Dork Tower

DORK TOWER, Monday, February 8, 2009 – Some Nice Things We Missed

John Kovalic — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:31:06 +0000

DORK TOWER, Friday, February 5, 2010 – Twime Out

John Kovalic — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:48:13 +0000

MUSKRAT RAMBLINGS – Meat the Boss New T-shirt

John Kovalic — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:44:07 +0000

MUSKRAT RAMBLINGS
Meat the Boss New T-shirt
Posted by John

OK. So I’ve said this before: I often use Twitter (where I can be found as “Muskrat_John”) as a sounding board for ideas.

Shoot out a quick gag, and sit back and wait to see if there’s any response. Some ideas I think are gold play to the sound of crickets chirping. Others seem to genuinely work.

Yesterday, I tweeted a silly little thought that popped into my head: “MEAT IS MURDER: Quick! Eat the evidence!” My Smiths fandom may have had something to do with this. Ten years of Drawing sick, sick Munchkin cards may have been another factor.

The replies were great – many revolving around the “OMFG! I would SO buy a t-shirt of that!” theme we cartoonists so love to hear.

So many so, that I – frankly – panicked. “Holy carp! I just sent a Not Bad t-shirt idea out into the Interwebs, all on its own! Poor little thing! Better come up with an actual T-shirt STAT.”

OK, so I knew there already was a “Meat is Murder. Tasty, tasty murder” t-shirt out there. But it struck me that this was different enough to go for it. Anyway, I wasn’t sure it would make a great Dork Tower, and I wanted to do something with it.

So, about 30 seconds on Photoshop produced this:

“Needs something,” I thought to myself. But what?

Of course! CUTE LITTLE ANIMALS! About to meet their doom on some plate, yes, but CUTE LITTLE ANIMALS, nevertheless!

What doesn’t go better with Cute Little Animals? Especially T-shirts about eating them?

Another half-hour or so, and this was the result.

Quickly, I sent it off to OffWorld Designs, who loved it (I’m taking their words at face value here – I don’t THINK they were being sarcastic: “Oh, John, we just LOOOOOOVE that T-shirt of yours. Oooooo, you’re SOOOOOOOO clever”), and promised to get it done up ASAP. Women’s cut shirts, too. NIFTY keen!

It just got me to thinking how cool this job is, sometimes. And how none of this would have happened even ten years ago.

Well, it MIGHT have happened.

Just not all in the space of one hour.

From weird idea to T-shirt: 60 minutes. DONE!

Thank you, Interwebs.

Thank you, Brain Trust.

John

DORK TOWER, Wednesday, February 3, 2009 – Twime For a Change

John Kovalic — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:08:04 +0000

MUSKRAT RAMBLINGS Tuesday, February 2, 2009 – Out From Under The Box…

John Kovalic — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:34:11 +0000

MUSKRAT RAMBLINGS
Out From Under The Box
Posted by John

Traditionally, January is Hell Month for me at Out of the Box Games, as we try and get anywhere from four to six new games ready for the New York Toy Fair, in mid-February. The six weeks of ass-kickings didn’t really help, deadline-wise, either.

I mean, don’t get me wrong – this is still a TON of fun, and I’m incredibly fortunate to get to do what I love for a living. But January is just a time when I’m usually chained to the desk – and not in a kinky hawt “furry” kinda way. Still, I think the Big Crunch ™ is finally done, at last – fingers crossed. From here on out it’s fine-tuning and making prototypes.

Here are a few things I’ve been working on:

Aliens. LOTS of aliens, robots, stars and planets, for a really cool game about finding aliens, robots, stars and planets. A board may end up looking something like this:

Without the background, though, I think it would also make a nifty design for a bed cover, if a kid has the right Geeky parents.

Also: someday you find yourself drawing slugs…

And some days, you find yourself drawing SLUGS! F’YEAH!

Hope to come up for air soon.

John

DORK TOWER, Monday, February 1, 2010 – Twiticon

John Kovalic — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:13:23 +0000

DORK TOWER, Friday, January 29, 2010 – Goth Only Knows

John Kovalic — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:25:21 +0000

MUSKRAT RAMBLINGS, Thursday, January 28, 2010 – Meet The Press

John Kovalic — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:32:49 +0000

MUSKRAT RAMBLINGS
Meet the Press
posted by John

The State Journal’s Doug Moe ran a nice column on some cartoonist guy today. (Links don’t really show up well on this blog. But that was just a link. Hint, hint).

I don’t do many interviews, but Doug’s just a terrific writer, and he’s been prodding me for a little over a year now to sit down and talk.

To be honest, I was a bit surprised he focussed on what I would consider “old news,” but then, I realized I don’t talk about these things very much at all. So, to most readers of the State Journal, this would be “new” news.

I probably shouldn’t put people off, when asked for interviews – I’ve long owed some responses to Kobold Quarterly and others. Especially since that kind of PR is awfully important in my line of work. It just always strikes me as a bit odd, though it does put me in mind of that old Monty Python sketch: “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.” “Very witty, Wilde…” etc., etc.

So anyway, the column is a pretty concise, accurate summation of how I got to where I am. Well-written, too.

(The story of that photo is quite an interesting one in its own right. I’ll probably post it here, next week…)

Doug’s a prince. And the lovely and talented Judith is a heck of a photographer.

John

DORK TOWER, Wednesday, January 27, 2010 – Swear to Goth

John Kovalic — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:35:11 +0000

DORK TOWER, Monday, January 25, 2009 – As Goth Is My Witness

John Kovalic — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:21:05 +0000