Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The End and the beginning.

I will be moving my blogging activities to my new blog. "David's Wonder Blog" It will be basically what this blog has evolved into from the get go. Why I'm making this change? you ask. It's simply the fact that my comic's title Neuropsychosis makes for very leangthy urls and I've found that people don't like going to sites they have to type really long urls for. So come by every Friday to http://darroyoart.blogspot.com/ for David's wonder blog it's gonna be a good ride.

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

The beginning of the end.


Today, the space shuttle orbiter Discovery, landed for the final time. It's not the end of the STS program (it was supposed to be but it got wisely extended), but this landing makes the end of the shuttle a bit more real to me. You see while there have been a number of lasts for the shuttle program over the last few years, last trip to Hubble, last American component of the ISS, and last voyage of Atlantis (though Atlantis may go again). The Discovery hits me differently, because discovery is the most traveled member of the fleet. The current oldest orbiter, after the lost Columbia and Challenger, Discovery is the one for me that has always been there while I saw the rollouts of both Atlantis and Endevour. It was Discovery, which brought us as a nation back from the tragedies of of Challenger and Columbia, and it was discovery that delivered the Hubble space telescope, possibly the most important scientific instrument of the shuttle program, to space. As a space enthusiast all of my life, the end of the Space Shuttle program, without a replacement in sight, is a sad time for me. The space shuttle was and is kind of the Family car of my imagination, and seeing the one of which "we" where the most common passenger go off into the sunset to be placed in the mausoleum of a space museum makes this end so much more real.

Friday, January 07, 2011

The Antelope Valley of Neuropsychosis

Hello Today begins a new series on this blog, where I talk about the locations of Neuropsychosis. Neuropsychosis takes place in my home town of Lancaster California, and the adjoining town of Palmdale and the non incorporated community of Quartz Hill, an area known as the Antelope Valley (A.V.). It's a group of aerospace towns about 60 miles north of Los Angeles to which it also serves as a bedroom community. Many of the places in my comic actually exist or have existed in the past, some have pseudonyms others are portrayed in their accurate glory. But to keep things interesting, I've made the A.V. of Neuropsychosis a hybrid of the A.V. Now and of the past. Kind of a greatest hits version in order to make a more interesting town for the setting of my comic.

The first location is the Racquet Club Apartments in Lancaster. This Apartment complex serves as the home of Toshi and Phil, as well as Melissa, Stef, and Jammy (they're neighbors if it hasn't been clear). It is located on 15th Street West and Ave. J-8. This apartment complex is where my best friend lived for a half a year after high school. As it was where I spent man days of my early adulthood, I have many fond memories of the times I spent there, thus I chose to use it as the home of my characters having the same experience. I haven't been in the complex since 1999, so other than the exterior, it is based on my memories of the place, which was a bit dingy but not quite low rent. The place looks a bit nicer now but I've maintained it's less than pretty quality from ten years ago. The rooms are base on my memories of my friends apartment, so it's more of a set than a location. And judging by the fact that the doors are right next to each other as opposed to spaced the width of an apartment, I've assumed that neighboring apartments are mirror images of each other. Thus the relative layouts of Toshi and Melissa's apartments.

I hope you have enjoyed this location in my Neuropsychosis tour of Lancaster. I've many more to come. Next will be the main location of “The Attack of the Killer Cheeps” the Antelope Valley Mall.