Thursday, September 19, 2013

Tom and Bob go to Australia









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I know it's been a while since I put up a new Tom and Bob, but this is another favorite of mine.  It introduces two more characters to Tom and Bob's world; Jose` and Dundee.  Once again, I was tasked with finding appropriate pictures of a tarantula and a funnel web spider, and once again I had a few days of bad sleep dreaming of horny tarantulas and angry funnel web spiders...

I also spent a lot of time on Australian websites in an attempt to get Dundee's vernacular correct, because that's the level of dedication I have to deliver the finest in drunken arachnid humor.  

I spent last weekend in St. Augustine attending the Gentlemen of the Road concert featuring one of my favorite bands ever, Mumford and Sons!  


I was blown away by their talent!  It was sort of a dream come true to actually get the chance to so Mumford and Sons live.


Enjoy. And as always, sweet dreams.

Carlos Diaz
September 19th, 2013



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Monday, August 19, 2013

Bob Should Get His Own Nyquil







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I really can't explain why Bob likes singing Whitney Houston songs so much.

For those veterans of the internet, you'll recognize Bill; he was that famous spider who for some unfathomable reason was in a little sandbox and then used his front legs to start covering his head with sand....or cocaine, whichever way you choose to see it.  For a disgusting little nope, it's absolutely adorable.

Enjoy. And as always, sweet dreams.

Carlos Diaz
August 19th, 2013



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Saturday, August 3, 2013

Bob's Big Surprise: PART 2







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Enjoy. And as always, sweet dreams.

Carlos Diaz
August 3rd, 2013



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Saturday, July 27, 2013

Bob's Big Surprise: PART 1







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Summer is almost over, and I couldn't be more excited!  This summer has been a challenging one for me, many things happened, as does in life, and yet I still manage to get out of bed every morning...barely.  However, the summer isn't over for my favorite arachnids.  I apologize that this episode took longer than anticipated to publish.  Certainly Bob has bigger problems than I do. 

One of the bright spots this summer was the movie Pacific Rim.  It's the Citizen Kane of giant robots fighting giant monsters movies!  Monsters come to Earth through a temporal rift at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and start tearing shit up.  In order to combat these cyclopean creatures, humans build equally large robots piloted by humans to fight the monsters in vicious, and therefore awesome, giant claw to giant robotic fist fighting action!  I won't pretend that it is fine cinema, but it is what it is, a fun ride!


Enjoy. And as always, sweet dreams.

Carlos Diaz
July 27th, 2013



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Sunday, June 30, 2013

Bob Liked The Smell of Tom's Shampoo






***

I wasn't going to be dissuaded.  Bob had to have the last heave of the conversation.  To me, that was the punchline.  The way I have the templates set up in Photoshop, there wasn't a lot of room for variation, which is my fault.  When I started this whole endeavor, I created some templates in Photoshop for a certain number of characters per template, not really thinking ahead to the number of lines in each episode.  I've been able to adjust in previous ones, but I found myself templated into a corner this time around.

 For this episode, I couldn't fit all five spiders onto the biggest template I had for the last panel, and I didn't want to pad it out any further with useless or unfunny dialog, lest the comedy lose it's viability, in order to fit another 3 or 4 spider panel.  There are five more things that needed to be said by Tom and Bob, the last being Bob puking volcanically.  And dammit, that's what's going to happen!  So I had to make a single-spider template so he could puke with abandon.  I don't think it detracts from the flow of the episode, but then again, I may be way over thinking all this, anyway...

 I saw Star Trek: Into the Darkness the other night, and I absolutely loved it!  Abrams successfully transferred the characterizations of the younger, beloved characters we've grown up with many years ago into the second movie in this franchise.  There are too many spoilers that would be revealed by going any further into plot, but suffice to say, they went out of their way to pay homage to the original Star Trek series and movies.  Sometimes, outright update!  Zachary Quinto practically channels the very essence of Spock, maybe even better than Nimoy, himself!  Chris Pine's Kirk seems even more larger than life, and a bit taller.  I couldn't put my finger on it, but it seems like every camera angle was set to make him look about three inches taller than he did in the first movie.  Regardless of how you feel about the original Captain Kirk and/or William Shatner (we already know how T&B feel...), and I was a fan, I think Chris Pine does an admirable job of conveying the cocky, swashbuckling star fleet captain.  McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, and even the Cumberbatch's villain, were all also outstanding.  I've been a huge fan of Abrams version of the Star Trek world, and from the looks of it, they've set up at least another three movies worth of plot lines in this one.  

Enjoy. And as always, sweet dreams.

Carlos Diaz
June 28th, 2013





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Friday, June 21, 2013

Bob Dates A Black Widow






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And really, who can't commiserate with Bob on this one...?  This is one of my favorite story arcs.  There's a certain pacing that I feel just went well with it.  It is also the introduction to Cindy the Black Widow, a central figure in Bob's life in future comics. Once again, I was tasked with searching through hundreds of Google images  in order to find just the right picture of a black widow in repose.  It was another night of restless sleep...

 Summer is here, there is no doubt about it!  And this Floridian summer didn't disappoint; wretched heat, constant thunder storms, obscene humidity; Florida doesn't play around with its summer climate.  

Enjoy. And as always, sweet dreams.

Carlos Diaz
June 21st, 2013




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Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Tom and Bob Watch The Season 5 Finale of True Blood






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I have a love hate relationship with True Blood.  I hate it because it's a crappy soap opera, and will she/won't she be with the one man/vampire/werewolf who loves her?  I so don't give a good god damn.  But, I love monsters fighting monsters, and for a crappy romance with vampires show, it's amazingly brutal and gory, which appeals to the 8 year old in me who grew up watching Ultraman, Godzilla movies, and anything with supernatural creatures doing crazy shit.  And that's what this show is; supernatural creatures doing crazy shit.  Of course, I'm no longer 8, so the adult in me can find a great appreciation for the overt sexiness of some of the female vampires doing crazy shit.  But, I really don't care who Sookie falls in love with...or that her name is Sookie...  Since the 6th season of True Blood starts in a week, I figured I would fast track this episode of T&B to coincide with it, and establish Tom's unholy love for the show.

 Even beyond the monsters fighting monsters thing, the show's greatest asset is that True Blood is an acceptable, even ofttimes enjoyable, show during the time of the year when all the shows I REALLY like just finished their season and are in hiatus, or don't start until the Fall.  Tom, on the other hand, is a little too emotionally invested in Sookie's tumultuous love life.  I can't blame him for it, because it is funny to see.  Tom's love for the show, not Sookie's love life.  

Flagelliform, for those who may be confused, is a special kind of silk that spiders throw out like a whip, hence the word coming from the Latin flagellum meaning "whip".  It's secondary purpose is for procreation, a purpose that I use to explain Bob's disgusting predilections.  I'll go ahead and let that sink in while you put two and two together...

Enjoy. And as always, sweet dreams.

Carlos Diaz
June 11th, 2013




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Saturday, June 1, 2013

Tom and Bob Love Karaoke






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I'm hoping everyone had a fantastic Memorial Day!  I'm part of the Society for Creative Anachronism, and we have a crown list on that weekend every year (those who are in the SCA will understand that sentence).  This year was probably one of the best since the weather is also traditionally horrible on this time in Florida every year, as well.  Except this year.  Oh, yes, it was hot.  Oh, yes, it was sunny.  But the oppressive humidity, intermittent thundershowers, and generally unpleasant atmosphere was absent this time.  So a good time was had by all.

 I love karaoke.  I'm not a great singer, but for a brief moment when I'm belting out Bon Jovi, Squirrel Nut Zippers, or Doug E. Fresh, the crowd gets into it, there's no better feeling!  I think Tom and Bob would agree.

 Once again, I find amusement in the absurd.  Spiders, in a bar, complaining about the martinis, singing karaoke.  It might get weirder, but I don't see how!  Ok, I see how, but you won't get to see until later episodes!  

Enjoy. And as always, sweet dreams.

Carlos Diaz
June 1st, 2013



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Friday, May 17, 2013

Tom and Bob Don't Like William Shatner







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I'm constantly horrified yet endlessly fascinated by stories of the J'ba Fofi, or giant spiders.  The giant spider in Texas turned out to be a hoax...or so we hope!  

 The most rewarding thing about doing something like a comic is watching it come alive. In some ways, I feel less like a writer and more like an observer, just chronicling my characters' adventures. The first comic, like most serial writing projects, establishes the characters, who they are and how they act, to some degree. But as you do more, you begin to get a feel for how these characters think and act and react to situations. 


While I had a basic idea down for Tom and Bob, I didn't have any real clue as to how their individual personalities would play out. They both started kind of on the same level, same motivations, same outlook. But it was here, even as early as the second episode, that I began to get a true feel for how Tom and Bob are as individuals; how they interact with one another, their offbeat friendship, their hobbies, and their predilections. It was an exciting moment for me, because I recognized this transformation as I wrote it...nay, observed it! 


Tom and Bob turned the corner from a somewhat amusing concept to a fully realized characterization; from amusing gag to quirky observational humor. Even their names were chosen specifically, because I thought it would be funny that such outlandish characters had very mundane names. I've carried on that tradition with all the characters in this comic; all their names are mundane and unassuming, which makes it even funnier to me that they're spiders! Spiders talking about decidedly non-spidery things like making movies with William Shatner.

Enjoy. And as always, sweet dreams.

Carlos Diaz
May 17th, 2013


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Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Pilot




***

Welcome to the world of Tom and Bob, a world of drunk spiders making bad decisions!  This world was created about a year ago.  Where I work, my friends and I utilize company email to discuss important things like pop culture, shopping, gardening and the like.  One of my coworkers emailed how she just loved the idea of having a lush, English cottage garden in her back yard.  I was pretty sure that spidery denizens have the above conversation in every garden, especially when I'm around.  

Because spiders are alcoholic jerks.

I don't like spiders.  There, I said it.  I've pretty much had crippling arachnophobia since I was like five years old.  Spiders are creepy looking, prickly and a few are very dangerous.  But I was determined to see the comedic aspect of this through!  I spent way too much time in Google Image search looking at hundreds of pictures of spiders, trying to find two pictures of very different looking spiders that looked sufficiently "spidery" without being completely repulsive.  

It was not an easy task.

Despite the nightmares, shakes, and flop sweat from looking at hundreds of photos of spiders, I found the perfect pictures, and set forth to prove to everyone that even in idyllic gardens, spiders plot and plan our downfall.  And thus, Tom and Bob were born.

This is the first Tom and Bob comic I ever created and emailed to all my friends at work.  From there, Tom and Bob made weekly or so appearances, sometimes more, to sound off on current events, aggravating work issues, or just to make people laugh.  And in the fullness of time, I noticed something had changed in me.  I was not as arachnophobic as I once was!  Oh, I still am, just not as much.  I am now able to see spiders, well, little ones, and not have my heart stop!  

This is the nerdy part of the description where I put the minds of my more font-minded friends at ease.  I just want to put it on the record that the font used in Tom and Bob is not Comic Sans!!  I used a font called Segoe, which is an organic, flowing font that looks more natural and conversational...you know, for when drunk spiders want to say stuff to each other.

But most importantly, I found a way to comment on society, poke light fun at my friends, rage against "the man", and generally be creative and happy.  This is their world; welcome to it!  Don't forget the drinks...and a can of bug spray...there's something skittering in garden...

Sweet dreams.

Carlos A. Diaz
May 14th, 2013



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