Entomotheist

I just need to get this off my chest: I've been meaning to start working on Cockroach Pentecost again and I keep thinking about going back to it.... And then every time I re-read it, all I can think is:

I really did not intend to make Nevitt look that much like Benedict Cumberbatch.

In my defense, it's purely coincidental. Cumberbatch wasn't even a blip on my radar when I did my first conceptual Nevitt sketches. He's just got that really long, oddly-rectangular face...

Sigh.

I'm back. I think. My life feels like it's starting to settle back into some kind of steady rhythm - I'm slowly getting the hang of my new job, while I start to feel more at home in my new apartment downtown. While I try to figure out what I'm going to do next, drawing these weird comics keeps me sane - ish.

I don't have much more to report. I should. I'll work on that.

Oh, man. This poor comic... All neglected, and alone...

I just haven't felt like drawing anything lately. I've been decently bored, but not in the same way I was before. This was something I thought of at work, to take my mind off the craziness that was Kroger - now I have a different job, and I'm not yet to the point where I need to take my mind off of anything.

I'm a little frustrated with the flow of the last few pages. There's just too much information being thrown at you at once, and nothing really makes much sense yet. I mean, it all makes sense to me. But that's because I'm nuts enough to come up with this stuff in the first place.

Sorry for the slowness on the updates lately. I'm having an I'm-an-idiot crisis. Happens to the best of us.

I started writing this comic because I was bored to tears, and had to have something to think about at work to keep myself sane. The two things I tend to read up about the most online are bugs, and religions. Since those are the two most interesting things to me, I decided to write a story about them.

But I don't know that much about either one. I'm not an entomologist, or a theologian. I decorate cakes. Those things just interest me.

Realizing how incredibly little I know about bugs, I've started reading everything I can about them. I've started going out to parks, trying to find as many weird little bugs as I can, and posting pictures of them on invertebrates forums. The more I find, the more I realize I don't know. And I want to know.

When I started this comic, I thought it would be a good way for me to force myself to learn about arthropods. It's worked – I feel like I know a lot more than I did when I first started.

But what I know isn't enough. Most days, I just make myself keep going – the only way to fix this is to learn everything I can! But sometimes I just feel like I have no business writing a story about something I know nothing about. What if people read this thinking that I know what I'm talking about, and I feed them misinformation? Unforgivable!

Regardless, this is my favorite way to learn anything – take the things I know, and put them in a story.

I guess I can't take this too seriously. They're man-sized, talking bugs, on fire. I'm just gonna say it's artistic license and leave it at that.

Something happened today while I was at work. Something horrible, disturbing, something that's shaken my faith in humanity and made me feel like an alien walking unnoticed amongst the human race.

We were decorating cakes when the phone rang. Co-worker #1 answered - I'm leaving out names here, to protect the dignity of the parties involved. The customer wanted to know: what colors do you mix to make the color red?

I looked #1 in the eye. "Red?" I said.

"Yeah."

"Like, what are the ingredients in the red icing?"

"No, just, what colors you mix to make red."

I stared at her blankly for a second or two. "You... don't," I said finally.

"Well, you can mix all colors to get anything."

"But... no. Red is a primary color. So are yellow and blue."

"Yellow and orange make red!" shouted coworker #2 - I thought she of all people would know!

"But... orange is red and yellow!" I said, desperately, while coworker #1 told the customer in a matter-of-fact tone that red is made out of yellow and orange.

I mixed some icing in demonstration. I made a color wheel on iced cookies using the airbrush, explaining primary, secondary and tertiary colors, RGB, CMYK, explained how red, green and blue light make white, how black is technically not a color... Everything I know. Still, all three of them stood by their convictions. Their logic: what are red, blue and yellow made out of if not other colors?

I'm... stunned. Horrified. I... didn't know things were this bad. I have to get out of here.