Retail Rocks
I’d like to extend a welcome to everyone who is coming in from advertisements around the Internet. I hope you’ll enjoy reading the comic as much as I enjoy creating it!
Today’s comic took a little longer to draw than usual, but the third panel alone is worth the extra time. If anyone is interested in me making that one into a wallpaper or something then just drop a comment and I’ll get to work on it.
Monday’s comic and today’s comic are based on something that actually happened to my brother and I on Black Friday last November. We never go out shopping on Black Friday, but we usually do make a few trips out to look at all the people scrambling for all the deals. On this particular Black Friday we decided to go to Best Buy to look around.
The place was crowded, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been in years past thanks to the then looming complete meltdown of the U.S. economy. None of the deals were really that great, shitty electronics are still shitty electronics even at a deep discount, but we did find ourselves drawn to the Rock Band display that day. The game had just come out a few days before, and my brother was seriously considering buying a 360 just to play that game. My brother, as I’ve mentioned before, is a Guitar Hero god, and he wanted to see how the difficulty in Rock Band stacked up to the other game.
There was a small crowd of people ranging from little kids to college kids around our age to a few adults standing in line to try it out. Most of them tried a song on easy or medium just to try it out. We stood in line and patiently waited our turn to play without making a fuss. We got to the front of the line, my brother picked one of the demo songs on expert, and proceeded to wow the small crowd that had gathered there to play the demo.
Then the Best Buy dickhead showed up. He told us that we would have to put the guitar controller away because the display wasn’t open to the public that day. I pointed out to him that the display had been open to the public since we got to the store and the whole time we’d been waiting in line. He got mad, told us that we were blocking traffic (the display was at the end of an aisle in one of the widest lanes in the store), and then reached out and turned off the tv mid-game. At that point we were disgusted with this guy. My brother told him that they had just lost the sale of a 360 and a copy of Rock Band, and we left peacefully. As we were leaving I saw the associate turn the display back on so that the other people who were waiting in line could get a chance to play.
I’ll never know what prompted that guy to be such an ass that day. I guess Best Buy has a policy of only letting people try out a game if they’re new to it. I’m not really angry with him, though. I think that being forced to work at Best Buy on Black Friday was punishment enough for any bad karma that he built up that day.
April is upon us, and the voting has started over at all the big voting sites. I’ve been astonished at how quickly Insert Credits has moved through the ranks! Thanks a lot to everyone who has voted so far, and if you like what you see here then please take a moment to cast a vote for the comic at the links to your right, particularly at Buzzcomix if you only have time for one click.
Oh, and this is neither here nor there, but happy birthday to me. I’m out of college and in grad school, married and settled down, and I think that it’s safe to say I’m officially an old man at 24 today. The only thing I need to complete the responsible adult picture is a kid, though that one won’t be happening for awhile. Anyways, I’ll see everyone back here on Friday!
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:11 am
I always wondered what’d happen if you hit a Best Buy employee with a fake guitar.
Maybe a large “clonk” and lawsuits afterwards…
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:53 am
Yup, advertisement is why I’m here today. Enjoyed what I got to see!
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Clicked on a banner ad to get here today. I almost never do that, but I’m REALLY glad I did! I really like your art style and you also tell a pretty good story.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Came through banners, first time clicking. Story is fine and the dialogues got me interested. I hope the art improves, I mean the arms lacks elbows
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:43 pm
I’m working on the art one update at a time. I’m sure in a few years I’ll look back on these early posts and be horrified, but keeping to regular updates has been excellent practice so far.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Hey, found the website sometime at the end of last week through a banner. The arts definitely good for the first 20 comics, and yea after so long you’ll probably take a look back and chuckle at it. I read lots of webcomics, because what else is there to do with my downtime at work. You’ve definitely got a great plot and set of characters, can’t wait to see where it goes!
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Like most about the comic, except the constant use of the term “Wii-tard” and “Nintendorks” in the last comic.
Cause I’m a Nintendo fanboy and I take offense to that
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Read the blog post below that comic and you’ll see that I’m probably just as big a Nintendo fanboy as you ;). I don’t think Eric necessarily hates Nintendo. He’s probably just annoyed with the rabid masses out there that are turning the Wii into a commodity instead of a gaming system, and I think we can all agree that’s a bad thing. Unless you’re a scalper.
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:43 pm
You tell a half-decent story with your comics, though I must say your art style is pretty stereotypical, nothing too special about it. Mild humor.
There’s always room for improvement
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:27 pm
I think I’m going to like this comic quite a bit once it hits its stride art wise. The humor is true to life, which is always a bonus and makes things a bit funnier… of course I also love off the wall BS so don’t take that statement as ‘don’t do anything crazy’. Crazy is my bread and butter.
It’s funny… all the people I play with want to play evil all the time and from the bios these guys don’t. Yet a lot of the experience is the same. Ever have those gaming sessions that don’t like to get started because you’re waiting on people to arrive or make a character? What about when people just don’t end up showing up for crappy reasons? Let’s not forget sessions that just plain trail off. Well maybe some of that just happens if you play with (mostly former) stoners. I’ll admit though that sometimes I’m the problem to things getting started since I’m quite picky with making characters, always have been, and I’m also still getting a feel for the game. I once took a whole day to make a char. to join a game a few friends already had in progress. Of course, I also killed the second in command of the main enemy in one round of attacking before the battle against him and a guard even really started. That’s probably my favorite DnD moment.
Anyway… one thing I’ve got to say NEEDS done is fixing Sean’s facial hair. Every time I see the area around his mouth it looks like a ventriloquist’s dummy.