War Games - Part 17

This Thursday: the conclusion of the War Games story arc!  I hope you've enjoyed this change of pace these last several weeks.  I have to admit that I'm pretty happy with the the way this chapter has turned out, and I can't wait to see Chapters 3 and 4 in the next book.

Only two more strips until the end of Chapter 4!

War Games - Part 10

I had a blast working on this one.  I should have my characters beat the crap out of each other more often.

Super U. posts every Tuesday and Thursday.  You can follow me on Twitter@Super_Uwebcomic, and of course please feel free to share links via Facebook or whatever privacy-destroying social network you're into.  Please consider browsing my wares.  After this chapter concludes in a little over a month, I'll be compiling Chapters 3 and 4 into a new book for sale, and I'll likely be putting up a bunch of new merch as well.  As always, I'd love some suggestions on ideas for new merch, and I love to hear your comments.

Thanks for reading!

War Games - Part 7

Rejected Alternate Magical Power Activation Words: Shipoopi, Shimmy Shimmy Koko Bop

If you aren't generally familiar with comics, maybe the third panel of this strip is lost on you.  Of course, if you don't follow comics, there's a reasonable chance you don't read Super U., either.

I was chomping at the bit for the day I got to draw Breakdown take his coat off.  And as a bonus, you get to see Kahuna's powers for the first time!

It looks as if Team Justice's air offensive is going to fail.  Guess that leaves Aiden's success dependent upon Team Dick-Punch's ground offensive!

Yeah, he's pretty much screwed.

War Games - Part 5

Shit's gettin' real now, son.  And by real, I mean fictional, illustrated characters participating in a holographic simulation.  So, the opposite of real, I guess.

I'm trying out a new site design (again).  I hope you like it.  It was feeling a little "loud."  Still terrible navigation, though... possibly even worse than before.  Any of my friends want to take a peak at my HTML and tell me how to move that "HOME / OLDER POSTS" text from the bottom of the page up to the top?  I can't even find it in the code.  It's entirely possible Blogspot won' t let me.

War Games - Part 3

If you're new to Super U., you may be wondering why suddenly I'm using photos as background instead of drawing it out.  You may be thinking I'm lazy.  In fact, you'd be right, but moreover, I use photos as background during the "Dangerous Room" sequences, when the students are participating in holographic simulations in Combat Education class.

Teams have been chosen.  Roles are being assigned.  On Thursday, you'll get a glimpse of Team Frost and Team Ex doing the same... and then the fur is gonna fly.

War Games - Part 2

Aiden hasn't been an outright lech in a while, so I thought it was about time he got back to that.  Still, it's good to see him back to his old self again.  Or, at least, the self he most recently created for himself.

I was up until the wee hours of the morning the other night mapping out the rest of the chapter, which in turn caused me to get incredibly tired last night and have to finish the strip this morning, so sorry it's a little tardy.  But thankfully I did, because as it turns out I'm going to need every available strip to finish this story arc.   I hope you're in for lots of action and excitement instead of the usual (which I guess could be classified as wannabe superheroes behaving badly).

War Games - Part 1

War Games, part one of... a lot!  I've been chomping at the bit to start this scene.  

Team Justice is arguably the strongest, and has an extra team member due to, um, unforeseen adjustments.  As a result, the other Combat Education teams are eager to take them down a peg.

Team Dick-Punch, well... they are not the strongest, especially since they lost Raine.

Mr. Walters' loathing for SuperDude is well-known... is he taking it out on SuperDude's daughter?

Walters undoubtedly got the memo that Aiden was to be given "special attention"... is this some twisted act of defiance in the face of his employers?

Yeah, it probably is.

Either way, Team Ex and Team Frost are about to show what they're truly capable of...

Ignition

Apparently, Chapter 4 is all about everybody being angry with everybody else.  Aiden's angry with his mom, Time Lass ,Breakdown and Raine are all angry with Aiden, and Mr. Walters still despises SuperDude.  There are some rivalries a-brewing.  

Raine and Justice are polar opposites, and their rivalry is mirrored by the rivalry still felt by the Dark Avenger (Mr. Walters) toward SuperDude, Justice's father.  Coincidentally, Mr. Walters has already taken a keen interest in Raine.

Justice may go out of her way to behave nothing like her father, but that doesn't change the fact she was born the most powerful girl in the world and can't help but be perfect in almost every way.  Raine has had to work hard to be what she's become.  Despite having a dipshit for a father, Justice has had it pretty easy.  Raine... has not.

Hapless

One of the cool things about having gone on vacation was getting to work ahead on my roughs for the comic.  I don't generally draw the strip on paper until the day before I work on it on the computer, sometimes not even until that morning.  But I worked far enough ahead where I don't actually even remember what strip comes next, so it's kind of a fun surprise to open my sketchbook and be like, "Oh yeah, I'm doing that one today!"

Going through past strips, I realize Chance comes off as cocky, but that's not actually true.  He's just a normal guy who happens to have uncanny good luck; he tries hard (and unsucessfully) to be "cool," and, at least when it comes to women, he sets his goal at the top.

Of course, it would come as a shock to Justice to find out she was the most sought-after girl in school; she's simply too modest and naively kind to fathom that.

Exasperation

I have returned from my Pilgrimage.  Thanks for your patience while I took the week off!  I hope today's strip finds you well.  I haven't featured Amazona, the women's P.E. teacher, too heavily, so I thought it was due time to give her a moment to shine.

We had an amazing time in the Smokys (which is apparently how it's spelled).  If you want to see some pics, I put some up on my Tweeter.  I loved everything about the area we stayed in, but it was just slightly not awesome enough to justify my running off into the mountains, never to be seen or heard from again.  Mainly, I think my knees would eventually get destroyed from all those inclines and declines.  But that was it, though; literally the only thing about the region that didn't put me in "immediate relocation mode" was the fear of knee-pain. I'm becoming a formidable hiker, but I prefer my hikes to be a little more horizontal.  That, and I'd like to grow the majority of my own food one day, and doing so in that part of the Smokys would be next to impossible.

Everything else, though?  Was amazing.  It was wonderful getting to spend so much time with my wife and kid and my parents, and the area was even more beautiful than I allowed myself to imagine.  Those mountains were alive in every conceivable way.  Those forests and creeks and rivers are exactly what I need in my life.  The trip back "home" was not an easy one.

Enmity

Poor Justice.  She's so nice, and she got stuck rooming with Raine.  Justice tries not to be perfect, she really does.

There are scant few things I like about DC comics (I'm pretty sure I've made that clear in the past), but one thing I appreciate is the relationship between Batman and Superman.  There's a deep respect there, but there's also a clashing of personalities and ideologies.  In my comic, it's like that with Mr. Walters and SuperDude, but without all that "respect for one another" getting in the way.  But with Raine being groomed by Walters, and Justice being the daughter of SuperDude, I just had to make these two roommates.  I'm looking forward to building their friendship / rivalry as time goes on.

Of course, Justice intends to be as little like her father as she possibly can.  And that "rivalry" bit may only exist in Raine's eyes.

So, hey, are you a new reader?  You can follow the comic on Twitter and Google+, or you can subscribe via e-mail or RSS on the bottom of the site.  Thanks for reading, everybody!

Last but certainly not least, I'll be taking a week or so off for the holidays.  The kid'll be on vacation from school, and the wife's got some time off, so we were thinking of heading out to see some sights.  I may get the chance to crank one of these out for New Years.  We'll see.  I'll keep you posted.  So, hey, Merry Christmas and stuff!

Re-Reallocation

This Thursday, on Halloween, Super U. is hitting its 100th strip.  I think that's pretty cool.  To celebrate the event, I'm offering up a strip that's a brief interlude; maybe a portent of things to come. 

As of last Friday, I deactivated my Facebook page.  I assume this means that the Super U. fan page on Facebook is also gone (I don't know, but if it's still there, somebody let me know, okay?  I told Jason the page was all his now, if it still exists).  I left the "like button" here on the site, and, of course, if you're interested in promoting the comic on Facebook yourself, you merely need to share the link; there's even a button to do that right below every post.

I've been actively promoting the comic on Facebook for almost two years, and it has really gotten me absolutely nowhere.  I've had more success half-ass promoting it with Google+ and Twitter than I ever have from Facebook.  The reason for this is pretty clear: my stuff was never able to branch out beyond people I personally know and reach a wider audience.

That's not the real reason I'm ditching Facebook, though.  The real reason is much more personal.  Without even considering the negative effects I think social media can have on the way we interact as a society, I just grew sick and tired of Facebook etiquette, especially, especially the fishing.

Person I know:  Oh, doom and gloom.  Agony.  I'm never going to recover from this awful tragedy that just happened.

Me:  What's wrong?  What happened?

Person I know:  ...

My imagination is far too active to be able to handle this sort of thing, especially when it's coming from someone I care about.  I fill in the blanks.  The worst part is, I think people who do this are well-aware that they're baiting others, and purposefully don't indulge them with the rest of the information simply because they enjoy others worrying about them helplessly.  They're not interested in anything but your unquestioning sympathy.  They just want your sad face emoji comment.  That's not social interaction, that's sociopathic.

One time, because of the vagueness of somebody's unthoughtful statement, I was even convinced a relative had died, and had to call all over the place at like 1:00 in the morning to get the answer, setting off a chain of events that... well, you can probably imagine.  It was not pretty.  In the end the person who had died was someone I never even met, and certainly not related.

Then of course, there's the thing every week where I get my numbers back from Facebook, and they'd be like, "This week your stuff reached 142 people!  2 of them liked it."

It goes even further beyond that, but I'm leaving it there.  I'm done talking about Facebook.  If you're interested in following the comic in some other fashion, remember I'm still posting updates on Google+ and Twitter.  I highly recommend either of those over Facebook, by the way.

Daddy's Girl

This was another fun one to work on.  I think I'm about 87% back to comic-style.  

My poor kid's sick again today.  She's spent the majority of her life relatively sheltered from other kids, so as soon as she started school it's like a new illness every week.  I sent her to school this time, though, since she's already missed a day this month.  I'm not sure what the protocol is supposed to be.  Ideally, you keep a kid home from school when they're sick.  But they only get a designated amount of sick days before they get in trouble for missing school, and this is only September.

So, even though I don't have any money, I bought Grand Theft Auto V the day after it came out, because Grand Theft Auto.  This game is amazing.  As with the other GTA games, there are minor holes in the plot, and some of their story-telling could be executed better (the dialogue though, as usual, is top-notch), but overall I find myself compelled to go from one mission to the next because I really want to see how things come together and escalate.  I have actually spent very little time doing all the extra things there are to do in GTA games, which is unusual.  In previous games, I'd do a mission or two, but then I might go look for hidden packages, or stunt jumps and so on.  Not this time.  I'll but upset when I realize I've just beaten the game.

The three-character dynamic adds a wonderful twist to the game, and it's done perfectly.  The characters are very different, but each of them is enjoyable to play, and each has a specialty that sets them apart.

Franklin reminds me a lot of CJ from San Andreas, which is not a bad thing.  It might even be the same voice actor; I don't know.  He's from Grove Street, and even the very same block CJ was from makes an appearance in the game although, strangely, CJ's house is gone.  I was disheartened to see that the Grove Street gang didn't have a bigger presence in the game after the events of San Andreas.  In fact, it's like they've nearly wasted away.  Franklin feels like the "good guy" of the three (right up until you start assassinating people left and right), and that's probably why I play him the most.

Michael is a little bit Tony Soprano (complete with a shrink and a dysfunctional family), and a lot bit Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs, but his violent antics are coupled with a guilty conscience.  He's the true professional of the trio.  I see that most players favor him, but I think I actually play him the least.

Trevor is great.  He's like a perverted, redneck Heath Ledger Joker, complete with incoherent grunts and an unsettling stare.  That in itself should be enough to make you enjoy playing him.  He seems conflicted, though.  Most of the time he seems genuinely without remorse for the things he does, but occasionally he'll turn around and do the good-guy thing, which is always unexpected.  It's hard to say whether this is intentional, like that was the plan all along, or if the writers decided at the last minute that maybe they should give this guy at least an shred of admirable traits.

There are always things that happen in these games that are done for the shock value, and you won't be disappointed with this one.  Some of the recurring characters I've come across are treated with zero respect.  I get that this isn't their story anymore, but damn, the exploits of those characters basically get thrown out the window.  That's all I can say about that.

Just about all the best features from the previous games are back, and then some.  There's a hilarious and elaborate in-game internet complete with a GTA-ified version of Facebook and Twitter, TV shows (and this time, movies to go to as well)... Rampages even make a triumphant return.  You can even play an imaginary stock market, and I believe you can download an app for your actual smartphone to check the imaginary stocks outside of the game.  There's a dog-training app on its way, apparently, for Franklin's dog.  Unfortunately, the dog is pretty much useless until this app launches.

I'm looking forward to online play for the like the first time in a game ever.  I don't particularly want to play against others, but there's an elaborate crew system in place that will allow you to play with your friends, and I can't wait for that.  Jason and his brother and I are already in a crew, just chomping at the bit for the online to go live.  It sucks there are features of the game that still can't be accessed; I imagine they're still being perfected.  On the other hand, it's better than the alternative: having to wait even longer to play the game.

I'm enjoying the hell out of it, and apparently, so is everyone else.  The game hit profits over a billion dollars in three days.

Pliable

I think I can pretty much declare at this point that I'm around 85% back to my original comic style.  It's taken a long time to undo the damage that caricaturing did to my work, not to say I didn't learn a lot from it.  I was fortunate to work with other caricaturists that strongly-emphasized cartooning over exaggeration, and my cartooning skills improved quite a bit because of it.  For example, I knocked out that Spaz pic there in the third panel in no time at all.  Don't get me wrong: I love cartoons, and I think caricatures are pretty cool, too.  And like I said before, initially when I began Super U. I think I was trying to emulate the style of other webcomics.  I certainly don't knock cartooning and caricaturing.  They both take an incredible amount of practice and skill to do right.  But recently, I found a picture I did of Raine a few years ago, and I got a little upset, because I knew I couldn't draw it that well anymore.  I will get there again, and soon.

The last strip, this one and probably the next few all deal with the wrap-up / fallout after Justice's capture, Rex Ruthless' demise and Aiden's death and subsequent ressurection.  This little action-run has been fun, but it can't be punches to the face all the time.  Don't worry, I will endeavor to continue delivering the funny, even if I'm only using humor to disguise my true intentions of making you find yourself compelled to learn more about these characters.

Hey, that gives me a cool idea!  I'm going to put a poll up on the bottom of the site for you to vote for some of your characters.  Who do you want to see more of?

As always, thanks for your support, and please keep sharing Super U. with your friends!  I've made it easier to follow me on Facebook and Twitter with the new buttons there on the top, and to share things you like on your social media of choice.  Tune in for next week's blog as I think I might discuss how freaking amazing Grand Theft Auto 5 is.

The Curse

Enlargimate

It was a real, um, experience creating this one.  Illustrator crashed on me about six times, the first time making me lose about half of my work on the first panel.  I really only have myself to blame for that one, for not hitting that Ctrl+S sooner and more frequently, but I could have sworn that I did.  For some reason it got really angry with me when I tried to manipulate Rex's boots after they were completely rendered.  I could move them in any direction, but if I tried to scale them or alter them in any way... immediate crash.  Weird.

Don't worry, I won't go on a tangent about how paper and pencils don't "crash."  But I thought about it.

I don't want to talk too much about this strip, because I don't want to give anything away on accident, but if you've been following the comic, none of what transpires above should come as a surprise... well, except for perhaps Raine's new behavior toward Aiden. I remarked to my wife that it's kind of funny that the last few times I've drawn Raine, she hasn't been angry.  I almost forgot how to draw her not angry.

I'm determined not to make the amnesiac angle too cliche'.  Generally, when someone writes a story or whatever and uses the amnesia angle, it feels really uninspired.  I don't want my stuff to come off like that.  I've got some pretty cool ideas on how I'm going to play with it.

Super U. Strip #76: Archrival - Part 4

Here's the last three movies!  They've been a ton of fun to make, and they gave me the time needed to put together ideas for Chapter 3 while still putting out some content.  I had hopes I could drum up a small YouTube audience with these, but no such luck.  For the most part, not even some of my regular readers seem to watch them (but some of you do, of course, and I thank you profusely).  So, while they've been fun, I don't think I'll be doing them anymore.  That, and I've about exhausted my iTunes music library making them.

Next Tuesday, Chapter 3 begins!  The very first strip will be done in Illustrator as usual, but after that point they will all be done (hopefully) in Manga Studio.  That means they will have a different look, one that will more closely-resemble my hand drawn artwork, and with any luck that will be a good thing.  The reason for the art-style switch should become apparent on Thursday, because, as I've done several times before, I'm incorporating the style-shift to accompany the story.  Beyond that, I can say no more... you'll just have to wait and see.

Seriously though, you guys, I need help.  If you don't want to buy merchandise or whatever, I'm totally cool with that.  I'm not keen on soliciting my friends, anyway.  But it's free to share the comic with your friends.  And all of you goomba friends of mine who don't read the comic?  You guys are mean and unsupportive.

I figured out a way to put these directly from YouTube onto the site here at Blogspot again.  Before I would just click "Share to Blogspot," but they removed that option on YouTube (so much for this whole "one-Google thing...).  But I realized if I put the address for the movie directly into the... well, the point is, here they are, more or less how I want them to be.

So, without further ado, I give you the Archrival: Part 4,5 and 6!

Super U. Strip #77: Archrival - Part 5

...And another.

...But wait, there's more!

Super U. Strip #73: Archrival - Part 1

An Update, and a Book Preview!

Hey guys,

See that new vote-box up there?  On the top left?  I listed Super U. on the Top Webcomics website.  They showcase the "top" 100 webcomics, as voted by people who vote on these things.  Currently, Super U. is somewhere in the 16,000's, heh, but we can change that!  You can actually vote for Super U. every day!  It only takes a few seconds.

Anyway, the book cover is done!  And, because I like you so much, here's what the cover is going to look like!  Click to enlargify.

There a are a couple small tweaks that need to be done, but otherwise it's good to go!  I just have to format it to the book tonight.  After that, I'm going to pre-order a copy (to make sure it's all good), and if that goes well, the book will go up for sale!  I'll keep you posted.

Also, new movies just below this post!  There are only 9 more movies, and then Chapter 3 begins!

Super U. Strip #63: Presage