Scourge w/ Commentary, Page 15

   I really like how the coloring came out in these scans. The alien psychic ability, seen here as a weird green aura. Which can apparently be transmitted via radio. That's actually very important, and it explains a lot. Yes, it makes sense.

   A few really great panel setups here. Take a moment to appreciate those. The top half, with its interlocking ones that can really be read in any order you choose, and then the more conservative bottom half, with that painting in both panels there between Ash and hero guy. I'm not sure if there's a word for what that is there.

   Aand then we're in Iceland, at the Fjunderson ancestral home. Or, uh, Fjunderson Manor, as Icelandic names don't really work like that. (Ancestral home?) So, maybe this guy's name s Fjunderson. Or maybe not. I really just transitioned the entire thing to Iceland for no reason, other than because Iceland. Because Iceland.

Scourge w/ Commentary, Page 14

   "Final item destroyed!?" Well, that certainly was a close call, getting to the last painting on earth with the D'varri DNA encoded into it right before it was destroyed. How convenient. Or maybe that refers to the last item that that particular soldier was assigned to destroy. Makes sense. That was the same soldier from before. Introduced blowing up paintings in the Met. This guy was just the East Coast Moldovian painting destroyer.

   But without a doubt the two best sound effects on this page. SMASHATTER and KA-BROOM HANDLE. I don't even know which once I like better. They're both so great, and equally awesome and hilarious and brilliant. They both make the entire thing worth it.

Scourge w/ Commentary, Page 13

   Oh, man, that Moldovian guy just blew up the painting with a freaking rocket launcher! Thank goodness you snapped a photograph of it before it was destroyed. But, no, it's not about getting a look at the painting to see the secret information encoded into it. It's about getting to the painting and protecting it. That failed, unfortunately, but at least they've still got something to go off of when looking for that particular painting's secret. "We've got a picture" could refer to having gotten a picture of the Moldovian soldier to run it through a database or something. Not of the painting. It could have been any photograph of that painting, really.

   (Which opens up another plot hole- why they bother destroying the originals if depictions of them already exist. Well, maybe. Just thank goodness this one wasn't one of those paintings whose secrets were encoded using under-layers of paint or invisible ink.)

Scourge w/ Commentary, Page 12

   Some of the boldest panel design in the entire book here, with the "we're here" and then the establishing shot of the Chicago Art Institute. I've got no idea what the Chicago Art Institute looks like, so I just went as far away from what it possibly looks like as I could to signify, yes, this is the future, and we're taking artistic liberties with this. They've, just, gotten new architecture by then. totally awesome architecture.

   "For what are we looking?" Yeah, Ash just talks like that. You can kind of see beret cyborg guy sort of raising his eyebrow at that on (that is actually why I drew him raising his eyebrow like that, at Ash's clunky attempt at not dropping her participle, so yeah, take that as canon.)

   Nicolas Poussin's Saint John on Patmos is indeed part of the A.A. Munger collection, and it is indeed currently located at the Chicago Art Institute (last time I checked, when I wrote this comic,) but I'm not sure that it's ever been at the Louvre, and in fact I just Dan Brown'd the heck out of the painting's history. All other information given here about the painting is accurate. Except for maybe its depicted size. But Dan Brown did the same thing with a lot of paintings in the Da Vinci Code as well, so I'm following a rich tradition here and it might be deliberate.

Scourge w/ Commentary, Page 11

   And we learn that maroon-beret cyborg man's wife's name is Karen. I guess that makes him Mr. Karen, or something. No, never mind. But, no, this commentary is to provide you with insight, so here we go, my thought processes behind this page. This page itself isn't a very big scene; it's more of the transition between bigger set pieces, so you can see what I'm setting up here: the fact that all the hidden messages in art are pointing toward something; the Chicago Art Institute, where Saint John on Patmos is located; a race against time.

   And the fan favorite, the resident cool car of the comic, the Dodge Futuro. Out of a poll of all who did the 24 hour comic challenge that day, three of three people said they'd drive one. Notice its sleek design and ability to hover. I don't know how to draw cars, but that doesn't keep me from trying.

   And that strange object that the Futuro is passing, the one that seems to have headlights of its own? it does. That's a yellow Volkswagen Beetle.

Scourge w/ Commentary, Page 10

   I'd rather say as little on this page as possible, as this page sounded by far the stupidest when Stumps did his little sarcastic reading of my comic. Even more stupid than other Ash stuff. Man, Ash talks stupid. But hero guy on this page, a close second.

   I guess this stuff they're talking about, with the out of my league, is why they didn't bother to tell anyone? It's a flimsy excuse, but it works. A temp at a data management company, indeed. (We had brainstormed a lot for what exactly it took for Cystex's role in the story to make sense, and that fit the bill the best. Still, nothing to see here, people. Moving on.)

Scourge w/ Commentary, Page 9

   Ah, good ol' Cystex, Incorporated. Not the over-the-counter urinary pain relief Cystex, the entire unrelated, fictional data-management company, for which Ash and... hot stuff... work. Yeah.

   And you don't suppose that someone would have triangulated the center of the Scouring of France before, if it's so easy and so significant? But I do love to nitpick. You're allowed to do that to your own work, you know. Learn from your mistakes and plot holes; it makes you stronger. But I suppose there's no patch to this plot hole without derailing the entire thing. It has to be some Da Vinci Code-esque secret that only they would know, or else it would fall apart. Though I guess it doesn't have to be, and even then it's just stupidity on their part that they don't tell anyone else bout their findings. Maybe it would have even saved the entire world, who knows. Ah, well, Time nor place. Or, not on this page, at least. We've got plot to advance!

Scourge w/ Commentary, Page 8

   I guess the papers here are holographic future papers. Would make sense. No, Peter Paul Rubens didn't use invisible ink in his paintings. John Paul Rubens, on the other hand, did. Completely different guy. Not even vaguely close to being related. It's not like I just pulled stuff out of my... um, hat. It's all, like, totally real. Yeah.

   And we get to the (montage?) of all the news anchors discussing the Scouring of France, in which Paris was wiped off the map and the "entire eastern hemisphere" lit up and sent out some weird alien beacon thingy, signaling the invasion. Of course, Geraldo's going to be all over that, alongside some other talking heads (including one literal talking head and a woman who may or may not be Tina Weymouth, bassist for the band Talking Heads.)

Scourge w/ Commentary, Page 7

   Yeah, that's Ash for you I guess. I mean, I guess, I guess. This is just a wild-- I mean, I've got no idea.

   Makes even less sense when she's on topic, though. "Strange jank. Moldovian soldiers bursting into art museums, destroy random paintings. Or at least seemingly random. We've sent you a list of 'em. Get to work." Who talks like that? Strange jank, okay. Jank is strange (the meaning of the word "jank" depends entirely entirely entirely upon context. Meaningless on its own. Utterly meaningless. But a word is never on its own. It's always used in a context. For example if there was just the word, "jank!" that'd probably be an interjection. Et cetera.) Future slang, I guess? But the next sentence isn't even a sentence, and Moldovia isn't even a place, and... (Maybe Moldova has remerged with the land of the medieval Moldavian province, and this amalgam has been called Moldovia? THE FUTURE.) "Or at least seemingly random" has got to be one of the most wretched sentences in the English language. And so on.

   Okay, maybe Ash just talks like that. Yeah, that's it. No wonder our hero is rejecting her advances.

Scourge w/ Commentary, Page 6

   We meet the protagonist dude's wife, looking utterly unpregnant maybe, so that "Baby" magazine on the floor remains unexplained. Let's just say they already had their kid, as something has to come from the implication. Turns out that this is just a fantasy that the guy's having, so maybe not either way?

   "Stumpy" Joe (so called because I couldn't remember his name so I just called him "Stumpy" as a placeholder) did a quasi-sarcastic read through of Scourge while I was working on it, reading the completed (but I don't think fully colored) pages I had done while I was working on new ones. He read the grawlixes out loud, which was kind of humorous. You get a few good non-onomatopoeic sound effects on this page, classics like "detatch!" and "burst!" And, yes, you're allowed to spell the word "detach" with a "t" if it's being used as a sound effect.

Scourge w/ Commentary, Page 5

   And here we are, in... Long Island!? I guess. i can't seem to remember putting that, but that's apparently what I put. Enter out from under the shadow of the bed Dustin, a punnily named Roomba (it took Joe a while to realize that it was a pun, but when he got it, he got it.) We see a "Baby" magazine there under the bed (not girly, though I think originally the magazine's name would have been "Babe," which I think definitely would be (or, barring that, about pigs.)) This magazine changes his character from a bachelor who lives with a robot to a man with a wife and possibly a bun in the oven. Sure, a bun in the oven, why not; it's not like we see her ever except in the fantasy sequence on the following page.

   So, Dustin comes out from under the bed and bumps into... huh, I guess I never thought to name my main character. Oh well. Him and his awesomely colored shoes. A nice POV of what a Roomba apparently sees there, with a HUD identifying the man. What's it say? It's hard to make out, but, Hall, or something? No, I remember, that's supposed to represent "hello," so, no, I don't think he's ever named.  I don't think the main character, whoever he is, was supposed to be all that cyborgy- but I guess the Roomba POV makes everyone's arms look super skinny but they're like wearing gloves? The only electronic part of him is half of his head. Maybe this skinny arm might reflect early character design or something. I don't think I would have made that big of a mistake if it were a mistake, so must be? Though notice how the bookshelf behind him there is exactly lined up with where the "glove" thing starts, so I might have been trying to disguise it. But I wasn't without White-Out. So, I don't know, one way or the other. It's been lost to time.

   The main character protagonist puts the hot cup of whatever down on a bookshelf after apparently switching it to his left hand, and starts... well, you see what he does. I don't have to narrate everything. But, man, does that Roomba have some powerful suction, to be able to crawl around a guy's face with it.

Scourge w/ Commentary, Page 4

   There's really not much to say on this page. I don't know how to draw helmets, is one thing. He shoots the painting so hard, it explodes. How sickgnarly is that? The style in which I draw explosions hasn't changed since maybe second grade or earlier. Note the thick chunky tendrils of explosion. Also, the D'varri are apparently able to narrow their eyes and speak English. Because the Moldovian guy is speaking English. Who knew?

   I guess I should also say this about Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me the painting itself. Besides the fact that apparently it classifies as fine art, enough to have been inspired by D'varri psychic waves. Somehow, in some form, it had alien DNA subconsciously secretly painted into it. The weird teeth... ear... things coming out of the top of the woman's head (you can see the painting more clearly when it's not on fire, on the previous page) were supposed to be cat ears, I guess slipping my requisite Cats reference into the comic.

Scourge w/ Commentary, Page 3

   My grandmother freaked when she read the title of the artwork on this page. Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me?! it's named after a U2 song (the one that plays during the end credits of Batman Forever, right before Kiss from a Rose.) That is itself named after the Mel Carter song Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me, and in fact one of the reasons I called Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me what I did is because I figured she'd be okay with that. Well, if she freaked out so much about the painting named after the pop rock song named after the R&B song, then thank goodness she didn't see the page with the naked cyborg... or the part with the secretary with the hots for the married guy... or that same guy having the hots for robots... in fact, the whole thing is just messed up.

   The final sound effect the machine gun makes is "sickgnarly," if you look at that teeny tiny lettering there. Cailin, Stumps and I had a thing going on, where each of us had to somehow incorporate the word "sickgnarly" as a sound effect into our comic. It fit well into Joe's fair Dadaist comic, and for me, it began the long tradition of odd sound effects in Scourge. (Cailin forgot to do it  in hers, which is just as well, as it would have been really distracting from her more somber serious comic, "Aurora.")

Scourge w/ Commentary, Page 2

   What is there to say about this page? Besides using so much black crayon is harder than it looks. Also keeping the black out of the white of the alien... signal... beacon... thing (ASBT for short.) That stuff had to be pure white. This huge explosion and release of ASBT energy from said explosion is the titular Scourge, the Scouring of France. France is just one big radioactive crater now. That's not passive aggression against France or anything; remember, the entire point is because the Louvre, the finest art museum in the world, is there. If it weren't France being destroyed here, there would be no story. I love France and its people. They've got good... stuff. Late night talk shows, that's it. They've got good late night talk shows.

   But this entire page is kind of an exercise in ridiculousness. How fantastically over-the-top can we get? This veggie vendor, this purveyor of produce getting exploded? Yes. This explosion being so large that you can see it from space? Alright. This explosion turning the entire northern hemisphere into a giant alien flashlight? Awesome!

   Note the continuity, also: the previous page took place during sunset, and here you can see half the world bathed in shadow and bifurcating France in half. Sunset. There's something kind of vaguely iconic about that, as best illustrated in the final panel. Half the world in night, half the world in day, half the world being lit up and sending a beacon out into the screaming black void of space.

Scourge w/ Commentary, Page 1

   Setting out into this, the first thing I opened up on, was important, so I tried very hard to get it right. I just decided this, and went from there. Paris, 2073. That's a definitive time and place, which also sets a mood. It is sunset, and there is a vegetable vendor hocking his wares in the last light of the setting sun. A shadow falls across his booth. Et cetera. Getting into a rhythm. It can go a lot of places from here. I'm not sure why he's wearing an eye patch, no. But, on the very first page we get our sound effect: BZORT, which signifies the aliens... dissolving DNA, I guess. That's the sound it makes.

   The first page presents a good opportunity to talk about the color of this comic, seeing as how it's the first page, as well as containing a sunset, which means pretty colors. This comic is the only full color 24 hour comic I've done so far. The ease of how this comic at least seemed allowed me to get a tad more ambitious with my next comics, though actually this one is the most epic in scope. Ambitious in terms of artwork quality and storytelling and artistic direction, I mean. Stylistically, in terms of layout and everything, this comic is fairly vanilla.

Scourge w/ Commentary, Cover Page

   SCOURGE. A 24-Hour comic by Eric Perazzo. Rated TEEN 13+. -Suggestive Themes -Disturbing Content -Brief Mild Nudity. (Bar code here.)

   Awesome logo design. SCOURGE. And a good shot of how D'varri warships work. (Pouring DNA-dissolving lava stuff out of the top.) Yes, The Last Supper is not a painting on canvas. It is a fresco. And if it were even on canvas it would still be much bigger, like still fresco-sized. I am aware. I was just conveying the Da Vinci Code spirit of the work by using an actual Da Vinci in the background. Note the level of detail with the fingernail coloration on the hand. I just renoticed that.

24 Hour Comics, w/ Commentary

   Since the 24 hour comics went over so well the first time (a joke, of course,) I've decided to show each of my 24 hour comics again, with the addition of a sort of running commentary to each one. Think of it as not unlike the audio commentary tracks on DVDs. Insight is always good, so you'll see that for the pages of each of the three 24 hour comics, back-to-back-to-back.

   Along the way, you'll get glimpses into the process behind the creation of each one,  self-praise or critique on the artwork, annotation on things that were either unclear or cut out entirely from the comics, and miscellaneous additional notes that will pop up from time to time. I sincerely hope you enjoy.

Gift Card

   I found this card, among all my other birthday, get well soon, and other gift cards, while I was cleaning up my things. It's... worth sharing, I felt. In the same way the day after graduation became sombre two years ago, there's this where the same thing happens. This gift card. It's from Adam, sent to me while he was still on his mission. In the suits I'm wearing.

   Thanks, man. You too. Don't trip either...

Four Years Ago Today

   Class of 2010. It's been four years today since high school graduation. Four years. I'd be through four years of college, now, too, if I weren't on my mission right now. I'm not sure if that feels like a long time now. As I write this in 2012, it feels like even longer.

   My hair's so great in that.

Cider, Super-Speedy Style

   More anti-brony arguing. Wow. Not in response to anything in particular, just I thought I needed a good springboard for this, so I'm making one up. There's probably going to be that, so my excuse isn't all that far-fetched. But, it's not anti-brony so much as anti-... Well, no, it is anti-brony. Who says you have to be for children to be clean? Or even vice versa? For example, the episode The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000. Yeah, you know this crap is going to be awesome from that title alone. These guys are hard core.

   The cider in that episode is implied to be alcoholic. No foals are seen to be drinking it. Plus, it foams when you pour it, which is far more damning. Still, they don't state this explicitly, because this is still a kid's show and they don't have the guts in their blood like with the cider in Fantastic Mr. Fox. But it's there. Does this make Rainbow Dash, the one most excited for cider season, a functional alcoholic?

   We get to see the entire process of cider-making, though, and there's no time for fermentation. So, I guess it's not. Well, actually, there wouldn't even need to be: the only reason horses are able to digest raw grains is because of the fermentation that naturally occurs in the horse's cecum. This only raises more questions, though, like, why would they even need to ferment the cider in the first place? Okay, it further aids digestion. I guess that makes all the ponies functional alcoholics. Beer for my horses, indeed.