Author: Bowie

Chapter two crashes to an awkward halt!

The appearance of pizza job tells me a lot about what was going on at the time. I had that job for about a month. When I took it on I said I would need 4 days off about a month after I started. I mentioned it several times, they ignored it every time and I never heard from them again after I took those days off anyway. Don’t worry though, I had a good reason- I drove halfway across the country to find out what nerds are like instead of looking into a mirror.

I recall Zelda telling me about intel work she did on Becky’s favorite outfit before drawing her into the comics. In today’s installment, she only bears psychological abuse. I imagine that’s a nice break for her character.

Well, time to move on to chapter 3. Hopefully I can figure out why it’s chapter 3 and chapter 2 didn’t just run longer. I probably won’t.

One last blast of continuity before the chapter ends. My dude doesn’t look very good standing in front of that wall with that shirt.

We see where Dana’s music career is going in the second strip. He was part of The Scorched Earth Policy, which hadn’t yet changed their name, and he was in Tremont, which also hadn’t changed their name yet. I can’t even remember both name changes at this point. One was called Kite Factory it was the best of the bunch. Several of their songs didn’t sound like screaming.

I think that one of my absolute favorite things that ever happened because of Flatliner was that Dana did print up the sprite of Erin and frame it as a full photograph. That was really one of the best bits he ever did.

Today is July 14th (no it isn’t, I’m a liar. I am typing this soooo far in advance), and we’re coming up on the last two strips before we move on to Chapter 3. I’ll be adjusting the posting schedule a little bit, but there will still be a lot of Flatliner coming forth. The next two strips will post tomorrow, and Chapter 3 will begin after taking a week off for no discernible reason. Onward and downward.

When Emo music was a thing, my first impression of what exactly it was did not match up to whatever it was that most people thought it was. I don’t know the specifics of the genre, never have. I thought it was sad boys with acoustic guitars who desperately needed a personality. Apparently there’s more to it than that. The guitars don’t have to be acoustic or something, I don’t know. That or it was never a genre and just something people labeled the pop music of 2003.

I see the upper limits of my Microsoft Image Composer ability showing through in the Cuba comic. Those green outlines around the jets bother me to this day. Not enough that I’ll think about them again any time soon, but enough.

At some point the site that I created to host Flatliner also hosted a few other webcomics that I was enjoying, simply because it cost me nothing extra to do and it was something I could do that would help the creators of these strips. I should have encouraged Matt and Reilly to make a spinoff. A Flatliner universe story about well-adjusted people might have been interesting.

This grassy hill strip from Zelda features the single front-facing frame of any character at any time in Flatliner. Every other one seems to be this weird sideways/isometric view Harvest created. The drawn Kool-Aid Man truly elicits the terror Zelda intended.

I recall it being sort of a shock when Lanny left. We knew it was coming, but it still seemed like a surprise. I’m still running up against a wall trying to find a decent 3+ player game of Mario Party, though.

There had to be about 20 feet of planned shelving in that toy store that the owners assumed was just absolute garbage that the employees would steal. Not even because they wanted it, but because they were bored. Do I regret stealing the gross candy? No. I never would even tried that candy if I weren’t actively stealing it. TL:DR- wasn’t worth it but I still don’t care.

I’m picturing a sad, muffled, off-screen character death denoted only by sound as many movies these days choose to do. It’s a miracle this wasn’t another after-life storyline scenario.

*Edit* – pulled the middle strip.

It was pretty rude of that first Pirates of the Caribbean movie to be as good as it was at the time. We were very busy repeating the same lame joke over and over and this movie came out, interrupting the flow of that one specific joke.

Strip #151 is perfect. Strip #150 was probably made entirely to elicit a response from Dana so to then have the followup be this is great. Nice violence, excellent punch.

I remain convinced that some of our guest contributors enjoyed drugs a lot more than I did at the time, which was not at all.

The Wendy’s rant would have been better suited for Harvest’s character, but the conversation did come from me being nearly lethally caffeinated and the other side of it was Erin’s AIM away message, so that’s why those characters are the ones having that conversation.

Oh wow so that Jon story arc just kept going, huh? I probably very well had a real feud with him. That, or I was hurting for content. It was one of the two.

The bear and the cat playing Rock Paper Scissors is still pretty good.

The 150th comic (147th here, I think? Ugh.) is just right for what we thought passed for humor at the time.