Yes, these are the four riders of the apocalypse. But there are not quite four, and they are not quite riders. Hmm. Sounds like a bit of a storyline brewing there. Guess you’ll have to stay tuned to see.

I really enjoyed putting these characters together, the color schemes, the props, the dialog bubbles…lots of fun. Hope you enjoy them, too!

Contest Update

By the way, head back on over to Brick Side 165 for the announcement.

An edifice typically refers to a large, imposing building, or a complex system or organization. Toward the end of the classic Disney film, Mary Poppins, Mr. Banks, sad and unsure of himself, sings a song entitled “A Man has Dreams.” The opening lines state “A man has dreams of walking with giants / To carve his niche in the edifice of time…”

I’ve long been struck by the concept of a tangible edifice of time, and felt like building one that could also be anthropomorphized. And then I picked up a handful of those clock faces from the Pick a Brick wall…

Contest

Don’t forget, today is the last day to enter the contest!

There’s not really much of a difference between murder and kidnapping, right? Well, Susan seems a bit confused over the whole thing. The Brick Side: making accusations one brick at a time. But will we ever get to the bottom of it?

Contest!

Don’t forget to place your guess in the comments section of yesterday’s episode. How many LEGO 1×1 bricks are in the bowl? Just make a guess and you could win a random series 1 collectible minifig. No purchase necessary!

Well, it doesn’t quite taste the same, but it is a little cheaper. The Brick Side: now with options for the economically minded. The Brick Side is a crunchy little webcomic built with LEGO bricks. Part of a healthy breakfast. Just don’t forget the orange juice, bacon, and eggs.

Contest

By the way — anyone care to take a guess at how many 1×1 bricks are in that bowl? 1 guess per person, entered as a comment on this post. If multiple people are correct I will have the computer randomly pick one; 1 winner will be declared. If you are a minor (don’t say so online) you must have your parents permission to enter. I will email the winner to ask for a mailing address to send the prize to (do not list your mailing address in the comments). Prize will bea random Series 1 minifig sealed and sent to you.  You have til the end of the day, Wednesday July 28 EST to guess. Happy guessing!

I’m really enjoying the new series of Collectible Minifigs that LEGO has produced. I’m using 3 of them above (Crash, Grog, and Braaaaiiiinss — not their official names). Unfortunately, the distributors that sell thes (e.g. Toys R Us in the US) grossly underestimated the popularity of them and the whole world-wide production run sold out in about 2 months. Another unfortunate thing is that, while series 2 is due out within the next coupla months, the amounts produced are about the same as Series 1 (they have to plan these runs like a year out) — so I have a feeling that more people are going to try to snap up Series 2, and they’re going to be harder to come by. The scalpers are really going to be out after these ones. But series 3 (for next year) should have a much higher production run.

Alas, the woes of a collector! None of which really has much to do with today’s episode, but I find it all pretty interesting.

This, of course, is a reference to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’m thinking specifically of a line from the theme song used in the cartoon that started back in 1987 and ran for 10 seasons. I’m not sure if the line “heroes in a half shell” occurred in other variations (later cartoon incarnations, the original comic book series?) but if you caught any of TMNT for that 10 year span, you’ve heard the line.

The Brick Side: a web-comic for middle-aged, over-weight, karate-movie-watching frogs. And you!

Ah, Susan is still trying to make her mysterious accusation. I know we had quite an interim between posts, so here’s a few links to get you back up to speed. This current storyline within Where Bad Minifigs Go started back in Episode 131, and continued in Episode 135, Episode 141, and most recently, Episode 145.

My wife and I have 4 kids. So we’ve seen our share of babies and bottles and formula. Never saw a formula quite like this, though. Until now.  Mmmm…green.

So some schools call it a Scholastic Bowl. Others call it a Scholars Bowl. What other names are there for that thing where the smart kids (or whoever is willing to volunteer) get together for competitions with other groups to see who can answer questions better?

This is the first new comic I’ve posted with ComicPress. So, hopefully I don’t break anything.

Yeah, I’ve spent the last couple months on and off working on a complete overhaul of The Brick Side. The previous theme, while great, didn’t really lend itself to a long-running web comic. I had several friends in the web comic community recommend ComicPress. I had to do several things behind the scenes to get my site ComicPress-ready, but in the long run, I feel that it was well worth it!

There are still a number of things I’d like to do with the design and layout of the site, but the current rendition is the bare minimum of what I felt I needed to do to get back to publishing web comics.

New Features

Blog

One new feature is the differentiation of the web comic from the blog — this should allow me to write a post every now and then that doesn’t require a comic attached to it, and won’t look funny in the archives without a thumbnail.

Updated Images

You might not notice, but practically every comic has been updated to a more consistent format. The original format was a 1-panel with the Title, author, and copyright sitting on top of the image. I’ve pulled this out to the top to be more consistent with the multi-panel strips. I’ve also updated most of the old dialog balloons that were drawn poorly. That’s the beauty of having everything designed in a Photoshop Document that I keep. I also did a lot to make my PSDs all consistent — not that you’ll notice that, but it should make my output more consistent.

And you’ll notice that the comic on each page is bigger. 730 pixels wide versus the older 500 pixels wide. Previously you could click through that image to see the bigger version, but I don’t think most people realized that, and I really wanted to comic to be readable on the page without having to click through.

There’s other stuff here and there, but why don’t you go take a look?

Feedback Requested!

I am looking for your feedback. Let me know what you like, what you don’t like, and what suggestions you have for further improvements. Thanks everybody!

Comics to Resume

Monday. July 19. Tomorrow.