Holy Fucking Shit People,

I could leave it like that, but I need to address something. It happened while viewing my brother Helbereth's post extolling the virtues of the Tablet. Matt-Likes-Swords and the one-and-only Luis booed him off his soap box. Either they are upset over his use of a tablet (which fuels their jealousy or annoyance) or they are merely messing around.

The truth is far more complex and painful to express. Over the past year, I have had an extremely hard time concentrating on any project because work, college, and an atrocious commute (with nothing art-oriented in between) has siphoned my resolve and patience. My decision to LOAN (motherfucker...) my tablet to Helbereth was a matter of course. Someone had better use it.

It was also inspired by Helbereth's perverse inability to complete his unreleased Halloween-oriented Flash project within his prescribed deadline. He had a perfect concept that, by my Spartan standards, was virtually finished save for an animation or three. Yet, he did everything with a mouse and, in addition to constantly dreaming up more and more content (further burdening his workload), he also SLEPT through the deadline! That was when Dr. House yelled, "ROW D, YOU'RE FIRED!"

Then Daylight Savings Time hit and my commute became a pitch-black abyss with headlights screaming into my eyes as highway traffic marched onward with a crunch and a grimace. I became increasingly irate and infuriated as the projects we envisioned seemed impossible to complete. We also questioned their aesthetic validity since they bore down hard upon his perfectionist aesthetic. Throughout this ordeal, I repeatedly stroked Helbereth's ego, since few people (like Matt & Luis) can make a mouse look that good. While his aesthetic was always reasonably solid, he never achieved his desired results until now, and they are palpably improving. Nothing prior to my benevolent donation compares to present-day results.

Aesthetics is a major reason why he won't return that infernal little device: Helbereth achieves better quality in less time than with the mouse. I thought we would be done with Resident Evil: Left Behind before October 31st; Helbereth imagined December, or "whenever". And when MindChamber jested in a reply to one of Hel's posts (the joke was on Claire Redfield, or "That Guy With a Fine Set of Knockers"), I got defensive out of obligation (more ego-stroking, perhaps) rather than openly defending him.

It became a matter of image--how others perceived our efforts--which was wrought from sheer performance pressure, the urge to succeed beyond all reasonable doubt, that made me lend Helbereth my tablet. I mean, seriously: from the images in his current post (Confessions of a Mouse-a-holic), can you imagine a full-length Flash short by Helbereth if he only used the mouse? I cannot. Of course, you may reply, "Can you Imagine a Flash by Neo?" or "...A Flash by Anybody Using a Mouse?" and to either I would reply: "I honestly and simply do not give a shit. Either you invest in professional tools for professional results or you don't. Either you experiment with new ideas and devices or you don't."

Criticize someone with the cash or the patience to save his cash and buy the tools necessary to fuel artistic endeavors, and you send a personal criticism that I won't respond to... it's not worthy of response. It's hard enough to be an artist, and it shouldn't be... and it shouldn't be hard to be a patron of the arts, either! This is tantamount to the Audio Portal denizens' repeated outcries against the well-documented horrors of Zero-Bombing. Hypocrisy, I tell you!

Then again, such maligning is no comparison to countless years of working with this IDIOT who had successfully evaded the virtues of a fucking tablet for over five straight years! I cannot and will not defend Helbereth's artwork after his stubbornness to adapt; he imagined countless hours to re-train his hand-eye coordination, but that slipped aside when I offered my device and suggested he "play with it for a while". It is ironic how I stated that; he's been jerking me around with excuses for years. Ergo, I don't regret my choice: he's improving, and that's what counts.

In essence, I had enough of Helbereth's belligerent complacency one day and took the initiative; for the time being, I cannot work on a Flash project until my schedule at work and college dies down to a palatable simmer. In the meantime, he can toy with the tablet to his heart's content. Incidentally, I was inspired when he downloaded GIMP onto his computer; I gave him the tablet the very next day. If he thought he could sample other art programs, then he could learn how to handle a tablet, too.

Now that Helbereth is back in his prime, please shut the fuck up. He has finished a skit for an upcoming collaboration depicting the history of the world (scientific perspective), an effort that took several weeks even with content borrowed from an unreleased project languishing in his hard drive. It was done with the mouse. He barely touched other projects until he got the tablet; as a stark contrast, he has planned countless small projects and is achieving these objective at a wicked pace. With this massive resurgence of interest in Flash, I have contemplated overhauling our "Big Fat Tutorial" into the "Bigger, Fatter Smorgasbord of Schooling" at some later date.

I see no objection to acquiring the technology necessary to complete digital artwork and projects. As a matter of course, I strongly advocate the usage of tablets for any serious artisan who grew up on pencils, pens, and brushes... not mice. These puppies are delicate and admittedly expensive but not prohibitively so; the big 9"X12" ones (like my Intuos) are hard to lug around, too. In case you are interested, save between $50-$150 US Dollars for a small pad with basic pressure sensitivity... nothing too fancy, just something portable to gets you by and complement a laptop (hey, why not?).

Being a lefty in a PC world left me jaded but tablets provided an escape hatch. This one closed on me rather suddenly, so I will wait until Christmas to receive another, more portable tablet. Until then Matt, quit booing Helbereth and get back to work on Epic Battle Fantasy III (did I mention I love that series?).