johnpanda

[johnpanda]

OK, this comic was incredibly difficult for me to make, which is why it took frikkin 3+ days to do. Lesson learned, don’t work on a strip/comic/story that makes you cry whenever you work on it during a time based challenge... *sigh* I literally just had to power through the last bit of it tonight with tears streaming down my face. Well, I hope you all like it. I hope it was worth it, I think so.

When I was a kid all the way through to maybe 6 months before my dad passed away, we often took time to go to a matinee. Ever since I was little, my dad Ken shared his love of movies with me. I recall one particularly memorable night, while mom was out of town visiting her sister, when we marathoned Terminator 1 & 2. I was sworn to secrecy of course as they were R rated movies! Lol.

For some time before dad got too sick, we would hit the local matinee on Friday mornings. It was great since it was often just us in there. We had some Dad/John time and would regularly get burritos after. I will always cherish that time together and will forever have a soft spot for going to the theater. I love you dad and I miss you, see you Friday...

[johnpanda]

Hard but good

Sorry I missed yesterday’s comic and will be missing today’s too. This one is special and close to my heart. I have been working on it, but slowly. It’s kinda kicking my ass actually. It’s about my late father with whom I was very close and shared many interests and good times. I’ll get it out tomorrow, but the reference photos are really killing me and I’m needing to take breaks. Losing him to cancer in September of 2010 was easily the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through and it still hurts. But I really want to share this memory and get it down on paper. I think in the end it’ll be worth a few extra days on the end of my challenge (^_^)

[johnpanda]

Sorry for missing yesterday! This one was almost done but the schedule just didn’t allow the time and I had to hit the hay! I’ve decided that when I miss a day all that means is that my #June4John challenge will be extended one day. Currently I’m going till July 2nd as I've missed 2 so far. Let’s hope it stays that low! Ha ha…

Anyway, I guess we all knew it was only a matter of time before I made a comic about having no ideas for making a comic. It’s a staple of the “Slice of Life” comics for a good reason, DAILY FUNNIES ARE HARD! Anyway, rest easy that I have a nice sentimental one for tomorrow already planned out so YAY for that! (^_^)

[johnpanda]

Today my friend Chaz and I were talking about how computers and WIFI routers communicate. He likened it to people yelling at each other from across the room. I thought the imagery was so silly (and yet accurate) that I just had to do a strip about it. I’m sure we’ve all struggled to sign in to WIFI somewhere. I imagine Mr. WIFI Router as a kinda douchey dude who snarkily denies your honest attempts to just get some damn internet! Lol

[johnpanda]

This afternoon we had what passes as a heat wave in Napa California. It got to all of 99 degrees today. Needless to say, we were all incapacitated at our house because of the “extreme heat”. It’s so funny how spoiled Californians (especially us northern Californians) are when it comes to weather. Being in beautiful Napa Valley only compounds things as it’s basically always 72 degrees and sunny haha (thus the grapes/wine).

My family lived in New Hampshire when I was real little. After moving to California, each year we would visit NH in the summer for a few weeks and I was always BLOWN AWAY by the heat and humidity. We’re really a bunch of wusses out here in NorCal lol.

[johnpanda]

I find that Netflix is at once amazing and horrible! I just marathoned through the entire Sense8 season 1 that just released on Netflix 2 days ago. Yeah, it’s too easy to do and was quite compelling. Netflix has created several unique experiences for me, chief among them is the comical struggle to figure out where the hell I left off after falling asleep during an episode. The way it keeps playing things for a few episodes leaves me totally flummoxed as to where I should resume next time as I kinda remember fragments from the episodes I mostly slept through. Such a pain in the ass!

[johnpanda]

Strip 5 is live! Had to rush the last 2 frames (had to get to work) since I spent FOREVER on fame 1... *sigh* it seems I’m forever over ambitious with the scenes in these strips! Turned out pretty good though.

Recently, my friends Chaz and Sumie’s daughter Jean started walking. We were so excited! Thinking Jean must be excited about her new skills too, I tried to get her to walk for my mom when she was visiting and Jean just wasn’t having it! Ha Ha. Strong willed and living life on her own terms already! Way to go Jean!

[johnpanda]

It’s OFFICIAL! Fallout 4 is announced and even has a trailer! My friend Chaz is such a Fallout fan that he about exploded after he saw the trailer, he must have already watched it 30 times since it came out. We’re all excited about this, it’s an absolute favorite franchise for all the gang, but Chaz… He lives and breathes Fallout, like plays it to this day, almost daily. I’m looking forward to learning more about this undoubtedly amazing upcoming game! For now all we have is that excellent trailer, I think I’ll go watch it with Chaz again, yeah, he’s likely watching it right now ha ha.

[johnpanda]

Ruh Roh...

So evidently my schedule today didn't allow for the 3-ish hours it takes to do a strip (I know I'm slow, stop looking at me like that). I hadn't anticipated such busy days, figured I'd squeeze it in there somewhere somehow. Part of the challenge is that I was using this partially to get drawing regularly so I haven't been allowing myself to do more than one strip a day to build a cash for days like today. I may have to abandon that though and just go for 30 strips by the end of the month and endeavor to release one a day but 30 by June 30th is the iron clad part. What do u think?

[johnpanda]

Day 3 comes a little late… but only 1 hour into day 4! haha. Let the day get away from me. Anyway!

The other day my friend Joy and I went to go see the Poltergeist remake for our weekly scary movie. Afterwards, on the way home, we were chatting about how silly it would be to actually see the ghosts picking up things and shaking them around. Then it hit me, they’re just a bunch of TROLLS! TROLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOOOO!

[johnpanda]

The other day I was on my way to visit my dear friend Marcus (check out his tumblr here: http://clawsonart.tumblr.com/) and was trying to use the voice-to-text on my phone, needless to say It never works quite right. This fine day though, after several tries at ever increasing volume and careful enunciation, I found myself absolutely screaming “SMILEY FACE!” at my phone with the window down... in traffic... Yeah, I felt like a total twerp.

[johnpanda]

This is the first of 30 strips I will attempt to make this month! I’ve recently taken a hiatus from comicing and have decided to get back in the swing of things with a little challenge...

I’m gonna draw a strip every day for the month of June! I’m calling it #June4John and I hope my friends and fans will enjoy this little slice of life daily strip. It’s only a warmup for exciting projects to come and I can’t wait to see what comes of all this craziness. Lets enjoy the ride together... Now I know this isn’t technically still the 1st of June but.. WHATEVER!

I didn’t get started on it till 12:30! My friend Chaz and I got lost tonight in a crazy quest for crème de menthe and ended up running all over Napa looking for a bottle. When we got home I didn’t realize it was so late so I rushed down to my room and fired up the old Wacom... I still haven’t even gotten my drink! Well... now that it’s posted, I’m off to wrangle Chaz into making me a stinger.