Grymm Ramblings
With the posting of this, not only is the entirety of this new arc done, but the first page of the arc after it only has part of a panel left to color. Suffice to say, I've been mainlining nothing but Walrus work this week to make sure that we don't have any last minute snags with CreepKnight doing his annual stint as best goddamn performer at the local Renn. Faire. So, this new story arc. Its not very long. It won't explain much. But we get to see what Cyradwee's been up to! Also, a new character! Meet Doctor David Eichholtz and his hive mind creations. Like the Mass, he's another character of ours who's existed since way before the Walrus. And we adore him. I really want to tell you about him. At the same time, I think it would be far more fun for you to learn about how glorious he can be on your own as things progress. Also, if ever there was anything to speculate on concerning a character's connections, relations, etc. Now would be the time. Technically the Walrus has already been seeded with Eichholtz' existence. I just wonder if anyone will make the connection. I want to take a few lengthy paragraphs and ramble for a bit since I have about 15 minutes before this needs to go live. I've probably written about this before. But introducing Eichhie up there just reminds me of this fact. Doing a webcomic was honestly the smartest thing we ever could have done in creating comics. I just wish we could have started doing it earlier. Or had had the mindset and ideas to keep things going steady after the first couple of runs*. We spent an ungodly amount of time revamping and reworking and refining things to send to publishers. More time waiting for rejection notices that sometimes never came and completely changing stories because we weren't happy with them. To what end? To get a deal with Image, or Slave Labor Graphics or Avatar Press? With the possibility of having to change things for a publisher to make sales and quotas? This route we're on now is a far more difficult one. There's no doubt about that. Only now are we starting to see the smallest inkling of maybe not having to constantly bleed money to keep the site going. Only within the past year have we gathered our small but fiercely loyal and territorial fan base. But I'd like to think we're on the right track. Far more difficult maybe... but more satisfying. We're standing atop an apex. Sometime soon we're going to stumble our way over that first big threshhold and find ourselves blinking in the oppressive shine reflecting off the huge influx of new readers finding us and crashing down over us. Ripping and tearing and begging for what we can offer. We just don't know when its going to happen. But we're waiting. And we're ready. And once it does... things will be glorious. Because that'll be the major turning point when all kinds of possibilities open up. The trick is to just keep our heads above the water until we get there. Yeah, I know I've rambled on about this topic a number of times in the past, but really this is for my benefit as much as its for entertainment value. Its hard being an artist. Its harder producing something on a regular basis that you KNOW is wonderful and yet you're restrained when it comes to exposing it to a greater and greater audience. No matter how well it seems you're doing, its still not enough. Especially when you see the offerings of others all around you that gain far more attention than your own, but for all the wrong or undesirable reasons. But the key is to stick with it. Accept the bullshit, and the work, and the trouble, and waiting while knowing that it'll pay off. Because you're not going to give up. And eventually, it will pay off. We'll never be rich. But we'll have the audience we crave while entertaining them with ideas that are purely our own. Unfiltered. Concentrated. Oh so strange and wonderful *Though to be fair, if we had continued going the way we were going for the Tripod site of the B&W era, we probably would have never come up with the ideas that have made the color era so completely fantastic.
0 thoughts on “The Shawshank Vivisection 1: Meanwhile in the Basement of Doom”
Akonite
He has a passing resemblance to an individual with a fondness for acid green latex.
I don’t know if territorial is the right term because we’ll happily travel and potentially stage hostile take overs of other territories rather than stay in our own. (I have just applied for a job that includes free domestic flights as a benefit… be excited or afraid…not really picky which.)
Mercenary Clown
*finishes marking my terratory* what was that about terratorial?
Ahhh….the finer things in life……fun, travel, disembowlment, and forced childrens games gone wrong…what’s there not to love?
Marron
Doctor David Eichholtz. Well, that’s a nice Jewish name if ever I did see one. And a doctor no less!
I love how Cyradwee’s estranged eyeball is even looking at him from the table to see what will happen next. This is like a game of Operation gone horribly, horribly wrong; in other words: delightful.
Lance
I completely forgot how much I love Cyradwee. This arc is going to be great 😀
MrGothikka
I can’t wait to see where this is going. You guys are AWESOME!
Grymm
Thank you! Thank you! I’d take a bow if my back wasn’t in painy hurt from sitting here and working on art since waking up.
MrGothikka
I totally understand. I’m security at a casino.
Grymm
S’weird. I think you’re like one of the four or five different readers we have that work as security or bouncers or such. Its fascinating, the wonderful diversity of people we get enjoying the Walrus!
MrGothikka
it takes a special breed of people to work security, and apparently we’re all down with the Walrus.
Marchosias
Eichholtz…hmm. Sounds familiar… also looks quite a bit like me, except for the mustache. Talks like me too… and the knives… minions…
Grymm, why are you writing me? I’m flattered, sure, but concerned.
Grymm
You might have seen some of the more ancient renditions of him from years back on my DevArt account.
Also, did you mean to direct that last part to me? I’d like to think we’ve made it clear over the past couple of years that CreepKnight does all the writing and textual bits and I stick strictly to working the art angle. Give credit where credit is due!
Marchosias
True, true, CK deserves great credit for the writing.
Still, this is getting doppelganger-ish. Right down to the shades and soul-patch.
CreepKnight
Is that… is that how you acknowledge your mistakes? Gee, and here I thought that “Oh, my humble apologies” was in your wheel house. I guess I was mistaken. I humbly apologize for giving you the credit I would give a nine-year-old, in as far as accepting responsibility for their shortcomings. In the future, I will remember to regard you as I would a dog that is being housebroken.
And so this doesn’t happen again…
I WRITE THE COMIC.
Also, people who don’t acknowledge their mistakes when they are corrected really piss me off, almost as much as people who half-ass it.
Marchosias
Okay, I’m an asshole. I have no excuses, and I’m sorry. I fucked up, didn’t give you your due, and I sincerely apologize.
Will B
Well gentlemen you have outdone yourselves again. Most curios how much longer they can torture that conniving back stabbing bastard. Colors are really vivid this time Grymm. Very nice touch. Though I gotta ask, who leaked the blueprints of my lab to you?? Not that I mad I just have know which minion I have to send to the unending screaming madness that even death doesn’t end, they so obviously deserve for betraying me.
Grymm
Our kind thanks t’ye!
Perhaps its just coincidence. But just to be safe you might want to give them all a brief taste of torment. It never hurts to remind the help of who keeps their finger hovering over the “Explode of minions’ head” button.
Will B
The Big red button. Or as I call it the retirement package. Perhaps your right. Time to hang the sign “The whipping will continue till the workplace moral improves.” Usually gets efficiency up as well.
Akonite
Bah! “Moral will decline until the whippings improve!”
Grymm
I dunno, I’ve always preferred the phrasing “The beatings will continue until moral improves.” But maybe that’s just because I never was any good with a whip.
Akonite
…or you don’t find getting beat properly a moral booster.
Grymm
I think its probably more that I just find the word “beatings” to be more fun of a word to say than whippings. Like how I prefer the word rutabaga to cabbage.
Akonite
Point to you, sir. It also has the benefit of being more general than “whippings” that implies single-tail or flogger like implement and ignores a majority of other fun tools.
sandra prickett
You know, come to think of it, the differences between the Mass and CK are astoundingly obvious. Plus I think CK is better looking, more suave and handsome. The Mass looks like a punk brute.
It’s my birthday tomorrow! Acknowledge me, or I shall not spare you in my world domination purge! (Grymm is an exception, though. Love you Grymm!)
Akonite
Happy birthday, new person! I don’t then the followers of the walrus are big on solitary world domination but dividing up the continents amongst those who aspire to dictatorship is likely.
Personally, I just want to have friends in high places and a harem of geeks.
sandra prickett
Yay! The nice lady likes me! Looks like the rest of you are gonna die though….:)
Akonite
No killing Grymm and CK they have sexy brain-meats. I might have to demonstrate some of that rabid, protective fan behavior.
Sunshine
Acknowledge you? Perhaps you should give a reason aside from threatening to purge us…all that will get you is a whole bunch of crazies untied against you. Instead you should be trying to gain our approval and thus our assistance. Just some friendly advice ^_^
Oh and happy birthday…may your candles not light your hair on fire.
MrGothikka
Agreed.
Grymm
Happy belated birthday Sandra! Don’t let the other commenteos get you down with their threats. The occasional purge threat from a fellow commentor is good for keeping them on their toes.
Sunshine
What will happen when you cut off his head….well his vocal cords will be cut so at least he’ll shut up. When you’re done with the exploratory exams could I possibly have his brain? I have a theory I need to test and I cant find a brain vile enough…though I think his would be perfect ^_^
Akonite
This is Cyradwee…who says the vocal chords are in the neck? Or that his voice requires them to be projected. I’ve always imagined him to have a slightly nasal, uppercase-italics kind of voice.
Grymm
Well actually in one of the original versions of this page we did, Cyradwee actually WAS decapitated. And still screaming bloody murder. But it made things much longer and more involved and we’re trying to keep things short and sweet.
MrGothikka
Kinda like The Monarch from The Venture Brothers. Whom I might say he vaguely resembles. No offense C.K. and Grymm, just my opinion.
Grymm
Actually, this is one of the few cases where having something I’ve drawn compared to an established property doesn’t send me into a frothy, venomous rage. Partially because I fucking adore the Venture Brothers like you can’t even imagine. Also, I’ll fully admit that I totally ripped-off the Monarch’s eyebrows for Cyradwee.
I also totally ripped off Shmeerm’s eyebrows from somewhere. But people have yet to catch on to that one.
Grymm
Looking at the next week and a half of strips, freshly written and lettered from CK. You guys are in for so much awesomeness, you don’t even know.
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