Yes, I'm sure that particular nickname took a considerable amount of time and effort.

I like giving my Pokémon really nerdy nicknames that usually have to do with science.

 I just think it's really weird how the guy who teaches you how to catch Pokémon does his little tutorial right in the middle of Viridian City. You know, where there are no wild Pokémon. And how you can repeat the tutorial as often as you want, but it's the same Weedle every time. I feel like this guy's hobby is crafting pretend capture tutorials.

Later games actually have the capture tutorial happen out in tall grass, so it makes more sense.

I had a lot of fun just making him look so ridiculously excited about that "wild" Weedle.

 I get excited by weird things such as Mondays, cottage cheese, and making flowcharts.

In the astronomy community, I hear a lot of stories of laypeople seeing something in the night sky, not knowing what it is, and immediately jumping to the conclusion that it's aliens. Thing is, it's never aliens (as my longsuffering astro buddy Chris Lintott continually reminds us). And there's a lot of other stuff you need to rule out before you can start to think it might be aliens.

Which is why I made this handy flowchart to help you identify what you saw in the night sky! While it may never be aliens, there are a lot of fascinating objects to see in the heavens. Go out and learn more about the stars!

Sad but true story: In 1994, a large earthquake in Los Angeles in the wee hours of the morning left large parts of the city without power. Police and fire stations received frantic phone calls from people claiming that something strange was happening to the sky and wondering if the earthquake caused it.

They were seeing the Milky Way for the first time because of the greatly reduced light pollution.

Let's not have a repeat of this.

As an aside, I grew up in Los Angeles and remember that earthquake quite well. 0/10, would not recommend.

 Let's be real, Oak just really wants to chill at the lab and make other people run his errands.

 Just how old is Professor Oak? His age is never stated in the games. In the fourth movie, which takes place during the Johto saga of the anime, he's 50, and his anime design is nearly identical to his game artwork, so what if we assume he's meant to be 50 in the games as well? Except Gen I takes place two years before Gen II, so Oak would have been 48 in Gen I. (That means he would have been 38 when Blue was born????) 

I think what the games are trying to tell us is that 48 is far too old to be doing anything meaningful with your life anymore, so just go live in a nursing home and save the adventures for the tweens.

 It's always bothered me that Oak's last Pokemon, the one you and your rival didn't pick, just sits on his desk for the rest of the game. Forever. Sad and alone (or possibly in big trouble). And also kinda taunting you about the fact that you'll have to trade with another real live human being if you ever want the other two starters.

 Oh, the earliest generations of Pokémon games, when just one pixelated person could somehow conveniently block an entire road and keep you from progressing.

And there's nothing you can do about it.

 My 7-year-old niece was having a rough day, so I drew this to cheer her up. I feel like her cat Fred would totally be a Litten.

I popped over to the Idaho Museum of Natural History yesterday and did a quick marker sketch. I told you I have a weird obsession with skulls. I wanted to try something a little different from my usual life reconstructions and just kinda meditate on how beautiful bones are. And I don't mean that in a macabre way; living things are such incredible constructions where every part is perfectly tuned to support an organism's role in its ecosystem. I just can't help but appreciate such marvelous engineering.

This is Stegoceras, an adorable little basal pachycephalosaur from the early Late Cretaceous. I didn't realize before now that pachys have a lot of interesting textures on their skull, including lots of rugosity around the snout and front of the cranium with a comparatively smooth dome. They must have looked magnificent in life.

(Also, there are two completely different types of dinosaur named Stegoceras and Stegosaurus, and I need to have a stern chat with whoever's responsible for that.)*

*That's not currently possible considering Stegoceras was described in 1902, and Stegosaurus in 1877. Maybe in the next life.

 Ever notice the weird lack of accommodations for humans in the Pokémon world? (In the games, at least; the anime shows that Pokémon Centers also serve as hotels for trainers.) Pokémon Red/Blue was a pretty innovative RPG in that nothing ever changed the condition of the actual player character; the only well-being you needed to worry about was that of your Pokémon.

And then that changed in Pokémon Legends: Arceus when I fell off a cliff and blacked out and lost half my stuff.

 

Ah, ledges. Such an integral part of the Pokémon universe, and definitely not just a convenient way to gate player progress.

This is just the beginning of the running gag of the NPCs being morons with a strange lack of awareness of the world around them.

 During the most recent Virtual Fossil Friday, we somehow got on the subject of Lisa Frank while doodling ichthyosaurs, and, uh, this happened. You're welcome.

I have to admit it was kind of fun blatantly disregarding realistic coloration.

 I'm aware that I'm the only one who thinks these comics are funny. Good thing this is my blog and I can post whatever I want.

As a kid, I didn't really think twice about the idea of Pokémon battles, but as an adult it does seem like a bit of a questionable practice. Like, you receive this weak, young creature who relies on you for its well-being, and the first thing you do is walk out into the wilderness, aggravate some wild creatures into hostility, and literally throw your creature at them and command it to fight?

I think later entries in the core series do a reasonable job of explaining that Pokémon actually enjoy battling and it's an activity that strengthens the bond between Pokémon and trainers. It's probably also a good way to let a Pokémon blow off steam and channel any natural aggressive tendencies in a healthy and productive manner.

But the way Oak explains it in Gen I is kinda sketch.

 One last character design, for Yonwin! He was so fun to write in Earthkeepers and I think he probably had the most compelling character arc. After (spoilers) helping save the world and becoming the second-youngest Graling in history to earn a warrior's title, Yon has grown from a shy, insecure teen hiding in the shadow of his famous aunt, to a confident warrior, now quite famous in his own right, and secure in the fact that he loves both combat and technology. The Apparats made him a fancy high-tech spear and shield, but I imagine when Yonwin competes with other Gralings, he uses old-fashioned equipment to keep things fair.

It's not really mentioned clearly in the books, but Graling warriors train to specialize in two weapons, generally a long-range and short-range, respectively. This gives them more versatility on the battlefield, and also ensures they can keep fighting if something happens to one of their weapons. Fraa's weapons of choice are a long knife and a throwing club.

Gralings sound like terribly violent creatures, but they're physically hardier than humans and can take quite a licking with no lasting repercussions. That may be part of why they find combat fun, and make a point of organizing battles that are inversely proportional in scale to how serious the issue is that the battle will decide.

 I just had so much fun creating a design for Miette for the novel I've been brainstorming that I wanted to create a design for Kieri too. A few years have passed since the events of Earthkeepers, and Kieri has been keeping busy acting as a political liaison between the Apparats and the surface and sky nations--a job she finds she likes because it's basically just about making friends, which is something that comes naturally to her. As a young adult, she's mellowed out a little bit since her rambunctious youth... but she's still Kieri. And she loves having powered armor that allows her to fly.

I'm pretty sure Miette, Kieri, Yonwin, and Zuben will be main characters in this book, since they were just so fun to write in Earthkeepers, and play so well off each other. (I love writing Fraa too, but a larger cast gets hard to juggle, so I think she'll sit this adventure out.) I have no plans for writing further about Rohui or Wilder, who were supposed to be the two main characters of Skydwellers, but honestly turned out extremely dull. You can definitely tell by the end of that book that I was having more fun writing Miette, Kieri, and Fraa. 

Perhaps it's not surprising, considering Skydwellers was my first novel, and when I was writing the first draft, my focus was more "high-concept science fiction with a suitably professional air of emotional detachment" and not "I want to enjoy writing this". There's a lesson in there, I think.

 A bit more playing with markers. This time around I wanted to challenge myself to only use marker and no colored pencil. It was a little tough because I don't have nearly as many marker colors as pencil colors, but I think I made it work. Also, Prismacolor's brush tip markers are a pretty good substitute for Copic. Unfortunately I only have a handful of brush tip colors. I'll need to fix that when the budget allows.

As far as the subject--I've been tossing around ideas for another book in the Azhnarroth series, about Miette, Kieri, Yonwin, and Zuben having adventures in space. In Earthkeepers, I teased the mysterious disappearance of the Flammarion Commonwealth eight thousand years ago... now it's time to solve that mystery. And of course black holes will be involved.

As Miette, Kieri, and Yonwin were named stewards of Great Engine at the end of Earthkeepers, I thought that by a few years later they'd look the part. I imagine the Apparats probably made them some nifty powered armor.

More playing with markers and pencils! (Please excuse the poor lighting conditions. I'm still trying to figure out how to take good pictures with my phone. In real life the lighting at my desk looks just fine, but apparently my phone disagrees.)

This is Norbin the quickhatch, Lord Saturos's chamberlain at Castle Ravenscrag in a novel I'm working on. Quickhatches are a species that's kind of a combination of wolverine and rat. They have very strong jaws, and are also extremely tidy and fastidious, which makes them excellent housekeepers. Norbin and Carrie become fast friends, and he looks after her as he would one of his own pups. Also he has a Cockney dialect because it just seemed to fit.

I decided to test out my Prismacolor markers after several years(!) of not really using them, and to my surprise most of them still work great! Back in college, I used to really enjoy working with a combination of Prismacolor markers to lay down some good solid flat color, and then go in with colored pencils for detailing and shading. So I decided to try that again with better art skills. It was a lot of fun, and I'd like to do more if I have the time.

As much as I'd like to get a set of Copic markers, they're a little out of my budget at the moment (definitely not because I'm saving up for Pokemon Legends: Z-A, cough), but honestly I find I'm perfectly happy with my Prisma markers. Yes, they smell (don't worry, I turn on a fan and open a window when I'm using them*), but they have the distinct advantage of being already in my possession. 

Anyway, my subject this time around was Marlowe, the leader of the thieves' guild in the fictional MMORPG Heroes of Avonell in my novel Pixeldust. Marlowe was designed to be the quintessential lovable rogue with questionable ethics, but in a twist of irony, she is the only one of the faction leaders who does not turn against humanity - thanks to the friendship of a couple of player characters - and ends up helping them and the game's "villains" save the day.

*This may present problems in the winter when it's like 20 degrees F outside where I currently live. My favorite thing about winter is that it ends eventually.

I thought it would be fun to share some WIP thumbnails of that previous painting, in case anybody wants to see my progress.

Sketch

Underpainting

Head, neck, and most of the sash finished

Painting mostly finished; just missing the bristles and a few last touches

 This took quite a bit of time and effort, but finally it's done! This is concept art for a novel I've been working on. The Quo Qu are a desert-dwelling species who love numbers and mathematics almost to a point of obsession; a common farewell benediction among them is "May the numbers calculate in your favor". Because of their strong mathematical bent, they are also keen businesscreatures, and their coastal city of Toba is one of the largest commerce hubs in the world. However, their love of watching numbers can sometimes make them a bit conniving and willing to take advantage of others to get the sums to come out just right.

This particular Quo Qu is Jawwad, a prominent businessman in Toba and old friend of some of the protagonists. While always looking to swing a business deal in his favor, deep down he is a kindhearted person who regrets that his kind's avarice has put the Plainsmen in a difficult position, and tries his best to make up for it.

The Quo Qu are derived from an idea I originally had for the Plainsmen back in high school--the idea was that the Plainsmen lacked the cognitive capacity for mathematics, and had a mutually beneficial commensal relationship with the Quo Qu, who lived alongside the Plainsmen, because the Quo Qu did all their math for them, and in return were provided for and protected by the Plainsmen. When I got around to writing this novel, I decided that wasn't really what I wanted for the Plainsmen (they have a rustic and nomadic way of living, but are really highly intelligent), but the Quo Qu worked perfectly as the denizens of Toba. In their original design, the Quo Qu had flat faces and large ears, but since moving to Idaho and becoming the one-woman fan club of the Idaho Museum of Natural History, I just kept picturing the Quo Qu as resembling Oryctodromeus, so I went with it. They were really fun to write.

 Again, I don't understand how Blue can claim he picked the "wrong" Pokémon when he always picks the one that will end up having a type advantage over your starter.* What a dolt.

(Also, if you really are getting tired of these comics**, rest assured that I have not stopped producing new stuff. In fact, I'm almost done with a painting and hope to finish it either today or tomorrow. I've just been dealing with a lot and haven't been getting the best sleep, so creative pursuits are a little low on my list of priorities and I just haven't had a whole lot of energy for that kind of thing most days. I'm working on fixing stuff. Hoping to feel better soon.)

*I'm aware that The Pokémon Company prefers the phrase "first partner Pokémon" over "starter Pokémon" in official materials nowadays. But after 20-odd years of fans calling them "starter Pokémon", it's a hard habit to break.

**If you really are getting tired of these comics, that would imply you actually read my blog, in which case thank you. :)

 I'm not really sure how Blue can claim his Pokémon looks stronger when you both have level 5 derpnuggets with two lousy moves each, that just got handed to you ten seconds ago and you've had zero time to train them. I can only assume he's just as delusional as his grandfather.

Actually, a running joke in this comic is that Blue is totally incompetent and doesn't understand the first thing about battling. It's an interesting experience being a franchise veteran setting out on a Pokémon journey where you know battling like the back of your hand, but the rival/friend NPCs are like "did you know Pokémon have types?!?!?!"

 Thought I'd take a break from uploading Pokémon comics that no one but me seems to think are funny and share a few WIP photos of that Oryctodromeus illustration.

Just the line art. At this point I was feeling paranoid that I'd somehow ruin the picture with color, so I wanted to preserve the black-and-white version just in case my colored pencil attempts turned out horribly.

    

Thankfully my fears were unfounded (I think), but I took another picture when I was nearly done, because I was really worried that something might happen to the illustration. Paper is a terrifyingly fragile material.

I definitely don't spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about things.

 Here's a seminal moment in Oak's character development (although whether that's a good thing is... up for debate). I always found it weird that he tells you he only has three Pokémon left and doesn't explain what happened to the other ones. Like, did he release most of his Pokémon when he stopped being a Trainer? Or maybe they were trying to imply that Oak regularly gives his former Pokémon away to new Trainers (and as this was before Pokémon breeding was a thing, eventually he'd run out of Pokémon)?*

Whatever the case, I'm sure it wasn't... this.

I really enjoyed making Oak's expression progressively more psychotic.

I recently showed these comics to my 10-year-old niece and barely got a chuckle out of her. I'm starting to suspect I'm the only one who understands my sense of humor. I'm not really surprised.

*If this is the case, it's weird that he only has three level 5 Pokémon left, and this also implies that he's given away like, a level 100 Gyarados to a newbie trainer at some point? Why is it that he conveniently only has three extremely weak Pokémon left by the time you roll up to his lab?**

**The real explanation for all of this is that this is just a video game and I am putting way more thought into in-universe logistics than the development team intended.

 Oak tells me he used to be a "serious" trainer and I'm just like "then what are you now".

I had a lot of fun giving him absurdly thick eyebrows in this series.

 There's no real joke in this one except "Oak goes unhinged again". Maybe this series is less about a preteen's coming-of-age journey and more about a middle-aged man's descent into insanity. Man, what is wrong with me.

But really, the first panel is word-for-word his dialogue in Red/Blue. I don't know why he laughs in the middle of it. I don't understand what's so hilarious about showing starter Pokémon to a new trainer. I can only conclude that Oak is a few Poffins short of a platter.

 The threat level on Route 1 is... questionable, to say the least.

Also, I had a lot of fun making the Pokémon in this comic look extra derpy.

 This is what I've been working on for the past few days!

Last Virtual Fossil Friday we had an excellent presentation by L.J. Krumenacker (who I have spoken to at multiple Fall Fossil Fests at the Idaho Museum of Natural History) about the ever-lovable Oryctodromeus (Idaho's state dinosaur and a precious little dooper of an ornithopod). One of the most remarkable things about oryctos is that they were definitive burrowers, so host MaggieJo mentioned how cute it would be if they were basically saurian prairie dogs. And so I just had to draw that.

The colored pencil work is kinda rough; I haven't really worked with colored pencil in a while. But I picked up some tips from a couple of excellent colored pencil books, so I feel like I at least know what I'm doing slightly more than before.

Also featuring a guest appearance by Idaho's giant oviraptorosaur, which so far is only known from its eggs. Exciting stuff coming out of the Wayan Formation these days!

 One thing that amuses me about fictional settings with more advanced technology than the era in which the fiction was created is how they almost always get the direction of technological progress completely wrong. Mid-20th-century sci-fi confidently predicted that we'd be living on the Moon with our jetpacks and robot butlers by now--but they never expected the Internet or 3D printing or cringe-y generative AI. (Although, the first Pokémon games came out right on the cusp of widespread cell phone development, so in Gen II the PokéGear is a rather prescient smartphone analogue.)

Also I just realized that Red's hat design changes in these earliest comics. Not sure why. I guess I was still easing into the aesthetic of the series and hadn't quite settled on a design for Red that would be something I wouldn't mind drawing literally hundreds of times.

You might also notice that in this series, one side of Red's jacket collar is perpetually turned up. That's an inside joke; for some reason that tends to happen to me when I wear collared tops. No idea why.

Yeah, I really find myself questioning a lot of things Oak says in this game.

 

 The more I overthink old Pokémon core series intros, the weirder they seem. Like, your character is Oak's next-door neighbor in a miniscule town with an apparent population of 9, and he has no idea who you are?

Also, these first few comics are just the beginning of Oak's very strange character development. As the comic progresses, by the beginning of Book 2 he's somehow become this supernatural entity who is known (and feared) by the Pokémon world.

I love when stuff takes on a life of its own like that.

The early intro screens in the Pokémon core series are actually pretty terrifying. You're in this featureless void, and suddenly someone comes out of nowhere and starts indoctrinating you into a world of monster fights, and I've probably thought way too much about this.

Also I thought Oak's face in the third panel turned out pretty great.

 Oak's gotta give the same speech every time. It's a contractual thing.

 And so an adventure begins...

Now that I think of it, I have a niece who's 10, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about the idea of her going off on a region-spanning adventure, catching and training ferocious creatures with supernatural abilities, and confronting a criminal organization, all with no adult supervision.

... When you're actually 10, though, that whole thing sounds awesome.

All right, let's try this again.

A while back, I drew a Pokémon webcomic where I played through two Pokémon games (Blue Version and Silver Version) and riffed on lines of dialogue that caught my eye. (Which is basically what I do when I play video games anyway.) The result was an unhinged, tongue-in-cheek journey through an odd world of insane professors, utterly incompetent criminal organizations, unnecessarily detailed environments, and the side effects of using too many Repels. I'd previously hosted it on a webcomic hosting site, but that site went belly-up some years ago, so I thought I'd bring the comic back online here so more people can enjoy it. I think it's hilarious.

I'll be putting the comics up on the blog sequentially, so first up, here's the title page! It's called "Trainer Wants to Battle" because so much of the dialogue in Pokémon games comes from the things Trainers say to you before and after you battle them.

 Also, the past few weeks have been a learning experience for me. I was experiencing severe social media burnout, feeling like all my attempts to post and network and build friendships on social media were somehow making me feel even less connected, more isolated, and like I just couldn't get people adequately interested in my work (or indeed me) no matter how hard I tried. 

(Read on for self-reflection that has absolutely nothing to do with Pokémon webcomics.)

Literary thoughts

 You'll have to pardon the lack of new (old?) content. I've been dealing with a lot, my creative well seems to have run dry in this summer heat, and I've been taking some time off to take care of myself because I am very bad at resting. As much as I'd love to just be able to go nonstop and be ultra-productive all the time and write fifty novels a year... humans don't work like that.

One of the things I've been doing while resting is reading (not research papers, surprisingly). There's something emotionally, mentally, and spiritually healing about the power of a story to temporarily take you to a different world, to dredge up fond feelings and nostalgic memories, to allow you to be right there looking over the characters' shoulders, sympathizing with their struggles and celebrating their successes. I've been reading a series of books set in the 1940's that I remember from when I was a kid, and it's been giving me those warm cozy nostalgia vibes. Okay, I'm not quite that old, but it reminds me of my grandparents' neighborhood, of simpler and quieter times, much like the effect of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Anyhow, I guess the whole business has got me thinking about some questionable literary advice I've heard over the years, which then of course makes me want to vent about it on my blog where I'm not actually directly debating with anyone. (I hate arguing. It's so pointless and never gets either party what they want and all you end up with is hurt feelings. I think it's much more sensible to just present your opinion and leave it for people to think about.)

One last old Neopian Times comic. I'm pretty proud of that background actually. (Although, yikes with the composition. Rule of thirds, anyone?)

 If only stat training worked this way. On the website, raising a Neopet's stats is an arduous, expensive, time-walled process, which makes me wonder how the people on the Battledome high score list ever got there. Sometimes, upon completion of training, a pet gets a random super bonus and gets extra points added to the stat they were training. But only sometimes. Much to Hyren's chagrin.

You might also notice that I hand-drew and lettered the speech bubbles in this comic, as opposed to previous comics where I used the text tool and Manga Studio's speech bubble generation tool. The latter, while handy, was also a bit limiting. These days, I prefer to hand-draw speech bubbles because it gives me much greater flexibility, and I feel that it's more aesthetically cohesive than canned ellipses* and dry computer-generated text.

*Man, "Canned Ellipses" would be such an awesome band name. I feel like that's what Johannes Kepler would have named a rock band.

This is the last "Hyren goes unhinged during the Altador Cup" comic, I promise.

 I don't know what more to say about this comic than that I just really enjoy Hyren taking himself very seriously when no one else does. And his face in the last panel just gets me every time.

Looking at this comic now, I realize I spelled "favourite" wrong! For shame! (As Neopets was founded by two Brits, the franchise uses British English and all Neopian Times submissions are required to do the same. Not sure how this one slipped past the radar. Whoops.)

(And yes, that is why all of my Neopets fanfiction uses British English, if you were confused about that.)

 So on the website, when you "read" a book to one of your Neopets (i.e. basically use a book item on them), they say something cute like "Wow, this is one of my favourites!" The lines are randomly pulled from a prewritten list, which was a fun programming trick back in the 90's, but it also results in Neopets sometimes saying things not really in line with their personalities*. 

*On-site, Neopets don't really have personalities; they're essentially just a graphic and some stats, and a large part of the appeal of the website for creative types such as myself is the fun of coming up with personalities and backstories and psychological issues for each of one's pets.

In this old Neopian Times comic, I feel like I kind of like the art more than the joke, but eh. So in the Yooyuball game you can play on the site, there's an ice debuff that temporarily freezes the opposing team, and I guess I just got to thinking about how that would work in-universe. Except this only works for teams with Bori players.

(For those not in the know about Neopets lore, the Bori anciently magically froze themselves as a defensive measure against the Bringer of Night, an ambiguously malevolent demigod.)

I'm not really sure why I ended up drawing so many Altador Cup-related comics. Either the event just sparked a lot of ideas for me, or maybe I just didn't have much else going on at the time.

 

Another old Neopian Times comic. This isn't really franchise-based humor as much as it is an example of my pets' odd family dynamic. Hyren's usually a pretty chill guy, but there are two things that can instantly make him go aggro: his family being in trouble, and someone badmouthing his favorite sports team. Including members of his family.

There is a bit of an inside joke here; Kreludor has historically not been the highest-ranking team in the Altador Cup (although they did win the Cup at least once, as far as I can tell), but Hyren consistently roots for them every year. He doesn't care whether they win or lose--he's just happy to support a space-based team that's not Virtupets-affiliated. And what Team Kreludor lacks in talent and payroll, they more than make up for in heart and not having cheaters or Elon Hughlis on the team.

 I just love Hyren's expressions in this one. Drawing unhinged Hyren brings joy to my soul. He's fun to write as pretty much the cantankerous middle-aged dad of the household.

(Granted, after the events of a fic that I never submitted to the Times but will post here eventually, Hyren would no longer have ethical qualms about Team Virtupets, but he would still object to them on the grounds that they just win too often and that's boring.)

Another old Neopian Times comic. I'm not sure this one scores many points in the humor department, but I just loved drawing manic Hyren in the first panel. There's always got to be one insane sports fanatic in every household. And yes, I am aware that the background Usul's eyes change between panels. I was trying to not make the background characters look static but actually it just turned out distracting. Ugh, I had so much to learn about illustration. I still do.

 Also, Hyren is a big fat liar. His rivalry with fellow Virtupets commanders Garoo and Gormos was practically legendary in the corps. I suspect that with his military days behind him, sports is the only outlet he can find for his competitive streak.

Another old Neopets comic. This one was written by another user and I drew the artwork. I rather like how this one turned out. Maybe don't put Dr. Frank Sloth in charge of anything ever.

 For some odd reason, I find Dr. Sloth really fun to draw/write. I think in large part it's because of the fun of putting my own unique spin on his personality. Canonically, despite being portrayed as the biggest and baddest of all Neopian villains, he's never really been given much in the way of background or character development--pretty much all we know about him is that he's a genius who specializes in genetic engineering and wants to take over Neopia for unspecified reasons.

As he was a major player in Worth Fighting For, however, I took the opportunity to really delve deep into his personality. My vision for Sloth is that of a hyperintelligent being who's always at least ten steps ahead of everyone else mentally, and has no qualms about using that to his advantage. He's calculating and ruthless, but usually not so much malicious as just really dedicated to expanding his galactic empire and ensuring it runs smoothly and efficiently. If you do get on his bad side, though, he's quite adept at psychological manipulation (as Hyren finds out the hard way in Worth Fighting For). Still, being a Virtupets citizen isn't all that bad as long as you know your place in the system.

I actually wrote a long-form Neopets fic that I never bothered to submit to the Neopian Times that's all about Hyren, his family, a rogue Virtupets officer, and Sophix II traversing the galaxy in an attempt to free Sloth from the Space Faerie Token so he can resume leadership of Virtupets, because after he was trapped inside the token, Commander Garoo took over and became an unbearable despot, and at the end of the day, nobody can run Virtupets better than Sloth.

In this fic, we learn that Sloth created Virtupets and conquered most of the galaxy out of a twisted drive to ensure his own survival, after he was left the last living member of his species when they were eradicated by a freak illness (which he had been working to develop the cure for). He's especially interested in conquering Neopia because it's implied that Neopia is the only world in the galaxy that has magic, a novel energy source that Sloth is keenly interested in.

As for how it all turns out, well, you'll have to wait until I get to posting that fic here.

Okay yes Sloth experiences a change of heart and becomes a good guy. I know that will irritate a lot of Virtupets fans. But I really wanted Sloth and Hyren to get some closure after the events of Worth Fighting For, and I personally prefer the idea of Sloth using all that brainpower for good.

Another old Neopian Times comic. Looking at these now, I feel like at times the composition could have been better; in this comic, there's a lot of empty space and relatively tiny characters (and those hands in the second panel could have been positioned way better). To be fair, though, it can be difficult to find composition that works when you've got a main cast consisting of a 170cm-tall human and roughly meter-tall creatures. (It's also slightly implied in my Neopian Times writing that unmutated!Hyren is on the short side even for a Grundo. Wait, I'm not sure if I ever actually implied that anywhere in writing, or if it's just my headcanon.)

(Actually, another reason why the composition was on the strugglebus was because for these comics, I used art software called Manga Studio that had a lot of handy features, but I often never bothered to customize the panel size. So these panels were much wider than they could have been.)

 Oh, right, about the actual comic. On the site there's a game called Pick Your Own where you go into a Meridellian berry field, click random bushes, and hope you get something good. (Most of the time you don't.) Half-Eaten Berries, despite their appearance, are perfectly acceptable food items that your pets can eat without any ill effects. However, Hyren (due to a quirk in the site's programming) won't eat them. He also won't eat Spiced Apple Pie, but that's another story. :)

Another old Neopian Times comic exploring the oddities of random item generation methods on the site.

Mostly I like this one because the spacescapes were fun to draw. The last panel could have been clearer; the idea is that Mira has been going around tossing space food onto (into?) objects in the Neopian planetary system apparently just for fun.

I could go into a whole lot of unnecessary speculation about how many small planetary system bodies are loose agglomerations of smaller components; therefore it is conceivable that an artificial object, upon impact, could easily become buried in the substrate. #overthinkingeverything

 

 I've previously posted some comics that I never got around to submitting to the Neopian Times, but I realized I'd never posted the comics that did get into the Times, so I thought it would be fun to do that for the next little while. Especially considering the NT archive is huge nowadays, and you've got to be pretty bored to go through past issues and eventually stumble upon these.

First off, here's the logo for it. Squid are kind of a running joke with me. (I also really wanted to have a title that did not at all incorporate some variety of "crazy" or "insanity" because those sorts of comic titles had been way, way overdone in the NT.)

On the site, keeping a Neopet's HP full could be kind of a hassle, especially when said Neopet had a lot of HP, and the more potent Healing Potions were really expensive. Training a Neopet's stats was also extremely tedious and resource-consuming. I feel like the Battledome and training Neopets could have been implemented a lot better (although they did eventually make some good improvements to the system); even though battling wasn't really the biggest aspect of the site most of the time, it played an important role in a lot of events and there were also some much-sought-after awards for it, so they could have made the system a lot less painstaking.