how to build a car with only three tools

#253 - "Chikan Fingers"

And we're back with another strip. Is anyone still reading this stuff?

Hopefully this makes more sense in color, but I have the feeling that it'll be another one that is funny only to me (sigh). I'm taking a short break this month to dedicate myself to a test that I have at the beginning of July. There's more to come, however!

Yet another uncolored strip. This one is the second in the five-part Christmas special that will be posted in December (albeit fully finished).

Chaffed Dickens 1 of 5
Chaffed Dickens 2 of 5 <- new one here

This strip adds another new character into the Mike series, Melanie.

Spelling corrections are welcome, but please hurry as I only have 7 months to fix them.

This will make more sense when it's colored.

click here

What the woman is holding in the last panel should be a clue to what happened.

About the last post when I posted about the Pirate Bay SL torrent, I didn't properly state that I felt truly flattered that someone would take the time and trouble to do that. There was a time I would have ranted and raved, and wasted tonnes of energy being angry about it. I used to take myself way too seriously, I think. Now, I am truly thankful that people have enjoyed the work enough to want the jokes and humor to be kept alive in some form. Although I don't think I've done anything earth-shattering, it means that I have managed to do something that is worth keeping to others. That's a proud accomplishment, I think.

As I said in the last update, I would post strips from the upcoming Christmas special as I've done them. Well, this isn't done, as it needs coloring, but I'd thought I'd show it anyways. Who is Matt, you may ask? He's the founder of sensibleerection.com. a news/blog/forum that has supported the strip in many ways through the years.

Things of note.

1) Worked on the 10th anniversary logo although it doesn't look pretty on the site yet. Soon special anniversary essays and tributes will be posted, such as critical essays from Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman, and guest strips by Will Eisner and Scott MacLeod. Actually, I lied about the essays and guest strips. I don't know anyone famous, nor know if anyone famous has ever read the strip. I have a suspicion Robin Williams may have nicked one of my jokes but that's the closest I've come to celebrity. I'll figure SOMETHING out for the 10th anniversary.

2) There was a day when this would have completely and utterly pissed me off. I'm glad those days are far behind me. It amazes me that someone took the time to number the strips, and interesting that they thought to include all the guest strips in the torrent as well.

3) I'm working on new strips still, though they're all in various stages of being inked and penciled. I'm trying something new: working on several strips at a time. Instead of working on them sequentially and banging my head against the wall when I'm frustrated with it, I work on another strip and come back to it later. I have about five strips in various stages like this, including a Shiunji strip, a one shot, a "that's the story" strip, and two strips from the upcoming Mike Christmas special. The Christmas special will be posted much closer to Christmas, but I'll post whatever strips get done here on the livejournal so you don't have to wait.

#252 - "Empirical New Clothes"

Another new one, and this is a Scientific Erotican strip. Special thanks to R. B., John-Paul Gorgoroso and M. F. for their generosity in keeping the domain alive!

Wow, more guys I haven't drawn in a long time. This strip is dedicated to the three above guys. Thanks a lot!

Thanks to your kind generosity, we have now received enough to renew the domain for two years at the overly expensive network solutions.

R. B. donated $25.00.
John-Paul Gorgoroso donated $33.98.
M. F. donated $8.00.

(initials used as I do not know if they want their name here -- if it's okay, let me know and I'll change it)

Total = $65.98.

Thank you again for helping me out and ensuring that the comic will be found at that domain for the next two years!

Cheers,
Clay

#251 - "Splash Ad"

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of this strip, some new strips will be added in the coming months. Our first anniversary strip highlights two characters we haven't seen in a while. Enjoy!

It's also scary time for my domain name, which will end May 9th. I would like to renew this, but I don't have the means to do it myself. If you would like to help out and donate a small bit to the cause, please E-mail me at sexylosers@hotmail.com . Thank you very much. I will post here again when there is enough for domain name renewal.

Works either now or when your DNS updates. Thanks to Hal Bergman for fixing the trouble.

Wow, I didn't realize a year had passed since I last posted. I've been insanely busy the past couple of years with the degree that time just flew on by, and the past two years have been a bit of a blur. I finished up in January, but I needed some time to decompress, but here I am on the other side.

One thing I didn't notice is that the site went down in January. Only a couple of weeks ago did someone tell me. I am trying to see if the problem is a server problem, and until this is fixed, the server will be offline. The domain name is due for renewal as well, and I may ask for donations to help. Good news is that there are a couple of strips in the pipeline, one 90% inked and another 25%. If the SL site is working in April, there will be some new strips to celebrate its 10th anniversary.

I hope everyone who is still reading livejournal is doing especially well, and I apologize for the very long absence.

This is an open letter to a number of people, that I have lost contact with for some reason or another over the years. I can include the OFUers (Mal, Jen Chan, Naska, Kraken, Bahn, Omar, A.J., Katt, Tang), fellow artists I was in good contact with (L0cke, Robert DeJesus, Carrie O'Kaye, Meridith Dillman, Kid Tempo, Reirei, Ian Oji), close friends that failed for some reason or another (Space Coyote). There are more people I could mention, but creating this list of names is depressing.

It's been a long time. I don't know why it has been this long -- perhaps I've failed to keep up my end of the correspondence for some reason, we had an argument which abruptly ended our friendship, or I did something rash and ill-tempered during a time when I was prone to doing those kinds of things. It's probably my fault, and I have no problems accepting the blame. I am sorry.

I just want to say I hope you're doing well. I don't say that with sarcasm or bitterness; regardless of anything I do hope you're meeting with success.

I also wanted to thank you for your friendship. It was always important to me.

Perhaps there's too much water under the bridge now for fixing things, to go back to the way things were. I wouldn't blame you if you felt that way. However, sometimes I would give anything to go back to the way it was, when we shared art and made each other laugh. I miss you.

Take good care of yourself.

Clay.

On the weekend, my portable hard disk, named "WORKSPACE" and bought back in 2002, is now dead. I bought it back when I was switching between two computers, and needed a "shared space" for my artwork so I could go back and forth from computer to computer. It housed all my artwork from scans, GIMP/Photoshop files, the finished products, and the perl programs and databases that generated the site. It also held a lot of personal documents and files that I had accumulated over the years.

By some strange fortune I did a backup of the essential art and site files after my last Sexy Losers update, something I hadn't done for over three years previously. I had the feeling the disk wasn't performing like it should and made the backup, not knowing that a month later the disk would be dead. The site really dodged a bullet there. However, I am out a hard disk, and I am trying to clear some space on another. I think my backups from now on will occur at a more brisk pace.

I should also send out a warm thanks to the person who gave me another 6 months on livejournal as a present. Thank you very much!

I decided to post this reply to a mail I got not to badger the original sender, who generously offered to write what I suppose would be a "cease and desist" letter for those sites who have taken my work and posted it elsewhere. Looking back, I think it shows a change of heart and maybe may generate a comment or two.

Dear [name withheld],

Thank you for your mail. You must have read an older blog entry, because I have since changed my mind regarding the stealing of work. Although I do not like it, I also recognize that belligerence makes one stubborn on their stance. I also recognize that the internet is not being changed by demands of the world, but on the other hand, the world is changing to the demands of the internet. One of those demands is that it is forcing people to think about the ownership of information and ideas in a society that is increasingly moving towards global sharing.

I do not know what to make of it. However, I do know that the urge to share what was previously thought of as property is something that will not go away. The people who create have to adapt to this. We cannot hope that at some point the entire internet will stop sharing information after we have policed it enough. It will continue, and it will become harder to enforce. Therefore, the best thing to do are find ways to continue creating, and find ways where sharing the information benefits both the creators and the people who share. As I said, I don't know at this point how to ensure it without destroying the work. I do have confidence that solutions will be found.

So thank you for the offer to write a "cease and desist" letter, but if I have the choice between drawing a new strip and chasing people who have posted my old ones elsewhere, I have to choose the former.

Best regards
Clay

#250 - Sperm's Eye View

Aren't you getting tired of seeing imaginary strips yet?

No celebration for the 250th strip. Next up for #251 is a (gasp) Mrs. Shibata strip.

Spoilers and strip in extended.

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I'm currently finishing the inking on the next strip "Sperm's Eye View" (previously titled "Educational Video", renamed because it had no pun in it). It looks like at this rate I'll be adding a new strip about once a month.

I've always ranted and raved about Japanese stationery, but this time I found something truly cool over at MUJI. This is a newsprint workbook with pre-printed panels for four panel comics! Although the paper is too small and too cheap to do any real professional work on, it's pretty handy for sketching out the roughs to Sexy Losers strips and is now my new idea book. A5 size with 88 pages, it cost a cool 94 yen ($1.00 Canadian).



I want to thank Kat for sending me some Great Big Sea from Canada. Although I am not from Newfoundland (I am from Cape Breton, actually), maybe it's genetic but I love hearing maritime music. Thanks Kat!

More fiddling.

1) I went back and rescanned all the sketches so that they should have a lot more contrast in them now and should be easier to see on your computer.

2) I also fixed the page with my artwork on it so it lists the sketches as well.

3) An old sketch of Natsuki Kajikawa has been posted, along with work done for the Mike coffee mug and a sketch of Madame X

4) I added a character profile for ARPA-01.

While I've been *ahem* busy *cough cough* posting new strips, I've also added some new pages. As mentioned in the previous post, new character profiles for such major *cough hack* characters as Miki, Kevin Lee, Sock and Tissue have been posted in the character index. Also, I've always wanted to find a way to add some of the sketches I do to the site, and it was always "one of those things I'll get around to, yeah." Well, I fiddle with one thing on the site and soon I'm adding some character sketches. Right now there are 6, and I am unsure of the vintage. They are currently up, although I haven't gotten around to adding them to the SL Artwork index page as of yet (I'll do that soon *cough cough*). Right now they can be seen by going through the character profiles if there is a sketch for that character (it'll be at the bottom), and they can also be viewed like a slide show. The sketches are:

Dr. Lovetalk - ARPA Initial Character Sketch - Ishida and Shiunji - Mrs. Shibata - Chie - Miki

I am not sure of the vintage of most of these sketches, as I rarely date incomplete work (fuck). Hopefully this will get me sketching more.

#249 - "Shiunji & the Suicide Girl VII"

Still yet another non-update. For those that see a new strip to the right may I remind you of that old phrase about jerking off too much.

Finally got to color the strip. The storyline continues, and I promise the next Shiunji strip will actually be something other than these two talking. The next strip (already in the pencilling phase) will not be a Shiunji strip but one called "Sex Education Video".

I also added completely non-informative character profile for Kevin Lee and Miki.

EDIT: Because I couldn't stop myself, I also added just as non-informative character profiles for Tissue and Sock.

As a number of you have noticed, my production has increased as of late. I guess recently I have been feeling the pull. Especially with the Shiunji thread unresolved, it really doesn’t allow me to make a clean mental break from the comic.

It’s also a little strange revisiting something I haven’t touched in over two years. I am rusty, and was a bit of a challenge to make the last Shiunji strip done in the middle of 2005 match flow seamlessly into the next sequential comic over two and a half years later.

I don’t think I can get back into it like I was used to. The problem with life being particularly insanely busy hasn’t been resolved. I’ll try to make an effort to at least get the Shiunji thread finished when I can (I have already plotted and rough-sketched out the remaining comics in the thread). I am still keeping with the site theme of “no new updates ever” because to be honest, the popularity and the high expectations was really unappealing, and the site is now forgotten enough for me to do a comic here and there in a low-key way. I enjoying doing the comics for the sake of enjoying drawing comics, and it’s great to be able to draw a few without having to worry about anything other than the love of making these sick bastard characters of mine come to life.

Cough.

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