So this week I thought I’d take a look back on the artwork of the comic and talk about the changes I’ve made since it began.  Mike and I were recently discussing how Lead Paint is relatively close to its one-year anniversary, ever since we re-launched some time in 2009. As some of you may know, we originally started back in 2007 or 2008, but we ended up taking a nearly year-long hiatus to reevaluate what we were doing and see what we could do to suck less. As a result, you’ll notice a pretty big shift in art between this strip and this one.

During this hiatus, my personal goal as the artist was to just make the art look not not-so-shitty.  I focused my energy on redesigning Colin and Avery, so that their look would basically dictate the style for the rest of the comic. After a few weeks  of struggling I came up with designs that I thought were okay, but I wasn’t entirely thrilled with them. I was stuck for a while after that, until I suddenly came up with these designs:

This is obviously the look that stuck, although the style continues to evolve as I draw more and more. One of the things that began to bother me after I overhauled the designs was Colin’s eyes, which were just too simple and not expressive enough for a main character of the comic. So I made a slight adjustment, and here’s a very rough sketch of what they look like now:

Not a huge change, but his eyes are much more expressive and you can actually see what direction he’s looking in.

Just for fun, here’s a visual timeline of Colin and Avery over the past couple of years (the last shots of Colin and Avery are a sneak peek at next Sunday’s comic):

(man, Avery is angry like all the time.)

Looking back at a lot of those older strips can sometimes be embarrassing and cringe-inducing, but on the other hand it’s nice to see the progression. It’ll be interesting to see what the comic looks like 5 years from now, especially since Mike and I have tons of ideas for both the short-term and long-term future. Hope you guys stick around!

-Dana

MUSIC TIME:

• “A Mighty Sparrow” –Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. The first song to Ted Leo’s new album “Brutalist Bricks.” Someone was kind enough to send me an advance copy of the album after reading my last blog post (Thanks again Todd, if you’re reading this), so it’s basically all I’ve been listening to since then.  I think it’s easily his best album yet.
• “Written in Reverse” –Spoon. From the new Spoon album, which I had been listening to prior to getting the new Ted Leo.  Nothing too different from what they had done previously, but I really like their minimalistic sound and this album’s rougher production quality.
• “Ex-Girl Collection” –The Wrens. The Wrens are notorious for taking an insanely long time to release albums. It’s been almost 8 years since they released “The Meadowlands,” and as far as I know they’re still actively working towards putting out another album. I’m sure they’re fully aware of how ridiculous this is, since the tagline on their website is “Keeping folks waiting since 1989.”

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That’s “Mental Organism Designed Only for Ogling” for those of you who have a hard time with acronyms. The poor green chick trying to hammer out a few thousand squats is none other than the Sensational She-Hulk in case you’re wondering.

Well hey everybody, welcome to our second March MODOK Madness strip! We hope you enjoy it, but if not, no worries. Next week’s strip is a non-MODOK strip, I promise!

I had a lot of fun making this strip. It was completely hilarious finding character references for Dana to work from, exposing her to all the absurdly trampy B-list superheroines of the Marvel U. Not being a huge superhero dork like me, Dana wasn’t too familiar with characters like Scarlet Witch, Ms. Marvel and Tigra, all of who where considered for different incarnations of this strip. Anyone who is a big mainstream comic fan, if you’re looking for a fun experiment, try explaining characters like Tigra to someone who is more or less a superhero-comic outsider. “Well Dana I don’t know, she’s like half-tiger, half chick. Her powers? Being half a tiger I guess. No, I don’t really get what that does for her either. Listen, forget all that, the important thing is that her uniform is just a small blue bikini.  No, no team logos or little utility belts or anything, just your standard Sports-Illustrated style bikini.”

Shifting gears from furry fantasy material, I wanted to thank everyone again who responded to last week’s blog post. I don’t think Dana or I expected a response on that scale, but I think it’s safe to say that we’re glad we were wrong. I know we have a decent chunk of readers, but separated from each other over Internets and computer screens as we are, it’s hard to really understand your existence beyond the little blips that show up on our traffic reports.  Thanks again for reading and your help, and we hope that you continue to enjoy our comic.

<3 Mike

SONGS FOR THIS WEEK:

Let’s get a little MODOK/MODOO theme going this week, shall we?

• “Chick Magnet”–MXPX. Fun song by an otherwise terrible band. I imagine our MODOO singing this one to himself in the shower, or maybe on the commute to work in his AIM hovercar.
• “Flacidism”–Guttermouth. The more I listen to them, the more I realize that Guttermouth is basically a collection of insane people who are somehow able to make music together. The song is about exactly what you think it is, but it’s worth mentioning how singer Mark Adkins sounds both like he’s drunk and dying at the same time during the song (and how incredibly hilarious it sounds).
• “I Love My Computer”–Bad Religion. One of those heavy-handed Bad Religion songs that is kind of annoying, but still, I’m thinking this is how MODOO ends up spending most of his weekends.

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• The project he’s working is fantasy-themed (as in goblins and knights, not in the general “head-in-the-clouds” sense), and also deals with multiple planes of reality
• While it’s going to have humor and action, I guess overall the best way to define the story would be “adventure epic”
• The paneling is going to be fairly cinematic and dynamic (as opposed to something like a standard nine-panel grid)
• The art is stylized, but pretty detailed. It is most likely going to be in black and white
• The story is is going to be structured in a continuous, novel-like way. As in “chapter 1, chapter 2,” etc.

Here are some of the suggestions I’m thinking of sending him:

• Dr. McNinja
• Girl Genius
• Gunnerkrigg Court
• The Abominable Charles Christopher
• Octopus Pie
• Great

I have a few others I’m thinking about, like Anders Loves Maria, but I need to read through them more first. So if you guys have any suggestions, even of print-only comics or regular, nongraphic fantasy novels, it would be much appreciated. Not only would you be helping out an artist-in-need, which should be reason enough, he’s also super-talented, so from a selfish perspective you’re making the smart move. The more you help my pal, the more you guarantee an awesome product coming your way in the future.

Thanks everybody, and see you on Sunday,
Mike!

Edit 3/4/10: Good lord dear readers, thank you so much for all the responses! See my full thank-you like 11 posts down.

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I know Comic book joke = inside joke that some of you might not get, but bear with me for a sec.  Super-hero culture is something very near and dear to me, and this upcoming event is something that I’d really like to promote.

“March MODOK Madness” celebrates one of the best villains ever to grace the pages of Marvel comics: the mighty MODOK. Wikipedia can explain it in better detail, but the gist of the character is that he’s a man, genetically altered by the evil scientists of AIM into a monstrous, telepathic and super-intelligent being. All these extra mental powers cause MODOK’s head to be become so large that he requires a mechanical exo-suit (complete with asshole-based thruster) in order to enjoy basic mobility. Originally intended to help AIM understand a super weapon they were building, MODOK rebels against his programing, kills his bosses, and uses his psychic powers to rule the organization and use it for his own purposes.

Last year, Dana introduced me to March MODOK Madness, a blog dedicated to honoring the bizarre and semi-disturbing villain. For the entire month, artists from all over will be submitting their own interpretations of the flying terror, some of which are pretty darn awesome. Dana participated last year, entering these wonderful pieces. This year, we will be entering as the amazing Lead Paint duo, me completing the non-job of coming up with ideas for Dana to use her vast talents.

The MODOK blog is something Dana and I both enjoyed last year, and we hope that some of you will follow it over the next month, getting the same pleasure. If not, don’t worry. There are plenty of vomiting meat golem and crotch-themed comics that will be appearing soon enough.

<3 Mike

SONGS FOR THIS WEEK:

• “She’s Famous Now”–Reel Big Fish. Catchy tune that has a superior live version due to inclusion of more curse words and some fun Gwen Stefani jokes.
• “Wicked Sensitive Crew”–Dropkick Murphys. One of the funnier Dropkick songs, whatever that means. About the proliferation of Good-Charlotte type bands that are as poppy and fluffy as can be, but for some reason feel the need to dress like punk-rock gangsters from cellblock skullfuck.
• “Hurt Feelings”–Flight of the Concords. Kind of like the above Dropkick Murphys song, except from the perspective of the musician. It’s sung from the perspective of two rappers complaining that no one takes their feelings into consideration.

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1. Ted Leo

Mike mentioned this in last week’s blog about Pancake Mountain, and he wasn’t lying. Ted Leo is probably my favorite musician, and he’s got his first album in over 2 years coming out on March 9th. Matador Records released two of the new songs on their blog, which means that I’ve just been listening to them over and over again (and you can too).

His official website is currently down, but should be up soon with a fancy new design and everything. In the meantime, just watch that Pancake Mountain video again with the creepy kid who stares at him the whole time.

2. Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington

I’m sure a lot of people are familiar with Ricky Gervais at this point, but I personally think he’s much funnier when combined with Steve and Karl. Stephen Merchant is his writing partner on shows like The Office and Extras, while Karl is their old radio producer and one of the most hilarious and fascinating people I’ve ever heard.

They started out doing a show on XFM (which is now available on iTunes), but then moved on to do a series of podcasts and now audiobooks. Mostly they just make fun of Karl, probe his brain, and try to get him to do humiliating things like rub Ricky’s feet and break the world record for eating hamburgers, but Steve and Ricky will also occasionally tell some good stories as well.

I’m not doing a very good job of describing how amazing Karl is, but just listen to the free samples on iTunes and see for yourself. Oh, and if you have HBO you can also watch the new Ricky Gervais Show (which is just their podcast recordings made into a cartoon, but still pretty entertaining):

3. Knitting

Mike actually wanted me to write an entire blog entry about knitting, but I didn’t want to risk boring the shit out of most of our readers. As if I needed another reason to be compared to an old woman, I took up knitting a little over a year ago when I was visiting my good friend Sunny in New Zealand.

I honestly had no idea how insane people are when it comes to knitting, but now I can totally relate to it. It’s like some sort of (very sad) addiction. I haven’t started pawning off family heirlooms for yarn, so I guess it hasn’t reached the point of intervention yet.

If anyone’s really interested in knitting or learning how to, I can do a more in-depth talk like Mike suggested next time (I won’t hold my breath though).

4. Don Hertzfeldt

Yes I blogged about him last time, but Don Hertzfeldt is probably my favorite independent animator. His work is consistently hilarious, but his later films have become strangely moving as well. He also works with Mike Judge (you know, this guy) every year to curate the Animation Show. If you’re near any of the major cities it stops in, I would recommend checking it out.

5. Arrested Development

I know it’s been off the air for years now, but Arrested Development will always have a special place in my heart. Especially since I was one of the few people who watched it while it was still on TV, and I’m usually behind on that sort of shit.

Tell me this isn’t the best thing you’ve ever seen:

I hope the movie actually happens and it’s not just a huge tease like when they couldn’t reach a deal to have the show moved to Showtime. That had me depressed for weeks.

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A little comic based on the end of this older blog post.

I don’t know that I have a huge problem with fast food places, so much as I despise  these businesses’ fucked-up nightmare marketing aimed at children. McDonalds is the main culprit here I suppose, with their flagship character Ronald McDonald being one of the most fucking intolerable creations on this Earth.

I mean, I get that in our capitalist society, you’ve got to do what you can to get by, and if that means you’ve got to sell to kids, I guess you’ve got to sell to kids. But, let me recast my original complaint: What is with the perverse, fucked-up nightmare shit you’re doing to sell your hamburgers and shaped chicken wads?

Why is Ronald McDonald some kind some of /tooth fairy hybrid who teleports around the earth, conjuring stars from his fingers and grinning lasciviously at young children while promising to fullfill all their dreams? Why isn’t it enough for him to just be a funny clown who like hamburgers and wants you to like them too?

I can just imagine the meeting where they decided to make Ronald into a pervert sorcerer:
“Hey, you know what kids love? Shit like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Why don’t we make Ronald more like that, and really capitalize on the hopeful, canine innocence of children that drives them to love anything that brings them gifts and seems a little bit like Jesus?”

I don’t mean to slip so far into “Mr. Tinfoil Hat McShotgun-Shack” mode here, but this kind of advertising is a sore point for me. I’m a little uneasy with advertising directed at children in general, even the metaphor of “shooting fish in a barrel” not doing justice to how easy it is to get kids to want things. When you hone on emotional patterns that are responsible for incredibly pure and wonderful childhood experiences though, like those that drive the Tooth-Fairy ritual, and use it to sell cheap, food-like products, I think a line is crossed. If you’re wondering, the line I’m talking about divides “okay” and “totally evil shittery.” You can infer which way these actions place them on said line on your own.

Hmm. Three or four ranty blog posts in a row. Next week, I promise we will talk about something that I love, in order to keep my Dr. Grumples act from driving 100 percent of our readers away.

LOOSELY ADVERTISING-THEMED SONGS FOR THIS WEEK:

• “Eat the Meek”–NOFX. One of my very favorite songs, I’ve always found it’s lyrics to be particularly emotionally potent. Example: “You know there’s always going to be pedigree/ One owns the air, one pays to breathe.”
• “People That are Going to Hell”–The Vandals. A weird happy and sing-songy tune about shitty people that are, well, going to Hell.
• “Monster Mash”–The Misfits. What? I said loosely themed.

<3 Mike

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I know, I know. You’re saying, “Mike. Pancake Mountain is a name that makes no sense. I’m pissed and confused!” Well listen:

Pancake Mountain is like punk-rock Sesame Street, except it’s made with vastly less money and is sort of inappropriate for children at times. It is awesome and wonderful and hilarious and rocking and adorable all at the same time. Here are some examples:

Ian MacKaye and some chick singing about vowels:

Kings of Leon just making all these kids flip out:

(the best part is the kid in the lime going nuts)

Ted Leo is there! Dana LOVES Ted Leo!

(there is a little boy in this video that just stares at Ted the whole time he play, bobbing his foot. That kid is going to kick so much ass someday.)

There is Fat Mike from NOFX too! He is the best!

(The little girl is Mike’s daughter!)

Now, compare this to what Sesame Street has: Lame-ass Feist singing about counting:

(Okay that was pretty awesome and I love it, but fuck you anyway Feist. I’m still pissed at you because I keep finding songs of yours I like and it’s really ruining my “Grrr Misfits!” street cred. That I never had.)

For more Pancake Mountain action, try Pancake Mountain dot com, or a YouTube search for “Pancake Mountain.” If you think this is at all cool, please thank reader Thomas for being awesome and bringing it to my attention.

<3 Mike (and thanks again Thomas)

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I didn’t get much of a chance to chat with you guys about my trip to Vegas. For those of you who have never been, here are some facts to mull:

• Certain things are popular there that in the real world would be completely intolerable. A good example would be Louie Anderson’s stage show, which is advertised on dozens of huge billboards, both indoors and out. Outside the madhouse context of Vegas, certainly no one would want Louie’s huge pumpkin head grinning down at him/her in a way that is sexually invasive to the point of causing intense, nervous nausea. In Vegas though, that shit is basically everywhere (a close-up on his face from the billboard).
• Speaking of inexplicably popular performers, Carrot Top pretty ubiquitous in Vegas. Not only is he on a hilarious amount of billboards,  he does all the hotel promo videos for the Luxor, the hotel my company happens to adore booking me at. Carrot Top shilling Chris Angel MINDFREAK (Hurrr) or the Bodies exhibit 24/7 on my hotel TV is so surreal and absurd, it seems almost like a Sartre play designed to teach me the futility of humor in the face of mortality and a dude who tells joke with a blow-up doll sometimes. Favorite thing: How Carrot Top does all the instructional TSA videos for the Las Vegas airport. I’m pretty sure this means that the federal government paid Carrot Top to explain how you can’t walk through a metal detector with a giant backpack and a fake arrow through your head. Nice work America.
• You’re surronded by constant and overt sexual socilitations, but it’s way less fun than you would think. Once and while you’ll see a crass display of semi-nudity that is moderately enjoyable, but mostly it’s stuff that’s pretty revolting. Really old and gross cocktail waitresses, ads for strip clubs inside like a Starbucks or police station, and giant photographs focused on the crotches of people who are not crotch-focus-worthy. Again, I must reference both Carrot Top and Louie Anderson, each of which have advertisements that focus on their crotches prominently. 

There are the standard complaints too (everything is expensive, smoking is permitted indoors, the flight is long and terrible, blah blah wah wah) but I should probably stop myself before everyone figures out what a whiny old square I am. And in fairness, I did see something that I really liked in Vegas.

When you arrive in Vegas and are walking through the airport, there is an amazing indoor wall billboard about when you reach the motorized walkway. A girl, maybe 17,  holding an AK-47 beckons you to come patronize the local shooting range. The image looks like it was taken in ‘92 on the cheapest digital camera possible. The ad’s copy promises you can fire basically every gun imaginable at this range. Seriously, it lists like 14 different types of guns on the ad, 12 of which I’ve never heard of before (making the ad that much more wonderful of course). Even now, just thinking about the ad, I’m giggling a bit.

Bottom line of all my rambling: Don’t go to Vegas unless you really need to shoot some paper targets with exotic weaponry.

SOME SONGS FOR THIS WEEK:

• “Forget Me Not”–Wu Tang vs. The Beatles. I’m not even going to describe this song. Just read its title, the name of the artist, and let the obvious awesomeness wash over you. BONUS!: You can listen to the whole song for free on the front page of Octopus Pie right now! Octopus pie is a great webcomic, and if you’ve never checked it out before, I’d recommend giving it a read!
• “Creeping out Sara”–NOFX. A song wonderful in its complete and total inappropriateness, Fat Mike tells a story about a time when he chatted with a lesbian.
•  ”Helena”–The Misfits. Just a little something for Valentines Day. Give it a listen if you’re feeling especially romantic (give it a try on google!).

Have a happy Valentines Day everyone,

<3 Mike

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It’s Dana again. As you may or may not know, I’ve been working as an animator for several years now on a variety of different projects. It’s a pretty fun job, which makes the bouts of unemployment and total lack of job security almost worth it. But anyway, this week I thought I’d share some animated shorts by some very talented people. Most of these are rarely seen by the general public, but thankfully sites like YouTube now make them much more accessible.

“Simon’s Cat” by Simon Tofield

This is actually one of a series of shorts. If anyone has a cat I’m sure they can relate to this.

“Adventure Time” by Pendleton Ward

Ok this is a little long, but I swear it’s totally worth it. I think Mike was the one who introduced me to this, which pretty much explains why we’re such good friends.

I heard that they’re making this into a TV series, which is very exciting news for me (I don’t get out much).

Some people may already know Don Hertzfeldt from his “Rejected” short ( in HD!), so here’s one of his earliest films.  His more recent work is only available on DVD, and you can find them on his website.

And just for fun, here’s something I animated at work a few years back:

Thanks for reading/watching!

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Kate is easily my least favorite character on Lost, even more so than Walt, Shannon or Claire. I really like her cool, escaping-from-the-cops-adventures, but the millisecond those stop, she immediately becomes incredibly annoying. Almost nothing she says or does has any logical causality, and I’ve no idea why Jackface or Sawyer are remotely interested in her, ever, besides the fact that she is basically the only tail on the island. 

Very excited for the new season though. I’m so curious about the endings that a bunch of characters are going to get, like what is going to be Ben’s ultimate fate, hero or villain? Is Jack going to become the bad-assed leader I love so dearly again? Is Sawyer going to survive the season? SO MANY QUESTIONS.

LET’S TALK ABOUT CITIES IN TEXAS:
I don’t know that I have anything interesting to say about my trip to Dallas. I didn’t get to see too much of the city, being there on work, but I’ll do my best to lay some facts on you (for those that have never been I guess. Otherwise, you have your own facts to lay):

• People actually wear cowboy hats and those big, goofy belt buckles. Not everyone, just here and there you’ll see someone standin’ tall in his/her Texas finery.
• The Texas accent is sloooooooooowwwww. “How-dee pard-ner, how a-bout you and I talk a-bout belt buck-els for a whi-ile? Would that be all-right?” I mean, I know being from Jersey, I talk a mile a minute and infix “fuck” into every other word, so I’m no conversational peach, but jesus christ people, let’s speed things up.
• The buildings are huge and spaced out a smidge farther than what I’m used to, and they are like no people walking around in the city (I heard this is because Dallas is a big commuter city?), so the city has this weird, empty cavernous feel.
• There is meat everywhere. In everything. Not the most awesome place to be a vegetarian unless you’re fine with your hotel pillows being giant sides of ribs and all TV channels being 24/7 MeatDonalds* commercials.

MUH-MUH-MUH-MUSIC TIME
On the road this week, so not a lot of time to dig up too much that’s cool, so why don’t we try a theme this week. Um, how about, “Dudes dealing with Ladies?”

• “Holiday Parade”–Samiam. A rocking little tune about a man that is unhappy with how his lady treats him. High energy with some drum parts that I am particularly fond.
• “Don Juan”–Suburban Legends. Ska song with a dude explaining the origins of his success with the ladies. Catchy with cute lyrics.
• “Fell in Love Without You (acoustic)”–Motion City Soundtrack. A good one, provided you’re not afraid to let your emoflag fly once and a while.

Don’t forget to come back on Weds. to see Dana’s next blog post.

<3 Mike 

*MeatDonalds is the Texas equivelent of McDonalds. It is more or less the same, except its food is served without bread, cheese or any of the other salmonela-infested roughage typically available at the national chains. Their mascot, Ronald MeatDonald, is made entirely of raw, unfrozen hamburger meat, and only communicates in screams and wet burbles of barbecue sauce.

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