action figure graveyard

New Home

2008-12-29T01:23:00.003-05:00

Alright chumps and chumpettes, I know you have no reason to check this page, but on the off-chance anyone happens to come here in the future, here's the deal:

1) The archive is up at http://afgraveyard.deviantart.com/gallery/

B) There will be a final episode, a farewell episode: #49. I make no promises about when this will appear.

III) This page will likely experience no further updates.

Explanations and Thoughts

2008-11-03T11:23:00.005-05:00

Adding on to House's rather terse goodbye, I feel as though you folks might deserve an explanation.

The comic was featured on Digg the other day, generating a lot of hits for us. So many hits, in fact, that my host took the site down. I thought I had an unlimited bandwidth plan with them, but I was incorrect. It was, in fact, the opposite of unlimited, known also as "limited." They requested I pay for a more expensive data plan, but that's just not going to happen. I make no money from the comic, and with that I'd actively be LOSING money. We're not talking about a trivial amount either, or I might have considered it.

Anyway, I proposed a counteroffer: Instead of paying them more money, I offered to NOT pay more money. However, in exchange for paying the same amount, I would sacrifice my firstborn son to their Dark God, who dreams ceaselessly beyond the stars, waiting for the day it will awake and bring the world we know to ruin, AND I would delete the comic. I would get to keep my professional artist page and e-mail, and they'd get to keep their precious bandwidth. In the end they accepted the deal and I followed through on my half of the bargain (though I'm still waiting for a firstborn son...).

I apologize to everyone who followed the comic, because this is certainly not how I wanted to go out. We were winding down production once more because House is too busy to contribute, but I still would have liked to keep the archive up for people to enjoy, and I did actually have an idea for a "final" episode of AFG should the time come when we decided to officially declare it over.

Anyway, my plan is to put up the entire archive on Deviantart or something similar so that people who followed the comic and this blog can still look at it, but the next episode of AFG will be the last of the regular series. I'm not saying it'll be the last new AFG you'll ever lay eyes on, but it will be the last numbered episode and it would be foolish to expect regular updates after that.

Check back here for information about AFG's new archival home and the availability of the final episode.

The End of the Line

2008-11-03T10:26:00.002-05:00

It is official. After 2 years and 8 months, 320,000 hits, 44 comics, Action Figure Graveyard shall cease to exist.

Mostly, this is a result of laziness and cheapness. The hosting company has decided that we are too popular and is requiring that we Josh pays $50 a month to continue at this level of bandwidth. Now, that might not seem like a lot, but how else are is Josh going to pay for my hookers? In addition to this, I'm generally very busy getting my legal career started, so I have little time to do anything other than drinking. And, I know you hear stories about all the greatest artists being drunks, but that's just not true for me. All of my ideas when drunk are terrible.

So, I bid all seven of you a fond farewell.

2008-09-14T11:01:00.003-05:00

Some times I wonder why I don't live in New York with Josh and everyone else from high school and college. Most of the time, I don't have to. Last night was one of those occasions.

I decided to go see the 9th to last game ever in Yankee stadium (in case you're wondering, I was rooting for the Rays). About 50 miles out from Philly, I started to smell something funny. I thought that a skunk had been killed but then I realized as the minutes dragged on that it was just Newark. Then I had to pay 5 dollars to get off the turnpike and another 5 dollars to get into Manhattan. After which we had to find parking and all the crazy ass New Yorkers were honking at us if we slowed down for more than a half second to see if a spot was big enough for the car. Finally we found parking.

So, we go into Yankee stadium, and holy crap it was gross. I mean, we call Philly Filthadelphia, but DAMN. I immediately wanted to take a shower. And then I found out that beers were 9.50. Are you kidding me?

After the game (the cheating Yankees won by 1 run) we got outside to find that the car behind us was broken into. And then when we finally got back through New Jersey and were just about to take the bridge back to Philly, we found out that the toll to leave Jersey was raised at Midnight last night. It was 12:04 when we got there.

So, that is why I still live in Philly and why Josh and I have to collaborate over the internet.

I Do Not Know Where House Is

2008-09-05T09:20:00.002-05:00

House moved into a new apartment in Philadelphia maybe a week ago, and I haven't heard from him since. My going theories are that he was kidnapped by wizards, or that he doesn't have the internet yet. I could call him, but.....eh.

Anyway, while I could make comics in his absence, this is me and House's project, not just my project. The collaborative spirit is key. Also, if I made something he didn't like, he would whip me.

As soon as House comes back and I regain internet access at my apartment (that's another problem, though possibly also caused by wizards) we'll have something for the four of you.

AFG Trivia

2008-08-18T21:13:00.003-05:00

You people drive me nuts. The longer posts we make, the fewer the comments. If I posted "omg diarrhea sunglasses" I would probably get 93 replies. But whatever. I'm not going to let you people drag me down. I'm going to persevere in spite of glaring indifference.

If you'd actually read the last post you'd know we're mulling over AFG merchandise, but we're not going to bother doing it unless we think there is enough interest to warrant it, so I highly suggest speaking up if the idea of AFG merch sparks your nads at all.

As for the actual content of this post, I was going over the comics and put together a handy trivia list for you all:

First appearance of House and Josh: Episode 3. House kills a horse.

First appearance by a mythological figure: Episode 6. Aphrodite works at Starbucks.

First appearance of Dr. Kratz: Episode 7. Kratz invents the worst memory hat.

First instance of time travel: Episode 9. Werewolf time travel powers

Number of episodes House and/or Josh appear in: 16

Number of episodes Kratz appears in: 7

Number of episodes featuring time travel: 6

Number of episodes featuring mythological figures: 13

Number of times House dies: 7

Number of times Josh dies: 6

Total number of "on-screen" deaths: 72 (or so)

We actually decided to stop using our deaths as a punchline after we did the comic making fun of that, but I realized when doing this list that when Dr. Kratz turned us into cake he technically killed us.

Not Just a Feed, a FEAST!

2008-08-07T16:07:00.004-05:00

So a few years ago I was all, "Wow Ryan North from Dinosaur Comics, what is this RSSpect thing you are wasting your time on? No one will ever use that! No one uses RSS feeds, and also what are RSS feeds?" Except then cut to the future (now) and in addition to flying cars and moon colonies we also have people asking us for an RSS feed of AFG.

Now, me and House don't really know much about making websites. If the site is up and has the JPG of the latest comic visible, it's a good day for us. So when we were most recently asked if we had a feed we gave the unfortunate but true answer that we are retarded and you people should just be glad we can run a website as well as we do (which is not very well). However, I happened to see an interview with Ryan North again recently where he was talking about his various projects and I was all, "Wow Ryan North from Dinosaur Comics why are you still going on about this RSSpect thing no one could ever use that except us oh my god are you kidding me."

So yeah, we have a feed now, sort of. The link is here http://www.rsspect.com/rss/afg.xml The deal is, it will automatically check the site every so often and if there's been an update it'll send out a post to the feed. However, what I'll be doing on top of that is posting the comic in the feed itself, if I remember.

P.S. Oh yeah, and we're still making comics and stuff. I sketched out the latest episode last night. We've settled into a fairly comfortable bi-weekly schedule, and I think the new episodes are turning out pretty well, so we're gonna keep on truckin'.

P.P.S. My busty wench of a girlfriend suggested that we set up a store to sell merchandise. Would that be cool? I think we'd probably try Cafepress or something like that, since if we made REAL shirts someplace we'd be committed monetarily to whatever we had printed and I'm not sure too many people would buy it. Through Cafepress we could just put the designs up and if you like 'em you can buy 'em. We'd set it to the minimum price so we wouldn't actually make money, but people could walk around wearing our crap which is almost as cool.

Anyhow, it's audience participation time. Would you buy AFG merchandise for yourself or loved ones? Do you have any preferences about what kinds of stuff we make? Any preferences on what kinds of stuff we put ON the merch? Let us know.

Almost as Irish as Potatoes and Violence

2008-07-25T23:30:00.000-05:00

I know, I know. This episode's mythology is especially esoteric.

"But Josh, why can't you guys just do stories about stuff we know like the Greek gods or Thor or Sesame Street?"

Well, nuts to you, my whiny, non-existent friend. I felt that the mythology we usually get inspiration from had names that were entirely too easy to pronounce. I needed more W's and L's. I wanted all the characters to be named Cwllyllwlcl. The only place to turn is Celtic myth, which has the distinct honor of boasting the ugliest, most unpronouncable names to ever grace the earth. Turns out, however, that the myth we liked best was about someone with a comparatively simple name: Art. I found it in my Big Book O' Myths, but for those of you playing the home game, you can check out the story here. Pretty friggin' long, huh? Lemme just boil down the basic points for you. Be warned that although I do draw a comic on the internet, I'm not an actual expert on Celtic mythology. However, I think these are the basic points of the story, cobbled together from a variety of sources.

1. Art's stepmother is the goddess Becuma Cneisgel. She does not like Art, and wants to see him killed. She was probably not hugged enough as a child, mostly because mythological characters do not hug, they only murder and rape. Murder and rape. Forever.

2. Delbchaem's mother was told a prophecy which states that a suitor of her daughter will one day kill her. As such, she has hidden her daughter away in the more-dangerous-and-less-gay-than-it-sounds "Land of Wonder" and attempts to kill anyone who seeks Delbchaem in hopes of hittin' that.

3. Becuma challenges Art to a game of fidchell, which was an ancient Irish board game resembling chess. She cheats her way to victory, and then lays the taboo upon him that he must seek out Delbchaem and bring her back to Tara. A taboo in Celtic myth is akin to a curse, and it compells the victim to do whatever it is, or die. Becuma knows Delbchaem is bad news and hopes to lead Art to his death without technically getting her hands dirty.

4. The army of toads are in actuality only one of many obstacles and enemies Art faces along his way. This is about where the comic breaks from traditional mythology and depicts a more grounded, realistic encounter.

5. Eventually, Art kills Delbchaem's entire family. Her loins aching with desire as a result of this, Delbchaem throws herself at Art and they get married and stuff. Eventually Art dies in battle to some dude. Lame.

By the way, in your FACE, critics! I've realized over the past few weeks that while our nav buttons are reversed as far as webcomics are concerned, it's exactly what many blogging sites use, INCLUDING THE SITE YOU'RE ON RIGHT NOW OH MY GOD.

In other news, I got me that new Wacom tablet, and not only does it actually work, but it works much much better than my old one, so that's a nice bonus. Thus, several weeks and 500 bucks later, the saga comes to a close. The only problem now is I have to stop playing videogames long enough to draw the episodes. Don't you people realize I have important things to do? These monsters are not going to kill themselves. And they are certainly not going to give me their treasure.

Their precious, precious treasure.

2008-07-21T21:47:00.002-05:00

On Tuesday, Action Figure Graveyard received it's strongest endorsement yet, from the Washington Post in this article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/07/09/DI2008070900773.html

Actually, it wasn't an article, but an online Q&A session, but if you scroll way way down, you will see Gene Weingarten respond favorably to our comic:

Arlington, Va.: Gene,

What is your reaction to this cartoon? Do you find its conclusion disturbing? Or do see it as little different than your own expected life experience?

Gene Weingarten: I really like this. It's disturbing on so many levels.

My next plan is an endorsement from Jimmy Carter. Or condemnation. I think the latter might get us more hits. So, let's work on that, Action Figure Army.

That's you.

They're all the little...graveyardy?

2008-07-08T14:44:00.008-05:00

Do you remember all those old "familiar-characters-as-children" cartoons of the 90's like Tiny Toons and Muppet Babies?

Yeah, neither do we.

This comic represents the full death of my old Wacom tablet, as the pen just friggin' flipped out at about the 2/3 complete mark and wouldn't work anymore. Consequently, I had to finish the rest of the comic with a regular mouse (what industry people call the "soap on a rope"), which is why the dialogue bubbles look like zesty crap salad. Anyway, I'm buying a new one before we do the next episode.

When I was drawing this comic my girlfriend, watching over my shoulder and judging my every stroke, asked why there are no black people in our comics. I thought about this and replied "Uh...because me and House are racist?" I hadn't really thought about it before, but it's true, this is a white-ass comic. Buncha saltine motherfuckers, every last character. Now our hands are somewhat tied in a lot of cases: me, House, and Kratz are whiteys, and there aren't too many black dudes in Norse or Greek mythology. But, that's no excuse, surely there's room for some integration in this comic?!

She suggested I make the cop black. However, this would create a scene in which three white kids murder a black man, and I wisely backed down from that bold artistic statement. She suggested I make one of the girls black, but of course it couldn't be the girl who dies either, so I was left with only one option. I give you, Action Figure Integration!

Finally, now that the race borders in AFG have been eliminated, we can begin to heal.

P.S. I am aware that making the cop an Irishman is somewhat racist as well, but that's okay, because I'm half Irish myself. In that vein, here's a joke:

Did you hear the one about the two Irish guys who walk out of a bar?

...

It could happen.

Oh Em Friggin' Gee

2008-06-28T22:51:00.004-05:00

So today marks the first new episode in over six months. It would have been sooner but House was a part of the writer's strike which brought many-a-show to a crashing halt back in winter. Like the rest of the strikers, he was demanding an increase in royalties. Before, he would receive no money whenever someone viewed the comic. Now, he still receives no money, but every once and a while I tell him, "Good job, tiger!"

Man, this Wacom thing is a pain, you don't even KNOW. Here's my current workflow:

1. Open up all programs I'll need to make the comic.

2. Install Wacom drivers. Upon completion the setup program locks up forever, and no new programs can be opened. However, the tablet does work during this time.

3. Alt-tab over to Photoshop and Flash, and draw the comic.

4. When finished, turn off the computer. With the button. The start menu or Ctrl+Alt+Delete menus do not load.

5. Reboot in safe mode, and uninstall the Wacom drivers.

6. Kill self.

7. Reboot again, resume normal computer use.

In the end the comic's right there on the site, so it can't all be bad. Also you'll notice we started a new segment called "Ask House." I encourage you all to do just that. Advanced biology, patent-infringement lawsuits, problems in the bedroom...you name it, House knows the answer.

As for this latest comic, I dunno...not much to say. It's got mythology, it's got House doing things of questionable morality...it's AFG. Fun bit of trivia though, in spite of our name this is actually the first time we've had a graveyard in the comic. Also, I dare someone to edit the page about Sleipnir to include the facts we give about it in the comic. That would be sweet.

Here's the Deal...

2008-06-22T00:38:00.004-05:00

After I stumbled back into my apartment disoriented and drenched in blood, just like every morning, I noticed some communicae left from House during the night. Turns out the site has experienced a HUGE spike in traffic. He was a little hazy on the exact figures but it was as if everyone on the planet Earth had visited the site several times. Once to be introduced to its wonder, once to show their friends, and once more to assure themselves that the whole thing wasn't just one big, glorious dream. It was something like 33 billion hits in a week.

Now dang, this is crazy! Someone had linked us, or our fierce campaign of not advertising or updating had finally paid off. Either way, this changes everything. One of the reasons we kind of let AFG trail off was that we weren't sure anyone was reading it. But with entire NATIONS worth of people clamoring for new updates...well, we couldn't disappoint them.

So we sprang into action, ideas flying all over the place. We probably came up with two dozen different concepts in the span of 15 minutes, covering everything from the Honorable Offender to Oklahoma Johns to some dude from Irish mythology named Art. I still like the idea about Art. In the end, we settled on a heartwarming story about grave robbery. You would like it. And I mean LIKE like it. Dialog was written, panels were laid out. Everything was set to go, but then: TRAGEDY!

A month or so ago I put together a new computer. Wouldn't you know it, my 10 year old Wacom tablet requires a serial port, and all this new motherboard has is USB. For clarification, a Wacom tablet is this thing. It's how I'm able to do the comic at all. I countered this treachery with an adapter wire from Radioshack, which will sadly not install for some reason. It cost a decent amount of money too, and the only use for it I can think of now is hanging myself. Anyway, the long and short of it is: We're back. We're ready. We have an idea laid out in comic format. We have no means of actually drawing it. I'm going to do some more research and examine my options. Specifically, I will be examining the options which do not involve me buying a new 600 dollar Wacom tablet.

So that's the story. Sorry if House got anyone's hopes up prematurely. But that's it for Excuse Time. Let's move on.

I'm going to shoot straight with you people. This is a fairly inane term I feel, because if you're shooting, you're pretty much always shooting straight. You may miss horribly, but the bullet will still travel on a more or less linear trajectory. However, this neither here nor there. Let's break down this AFG thing and announce our plans for it, shall we?

1. We don't update often. It's sort of our thing. But these comics take a long time to do, and sometimes even finding enough time when we're both online to coordinate ideas is tough. We both already have jobs, and we don't feel the need for another. Sometimes AFG can seem like that, especially on my end when these comics can take a whole day to make, which is why there's often long stretches of time when we simply don't do them. So we're trying to work around all this, hopefully keeping a more manageable length so we don't burn out, but also working on smaller mini-updates in between episodes so that content is still flowing even when full blown comics aren't.

2. As I said, one of the biggest issues with AFG is the length. Long comics take a long time to do, but we found out that short comics kind of lose the AFG flavor of things. The April Fool's and Strong Oak Finish comics are funny enough, but they're not really surreal, per se. I mean, there isn't even any dark magic or Norse gods in them! What we're going to try and aim for is something in the middle. Something like 8-10 panels instead of the usual 12-15.

3. Regarding mini-updates, that's something we've been tinkering with for a while, and it was kind of the point of this blog. However, I get the idea that a lot of our readership just views the comic and not this page, so it never really took off. House actually took a web design course at school, so he's in the HTML mines trying to devise a new site design more akin to what you see on other webcomic pages with a section for newsposts of whatever he wanted to write or whatever mini-comics I wanted to contribute. These would be posted between actual episode updates to tide everyone over. So this means the site will probably be redesigned.

4. Regarding what is sure to be the biggest question regarding the redesign: Will the "next" and "previous" buttons finally be reversed and appear in their proper conventional places? I swear, the most frequent comment we get about the site is about the buttons being reversed. Most people want us to switch them. One guy felt it went fine with the weird nature of our site, and it was kind of arty to do the opposite of the norm. Truth: When designing the site initially, that's just how I made the buttons. It wasn't a big conspiracy or artistic choice, it was just my first instinct and I did it without thinking about it. Now I get e-mails every once and while requesting I change them, but I mostly ignore them because you people have made it into a THING, and I don't want to give in. We'll see what surprises the new site holds.

Anyway, we want to thank whoever linked us and whoever still comes to this site. We are totally like the bad boyfriend you keep coming back to. Every time, we swear it will be different, we swear we're going to appreciate you. But then we disappear for months at a time, getting wasted with hookers in Tijuana, every once and a while popping back into town to give you some useless token of our affection.

But THIS TIME, we swear it will be different. This time, we swear we're going to appreciate you.

We're not dead yet

2008-06-21T09:06:00.005-05:00

It has recently come to my attention that there has been a renewed interest Action Figure Graveyard. Particularly, we jumped from about five thousand hits a month to sixty thousand beginning in April. Now that I've completed my degree in Microsciencebioenglishpoliticalhistorybusinesslaw I will now have the time to ~~take more drugs~~ write comics. I can't promise they will be often, or even regular, or good. But I can promise that if you read them, and give me your credit card number, I will probably think about sending you an autographed print. Actually, I won't. Give me your money anyway. Josh is a well-to-do artist living in his upper east side two-level penthouse, and I'm just a starving lawyer with a studio apartment in West Philly. Really. I'm not kidding.

If you would like to tell me how great I am, you can e-mail House directly at Hause.Kyle@gmail.com. I've always wanted to read fan mail, but unfortunately, I can't ever remember how to access the AFG e-mail account. So, really, write me fan mail. Do it now. Before this offer expires.

Also, can someone tell me who has been linking us to get this many hits?

In other news, Kratz is actually in a PhD program for chemistry now. So he will literally be a mad scientist named Dr. Kratz in due time. Science is pretty great. Now that I think about it, I'm going to go science me up some Crystal Meth. Until next time, children.

4 Weeks Still Counts As "Weeks"

2008-01-13T11:59:00.002-05:00

Kratz messaged me a few days ago in between using the power of science to create various horrors that will one day threaten all life as we know it. He asked what happened to my site, and since I had noticed my e-mail not working the previous evening, replied that it must be down. But imagine my chagrin to see that if you actually went to the site it had been replaced by that picture of the girl and a bunch of links on the side asking if you wanted to know about breaking things, or perhaps tangents. I always forget that my website expires in January, and I have to renew it before then. Last time this happened someone called me. This time they sent an e-mail to an address I never check. But I think everything is okay, with all the files on the server still intact, so life is good. Well, let's not get carried away. Life isn't completely terrible.

Anyway, comics soon. Been busy picking things out for our new apartment (did you know carpet is more expensive than gold?!) and doing lots of things at work (a movie and a music video). But SOON.

House Is No Longer Dead And I Am No Longer In Jail

2007-12-09T18:00:00.001-05:00

What's up, internet people? Did you know that our site still gets almost as many hits a day as when we still updated it? That's weird. There are other sites on the internet, you guys. Might I recommend pictures of naked girls? I hear there are several sites for that.

However, we appreciate your attention, or maybe stalking, and you should know that Action Figure Graveyard is returning, albeit with some budget cuts. And as you're aware, we don't get paid for the comic, so the only cost we can cut is time. Yes, AFG has made its glorious comeback, though with an altered format. If "altered" is too ambiguous a word for you, try this one: "Shorter."

Yes, the days of epic, page-length comics packed to the brim with panels and dialogue are probably behind us, because making the old episodes took up a rather alarming portion of my weekends, and I spend the weekdays slaving over various movie and television projects. Either I suck or the comic was just way too ambitious, and since I don't know how to suck any less, I'm gonna have to hope the comic was too ambitious. Rather than stop making the comic entirely, House and I have decided it would be better to go ahead with stories both smaller in scope and length, so that new comics, while shorter, could pop up once or twice every few weeks rather than once or twice a decade. I'm fiddling with simpler colors while still trying to maintain part of the "look" of the old episodes, and I'll still be using pictures as textures and backgrounds.

We encourage everyone to spread the word to anyone who used to read this comic that things are happening here again. Thanks.

P.S. Have you guys played Rock Band? I worked on the motion capture animation for that game.

P.P.S. Have you guys seen the new Ronzoni (or Catelli, if you're a filthy Canadian) commercials with the pasta man? I did some animation on them.

P.P.P.S. Have you Canadian guys seen the commercials for Air Miles with the talking matador painting and the talking fish hat? I animated those too.

P.P.P.P.S. House took his LSATs. Contact him to be your defense attorney for when you punch your mom in the face over Halo 3.

Hiatus?

2007-10-08T23:00:00.002-05:00

Josh was arrested with fourteen kilos of cocaine while crossing the border of Canada after he robbed a nunnery.

I killed myself.

The comic is on hiatus until these matters are resolved.

If you are good boys and girls and pray to Kratz daily, there might be updates in the distant future.

House Plans

2007-07-10T08:38:00.001-05:00

Josh has been doing the bulk of the everything that relates to this comic for a while now, so I figured that I at least owe the people of internetland an explanation as to why I haven't had time to write blog posts.

The first major event of my summer which has been causing problems for me to get to a computer, is that my real name is Fabian Cancellara, and I am currently in the overall lead in the Tour de France. This year I will make sure no filthy steroid popping Americans will even come close to victory.

As you all know, last autumn I was convicted in an Iraqi court for crimes against humanity. As part of my sentence, I have been working in a soup kitchen in the slum section of the city. Little do they know, I have been poisoning all the broths. It's not that I particularly dislike homeless people (as you may recall in an early episode, Josh stabs them all), it's just that I'll go to any lengths to avoid work.

Josh and I spend our time robbing graves. It's how we can afford our luxurious lives as professional web comic designers. At the beginning of summer, I read "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter". Now I'm trying to find and dig up Carson McCullers' grave. Not to rob it, but to desecrate her corpse. Usually I'd send the letter FedEX to the afterlife, but for some reason, Johnny Cochran has not been receiving my care packages lately. So my hate must be expressed physically.

I'm starting a new religion. I'm not sure whether to be worshiped as a god, or to simply defraud people and take their money. The former meaning there would be more people having the same opinion of myself as I do. The latter would mean I could buy a PS3. They can't be combined, because of the simple question: "What does God need money for?" Besides assault rifles, I have no idea what God would buy.

P.S. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter isn't a bad book. It's just the most recent one I've read from an author who is no longer alive and isn't some obscure pre-war French nihilist.

Our First Hate...Comment?

2007-07-06T07:57:00.000-05:00

Um, I was reading through blog comments, which I don't do very often since the sheer lack of them makes me cry like a little girl, and it turns out someone posted this a little while ago:

"u fucking pussy shit, AND THIS fucking stupid ass website go, lick balls and go get laid u fucking homos FUCK U.... YAH RITE U PROBABLY DO EACH OTHER!!!!!!!!!! FUCK OFF!!!!!!"

What I wanna know is, how did my mom find my blog?!!

Seriously though, this is both a) awesome, and b) awesome. It was posted anonymously so we're not really sure what the story is. It was on a post of Rutherford B. Hayes facts. One theory is that it was Rutherford himself, still alive and well, furious that we had befouled his good name with our shenanigans. Another theory is that it was someone House had wronged in some way with one of his capers. Either way, it's pretty clear that this person rules and is our new best friend.

In conclusion, if House and I are gay and, as it was so eloquently put, "do each other," then we really don't need to go get laid, now do we?

The Future

2007-07-04T11:55:00.000-05:00

Okay first off, what on earth is wrong with you people?! How come nobody brought it to my attention that there was a typo all the way back in episode 4?! I've got half a mind to hire a quality control department and then promptly fire them all for letting a mistake like that slip through the cracks. But instead, I'll let you all off on a warning. However, if I catch you people slacking again we're going to have words. Angry words.

This week's comic was difficult. Getting it out of our brains was like getting the last bit of toothpaste out, constantly squeezing and producing only a little tiny bit at a time until finally you just say "the hell with it!" and go to grab a new tube, except you don't have one and though the pharmacy is open 24 hours you're certainly not going to go out at friggin' one in the morning for new toothpaste, so you just use your fingernails and some Listerine and go to bed. I'm not entirely sure, but we may very well have tossed around more ideas for this particular comic than for any previous episode. All we really knew when we started was that, at House's suggestion, it would be taking place in the future.

So we tried about a trillion-billion* different possibilities (* an estimated figure). House suggested someone steal the duplicator from us and use it to copy and sell heroin, because that's how House works. I thought about us accidentally negating our own existence by time traveling and meeting up with our werewolf selves from that previous episode. We also had a bunch of other future/time travel related ideas that I don't want to mention specifically because some of them were kind of good and we might use them later. Let's just say they involved the internets and robots. I think, in an unrelated tangent, I also proposed House filing a restraining order against his own soul so that he could be free to commit greater acts of villainy without his pesky conscience bothering him. We have to be careful with that sort of thing though, because if House's "thing" is being comically amoral to the point of constantly committing crimes, he just becomes Bender from Futurama. Although, in fairness, Bender never killed a girl's horse.

For the record, House's mom is not actually dead. If she actually was, we obviously wouldn't have made a joke about in this episode. We would have made a joke about it in EVERY episode.

By the way, let me explain to you the virtues of this container of food I have here with me. It's a plastic container with a big label that reads "WALNUT HALVES." Then, underneath, for my edification, it says "Ingredients: Walnuts." YES. Thank you, food label. I love you and will sing songs of your greatness until the day this earth falls into darkness and is no more.

More Excuses

2007-06-28T20:02:00.001-05:00

I haven't been able to update in a little while (again), but I thought you should all know that it's for a good reason. This is different than all those other times. Once I couldn't update the comic because my foot spontaneously fell off. It's rare, but it happens. Just fell clean off of my ankle, no blood or anything. I had to get it sewn back on. Another time I couldn't update because my services were required in a hunt for the Loch Ness Monster. Long story short: We didn't find the monster, but I got herpes. And then the time before last I had to appear as a contestant on the TV show "Can You Beat Up A 5th Grader?" They pitted me against a really tough opponent but I managed to knock her right out with a roundhouse kick to the face.

Now as some of you recall, the last time I couldn't update was because I was moving. Well the reason I was moving is because I was starting a new job. Before, I was doing freelance animation remotely for a small independent company. Though I could only afford to eat ketchup and saltines with the money I was making, it had its perks. Specifically, I could make my own hours, and they didn't give me assignments all that often so I had lots of free time. But now I'm working for a bigger company with bigger projects being produced for bigger clients, so I have to be in there full-time.

The nice thing about the entertainment industry is that it's frequently like being a secret agent. You see, there are these things called NDA's, Non-Disclosure Agreements, which legally bind you to keep your damn mouth shut about a given project you're working on until a certain date. I had to sign one for my last job, and though I haven't been asked to sign anything for this one, we've been asked to keep everything on the D.L. (that's down-low for you lame-o's out there) so I'm pretty certain they would bury me alive if I mentioned anything specific. Thus, I'm not even going to say WHERE I work, so that any small details I might give about what I'm doing can't be connected to the company. See? Just like a secret agent! Maybe my current project is planning an assassination! Maybe my current project is planning YOUR assassination!

Actually no, I'm working on a videogame. Maybe a videogame about your assassination!

The point of all this drivel is that between the hours spent in the studio, the 45 minute commute each day, my meth lab, and my body's annoying need for sleep, I don't have much free time except on weekends, so it'd be wise to expect future AFG comics to be posted in that general area. We actually do have an idea for the next comic, one we rather like. It's about 'your mom.' Seriously.

Mythology Is Neat

2007-06-15T01:59:00.001-05:00

So we're back with new episodes, and this week we're back to mythology as our subject matter. Anyone who reads our comic knows that mythology is one of our favorite things to work with, and I imagine plenty of people who DON'T read the comic know this as well, since I make a habit of telling this to strangers I meet on the streets. Then I rob them, usually.

Why do we like mythology so much? Well, for one thing, a lot of it is already so surreal that it's funny on its own, before we do anything to it. There is a Norse myth in which Thor and Loki are waging war on several frost giantesses, and one of the giantesses stops their advance by washing them away in a river of her MENSTRUAL BLOOD. There's nothing anyone can possibly add to that. It already exists in an untouchable state of divine literary perfection. If you were ever to hear God speak he would tell you that story, and it would sound like golden waves of joy as it permeated your soul.

This week we were having some trouble with ideas, so I decided to flip through my copy of The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology, an endlessly fascinating and thorough collection of articles and pictures about mythological figures from around the world. Aizen-Myoo caught my eye, because he happens to have a nearly full-page picture in the "Myths of East Asia" section, and then I found out that this horrifying demon is the god of love! Not as perfect as a river of mentrual blood, but then what is?

Originally, the plan was that Aizen-Myoo would appear and be captured by the couple he was trying to counsel. They then put his six arms to work flipping burgers and collect all the money themselves, with the last panel showing House reading the story to children, and explaining that money is the solution to all problems. Not a bad ending, but it seemed a bit predictable to me.

We fiddled around with an entirely different idea for a little bit, but then the new ending came to me in a flash of inspiration. I'd already laid the comic out when we decided that it would be more interesting if another love god from a different culture appeared at the same time. So we searched through a big list of love gods and came across good ol' Xochipilli. One look at his picture and we were sold.

Honestly, what on earth is that? I still can't begin to wrap my mind around the physiology of that thing. However, there apparently exists a statue of this gentleman (which looks nothing like the painting) that shows him in a state of higher consciousness thanks to the ceremonial use of hallucinagenic drugs. So, maybe that explains it. Either way, he could probably stand to be swept away in a river of menstrual blood.

Even More Fun Facts About Rutherford B. Hayes

2007-06-05T17:37:00.000-05:00

- He invented the sport of rugby, though it was originally named basketball. This wasn't before the actual sport of basketball was invented or anything, he just liked the name a lot.

- He defecated ramen noodles.

- When threatened by predators, he would curl up into a ball, protected from attack by his thick shell.

- His first job was as Bruce Willis's stunt double in the 1997 movie "The Jackal."

- He was accidentally buried alive four times.

- He was an accomplished author, specializing mostly in Tenchi Muyo fan fiction.

OutHouse

2007-05-31T12:53:00.001-05:00

As the warm weather grows, I grow lazier. Typically, I'll be out at a bar or a party until 2a.m. on weeknights and 3a.m. on Friday and Saturday. Last night at 10:30 I was called upon to go to a party in the college area of the city, and I was asleep already.

What does this mean for the comic you may ask? Well, since Josh is starting a new job of sorts and I am interning as well as working this summer, it means you might expect a lower quality of comic from us. And I don't mean lower quality of the work, but lower quality of humor. Here is a list of things you should expect jokes about:

Poop
Your mother
Mental disabilities
Children with terminal illnesses
The city of New York being a cesspool
People overcoming adversity
Homosexuality
Crying
Farts

That wasn't a haiku and I don't live in New York. I do hate that city with all my being, however.

Enjoy your summer.

More Fun Facts About Rutherford B. Hayes

2007-05-19T21:53:00.000-05:00

- He was not born, but rather assembled from a kit bought at Sears.
- He does not eat. He creates energy through photosynthesis.
- He was a bronze medalist in the 1942 Olympics for women's speed skating.
- He was a contestant on the Nickelodeon game show "Figure It Out." His hidden talent was that he assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
- He was a celebrity hairstylist, with clientele including Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens, Keanu Reeves and Augustus Longstreet.
- Josh's first hamster was seriously named "Rutherford B. Hamster."
- He illegally practiced proctology under the name Dr. Fistula.

House of God

2007-05-18T14:05:00.001-05:00

If you read the previous post, you are aware that I am pure evil. What you might not know is that in my years of evil, I have enjoyed a spiritual journey. This journey began with a simple conversation:

Him: "What took you so long?"
Me: "Traffic. God. Ya know, the usual things that gets in my way."

Upon reflection it became obvious that if this world was to become a better place, I must make peace with a certain father in Heaven. I spent many years exploring religions but none I found suited my lifestyle. In the end, I decided that the good Lord saw fit to outlaw evil in all it's forms in the world.

I had the last laugh. As of April I was ordained a minister. Somehow, God must have been too busy to notice someone had the audacity to make me the holy man, and in my greatest affront to His name, I now am entitled to all the privileges of clergymen around the world.

Also, if you could refer to me as "Reverend House" that would be sweet.

House Rules

2007-05-08T00:38:00.001-05:00

You might often ask yourself this question: "Who is House and why do I hate him so much?" Do not be dismayed, many people around the globe have the same question. Many others have had it answered time and time again. Allow me to explain more about myself and my character in our comics (I talk about myself a lot as I'm the only thing in this world I truly love).

In Episode 3 - House is Pure Unadulterated Evil I kill some unnamed girl's pony. The working theory at the time was that I should be properly introduced to our readers. Ultimately, my life consists of lies, deceit, betrayal and general evil. In my defense, I get bored easily.

Episode 12 - The Powers is another comic that is drawn from my real life struggle with quitting smoking. When I wrote this, I was on my 137th attempt at quitting. I ultimately succeeded insofar as I only smoke when I drink. And I only drink 90% of the day. That's how you spell success. And by "you" I mean "me".

The idea for Episode 14 - Possibly Treasure? came about shortly after Josh had completed his affairs at college and was unable to find a real job. I then began worrying about the fact that my field (Journalism) is shrinking at an amazing rate, so I scouted around, only to find that every job opportunity out there requires two years of experience. The icing on the cake was when I found a posting for a job for Journalists to go to freaking Antarctica. This also required two years experience. Thus we decided that if they need journalists in Antarctica they probably need some in the center of the sun. I later decided on a much more morally bankrupt profession instead, and will be heading off to law school in a little over a year.

Bragging is a hobby of mine. This was put to use in Episode 23 - Houseus Versus the Minotaur. Also, the reason I am yelling the word "nice" while being crushed to death is because life is worthless, frustrating and awful; we should all hope for the quickest ending to it possible.

Josh and I like to play board games a lot. We always wished that The Game of Life was more like real life. By which I mean it should be just as unnecessarily horrible and worthless. This is what we set out to recreate in Episode 28 - It's not Jumanji.

People often ask where I get my inspiration for these from. Actually, they don't. I just wish they did. The point is, we decided to do a "making of" comic that is actually the comic in the style of my favorite movie, Adaptation. The fruition of this plan was Episode 33 - Another One Where we Die.

So now you know more about me and why you hate me. Act quickly on this feeling as every day I wake is another I wish I hadn't.

More DVD Extra Features

2007-04-30T13:50:00.000-05:00

Alternate Endings to This Week's Comic

Lady and gentlemen, (the lady being my girlfriend and the gentlemen being the 8 other people who read the comic), AFG does not always instantly emerge from our brains as the perfected, polished narrative you've come to expect. No sir! Oftentimes we begin with a basic idea or concept and hash out dozens of options before finally figuring it just what exactly will happen in that week's episode. House brought up the initial idea of the bee disappearing business, something that's actually happening in the news, and we worked with the idea to come up with the final story. Some of the options were:

- Dr. Kratz builds a device which uses cell phone frequencies to control the bees. He gives this device to me and House. We use said device to become bee-controlling superheroes. Hijinx ensue.

- Dr. Kratz builds a device which intercepts the texts and converts them into the refined literature found in passages from Jane Eyre. However, Charlotte Bronte's ghost rises from her eternal slumber to sue Kratz for copyright infringement. Hijinx ensue.

- Dr. Kratz builds a device which intercepts the texts and beams them deep into space, where they are received by an alien civilization. Based on the texts, the feel our race is intellectually inferior, and decide not to teach us the secrets of eternal life and faster-than-light space travel. Instead, they elect to divulge this knowledge to a nearby planet of creatures whose religion decrees that they must travel the stars exterminating all forms of life that stand on two legs. Hijinx ensue.

Who Is Dr. Kratz?

The question everyone invariably asked me is, "Who are you, and why are you hiding in my bushes?" After I pull up my pants and explain myself, they invariably want to know more about the mysterious doctor Kratz. Or at least I assume that's what they want to know, because that's what I tell them anyway. The good doctor has the dubious honor of being one of three recurring characters in the AFG universe, and much like Josh and House, he is based upon a real person.

The real Kratz is a chemistry major at college, and he is, in fact, a mad scientist. Every once in a while he will come to us and explain that in a funny coincidence he was just thinking about making a device/chemical/biological hybrid akin to the one displayed in a recent comic. At this point we obviously remind him that comic is NOT FICTION and is always based upon real-life events.

Join The AFG Army

No, I'm not talking about me and House's frighteningly violent and subversive socialist group. Based on more or less zero research, I've decided to assume that most webcomic readers, and thus most of our readers, are high school or college students. Thus, it is a possibility that many of you are members of the social networking website Facebook. If you are, then it would be swell if you joined our AFG group. If people saw it in your list of groups they might click on it and start reading the comic themselves, and if we had a bajillion readers we would be guilted into frequent updates! Everybody wins! Search for it and join today, or else!

More Making of Action Figure Graveyard

2007-04-16T20:45:00.000-05:00

Technically speaking, I left a step out of my last post: Character designs and sketches. Oftentimes, this step is unnecessary. Generally, unless the comic features new characters/monsters/things that are appearing frequently, and I have no immediate idea of what they should look like, I don't bother doing any character sketches before I jump into the comic itself. If it's just a one panel appearance, and I have some mental picture of what the thing or person should look like, I'll just futz with it in Flash and Photoshop until it looks right.

But sometimes a little planning beforehand is necessary. As you can see below, I did a few sketches for the Ragnarok comic last week. I ended up satisfied with Loki and Surtr after my first attempt, while I tried a few things for Fenrir here that didn't quite work, and in the end I decided to just wing it and ended up making him a bit simpler.

I decided not to bother sketching anything for this week's comic in advance, because though it contained a lot of crazy crap, said crap was only there for one panel. However, as a token of my undying love for you all, I put together a mini-collage of a bunch of past AFG sketches. Many of them are on notebook paper because I drew them back in college when I was supposed to be paying attention. I still got Dean's List, suckers! Anyway, you can see some sketches for the very first comics, some of the earliest designs of me, House, and Kratz, and some rough designs of Odin and Thor back from their first appearance.

Bye bye everyone. House assures me he will probably consider the possibility of maybe thinking about potentially posting here sometime.

The Making of Action Figure Graveyard

2007-04-09T19:25:00.000-05:00

Since updates have been somewhat sporadic, I've decided to treat you with more entertainment, via a "Making Of" bonus feature. Also, this might perhaps explain why production time on a comic is so long.

STEP 1: First, we must come up with a story for the comic. For inspiration, we obviously turn to the Deceiver, the Great Destroyer, the Father of Lies; Satan. All he demands in exchange for divine inspiration is the sacrifice of a virgin, a lamb, or a baby. Or if you want a REALLY funny comic, a virgin baby lamb.

STEP 2: With the story provided by the Dark Lord, I lay out the panels and dialogue in Photoshop to get the pacing of the comic, and figure out how to squeeze it all onto a "page." The size of the comics is a completely arbitrary 720 x 1200, but if it's something particularly ambitious and long, like this week's, it can be stretched to 1300.

STEP 3: With the general page layout done, it's time to move on to drawing. The comic is sketched out in Photoshop with a Wacom pen to get the composition and general pose of the characters.

STEP 4: This is then shipped overseas to Korea where underpaid artists painstakingly draw every panel based on my designs. The actual drawing is done in Flash (overtop of the initial sketch) and pasted back into Photoshop. They tell me they like Flash's brush tool better.

STEP 5: With the line art done, it is then passed on to the paint department, who colors in the characters and scenery by hand. In addition, the panels are tinted a color based on the mood of the story or the impulse of the artist. In this case, rather than a single color motif like usual, it begins blue, becomes purple, and then finally red.

STEP 6: Now, the flat colors are given shading and highlights to make the characters seem three dimensional. Backgrounds not already drawn are added from ~~Google images~~ our extensive stock photography collection, and filters are used to make them fit the cartoonish art style.

Step 7: To create detail within the comic, real images are blended with the colors to become textures for certain elements in the comic. In this case, the chainmail, ground textures, wood textures, fur, and so forth.

STEP 8: Occasionally, this step is unnecessary, but if there's any sort of special effects in the comic, it is shipped over to the CGI department. They meticulously add in any particles, light effects, and other odds and ends to finish up the art of the comic.

STEP 9: With the final artwork done, the comic is shipped back to America where I draw in the dialogue bubbles. The bubbles are colored based on the character speaking them. After this, the comic is done, and can be send off the studio executives for approval. If there is nothing that needs to be cut because of possible offensive content, it goes live to the site.