Kevin N's SOUPER TOP TWENTY - Favorite Dissect My Brain Strips!

It's Free Comic Book Day! The whole point of today is to get new readers into comics, so if you're interested, go forth and pick up some stuff. I personally went and got myself some all-ages books: Peanuts, Archie, Ninja Turtles, Mega Man/Sonic, etc. etc.. Other than that, I get my free comics at the library. Here's what I've been reading/using for inspiration lately:

I figured I would post something. Here is my top TWENTY favorite Dissect My Brain strips. Do note that they are not the best drawn or even the best written I've done. These are the ones that I enjoyed to make, and fondly think back on. Do note that these are works that I've done up till this point. (May 4, 2013.)

HONORABLE MENTION:
"Dissect My Heart" 

(Season One)

20. "Mysteries of the Universe"
(Season Four) 

 19. "Better Than Life"
(Season Four)

18. "The Game of Love."
(Season Four)

17. "What Usually Happens When You Make an Autobiographical Comic." 

(Season One)

16. "Dissect My Brain with Zombies" 

(Season Three.)

15. "Birthday Pizza"
(Season Three.)

14. "Trying a Serious Comic"
(Pilot Strips.)

13. "Dissect My Brain With Zombies."

(EXTRAS)

12. "Weight Class."

(Season Two)

11. "Wow, She's Really Ugly in Person"
(Pilot Strips.)

10.  "The Insult that Made a Killer Out of Kev"
(EXTRAS)

9.  "The Boarman (1962)"

(EXTRAS)

8. "You Are What You Smell"
(Pilot Strips)

7. "Michael Cera is Just An Actor."
(Season Three)

6. "Lo-Fidelity"
(HUBY issue 1)

5. "Small Talk"
(Season Four)

4. "True Love Always"
(Life Support Zine)

3. "The Ballad of Chris John Nguyen."
(Season One.)

2. "The Boarman Cometh"
(Season Two)

1. "Jumping the Shark"

(Season Three)

Dissect My Brain (Union Weekly Serial) Season 3, Episode 10: "A Rose for Emily."

Throughout this whole season, I've been trying hard to have cohesive, overarching stories and themes. The first arc saw the Kevin character got angry at a critic, went on to try to solve his frustations by talking to a friend, and ultimately, took up drinking and went on poor dates. It was flowing well, but then I followed it up with a random strip about a punchline starting a joke. From there on out, there was a bunch of random strips. I will say these past four strips were connected from real life experience for the month of October, and I'm hoping they read well when placed one after the next. (The last one was inspired and drawn during a terrible week, that even the quality alone exemplified where my mind was at.)

This week's Dissect My Brain is another one of those ones that was based mostly on a real life experience. Kasatka and I had went to see The Man With the Iron Fists (which is just "okay," probably the worst film I've seen all year, and not worth the trip to the theater), and the concessions lady was super nice to me. The rest played out as you see it. Pretty much here were two guys talkin' about "swag" and getting girls, but they were dateless and watching a film where scantily clad girls were rampant on the big screen.

Of course, Hooker Fighter: Reloaded is not a real movie, but a nice little nod to my bud, Calvin's comic of the same name.

I suppose the last thing to note is that it is strange that I drew my friend Kasatka, who is Vietnamese, on an issue of the Union Weekly that was centered about pho. It was purely coincidental!

NOTE: The version you see on the blog is a re-edit of the strip. Originally, it said "deck out" and not "punch out." I've heard people say "deck out" when talking about punching someone out, but apparently it's not correct according to a friend and the internet.

This week's shirt is of "The Alpha Snail." It's actually my own shirt for my old band,
Bootlegs of the Untitled Band. We had a song called "The Alpha Snail," where the most memorable lyric was: "I will not die by your salt."

I actually just gave away my very last one of these to fellow Union Weekly cartoonist, Irene.
(You can see her work at the official Union Weekly Comics Page and HUBY.)

While the art is really old and outdated, I still think it's a cool shirt.
I've been meaning to dye mines a nice, snail green.
My friend Pat always jokes that it's a knock-off of the Daniel Johnston shirt.

I leave you with this photo of Patrick, myself, and two girls
who I don't really speak much to these days.

But man: snailmania was running (err, "slithering?") wild those days!
And yes, I had short hair and an evil beard at one point.

Original Publication: November 12, 2012.

Union Weekly Vol. 71: Issue #12

Dissect My Brain in HUBY Zine #2: "The Other Guy."

Dissect My Brain rolls along with its second installment in HUBY. I really like this strip. Most people I've shown it around to before I finished it really like the way I drew the creeper. I tried to make him look like Michael Cera. Of course, I gave him that stereotypical villain moustache just to punctuate: this guy is up to no good. (Strangely enough, I think that moustache has become a fashion trend.)

While I really like this strip, I do think the whole jealousy angle is a familiar trope. I'm not really saying anything new with this one. . . I'm just saying it in the "Kevin Ng" kind of way. The whole joke of "reliable, admirable, lovable" is a re-worded joke from the show, Red Dwarf. I tried really hard to come up with something of my own, and no matter what: this was the joke that needed to be in this strip. It's not exactly the same as the joke from the show, but it's close enough.

The shirt in this strip is of "Fuzz Aldrin," which you can get at the Ex-Boyfriend shop.
I was flattered that the owner is a fan of the comic as well as my lo-budget short film,
"Who's Gotta Door, Bro."

Of course, I am a big fan of theirs, and would've never expected them to be a fan of mine.

Original Publication: November 10, 2012

HUBY Zine: Issue #2

Dissect My Brain (Union Weekly Serial) Season 3, Episode 9: "Long Winded Cowboy Speeches."

I'm not going to lie: producing a weekly comic is hard. Even after taking a week off from doing Dissect My Brain to focus on an essay, I didn't have the energy to do a full strip all the way through. I was also producing a HUBY strip simultaneously (which turned out better), and also got stuck at a party the night before. (I ended up doing this strip in one night from 12 AM to 5 AM.) And so, what you see before you was a struggle. I don't think it turned out too well. I have no clue why the first panel looks so blurry compared to the the rest of the comic. On the third panel, the other character (Plummer) looks like a blurry ghost.

As for the writing, I like this one. There's not much of a punchline, but I think the joke is sort of subtle. Prior to doing this one, I had gone through some shit, and decided to do a strip that reflects that. I've always liked it when characters give these long-winded, out of place speeches. They're such a cliche that I dare say it's a classic.

The line: "The best happened during the worst of the time, and the worst during the best" is this comic's moral. The idea that anything can can easily empower someone with optimism, as well as fill them with paranoia.

It's the Brodie shirt from Mallrats. I used to own one, but it ended up torn after years of love. Apparently it's the face of rejected actors who tried for the part of Brodie, and they were mashed up to make up this blurry face.

Original Publication: November 6, 2012.

Union Weekly Vol. 71: Issue #11

Dissect My Brain (Union Weekly Serial) Season 3, Episode 8: "Dissect My Brain with Zombies."

QUICK! If you haven't read the original Dissect My Brain with Zombies, read it here! It actually has absolutely nothing to do with this new one, but I just want to put over my bud Calvin since he is a phenomenal artist. He does his own comics with the most prominent series being Hooker Fighter: Reloaded. Off the premise alone, the comic is an acquired taste that is much akin to exploitation films, but I personally think he does great work. The comic has a hilarious gag each page, and is an absolute fun read.

Anywhoo, this isn't the "talk up Calvin" blog, but the Dissect My Brain blog! What can I say about this one? It's honestly one of my favorite one's of the third season thus far, if solely that I liked how much jokes I could cram into four panels. I felt I had a great amount of momentum in my work with each one hitting it out of the park, and then I put out the clips show one. However, I think it's safe to say I recovered as last week's comic was great, and this week's was just as good.

The title of the comic itself is self explanatory. They've done Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, so why not Dissect My Brain with Zombies? The comic hasn't changed one bit. It's still the fictionalized Kevin character being mopey about life, and there just happens to be a zombie in it.

I honestly don't get the zombie craze. . . at all. This isn't to say I don't like various zombie media. I like the George Romero films, Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead, The Walking Dead comic, etc. etc. I just don't understand why it's a thing, and why people are so in love with the idea of a zombie apocalypse. I guess we're just that bored with ourselves as a society, that a crisis just seems romantic. Who knows? If anyone can explain why there's just so much love for the concept, I would love to have lunch sometime.

So my mom (who is very religious) strangely got me this Ouija board shirt. I don't particularly believe in them, but then again, I've never tried. My mom apparently did, and swears that it spelled out the name of my dad when she asked it who she would marry. Of course, my assumption is that she had spent her whole life looking for an "Arthur." Either way, it's a weird story, these things are supposedly "demonic," and I've a shirt of one.

Original Publication: October 22, 2012.
Union Weekly Vol. 71: Issue #9

Dissect My Brain (Union Weekly Serial) Season 3, Episode 7: "Michael Cera is Just an Actor."

Another week, another Dissect My Brain. I feel that recently I've been putting out a lot of negative strips. This was a conscious decision to do something a bit more lighthearted. Lo and behold, I kind of felt this one was a bit challenging to do.

This was one of those strips that I did based of a real conversation with a friend and fellow local musician, Ann Louise. (You can check out her official facebook fan page for her music here.) We had celebrated a birthday the week before, which led to this conversation. In retrospect, she probably wasn't drunk, but it was fun to tease her. I thought I was going to be smooth by putting all these words into her mouth that didn't exist.

Anyone that's ever met her knows she's has a very expressive face. I hope I successfully captured that while drawing her.

Here's an awkwardly shot video by my awesome friend Michael Yip. It's Ann Louise and I performing one of my songs. If you really can't figure out who is who, then I guess I fail miserably as an artist. . . or it means you have poor eyesight, and you should really get your eyes checked:

Original Publication: October 15, 2012.
Union Weekly Vol. 71: Issue #8

Dissect My Brain (Union Weekly Serial) Season 3, Episode 6: "Lazy Brain Clips Show."

It was my birthday week going in. I was overwhelmed with everything and just threw this together. That's pretty much it. Shortest commentary ever?

I feel sorry for anyone who was seriously expecting tits and explosions the next week. Perhaps one day I'll do a comic that has just that. . . someday.

Oh, and did anyone catch the Shakabacca cameo? For those of you who don't know, Shakabacca was this lazy Union Weekly comic that starred a surfing Chewbacca. It was the same art every time, and the punchline was typically "FUUUUUUUUU~!" I never thought it was ever good, but it's a pretty well beloved strip amongst the other Union Weekly staffers.

Here's some links to some Shakabacca:
The "dubstep" one.
This entire issue of Union Weekly had nothing but Shakabacca strips.

I remember the one time I went to a Union Weekly meeting, I badmouthed Shakabacca and one of the guys at the offices got super defensive about it.

No shirt of the week this week.

Original Publication: October 8, 2012.
Union Weekly Vol. 71: Issue #7