King Sheep Productions

Hoorah for a new review for Superbad! Check it out, then read the rest of this.

It shouldn’t come as a shock to any of the literally dozen of readers who frequent this blog that things have become a little lax in the art department here at KSP. Updates to Kingdom Heights are occurring about as often as I phone my brother (embarrassingly infrequent), and as for Coming Distractions, well I’ll just use this altered version of the most recent strip to point out a few problems.

I’ll be the first one to admit that I’m my own worst critic, but in cases such as this, I feel the purely empirical evidence supports such a harsh review. I was in a terrible hurry to finish the strip (it being past deadline and all, and sure the deadline is self-invented, but if we don’t hold ourselves to some kind of standard then we’re really no better than Microsoft), so I skimped on the workmanship and cut corners until it more closely resembled a John Carpenter movie than a comic strip of my own creation.

Many times, I’ve made promises of “more frequent updates” or “regularly scheduled comics” with whipped cream and a pretty-please-don’t-stop-visiting-our-site cherry on top, but what it really boils down to is that I possess the deadly combination of being both busy and a slacker. I work all day, and when I come home all I want to do is drool and play video games. Also, while I have a great desire to succeed, I have very little desire to put forth the effort to do so. This can charitably be described as ironic considering I have stars in my eyes and at least as much talent and creativity as the staff of Dark Horse Comics (or twice as much as Top Cow). However, there may be a cure for this apathy.

There’s a problem that I once heard called Paralysis of Analysis, where one becomes so caught up in the consideration of his or her actions (and the consequences thereof) that no action is ever actually taken. This is what happens when a good boy who doesn’t wish to disappoint his parents starts a website which is viewed by almost every member of his family and he spends most of his “work” time curled into a ball wondering what jokes are acceptable to crack without resulting in a lengthy discussion on the topic of morality and the socio-economic repercussions of using the word “shit” purely for comic value in a cartoon. How much pressure can you put on a person’s need for parental approval before he finally snaps and cries “Bugger all!” and flees into the hills?

Naturally, this is all purely rhetorical and puting it down here is something of a cathartic enema, but for some reason I feel the need to fling it all out at you like a monkey in a zoo. It’s not really any of your business. However, if I cared about privacy, I wouldn’t have a website. I would like to say that this little 200 gigabytes of internet bandwidth is officially where I cut away, and it may be a little tumultuous at first (perhaps a tightly-contained explosion of everything that’s been bottled-up) as I settle on exactly how looney I’m going to get, but rest assured that it’ll be no more destructive than the changing of a season. And maybe this time, I’m going to stick to my metaphorical guns because King Sheep Productions is about what we like.

And bugger all.

I’m sure we’ve all had that moment when a complete and utter stranger walks up to you and says “You look so familiar. Do I know you?” When I was young and arrogant, I would say “In your dreams.” Then when I became older and even more arrogant, I would say “In your dreams,” but with a Frank Sinatra smoothness to it. Now that I’m older yet and lost some of my arrogance, I say “I don’t think so.”

In college, this whole “don’t I know you?” would happen a lot. This is because I have a brother and two sisters and we all bear a striking family resemblance. The saying amongst my friends was “You seen one Taylor, you seen ’em all.”

However, since moving to Redmond, cases of mistaken identity have become a weekly event. One woman swore she knew me from the skate park. Anyone who’s spent five minutes in my presence knows I couldn’t balance on a skateboard to save my soul from Satan. The barista at my regular Starbucks consistently gets my order wrong no matter how many times a week I place my order specifically with her. It’s become an experiment of sorts. Another guy was pretty sure I’d gone to school at Western Washington University. I have too much melanin to have gone to Western. A Safeway checker I’d never spoken to before greeted me like an old friend and asked how my dog was. I don’t have a dog.

So here are the options. Either I have a very common face or I have a doppleganger on the loose. The latter is a very disturbing option because I thought I had caught them all, Pokemon-style.

Thus, I set out to verify the existence of this evil twin who apparently enjoys deviant sports like skateboarding and perhaps dog-walking. I’ll keep you posted, loyal readers.

PS. New Coming Distractions with new voting incentive.