SMAAAASH!!

Well, so, uh… I bought a tablet monitor. Basically a computer screen that is also a graphics tablet. As in, you can draw on it with a pen stylus.

Anyone else interested in digital art should be thinking “holy crap you got a cintiq” but… No, it’s not a real Cintiq. A different brand, not Wacom, called Yiynova. The thing has good reviews and is a fraction of the arm and a leg a Cintiq would cost. The higher-end Cintiqs cost around 2000 dollars. I got this thing for 400. Which is still a lot of money.

I know how much of an investment and an everlasting partner a true Cintiq would be. And I am a patient guy. But I figure by the time I can afford a 2000-dollar drawing tool, is it going to matter whether or not I had previously bought a 400-dollar substitute? Until that day, I think I can expect this to serve me well. (If you know me in real life and I’ve told you more or less those exact words, sorry, that is just how I keep telling myself this isn’t a mistake. I don’t think it is. And if it is, it’s MY mistake, and that changes everything.)

It’s not magically making me a better artist, of course; everyone seems to believe getting any tablet will have that effect. I know I did when I got my first one. But it’s going to make me a faster one. And that’s exactly what I want right now.

Plus I can use this in my lap without it feeling awkward, so I can do stuff while reclining in my chair and won’t have to uncomfortably force my arm over the arm of the chair to reach the mousepad tablet. But I think I will keep using my non-screen tablet occasionally so as not to lose any aptitude with it…

But yeah I confess I didn’t do a comic last week partially out of anticipation for this sucker. The other thing is that my HDMI cable broke (another one) and I’ve been using my TV and PC together to pick better colors. And I’m gonna keep doing that until I’ve broken every HDMI cable on Earth. Thanks for being patient, I will definitely have a comic on Sunday. Maybe even on Sunday in YOUR time zone! Haha!