Geek Hero Webcomic - A comic for geeks

Late today

Salvatore Iovene — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:00:08 +0000

Sorry folks, today’s strip will be late: I really haven’t had time to draw it. Expect it hopefully around 18:00 GMT or on Saturday morning (GMT) at the latest.

Banners

Salvatore Iovene — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:00:06 +0000

So, let’s put aside the 3D experiment and all the discussions going around them, just for a moment. I’ve made some standard sized banners that can be used to link to Geek Hero, if you would like to. You can find them in the Stuff section!
As usual, your comments and ideas are very welcome!

Thanks!

Here’s one of them, as a treat =)

Web 2.0

Salvatore Iovene — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:00:00 +0000

Transcription

Randie: So yesterday night I woke up with an idea about my work. It started to fade away immediately so I had to write it down.

Ted: So you wrote a note into your phone?

Randie: Sort of. I sent an SMS to Twitter, sending a direct message to RememberTheMilk, creating a new TODO item.

Some silence…

Ted: Man, this Web 2.0 thing is going too far…

Related blog entry:

I know that most of you didn’t like the 3D version, but I also know the reasons. So I tried to bring into the 3D version the brighness and funkiness of the good old 2D one, and I think that this is a much better result than the previous strip. Just imagine the possibilities! =)

How do you like it now? What can be improved? Your opinions matter!

Test render of Ross

Salvatore Iovene — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:00:12 +0000

So, according to your comments, it looks like most of you prefer the good old 2D version of the characters. The reason seems to be that these 3D characters look lifeless and boring, while the old ones are funky, crisp and fun. I couldn’t agree more, but the reason is, i believe, simply in the colors. I’m working in having brighter, crisper and flatter colors in the 3D version too: the ultimate goal is that it will look like exactly like the 2D one, except that the potential is much broader: the limit is the sky! And who knows if someday there will be a Geek Hero animated movie! =)

I hope I’ll manage to find the time, in next few days, to write an article about the history of Geek Hero and how my programmer’s mindset influences my drawing: this is, after all, a comic written and drawn by a programmer, and you would expect that programmers’ innate attitude towards optimization would have a say, in all this!

In the meantime, I modeled Ross in 3D. Again, keep in mind that there’s a lot of work to be done with the colors, the lights, the materials, the overall look & feel! Here it is:

Ross in 3D(click for larger image)

What characters would you happily see disappear from GeekHero?

Salvatore Iovene — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:01:57 +0000

This poll will be running till the end of November, so let me know what you think! The poll is visible in the sidebar on the right, just below the calendar.

Today’s comic will be late

Salvatore Iovene — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:00:18 +0000

Hello people, my apologies: you’re getting this note instead of todays comic! But don’t lose all hope: today’s comic will be published in about 8 hours, so hold on and come and check later!

And YES, there will be a surprise!

The Tools Have Had Enough Too

Salvatore Iovene — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 03:00:00 +0000

As promised, here’s delivered the late update. And oh my gosh, that the heck is that?!? I’ve been secretly working to a 3D model of GeekHero for a couple of weeks, and here’s the result so far! There’s more tuning I wanna do, I’m aiming to a way more cartoonesque look, let’s see how it goes. In the mean time, let me know what you think about this!

The Best Way To Improve Code Performance

Salvatore Iovene — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:00:00 +0000

Real Programmers Don’t Write Documentation

Salvatore Iovene — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:00:00 +0000

The Price Of Continuous Integration

Salvatore Iovene — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 11:00:00 +0000

Stop right there! You are blaming me for being 14 hours late, right? 14 hours! I can see you, all of you, jumping off your chair and starting walking around your room, jabbering to yourself, looking crazy. “Fourteen hours! That little **** had me waiting for fourteen ******* hours! Oh but I’m going to make him pay!” And then I can hear your evil laughter, and I can see the crazy look in your eyes.

But stop right there, I’m saying! Because I’m on time! I simply unilaterally decided that it wasn’t fair that the comic was published at 12am in my time zone! This means that the vast majority of the readers (the ones from the American continent) were getting to read the comic on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Now, I couldn’t let the FAQs state something obviously false, could I?

From now on, the comic will be published at 12pm GMT, this way it’s gonna be the same day for all of you, wherever you are located on this weird spinning globe.