comic dialog: Panel 1
Caption: Last day of the LAN party, and the line for signatures amasses
Noob: Think he'll sign y DS? It's cool that he'kk sign anything... I only have a guest pass... my mom wouldn't let me get...
Panel 2
Noob: Da-aaaaang! WOW!
Panel 3
Cute cat: heh... hi
Panel 4
Noob: um.. uh... um..
Caption: Just another reason geeks rarely get a chance to attempt to spawn.
tooo cute Gary
Ok, so this was the funniest thing, cutest thing, and most depressing thing I saw at Digital Overload, oh so many months ago. This actually happened. It was probably two high school kids. So I was waiting in line, and this kid behind me is talking about his DS to me, and some game he had on it. Something about beating people with chickens. I really don't remember, but then this girl, wearing cat ears and anime type clothes gets in line behind us. The kid behind me, going on about his DS, and how his mom would only let him get a guest pass, sees her, does a double take, then yells out "DAAAAA-@#$@$@NNN!", and his jaw drops. She then says all meek and shy and cute like, "Hi", and he goes dead silent and doesn't say anything else the whole time in line. The inocence was cute. The fact that it happened was funny. The fact that the kid then probably thought about it for a long time (both of them, wondering what they did that stopped the other from talking to them) is depressing.
As a geek, I know that being self conscious can really stop you from doing a lot. I missed out on my first kiss, because I didn't want to mess it up. Then we both went home and beat ourselves up over it. She thought it was her, I felt like a chicken, I wanted to apologize, but I don't think I ever found a way to. It was just bad. So, I feel for the guy, and for her, both were probably very self conscious. That's what focusing too much on the intellectual and very little on the physical does. It makes it so you don't know what you can and can't do. I mean.. as a kid I didn't ignore exercise, but I did it all solo, never really on a team, definitely not a lady's man. I was shy, quiet, dark, and mysterious. It wasn't until much later that I gained a lot of confidence. Perhaps it was martial arts training, or just observing others and seeing just how self conscious the rest of the world is... I really don't know, but now I'm much more confident, some would say arrogant at times, heh.
All I'm saying is I relate to it, and it can get better for all you shy geeks out there. Just realize everyone is unsure of themselves. Some just hide it better than others, and you never know your limits until you test them, so see what you can do. Push yourself to your limits, and when you fail, try again. Learn and grow. OK, that's the end of my little speech for now.
Try your hand at webcomics Gary
Since this is the last comic this year about Digital Overload, I thought I'd let you guys come up with some of your own dialog. Just email me what each number should be, and I'll try to post some of them back here. Also if there are aspiring webcomic writers/artists out there who don't want to deal with the website portion of it, let me know. I've modded my pages to allow me to setup new comics on subdomains. I plan to put together a central listing for all of them too, when I get a chance.
The responses Gary
The responses so far are funny. I'll make a page for them and post them on Monday. So all of you have until Sunday afternoon to show me you have a comic inside you, and I'm not talking about who you're dating.
The results Gary
Five of the user submitted comics are here.