I’ve realised it takes quite a bit of discipline to draw stupidchicken on a regular basis. Yes, I usually just end up taking existing drawings, making small modifications, adding some senseless text and pretending it’s funny. It’s still tiring. Be quiet.

This last half-year of doing the webcomic has been quite rewarding, though. I’ve set up a Facebook page for it (factoid: biggest fanbase – teenage girls from the UK. Go figure), and a nice commenter went “love these comics, really make my day, keep it up!”. A nice comment! On the Internet! Probably a sarcastic troll. Anyway, thanks, nice commenter or sarcastic troll. I’ll keep it up as long as I can.

I also found drearyweary recently. The creator is a Singaporean comic artist who does some really, really amazing work, and he posts entire long (and coherent) comicbooks online (Creative Commons licensed, even). I need to buy some of his stuff, if I can find it. I’m really enjoying The Resident Tourist – it’s a (presumably) autobiographical story about the life of a returning Singaporean who feels displaced in his home country. Speaks to me more than a little, I guess. And the crisp art is just awfully impressive.

Finally:

Evil Tofu is a character from the webcomic, who showed up here and here. Drawn for Toru, my evil friend who’s in Nairobi or Narnia or something.

I managed to rush out today’s new stupidchicken comic only an hour before my self-imposed deadline. I imagine this will become more common as work gets busier, but I’m glad this Wednesday-Saturday update schedule is forcing me to be disciplined about drawing regularly. 

New chickens since the last update (also, you can subscribe to stupidchicken by email or RSS!):

• January 17 Chicken vs. Grenade
• January 14 Chicken vs. The Treachery Of Images
• January 10 Chicken vs. Fable 2 Chicken-Kicker
• January 7 Chicken vs. Causality Dilemma
• January 3 Chicken vs. Chicken Soup
• December 31 Chicken In Conversation: Introductions
• December 27 Chicken vs. Shrieking Chicken Toy
• December 24 Chicken vs. Eggnog

Before the internet grew up and ate all my free time, I doodled a lot. I bought reams of white A4 paper, laid on the floor, drew with my cheap fountain pen while dreaming up all kinds of ridiculous story arcs, left my drawings all over the house, and got yelled by my mom who threw away the drawings. This sequence, repeated regularly until I enlisted, made me happy. I even entertained thoughts of drawing and making comics for a living, half-aware that I really didn’t have the talent or patience for it.

At 19, I was being interviewed by the Public Service Commission for the scholarship (in engineering — math is easier than art, after all), and they asked what I would like to be doing in ten years’ time. I told them, all earnest and naive, that I’d really like to be drawing comics. I can’t remember what their reaction was — maybe I couldn’t see their bewilderment through my nervousness — but I remember my scholarship officer mentioning a year later that she had heard about it, and found it funny. Seemed to me it had gone around the office that some kid had dared to tell the PSC he wanted to draw comics! Not serve the public good! Just wait till he comes back and serves his bond!

So now, it’s ten years later, and I really want to draw some comics so I can tell the 19-year-old version of me that I didn’t mess up his dreams too badly. 

Also, I spent $500 on my new tablet, so I’d better use the hell out of it.