No Fedora

After some point it becomes humorous:

Freelance / Storyboard

I am doing a lot of photography lately but I also didn't forget about graphics, the latest project I was involved lately was doing freelance work on a proprietary commercial project for creating storyboards). While is not Free software, it allows to leverage my experience from my old Fedora webcomic and even build upon some of the assets I developed as a follow-up. From a technology point of view, the project is cool as it uses SVG for its files, so once installed you can extend it easily with self-made graphics or with images from the Open Clip Art Library, for example.

Unfortunately the app is Windows-only, made with .NET, so I can't easily provide screenshots (I use Inkscape and Fedora for my part of the work), but here's an example image from the Storyboard That website (probably people will recognize the graphics style):

The Thunderdome - A GNOME Wars Comic

Watching the FOSS blogosphere, is pretty much like news television before some elections: two sides throwing mud at each other, trying to win you on their side, but in the end, no matter who wins, you still be screwed. Really, as in politics the lesser of two evils is still evil, in GNOME the lesser of two retards is still retard.

And as in politics the people reaction is not to vote, also in software it can be not to upgrade. Honestly, I don't care what will happen in the Ubuntu camp, but I am pessimistic about the Fedora camp: even if the users revolt for, pulling a number completely out of my ass, only half of the regular downloads, the poisonous people won't get fired, they will talk their employer into the excuse as a normal trend of people moving to mobile device and will make it even worse.

Nicu's Webcomics: Cookies

'Nuff said.

PS: even if reusing some elements, this is not part of my old Fedora comics series, neither is it in any way endorsed by the Design/Art Team, is a personal project.

Fedora Webcomic Special ZURICH FUDCon: Bunker Rising

So far at least seven people asked me about a webcomic special for FUDCon, so I had to do one. But I think I am going to have even less shame than usual, trying to change the bribery... I know I have to expect the beers, but can I have something else instead? I need to buy a FUDCon T-shirt, M size. Thank you in advance :) I have no shame :D

Distro wars

Another week-end spent out, shooting people... I liked the expression on the face of this arm wrester so much, that I couldn't resist messing with it in Inkscape. Enjoy a bit of Sunday fun:

PS: of course, after the competition they shook hands and maybe had a beer together.

Fedora Webcomic, F13 Special: Hyperspace

Does anyone around here remember I promised months ago the conclusion of a 3-part comic around Fedora? Remember Goddard, the first part? Or The Red Shirt, the second part? Now , minutes away from the official release, we'll jump into hyperspace and conclude the story.

Honestly, the real surprise is not on this blog, where I try to keep the prudes under control, but on my un-aggregated photography blog I can go wild and challenge everything. And hate groups can try to googlebomb me as much as they want, more traffic is a plus.

Fedora Webcomic, F13 Beta Special: The Red Shirt

Those that followed my riddle know I had prepared in advance a comic for Fedora 13 Beta release, so later today is the Beta day and is the time for a webcomic special.
There are ups and downs of having the content prepared in advance, the good part about it is that at times when your geek activity is unpredictable (duh! niche not covered in the study) you have at least something to put out. On the other hand, if the content was made too much on advance, it may become obsolete, and let me know what happened here: I am pretty sure someone from the Ubuntu camp decyphered my riddle and that was all the reason of their rebranding from brown to orange, to escape my joke. Well, it looks like I still had the last word with the ability to alter the final punchline!

Do not forget the third part, "is about jumping to light-speed"! Is up and with an URL ready to be guessed.

Fedora Webcomic, F13 Alpha Special: Goddard

Very few followed my riddle and to my knowledge nobody guessed the answer, but the time has come for the first part of the trilogy, today the day for the Fedora 13 Alpha release.

It was not hard at all, the riddle was "the first one is titled just like a name" and its answer "Goddard", as in the rocket scientist and the F13 codename. The next one, "is about trekish cannon-fodder" is slightly harder, but still trivial for any respectable geek.

Now gotta run, I have a localised announcement to write...

Riddle

You have an old addiction and somehow manage to get cured of it but then you cave to peer pressure and regress once... Then the addiction is all over again, you try to abstain as hard as you can and only draw a trilogy of "special editions" to go along with milestones in a nearby event/release/happening.

After drawing them, the normal thing to you is to upload them in the target web space, waiting the right time for publishing and have use the minimal effort when publishing. But all the fun is sharing them, so you are itching for sharing them with the world, having to wait a couple of weeks for the first, one month and a half for the second and beginning of May for the finale is a pain.

So I devised a riddle for those really interested in the topic: the files are in the usual place, with very obvious names. If you can guess the names, you can see the files. Here are the hints for guessing the names:

• the first one is titled just like a name
• the second one is about trekish cannon-fodder
• the third one is about jumping to light-speed

I hope I didn't destroy the surprise, ruin the punch lines or give away too much of the stories with this riddle. And still thinking (suggestions welcome) for a prize to the first one solving the riddle.

Fedora Webcomic, FOSDEM Special: The Lame Sellout

So my soul is sold for a couple of beers, I have no shame. And because people waited so long. this one is bigger, has more panels and more people.

Now back to the planning for today's beers...

485/65535

Sorry, I couldn't resist:

Photo cartoon

Since months ago, while I was running my webcomic I wanted to experiment with something different (no worry, is an one-shot, will not transform in a series), but I needed a lot of logistics for it and had to wait for the right time, the eLiberatica conference when I got the actors, the costumes, the props, the background, almost everything (not everything since I lacked the time to develop a better story).

When I took the photos the story was supposed to be different but when looking at the photos I noticed the boys are doing "the sign" wrongly so my first reaction was to crap the photos and ask them removed from Fedora for not getting such basic things. But then I realized the photographer (me) is guilty, as he has the duty to ensure the subjects are in the correct place and position, so scrapped the plan B and went back to the cartoon but with an adapted story.

Note: it was made with a combination of GIMP and Inkscape, maybe one day I will get the time to write a tutorial about the process.

Fedora Weekly Webcomic: The End

Q: How long is the life of a certain Fedora release?
A: About 13 months.

Q: When the Fedora Webcomic started?
A: Roughly 13 months ago.

Q: Do you get where I am going with this?
A: I'm afraid so...

Q: Why it died?
A: Mostly by loneliness.

Q: So will it disappear from the face of the web?
A: No, it will remain archived, together with the SVG sources at its canonical location.

It was a hard decision, as I had a lot of fun working on it and it was a fruit of passion, but the decision was taken long time ago (October-November) and the final graphic was implemented back on February: the writing was on the wall for quite some time. I continued it for months mainly due to my stubborness and waited for a milestone and a credible(?) excuse to get out.

Good thing I didn't set any performance metric for the comic, otherwise I would have been sad about it not meeting any of the expectations... So not having enough data, I can't make any conclusion: it failed due my poor implementation (graphics, stories) or due to my decision to address such a narrow niche (Fedora and Fedora on the desktop). But I have enough data (comments, traffic, link backs, translations) to conclude it was a failure.

Not a comic: Dark Chocolate

Technically, this is not a comic but I had to mark somehow the naming selection process for Fedora 12.

Fedora Weekly Webcomic: Queue

Tracking Rawhide you should be running F11 already... are you?

Fedora Weekly Webcomic: Reign

Not sure if you are aware, the slogan for Fedora 11 was selected to be "Reign".

Yet another week when I had two competing ideas, the other one was about a magician "abracadabra... presto!" pulling some tiny packaged from his hat, the public is unimpressed, then he "abracadabra... presto!" again and the packages grow huge. The public is in awe, wanting this feature "yesterday" but is saddened to hear they hare too young and have to wait at least 6 months more for that. Some considered this funnier, but my choice was to make a statement.

Fedora Weekly Webcomic: Popcorn

My initial plan for this week was to come with a Star Wars themed sequel, but in the end they dropped the part about a princess Leia and without the opportunity to draw some bikini and not get flamed for it, my enthusiasm decreased.

A second option was to talk about one stage of the recent flame war (around the mixer), but that would be an unfunny personal attack, which my easily be seen as personal payback, so scrapped that too.

Then an obvious (and predictable) topic was the recent release of a competing distro and our own preview release. Even if the angle was new, I felt I am somewhat repeating myself and put it on hold trying something else.

I found the fourth subject attractive: a "fedora-flu" pandemic, which is expected to get global in less than one month an geeks wearing breathing masks to keep it under control.

Still unsure I asked for feedback on #fedora-ro and the general opinion was the pandemic premise is good but it lack a good punch so better go back to the third option. I listened, implemented the graphics and here is Popcorn. Don't bother to flame me about how we are all supposed to be friends, hold hands and sing Kum-Ba-Yah.

Fedora Weekly Webcomic: Unbreakable Prophecy

While I pompously call this the "Fedora Weekly Wecomic" , my comic is fan-made content, I am in no way a Fedora representative, not even an Ambassador (even if some guys are trying to persuade me into enrolling), so even if sometimes I may appear to pick on some corporations, this is just my personal voice, not a statement from Fedora or any of its sponsors.

Fedora Weekly Webcomic: Level up!

This week I am playing (an one time try) with a slightly different format (otherwise the story would not fit) and a slightly different character design (chibi). This was also the comic with the most research work behind: several days spent with ZSNES and various ROMs, I needed it tu be accurate :D

PS: the amount of testing was limited only by my own lameness, I was not able to beat and get past of the Evil Wall in FF4 and Hiryuusou in FF5... the work on FF6 is still in early stages.