Nowhere Band News

Whoa, dude.  Jon and Aaron have moved in for the kill.

Last night, I took a camera with me to the Derailleur practice/recording session, and took a bunch of pictures. Even in the unlikely event that you’re not a Derailleur fan, it might be worth taking a gander to see a bunch of Nowhere Band source material…

Aaaaand so here we go on our multi-week story.  The boys are on the prowl, for shows or anything else that catches their fancy.  God help us all.

Quick word about the background/setting:  I’ve seen a bunch of shows at the Triple Rock, and pervading all-gray is pretty much exactly how I always perceive it.   It’s like a concrete bunker where people go to rock.

26b scripts out a little longer than usual, so I’m pretty sure it’ll run a little later than the usual week.  Hope not, but I’m kind of expecting it to.  We’ll see how it goes.

Oh, and this week’s suggested soundtrack, the Burrito Bros’ version of “To Love Somebody,” is just about the perfect song.

An illustration I threw together for a post of Rebecca’s; she saw a woman riding a bike in a fur cape, and how could I not draw it?

While I’m here, a quick status update: I was worried that Nowhere #26a was going to be late, but I’ve made a lot of progress. As long as things don’t go off the rails over the weekend, there should be a new comic on Monday. So, yeah, this is what we like to call “the tale of the false alarm.”

There’s always another band out there with a better work ethic, more musical knowledge, better equipment, and more of a willing to be a pain in the ass about things. You hate ‘em and fear ‘em, but they’re still out there, and all you can do is seethe when you see them get attention, and cheer when they get their comeuppance.

To be honest, I don’t feel like this is the most successful Nowhere Band strip;  I wish I could have figured out a better way to keep the top two panels from being so busy. I was juggling the need to keep things brief (I didn’t think this was a joke that could really support a long strip) and the desire to do the parallel-vertical layout.  Oh, well.  Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you.

The next strip will be something sort of new around here:  a multi-week story!  Big time!

There’s a new instrument in the Awesome Boys’ rock arsenal! I didn’t have much of a point with this one other than to look at the way unbelievably junky instruments will find their way into bands; Derailleur does have an electric organ that doesn’t work so well, but it’s more functional than the ‘Boys’s organ, and it was free. But it’s not just organs… a friend of mine used to have a bass that was rescued from the trash pile outside of a high school bandroom. Realistically, it should have stayed there. Guitars, also, just accumulate– our practice space features at least two more or less unplayable guitars which just sit around, for atmosphere I guess. If I thought I could get away with it, my workspace here at the house would be just as full of junked instruments. It’s just what happens.

On a technical note, I changed the way I colored this comic in PhotoShop. I’ve been having problems with anti-aliasing eating away the black linework and leaving them looking all feathery and weak. The new process didn’t totally solve the trouble, but I think it mitigated it a little. If you’ve got an opinion either way (or some PS tips), I’d love to hear it in comments here.