Webcomic - Foot in Mouth Training.

I dislike having headaches. I get far too many of them, despite dietary changes, medication and various other things. The headaches I get generally mean I am unable to concentrate, or I am too light-sensitive to cope with much of anything.
Unfortunately, this includes looking at a bright screen, trying to think of something funny to say.

Having missed out on prep time last night, today's Gem will therefore be a simple sharing of a webcomic.
Safe Havens is a comic all about inclusivity and the inter-relationships of a set of friends and family. Some are dead, others don't rightly exist at this time. Oh and Dodos are back, just like they are in the Jasper Fforde Books. You know what I'm talking about; the book I'm handing out for World Book Night in our free prize draw.*

>ahem<

Where was I - oh, yes.
Safe Havens is one of Bill Holbrook's many  projects, three of which are webcomics. Safe Haven I have mentioned, but there are also On The Fastrack and Kevin And Kell. Oh. You know I said SH was all about inclusivity? Well, it's still not got anything on K&K. Trust me.

At the moment in Safe Havens, one of the central characters is preparing for her wedding. There's a problem, though. She's also due to go on tour, playing the drums as part of a backing band for a best-selling singer. The stress must be getting to her, because her brain seems to have switched off here...

Oooops.
Trust your best mates to treat a slip of the tongue with all the dignity it deserves, too.
Read more at safehavenscomic.com

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*Heh. I know. Subtle, I'm not. There's still plenty of time to enter our free draw, with prizes sent anywhere in the world. Just email us with your name at juliesgems@gmx.com

Bonus post - "Seriously, Siri?" on The Devil's Panties

It's webcomic time, again, folks!
Today, I'm introducing you to The Devil's Panties, a comic which is a lot less demonic and some way less naughty than the name implies. Jennie Breeden, the writer and artist, presents us with a slice of her life every weekday and most Saturdays. It's not strictly true-to-life, as not many people do really have miniature good/evil/princess versions of themselves bickering between themselves over her shoulder.
Apart from that, the comic follows Jennie and her fiancée (he recently proposed to her at a kilt-blowing convention, which should tell you a lot about both them and the webcomic) as they try and make a living from making the webcomic...
...er.. can anyone else hear Edith Piaf singing "Je ne regrette rien" very slowly?*

In case that puts you off, let me also tell you that Jennie has some very idiosyncratic friends and relatives, which is hardly surprising, considering that she herself is into, yes, kilt-blowing and fantasy LARPing (that is, Live Action Role Play), in which Jennie roleplays as an orc called Dammit. She even has a secondary webcomic called 'Geebas on Parade' in which she draws about her experiences as a LARPer. In many ways, that comic is almost funnier than TDP, however, it is back to the satanic underwear for today's bonus Gem.

Recently, there was a big family event in the Breeden household, which meant that a lot of the family were around. and it appears that Jennie's family are just as funny - intentionally or otherwise - as the lady herself. Take, for example, the efforts of one Uncle Sidney to record something on his iPhone. Actually, the recording probably went well enough. It was trying to use the speech recognition software known as Siri to label the file that caused him a spot of bother...

(copyright Jennie Breeden)

Poor Uncle. I wonder if they've let him forget it yet...
If that wasn't enough, there is a semi-regular feature in TDP known as 'What not to say in the bedroom' (usually featured on Saturdays). Take a look at this example...

(copyright Jennie Breeden)

So there you have it, another webcomic. Hope you liked the introduction - now go and read The Devil's Panties.

*If you haven't seen the film 'Inception', you won't have a chance of getting that joke. Sorry.

Censored comic capers

Hello, and welcome to those of you who have joined us from Odori Park. A couple of weeks ago, as part of my ongoing plan to get everybody into webcomics (whoops, did I say that aloud?), We featured a strip from the aforementioned Odori Park. It was quite popular, according to the site's traffic reports. As was only right and proper, I sent the creator a message to mention that I'd plagiarised (I know, just kidding) his work, and offering him the final say-so on whether it could stay or not.
Well, blow me down.
It only turns out he was pleased as punch to have had this extra publicity and my praise-filled email. So pleased, in fact, that he returned the favour and gave us a hat-tip in the blog section of his webcomic. I was seriously chuffed about that, I can tell you.
Julie, on the other hand, didn't seem to take it quite so well...

This was my reaction.

No. I'm not Xzibit. This was just too perfect to not use.

Well, ok, It was actually more like "Bwahahahahaha!", but you get the idea. Poor Julie. Even before I'd started laughing, she realised just what she had said - to a man who can twist the English language like a pretzel.

"Perhaps I should have phrased that better."

It's possible, love, it's possible.

Oh, you're going straight to Heck for that one, kid...

Whoo!So, today is March 31st and the end of Julie's Gems' a-post-a-day marathon. I only dropped one day (due to ill health), for which I apologised profusely on Facebook. And for THAT, everyone chose to drop into sarcasm mode, saying how dare I be ill and/or miss a post?
I hope it was that, at least. While it's nice to have as many followers as we do, this site is a little young yet to be attracting the obsessive sort, surely?
In any event, today marks the final day of the March Marathon* and I thought it nice to end on a gently humorous note, and to give Julie a little break for the day. There isn't even any mention of Scrabble.**

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Long-term readers of Julies Gems will know that I (not Julie, not by a long shot) am a fan of comics, specifically webcomics. I have posted some examples in the past - only those, of course, that fit the admittedly broad definition of being a Gem. Have a look at these examples, and you'll see what I mean.

Here's another one, one I have been waiting for just the right strip to post on here. Odori Park is a hemi-demi-semi-autobiographical strip*** about a small family (two parents, one young boy) who also happen to own a book shop. The twist is that Colin is US American and Arisa is Japanese. Normally, the comic is just cutesy and the humour is smile-inducing, but relatively slight. The art is nice and clean though.
This time, I was leafing through my bookmarks and reached Odori Park and immediately laughed out loud, whilst simultaneously wincing, and wincing hard. Put it this way, you know how Julie can be sometimes child-like in the way she phrases things? And that even then, children are the real deal and can offer up a full meal of non-sequiturs and still have energy left over for a large helping of bafflement. AmIright? You know it's true. See? There's a whole load of kiddie-related gaffes right here!
Anyhow, back to Odori Park and a prime example of how to bite the hand that feeds you. Almost literally.

WHOAH, kid! You are going to go hungry for weeks for that comment!
Just a little note; normally, Odori Park is presented horizontally, but if I presented it in that format here, then it would be far too squeezed and you'd end up not being able to read it. Fancy more? Trot along to Odori Park, then.

*Uh-oh. Now I have named it, that's it. It's formalised and set in stone. I'm going to have to do this next year, too.
** Whoops.
***Read the "about" section on the site. It makes more sense there.

Bonus Tuesday: EQ Comics has some damn odd people.

It's time for another webcomic. This time, we're featuring Edmund Finney's Quest to Find the Meaning of Life. Snappy title, huh? Yesterday, I was musing on the possibility of adopting The Goons as the official JG band. Following on from that, I'm now wondering if we shouldn't have Edmund Finney... as the official webcomic. Populated by punning, logic-mangling oddities, the titular character wanders around his world trying to make sense of everything and everyone he sees - and sometimes becoming caught up in their lives too. The example below looks to be the beginning of a new story arc, so why not read it and then click on the link above and follow the strip every Tuesday and Friday?

If you have trouble reading the comic, just go straight to the site and you will see it in full size. Oh, and there's also usually a little bonus gag/comment revealed when you hold the cursor over the comic.
Tata for now!

Cartoon bonus featuring Evil Inc.

It's Monday. That means a heavy time trawling through all the webcomics that I have have bookmarked. Some come out on other days, but the vast majority post at least on a Monday, if nothing else. In many cases, I'm simply following them out of habit, but they'll occasionally throw up a good one which makes keeping them to hand worth it.
Evil Inc though is a strip that posts each day of the week (bar Sunday) and is definitely worth following, because it has superheroes. Yes, my name is Spike Matthews and I am a nerd. However, the strip also has a fine vein of humour running through it. One the one hand, it loves the comic books (and the snazzy, skin-tight costumes), but then again, the strip does like to poke fun at it all.
Today, I read the latest instalment in a story arc in which there is a power outage through the city and so Superhero Dad and Supervillain Mum are telling their son how they met and what happened when he was born.
For some reason, I saw this and thought of Julie...

Like this? Go read the archives at Evil Inc.

Guest cartoon from Johnny Wander

I like webcomics. Johnny Wander isn't a way-out one, but more of a study of human life.
OK, maybe that does make it way-out...

Yeah... they're sporting the expression I tend to give Julie a lot of the time...

Saturday bonus - Baffling Biff

I was just catching up with some webcomics and reached The Book of Biff.For some reason, I thought the cartoon and this one in particular fit in nicely with the feel of Julie's Gems. What do you think?