Pirate Jesus

Burnie Animation

Mon, 27 Mar 2006 16:22:59 GMT

Part of a project I'm working on. In this animation, Burnie's head, hands, hand motions, mouth, eyes, and eyebrows are each animated independently. each component randomly picks its animation.

Hear ye!

Sun, 05 Mar 2006 18:24:57 GMT

Thanks to busbeytheelder, piratejesus is going to stop being where I put site updates for my webcomics. Now you can subscribe to nerdcore_rss instead!

Nerdcore #79

Sat, 04 Mar 2006 05:46:58 GMT

0100 1111 Arcanoparasymbiotic Virus

Look! I'm now hosting my own Nerdcore RSS Feed! I wrote it myself to integrate with my comic update script. Hopefully it's all in working order. I'm going to phase-out the manually updating livejournal feed pretty soon, especially if I can set up an LJ feed that eats my new RSS.

It feels good to be a programmer again! I worked four and a half hours overtime this week, but it felt just like getting my geek on back in college. Only this time I was getting paid! I also managed to learn Visual Basic, which is something CS Majors tend to avoid ^_^

You can get backgrounds by voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #78

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 06:52:19 GMT

A Slime Appears

I probably should have done this joke last week if I'd wanted to be topical. I think timelessness is really more important though, you know? The not knowing a bow was loaded joke was the first one I ever used in a comic. That comic had an Ent and a centaur! I was ten years old. George Bush was president and there was a war in Iraq. See? Timeless.

Besides, if I really wanted to be topical I'd enter a semi-liquid state and squeeze into a tube that said "for external use only".

You can get backgrounds by voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #77 - An Animated Version of Nerdcore #2

Sat, 18 Feb 2006 06:15:46 GMT

0100 1101 A Summoner and a Technomancer: The Animated Series

ANIMATION! This is in honor of the fact that I just got a NEW JOB! I'm not a "Business Analyst" anymore. On Tuesday I start programming educational and traning stuff in Flash! I'm not sure how much of what I do will be available for the public, but when it is I'll be sure to point it out. I'll also hopefully gain some more Mad Flash Skills that might be useful in making new Nerdcore stuff. WHO KNOWS?

There IS an easter egg in this animation. There's more I wanted to do with this cartoon, I'll probably be adding stuff later. I'll let you know.

I figured something out this week. Almost 90% of my viewers are people who come to the site by typing in the URL or using Bookmarks. This means I have actual readers following the comic. Scary! I'll try not to let you guys down.

You can get backgrounds by voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #76

Sat, 11 Feb 2006 08:21:55 GMT

0100 1100 Memory Leak

The punchline here is of course a reference to OhNoRobot. The robot was designed by David Hellman and was used without permission. This counts as a parody, right?

You can get backgrounds by voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #75

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 06:59:44 GMT

0100 1011 Reunion

I almost didn't get this one done this week!

You can get new backgrounds by voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #73

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 05:01:20 GMT

0100 1001 A Few Minor Complaints

It looks like 99dogs is having a sale of some kind, which coincides nicely with me getting around to offering the Technomancer Black Babydoll and Necronomicorp Black Babydoll shirts!

I still haven't had time to get you guys a bonus comic. I've been working on an animation or two lately. I do have a new desktop background. And, hell, I'll give you a close-up of the newspaper from Nerdcore #17. I'll warn you though, I originally typed it in a tiny font, so there's lots of typos.

You can see these things by voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #72

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 05:01:35 GMT

0100 1000 Rope Skipping

It looks like 99dogs is having a sale of some kind, which coincides nicely with me getting around to offering the Technomancer Black Babydoll and Necronomicorp Black Babydoll shirts!

If you're a webcartoonist like me, you might find actually working on the strip to be a dark and lonely time. I recommend listening to streaming audio or podcasts! Some of the one's I've been listening to are The Blank Label Comics Podcast, Digital Strips, and Have Games Will Travel, which I started listening to because I heard they talked about Let's Kill in this episode.

I was going to have another secret bonus comic for you this week, but stuff got in the way. The incentives will instead be reruns from the comic's dark and mysterious past, including that one sketch of the Necronomicorp Characters I did in a less plastic-fischer-price-person style.

You can see these things by voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #71 & Bonus Comic

Fri, 06 Jan 2006 06:57:22 GMT

0100 0111 Quelle Barbe

IMPORTANT INFORMATION!

You can get a two-panel BONUS COMIC by voting on Top Web Comics! This comic is what happens to Lucas, Chompski, Therin, and Gibson just after the above comic. You know you're curious!

You can get a new binary background also by voting on Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #70 and Biota.org Interview!

Fri, 30 Dec 2005 01:34:16 GMT

0100 0110 Cuddlefish

Did you know that I do things other than make this comic? One of the other things I do is work on a long standing ALife project called biots. You can now read Biota.org's interview with me, wherein I talk about Biots, and then get distracted and babble about the other things I do, like make this one comic you might have heard of.

And the circle of ALife, goes on...

IN ADDITION! I just learned that if you do a Google Image search for "pie", the first result is art by me! Not the pie/pi comic, but the "Pie in the face" card art for "Let's Kill!".

You can still read the four-panel bonus comic from last week by voting on Top Web Comics. This will probably be your last chance. I was hoping to have a new bonus comic for this week, but you're probably on vacation and not reading this right now anyway!

You can get a new cuddly background for voting on Web Comics List.

And yes, Cuddlefish is the architeuthis from Pirate Jesus. Good eye!

Nerdcore #69

Fri, 23 Dec 2005 06:46:16 GMT

0100 0101 The True Meaning of Christmas

In keeping with the long-standing tradition of heart-warming Christmas specials, I present to you the true meaning of Christmas in an alternate reality. Remember, it's not blasphemous, it's alternate!

You can still read the four-panel bonus comic from last week by voting on Top Web Comics

You can get a new christmassy background for voting on Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #68 & Bonus Comic

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 05:19:00 GMT

0100 0100 Lycanthricin

IMPORTANT INFORMATION!

You can get a four-panel BONUS COMIC by voting on Top Web Comics! This comic is what happens to Higgins just after the above comic. You know you're curious!

You can get a background also for voting on Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #67

Fri, 09 Dec 2005 03:14:10 GMT

0100 0011 Scat Cat

This comic is my contribution to the second annual Monkey Day Webcomic Extravanza. No, I'm not sure what it is either. I think maybe some kind of scam.

I could really use some more votes on Top Web Comics. This is the first time since Day 2 of putting Pirate Jesus on that site that I've been off the front page! I think it might be because I started the redesign of the Science vs. Religion comics, and made the mistake of removing the bit at the end that asks people who liked to comic to vote. I still get a fair number of German visitors coming in from AnimeXX, and I guess they were keeping my head above water. It's hard getting daily votes when you're only a weekly comic.

I'm writing a genetic algorithm in Perl to evolve Corewars programs. JUST BECAUSE I CAN!

There are new ~~awful~~ ~~offal~~ awe-full desktop backgrounds for voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #66

Fri, 02 Dec 2005 01:00:44 GMT

0100 0010 We've All Thought About it

Admit it. We've all thought about it.

This week's comic is short because I thought I wouldn't have much time this week, and because I wanted to get back to working on the animated version of Nerdcore #2. I noticed that my auto-update script had taken down the "deleted scene" I'd done for that cartoon, so I put that back up.

I really need to automate the updating of the archives page. ^_^

Oh! Hey! I got a trackback that showed someone posted a link to my comic on the forums of a comic called Casey and Andy, which, from what I've read so far is a really funny and also really nerdy comic that you should read. I also found that the author of that comic wrote a game called Gug which is a puzzle game where your favorite (okay, my favorite, and quite likely his favorite - I don't mean to tell you what to like) video game characters use their diverse talents to cooperate and get to an exit point! Also there's a level editor!

It actually reminds me of a game I wanted to write but don't have the time for. It would be a 2 player simultaneous cooperative arcade-style game, where one player is on top of a step-pyramid (You know, a ziggurat) playing a Q-Bert clone, and the other player is in the underground maze below the pyramid playing a Pacman clone. The cooperation part would come from one player meeting his goals would make it easier for the other player to meet her goals. For instance, eating the fruit would cause the flying disc to reappear. Eating a power-pill would cause all the enemies on the board to be killable. Actually it might work better as a PvP game where defeating your enemies sends them to the other player's game. Anyway, Gug is more fun and you should try it. I'll stick to working on biots.

There are new targeted desktop backgrounds for voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #65

Fri, 25 Nov 2005 07:59:28 GMT

0100 0001 Kill -9 Bill

Some of you may recognize that the assembly code on the assembly line is actually RedCode, despite being green. RedCode is the simulated Assembly Language used in Core War (or CoreWars), the ancient game of gladiator-style computer program combat from whence this comic got its subtitle. The particular program that the assemblyman is trying to load into the core is a version of Mice, which is very good at self-replication.

For more simulated computer programs figting for survival, you may want to check out Biots, an Artificial Life program of my own creation. I've been fiddling with it lately, there are crazy plant/animal hybrids in the new version. I'm also working on adding zombies as a simulation of disease.

There are new Faux 8-Bit desktop backgrounds for voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #64

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 07:56:37 GMT

0100 0000 We Know What You Doing

Woo! I finally got my hands on the new episodes of the Hitchkiker's Guide Radio plays!

This is comic number 64. That counts as a round number in binary. ^_^ Next milestone=128!

There are new Great desktop backgrounds for voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #63

Fri, 11 Nov 2005 08:23:38 GMT

0011 1111 See You Later

Oh No Robot! Sometimes you may see an icon on the right column of the nerdcore page that says "transcribe this comic". Clicking on the icon will take you to Oh No Robot, which will let you write a transcription of the comic and submit it. After it gets approved, it gets added to the Oh No Robot search engine, allowing people to search the text of the comic. You can search a specific comic, or all comics. For instance, you could search for all comics about zombies!

There are new Dire desktop backgrounds for voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #62

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 07:17:05 GMT

0011 1110 d(joke)/dx

Today's comic is a calculus joke, and one similar to the one you've probably heard if you've taken the course necessary to get the joke. Such is the limitation of nerd humor.

So, say you've published a game that is definately not meant for minors. What's the worst possible typo that you could have on the box? That's right, the worst possible typographical error would be to omit the one in the tens place on the age recommendation, thereby saying that your game is for ages 8 and up!

Guess which game has such a typo.

Speaking of Let's Kill, go to this page and read the PDF of the rules for the game. The rules contain hilarious jokes and commentary by the designer of the game, who looks remarkably like Therin.

Last Saturday I went to a Halloween party. I dressed as Bloo, from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.

There are new Derivative desktop backgrounds for voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #61 & "Let's Kill" News!

Fri, 28 Oct 2005 02:24:39 GMT

0011 1101 His Holiness

I'm a published artist! Atlas Games recently announced that the second edition of Let's Kill, the card game of happy-homicidal fun created by Sancho Games has shipped to stores! Let's Kill features all kinds of gruesome stick-figure art by yours truly. "Joe the Web Cartoonist" is even a victim in the game! Of course, if you go over to the Atlas site, you can get a PDF that you can print out to make your own victims, you can also download the rules to get a taste of the game. Ask for Let's Kill at your local gaming store, or, if you don't have a local gaming store, you can buy it from Warehouse 23.

Warning! The cards are made with voodoo, so you're actually really killing people when you play!

In other bizzare news, a friend of mine was nominated for a Spike TV Videogame Award for his work at Slashdot Games, despite his utter contempt for the Spike TV Videogame Awards.

Last weekend I did a corn maze. (The Indians call them Maize Mazes)

There are new Holy desktop backgrounds for voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #60

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 04:46:58 GMT

0011 1100 Pirate Jebus

I don't keep track of what day each comic first went up, which makes life easier for me in general, but it did make me miss the fact that last August the 27th was the anniversary of the first Nerdcore comic! I've been doing this for a year and nearly two months now! And I've had a webcomic since February 9, 2004. Of course I'm mentioning this because including Jebus in today's comic reminded me of the old days.

There are new adjectivey desktop backgrounds for voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #59

Fri, 14 Oct 2005 05:35:00 GMT

0011 1011 Checkerfloor Starcore

Wow, this comic is shiney. The reflections were a little harder to do because I had to erase where they overlapped.

There are shiney desktop backgrounds for voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List.

Nerdcore #58

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 04:38:36 GMT

0011 1010 Fe

Sooooooo... I only have half of this week's comic done right now. Look for the rest Saturday morning. At least you sort of get a punchline, right?

There are still solar powered desktop backgrounds for voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List, new backgrounds will be available when the rest of the comic is.

Nerdcore #57

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 23:33:14 GMT

0011 1001 The Hierophant

Getting the punchline of this comic requires the reader to recognize that Phydeaux is a gnoll. Otherwise, you'll just have to bask in the rest of the wackiness, and see if you can pick out all the implications cast on the other plot threads by this comic.

I'm going to a midnight premier of Serenity tonight! Woo! Work is going to suck tomorrow though, as I usually try to be alseep by eleven nowadays.

There are new solar powered desktop backgrounds for voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List!

Nerdcore #56

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 02:42:38 GMT

0011 1000 The Shroud of Turing

I'm sick, so I spent the last two days at home playing the Megaman 20th anniversary collection. I did this once using ROMS, and now that I'm doing it on the GCN I feel only a little less braindead. I'm sad that it doesn't have the "Megaman and Bass" game that was only released in Japan. That was a cool game because you could play as Bass and he had omnidirectional rapidfire and rocket jump instead of a charged shot and slide. Did I mention I was sick? This isn't a good topic for a webcomic newspost at all, is it?

Being sick made me miss wednesday night's The Gothsicles show. Stupid lazy autoimmune system! I'd have my friends shrink down to microscopic size and fight the disease off in tiny nuclear submarine like in Fantastic Voyage, or Inner Space, or Danger Mouse, or Muppet Babies, except for that pesky conservation of mass thing. Do you realize that that sub in fantastic voyage would still have to weigh a kabillion tons? It would have just increased in density! If you picked it up it would rip a tiny whole through your hand! Plus, who wants their friends poking around in their private blood vessels? Nobody, that's who!

I don't usually get sick. I can usually fight off whatever alien presences enter my body. Then my white blood-cells get tasty tasty expierince points, causing them to level faster and be even better at keeping the bad wizards out. Actually I think it has to do with T-Cells figuring out how to make antibodies. It would be cool if T-Cells could figure out how to make antimatter instead though. Then my immune system could rule the world!

Some Canadian guy told me that Dave and Vyacheslav is back in production. We've all heard that one before, but this time he "means it".

There are new turing tested desktop backgrounds for voting on Top Web Comics and Web Comics List!