First up, looking back at Tuesday’s comic, I was inspired to create this.

My apologies.

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True Fact:  I use CSI: Miami as my baseline for what is acceptable in the comic.

I had to decide early on what sort of “rating” to give to the comic, and how I was going to write and draw it.  Over the next few years, Clockworks should unfold in to a pulpy steampunk action/adventure fantasy epic, full of lots of two fisted action and high flying excitement.  Sin City level violence and sex really wouldn’t fit, but then neither would say GI Joe the cartoon level sex and violence.

Somewhere along strip #4 or so, I settled on the idea that CSI: Miami would be my baseline.  It’s a popular show, beloved by millions, that runs on a broadcast tv station as opposed to HBO or whatever.  So clearly, the level of violence and sex on CSI: Miami is acceptable to most Americans.  (No idea what the ratings are in other countries.  And I should note CSI: Miami is a horrible, horrible show, only watchable because it’s So Bad It’s Good.)

So this means cleavage is to be expected, sexualized nudity not so much.  Violence tends to be somewhat hollywoodized, but blood and guts are also present.  Language tends to remain fairly PG, aside from on my Twitter feed.

The Rule of CSI: Miami also gives me a decent baseline for realism.  As long as the BS spouted out sounds decent, actual physics and biology and all of that can be ignored whole heartedly.  The Rule of Cool is very much in effect in Clockworks.  (Oh no! Three TV Tropes links in one blog post!  Your day is ruined!)

And now you know.

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Let’s see, Steampunk links and news:

She’s linked on the blogroll, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned here that Winona Cookie’s collages are my new favorite anything ever.  Seriously, I need about 5 of those in my place.

Lex Machina is a photographer, and all around cool guy awesome chick.  Throughout the day she collects random bits of awesomeness and posts them to Tumblr as Random Inspiration.  They’re sometimes NSFW, but always really, really cool.  Go, bookmark it or follow her on Twitter or Tumblr to see the updates throughout the day.

The US is building an airship to spy on Afghanistan! I don’t care what you think about politics or wars or whatever, but we can all agree that more airships is a good thing.  Sadly, this looks more like a UFO than something from Final Fantasy, but it’s a step in the right direction.

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In gamer geek news, the all new all Savage Worlds podcast premiered this week:

Smilin’ Jack’s Bar and Grill.

Go. Listen.

In other gamer geek news, D&D Online is free to play now.  DDO was an attempt to tap in to that huge tabletop gamer market to be the next WoW.  It failed miserably.  I never played it when it was a subscription based game, but I’ve spent a few hours the last few days now that it’s free, and it’s a surprisingly decent game.  My only real complaint is that I have a long, deep rooted aversion to WASD (I know! Sacrilige!) and DDO doesn’t really support my standard mode from WoW which was to use the mouse to move, and bind my entire keyboard to different actions.

It occurs to me that this is really the catch 22 of any MMO. I want a game that is different enough from WoW that I have some reason to play it instead of WoW, but I want a game that allows me to use the exact same highly personalized control scheme I’d gotten in the habit of using in my time on WoW.

That said, DDO is pretty damned good.  You can set all of the dungeons to Solo difficulty, so Terrala the elven barbarian has been running around slaughtering Sauhagin, giant spiders, and undead without me having to find a group. The Free to Play, Spend Money To Buy Cool Upgrades And Higher Level Content is a business plan I’m a fan of, especially because I’m a cheap bastard.

Anyway, go check it out.

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Only one week until Archon.  If you’re within driving distance of St. Louis, you should totally go.  I will be there, with a table featuring cool art stuffs for sale, as well as I <3 Steampunk shirts and a (very) limited number of Clockworks shirts.

I’ll also be talking in panels for the first time, which should be fun.  Saturday I’m yapping about webcomics, and Sunday I’ll be talking about steampunk.  There’s also a steampunk tea party/fashion show thing that I will be attending but likely not actually dressing up for.

AND! I will be running a pick up game of Clockworks: the Body at some point in the weekend, most likely Sunday afternoon.

It should be a rocking time, and if you can make it out, please do so.  This will be my first convention as a Professional Artist Guy as opposed to Random Gamer Nerd, so if you can come out and help make it awesome, you would in fact be awesome.

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I posted a new sneak peak to the Facebook page.  Those of you who are not fans on Facebook will just have to wait a month or two for these characters to show up in the comic.