Episode 19 of CTU is finally making some real progress lately, in part because I was finally able to get cracking on it. However, for once the delays to this weren't because I couldn't find the will to push forward. There were many times with Episode 19 that I had the will to push forward, but the Voice Actors who had been asked over a year ago to record lines were still putting it off. Eventually - after both replacing people, as well as the people that were supposed to be replacing them - I reached a point where I actually had all my resources on hand. The fact that I tried to be nice by adding multiple voiced segments to this episode, coupled with the sheer hell that getting people to turn in usable recordings has proved to be, is part of why I am not exactly wanting to give into the constant demands to just flat out fully voice the entire series from here on.

Anyways, it's highly likely that the episode will be out sometime next week so long as no future catastrophies befall me.

So, the 100th Episode of Work-Study is finally here; though - I must admit - there were definitely times along the way when I didn't think the comic would ever get this far.

It was back in the summer of 2001, while waiting long hours between classes at OSU, that I first discovered in full the wide world of webcomics (which, believe it or not, back then largely meant that I found Keenspot). As I clicked away through comics such as RPGWorld, Schlock Mercenary, and a few others, it began to dawn on me that I might be able to do something like this as well. This lead to the conception of an idea known as "A Gathering of Zeros"; but thanks to some heavy ridicule on the part of one person, it never progressed past the first strip ever drawn.

Then, a short while later in September of that year, I learned of the comic "The Sonic Zone" by Jason Holmes (a name that readers of Work-Study should recognize). It was a sprite comic based on the Sonic the Hedgehog game series, it was also a shameless rip-off of Bob & George of the worst order; however, back then, the fact it was a shameless rip-off did not deter me from reading it (especially since I was friends with the person making it). At the time the comic was only updated Monday through Fridays, not on Weekends; at the time I tried to convince Jason he should be updating seven days a week if he was making a sprite comic, but he did not seem to agree.

About a week later I proposed to him an idea that I (at least at the time) thought was brilliant, I would produce a backup comic for his series that would run on the days he wasn't making his own updates so that his website would have a draw for the readers all seven days of the week (sort of like how long ago PvP used to have the backup comic: After Hours). Still remembering the thrashing I had gotten during the AGoZ incident, I decided I would do it in MS Paint instead of trying to draw it on actual paper; as a plus, I would be able to reuse artwork from previous comics which would help alleviate the pain of constantly making comics over time. Within about two weeks I had produced the first eight strips of Work-Study (with Bryan and Clovis being toned back versions of the main two characters from AGoZ), which would have been enough comics to last for three and a half weekends; one of which was the comic where Jason's sprite comic got laughed at, hence the fake punchline about me having to look for a new server.

Unfortunately the punchline was actually quite real, never once did Jason put a single strip of Work-Study up; he would always claim that he had merely forgotten to do so, and eventually it would become irrelevant when his comic permanently died at 46 strips long (the impetus behind another obscure joke on the 47th page of Work-Study). Although I would not have been able to prove it at the time, evidence discovered many years later would reveal that the comics were not going up accidentally-on-purpose so as to lash out at me in revenge; however, the matter of the blood-fued that Jason had with the RP Group that I am in is not the focus of this discussion. So, with only 8 strips finished, I stopped producing Work-Study comics as it did not seem to matter as no one was ever going to see them.

However, despite having claimed that Work-Study was over, I would - through out 2002 and 2003 - produce 14 more strips at a very slow rate; basically, I would sit down and make one if the muse suddenly struck me. However, for some bizarre reason, at the tail end of 2003 - when I first started living at the OSU dorms - the muse struck me far harder than it normally ever did with the supposedly discontinued project; it was during this time that I produced an extra 14 strips in a period of just three months, the so-called version 2.0 era of Work-Study. It must be remembered that during the entirety of the Version 1.0 and 2.0 time periods of Work-Study, which contained a grand total of 36 strips within them, the only people who ever got to see these were the members of my RP group; after all, Work-Study still did not yet have a place to call its home.

However, during my first quarter at OSU's dorms I began using Deviantart; this, despite the fact my hand-drawn art was still attrocious at the time, lead to the notion that I could start actually drawing out new pages of Work-Study. So, now bolstered on by the fact that DeviantArt finally permitted me an audience, I began to struggle with drawing Work-Study by hand; due to this struggle, not counting the two cast pages, I only managed to produce six new pages during Winter and Spring quarters. However - that following summer quarter, which I did not take any classes - I became exceptionally inspired once more; and thusly, despite the fact I had to draw them by hand, in the period of one summer I produced comics 45 through 55.

However, while the streak did continue a short while after that, quickly after I got back to college I learned of developments that helped to re-kill my fervor. You see, part of the reason I had produced over ten comics that summer was because I had joined an art Club at OSU that put out a comic anthology every quarter that permitted each of its members to have ten pages; however, when I got back to OSU that fall quarter I learned that they had decided to discontinue it. A quarter later, for unrelated reasons based on various issues we disagreed upon, I would quit the art club.

This, coupled with a few other factors, caused the longest lapse in Work-Study production ever before seen; basically put, the joke on page 61 of the comic about me having not done anything with it in over 9 months was very real. Part of the problem I had was that it took me so long to ink and hand letter the comics that by the time I made one comic I'd lose the interest to make more, thus the next comic would usually only happen when I had an idea such that I was driven to make the comic once more; the other part of the problem was that I was depressed with the fact that the revelation of story in the comic was progressing abysmally, something that's bound to happen when you're averaging less than 3 comics some years.

After graduating college I began to feel guilty about the fact I had so greatly abandoned the project, and managed to force myself to make 10 new comics across the entirety of 2007; which, admittedly, was a far cry from the time back in the Summer of 2004 when I made 11 comics in just 10 weeks. Part of what didn't help my attempts to make a come back, with better story focus being my new goal, was that back in 2005 I had taken up the mantel of continuing the flash animated series "Chrono Trigger Unglued" in Andrew Himes's stead; getting both of them out at a respectable clip, especially considering the massive demands of producing good looking flash animation, was just too much to take on. To help alleviate some of the burden, I asked Andrew Himes to do a few pages of Work-Study while I worked on Chrono Trigger Unglued - Episode 17; when my friend Jeff saw these pages of Work-Study done by Andrew Himes, he asked if he could do a guest page as well. So, later on when I was trying to learn how to deal with the new time restrictions placed upon me by being an employee at Wal-Mart, I let him draw the script for page 82 of the comic while I was in the process of forcing myself to get page 81 done.

The results of this, as those of you reading the comic today know, were legendary; before I could even finish the first panel of my comic, the speed-demon known as Jeff had already made the entirety of comic 82. I was made distraught by how easy he made it look, wondering if this was at last a sign that I truly did not have the skill to do this properly and should finally at last give up. However, my friend Bryan Jonshon (the real life one, not the one in the comic), convinced me - after much urging - that I should ask Jeff if he'd like to keep doing the comic; the results of that meeting, obviously, go without saying. At this point I was freed up from my inabilities with art to just focus on the writing, which made making the plot move forward an actual possibility; no longer did I have to worry about having another nine month black out in the middle of a story such that I did not care to return to it when I finally started drawing the comic again, nor did I have to cancel a good idea just because I feared I wouldn't be able to force it all to fit within the space of a single page (those who've noticed how much trouble I sometimes had fitting the dialogue into some pages I drew will probably best understand what I mean here).

So here I am today with the comic slightly over 8 years old, and at long last hitting its 100th episode, something I could not have done without my best friend Jeff. Furthermore, as proof that people actually care about the comic these days, this amazing piece of fanart was made by the wondrous Malaysian Artist: TaraGraphics; although there had been fan images in the past, they were all images I had traded art for (as opposed to this one, which was a pure fanwork of the artist's own volition). Without Jeff, I'd probably be driving myself insane somewhere around year ten to force out enough comics so that I could say I hit 100 comics before the tenth year of Work-Study came to a close.

Anyways, here's to the glorious future of Work-Study! I hope you'll all continue to enjoy reading it as much as Jeff and I have lately enjoyed working on it. Now let's all open up a can of Code-Red and teach some squirrels how to wield rocket-launchers; and quickly, I hear that Professor Zeek might possibly be up to something (ooo-EEE-ooo)!

According to the latest issue of the Anime Corner Store weekly newsletter, Studio Gonzo - after first firesell style offering all their still unlicensed shows to Funimation - has officially closed their doors. Apparently Gonzo, a company that used to be known for a range of inventive shows, simply couldn't make ends meet with their more recent full bore plan based on nothing but moe and panty shots. I will miss Gonzo, but only for the company they used to be; I will most certainly not miss the company they eventually died as.

Wayforward Technologies has, over the years, given gamers a variety of hardcore offerings (as well as some not so hardcore titles based on embarrassing licenses that are perhaps best left forgotten). Some of these, like their work on Contra 4, have sold very well; others, however, have pretty much been cursed with horrid retail failure. Since Wayforward has often had horrible retail performance with their original titles, they decided to release their recent Survival Horror Puzzle Game "Lit" on WiiWare when their negotiations with a publisher fell through.

In Lit you play Jake, an underachiever in high school who wakes up in study hall one day to discover that there's no one else in the room with him. In fact, on a closer examination, there doesn't seem to be anyone else in the school with him at all. He quickly discovers why when a sweep of his flashlight across the room reveals that there is something moving in the darkness itself. Thusly begins Jake's quest to escape from his evil possessed high school alive, and hopefully find his girlfriend Rachael along the way.

Jake's quest to escape his school takes the form of an action puzzle game comprised of 25 normal levels, plus five boss fights. In the normal levels, you are tasked with finding a path through the darkness that will eventually lead you to the room's exit. In the boss fight levels you must find a way to burn down, through the purity of light, evil possessed members of the school faculty. To that end, this is probably the only video game in all of gaming history that has a boss fight where you go up against an English Teacher writing out a lesson plan on a chalkboard.

Jake's only weapon against the omnipresent darkness is, as one might have instantly guessed, light itself. To this end Jake must create light in any way that he can to move forward; whether that be through breaking windows, lighting flares, or turning on electronics. Breaking windows will be the easy part for Jake, as once they're opened they stay that way; however, whatever has happened to the school must have done a number to the circuit breakers in the building as they will blow if you turn on too many things all at once. Therefore there will arise circumstances where Jake must occasionally deactivate electronics, either manually or through permanent sabotage, in order to continue to proceed through the room his is presently in.

To get him through all of this will be an infinite supply of lives, which is a good thing as he is only mistake away from failure at any given time. Furthermore, as one might expect from an action puzzle game, you will also often be able to render a puzzle completely unsolvable by acting out at random. That said, you should almost never have to act out at random as the entirety of the puzzles are quite solvable through real logic.

Along the way there will be moments when a phone in a room will start ringing upon entering the room, if you pick up this phone you will get to listen to a phone call from Jake's Girlfriend over the Wii remote's speaker (sort of like what you do in NMH just before a boss fight). So long as you answer the phone in every room that it rings, and finish the room in the same attempt that you picked it up, you will get the game's good ending. Since there is little that could actually prevent you from getting to the phone before it stops ringing, and since it will also start ringing again if you should fail your current attempt, there is no reason why anyone should actually not get the game's good ending.

Now while Jake's trek through his darkly lit, and extremely possessed, school is both engaging and creepy during most of the trip; the game has a number of rough edges that will drive you to frustration at points (primarily the last few levels of the game). The controls are not always precisely reactive to the split second you try to do something, and near the end of the game the timing on many of the puzzles becomes very anal (especially the final boss fight). Furthermore, during one particular boss battle, there is a slight chance of certain piece of electronic performing a random power out that results in the boss essentially getting a freebie victory against you. Lastly, if you try to use any tool - while standing next to an electronic - Jake will active/deactivate the electronic instead; this will result in a somewhat frustrating unintended suicide. But still, it's very solidly built for something that only costs 800 points (for those lucky bastards out there reading this that live in Europe, your later released version has some of these issues fixed up).

Once you finish the game you will unlock Dark Mode; which is essentially the same as the normal, but with stricter timing as after a certain amount of time all the lights in the room will just go out all at once (but this doesn't happen at random, they slowly fade their way to it the entire time). Also, if you got the good ending, you will have the ability to play the game through as Rachael; along the way she can receive phone calls from Jake which add a little bit more story to the entirety of the scenario present in the game. Finally, once the game is done, you can also specifically select any level from the game and play just it by itself.

So in the end, due to some rough corners that make parts of the game far harder than they should be, I give the otherwise excellent title Four Flashlights out of Five.

OTHER NEWS:

- Work-Study Episode 94: Agents Are... Occupied?! was released.
- I am waiting for redone lines from Mel "Nalem" Albino for the part of Lucca in Chrono Trigger Unglued: Episode 19.

Work-Study Episode 93: "Picked Fresh Daily!!!"

You know, many stores in Hyrule across the ages have sold hearts to Link. However, where exactly do these hearts come from? If you ponder it for very long, it quickly becomes a rather disturbing thing to think about.

Remember, you can always see the entirety of Work-Study at its Official Home Page! The comic is updated twice a month, to the best of the abilities of Jeff and myself! The comic is a tale of Stigmata Holes, Squirrel Armies, Megalomanical Art Teachers, Elite Booze Agents, and MORE!

Okay, so far I've got voices for Gaspar (Andy Scannell), The King (Dan Scannell), and Lucca (Melissa "Nalem" Albino); so I'm currently more than halfway done on the voice recording front. Also, Rina/Kagome has agreed to be the replacement voice for Marle (after a few months, I got tired of waiting on the other person to ever contact me back). Furthermore, under the insistance of Cryokenetic (writer/original animator) and Laserkid (voice of Director/Guards), I will be providing the voice of Crono myself (I just need to sit down and record it). Having voices in episodes is fun, but it's a ridiculous strain to get all the VAs to actually sit down and record them, so don't expect to see another treat like this for a while. Whenever you complain that I don't always voice all of every episode, remember just how much time this episode set around gummed in the pipeline while I waited on recordings to arrive. For those of you who were hoping to have the chance to voice in an upcoming episode, I apologize.

Okay, so I decided to jump on the art portal band wagon as soon as I heard that it was out. I'm not quite sure how, but I got spotted almost immediately after my first piece of art went out; from my understanding of how the spotting system works, that is highly unlikely (but cool all the same). So, anyways, I currently have an 18 best of, across time, sampling of images in my art section; some of the less popular older ones will be taken down with time to make way for new images (they claim you're limited to just 20 images). If someone with good art is in need of a spotting, let me know.

Now if only there was a literature portal, I'd be posting The Vagrant's Tale here directly. As it stands, you can find it all right here (Chapter 23 just came out).

Good news, everyone!
(Oh my, yes...)

I finally have usable copies of all the king's lines that are to my standards, so that's no longer holding me back. That said, I do need to figure out if these came from Dan (Gaspar's Original Voice) or Andy (Dan's Cousin, Gaspar Understudy); they both can sound a lot alike, and I no longer have the original e-mail that the files came from. Now I just need to finally get all of the female lines done, and everything will be set.

For those who wanted to do voicing for CTU, I'll be sure to keep you all informed in another opporunity shows up in the future.

In other news, I recently finished some more pictures:
- Recker & Psyme
- Hayley

RELEVANT ARTICLE: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2 009-05-30/funimation-cancels-one-piece -simulcast

Toei and Funimation had worked on an arrangement where Funimation would web broadcast a sub of the newest episode of One Piece at the very same time it was first aired in Japan, but what would have been a breakthrough event is now cancelled thanks to one dipshit I hope has a very fatal accident in the near future as his just rewards. Knowing that episode would be coming up, he managed to hack Funimation's serves and extract the episode by force. Because the episode became available online - thanks to Captain Dipshit - before it even aired in Japan, the deal is now over (and it will probably be extremely unlikely to see something like this ever attempted again for a very long time).

TO CAPTAIN DIPSHIT: Do the entire world a favor by putting the barrel of a loaded gun in your mouth and pulling the trigger over and over until you are no longer able to do so.

There is currently an open casting call for King Guardia XXXIII for Episode 19 of CTU. I know many of you have asked if you could voice for CTU, so this is your chance. However, I will only be accepting applications on the Official CTU Forum. Sorry, but I have to do this for the protection of the project. I can't allow myself to work with someone whom isn't easily a repeatable source. For that to happen, I need form them to be reliably contactable without first traipsing about the internet. For those still interested, I look forward to hearing from you on the CTU Forums.

OTHER NEWS:

- Work-Study recently released its 88th Episode.
- I recently drew a picture entitled "When Elliot First Met Mizar and ZeeZee", based on the webcomic CloseEncounters (the creator of the comic himself faved it, wahoo!)
- I also finally sat down and wrote the 17th Chapterof The Vagrant's Tale.
- Lastly, the person who gets the 25,000th hit on my DA page, which is only a few hundred hits away, will get a free picture request (more details on my most recent article there).