A Wild Narla Appears

Progress on Chapter 11 is a little slow due to scheduling and sick. I am about seven pages in, but would like to have more done (I'd like to be done with it and halfway through 12 by the time this chapter ends, but you can't always get what you want).

Looking for More Material

I've got a bit of a mental disorder; I can't really talk at all to people I don't know unless I'm forced or prompted with a script (my mom used to write scripts for me while I was growing up). Typing is no problem, and I can be outgoing as long as I'm dealing with a written medium and have no one's face on the other end, but that's not what I'm discussing today.

It's faces and posture. Facial expressions and body language literally have no meaning to me at all. I don't know what someone's arm or face or body placement means at all, and in order to do this right, I've got to use reference charts (which, thankfully, I've mostly memorized now; you have no idea how much this has helped me. It's because of my attempts to do art (horribly) that have allowed me to actually go shopping by myself, even if I don't talk to the cashier) to even get a facial expression. Still, I'm entirely guessing on annoyance or surprise or anything like that (and as anyone who's looked at my attempts to draw backgrounds knows, my sense of spacial perception is crazy; my roommate finds it amusing to move things around when I'm not in the living room and watch me try to re-navigate when I come back in. Asshole.).

It's difficult, since I learn expressions and postures by rote and chart, I basically have to learn to redraw a face every time I want someone to have a different expression, which brings me to the real main point.

I have a large amount of physical reference material, but it's limited. I keep trying the exercises I can dig up with tutorials online. Anybody out there have any good ideas for helping me improve?

Call of Cthulhu

Investigator Name: David Andrew Bartlett
Occupation: Artist
Colleges, Degrees: Miskatonic University, BA
Birthplace: Glowbury, MA
Mental Disorders: Dissociative disorder, not otherwise specified
Sex: M Age: 22
STR: 9
DEX: 12
INT: 17
Idea: 85
CON: 8
APP: 11
POW: 18
Luck: 90
SIZ: 10
SAN: 90 (It's a bit lower than this right now)
EDU: 18
Know: 90
Cthulhu Mythos: 00 (It's a bit higher than this right now)
Damage Bonus: none



Accounting 10%
Anthropology 1%
Archaeology 1%
Art: Drawing 60%
Art: Painting 75%
Astronomy 1%
Bargain 5%
Biology 16%
Chemistry 1%
Climb 40%
Computer Use 26%
Conceal 15%
Credit Rating 15%
Cthulhu Mythos 0%
Dodge 48%
Drive Auto 20%
Electrical Repair 40%
Electronics 11%
Fast Talk 60%
First Aid 30%
Geology 16%
Handgun 20%
Hide 10%
History 67%
Jump 25%
Law 5%
Library Use 52%
Listen 25%
Locksmith 1%
Machine Gun 15%
Martial Arts 1%
Mechanical Repair 20%
Medicine 5%
Natural History 26%
Navigate 10%
Occult 5%
Operate Hvy. Machine 1%
Persuade 15%
Pharmacy 1%
Photography 47%
Physics 89%
Psychoanalysis 1%
Psychology 31%
Ride 5%
Rifle 25%
Shotgun 30%
Sneak 10%
Spot Hidden 40%
Submachine Gun 15%
Swim 25%
Throw 25%
Track 10%
Fist/Punch 50%
Head Butt 10%
Kick 25%
Grapple 25%
Hatchet 20%



Call of Cthulhu is by Chaosium Inc.

Goin' Down to Eltdown

The Eltdown Shards are bizarre fragments of seeming pottery found in 1882 and named after Eltdown in southern England, where they were first discovered. These shards date to the early Triassic period. Previously believed to be untranslatable, there have been several "translations" made, such as The Eltdown Shards: A Partial Translation, by Gordon Whitney. There are also a variety of non-collegiate translation, most of which make the rounds among cults.

The translation by Whitney is similar to another text, the Pnakotic Manuscripts, produced by the archaeosapients currently termed Yithians, which describes the planet Yith and the first encounters with the Yekubians. There also appears to be a shard that contains the formula for summoning a being known as the "Warder of Knowledge." It should be noted that the formula for dismissing the Warder is either not present or intentionally damaged. However, the majority of information contained on the shards deals with shoggoths, and may or may not make vague references to some sort of "prime source," which means that it's more likely the shards were inscribed by the Elder Things.

Looky!

A Yog-Sothoth reference in today's comic... maybe. A couple other references to, and some foreshadowing, all in the same panel.

And of course, a DG scenario reference.

My mom contacted me the other day and signed us both up for NaNoWriMo, so I'm having to hold off on Ten-Ghost for a little while to try and set up some back up pages, since I won't be doing any pages this November. I'm even skipping out on going to Michigan for Christmas this year just so I can keep up with this.

Oh yeah, and the Deus ex Machina line is there because it's funny, see, because Shub-Niggurath is

________________

Somebody pointed out a typo in the Oct 06 comic. If it's still there... try refreshing. If that doesn't work, well, sorry about that.

Yeeeessss

As a side note, I would like to apologize for this chapter. I really would. Next one is better, I promise. It's a little difficult to deal with a new character, in addition to having been rushed through that month, so a majority of the art suffered.

David's Parents Are Disbelieving

They wonder why he can't be successful, like his brother, or attend college for a real purpose, like his sister.

I was toying with the idea of her going to the same college, but that's one more character I don't want to have to write for, even though she's the only family member who really tries to care, even if she doesn't understand him. There's obviously a conclusion everything is building up to, and I'm almost one sixth of the way there (another 24 pages and I will be). Even so, it feels monumental, and I keep rearranging later chapters in the hopes that it will make things easier on me.

I've already planted a few clues as to what's going on here and there... and a really big one sometime in early August, so much so that it's almost a spoiler (but I won't tell you which one it is). Rest assured, though, that even if everything looks fine right now, it's just a build up to the inevitable Lovecraft ending. I mean, it is a Lovecraft comic, I should have a Lovecraft ending, right? I think I've even figured out a way to make it seem a little hopeful regardless, though, so there's that.