Archive for annotated-omake-omnibus-3

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Annotated BICP Anniversaries 3-4

Feb21
by Erin Ptah on February 21, 2023 at 12:01 AM

Today is the 12th anniversary of the first posted page of But I’m A Cat Person!

Chapter 15 ended on June 3, 2014, so that’s another year-and-a-half’s worth of annotations in the archive. I’m adding the ’14 and ’15 anniversary bonuses here.

Year 3 (2014) – “Miranda was not expecting this many critters in her Pokéball.”

This covered all the Beings who had appeared on-page so far — even if it was barely a panel so far, like Kaguya (the Sea Monster) or Lightning (the Bearded Vulture). They’re all slightly tinted with their aura colors — except that I did Kara Lynn’s as lizard-green, not the lavender she actually glows in.

The full-size Young Miranda lineart is showing its age, but the chibi Beings still look as cute and charming as intended.

They’re all on separate layers, so I could pop them out and put them in different graphics if I wanted. Kept using those around the site for a lot of years. Would do it again now, frankly, if I had a place in mind for them.

Year 4 (2015) – “Beings go to the prom!”

Since it takes four years to get through high school, I dolled up all the major Beings and put them in prom dresses. Did a whole bunch of Fashion Research for it, can you tell?

This is another piece where I got adventurous with the shading/palette, in a way I think paid off.

The Donkey (in dark blue, with grey eyes) was the most recently-introduced, and honestly hadn’t appeared much yet — this anniversary fell in the middle of Interlude 3, which was their first extended appearance. Putting them in the “major” category was a pretty serious hint that they had a bigger role coming down the line.

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Annotated Halloween Showcase 2

Oct31
by Erin Ptah on October 31, 2022 at 12:01 AM

Above: from 2013, all the major shapeshifters (plus a minor one) in assorted Halloween costumes, on species-appropriate jack-o’-lanterns.

Cybele (devil), Blake (vampire), Patrick (Grim Reaper), Poe (Frankenstein’s monster), Reseda (witch), Cub (mummy), Kara Lynn (ghost), the Mouse (angel).

In the earlier Halloween post, I talked about the last art being shaded in Paint Shop Pro. Maybe it was Photoshop after all? This one’s definitely done in PS — although it’s early-enough that I’m still trying to get a handle on it.

2015 Halloween special (I just posted regular comics throughout October 2014):

Starring Cybele as Disney’s Princess Tiana, and a baby Patrick as…well, Patrick. Boy-form in costume as dog-form.

Bennett and Cohen’s outfits are unusual — they’re not costumes, but they don’t wear these specific clothes at any point in canon, either. Can’t remember if there was any intention in the design process beyond “they should complement the Beings’ outfits without overshadowing them.”

I had one of those pumpkin-shaped candy buckets as a kid.

Cohen: Didn’t you say Halloween was a conspiracy to lure children into accepting Satanism?

Bennett: Doesn’t matter! What’s really important here is, my little girl is a princess!

2016 Halloween…special?

I was sick that year, okay. Sick enough that I felt justified citing it as the reason I didn’t just keep posting pages. And, apparently, too sick to consider “what Halloween art do I have from earlier years that never got posted in the comic? Can I repurpose some of that?”

At least it’s cute. “Patrick with his head stuck in a pumpkin” is an excellent Patrick.

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Annotated Halloween Showcase 1

Oct10
by Erin Ptah on October 10, 2022 at 12:01 AM

A seasonal inter-chapter bonus: the first few years’ worth of pumpkin-spice-flavored BICP art.

Above: 2011 Sailor Moon cosplay bonus art!

Bianca is Moon, of course, with Sparrow as her Mars and Patrick as her Luna.

Camellia is Venus, because Reseda makes a perfect Artemis.

Jany (who hadn’t even debuted when I posted this) is Jupiter, and Miranda is Mercury. I thought about swapping those two — Miranda’s more analytic than Jany, but Jany’s arc will have some other parallels to Mercury’s, and besides, she’s awfully short for a Jupiter. Could go either way.

Cybele doesn’t quite fit the theme of the picture, as she’s the only nonhuman playing a human. Still, her color scheme was too close to Chibi-Moon‘s to pass up.

2012 Halloween special:

Witchy flying Cybele, with black cat Reseda in her lap and black raven Poe winging along at her side.

I submitted this to a Halloween art contest, where the contest-runner’s aspirations were, shall we say, out-of-proportion to their results. There were 3 entries, total. The winner was chosen by viewer polling, but on a site with no security or authentication at all — the only limit to “how many duplicate votes can I cast for myself?” was “how much free time do I have?”

I cast a bunch of votes. My housemate at the time even pitched in. My reward for this not-at-all-artistic achievement was $50…and a custom-engraved reward plaque. Like, a physical chunk of acrylic, emblazoned with my name and shipped in the mail. Useless to me, impossible to repurpose for anything else, pointless to give away, and probably cost at least another $50 to produce.

I wish they’d kept the money. (Or added it to the cash reward. But even keeping it for themselves and using it for pizza would’ve added more good to the world.)

…but, uh, setting that whole long tangent aside, at least the art is pretty cute.

2013 Halloween special:

Tiny Miranda and Poe on a table with Halloween cupcakes and candy. The gravestone-decorated cookie is the most on-the-nose in terms of Miranda’s arc…but I also really the appreciate the idea of “she dressed up as a sexy Pokéball.”

I still like the shading on this one. It was done in Paint Shop Pro, which has a pauper’s brush selection compared to PS or CSP, and now most of those drawings make me think “ugh, could’ve done that so much better.” But here, I got weird/experimental with the colors and hues, and I think the limitations of the brushes work with the results instead of hampering them.

 

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Annotated Leif & Thorn AU

Aug22
by Erin Ptah on August 22, 2022 at 12:01 AM

Formal KatyaAs I write these back in 2021, I’m trying to avoid any “present-day” statements about Leif & Thorn. Sure, my plan is to have it still running a long ways into The Future — but if I take that for granted in my writing, you just know that’s gonna jinx it.

That said, even here in The Past, the strips for Volume 5 are almost completely drawn! Barring any huge unforeseen problems, it should be launching on Kickstarter next month.

(Knock wood.)

(ETA, from Present Erin: There was a huge unforeseen problem! Not with Leif & Thorn — the comic is still trucking along just fine — but a problem with Kickstarter. Never should’ve jinxed us like that.)

So it seems like a good time to cross-promote with the annotated Crossover Art.

As of writing, about half these BICP characters have turned up in Leif & Thorn:

I’d like to use Ana Wagner at some point. Also, Strawberry and Morinda, though they’d have to be redesigned — right now, their outfits are “variations on Holly’s magical girl outfit,” instead of “unique homages to different magical girl series.” (Morinda is perfect for a Princess Tutu homage…)

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Annotated Almost Pride Month Special

May30
by Erin Ptah on May 30, 2022 at 12:01 AM

BICP has annotated pages queued clear through June, so I’m gonna post some extra Pride stuff now. No complaints? No? Awesome.

Above: Hoard of Lesbian Pride Flags

Kara Lynn in her dragon form, with her very own Unusual Hoard. (Credit to Lauren Dawson for inventing the “unusual dragon hoards” series.)

Full list of flag credits & sources at the end, under the cut.

The one on the very top of her back is my design. I looked through all these dozens of others, and while there are plenty of lovely palettes (and a few mediocre-to-painful ones), I couldn’t find many that seemed to have history, or intrinsic meaning to the colors.

So I went ahead and made a lesbian pride flag with history and symbolism behind it. (Plus a nice memorable redirect, lesbianflag.erinptah.com, to point to the details.)

It’s rarely-memed and little-known at the time of writing, and I don’t expect it to be widespread or much-memed by the time this posts, but it still makes me happy.

Sidenote: Kara Lynn’s counterpart in Leif & Thorn, Katya, has been mentioned as asexual. This probably still hasn’t come up in the comic yet, but she is an ace lesbian there. Just in case you were worried.

Below: #LoveWins

Happy Marriage Equality Day

Marriage equality in the US simultaneously feels like it just happened, and like it’s been the law forever.

In the long run, it was inevitable! In the moment, it only passed the Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote. These margins are narrow. (The courts are important.)

It was never the One Endgame Goal after which Gay Rights Are Done, but it was a big goal. Gonna repeat my original soapbox moment here, because it’s never going to stop being relevant…

This is for the lesbian with cancer who needs to be on her partner’s health insurance.

This is for the bi man who needs his partner’s children to be allowed to visit him in the hospital.

This is for the trans woman who won’t be able to keep her house unless she gets spousal benefits after her girlfriend’s death.

This is for the couple who won’t be able to afford a house at all unless they can file as husbands.

This is for the woman who’s going to be deported without a marriage visa from her US-based wife.

This is for the queer person whose parents kicked them out of the house, but would happily swoop in and try to reclaim their child’s possessions from a grieving widow…and then demand that their friends attend the funeral in birth-sex-conforming clothing.

Sometimes we fall into the trap of acting like marriage is just a symbol, just an excuse to have a party with cake. It’s not. Marriage is a set of substantial rights and recognitions, many of which are most important when your life is at its worst. There’s a reason the fight for same-sex marriage was originally catalyzed by the AIDS crisis. Everyone (even people with loving biological families, but especially people without them) deserves the ability to get legal recognition for their family of choice.

AND NOW WE’VE GOT IT.

 

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Annotated cat nonsense

Apr14
by Erin Ptah on April 14, 2022 at 12:01 AM

Cat prepared to pounceFirst posted this 9-ish years ago, and it was also April, so I put in the captions that it’s an Easter party. Would’ve made more sense to save it for December and call it a Christmas party. Or be like “you know what, this is Timothy’s birthday now. It’s canon.”

…my off-the-cuff Zodiac Sign Notes have Timothy as a Libra, but that could change!

Or, better yet: make it an Anniversary Of Becoming Reseda’s Master party. That canonically happened in springtime. And it would be the most logical time, other than Christmas, to be giving your Being presents.

Either way, Reseda chasing a laser pointer is timeless.

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Annotated BICP Anniversaries 1-2

Feb21
by Erin Ptah on February 21, 2022 at 12:01 AM

It’s now 11 years to the day since the debut of BICP!

Chapter 9 ended on January 11, 2013, which means we’ve annotated almost 2 years’ worth of archive. So let’s hit the first two anniversary specials now.

They don’t appear in realtime in the Master’s Edition — they’re all grouped together at the end of Volume 3 — so I’ll go ahead and categorize the post under “annotated Omnibus 3 omake.”

Year 1 (2012) — “Female characters of BICP. Counting Poe, Blake, and Camellia as part-time women.”

At that point, this was pretty close to all the (major) characters. Obviously could’ve included Patrick, but Cohen hadn’t debuted yet, Bennett hadn’t been unmasked…we had a few one-off characters who died, and also Cub, who’s still around but barely gets enough screentime to count.

Second anniversary

Year 2 (2013) – “Buried in a pile of Beings-as-stuffed-animals.”

Lots of partly-visible plushies without their image colors, hidden behind the ones who’ve been introduced. They include (clockwise from Sparrow’s head) the Wolf, the Donkey, the Sheep, the Lion, the Dolphin, and a bird that might be the Bearded Vulture or the Dove.

Both of these are pretty ordinary drawings — same art style as the comic, same cel-shading, nothing fancy or experimental to celebrate the occasion. Look out for that to change in the next few years…

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