Vendetta

Triumph of the 'ill

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 04:10:40 GMT

So I'm sitting here in my European Cinema class and we're watching Triumph of the Will. Ya know, Nazi propaganda just isn't my thing.

Anyways, here's some doodles for you all to look at.

Who's laughing now biatch!?

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:58:51 GMT

Hooooooly shit. Sonic is going to be in Smash Bros. Brawl. I remember when I was a kid, Mario and Sonic were bitter enemies. Now, not only are there Sonic games available on the Wii, but now he's also in Smash Bros. Now that's a hardcore reversal from what it was like in the past.

I've never really been a fan of Sonic, yeah, some of the maps in the games were pretty fucking awesome, but I dunno, the fact that you didn't know what was coming always annoyed me. Ah well, it'll be interesting to play as Sonic in Smash Bros... Though I'm still going to stick with my main man, Link.

Airport boredom

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 16:58:10 GMT

School has started once again, and hopefully this will be the start of the final year of school for me. Even though I love seeing my friends and professors, I just want to get out of there soon.

I have a feeling bandwidth is going to be a serious issue for the comic this month. I've been eating it up a lot faster than I originally thought I would while advertising the comic around the internet. This past Monday, 4.51 Gigs of bandwidth were used. When I saw it, I was like, "YES!.... NO!" So I might need to give my web host a little ring-ring to see what I need to do about getting more bandwidth. I'm also considering a move do a different server.

Well, I'm hungry, I think I'll go pay like 10 bucks for a sandwich.

Farfenoogan

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:00:51 GMT

Probably one of the simultaneous best and worst things about this summer is the amount of time that I have been able to devote to working on Vendetta. The plus factor is that I have been able to keep my update schedule without a single missed comic since the onset of summer; I feel that my art has improved a bit over the last few weeks; and the advertising for the comic is starting to pay off at least a little bit. There have been more readers returning for the past few weeks than I honestly thought would from the advertisings. And something that I thought was really cool was the sheer amount of bandwidth that I used in about a week or so. I went from 2Gb to 28Gb, which was very near my limit of 30Gb a month.

The only real bad part is that I am not sure who I should advertise with since, in the vast series of tubes that is the internet, it is hard to find a guaranteed hit for story based webcomics.

The negative for this summer is the sheer lack of time that I've had to work on non-Vendetta things. I have been dying to do some poster-type art as well as non-Vendetta mini comics to sell at conventions and whatnot, but it is extremely hard to find time to even doodle. Hopefully when my next semester starts I'll be able to doodle randomly in class, which is always fun.

I need to redesign the site. It looks and is so boring.

Oh yeah, I have a journal...

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 08:49:30 GMT

So it's been a long time since I've updated, I've just been really busy. The semester has ended, and, for the first time since like 7th grade, I've gotten a 4.0. Hell yeah. So here, have a picture.

Yeah, I know I already uploaded it to the main comic page, but hey. Shut up.

Bam! Gummie Bear!

Mon, 07 May 2007 19:17:04 GMT



"Bam! Gummie Bear!" on Google Video
Just in case any of you were interested, here is the timelapse video of me inking and coloring the gummie bear pic. It is at 6.65x normal speed. This was the main reason why I didn't post the Gummie Bear pic sooner, my harddrive is almost entirely full and I didn't have any room to render the video, but alas, it has been finished, including a typo in the credits. Enjoy! (it should be "The Servant - Cells")

BAM! GUMMIE BEAR!

Mon, 07 May 2007 19:12:30 GMT

So there's a story behind this one.

Emeril has cooked for me a couple times, and I happened to tell a couple class-mates last semester and then there was a string of dialogue as follows:
Friend one: Emeril? That's awesome.
Friend two: Yeah, I swear he can take anything and make it good.
Friend three: Yeah! He'd be like "BAM! GUMMIE BEAR!"
Me: I'm SO drawing that.

I finished it a couple months later, and only now am able to post it. :P

Thu, 03 May 2007 17:56:31 GMT

I'm sure there are at least some of you reader out there that are still curious as to what has kept me this busy this semester. I am taking 5 classes: 3D computer animation, Sound Design, Production Management, Cinematography and Writing the Short Script.

The 3D animation class and Sound Design requires about 3 hours of lab time each. With cinematography, due to the fact that we're all students, it's hard to find people who are available for more than one day of shooting, so there's a lot of planning that go into the one day of shooting. Then of course you have to edit the video which takes some time. Then there's production management. This is the class the requires the least outside work. Every few weeks, I have to go to campus on the weekend to use some of the machines there to either budget, schedule, or break down a movie script. Then there's the script writing class, over the course of the semester, two short scripts are due. The first one which was an adaptation of a story was due just before spring break. And the second one, which is an original story, is due today. The first script was 14 pages, of the maximum 20 for the final draft. The script I'm turning in today, however, is 25 pages for the first draft of a maximum 20 pages. And I could have written more for it too.

Then there's sound design. Since I don't have in depth knowledge of the sound design that goes into film, I felt I should take this class. Now, I've learned quite a bit, like that I don't want to be a sound supervisor or a mixer, or pretty much anything in sound except maybe a Foley Artist. But I'll have more in depth knowledge about sound when I'm directing a scene than a lot of directors out there.

3D animation has been killing me because of the sheer lack of people in that class and the scale of the project itself. Originally there were two directors, me and another guy, but he basically dropped off the face of the planet for a few weeks and didn't tell anyone which put me in a position that I had to take hold of the entire project, hack it to pieces and come up with a new idea that can be finished before the end of the semester. Lest to say, I have my work cut out for me for the next few weeks.

So that, in a nutshell is what has kept me busy this entire semester.

I'm amazed I've been able to keep up with the comic. Of course my social life went down the shitter, but I'm used to that. :P

GTFO!

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 10:22:03 GMT

My Chinese Water Dragon, Nibbles, may sit placidly on my shoulder for a while, and thin in a moment of spontaneity, leap into the wild blue yonder to escape. I nearly lost him a couple times when he was smaller. So now I got a leash for him. I smush his hopes for freedom! Mwahahaha! >:D

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 05:11:42 GMT

Drew this for a buddy of mine during my class. There's a couple inside jokes in it.

Lack of privacy

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 18:03:39 GMT

So being in class, I often doodle and whatnot. And since I don't always sit in the back, people tend to watch me draw or play games... like right now D:

A bit early, but whatever...

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:04:27 GMT

I think it's funny. :P

It begins again...

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 17:41:13 GMT

Well back in school again. This is the first time I've had a class before 11 am since my first year in college. The pain... the horrible pain... and it's fucking cold too.

Some of my recent adventure

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 10:04:12 GMT

So a friend of mine volunteers at a place that keeps and breeds some wild animals, like Wolves, Lions, Tigers, Panthers, etc., in North Carolina. Since I was going to be at Epcot Center at Disney World, I was offered to have a detour on my way there to make a stop and hang out with my friend as well as the big cats.

First off, wolves are much bigger in person.

Amadaus was about 3 feet at the shoulder. And apparently he was acting strange with me, he let me get all the way up to the cage and actually sniffed my hand before it even growled at all. It was kinda cool.

Singing dogs, even though they are wild are very cute, affectionate and small. They were fun being around.

Apparently these lions have learned that cameras = adoration so they actually pose for them. I have more pictures of their complex, I've just gotten lazy and haven't posted it. The lions in this enclosure are only about 2 years old, but they're still huge, and still cute-acting, up until they try to spray you with piss.

Having this be the first time ever at a place like this (and the fact that it was fucking cold), when a big lioness jumps up and hangs on the fence, AND when I'm standing about a foot away fromt he fence, I can't help but jump back. My friend here, didn't even react. At all. It was kinda creepy. Instead he just said, "aww, aren't you cute?"

Baby lions are cute. This one is about 2 months old in this picture. Her name is Hannah. It's funny to watch them try to bark like a dog.

Oh yeah, lion babies have huge paws.

blarg!

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 11:42:53 GMT

As promised, I'll upload a bunch of things soon, I've just been really sick the last few days and to make things worse, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess has totally owned my soul. Now I'm behind on art, and spring semester starts on Monday.

The comic will probably be uploaded sometime in the evening on Saturday, if all things go well.

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 00:55:58 GMT

Merry Christmas kiddies.

vendettacomic.com photoshop speech bubble tutorial

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 11:38:09 GMT



"vendettacomic.com photoshop speech bubble tutorial" on Google Video
In this photoshop tutorial, I show you how to create a basic speech bubble and thought bubble. This one with less um's and uh's!

Photoshop Tutorial

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 23:09:34 GMT



"Photoshop Tutorial" on Google Video
Here is a video tutorial I have made that demonstrates how I ink and color an image in photoshop as well as add shadows and highlights.

Movie poster-eque

Sat, 11 Nov 2006 11:03:57 GMT

So I did the pic for a cool guy named Jason Marsden, he loves the Batman with a passion, so I drew him as Robin and made this little movie poster. Basically I just had fun with the pic, especially since I just came up with my own version of the Robin costume. :P

Enjoy!

More reasons why I hate retail

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 22:24:21 GMT

Reasons why I hate retail

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 01:26:02 GMT

current status

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 18:44:19 GMT

Yeah, I know I missed my second update for last week, but I just haven't had time to do another page the last few days. I'm currently in Florida and I'm actually going to film a quick short for a contest for the Discovery Channel today and hopefully finish it tonight or early tomorrow so we can submit it before the deadlinr.

And don't worry, more doodles and sketches will be posted soon enough as well.

Short story!

Thu, 19 Oct 2006 11:27:50 GMT

Yet another assignment I've written for my Writing class. This one's a bit longer. Enjoy!

The Security Tape
by Mike Baranger

Jill hit rewind on the video tape and the whirring sound of the tape deck filled the room. The screen sped the action in reverse, racing back to the beginning of the security tape they had just obtained from the corporation. It had been about twelve hours since the event took place, and the sun was just now creeping its way above the horizon. The moment she got the call ten hours ago, she knew that she was not going to get any sleep that night.
She took a deep breath through her nose and caught the distinctive smell of freshly brewed coffee. She turned in her chair toward the door behind her, catching an eyeful of Jack, her partner. He was wearing what looked like pajamas, a robe and a grin on his face. He was carrying two full cups of coffee, one, she figured, was for her. He moved into the room almost strutting, his bunny slippers whispered across the linoleum floor. Nonchalantly, Jack set down both cups on the table next to Jill, before giving her a kiss on the cheek. “G’mornin’ babe.” He said softly into her ear, gently biting her lobe. Jill squirmed a little giggling. “Not now, Jack, I really do need to review this tape.”

Jack ran a hand through Jill’s long brown hair and down her neck to her suit, which she hadn’t changed out since the previous morning. “You know, hun, you should get some rest, this tape won’t go anywhere.” He said sympathetically to his wife. Jill straightened up and looked back at the screen in front of her. “I will not be able to sleep until I watch this at least once. It was a huge deal for the news last night so they are going to be all over this today. And what is really cool is that I am the first person to see this tape.” She said, matter-of-factly.

Slightly amused, Jack took a sip from his coffee, letting the black liquid burn his tongue to keep him from laughing at his wife. After tasting nothing but burnt flesh in his mouth, Jack pulled up a chair and sat down next to Jill. “Mind if I be the second person?” he said to his wife with a wink. She turned back to him and returned the wink, “Only if you promise to give me a foot massage when we’re done.”

“Deal.” He said quickly, and took another sip of his coffee, unable to taste much since his taste buds were already burnt to a crisp. Jill mirrored his actions, looking much more refreshed as the fluid warmed her insides.
With a loud creak, the tape finished rewinding. Almost shaking with anticipation, Jill quickly set down her coffee and reached forward to the tape deck and pressed the triangular play button more firmly than she realized, causing the tape deck to shift back several inches on the desk. She sat back down and leaned up against her husband as the motions started on the screen, silent.

*****************************

Lupin had never robbed a bank before, and he was not quite sure why he was doing it now. It was one of those events that when looking back on after the fact, you seriously question what the hell you were thinking. His hand was sweaty from holding the gun tightly, the rough grip of the handle starting to scratch at his soft palm. He did not know why he was not nervous; it felt like he was weightless.

The clerks all had their hands placed behind their heads and were all up with their faces against the walls of the bank building. He could not understand why none of the clerks knew what was going on. No one put up a fight, everyone did what they were told; and yet, no one could tell him where the vault was. It didn’t matter, Lupin knew he could find it himself.

After some brief searching Lupin believed he had found what he was looking for in the back of the bank. However, it was not exactly as he was expecting it to look like. Instead of one large vault door, there were just two simple doors next to each other. Each of the doors had a sign on it that seemed to be scratched out by something. A large bead of sweat rolled down Lupin’s forehead as he tried to figure out what was going on.

The rapping sound of hard-soled shoes on the marble floor immediately caught Lupin’s attention, and he spun around, aiming his gun up at the head of the figure that approached him.

*****************************

“What the hell was that!?” Jack cried out as the tape deck whirred to a stop as the tape finished. He tried to claim the last few drops of coffee from the bottom of his cup with no success. Frustrated, he slammed the cup down on the table, causing Jill to jump. “I mean, what he did made no sense! I mean did this guy have a death wish or something?” Jack ruffled his hair in an attempt to comprehend what he had just seen. Jill stood up and stretched out a bit, before rubbing her stomach gently. “If we could hear what was said, we could know for sure.” She said in a relaxed manner, “But not even the hostages were able to hear what he said in the back room. And the quality of the video is not good enough to try to read his lips.” Jill finished off her coffee and picked up her husband’s cup and disappeared for a few moments before returning with filled cups.

“So how about that foot massage?” Jill said to Jack, gently nudging his shoulder with hers as she sat back down in her chair. “Sorry, Jill, but this video has me too weirded out to give a good massage right now. I have to try to figure out what I just saw.” Jack said absentmindedly. Slightly disappointed, Jill leaned back onto the backrest of the soft chair. After a moment of silence, Jack leaned forward and pressed rewind on the tape deck. The machine buzzed alive once more and whirred its way back to the beginning of the tape once again. “Again?” Jill said, rolling her eyes. “Like I said, babe,” Jack said intently, “I have to figure out what I just saw.”

*****************************

The figure was tall and handsome. He was wearing a very nice suit and tie. His pale skin only made his sharply blue eyes burn that much brighter. His thin lips were pressed tightly together as if trying to contain a demonic voice from escaping. “What the hell?” Lupin yelled loudly at the man, “Do you want to die? Why did you leave the group?” He walked over to the man and pressed the gun up to the center of the man’s forehead.

The man didn’t even flinch. His eyes cut into Lupin, chopping his legs off at the knees, bring him down to size with only his stare. Lupin backed off, the stare making his heart freeze into a slab of ice. The man’s lips loosened and what Lupin thought would be a demonic voice was actually one of the most soothing voices he had ever heard in his life. “There is no need for that, I am only here to help.” The man said, his voice echoing softly off the walls inside the room.

Uncertain of the man’s motives, Lupin tried to advance on the man again with his gun, only to be turned down again by the same visual attack by the man. After giving up on trying to intimidate the man, Lupin lowered his firearm. The man moved to the side of Lupin, his gaze fixed solely on the two doors ahead of them. “Don’t worry, what you want is behind one of those doors. But just so you know, behind the other one is what you deserve.”
“What I want and what I deserve, huh?” Lupin said with a grin, “So which one is which?”

“It is in alphabetical order in the clockwise manner.” The man said coldly without looking at Lupin. Puzzled for a moment, Lupin racked his brain to try to figure what the man meant. “Oh, I see,” Lupin said in a moment of epiphany, “The door on the left is what I deserve, and the door on the right is what I want. Stupid riddles.” The man turned his head to Lupin, saying quietly, “It’s only stupid because you don’t understand why it was said.”

Lupin sneered at the man and started to approach the doors. “Just so you know, you only have one shot at this. You choose one, you cannot have the other.” The man said firmly, his voice like a vice around Lupin’s body. “I know what I want, so I want to find out what I deserve.” Lupin said to the man angrily. He made his way to the door on the left, opened it and walked inside.

*****************************

“I just can’t believe he would just walk into that electrical closet and into those exposed power lines.” Jack said, leaning up against the window sill, staring out at the landscape of suburbia as the sun rose. “I mean it doesn’t make sense. It isn’t like he didn’t have access to the money. It was right there he just had to open the door on the right and it would have been all his.” Jack turned around and moved over to his wife and embraced her. “It is just so weird. You think that he couldn’t read those signs on the door or something. Could have he been illiterate?” He asked Jill softly.

“Not likely,” she said, returning the embrace, “he had a desk job and had to write papers quite often.” She released her husband and turned back to the tape deck, pressing the eject button. The machine clicked as it spit out the tape into Jill’s waiting hand. “My guess is that he was schizophrenic. That’s the only thing that could really explain his behavior.”

“At least he got what he deserved.” Jack said, slightly frustrated, “Taking hostages like that, I’m glad no one else died.” He moved over to the table and takes another drink of his now cold coffee, making him glad he couldn’t taste it anymore. “It’s a weird form of justice, but at least everything got balanced out in the end.”

Jill put the tape in a padded envelope and sealed it. It was addressed to the police department. “They’re going to have a field day with this. I just wish I was on this case, I got lucky that they let me view it.” She said as she methodically added stamp after stamp to the envelope.

“Why not just deliver it by hand, Jill?” Jack asked, raising an eyebrow. “Because, I want them to really bake over it for the few days until it arrives. It will be funny.” She said with a large grin on her face.
She made her way to the door but Jack stopped her. “Tell me, what do you think happened.” He said, his voice grabbing onto Jill, making her stop in her tracks. “And don’t just say schizophrenic, that’s a cop out answer.”

Jill turned around and looked at Jack in the eyes. “Well, I do think he was schizophrenic. Talking to no one in that room before disregarding the warning signs and walking directly into power lines? I think the voices in his head made him do what he did. That’s what I believe what happened. But I don’t think he deserved it. If it was the voices in his head, then he didn’t have much control over himself while it was happening. Maybe those voices pushed or pulled him in a certain way that caused him to choose the door on the left instead of from the right. I mean think about it, don’t you think he would have chosen the door on the right if he was not influenced by a seemingly outside source? So no, I don’t believe he deserved it. He needed help, and what he got was death.”

Jack and Jill stood silently for a moment. Jill turned around and walked out the door, closing it behind her.

story and sketches

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 22:34:02 GMT

So I had to write a story in the 'voice' of another author, and I decided to use Frank Miller. The story had to be about a transexual named Angelica, and the topic of the story was that Angelica wakes up pregnant.

So... enjoy.

Angelica of the City
by Mike Baranger
I opened my eyes only to wish I hadn’t. The morning light burned my retinas as the hangover pounded my head like a rusty vice. The rigors of last night’s sex, drugs and lust still lingered on the edges of my body. I sat up, clenching my head wondering why God didn’t top off my hangover by putting a bullet between my eyes. I put on my bra over my breasts. They were still raw from when that asshole treated them like chewing gum. I let my hand run down between my legs to scratch my groin when I got his by a dump truck full of manure. My cock was gone.

Just because I’m a transsexual doesn’t mean I won’t realize it when my cock is gone. I stood up and went to the mirror, and looked over my body. The feminine form had been made complete sometime last night. Could have I been that wasted, that my cock could have been removed and I not know? The topping on the cake came when I felt the warm trail seep down my leg from my new man-cunt. I knew what it was. It was that asshole’s spunk. My mind suddenly drifted to the impossible.

I quickly wiped off and got myself into a nice drag outfit, complete with the Stilettos. I made my way to the drug store down the street, making my way between the gun slinging prostitutes and the corrupt cops. I grabbed a home pregnancy test off the shelf and made it back out of the shop without paying. I took the back alleys on my way back to my apartment to avoid any attention. They all knew I was a tranny, I didn’t want questions about the pregnancy test gripped firmly in my hands.

Back in the seclusion of my bathroom, I was met by the sweet yet acrid smell of the cleaners under my sink, and of old vomit from past nights of drunkenness. The smell, it would never seem to go away. I tore open the box, just careful enough as to not rip the directions. I pulled down my pants and pissed on the stick like the directions indicated. And waited for what seemed like hours until the test results came in. Postive. I was fucking pregnant.

I did not expect to wake up knocked up. And I don’t even know who that asshole that fucked me was, and I probably never will. I lit a cigarette, and put it to my lips. The smoke curled in the air ahead of me. I was about to inhale when I caught myself in the mirror. I was pregnant. Now I had just found a nice little dilemma. Do I keep the baby, and really live as a woman, or do I abort this little growing disaster and try to find my dick.

I thought about it for just a moment before taking in a lungful of smoke from the cigarette. I let it out slowly. Fuck the child. I had my own plans. I needed to live my own fucking life and I didn’t want to give up my sex for anything. And so what if I lost my dick? I only got it up the ass anyways. This just meant more guys could fuck me at a time.

I took in another long puff of smoke. I pulled up my panties and made my way to the door. The abortion clinic opened at ten. I needed the exercise.

So my professor said it was pretty good and close to Frank Miller style writing, but I still don't know. But whatever. Have some sketches.

Just a sketch I did for a friend who was feeling sick last semester.

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 21:18:06 GMT

Well,that sucks... So last night when I turned on my tower to do some game-playing, I was shocked to find that my 2nd harddrive just decided to not show itself. After much querying and restarting it showed up and did it's little CheckDisk function or whatnot and then it fucking deleted some of the finalized Vendetta pages! Pages 401,403, 404, 405, 406, and 408 were just gone. Luckily for me, I have the originals on my laptop just sans text and speach bubbles. I seriously lucked out for that shit. If I didn't have them on my lappy those pages would've been long gone. And I think the art on them kicked ass (IMHO). So sometime in the next few days I'm going to go back into photoshop and try to arrange the next text and bubbles to the places they were in the originals. Shouldn't be too hard, but it's just scary than I nearly lost those pages. And I'm also lucky because everything up to page 400 was backed up onto a removable harddrive so if anything was deleted from there, I'm not worried.

And what is really ironic about all of this, after I finished playing games, I was gunna back up the more recent comics on to the removable harddrive and back up the entire comic on DVD's.