Women and Pictures

This week's Room 19 is sort of autobiographical. The key words in that last sentence is "sort of". About eight years ago a new magazine burst on the scene, you may have heard of it, its called Maxim. My brother had a subscription and one day I was leafing through it. There was an article on how to attract chicks and keep them in your bedroom (because that's where the "magic" happens).

Among the list of things to have in your room (besides a plant and some nice wine glasses) were pictures of you and your buddies. They said girls eat this stuff up because it shows that you're not all about sports, Star Wars and Cindy Crawford. It proved that you could have meaningful, deep relations with other people. That is what this week's strip is about.

I know what you're thinking, "Strip? Cindy Crawford? Now you're speaking my language, old buddy!" Check out www.room19comics.com to see what I'm talking about.

A week after I read that article, I found a bunch of pictures of my friends and family and put them on the wall. The next part proved to be a little tougher, now I had to get a girl up there. Eventually one did wander off the street and upstairs and guess what the first thing she mentioned was? That's right, my vast collection of baseball hats on the wall (for that touch of class), but she after that she made a bee-line to the pictures. Thank you, Maxim.

BTW, all of the other Maxim hints didn't work too well, so I believe it was beginer's luck.

In this episode Eddie has just told Kurt about his new discovery, Kurt rolls his eyes and sort of goes with it. I am keeping with the old hockey logo t-shirts. This week Eddie is sporting a Hartford Whalers jersey. Even though they got their asses kicked every game by the Bruins and they played in a mall, the Whale were pretty cool. I miss those Nutmeggers.

The second panel is probably my favorite panel that I've ever drawn, I used a style that I first drew in this strip:
August 03 and I think it works when trying to set the scene for a party. Hell, if you think back to a big college party, more than 90% of the people there are faceless anyway.

When I showed Aly the inital sketches, she said, "No says 'nightcap' anymore" and that is the point. Eddie is sort of socially awkward, at least enough to be taking advice from a men's magazine that he'd actually use a corn-ball line. Best of all, it worked.

I think that the last two panels work well as the chick he brought up stairs got completely excited by pictures (and there are girls who do get that jazzed, we all know them). And look at the big grin on Eddie's face, he just knows that he's going to get some action tonight. That was my biggest task in doing this particular strip, I wanted Ed to have a huge grin, but I didn't want him to look crazy.

And as with most of Eddie's plans, they are ruined by the fourth panel. The shirt's off, no shoes, he's on the bed and his babe is still looking at pictures two hours later. I think this is a pretty good strip, but if there is one thing I wish I did a bit different, is to reverse the order of the last two weeks. I would have this one be the first strip and last week's August 24 be this week's.

Oh well, these are the lessons you learn when starting out.