Commander Keen: the comic strip

KeenEmpire · Post by **KeenEmpire** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 18:39

Thank god i'm not an artist (and to be honest, can't see the difference in any of them - they all look equally beautiful to me).

Mort · Post by **Mort** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 14:57

Love the color jobs on both accounts. Unfortunately I can't use them on the site regardless of how masterful they might be. I just like keeping that site "mine-all-mine" -- for better or worse. Don't let that stop you from coloring my stuff and posting it here though, if inspiration hits and time permits.

Speaking of which, I did an extremely simple and limited coloring job on the header which you can see on the blog (it's not even worth posting the actual image here). Essentially I only colored in Keen and the Yorp and left the rest B&W. For what it's worth, I think it works relatively well with the design of the site in general.

Header business aside, here's the latest strip... Actually, it's a re-do of strip 17 -- the one where Keen dies. (As you can probably tell, I lifted the first panel directly from the other strip.) After thinking about it for a while, I figured that the whole concept of Keen having multiple lives is something best left for later in the story, if I use that idea at all. I'll just have to put the alternate version as another "delete scene".

Click to enlarge

DaVince · Post by **DaVince** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 15:37

Great, as usual. You should really add a "bonus comics" section to your site though, so the comics of Keen being killed and uh, pissed on don't get lost.

I managed to get the same file only 70 kb rather than 200 kb. 16 colours and max PNG compression didn't decrease ANY of the image quality at all.

4-bit (16 color) PNG with a compression ratio of 9 in Irfanview

Post by **KeenRush** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 18:39

Nice! I like how Keen mentions the belt.

memsys · Post by **memsys** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 19:02

DaVince wrote:Great, as usual. You should really add a "bonus comics" section to your site though, so the comics of Keen being killed and uh, pissed on don't get lost.

I managed to get the same file only 70 kb rather than 200 kb. 16 colours and max PNG compression didn't decrease ANY of the image quality at all.

4-bit (16 color) PNG with a compression ratio of 9 in Irfanview

with ken silverman's pngout plugin for irfanview it can probably be made even smaller

EDIT : i got 1kb off of it [tested 8colours and got 62kb]
most times it works better

DSL · Post by **DSL** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 1:58

Make thread sticky?

memsys · Post by **memsys** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 17:03

DaVince · Post by **DaVince** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 12:18

memsys wrote:
DaVince wrote:Great, as usual. You should really add a "bonus comics" section to your site though, so the comics of Keen being killed and uh, pissed on don't get lost.

I managed to get the same file only 70 kb rather than 200 kb. 16 colours and max PNG compression didn't decrease ANY of the image quality at all.

4-bit (16 color) PNG with a compression ratio of 9 in Irfanview
with ken silverman's pngout plugin for irfanview it can probably be made even smaller

EDIT : i got 1kb off of it [tested 8colours and got 62kb]
most times it works better

I tried to use PNGOUT actually, but it doesn't matter at all in this case. I think it became 3kb bigger when I tried (max amount of passes)...

Mort · Post by **Mort** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 20:02

DaVince wrote:Great, as usual. You should really add a "bonus comics" section to your site though, so the comics of Keen being killed and uh, pissed on don't get lost.

Thanks.

God knows we don't want to lose the pee comic!

But seriously, I have thought about doing that, but I'm just trying to figure out exactly how I want to fit into the blog's structure. Since I'm using blogger it wouldn't be as straitforward as just creating another page. It would be another post, and I don't want to screw up how everything is organized (I'm kind of anal about that kind of thing.) But regardless, I'll do something. Everything can be found on deviant art anyway (even some of the REALLY bad stuff I didn't post here).

DaVince wrote:I managed to get the same file only 70 kb rather than 200 kb. 16 colours and max PNG compression didn't decrease ANY of the image quality at all.

4-bit (16 color) PNG with a compression ratio of 9 in Irfanview

Well.... since I'm not well versed in image compression, I just saved it as a png and hoped for the best. But having read your post I got a trial version of a random compression utility off of download.com and used it on the next strip. I got the size down to 100K or so. (I did a quick search on irfanview and only found the pay version, so I didn't get it.) Hopefully that will suffice for now.

Anyway, here's the sauce:

Click to enlarge

Post by **KeenRush** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 20:08

Heh, Keen seems a bit hyperactive. Too much sugar.

DSL · Post by **DSL** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 21:22

Marcus?

Allstories · Post by **Allstories** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 21:30

Keen has friends? Inconceivable!

memsys · Post by **memsys** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 21:45

DaVince wrote:I managed to get the same file only 70 kb rather than 200 kb. 16 colours and max PNG compression didn't decrease ANY of the image quality at all.

4-bit (16 color) PNG with a compression ratio of 9 in Irfanview
Well.... since I'm not well versed in image compression, I just saved it as a png and hoped for the best. But having read your post I got a trial version of a random compression utility off of download.com and used it on the next strip. I got the size down to 100K or so. (I did a quick search on irfanview and only found the pay version, so I didn't get it.) Hopefully that will suffice for now.

irfanview is free (for non-commercial use) so download it here

Post by **KeenRush** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 21:54

Allstories wrote:Keen has friends? Inconceivable!

I didn't like that idea either... I've always seen him as a kind of loner, or mature enough to understand he doesn't need them.

Mort · Post by **Mort** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 2:15

KeenRush wrote:
Allstories wrote:Keen has friends? Inconceivable!
I didn't like that idea either... I've always seen him as a kind of loner, or mature enough to understand he doesn't need them.

There's lots of stuff I'm mature enough to know I don't need, but I like having anyway. Personally, I picture him both ways. He is independent enough to be able to entertain himself, but at the same time he can socialize naturally without much effort mostly because he tends to ask so many questions.

For me, your description fits Mortimer more. No friends, yadda yadda.... Or maybe I should just let the comic speak for itself....

To each their own.

Allstories wrote:Marcus?

I got the name from "Fox Trot". It's the name of Jason's friend.

[Edit:] Changed some wording. Added some stuff.

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