About me

Here you’ll find an exploration on how to make a living, by being creative. This blog gives you a little bit of a window into the day in the life of a Simpsons artist, who’s doing his own art on the side. You’ll also get an insight into what goes on in an artist’s brain. As well, as how he tries to improve his skills and his way of life with his creativity.

He also draws things that will hopefully make you laugh, or at the very least, crack a smile.

I’m a Storyboard artist on The Simpsons TV show and The Simpsons Movie. I drew Simpsons comics, on the side, for Bongo Comics for 12 years as well. Author of The Art of Draw Fu: Beginners Level. I live in California with my wife, daughter and four sons who I love very much. I’m Roman Catholic and I was born in El Salvador.

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Picture taken by Brooks Stonestreet.

You can contact me at: Luis(at)luisescobarblog(dot)com

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The Settlers of Catan vs Carcassonne

December 29, 2007 in ANSWERING COMMENTS, BOARD GAMES, MY WEEK, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Before I begin, I would like to say one thing,

THE SIMPSONS NEWS
Hasn’t failed yet, every time I’m ready to go home, I’m given a scene that has to be done right away. I’ve been coming in at 6:00 am everyday for the last week or so (to avoid traffic). This means that I can leave work at 3:00 pm. Which is awesome. It makes me feel like I’m skipping out on work early. Well, without fail, around 2:45 or so, when I’m looking forward to going home, I always get, either a call, or someone comes by my desk with news about an emergency scene.

“Hey Luis, what are you working on right now?”
“I’m working on Scene 1, Sequence D4 05A.”
“Well you’re going to need to put that aside right now because we just found out that this scene has a big mistake in it and it needs to be fixed right away. It needs to be done by tonight because it’s going to be shipped tomorrow.”
“Oh…okay…”

Then I end up working for the next four hours, as fast as I can trying to get the scene done. It really stinks. At least it means I get overtime which is good. At least I have a job.

So far, as far as I can tell, the ride stuff is really funny. I’ve been working on the little animated vignettes that will be on monitors while you wait in line for the ride.

We got the twenty fourth off this month, so I got to relax. We also get the thirty first off so I’m looking forward to a little more rest.

MY WEEK
Merry Christmas! I had a great Christmas. It was fun. I really enjoyed watching my daughter play with her new toys. It’s great that she got them because it makes my wife’s job a lot easier now that the Munchkin is playing with toys more and not bother her so much. She got this toy vacuum that she walks all over the house with. I wish it was a real vacuum because she would have had the place sparkling clean.

Christmas eve was a great day for me because my wife and I got to play Dungeon Twister while the Munchkin slept (no it’s not Dungeons and Dragons Twister). Dungeon Twister is a two player strategy game where you try to be the first person to get five points. It’s kinda hard to explain so I’ll just put the description of the game from Board game geek:

Dungeon Twister is a 2-player high level strategy game where 2 teams of adventurers with various powers are trapped in a dungeon. The board is composed of 8 rooms that can be moved and rotated by the players. Each turn, a player is able to spend actions to move around the dungeon, pick up and use items, battle with the opponents team, or turn and move the rooms of the dungeon.

The goal is to reach 5 victory points. Points are collected by moving adventurers out of the dungeon or by killing an opponent’s adventurer. Treasures are disseminated across the whole dungeon and will bring the adventurers well-needed powers.

Each player has the same characters, each with different powers. Some run fast, some fight or disarm traps. The cleric heals, magician burns everything in sight and the goblin is so weak that the simple fact of getting him out will bring you two victory points.

Combat and actions are managed via cards. To move, fight, heal or turn a room, you must manage action points obtained by playing cards. Those cards are not drawn but selected from a set of cards by both players. Both players have access to the same panel of cards at the beginning of the game so the game is really about managing the resources and adapting to the changing environment.

Dungeon Twister is the original game in the Dungeon Twister series

Home Page: http://www.dungeontwister.com/us/ (English)

It’s very unique. I’d played it three times before and didn’t understand why people liked it so much. Then I realized I was playing some rules wrong. After playing with the correct rules, I discovered how great the game was. It’s so much fun. It definitely flexes the same brain muscles that chess does. Highly recommend it. Read more about it at board game geek.

ANSWERING COMMENTS

Maria wrote:

I think I’m going to give some of these games a shot. I just can’t decide between Settlers of Catan and Carcassone. I’m leaning towards Carcassone because I’ve been to that area, but frankly, they strike as rather complex. which do you recommend to a beginner that really enjoys the traditional old parlor games and board games because of the structure, but also enjoys the competitive ruthlessness of Risk and Monopoly.

The games seem really complicated only because the mechanics are unfamiliar but they actually aren’t any more complicated than any of the classic games. When I was younger, my brother and I used to play Risk, but we never actually read the rules, we had been taught the game by some other kids we knew. Later in life, I discovered that we were playing the game wrong. About a year or two back I decided to read the rules and found them to be as complicated as any other board game rules. Like I usually do with new board games, I sat down with the game and played a “test game” by myself in order to understand the flow of the game and how it worked. Even having done that, when I actually played the game with someone, I still had the rules out and I referred to them in order to remind me how something was done. Most people don’t have to do this anymore because they played the game so often, it’s ingrained in their brain now. We often forget the first time we were introduced to the classic games and how much effort we had to put into them in order to learn to play them. I’ve found that, usually, the first time playing a new board game is the trickiest time. Especially when the game is at the level of complexity as a game like Risk. The first time I play, since I don’t know the rules, I make mistakes, I’m trying to understand how to best achieve the game objective and it usually takes longer than the game should. The second time, I make far less mistakes and the game flows faster, not only that but I start picking up on strategies to use. By the third time, the game feels like a game I’ve played all my life.

Okay, so Carcassonne vs Settlers. To be honest, Carcassonne is by far the easier of the two games to learn. It’s almost like learning a slightly more involved game of dominos. I could usually teach the game in about five minutes or so. In fact, click on the following link to get the Carcassonne rules so you can see them for yourself:

Carcassonne PDF rules download

You’ll find them less intimidating if you can read them, although it’s trickier to understand the game if you don’t have the game itself to try the rules out with. If you want to play a game of Carcassonne for free on the web, go to asobrain.com you have to register to the site but all you need is a nickname and a password. You don’t even need to put in an e-mail address or your real name. The game is called Toulouse on that site. You can play against an actual person and ask them to show you how to play or, if you don’t feel comfortable doing that, you can create a game and play against computer controlled “bots”. When you make a game, make sure to uncheck the expansion boxes (you don’t need them. You just want regular Carcassonne) On your turn, in order to get a tile, grab and drag the tile from the right hand corner of the screen. In order to rotate the tile press the ALT key down and click the left mouse button. To place a tile you just drag it to were you want it and press the left mouse button. In order to place a Meeple, grab and drag a Meeple from your group of Meeples above the “table” on the screen. The computer does all the calculating for you. This is how I learned Carcassonne before I bought it. If you have an Xbox 360 you can download the game for about five bucks.

Out of the all the “modern” board games I own, Carcassonne has seen the most play time. Not because it’s the best game in my collection, but because it plays just as good with two as with five players, it’s easy to teach, it’s fun and it can be played in about fourty to fourty five minutes (sometimes less).

This isn’t to say that Settlers isn’t an easy game to learn. It’s just that the mechanics are so unfamiliar that it may seem more complicated than it is. The last time I played Settlers, I taught that game in about ten to fifteen minutes. I asked my wife to compare Settlers to a more classic board game to see how complicated she thought Settlers was. She told me she thought the game was as easy to pick up as any of the classic board games and my wife is not a “gamer”.

The majority of people who’ve gotten into playing “modern” board games have done so because they where blown away by how much fun they had playing Settlers. The last two times I played the game was with people who hadn’t played the game before and they caught on to it really quick . They had a really good time. It was a big hit.

Settlers is a really easy game to understand. The point of the game is very simple. The first player to ten points wins.

How do you gets points?
You get points by adding up the value of the things you own on the board (Think Monopoly properties, houses, hotels, and cards).

For every settlement you’ve built (think Monopoly house) you get 1victory point (vp).
For every City you’ve built (think Monopoly hotel) you get 2 vps.
For every Development card you own that gives you a Victory point (think get out jail free card) you get 1 vp.
If you built the longest road in the game (think owning the most Monopoly properties in a row without a break) you get 2 pts.
If you built the biggest army (think holding the most get out of jail free cards) you get 2 pts.

How do you build things and obtain Development Cards?
You build things with resources (think Monopoly money) in the form of cards with pictures of said resources. The resources are: Lumber, Brick, Wool, Wheat, and Stone. Every player gets a “cheat sheet” that tells you what combination of resources you need to make things. For example: One Lumber and One Brick makes a road; two Wheat, and three Stone upgrades a settlement to a city; one Wheat, one Wool and one Stone allows you to pick up a Development card…etc. In the last “phase” of your turn, you can trade any combination of cards that you want into the “bank” in order to build what you want on the board (in accordance to rules limitations).

How do you get resources?
This is the very heart of the game. This is what the game is mostly about. Getting the resources is what makes the game fun. You get resources by:

The roll of two dice.
Trading and bargaining with other players at the table.
Stealing other players resources.

In other words, it’s almost like a party game. It has just about as much player interaction as a Cranium game. If the above three things sound like good, clean, goofy fun (and they are), then you’ll love this game. Settlers is almost a strange combination of a Monopoly game and a party game except that it has a lot more strategy in it.

The first time you play Settlers it might feel a bit long. Have no fear though, the more you play it, the shorter it will get because strategies will begin to develop and players will find ways to be more efficient, and a lot sneakier, in their resource gathering and building.

That’s Settlers in a nutshell. I’m not gonna go into the details of how you roll up resources or how you steal resources from other player here. If you want to try out the game for free on the web, you can download a demo version at:

Yahoo games
MSN games

The rules for the game are on the download page. If you own an Xbox 360, you can download Settlers for about five bucks or so.

A word of caution. These board games are not nearly as fun on the computer as they are around the table. I’d only use these free versions of Settlers and Carcassonne to familiarize myself with the games and decide what game would be best to get. Eventually you’re gonna want to have both.

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Universal Studios Simpsons ride

December 21, 2007 in ANSWERING COMMENTS, BOARD GAMES, FAMILY, MY WEEK, PODCASTS, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS
Okay so, it turns out that I got laid off the Simpsons show but I’m still not out of a job just yet. Wednesday, the day after I got laid off, I went back to work because I got put on the Simpsons’ Universal Studios Ride. As it happens, the Simpsons’ writers have discovered that the ride is something that they can actually write for because it’s not a movie or a t.v. show. This means that all the writers have set their eyes on the ride and have begun re-writing the heck out it, seemingly, just because it gives them something to do. Everyone that was working on the ride until now was having a hard time of it but it was getting done and it was going to meet it’s deadline. Not anymore. Now, because of all the re-writes, it’s in huge trouble. How much trouble? I wasn’t even laid off yet, nor was I done with my work, when they called me and asked me to pick up ride stuff so I could start working on it as soon as I was done with the show. On the one hand this is good because it gives me a little more work to do. On the other hand, it’s only for about two more weeks and it’s been as chaotic and stressful as working on the Simpsons movie. If a fact, I feel like I’m on the movie all over again. Speaking of the movie, The Simpsons Movie DVD is out now. (See how I did that?)

Meanwhile the scenes I worked on for Lance’s crew were just insane. I hadn’t worked on so many complicated scenes in a row EVER. They were driving me crazy. They were just so hard. I’m really tired. I need a break. I’m almost looking forward to being laid off…almost.

MY WEEK
So, there is nothing worse then Internet trouble. Our Internet connection wasn’t working for a couple of days this week. We got it fixed but our router isn’t working right now and switching computers is a big pain. Mostly because every time we switch computers, the modem stops working. We have to unplug the modem for a minute and make sure the computer is turned off for it to work with the new computer we plug it up to. At least it’s better than not having Internet at all.

FAMILY
I would like to say a big Happy Birthday to my niece Carolinita. She celebrated her birthday this weekend with a fun little party. My baby girl had a really good time at the party. We ended up having to leave a little early (even though I didn’t really want to) because we needed to see a sick friend (it took us two and a half hours to get to our sick friend’s place that day. That really stunk). I got Carolinita Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers. I own regular Carcassonne and it’s a big hit. It’s a simple game where you score points by laying down little tiles that, by end of the game, makes up a big map of Carcassonne that you created yourself and is different every time you play. I got her Hunters and Gatherers instead of regular Carcassonne because I’ve been hearing, a lot lately, that Hunters and Gatherers is a better game. I also heard it’s an even easier game to understand. I hope she likes it. She’s really into Cranium games right now and may not be too into anything else. Especially since the last present I got her was Hey! That’s My Fish!, which I think intimidated her because of it’s abstract, tactical nature. Luckily, even though Carcassonne can be played very competitively, you can’t really tell when you first start playing it and therefore it’s easier and much more fun to get into.

PODCAST
So I was listening to the Rosary Army Podcast #199 and Greg was talking about comics and video games and I just couldn’t help myself, I went on their forums and started a Comics and Games folder. I’ve been writing in that thing all week. For a while, there were only a handful of posts in it that weren’t mine. I was just having a conversation with myself most of the time hogging up the folder. I guess I just like to read my own writing. I must have the biggest ego ever. Pretty pathetic. At least I’ve discovered that there are other people, who listen to Rosary Army out there that play some of the board games that I write about. Also, the people that have written about the comics they read, have made me want to pick those specific comics up (which is bad because I can’t afford to). In any case, little by little other people are making comments in the folder. Hope it keeps up. Don’t want the folder to become my next blog.

Meanwhile Rosary Army podcast #200 is just NUTS! It’s a musical. They did a really great job with it. Go check it out.

Congratulations on 200 episodes guy!

BOARD GAMES
Just thought I’d throw this out there in case you wanted a twenty minute modern board game 101 class. I got this from Board games with Scott. Enjoy:

ANSWERING COMMENTS

Mike wrote:

Sorry to hear you are without income soon Luis. That’s not something that could easily happen here, as you probably know we live in a ‘welfare state’ and are pretty well protected against things like these. Trust me, it has its downsides as well. Of course if you are self employed like I am, then you just have to make sure you have money in the bank to cover for lesser times. Being without (enough) money has its upsides though: when it returns, you appreciate it a lot more 🙂 Board games are easily to get here. We have this Dutch factory called Jumbo that no doubt is part of the reason for the popularity of board games. Cultural heritage must be another one. It’s just fun to do something that involves the whole family, whether you’re 7 or 77.

I agree that being without money helps you appreciate it a lot more once you have some again. Another thing it helps you do is prioritize what’s important and what’s not. Also, it helps you enjoy the good things you already have instead of looking around for the next big thing. Personally, all I really need is enough money for the mortgage, the bills, and food. My wife and I have been talking and planning about this and we’ve actually discovered that we might be able to get by with enough money for this stuff without losing too much from our savings for a few months. Hopefully the strike won’t last that long.

Your board game cultural heritage is has been getting “exported” to the U.S. since Settlers of Catan came over here. European board games have a different flavor to the traditional U.S. Games. 90% of the board games I own are translated European games. The European games have become so popular that there are many new American games that have begun adopting their game mechanics. There is even a new Monopoly game that has done this called Monopoly – Tropical Tycoon DVD Game. Tom Vasel from The Dice Tower podcast (one of the best board game podcasts out there and I highly recommend it) thinks that it’s the best Monopoly game out there.

My sister Elsie wrote:

Hi my brother! I heard about the Christmas decorating little get together. Bummed I wasn’t there 🙁 So happy that the Munchkin is feeling better. Goodness me! It took her forever to get her little teeth, I guess they waited to come out until her head and body could kinda catch up with the enormity of her teeth 😉 I so looooove the pics! especially the booger one. Boogers have never looked so good, tee hee. Oh, and those hidden ornaments…*sigh* poor little guys, they are now officially affected for life. I hope that the writer’s strike clears up sooner than later. I hope that everyone gets what they deserve. What an terrible time to be left jobless! I’m just starting my new job and I haven’t worked for 3 weeks, and won’t really get paid until next year, so I kinda know….it totally sucks! I know that it will be hard to keep up your blog, with all the different transitions and the like but hey, I’m sure we all would love to hear what’s up with you 😉 I love you!!!! your sister li.

We really missed you at the party Li, but of course Juan and Deborah didn’t make it either so you shouldn’t feel too sad.

As far as everyone getting what they deserve from the writer’s strike…to quote Shakespeare in my favorite play, Hamlet:

“God’s bodykins, man, much better. Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?”

I’m very happy about you new job. I wish you all the best with it and I hope you enjoy it very much.

Even after I get laid off I will still continue to blog. I’m just going to have to come up with a special time to do it. Hopefully I can get my scanner to work, but if I can’t I’ll think of something.

I love you and I miss you.

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Writer’s strike got me! Decorating trees, Board gaming comments

December 14, 2007 in ANSWERING COMMENTS, BLOGS, BOARD GAMES, FAMILY, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

The writer’s strike, strikes again! On Tuesday we found out that an entire crew was sent off into the limbo that is hiatus. That is to say, they got laid off that day. Director Bob Anderson didn’t have any more work to give them and they had finished all they could. So the studio didn’t have any other choice but to put them on temporary hiatus until the strike is over.

Funny thing is, I found this out in a crew meeting that was called to tell us that our crew was going on hiatus next Tuesday when we finish our animatic. That right, you read right, after Tuesday of next week, I no longer have a job until the writer’s strike is over. I feel very helpless. I don’t know how long the strike is going to last. I was hoping this wouldn’t happen. I was sort of anticipating this but now that it’s happened, it’s really messed up. We were told we would be able to come back a week after the strike was over but when will that be? How will I be able to pay the bills? There is a lot of things going through my head about what I might be able to do about this. I’ll keep you posted. By next week, depending on what happens with Bongo comics, I may or may not make a few additions to this site. I’m definitely going to add a Pay Pal donations button as soon as I can. One thing that would help is, if you buy a board game or book or something that you see at this site, please do so through this site. Amazon will give me four percent of the purchase for being the “middle man” . In fact, one of the things I was thinking of doing is adding an Amazon store to the site. There, you would be able to buy some of the comics I’ve worked on as well as other things. What do you think? Do you have any ideas?

Please pray for us and pray the strike ends soon. Thanks and Pax Christi.

FAMILY

My wife and I decided to put up an Advent/Christmas tree up this weekend (I called it “Advent/Christmas” since it’s the Advent season right now, not the Christmas season. Technically, Christmas season doesn’t start until the twenty fifth of December and ends on the Feast of the Epiphany, January sixth) I wasn’t really going to put up a tree. I haven’t put up a tree since I moved out of my parents place, but now that I have a one year old daughter (The Munchkin), I thought it would be nice to do something big and visual for her for the Holidays. That way, she could see that there was something different going on this time of year. Then, maybe next year she will recognize that it’s happening again (my Nativity scene, besides being tiny, is packed up somewhere and I can’t seem to find it). I told my wife my idea and she agreed. We then thought it would be nice to invite people over to help do it so the baby saw it as an event. Problem was that it was a bit last minute so everyone had prior engagements. We didn’t even bother asking my brother and his wife because we knew they had their own thing going on since it was their wedding anniversary weekend. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY GUYS!

Another problem came up when The Munchkin came down with a crazy fever early in the week because of her teething. She was miserable. I don’t know why but she’s getting the biggest teeth I’ve ever seen on a baby. They’re huge! They’re bigger than her FACE!

Once they start coming out, she’s in crazy pain and her body reacts with a heavy fever. I mean she gets so hot you could fry an egg on her forehead.

To make matters worse, she also caught a cold. So she was coughing and sneezing and she had boogers all over her face.

It was awful. She didn’t want to eat or anything. We took care of her all week and I adjusted my work schedule to make sure I was able to do so. She had some really bad moments, poor baby.

By the time the tree decorating day came, the worst of the sickness had passed and she was almost her old happy self again. She still had a cold but the fever was gone and she began eating again. My parents were able to show up and some other friends told us they would be coming over also. Since they would not be able to arrive until later, we began the decorating. I put on some Christmas music (since I didn’t have any Advent music) and we began to decorate the tree. We had a fantastic time. There was only the five of us. It was a very intimate family moment. The Munchkin helped put up tree ornaments along with everyone else (And by helping “put up tree ornaments” I mean, The Munchkin would get a ornament and shove it into the tree as deep as she could so you couldn’t even see it anymore. She did this with quite a few and all of them in the same spot. They are now officially “lost” deep inside the tree.)

We had a great time. Later, it turned out that everyone we invited was actually able to come. We had a good little party for The Munchkin and she had a good time, the way I wanted her too. I consider the night a great successes.

By the way, my parents, also celebrated an Anniversary this week. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM ON POP!

ANSWERING COMMENTS

Wow, I got quite a few long comments last post. I like it.Keep them coming.

Mike wrote:

Thanks Luis. No wonders involved, just hard work. I am sure you will say the same about your excellent work. Coincidentally, just yesterday I heard on the news that board games sales went up again here in Holland.

Hi Mike , that’s interesting that you heard on the news that board game sales went up over there in Holland. The fact that you heard anything at all about board games on any news channel or radio station is amazing to me. Here in the U.S., we have a very limited selection of board games to choose from at our large chain stores. The old classics (Monopoly, Risk, Scrabble, etc…) that have been around for the last 30 to 40 years (usually themed around the latest hot movie of the month) are pretty much the only things we can get unless you count the handful of new party games here and there. We actually have to go out to specialty board game stores (which I only know of three in all of Los Angeles) in order to get something different. The only other way is to order online. How is it in Holland?

Maria wrote:

I have to respond to the person who thinks board games are for kids. There’s really nothing to be done about that. There are just people who get it, and people who don’t, and the ones who don’t get board games probably never will.

I grew up playing all the classics, and I am glad to say that my kids love board games, too, and that’s really fun now that they are in college and finishing high school. Every once in a while I’ll hear one of them say they have a really cool friend, but they don’t like board games (like it’s a character flaw, LOL–well, it is!)

We are currently conducting a family experiment to see who can make the best “team” when playing games requiring some kind of intuitve communication (we really enjoy Cranium-type games). We’re actually trying to collect empirical data about our skills and how they complement each other. Maybe that’s going a bit too far, but hey, we’re having fun.

Maria, thank you for the response. Your family experiment sounds fascinating and fun. If anything, if just sounds like a darn good excuse to play games with the family. You’ve made gaming a “Meta game”.

I agree that it’s a character flaw when someone doesn’t like board games. It’s almost like their saying, “I’m too grown up for that kind of silly thing” Where’s your sense of good, clean, light hearted fun?!

Of course it’s possible that when someone brings up the topic of board games, they immediately think of Monopoly or Scrabble or some other classic. To be honest, if I was to be asked to play any of these games, I wouldn’t want to play them either. I’m not much on words and spelling, so I wouldn’t want to play Scrabble, even though it’s a fun game (I’d play Qwirkle though. Similar mechanics but with shapes and colors instead of letters), and Monopoly feels like work and it goes on forever. In fact any “Roll and Move ” game that doesn’t provide some sort of tricky decision making (Careers did this pretty well) is just plain dull. It’s like the game plays itself and your just there to roll the dice. Where is the fun in that? Monopoly is only fun when you actually start wheeling and dealing and if I want that kind of game, The Settlers of Catan pretty much provides that kind of interaction and fun from turn one. In the same way as the Cranium games have taken Parlor games , Party Games and board games and evolved them to a more wacky, crazy, fun experience. The other modern board games have taken board games and made them into something completely new.

I think that some people might be able to “get” board games, if only they were presented with the right one for them. Of course there are always the other kind of people who just refuse period but that’s their problem. I don’t know what kind of game your kids have presented to their cool friends but I know that the games that tend to really work well for me are The Settlers of Catan , Ticket to Ride , and Carcassonne . I don’t know if you own any of these. If you don’t, I highly recommend them, if you do, have your kids tried them on their friends? Did they still not like them? If they didn’t, maybe they are wargamers.

In any case I’m going to provide some links that might help anyone learn and familiarize themselves with some of these games:

How to play Settlers of Catan– this link goes to an interactive tutorial that explains how to play The Settlers of Catan .

Other Catan games– This link take you to the main page where you can click on other interactive tutorial of other Catan games.

How to play Ticket to Ride– This link take you to a six minute video at the Days of Wonder site that shows you how to play Ticket to Ride .

Carcassonne: The Discovery review and explanation– This link takes you to a video from “Board games with Scott” (It’s a really geeky video cast that explains some of the modern board games out there). This video explains Carcassonne: The Discovery , which is a Carcassonne variant. It will give you an idea of what the Carcassonne games are like.

By the way, if you don’t own these already, I highly recommend, Lord of the Rings by Reiner Knizia and Shadows over Camelot by Serge Laget and Bruno Cathala . They are both cooperative games (like Cranium Hoopla ). The Lord of the Rings game plays 2-5 players (6 with the Sauron expansion) and Shadows over Camelot plays 3-7 players. They are great games to play if everyone wants to be in one team a fight a common enemy, (namely the game). Maybe I’ll write more about these games some other time. For now I recommend you look them up on Board Game Geek . (By the way, love your blog).

Tao wrote:

Hi Luis,

Amusingly enough, Starlit Citadel is one of the few board game store sponsors to his site. I completely agree with you about his blog, I find it really interesting though sadly don’t have a huge amount of time to read it.

As for board games being for kids, I think in North America, there’s been a trend for board games to become more main stream. Certainly it seems that way especially when you compare it to 10 years ago or even 5.

I’ve never tried Civ the board game myself, though I hear a good translation of computer to video game is Age of Empire III. Definitely one I have to play soon.

Tao , Yehuda’s blog can be addicting once you start reading it. I’m glad you’re one of his sponsors.

As to the board games sales increasing, well, that sounds pretty cool. I wonder if word of mouth is getting around.

Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery board game ROCKS! A while ago, my wife gave me most of the money to go get the game because the first Age of Empire games were some of her favorites and I sure wasn’t going to argue. I loved the game. This is strange of me to say because our first game wasn’t all that great. The game has a really steep learning curve, it’s rather long, and we got rules wrong. I didn’t necessarily have a fantastic time, yet thirty minutes after we finished I became completely obsessed with it. All I could do was think about it and what I would try doing next time I played. In fact, I wanted to play it again that night but it was way to late to play. I still want to play it again. I can’t wait to do so. I will put one disclaimer though. It doesn’t play like a real time strategy game at all. I haven’t played the Age of Empires III video game but I doubt it plays like the board game. Also I wouldn’t recommend it for the newbie board gamer since it’s a bit complicated for people not used to some of these game play mechanics. It throws a lot of them at you at once. It’s similar in complexity to Pillars of the Earth. Still, Age of Empires board game rocks!

Bill wrote:

Funny, I never thought the board game called “chess” was just for kids.

Hey Bill , Yehuda’s blog post took that into account. He wrote:

Board and card games used to be for adults; today, mainstream board games require no more brain than the average 3-6 year old can wield. Games like Sorry. Trouble. Monopoly. Most “games” are not even games but “activities”, such as Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary, etc… meant for breaking the ice at parties.

Mystifyingly enough, ask the same person if Chess or Bridge or Go are for children, and he will admit that they are for adults, but that he never thought to group them under the term “board game”. But Bridge and Chess require so much time to learn to play well, and who has that much time?

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Do you think board games are just for kids?

December 7, 2007 in ANSWERING COMMENTS, BLOGS, BOARD GAMES, BOOKS, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

So, some of us are really starting to feel the effects of the strike. I, thankfully, am not. At least not yet. I was talking to a fellow co-worker and he told me that the crew he’s on has been told to take their time on their scenes. Once they are done they won’t have any more work and might have to go on hiatus. Yikes!

Meanwhile, the show I’m on still has a lot of work to be done on it. As far as making quota…uh…we’re suppose to finish ten scenes a week. I managed to finish four. They were heavy acting scenes. Still, it looks bad. The next scenes I have to do are riot scenes so I don’t think I’m gonna make quota again. Maybe they won’t mind because of the strike. Guess I better make the scenes look good anyway, just in case. Hope the strike is over soon. Our animatic is due the week before Christmas and without writers, who will give us notes on what to revise? Without revisions I don’t have a job next month.

BLOGS/BOARD GAMES

Do you think board games are just for kids!? You know, it never occurred to me that someone would actually think that way. All this time I’ve been writing about board games and I bet a lot of people just skipped that part of my post because they probably thought I was talking about kids stuff. I bet if I was to talk about animated movies or shows they would probably think the same thing.

The reason I came to realize that people might think this way was because I read a blog article called 60 second primer on modern board games, at Yehuda Berlinger’s blog which I really liked and highly recommend because it gives you a quick over view on modern board games and how people might view them.

This is a really great professional blog. (Boy, I’d love to live off my blog. Bet it takes a lot of work though. I think it’s sooo cool that he’s sponsored by board game stores). I found out about this blog because he had linked to me. The strange thing is, the day I found out about the blog. I was listening to a board game podcast called Into the Gamescape – Show 22. It’s a British based podcast with three guys who generally just talk about the games they play and review them. Well, in the episode I was listening to, the Gamescape guys were talking about a game they played called, “It’s Alive!” (this was about 50:23 minutes into the show). It’s basically a card game about putting together a monster out of body parts a la Frankenstein. I remember because the Gamescape guys forced the winner to yell out “It’s Alive!” in order to win the game because it was in the rules. If he hadn’t done it, they were not going to count his win as a win and they were just going to keep playing. Anyway, I listened to that podcast on the way home in my car and when I got home and thought nothing else about it. Once home, I got on the computer and discovered Yehuda’s site. I went into the “About me” page and found that he was also a board game designer. I clicked to see what game he designed and wouldn’t you know it, it was “It’s Alive!”. That was just the weirdest thing.

In any case, I recommend the blog. The other article I really liked was 100+ Ways to Rejuvenate the Games You Already Own. It’s very cool. Lots of ideas as to how to make an old game new. I own a book called “New Rules for Classic games” but this blog article may very well be better than that book.

BOOKS

Speaking of books, my friend Aimee has a book coming out this month. It’s called “Japan Ai: A tall girls adventure in Japan“. In this book she recounts the story of her trip to Japan. It’s done in a similar way as my “Illustrated trip to Italy” but it’s mostly in color, longer, in book form and, of course, in her own personal style. In fact she told me she got the idea after looking at what I did with my trip to Italy (the same way I got the idea from someone else). It took me a week to do mine but it took her quite a bit longer to do hers, and it shows. Click here to go to the official site for a preview. From what I’ve seen, it looks darn funny and lots of fun. I’m gonna pick it up, I think you should too. It looks like a lot of fun.

PODCAST

Rosary Army has got their “That Catholic Show” DVDs out. Now you can take the show and watch it in really good quality on your TV. They make good Christmas gifts too. Go pick one up at the official “That Catholic Show” site and help support them. Yay!

BOARD GAMES

As I’ve stated before in “Comparing the pros and cons of Video games and Board games” one of my all time favorite video games is Sid Meier’s Civilizations II (I haven’t played the new version, Civilizations IV because the game is too big and my computers can’t handle it). I like the game so much that, about four or five years ago when I discovered that there was a board game made based on the computer game, I bought it. In fact, trying to discover more information about the game before I bought it was the way I discovered Board Game Geek (BGG). Back then, I wasn’t into board games as much as I am now. Anyway, once I got the game, I was very surprised at how many bits came in the game. Well over a hundred different bits and things. The other thing that was crazy was the size of the board, 36” by 46”. The rule book had two sets of rules the Standard Rules and the Advanced Rules. The Standard Rule was a very simplified way to play the game it almost seemed like a game of Risk, which if I wanted to play, I’d just play Risk. The Advanced Rule on the other had was a little more like the computer game. The game gives you the option to play three different games at different lengths. The shortest game lasts two to three hours, the medium length lasts three to four and the longest lasts four to six. Those are really long! At the time that I had bought the game though, I had no one to play it with, so it just sat there collecting dust, even though I really wanted to try it out.

The first time I played the game was with my wife Alesha (at the time, she was just my girlfriend). We played the Standard Version and I wasn’t very impressed, we ended up thinking that the next time we’d play the game, we would play the Advanced game. This happened almost three years later after I married Alesha, and we played the game with my brother-in-law. We made a few mistakes that night:

We played it late at night when everyone was really tired.
Since I hadn’t read the rules in a long time, I was reading them as we went along (This is the worst way to play a board game).
I got quite a few rules wrong.

In any case, the game was taking a really long time and the game required a lot of up keeping that we weren’t prepared for. Not only that, but my brother-in-law decided to play a very militant game which slowed the game down even more because the battle rules of the game aren’t very good and because production of technologies slows down so much the game doesn’t move ahead. Needless to say, we didn’t finish the game and it left me with a bad impression. I didn’t touch the game again.

An e-mail conversation I recently had with a friend of mine has lead me to take another look at the game. After having played the Pocket Civ game (as mentioned in Playing too much, sleeping too little) I thought that maybe I could use some of the rules of that game and maybe “plug” them into the Sid Meier’s Civ board game . I thought that if I did that it might play more like the video game. Thinking about it some more I started thinking up a lot of other things I might be able to add to the rule of the game to make if feel more like the video game.

Now, you may be wondering, why bother making the board game play more like the video game if I could just get up and play the video game. The answer is a very much like what I wrote in “Comparing the pros and cons of Video games and Board games” . I want to play the game on a table in the company of family and friends but still enjoy the Sid Meier’s Civ experience. I don’t want to sit in front of a computer screen by myself clicking on the spacebar.

In any case, I took out the game again for the first time in years, opened it up and re-read the rules. (Which I later discovered have been revised for the better. I download the new revised rules from the Sid Meier’s Civ board game website.) After I read them I realized that the game wasn’t as bad as I remembered and it really did seem like the video game. I tested out my house rules anyway and I discovered that they actually made the game move faster. I also found different battle rules on BGG that are better than the ones that come with the game so I’m now going to use those.

All this has actually gotten me exited about playing the game again (both the board game and the video game). It’s really too bad that the game takes so long and the board is so huge. Unless the people I play the game with are big Civ fans, it will be very tricky to get anyone to play it with me. Who knows, maybe with the new house rules, I might be able to convince some people. Now, if only I can find a way to automate the up keeping parts of the game like the computer does. Getting a board game to play like a computer game is very tricky.

ANSWERING COMMENTS

Greg: Glad you liked the cartoon. I’m glad you used it on as the podcast picture for the show. I was really flattered.

Mike : Thank you, for the compliment about my cartoons. I’ve heard wonders about your podcasting programs.

Tony Scarfone : I agree with your opinion on the Samus’ translation of Beowulf. That’s the one I read. That’s why I put it on the site. It’s really good. I also noticed you have a podcast. I’m make sure to check it out.

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Greg Willits runs a marathon, Beowulf the Movie

November 28, 2007 in ANSWERING COMMENTS, MOVIES, PODCASTS, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS
Wow, talk about stress. I woke up on Monday morning stressed out. I had a very fun, relaxing Thanksgiving weekend but the day I went to work, it was instant stress. I woke up with a headache and a neck ache and it hasn’t gone away in four days. I guess I have to get used to the whole quota thing again. Quotas haven’t been really scrutinized for years now so getting back to that mind set might take some more getting used to.

The good news is that the show I’m working on is really funny. It’s really good. It’s a Homer centric episode and he ends up teaming up with an unexpected character. It also has a goofy Marge subplot. It’s a lot of fun to work on. I just need to meet my scene quota.

MOVIES
So my brother, his wife Deborah, my wife, her best friend, and I went to see Beowulf this weekend. Overall I enjoyed the movie. Visually, it was fantastic. It didn’t quite follow the story it was based on very accurately and I’m sure there are a lot of English teachers out there having fits about that. I read Beowulf a while back and it’s funny how much of the language of this story J.R.R. Tolkien lifted from when he wrote The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. I got a kick out of that. According to www.kirjasto.sci.fi/tolkien.htm:

“His scholarly works included studies on Chaucher (1934) and an edition of Beowulf (1937) .”

The movie on the other hand, didn’t have that kind of language although there was some old English spoken by some characters, which I found really interesting. The changes to the story where a little odd but if you don’t take a purist point of view, you can get a little out of it. One of my favorite writers Neil Gaiman, co-wrote the movie. I found it interesting that the movie dealt so much with sin. I liked the idea the movie seemed to present, that personal sin effected not just the individual but the community as well. I also thought it was interesting how the pagan “heroes” of the story seemed to be annoyed by Christianity and would always dismiss it as something bad. They would grumble that after Christianity there were no more “heroes” in the world. Then they would turn around and sin so horribly that it would become a literal monster and effect the lives of many, many people. This would cause them to have to confront and take care of the problems they created at great personal cost but even after they did so, the problems wouldn’t completely go away. I got the feeling that, since they kept rejecting Christianity, they would have to keep fighting the monsters that they created because they would never go away. This is probably why they needed “heroes” and the Christians didn’t. I’m sure the writers didn’t intend that meaning to the story but that’s what I got out of it.

One of the biggest problems I found in the movie was that lack of animation in the character’s faces. They often looked like dolls. It took a lot of work on my part to suspend my disbelief that these characters were “real”. Occasionally they looked good but mostly they didn’t. In the The Lord of the Rings movie, Gollum was a computer generated (C.G.) character, just like all the characters in Beowulf. Theoretically they used the same techniques to make the characters in Beowulf as they used to make Gollum, namely “Motion Capture” (MoCap). Yet Gollum was so much more believably “alive” than the characters in Beowulf. Why?

If you watch “making of” documentaries of Lord of the Rings, you get the impression that the actor, Andy Serkis, who did the MoCap acting and the voice of Gollum did all the work. What you don’t know is that for every moment of real deep acting that Andy Serkis did, there was an animator re-interpreting the acting so that it would work as animation. This is why it looked real. A human being did what a computer could not. Capture the essence of Andy Serkis‘ acting and retranslated it so that it felt real on the Gollum C.G. model. An animator is like a motion caricaturist. A caricaturist looks at a person and exaggerates the physical features that makes a person look like themselves. They capture the essence of the person. An animator does the same thing but through motion. They are actors with computers. I think that the characters in Beowulf didn’t look right because either the animators that they used to interpret the acting weren’t good, the director of animation wasn’t very good about pushing the acting, the director of the movie didn’t understand how to direct the animators, or they didn’t use enough animators and thought the computer would do all the work. In any case, the animation on the humans was the biggest flaw of the movie. I think movies like this will really work great the moment people realize it’s the animators, not the computers that makes believable acting. I still think it’s worth watching. Just be warned, there is a lot of nudity in the movie. Beowulf butt cheeks anyone?

Gollum had really good animation acting in Lord of the Rings

Yoda, in the latest two Star Wars movies, was fully animated. They didn’t MoCap his acting at all. His acting was really good.

“Final Fantasy: Advent Children” had the same stiff MoCap acting problems as Beowulf. Great visual movie though.

Animatrix’s “Final flight of the Osiris” also had stiff MoCap acting.

PODCASTS

I listened to Rosary Army #194 this week. It was really great. Greg Willits ran a marathon this Thanksgiving. The Rosary Army podcast follows the adventure of Greg’s marathon, mostly through Jennifer Willits’ eyes. It’s a very emotional recording. It got me all choked up. I loved it. If you haven’t listened to it then I recommend you do. Afterwards I recommend you watch the video that Fr. Roderick taped of the event. It’s a lot of fun.

CONGRATS GREG!

ANSWERING COMMENTS
Tao responded to my post last week. He said he had an article similar to mine on his blog. I looked it up and I thought it was great. It’s called, “Why Play Board Games?” I recommend it. Check it out. While your at it check out the one called “From the Classics to Modern Board Games” as well.

Thank you for letting me know about you article Tao!

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Comparing the pros and cons of Video games and Board games

November 22, 2007 in BOARD GAMES, THE SIMPSONS NEWS, VIDEO GAMES

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Well, I’m back on Lance’s show. I got quite a few scenes and I even managed to meet my layout quota by Friday. I’m very glad that this week we only have a three day week. WOO HOO! Happy Thanksgiving! Act I of Lance’s show is pain because it has a riot in it (a riot on a Simpsons show? What a surprise! NOT!). Luckily he managed to split up the scenes of the riot to different artists so no one person ended up with the whole thing. It really makes life easier on us that way.

Lately, they been cracking down on scene quotas around here. We have more artists on the show than we really need. This means that only the artists that can produce the right amount of work will be kept. Production is really looking around to get rid of some of us. I really need to start making sure I meet quota.

VIDEO GAMES/BOARD GAMES

I’ve been thinking about the pros and cons of board games and video games in relation to each other. Though I enjoy playing them both, I’ve discovered that I like board games more lately.

If you were to come over to my house and looked at my video game collection, you would probably say, “Wow, you have a lot of video games.” I do. When I was single, I had a little extra money on hand to buy video games and I had the time to play them. Not anymore.

Now I have to be wise as to how I spend the money so I could make sure to have enough for bills, necessities and emergencies. This means that I don’t have the cash to be spending on video games or video game systems. Also, the free time I get, I try to spend with my wife and baby girl so I don’t spend any time playing video games the way I used to.

Interactivity

Now that I’m married, I’ve come to realize that video games tend to be mostly solitary games that often times tend to be exclusive. Even if your playing a multiplayer game against someone on the internet, they still tend to be, you alone in a room against someone else who is also alone in a room.

Still, I really like video games. I’ve been dying to play games like BioShock and Halo 3. Those games sound so awesome I can’t stand it! Thing is, I haven’t got the money for an Xbox 360 nor do I have the time to play the games even if I did (well, maybe I could play Halo 3 with my wife, ’cause she likes the Halo games and they are cooperative).

This is one of the reasons I’ve been playing board games more. With board games I can spend time with my wife and family while playing a game.

It’s not that video games can’t be played with or against someone in the same room as you. You can and it’s great to play that way. I’ve spent many hours playing Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Baldur’s Gate, Champions of Norrath, and Halo 1 and 2 with my wife and we’ve had a great time with them.

The problem I’ve found with video games is that even when your playing along side someone, there is still a level of detachment from the person you are playing with because your sitting next to them and watching a screen and not sitting across from them and looking at them.

Board games tend to provide that extra level of interactivity with the person I’m playing with that I never realized I was missing. Now a days the board games coming out are so good that they give some video games a run for their money as far as game mechanics are concerned. And of course no video game can get you as immersed into a game and give you all the freedom you could ever want as well as a tabletop role-playing game.

Still…a game like BioShock or The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion can come pretty close.

Immersive Factor

Best thing about video games is that you can play them alone and have a great time. Something that is really difficult to do with a board game. Also, they are often times, instantly immersive, creative and they are great for problem solving and getting you to think (my all time favorite game, Civilization II, has all these qualities.

Ironically, this game was based on a board game. Who knew?

Barrier to Entry

On the other hand, video games have a difficult point of entry. You have to buy an expensive system or computer to be able to play them, and then, if you’re new to video gaming, you have to learn to use the controllers (something that the Nintedo Wii has been trying to fix with quite of bit of success).

Some people find it impossible to get the hand, eye coordination required to play some of the more popular games and therefore don’t find video gaming to be fun at all. Not to mention that some people get motion sickness from some video games.

For years I tried to get my family to play video games with me and, for the most part, have failed. Not so with board games.

A board game has a real easy point of entry. All you have to do is buy the game, read the rules and your ready to go. No electricity necessary.

Only thing is, that some board games are a little more complicated then others. This means that some people might have a harder time understanding some games than others.

Their brain just doesn’t work that way. So even board games have some problems as well and yet the social aspect of board games is hard to beat. Something not even playing an Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game (MMORPG) can do.

Longevity

As time goes on I’ve become painfully aware of something. As I’ve stated above, I own quite a few video games. Thing is, the game systems that run them are becoming obsolete. This means that in a few years, I might not be able to play them anymore.

I like the games I bought. I think they hold up even thought the graphics aren’t as good as they are now. I still think they are fun to play but if my Playstation, Nintendo, or Xbox doesn’t work anymore, how am I to play them?

Some game systems are backwards compatible and some are partially backwards compatible but how long will they be made that way? Eventually, a system will stop being compatible with my games.

Does this mean I have to re-buy my games? Will I always have to hunt down old systems if mine no longer work? That stinks.

Board games don’t have this problem, (the game “Go” was mentioned by Confucius in his “Analects” around 511-479 BC and yet you can still play it. It doesn’t require a “game system”) although they do have their own.

Some board games go out of print. This means that if you don’t buy a board game right away you run the risk of it disappearing. This means if you want to play it, you might end up buying it on e-bay for double the price.

Then there are the games that have a limited runs and then they’re gone. Sometimes they are good enough to get a re-release (Case in point: Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization and Ra) but that’s no guaranty (Case in point: Dune the board game).

Is One Better?

I’m not saying one is better than the other (although it sure does sound like it, doesn’t it?). I like playing games, period.

Right now I’m into board gaming because it fits my needs better. Although sometimes I wish I could play the latest and greatest video game out, I think that my time is better spent in important things like spending time with my family.

Board games allow me to do both. Maybe someday board games and video games might become one. We’ll have video tables were we move physical pieces around on a digital board that can read what you are doing and we’ll have the best (and worst) of both worlds.

Feel free to disagree all you want. I want to know what you think.

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Storyboard problems, computer problems, Dune the Board game.

November 16, 2007 in BOARD GAMES, BOOKS, MOVIES, MY WEEK, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Well, so much for having fun storyboarding. I finished working on storyboard revisions on one show and I got put on storyboard revisions on another show. Problem is that all the fun stuff has been done already and all I get to do is the grunt work. The shots have been figured out already by the director and he just gives me a bunch of roughs to clean up. This means I, first have to interpret the roughs and second, I have to draw them pretty clean. Problem is that the show is so behind that everything is do yesterday. This means that what ever I get, I have to do as fast as possible and under a ton of pressure. Not only that, but some of the shots I have to “board” are already in layout. This means that the work I’m doing doesn’t have any practical use. The layout artists are working off the rough version of the shots that I’m trying to clean up for the “board”. This does nothing but frustrate me because the director is just as picky over the storyboard shots that are not going to be used by anyone as he is with the ones that are. Why? Because apparently there is one producer left on the show that is not on strike and we have to make the “boards” on the show perfect so he doesn’t make too many changes to it. It’s so impractical. It just feels like a waste of my time to me.

I was put on the show last Thursday and it seems that ever since then, the moment I come to work I get an instant headache. This stinks. I was suppose to start on Lance’s show on Monday and I haven’t which means that I’m going to be behind on all the things he gives me from the very beginning.

MY WEEK

My laptop is just not connecting to the internet anymore and don’t know why. It’s really frustrating. First the wireless router started acting up so we just unplugged it and after I did that and I connected the computer to the land line, it just wouldn’t load the internet pages. It gets the signal but it just won’t load. Has this ever happened to you? If it has, how did you fix it? I tried uninstalling the router program but it’s not even in the computer. I don’t know what to do.

BOARD GAMES

So instead of telling you that I played three games this weekend (Bohnanza, San Juan, and Vegas Showdown), I thought I’d write about how I made my own. No, I didn’t design a game, I just put it together from a pdf I downloaded. The game is Dune, the board game.

If your a fan of Frank Herbert’s Dune books, this is a must have. I’ve been wanting to play this game for a long time. This game plays up to six player and each person plays one faction from the Dune books, The Fremen, the Harkonnen, the Atreides, the Guild, the Bene Gesserit, or the Emperor . The best part is each faction has a bunch of special “powers” that thematically go with the faction and the essence of the books. It’s so cool! There is just too many interesting things about this game to write here. If you want to read more about it, click here.

This game has been out of print for years and it has the reputation of being one of the best games ever. It’s ranked #45 on board game geek. If you were to try to buy in on e-bay it would cost you over a hundred dollars. Fantasy Flight has bought the rights to use the game system but were unable to get the rights to use the Dune License so they’re going to use a different Sci Fi theme. It just won’t be the same.

After having printed out and played the Pocket Civ game, I thought to myself that it would be pretty easy to print out and make another game. Since I felt like doing it again, I needed a game worth making. I’d downloaded the Dune game about a year or two ago and I thought that maybe it was the right time to put it together. So I began trying to figure out how I was going to go about doing it. I had card stock so that wasn’t going to be a big deal. So first I started printing out the cards, the problem was that the cards also had backs to them. When I turned the paper around and printed on the back of the already printed image in order to give the cards a back, I found to my dismay that they didn’t line up. So I thought the only way to do it would be to print the front and back on two different pieces of card stock and glue them together later. I also had lamination paper and after I printed out all the components I started to laminate everything. Once I did that I went to the craft store and bought some glue spray. I then went to the local copy store to use the paper cutter they had there. I was there for about two hours cutting out the cards for the game as well as the actual game board. I put the cards together using the spray on glue and they looked really great. They actually don’t even looked hand made. Next I went home and cut out the rest of the components with some scissors. In all, it took me about five to six hours and I still wasn’t able to finish that day. The next day at work, I used my exacto knife to cut some slits in the “shield wall” pieces and I also finished putting together the “Combat Wheels” of the game with some help from my light table at work. Now all I have to do is go back to the craft store to look for some components that I might be able to use for the armies and the “spice tokens” and the game is ready to play. It was fun to do but it was an quite a lot of work. Can’t wait to play it.

BOOKS/MOVIES

I’ve noticed something. Some of the most influential Science fiction/fantasy books and movies all seem to have a world religion “foundation” to them. For example:

Star Wars, is kinda Buddhist.
Dune, is kinda Muslim.
The Matrix, is sorta Gnostic.
The Lord of the Rings, is very, very, Catholic (it’s Christian but it’s specifically Catholic).

I understand that all religions may seem the same on the surface and therefore people (like Joseph Campbell) have put forth the proposition that they are. Though I disagree with Campbell’s proposition I think he’s right in that these stories do to hit a “mythic” core in us. I heard somewhere that Tolkien thought myths were very similar because it was a way for humanity to recognize Jesus as the Savior even if you’re culture didn’t have a bible because it was written in everyones psyche. (Can you tell I’m Christian?) I find this interesting non the less. I wonder if the next big sci fi/fantasy book/movie will be Hindu or Jewish. Unless there’s already one and I don’t know it.

I proposed this idea to some friends at lunch and they pointed out that Star Trek and Blade Runner don’t fall under this world religion foundation view, though they do have a philosophical ideological foundation. For example:

Star Trek is a bit secular humanistic.
Blade Runner is…well…huh…I guess it’s just asking a bit fat question, so I guess it would be Socratic?

What do you think?

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Playing too much, sleeping too little

November 8, 2007 in ANSWERING COMMENTS, BOARD GAMES, MY WEEK, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS
So much for not working the rest of the week last week. I got put on storyboard revisions. I really don’t mind because I really want to do storyboards. It’s really fun for me. When I “board” I feel like I’m contributing to the creative process of the show, more so then when I’m doing layout. As a storyboard artist I get to come up with the first pass of what the show will actually look like by fleshing out the script into visual form. I take the first shot at making the gags work and I also get the first pass at coming up with new characters, props, and backgrounds. It’s really creative. Something that is sometimes lacking when I do layout. I’m having a lot of fun this week, Yay! Even though, doing storyboard revisions is just fixing shots that have been slightly changed. It’s still fun.

BOARDGAMES
Got to play board games this week again, woo HOO! My sister-in-law Deborah made us a yummy dinner at her apartment, while the Munchkin ran around and crawled all over me, not letting me eat. We talked for a while and had a good time, then we broke out a board game and started playing it. The game we played was The Settlers of Catan, which my brother had been wanting to play for a long time. It’s a really fun game and if you want an introduction to the new style of “designer” (designer’s name is on the box) board games, this is the game to get. I can’t recommend this game enough. It’s very a interactive game about building settlements and trading resources with the people around the table. Not only that, but it has a modular board which means that the board layout is different every time you play. The game plays in about an hour, maybe more, depending on how long people take to do their turn. Our game lasted about an hour and a half (I think maybe even two) because my brother kept taking so long to decide what to do in his turn. We had a really good time.

I also found out about a “Print and Play” civilizations game. I went to the site and downloaded the rules and the pdf of the cards you need to use to play. I then printed the rules and for the cards I printed them in card stock. Later, I cut the cards out with a paper cutter. I tried it out the next day. I drew a continent, broke it up into eight regions, put mountains in some and forests in others and began to play. It turned out to be a really fun game. It’s amazing. All you need is paper, pencil, rules and the cards, yet, the games is really fun and really deep. I recommend it. Best part of all, IT’S FREE! WOO HOO! If you like “Civ” games and you want to have a portable one, this one is a good one to have.

MY WEEK
Since we played the board game this weekend on a Sunday night, we got home around ten thirty. Usually we go to sleep around then because we wake up really early. It wouldn’t have been that big a deal except that my wife still had some work to do for her job the next day. I felt bad that she still needed to work so I stayed up with her in order to keep her company. I didn’t want to be asleep while she stayed awake. We both would have to wake up at four the next morning and I thought it would be unfair. She managed to finish her work at twelve thirty and we went to sleep then.

Four hours of sleep is just not enough. The next day was a nightmare. We were sooo tired all day. I’ve got to remember to make sure my wife has everything done before we do anything from now on. We felt terrible all of Monday. Driving was horrible and work was almost impossible. I’m very surprised I got as much done as I did. In any case, we got home that night and the only thing we wanted to do was go to sleep. We managed to crawl into be at nine o’clock even though I really meant to get into be at eight that night. Sweet, sweet sleep.

ANSWERING COMMENTS
siobhan left a comment on In the Shadow of greatness. Thank you so much for the feed back. You really made my day.

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Going to Confession

November 1, 2007 in ANSWERING COMMENTS, BOARD GAMES, CATHOLICISM, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Good news and bad news.

The good news is that we’re all done drawing the scenes for show eight. The only thing left to do is it “time” the scenes in exposure sheets and send them off to Korea so that it can get “in-betweened”, “cleaned up”, and colored. So we’re very happy about that. Now I’ve found myself in the fortunate position of having nothing to do. No other shows needs help so I actually get to sit around and read, write, play on my computer, play on my gameboy, or generally goof around for the next couple of days. Next week I’ll be working on Lance’s new show, show sixteen. The “animatic” (first pencil test version of the show) for that show is due the week before Christmas. So we’ve got a bit of time.

The bad news is that the Hollywood writer’s strike begins today. Depending how long it takes to be resolved, we might not have any work. If the strike continues till the end of the year, then our “animatic” deadline is pretty much pointless since we do the “animatic” for them to be able to rewrite anything that isn’t working on the show before we finalize it. There really won’t be anywhere for an artist to go since all the studios will be effected. Many writers in the industry won’t be very effected by the strike since they receive residuals from shows they’ve written. We artists, on the other hand, don’t. I’ve got mortgage payments and bills to pay. We had to buy a new car recently because of the car accident my wife had four weeks ago and we pretty much tapped a lot of our emergency money for that. All the paychecks I get every week pretty much go straight to the bills. We don’t really get to save much of anything, so the strike is really going to be scary for us. Especially since we have a baby on the way. What if the strike lasts until our baby is born?

Lets hope everyone’s greed gets sated quickly.

BOARD GAMES

I can’t believe I got to play board games again this week. This is the third week in a row. I’m sooo happy, yay! My brother and his wife came over and we played three boardgames. I’m in the process of trying to play all the games I have that I haven’t been able to. I have a few games that I’ve had for a year or so that I haven’t been able to play yet. Well, three of those games we managed to play this weekend so that means I have nine left to play.

The first game we played was Loot. Loot is a pirate card game that’s designed by Reiner Knizia. It’s about trying to collect as many valuable merchant ship cards as you can by attacking them with your pirate ship cards. It’s a fun short game. It takes about twenty minutes to play. Everyone liked playing it. It really forces the player to think ahead and make tough decisions. My brother’s wife Deborah won the game.

The second game we played was The Bridges of Shangri-La, which is a game about taking over cities with students that get trained in opposing cities. It’s really fun and really cut throat. My wife doesn’t like cut throat games so she didn’t like it much but my brother, Deborah and I liked it. I think it’s a great game. It really requires you to think a lot. Lots of keeping tabs on what everyone else is doing in order to protect yourself while you plan to do your moves. Deborah won that game also.

The third game we were going to play was Tichu but my wife wasn’t feeling well so she had to sit out. Since we needed four people to play Tichu because it requires you to have two teams of two people, we decided to play China instead. China is a game where you collect points by putting villages and ambassadors in ancient Chinese provinces. It’s a very deep game for a game that seems so simple. It isn’t very cut throat and it’s very family friendly but like I said, it’s very deep. My brother didn’t like that you didn’t get tons of points quickly like in the board game Ticket to Ride. I don’t think he understood much of the depth in the game. Maybe if he plays it again he’ll understand it better. In any case, Deborah won that game also. We were all big losers that day. Deborah apparently is just as wiz at grasping board game strategies really quickly. Who knew.

CATHOLICISM

Happy Feast of all Saints.

So I went to Confession (a.k.a Sacrament of Reconciliation, Sacrament of penance) this week. I really don’t like going to Confession. Not because it’s such a horrible Sacrament or anything but because it forces me to own up to the bad things I’ve done. It bursts my “I’m a good person” bubble and shows me, I could do better. Everyone could do better. Mother Teresa of Calcutta went to Confession daily?…Weekly? I forgot, but she went often. I usually try to go once a month, just to keep my actions in check and to get the Grace for going to Confession. I’ve fallen way short of this. It had been about four months since I did it last and I felt it. For me, not going at least once a month is like not taking a shower for two or three weeks. It just makes me feel a bit grimy. Still, it took a huge effort for me to get off my butt and go. I just don’t like doing it. It hurts my pride. I’ve realized that the more prideful I am, the harder it is for me to go. The humbler I am, the easier (in theory. I haven’t had a easy time yet. I guess I’ve yet to be so humble). Of course, once it’s done and over with, it’s like the weight of the world lifts off me and I’m so full of joy I’m about ready to explode.

I once heard somewhere that Confession is like the direct opposite of sinning. When you sin, you tend to want to do it, you feel good doing it, and you feel bad after. Confession, on the other hand, you don’t want to do it, you feel bad doing it, and you feel awesome after. I’d much rather go to Confession.

PODCASTS
Speaking of Confession. Rosary Army has a great “That Catholic Show” episode on it. For those of you who don’t know what “That Catholic Show” is, it’s a little five minute or so, web video show explaining Catholicism in a very goofy and entertaining way. It’s a great show, check it out.

ANSWERING COMMENTS

So, finally we get someone responding to the “traditional” Catholics in the comments section. I’m going to quote the things he directly wrote to me about but if you want to see the rest of what he wrote, go to the comments section of What in the world is a “traditional Catholic”?. He wrote to me correcting me in some things. str1977 wrote:

Mel Gibson is affiliated with the “Society of Saint Peter”, a group that didn’t join the SSPX when the broke from Rome (or broke with them when broke from Rome).

The issue can never be about more or less dogmatic (unless it is liberally used as an insult). The SSPX complains that Vaticanum II and later developments has compromised earlier teachings. The anti-dogmatist is still dogmatic when he expounded that there shall be no dogma.

The SSPX by the way dispute that the events of 1988 constitute a schism and therefore claim to be loyal and subject to the Holy See. They certainly do not dispute that Benedict XVI is the Pope. Some traditionalists however do, either claiming that the Holy See is vacant or that someone else (usually the leader of their sect) is Pope.

Hi, str1977

Thank you for correcting me, I appreciate any feed back on things I write that may not be correct. Can you do me a favor and write down the source of your information about Mel Gibson belonging to the Fraternity of St. Peter? Obviously if I had done the same with my information I wouldn’t have made my mistake.

Also, forgive me if my “less or more dogmatic” comment seemed like an insult to you. I didn’t mean my statement as an insult. I have a tendency to exaggerate to get my points across quicker (maybe you’ve noticed this from looking at the cartoons on the site). In this case, I was using the cultural bias against the word dogma to make my point quickly. I know that perhaps there are a lot of people reading this blog that might view Catholics who are trying to be faithful to all the doctrines and dogmas of the Church in a negative light. Some of these people might perceive faithful Catholics as brainwashed intolerant hypocrites. And yet, what happens when you show them a group of people who think these same faithful Catholics are brainwashed, over tolerant, hippies? I just thought, perhaps incorrectly, that I might be able to present this information in words they might be able to grasp quickly, even though the statement would be inaccurate.

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Vatican, The board game!

October 25, 2007 in ANSWERING COMMENTS, BOARD GAMES, MY WEB COMIC, MY WEEK, THE SIMPSONS NEWS, Traditional Catholics

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Looks like we’re beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel on show 8. All the scenes have been handed out and everyone that finished the scenes they are working on, help others finish the scenes that they haven’t got to yet. I ended up doing exactly that this week. The scene I got is really fun and very funny (or at least I hope it will be after I’m done with it). It’s one of the last scenes of the show and I’m having a good time being silly with Bart and Homer in the kitchen.

MY WEEK

So I spent the beginning of the week working on my web comic (more on that below) and before I knew it, it was almost time to post my blog and I hadn’t even started writing or drawing anything for it. I’m almost always thinking about what I should write on it and always trying to find something worth writing about. That way whoever reads it will at least, hopefully, be entertained. I know sometimes I fail miserably but I try. Well this time I procrastinated a bit too long because I got so caught up in the story I’m trying to write.

The thing that takes the most time about my blog is the drawing part. The drawings I post every week take, at the very least, an hour to do and that is mostly because of the coloring process. The more characters in the drawing, the longer it takes to color. Once I have a drawing done though, the rest is pretty easy. I just type.

Sometimes I get an idea for the drawing before I start typing and sometimes after. Well this time I knew what I was going to write about. This weekend my cousin, my wife, my wife’s best friend and I played a game of Nexus Ops. Nexus Ops is a light science fiction wargame that plays a little like Axis and Allies, a little like The Settlers of Catan and a little like Starcraft the video game. I lost the game miserably and my wife didn’t like it much. Although my cousin loved it but that’s only because he won.

Well, anyway, I was going to write about that and then draw a picture of my cousin on top of the table, kicking board games pieces everywhere, rubbing it in our faces that he won (which he practically did) while we sit by and look stupidly up at him. Well, the thing is, lately I’ve just been drawing the blog drawings on a piece of paper, I scan them in, and I then color and letter them. It’s faster for me that way. If I use the Wacom tablet to draw directly on the computer I find it takes me longer to do. Usually I scan the drawing in at work. This time I didn’t get a chance to draw anything anywhere. My scanner at home is still packed up somewhere, my desktop isn’t working correctly and I just don’t have the time to take care of all these things right now. I was able to go home at a normal time this week. I thought I’d take advantage of the situation and draw the blog drawing at home but since I wasn’t going to be able to scan it in at home, that presented a problem. I didn’t want to stick around at work because I wanted to go home so badly so I thought I’d try drawing directly into the computer again. This time, though, I was going to try something new. I was going to paint the drawing. I thought that maybe, if I used shapes of color instead of lines I could actually get a more accurate and controlled drawing. Since it usually takes me a long time to color the drawings anyway I’d be losing a step of the process.

So I set out to execute my plan once I got home and low and behold it seemed to be working. I was trying to invent for myself the process as I went so it was taking me a bit longer to do it but I was doing it. I was getting really into it. While I was doing this, my wife called on the phone (she hadn’t come home yet) and I spoke to her for a bit. Afterwards I went back to the computer and began working on the drawing again.

Then, that’s when it happened… Photoshop froze on me a second and then crashed. This usually isn’t a big deal except that I had been so caught up in trying to invent for myself a new method of working on Photoshop that I hadn’t even saved the drawing I was working on at all. Not even once. In other words. I lost all my work. I was crushed. I didn’t want to start over. Emotionally I didn’t have it in me anymore. I went on Facebook and put a sad face “how I’m feeling” icon there and sat there staring at the computer. I didn’t do anything else on my blog for the rest of the day.

Next day, when I got into work, I used pencil and paper and drew this instead:

At least I got a drawing done.

MY WEB COMIC

So the story I was trying to write went bye bye. No matter what I did I couldn’t make it work. It was mostly because the story lost focus. It didn’t have a central theme. It didn’t have a point. Every time I tried to give it a point, it became something else. It just wasn’t the story I set out to write. So instead of fighting with the story and trying to force it to go where I wanted it to go, I thought that maybe I’ll go in the direction that these themes took the story. This actually worked a lot better. I’ve actually got a beginning, middle and end to the thing written out in a rough outline. I told the story to my wife and she really likes it, except for the final act climax which I fully admit is really cheesy and it needs work. That’s okay because what I have of this story is a whole lot more than I had with the other story.

I’m actually very excited about it now, even though it wasn’t what I wanted to write. I was trying to write a story about a fourteen year old boy named Joseph before. Now I’m writing about a man named Guy. The stories have the same “inciting incident”, namely the inheritance of money, both stories take place in the modern world and both stories even have a dragon in them yet they couldn’t be more different. If I can make the other story work I’ll still do it but for now I’ll stick to the one that’s working for me.

As soon as I can figure out a really good non cheesy climax to the story, I’ll be ready to start writing.

BOARD GAMES

So I’m not going to write about the game of Nexus Ops I played this weekend because I’ve already mentioned it above. Instead I’m going to call attention to a comment that was left under my About Me page. Imagine my surprise when I read this:

Dear Luis,
Very interesting and thoughtful blog. If you are interested in Catholicism and boardgames you might appreciate “Vatican” the boardgame I designed. It has been selling worldwide and we have gotten very favorable comments

Sincerely,
Stephen Haliczer Ph.D.
Distinguished Research Professor
Product Designer
The College of DuPage Press

First I’d like to thank Stephen Haliczer Ph.D. for bringing the game to my attention. I appreciate it greatly.

So I checked out the game’s site and read about the game. I also tried reading about it on Board Game Geek (BGG) to see if I could learn a bit more. I found a small forum about the game there where people got a chance to ask Dr. Haliczer questions about the game. When asked how the game is played and how competitive it was Dr. Haliczer answered this:

Dear Doug,

Thank you for your interest. I designed “Vatican” primarily as a simulation/game in order to give players an experience of the process whereby a pope is elected. It is based on a deep study of the careers of the most important cardinals especially those who are considered “papabile” that is those who are considered papal material. Of course this is only a minority of the 115 voting cardinals. That being the case, the simulation/game had to bring the players through the process whereby cardinals gain the requisite influence to become prominent. This is essentially the first part of the game: Life and Career especially the acquisition of key offices. Some offices are more valuable than others hence a competition to aquire the most valuable offices. At the end of phase I all players have acquired the minimum number of offices that makes them “papabile” but they have different scores.

The second part of the game takes place after the pope dies (Papacy Ends cards) and takes players through the critical period between his death and the opening of the conclave where his successor is elected. Here the players must make a series of critical choices. As in real life during this period they must take positions on a variety of issues confronting the church and must guess which positions would prove the most attractive to the other voting cardinals. Players compete to figure out which positions would be most attractive but this is not always easy.

The third part of the game is the conclave itself. This is designed to be brief with just a few votes-as in reality. The last conclave was decided by only 3-4 votes in two days.

A broader and more general answer to the question of competition is as follows: You cannot in real life plan to become pope. There are too many chance factors and variables that you cannot control. Age would be an excellent example. A cardinal of 58 might be very attractive at a certain period of time. The previous pope might have been too old and died very quickly after election so the cardinals would be inclined to vote for someone young. On the other hand, if you were 58 after a pope had reigned for 25 years, your age would count against you since the cardinals would not want such a long serving pope again so soon.

As a designer of a simulation/game, I could not build in elements of competition that would distort reality. I had to build in the chance factors that really impact the election.

I hope that this discussion was helpful and gave you some insight into my thought processes.

The game must be ordered online and will probably not be in stores for some time-but shipping is free.

Thanks again,
Stephen Haliczer

This sounds really interesting. Unfortunately, when asked about the “roll and move” mechanic (roll the dice, move the number of spaces on the dice) of the game Dr. Haliczer was silent. The game sounds great but I’m iffy about the game being a “roll and move game.” Paul Sauberer asked exactly the question I wanted answered at BGG:

Does the game primarily consist of rolling the dice, moving a marker, perhaps drawing an event card, and then seeing what happens from that? Or do the players direct where their pieces go and what actions they take and then see how those choices determine how likely they are to eventually be elected pope?

I wish there were more reviews of this game at the official site (there are only two). BGG has no reviews of the game at all. I’m very cautious of the board games I buy and I like to read as much about the game as I can before I spend any money on them to make sure I would really like them. Sometimes I even find free digital versions of games online and decide from playing them, if I want to buy them.

I’d be more likely to buy this game if I could read the rules for it or at least see a sample of play. Never the less I’ve put it on my BGG Wishlist. If “roll and move” mechanics are not a big deal to you, then maybe you ought to get it. If you do, tell me what you think of it. I’m really interested.

ANSWERING COMMENTS

T Melnick, thank you for sharing your position on the comments section of “What in the world is a ‘traditional Catholic’?“. I just wish to clarify something you said. In the post you wrote:

I am a traditional Catholic, and there are many more groups and views than the Society of St. Pius X. For me, the change in the Ordination Rite of Bishops which no longer gives them the power to ordain priests, the unscriptural change in the words of consecration, and the promotion of false ecumenism (JPII having worshipped with every religion on the face of the earth, which is forbidden by Church Law and Holy Scripture, making him an apostate from the Church founded by Jesus Christ) were the main clinchers.

What you wrote above is basically what the Society of St. Pius X also says on their site. So my question is, what do you think of the Society?

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29 thoughts on “About me”

Fr. Jay Finelli says:

October 4, 2007 at 7:34 am

Luise,

That is a great illustration of the Podcast Expo. Sorry you did not make it to the Mass.

God bless,
Fr. Jay

Reply
Sr. Anne says:

October 4, 2007 at 7:45 pm

Just found your page about Italy! Loved it! Lived in Italy a couple of years; just doing a YouTube video about how to get to the Sistine Chapel. Your sketches brought back so many memories (especially the “Metro at Rush Hour” type).

Reply
Stephen Haliczer says:

October 24, 2007 at 11:35 am

Dear Luis,
Very interesting and thoughtful blog. If you are interested in Catholicism and boardgames you might appreciate “Vatican” the boardgame I designed. It has been selling worldwide and we have gotten very favorable comments

Sincerely,
Stephen Haliczer Ph.D.
Distinguished Research Professor
Product Designer
The College of DuPage Press

Reply
Larry Whitaker says:

February 11, 2008 at 1:54 am

Hey! I’ve been trying to call you for a couple weeks! I should have checked your blog sooner. I thought you might have had the baby by now! Congrats! Call me ya bum. My number…unlike yours… is the same xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Reply
keith levett says:

June 25, 2008 at 3:07 am

im doing a piece of it coursework and wondered if i could put your
“computer stoopid” picture on it.
I would acknowledge where it came from beneath it and in the bibliography.
If the answer is yes then could you tell me the artists name too?
thanks. keith.

Reply
Luis says:

June 25, 2008 at 9:20 am

Sure, absolutely, go right ahead. Thanks for asking.

Reply
Den Beauvais says:

August 6, 2008 at 10:22 am

Hi Luise,

I just came upon your Nephilim skeleton debunking image….very interesting.
I wish we could have met at Comic Con to discuss certain issues. Nothing that
I would want to discuss openly here.

Hope to hear from you,

Den

Reply
Luis says:

August 6, 2008 at 11:25 pm

If you want to discuss something privately, you could always e-mail me. The address is up there under the “Hi, Welcome!” about the top commentators. It’s luis(at)luisescobarblog(dot)com.

Reply
Gina Moon says:

August 12, 2008 at 1:42 pm

Can you give me permission to use one of your illustrations for a tee shirt. I really want to wear “there must be some way to plug this keyboard into this game” – It’s how I see the world.. and you explained everything I want to tell the world in that one illustrzt8ion.
Gina

Reply
Luis says:

August 12, 2008 at 2:16 pm

Yes, Gina. You can make it into a shirt for yourself off of that cartoon. I’m flattered.

I’ve been thinking about making shirts off of my little cartoons but I’m not sure which ones to do. Outside of an occasional cartoon that really hits home for someone, I’m not sure if they would sell.

So go right ahead Gina. Have fun.

Reply
Platform Beds Phil says:

September 7, 2008 at 6:41 pm

Hi Luis,
My name is Phil and I came across your site while looking up information about animation and voice-over work. I’m a huge fan of the Simpsons & Futurama and a big Billy West fan (Ren&Stimpy, Futurama, Ect.). It is truly amazing to me how so many individuals come together to create these animated cartoons and the quality of the end product. I’m curious from your perspective how much work you have to re-do sometimes because of the networks and the way they censor some of the work that is being done. Best of luck to you in your projects. – Phil

Reply
Luis says:

September 8, 2008 at 9:20 pm

You’d be surprised Phil. The biggest censors of the show are the writers themselves. They often pull back a joke they think is going too far. Sometimes, some of the jokes are funny too. It’s the artists that end up complaining about it. For example, there was a joke in one of the Halloween shows that all the artists thought was really funny. It was the show where Homer goes back in time on his toaster. In one of the futures he comes back too, he finds himself married to Patty and Selma. He discovers this when they show up waring lingerie. They looked really nasty, with their flab and hairy legs. When we saw it, everyone roared with horrified laughter. It was crazy. For some reason, during the re-write, they cut the gag because they thought it was too much. It was very disappointing. They didn’t even put the scene as an extra on the DVD.

Hope that answers your question.

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Platform Beds Phil says:

September 13, 2008 at 8:11 pm

It does. Thanks for the reply Luis. That gag actually would have been hilarious! Too bad it didn’t make it. I wonder if some unnecessary second guessing happens though because the writers feel they may be going over the top? (If that’s possible.) I know there is that fine line that writers and creators have to walk probably not only with the content of the show that’s created but with the networks as well. At least from what I understand in reading interviews and seeing convention interviews. Storyboards I think really help to set the tone of an episode and I bet it probably helps to justify many of the ideas that get spun out during the writing sessions of the writers. You all do great work on the show and I’m going to continue reading through your website. Thanks! – Phil

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christine says:

October 8, 2008 at 6:18 pm

Hello there. I was researching nephilim for a report and I foung your blog. Its too bad those pics were all frauds. If they had been real, it would have been amazing.
After I read your stuff on the pictures I hung around a little, and read your “about me section”.
I am merely curious, so if I overstep a boundary, please feel free to tell me so.

I was wondering, sir, since you state that you are in fact a roman catholic, weather or not you believed in the deity of Jesus Christ?
I myself am a Christian, but I research other religions and alternate sects of my own. You could say its a hobby. In any case, if you find my inquiry impolite, I am sorry. I mean no offense.

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Luis says:

October 8, 2008 at 11:05 pm

Heh, no Christine, your question isn’t impolite. It’s good of you to ask. Too often people just assume things about Catholicism without asking.

The simple answer to your question is, “Yes”. Catholicism, teaches that Jesus Christ is God, the second person of the Holy Trinity.

The slightly more involved answer is as follows: The Catechism of the Catholic Church (the official book that explains all that the Catholic Church teaches) in paragraphs 446-451 ( http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1H.HTM ) states the following:

446 In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the ineffable Hebrew name YHWH, by which God revealed himself to Moses,59 is rendered as Kyrios, “Lord”. From then on, “Lord” becomes the more usual name by which to indicate the divinity of Israel’s God. the New Testament uses this full sense of the title “Lord” both for the Father and – what is new – for Jesus, who is thereby recognized as God Himself.60

447 Jesus ascribes this title to himself in a veiled way when he disputes with the Pharisees about the meaning of Psalm 110, but also in an explicit way when he addresses his apostles.61 Throughout his public life, he demonstrated his divine sovereignty by works of power over nature, illnesses, demons, death and sin.

448 Very often in the Gospels people address Jesus as “Lord”. This title testifies to the respect and trust of those who approach him for help and healing.62 At the prompting of the Holy Spirit, “Lord” expresses the recognition of the divine mystery of Jesus.63 In the encounter with the risen Jesus, this title becomes adoration: “My Lord and my God!” It thus takes on a connotation of love and affection that remains proper to the Christian tradition: “It is the Lord!”64

449 By attributing to Jesus the divine title “Lord”, the first confessions of the Church’s faith affirm from the beginning that the power, honour and glory due to God the Father are due also to Jesus, because “he was in the form of God”,65 and the Father manifested the sovereignty of Jesus by raising him from the dead and exalting him into his glory.66

450 From the beginning of Christian history, the assertion of Christ’s lordship over the world and over history has implicitly recognized that man should not submit his personal freedom in an absolute manner to any earthly power, but only to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Caesar is not “the Lord”.67 “The Church. . . believes that the key, the centre and the purpose of the whole of man’s history is to be found in its Lord and Master.”68

451 Christian prayer is characterized by the title “Lord”, whether in the invitation to prayer (“The Lord be with you”), its conclusion (“through Christ our Lord”) or the exclamation full of trust and hope: Maranatha (“Our Lord, come!”) or Maranatha (“Come, Lord!”) – “Amen Come Lord Jesus!”69

Arianism was a Heresy that the Catholic Church fought against that deputed this belief around the years AD 250-336 which concluded in the Council of Nicea. For more info go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianism or http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01707c.htm .

Hope that answers your question.

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christine says:

October 23, 2008 at 5:21 pm

thank you. most people would out-right refuse to answer that question nowadays.
May the Lord bless you, Luis!

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Luis Escobar says:

February 25, 2009 at 7:25 pm

Luis – my name is Luis Escobar – every now and then I Google my name just to see what pops up. Well – I often come across you. No doubt – you have discovered me too. Anyway – sure there a ton of our Luis Escobar’s out there but I thought that I would just say hello and let you know that you have a cool name. BTW – I am the third Luis in four! Grandpa, Father, me and my son. Louie’s all around!

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Luis says:

February 25, 2009 at 7:32 pm

HA ha! Yeah, you have a great name too.

Wow! That’s a lot of Luisesesss in your family. Pretty cool. Love your site dude. I’ll link to you.

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Luis Escobar says:

February 25, 2009 at 7:45 pm

wow – that was fast – I am a photographer, distance runner and high school cross country coach. I live in Santa Maria California. Married with three kids. Your work is great. You are very skilled. I will take some time and learn a little more about you and your work. Very cool. Well – I am off to a work with one of my running students. I will look forward to talking with you a little more in the future. Luis

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Luis says:

February 25, 2009 at 10:03 pm

Cool. Anytime.

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platform bed jen says:

March 20, 2009 at 2:46 am

i like simpsons, starting watch becouse my doughter like it

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platform bed jen says:

March 20, 2009 at 2:47 am

I write comment but strange dropdown

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Jopie says:

February 2, 2010 at 12:45 pm

Howdee Luis, if you are a real Christian then i would suggest you to do some research on your big boss (Matt Groening being a 33rd degree mason).
Loads of subliminal messages in the Simpsons, and occult symbolism.
(Even 9-11 was announced).

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mahdi saleh says:

February 19, 2010 at 10:51 am

Greetings…. (Peace be upon you)
I would like to present to you all the sciences related to cosmogony together with its rules as per its identity which is something not similar to any of the other things and is out of any and assimilation according to the following point of view:
1. The theories of on cosmogony lack the fundamentals of the origin of things as they are mainly based on incidence and on the unseen.
2. The cosmic extension that has been taking place is the result of the range of vision through using the telescope and any other instruments because the thing being seen is determined by vision and this is one of the universe laws.
3. Knowing the within secrets of man will uncover secrets of the universe as the apparent entities of existence are of six kinds: the perspective (what is being seen), the tangible world (what can be touched and felt), what can be weighed, what can be heard, things that have flavor and things that have smell. These, in most cases, are overlapping and are counted six in number.
The origin of all entities are bare pictures of materials, void of force and readiness; it shines in debate and is complete when read. The investigation of scientists is restricted to this reading (capability and liability) where the material is with all its atoms, energy and speed and this alone is useless compared with its radiance.
The first cosmic law is that nothing can be determined unless established with what is contrary to it. And things are sometimes concrete and sometimes abstract and both are the same according to law.
The origin of radiance is the brain and by saying this I do not mean perception but the simple core of it. By formulating this equation the truth becomes uncovered.
The subject is highly complicated and can only be clarified by word of mouth or by arguments.
So, what do you have to present. (show)
بعد التحية :-
أود أن أعرض عليكم جميع علوم نشأة مفردات الكون وقوانينه وفق ذاتيته التي هي شئ ليس كباقي الأشياء خارجه عن حد التعطيل والتشبيه حسب النظرة التالية :-
1/ أن نظريات نشأة الكون تفتقد لأصول نشأة الأشياء وتحيل على ألصدفه أو الغيب .وكذلك استغراق البحث في الأفاق لم يأتي بغايته إلا بقدر ربطه بالوعي الإنساني.
2/ التوسع الكوني الحاصل هو نتيجة المد البصري من خلال التلسكوب وغيره لأن المنظور أليه يثبت بالبصر وهذا أحد قوانين الكون
3/ معرفة أسرار بطون الإنسان تكشف أسرار الكون حيث أن مفردات الوجود الظاهر على ستة أنواع (المنظور أليها ). (الملموسة). (الموزونة). (المسموعة). (ذات طعم). (ذات رائحة). وتكون في أغلب الأحيان متداخلة .وأصل الأشياء كلها صور عارية عن المواد . خاليه من القوه والاستعداد . بمناظرتها تشرق وبمطالعتها تتم . وبحث العلماء ينحصر في هذه المطالعة (القوه والاستعداد) حيث المادة ودقائقها وطاقتها وسرعتها وهذا وحده لا جدوى منه بقدر إشراقها . . وأصل الإشراق هو العقل ولا أقصد به الإدراك أنما هو )جوهر بسيط درأك محيط) وبتكوين هذه المعادلة تنكشف الحقيقة .
الموضوع غاية بالتعقيد يوضح بالمشافهة والجدل فما هو عرضكم ؟

توضيح:-
* أود أن أبين بأن وسائط الإدراك هي الحواس ألخمسه + تحسس الوزن.
* إما أحوال الإدراك ( تصوراته أي المعاني التي يلبسها ) فهي ستة أيضا ثلاثة وخلافها :-
1/ الحياة والموجود ولها صور فمثلا صورة الحياة هي الماء.
2/ الحركة والسكون ولها صور فمثلا صورة الحركة هي الهواء.
3/ الانفعال والسكينة ولها صور فمثلا صورة الانفعال هي النار.
* إما مراتب نفس الإدراك إي نفس ألصوره فهي خمسه:-
1)الجماد 2) النبات 3) الحيوان 4) الملكوت 5) الإنسان وصور ذلك كثيرة.
*** وكل هذه الصور تندرج ضمن تصورات الإدراك .منها ظاهره ومنها كامنة إي لم تظهر لحد الآن . والتوسع الكوني الحاصل هو ظهور لبعض هذه الصور الكامنة.
*وأروع إبداعات الإدراك هو العقل (جوهر بسيط درأك محيط ) ولكل واحده تفصيلاتها الوظيفية.
ووظيفة العقل هي ربط كل الصور المذكورة أعلاه بعوالمها الحسيه ألسبعه. وعالمنا هو العالم السابع وفق نمطيته الحسيه. وتجري آثار العقل على كل الصور الكونية فتصبح محسوسة وفق قوتها واستعدادها التصوري.
قد لا يفهم الموضوع بشكل جيد كونه لم يطرق بتاتا

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Pauldunning (deadplayground) says:

March 26, 2011 at 9:21 pm

Lol been stalking you. You’re pretty good. Not bad for a dad of many. Very talented. Don’t know how you keep up. Chat soon on twitter

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Luis says:

March 27, 2011 at 12:07 pm

An overwhelming desire to keep sane helps.

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Dot Cannon says:

July 4, 2015 at 9:43 am

I’m doing some onsite interviews at Mystic Dragon’s Festival of Books. Would you have time to talk with me about your work and “The Art of Draw Fu”? at 4 pm on August 15th? Please let me know (and your “Black Terror Kid” comics, along with your comic about your trip to Rome, are really fun!).

Reply
- Luis says:
  
  July 4, 2015 at 11:20 am
  
  Yes, absolutely. I’d be happy to.
  
  Reply
  - Dot Cannon says:
    
    July 8, 2015 at 2:45 pm
    
    Great, thank you! Could you email me a contact for you, at the above email link, and I’ll send you more information (and I’m ordering your book now!).
    
    Reply

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