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Monday, September 17, 2007

An Apologetic APM

Last week's APM turned out kind of sucky. That's the last time I use a Dinosaur Comic to get us started; I guess Ryan North is just funnier than you guys.

This week's APM, while also comics-related, takes a different tack.

Ok, so Tyson said he would buy me a Mac (and Illustrator, I hope!) if I write 10 installments of a comic of my own. So I need a plan, because I have a freshly-sharpened set of extra-hard pencils, nearly a whole empty sketchbook (plus like a whole box of copy paper at school), and suddenly all my ideas are stuck.

Anyway, your task today is to turn yourself (or your secret alter-ego you always knew was hiding in there somewhere) into a character suitable for comics. Give me a few important, definitive characteristics, like "smells like dryer sheets," "pathologically averse to bananas," or "on a mission to save the universe from people who say 'literally' but mean 'metaphorically.'" Then give me a situation your character might be in, like sitting in an all-night laundromat waiting for your child to be born or correcting a stranger's grammar.

If your imagination is good enough, you/your character/your situation might be featured in the first installment of my comic, which will eventually make it to the internet. Eventually.

Small steps, you know?

10 comments:

k said...

Definitive characteristics: 1). Really good peripheral vision 2). Pony Tail 3). Photographic memory. 4). Says "fuck" a lot.

Possible situation: 1). Yes, correcting grammar and proper word use like "not possible" when s/he means "not probable." Don't even get me started on "irregardless..." 2). Using extremely deviant and creative mind skills to right wrongs. 3). a knack for well meaning or innocent thoughts to come out of the mouth all wrong -- use your imagination 4). The super-ability to see into a person's heart (soul) beyond their good or bad actions.

Brannon said...

Brannon is proud of Brannon when Brannon remembers to use pronouns. He also over-enunciates them. He cocks his head and glares when he speaks them.
This confuses people. He thinks they're just stupid.
Brannon's face is somewhat disfigured from get beat up everyday as a child and about every other day as an adult .

Okay Erin, do your best. . . and don't humiliate me.

Brannon said...

Elaine's Character is built like a brick shithouse and deeply in love with Brannon.

k said...

B must be thinking of the original model... e-01, the pre-childbirth model, at least in regard to built like a brick shit house part.

Then there was the e-02: one child model

Then the e-03: two children model

and now the e-403: over 40 and 2 children model.

Erin said...

How, exactly, is one built like a "brick shithouse"? I've heard the "brick house" one. Would being built like a shithouse entail flimsy plastic-ness like a portapotty? Or sort of nasty and bedraggled like an old outhouse? Or maybe unsanitary because there's no sink?

Then, just when I think I figure something out, then I think it must be a joke because why would someone have a brick shithouse?

Unless it's like the nice ones they have at national parks, the ones with pit toilets instead of flushy ones? Then if you were built like a brick shit house, you'd be thick, but well-cared-for?

Maybe this is what my first comic should be about.

k said...

Built like a Brick Shithouse

Brannon said...

Brick Shithouse

Unknown said...

Elaine -- you be hot.

Unknown said...

I also like this one, Miss Babe-a-licious:

Brick Shithouse II

Unknown said...

Definitive Characteristics:
1) Her right eye is noticably larger than her left; a fact that she tries to conceal by tilting her head slightly to the side with her chin down and looking up at people from an angle. This has the unintended effect of making her appear both charmingly sheepish and oddly mischievious.
2) Due to a childhood trauma (of which she will not speak) she will not eat, wear, or touch anything orange -- thus rendering her irrationally apprehensive of crossing guards in orange vests, traffic cones on the freeway, and the "Orange Julius" stand at the mall. 3) Despite the fact that she will never be described by anyone as a "classic beauty", there is something mysteriously alluring and sensual about her. This quality is only magnified by the fact that she has absolutely no idea that she possesses it.
4) She will -- and has since she was 16 years old -- only worn two types of footwear: rollerskates and combat boots. This WOULD, of course, limit her occupational choices considerably if she weren't (quite fortunately for her) both a freelance writer and a carhop.

Possible Situation:
Although she writes for mainstream political mags and slings milkshakes to pay the bills, the covert and anonymous articles that she writes for the city's underground "'zines" are her true passion. On this particular night at the drive-in where she works, she is awaiting the arrival of her latest source -- a mysterious man known only to her as "D" -- a man who she will instantly (and quite eagerly) recognize by his windswept 1980's Bruce Willis haircut, his loud yet surprisingly sexy hawaiian shirt, and his shiny silver Vespa.