actually happen. We discussed Abe Lincoln being awesome like Solid Snake, which, in my mind, mutated into the comic.



Anyways. As far as art goes, I’m very happy with this comic. I didn’t trace Lincoln like I had done with the Zima bottle and Clint Eastwood, yet he still came out alright. I did, however, trace the Metal Gear Rex from this <a href=“http://arda.jexiste.fr/mgs/1/images/metal_gear_rex.jpg” target=“_blank”>picture</a>. Even though it was traced… It took a long time. Tracing is no easy feat, let me tell you. You’ve got to have a steady hand and an eye for details. Also, the codec screen was partially ripped from a screen shot.



There are no real big milestones this issue. That background in the second panel looks like pretty hot shit, though, huh? I think I might start doing some stuff like that a lot more in future issues. Cuz it looks awesome.



The only thing that even slightly bothers me about this comic, now that I’m looking over it again is that maybe I should have swapped panels 6 and 7. I’m not sure if that would have improved it or not. So I’ll leave it as it is. While the comic is funny, it doesn’t flow quite right. It lacks that comic timing I’m usually able to work into my comics. I think it’s cuz this one was sort of rushed a bit and not very well planned out. But it’s all water under the bridge now, so to speak.



And that’s all I’ve got for today.



Weekly wisdom: Sin City is hands down the best movie ever created.



Also… If you’re interested in running a webcomic and need a nice simple PHP script to help manage your comic archive and facilitate auto updating… I present to you <a href=“/ACU.zip” target=“_blank”>The Awesome Comic Updater</a>. This is the script that I wrote for Poonheads. Right now, I’m working on remaking the wisdom script using XML. When I get that working well enough I’ll release that to the world, as well.