Another Glimpse Beneath the Hood!
Channing: Last time I did this it turned out pretty well, so let’s try it again! For whatever reason, the bonus story for Volume 2 of the collected Skin Horse strips was kind of a bear. Pondered and eventually discarded were a number of scripts which remain in various stages of completeness on my hard drive, everything from the adventures of adorable baby Sweetheart to a sort of “What-If” story about Tip’s lycanthropy being incurable. Eventually (as you will know) we decided upon sort of a zany personality-swap storyline to close Volume 2, and I’m very happy with it, but I thought maybe you guys might be interested in seeing what might have been! Clicking on the link below will take you to a copy of “Water Cooler Talk,” a bonus story starring the (at that time) immobile office water cooler. It was eventually discarded for its extremely somber tone, but maybe you’ll like to read it anyway!
Anyhow, clicky clicky!
Shaenon: I’m glad things have turned out more or less well for the water cooler since then. I think Jeff and I both worry about her, but Jeff worries more.
Also, I love these features for the glimpse of Jeff’s desktop wallpaper.
You can tell a lot about people by the icorns on their desktop.
Not bad. That script was pretty accurate for capturing conversations out of context. You MIGHT be able to fit something similar into cliffhangers, kind of an occasional side-story interlude. Would have to time it properly to suitably frustrate the readers. Printer would work too – I swear the one at work deliberately delays print jobs by jamming or ‘adjusting settings’ in the middle of a job when I’m already late for that meeting.
My own desktop tends to have rotating Webcomic, Space, Nature, or vacation photos. And baby pictures of the three cats – from back when they were cute.
(TUNE: “The Ballad Of Jed Clampett”, Paul Henning)
A tale of the cooler that our friends employ,
Dispensing a drink, service is her only joy!
She thinks all day, dreaming more than you could know,
But all she can give is a shot of H2O!
(Water, that is … natural spring … dihydrogen monoxide …)
‘Til the day that her bosses acquired a robot drone …
They had to use, couldn’t leave the thing alone!
They hooked a USB, put her consciousness right in!
And now they call her Bubbles, a member of Skin …
(Horse, that is … government bureau … Black Ops Social Services …)
[spoken]Project Skin Horse!
[Breakdown!]
[last verse continues at fast tempo]
So here’s a little peek inside the mind of Mister Wells …
Who dreams up all these stories that no normal person tells!
Each print-collection volume has a number of these tales,
In hopes that you will buy the book, and boost up all our sales!
(Revenue, that is … income … baby needs a new pair of leg braces …
Y’all buy the whole set, y’hear?)
Well, it suggests (1) Bubbles is originally from somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, (2) Bubbles did really want to get into the drone pretty badly, and (3) you could’a shared the name “Olympia” with us while we were all speculating…
All right everybody, make a note: the water cooler’s official name is Olympia “Bubbles” Waters.
Next time someone on Facebook starts droning on about how great Doctor Who is, I’ll be sure to ask them if they’ve ever been moved to tears by the inner monologue of a water cooler.
My desktop wallpaper is a rotating selection of artwork from unfinished or unpublished projects, as a constant reminder of my failure.
Don’t think of it as failure – They are Ideas who’s time wasn’t right.
Good.
Successes are built on the foundation of failures and broken dreams. Without them, there would be nothing beautiful, great or wonderful.
Its very good I find, and now it can end a bit less somber with bubbles going “and now I can find out” or something buts thats just how i see it.
I just realized Jeff is also potentially trolling us – 10 files dated 2010, All titles carefully hidden. Possibly plots for future modified resurrection?
Awww. On the upside, she DOES get to hear how the sandwiches were. Very Hot.
They also need to get her a better vocoder.
I liked this. Though in a way, it may have been better for us to discover what went on in Bubbles mind after she got the android suit
I was expecting more graphics packages. Maybe a gimp or inkscape icon somewhere.
Dear Princess Celestia:
Today I learned designing webcomics is a long, complicated and occasionally bizarre process that apparently involves alternate realities….