Oh man this whole page is so well done. I love the change in font as Schtein keeps talking. And that last panel is totally terrifying. Great stuff!
Also, lovin the fifth panel lol
Wait– How do you succeed at not making chicken scratch?! Your handwriting looks like a font!! I. I will steal your hands. Seriously, I turned in an application and the manager was like “What country did oyu say you were from again?”
No, really. Lettering is more like drawing than writing. My normal every day handwriting is nigh illegible. I write a lot slower and more carefully when I’m lettering than I would if I was just writin’.
Also there’s specific methods of writing out letters that makes them look more uniform and legible. Unfortunately I’ve really only got the letter E down as far as consistency goes.
Panel 5: one pose that should never be struck by a man…and yet, so awesome. Great page. I have to wonder if this drug is supposed to do that (and my that, I mean more horrifying melty wall monsters) to everyone, or if it’s a product of it interacting with Schtein’s less-than-optimal mental health.
Yeah, I think I’m getting much better at drawing that sort of stuff. Which is good because I thought of a pretty good plot for a short horror comic the other day! :D
Of course you can improve. Just don’t kick yourself so much if something isn’t exactly as you’d like it, is all that I’m saying. Confidence: it’s the shit!
uhhhh you guys seriously don’t need to be worrying about my confidence levels.
I am perfectly okay with how I think of my art. My art is crap and that is okay, because me thinking it is crap is what drives me to improve. I am perfectly optimistic about my mediocre art. ;)
I don’t think I complain much about it, anyway. I generally try to keep it to myself. I guess line art-wise and anatomy-wise I am getting sort of okay, but I still have a long ways to go wither other aspects of comic work. Color theory, panelling, dialogue and so on. It’s a work in progress and it always will be.
I will think I am a cruddy artist until the day I develop enough athritis in my hands that I can no longer draw. By this point science will have invented a thing that reads my mind, I’m sure, so I can draw with my mind. Maybe then I’ll be a good artist. Probably not, though, I’ll probably still have mediocre ideas or something.
he looks so less smart-ish and more mordern-bad-guy’s-minion-ish/drug addict-ish when his hair isn’t stoked back like in any panel of this page but the last one… somehow… and I like it X9
But Schtein just can’t be anything but mad-tastic adorable, whatever happens<3
As everyone else said… fantastic page. And the devolution of that wall is terrific. Way to replicate mental processes becoming mucky without having to explain it.
And yay for double update week! *so happy*
That last panel… He is steadily heading downhill in the sanity department at this rate. >.> Seriously though, that psychiatrist might wanna get out before he completely loses it.
If the quality of this comic were charted on a graph, I believe it would be a fairly consistent upward slope, but today is a sudden spike of oh-Jesus-this-is-why-I-read-(web)comics-to-begin-with awesome. The bad thing is, I immediately thought, god, I can’t decide if I want whatever the hell he’s on or if it seems like something that it would be better to stay faaaar away from. As someone who’s always been super-insanely-anti-drug, I think that’s sort of an accomplishment. Or maybe just a sign that’s I’m abso-spiffin-lutely in love with how this page is handled.
Also: You are my hero. Thank you for, once again, proving that a comic can have plenty of text on a page and still be awesome/not sacrifice the quality of the art. Seriously. HERO.
hahah, well, don’t let me be the one leading you down that path. A confession: I’ve never done a hallucinogen in my life. Most of them make you throw up. And I do not like throwing up.
The only hallucinations I’ve ever experienced, personally, were either migraine aura related or sleep deprivation induced.
I still feel like the text is too cluttered, but you should have seen the previous versions of this page. It was all ‘blah blah blah’ and Auditore was quoting Dr. Schtein’s psych profile and it was just too much text.
Major hallucinations are not fun. Though I haven’t had ones that were really out there. A little over a year ago I was in a bad car accident, and when I’m riding in a vehicle, I sometimes see vehicles swerving out in front of the car I’m in.
Woooooh 8D
Don’t touch the Shadow, Daniel! :p
It looks like the shadow from Amnesia, were you inspired or just brilliant to come up with it? C:
In any case, you’ve drawn it in perfect horrifyingness, great job 8D
I watched a video of someone playing that game, but it was just like a dude opening drawers and lighting candles and I never saw any monsters. And then I got motion sickness and had to stop watching. :C
I think this is the chattiest he’s been in the comic so far!
I love the gradual appearance/expansion of the wall o’ horrors. …and now I’m imagining all sorts of tentacle rape. Dammit, cannot unsee.
uhhhh not without a serious amount of effort on my part. I don’t draw behind the word balloons, so I’d have to draw in a bunch of background for that. Also I doubt it’s large enough in the first place for most people’s resolutions.
Oh dear lord, the inside of Schtein’s subconscious is Silent Hill.
… Which is totally fitting, actually. Schtein would make a great SH “protagonist”.
Dr. Auditore won’t believe Schtein even when he’s truth-drugged? So many huge red flags there, but considering the all the conflicts of interest & corruption in him even “treating” Schtein in the first place, I guess that’s a no-brainer.
He expressed some incredulity at Langstrom’s behavior, but I would assume, since he and Auditore were romantically involved that he got to know a better side of Langstrom than Schtein did.
Not that truth serums actually force you to tell the truth, because they don’t. C:
Exactly. The problem is, having a good side and a bad side are not mutually exclusive, and a psychiatrist, especially a prison psychiatrist, would be extra aware of that.
But because of his conflict of interest, Auditore may be more likely to treat this as a dicotomy. It’s just hinted at in the diolog: he could be choosing to just focus on Schtein’s internal issues rather than the external triggers, or he could be digging for an excuse to deny what Schtien’s saying about Langstrom by assuming Schtein’s delusional. Could go either way, but situation + cynicism makes me suspect the latter.
Wait whut? Clearly I missed something and looking through the archives I’m not seeing it, though I admit I am not the most perceptive sometimes. Where is this relationship mentioned? If I apparently missed this how much more story have I missed? ohsnap, I guess I will have to start at the beginning again.
Oh, man, that last panel is heavenly. The colors are fantastic, his pose is completely Schtein (seconded only by Panel 5) and the background is chilling. Really excellent job. These are my favorite parts, when Schtein starts losing it.
I’m getting a feeling that part of why the drug is working so well with getting him to talk is he has always been wanting to talk but those defensive walls of his wouldn’t let him kind of thing. But now he’s high on some drug and can talk all he wants and write off as “the drug made me do it” latter. Really love your writing and character developments. And the art goes with out saying.
Hey… Is the clock on the website broken or do you actually update at exactly 12:00 am every time? Just something I noticed, and am now wondering about.
Been reading your comic for just over a year now and I thought I’d finally comment… I reaaaally love it. I mean, your style, and your characters and all. Especially the poses and expressions… That being said, I like the detail of the tentacle on his shoulder there. Keep up the terrific work, Beckumz!
The walls in the last panel…that must be some helluva strong drug. Is that a teddy bear by Schtein’s foot?
It is.
Oh man this whole page is so well done. I love the change in font as Schtein keeps talking. And that last panel is totally terrifying. Great stuff!
Also, lovin the fifth panel lol
That’s my handwriting! It makes people look crazy or drunk! Or crazy drunk! :D
Wait– How do you succeed at not making chicken scratch?! Your handwriting looks like a font!! I. I will steal your hands. Seriously, I turned in an application and the manager was like “What country did oyu say you were from again?”
Practice. :I
No, really. Lettering is more like drawing than writing. My normal every day handwriting is nigh illegible. I write a lot slower and more carefully when I’m lettering than I would if I was just writin’.
Also there’s specific methods of writing out letters that makes them look more uniform and legible. Unfortunately I’ve really only got the letter E down as far as consistency goes.
Ah, so giving my hand 40s until it throws up all over my tablet probably isn’t the best way. Time to practice then!
Panel 5: one pose that should never be struck by a man…and yet, so awesome. Great page. I have to wonder if this drug is supposed to do that (and my that, I mean more horrifying melty wall monsters) to everyone, or if it’s a product of it interacting with Schtein’s less-than-optimal mental health.
Well… Auditore said it was mostly sodium pentothal. There must be another active ingredient. :y
Probably tequila.
Nope, Captain Morgan, as the pose in the last panel clearly proves.
LOL
That, or maybe he was trying to say something about his late coworker being a switch-hitter …
a switch hitter? you mean attracted to men … AND Schtein?
ZING! :D
This is my new favourite page.
I second this. That pose…oh my god. It is rivaled only by the last panel.
DAT ACTING.
And the background of that last panel is one of the most amazing things since zombie!Langstrom came back to haunt the Doc during kindling.
Yeah, I think I’m getting much better at drawing that sort of stuff. Which is good because I thought of a pretty good plot for a short horror comic the other day! :D
You are officially no longer allowed to complain about your drawing skills. YOU HEAR ME?! NEVER AGAIN!
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, fantastic work!
I say keep complaining. That means she’ll get better, and if she gets better…Oh god, I can only imagine the pure awesome!
In all seriousness, my personal philosophy is “never become complacent with your skills. You can ALWAYS get better”
Of course you can improve. Just don’t kick yourself so much if something isn’t exactly as you’d like it, is all that I’m saying. Confidence: it’s the shit!
uhhhh you guys seriously don’t need to be worrying about my confidence levels.
I am perfectly okay with how I think of my art. My art is crap and that is okay, because me thinking it is crap is what drives me to improve. I am perfectly optimistic about my mediocre art. ;)
I don’t think I complain much about it, anyway. I generally try to keep it to myself. I guess line art-wise and anatomy-wise I am getting sort of okay, but I still have a long ways to go wither other aspects of comic work. Color theory, panelling, dialogue and so on. It’s a work in progress and it always will be.
I will think I am a cruddy artist until the day I develop enough athritis in my hands that I can no longer draw. By this point science will have invented a thing that reads my mind, I’m sure, so I can draw with my mind. Maybe then I’ll be a good artist. Probably not, though, I’ll probably still have mediocre ideas or something.
d’awwwww man we’re doing nothing to improve Beckey’s ego! NUFFIN! That last panel is great.Treat yourself to a mini-blizzard at DQ or something!
“I was friends with my college roommate for years!” And he’s coming to save you! Hang in there Schtein!
Panels 4 and 5 are awesome. I reallly hope Leon has bit off more than he can chew.
he looks so less smart-ish and more mordern-bad-guy’s-minion-ish/drug addict-ish when his hair isn’t stoked back like in any panel of this page but the last one… somehow… and I like it X9
But Schtein just can’t be anything but mad-tastic adorable, whatever happens<3
You know what, I just feel really, really bad for both of these guys.
Hentai wall!! HENTAI WALL!!
IF I DON’T KEEP IT WET BAD THINGS HAPPEN BUT EVERY TIME I GET ENOUGH BLOOD I PASS OUT HELP MEEEE
SILLY FREN. WE MUST USE THE BLOOD OF TROLLS. ALSO. “KEEP IT WET”. LOL.
I see a pedo bear tucked up in that corner!
Panels Five is awesome,my favorite because of his pose and how I imagine him talking. XD I giggled …….. 6 too. Good page,gooooooood page
As everyone else said… fantastic page. And the devolution of that wall is terrific. Way to replicate mental processes becoming mucky without having to explain it.
And yay for double update week! *so happy*
That last panel… He is steadily heading downhill in the sanity department at this rate. >.> Seriously though, that psychiatrist might wanna get out before he completely loses it.
Nah, Schtein just had a little too many captain Morgans.
Every single pose and expression in this one is just so perfect.
Holy shit that last panel is so awesome….great work.
If the quality of this comic were charted on a graph, I believe it would be a fairly consistent upward slope, but today is a sudden spike of oh-Jesus-this-is-why-I-read-(web)comics-to-begin-with awesome. The bad thing is, I immediately thought, god, I can’t decide if I want whatever the hell he’s on or if it seems like something that it would be better to stay faaaar away from. As someone who’s always been super-insanely-anti-drug, I think that’s sort of an accomplishment. Or maybe just a sign that’s I’m abso-spiffin-lutely in love with how this page is handled.
Also: You are my hero. Thank you for, once again, proving that a comic can have plenty of text on a page and still be awesome/not sacrifice the quality of the art. Seriously. HERO.
hahah, well, don’t let me be the one leading you down that path. A confession: I’ve never done a hallucinogen in my life. Most of them make you throw up. And I do not like throwing up.
The only hallucinations I’ve ever experienced, personally, were either migraine aura related or sleep deprivation induced.
I still feel like the text is too cluttered, but you should have seen the previous versions of this page. It was all ‘blah blah blah’ and Auditore was quoting Dr. Schtein’s psych profile and it was just too much text.
Major hallucinations are not fun. Though I haven’t had ones that were really out there. A little over a year ago I was in a bad car accident, and when I’m riding in a vehicle, I sometimes see vehicles swerving out in front of the car I’m in.
Man the last panel keeps blowing my mind. A cat clawing through the wall. The little teddybear. All those fuckin’ hands, mang.
You really put a lot of thought into yo shit.
that teddy bear is always somewhere in the back of his mind.
Oh no! His equations are getting all gooey!
Now they make even less sense! Nooooo!
Is he a bit homophobic?
just a smidge.
Woooooh 8D
Don’t touch the Shadow, Daniel! :p
It looks like the shadow from Amnesia, were you inspired or just brilliant to come up with it? C:
In any case, you’ve drawn it in perfect horrifyingness, great job 8D
I watched a video of someone playing that game, but it was just like a dude opening drawers and lighting candles and I never saw any monsters. And then I got motion sickness and had to stop watching. :C
Seemed like a scary game, though.
You should watch this one ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loSzpvq73FY )
it’s hilarious.
oh, yeah, I saw that. Man, that dude is playin’ it up for laughs, nobody acts that way when things are scary, come on.
I think this is the chattiest he’s been in the comic so far!
I love the gradual appearance/expansion of the wall o’ horrors. …and now I’m imagining all sorts of tentacle rape. Dammit, cannot unsee.
Is there anyway we can get that last panel as a background? D= it’s so awesome.
uhhhh not without a serious amount of effort on my part. I don’t draw behind the word balloons, so I’d have to draw in a bunch of background for that. Also I doubt it’s large enough in the first place for most people’s resolutions.
Oh dear lord, the inside of Schtein’s subconscious is Silent Hill.
… Which is totally fitting, actually. Schtein would make a great SH “protagonist”.
Dr. Auditore won’t believe Schtein even when he’s truth-drugged? So many huge red flags there, but considering the all the conflicts of interest & corruption in him even “treating” Schtein in the first place, I guess that’s a no-brainer.
Doesn’t believe him about what?
He expressed some incredulity at Langstrom’s behavior, but I would assume, since he and Auditore were romantically involved that he got to know a better side of Langstrom than Schtein did.
Not that truth serums actually force you to tell the truth, because they don’t. C:
Exactly. The problem is, having a good side and a bad side are not mutually exclusive, and a psychiatrist, especially a prison psychiatrist, would be extra aware of that.
But because of his conflict of interest, Auditore may be more likely to treat this as a dicotomy. It’s just hinted at in the diolog: he could be choosing to just focus on Schtein’s internal issues rather than the external triggers, or he could be digging for an excuse to deny what Schtien’s saying about Langstrom by assuming Schtein’s delusional. Could go either way, but situation + cynicism makes me suspect the latter.
Wait whut? Clearly I missed something and looking through the archives I’m not seeing it, though I admit I am not the most perceptive sometimes. Where is this relationship mentioned? If I apparently missed this how much more story have I missed? ohsnap, I guess I will have to start at the beginning again.
http://www.stringtheorycomic.com/comics/chaptertwo/page-thirty/
Right here. It’s okay, It’s my fault for taking so long to get to this point. I mentioned this almost exactly a year ago. I need to draw faster!
Oh, man, that last panel is heavenly. The colors are fantastic, his pose is completely Schtein (seconded only by Panel 5) and the background is chilling. Really excellent job. These are my favorite parts, when Schtein starts losing it.
hey, what do you know, they’re my favorite parts, too.
=D
I’m getting a feeling that part of why the drug is working so well with getting him to talk is he has always been wanting to talk but those defensive walls of his wouldn’t let him kind of thing. But now he’s high on some drug and can talk all he wants and write off as “the drug made me do it” latter. Really love your writing and character developments. And the art goes with out saying.
I feel … I feel like this drug should give awkward erections. Like Viagra. I mean a pose like THAT? Cummon. Cuumoooonnn….
<3 that blob effect!
er, no, like alcohol it’s a depressant, so it would probably actually prevent that from happening.
You nutty kids, always with the minds in the gutters.
cocaine’s a helluva drug
Smoke weed
snoop_dogg.jpg
Every day
Hey… Is the clock on the website broken or do you actually update at exactly 12:00 am every time? Just something I noticed, and am now wondering about.
I am going to say the time on the website appears to be broken, because I most certainly do not update at a set time. Hahah, wouldn’t that be nice?
Oh yes it would. They I would be sitting here around 12am every Wednedsday/Saturday… Refreshing like a loon.
Damn. I still can’t get over how amazing he looks in the last panel.
I read terse as “a tease” twice. As in “I might have been a bit of a tease with him”.
Carry on.
Been reading your comic for just over a year now and I thought I’d finally comment… I reaaaally love it. I mean, your style, and your characters and all. Especially the poses and expressions… That being said, I like the detail of the tentacle on his shoulder there. Keep up the terrific work, Beckumz!
It’s like him and the tentacle monster are chums.
“Schtein! Let’s go get a drink! Just you and me, buddy!”
I kind of hope Schtein “falls through” the wall mid-sentence and starts trippin’ balls.
@ panel 5
OH GOD
CAN’T UNSEE
Haha, best illustration of an acid trip ever :) with the lettering, change of mood, and all
Cheers, love this comic!