Ghosts Posts

Inception was outstanding. Titanic was not.

Galen (Wheatshippers, The Dugs’ Friday offering) thinks this comic is outdated. To which I respond- Titanic was that bad. People need to be reminded.

Can you tell I’ve given up on the baseball season?

This is one of my favourite comics that I’ve ever done. And it is thanks to the wonderful Ryan North, author of Dinosaur Comics. If you haven’t read Dinosaur Comics- well, this entire comic is probably lost on you. And that’s a shame. You should go read some of them.

Anyway, as a fan of Dinosaur Comics, I asked Ryan if I could use Utahraptor in this comic, and within seconds he’d responded with a big thumbs up. Which he totally didn’t have to do, as this really could look like I’m just trying to mooch of his success.

The comic is born out of truth. Last Wednesday, we had over 1,000 unique visitors, which may not seem like much compared to other webcomics, but it is a huge milestone for us and pretty good considering we’re only in our second year. But it got me thinking about baseball players getting contracts based on their performance after one season, when there’s guys out there who have been consistent for ages. The analogy works well. After all, we may have had a big day, but who does simplistic art and conversations better than Ghosts of the Dugs? Dinosaur Comics.

Anyway, this comic will probably have really low appeal as you need to be a fan of both Ghosts of the Dugs and Dinosaur Comics to really get it. And that amounts to about 3 people worldwide, and they all write for the Dugs. I don’t care. I love this comic.

I don’t own any pokemon related copyrights or anything. Normally all images I use are free domain, or allowed to be redistributed under the license we use. But I couldn’t find anything for the punchline, so… well, ok, I borrowed it from a fan site that didn’t have permission to use it either. Anyway, no copyright infringement intended Nintendo! I even put it on the small print in the comic.

But seriously, if you haven’t seen these videos, check ‘em out. First is the best, but the second is still good.

Of course, if Wrigley didn’t have that basket, Marlon Byrd would be doing this on a daily basis.

I realized- with some horror- that is has been two and a half months since my last pun comic. This is unacceptable. if you review the archive, you can see I started with a pun almost every other week.

This comic is based on fact. There is an epsiode of Andrew Zimmern’s show where he does in fact go to Taiwan and eat chicken testicles. But he thought haggis was a ‘bizarre food’ so what does he know?

Off to Wrigley for the first time in a few months on Saturday. We’re out of it. For those who say that doesn’t take some of the shine off the game, then you’re not truly invested in your team. but still, Wrigley in August is a great time and I’m very much looking forward to it. It might help ease my disappointment of failing to score Blackhawks-Wings tickets.

They may have both done steroids, but give me A-Rod or Bonds, I pick A-Rod every time. Bonds still won’t come clean and he always played with a me-first-team-second attitude I can’t stand. And I know I’m not alone in this.

That’s all I’ve got to say about baseball this week. I’m using the rest of this blog to give a shout out to one of my good friends who recently moved to Vietnam. I love the fact that my photoshop doodles are currently being downloaded in the ultra conservative, communist country of Vietnam. I believe she is currently trading Dugs business cards for food as the recipients mistakenly believe they are getting her e-mail. I anticipate a wave of marriage propsals from Vietnamese men in my in box soon.

Before you start googlings, DIPS is a real thing. It stands for Defense Independent Pitching Statistics, and from what I can make out, is a formula that calculates an ERA based on more than how many runs were scored without errors. it takes into account that strikeouts are the only way a pitcher can truly control his outcome. it is very complicated, and part of the Sabermetrics school of baseball stats.

Yes, I did some damn research for this comic. You’re welcome.

The point, of course, is twofold. One, do we really need OPS and the gazillion other stats to enjoy a simple game of baseball? And two, 99% of people who post on web messageboards are idiots.

Please post your responses below.

What’s to discuss?

I’m on holiday back home in Scotland. Other webcomics would post old content, or nothing at all, but not me! I busted out my paper and coloring pencils to bring you this! I know, I know, you feel spoiled, but you deserve it.

I haven’t seen any baseball for over a week since I left. Therefore I can’t really comment on anything topical. So haggis it is. I haven’t had any haggis yet, while very tasty I prefer it’s brother, a deep fried white pudding.

Today we’re pleased to present to you all the first guest strip we’ve done here at The Dugs.  This comes to us from Christian Beranek, Anthony M. DiGerolamo, and Greg Eales at The Webcomic Factory. If you haven’t yet, go check ‘em out!

Yes, Martin did deliver us his hand-drawn Ghosts strip from Scotland on time and it’s actually quite good. So don’t think that he’s slipping or anything, and we’ll run that strip next week. The delay is purely logistical. We figured he’d appreciate a little more time to enjoy with his family in his last week visiting, plus we didn’t want to be rude to our guests and push them back a week. We’ll be rude to Martin, but wrap it in warm fuzzies so hopefully he won’t notice.

That’s, I think, the lesson to be learned here today. Friendship.

This was actually done in a few seconds about a year ago. We had an idea to do some very simple one panel comics called ‘bloop singles’ that we would post on Tuesdays and Thursdays. we gave up on that idea, but when we started our new Tue/Thu feature ‘Hit and Run’  I was reminded of this. And as I’m in Scotland and just pleased to get some content up I thought I’d post it.