   Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
So I'm just going to come out and say it: My favorite episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation is "Conundrum." It's episode fourteen of season five, and I just deeply love it.
I don't know if it's because I literally just assumed Erich Anderson's Commander McDuff was a random Enterprise officer of the week (which we saw quite often during the show) when I watched it as a kid during the original run, so the twist actually worked on eleven year old me. I don't know if it's because I just like a good "everyone has amnesia" story. I don't even know if it's just because it's a good Ro Laren episode. I don't know if it's just because we learn that Starfleet doesn't give a crap about lasers.
I just like it. It's neat.
And I rewatched it last night, and feel that it holds up -- which is why I found it deeply weird that the folks who wrote the episode actually think it's not that good. My favorite episode of the entire seven season run of the show was a failure according to the folks who wrote it.
And maybe, as a writer and creator, I should remember that.
Like the hardest part of releasing creative works to the public is that often, after a while, I'll start to judge those things far more harshly than when I first made them. Or I'll compare it to the potential I thought an idea had in my head. And if I don't reach that potential, I'll think of it as "bad" -- when it might just be slightly different than that idea. I have one hundred percent published stories that I thought were just sort of okay and later had someone tell me how much it meant to them to read it.
*cough*I Hate November*cough*
So I should make sure I remember Conundrum. That one of my favorite things to rewatch is considered one of those failures by its creators. That the things I make might have value, just not in the way I originally thought they should.
It's just sort of how things work out.
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Can you say Awkward?
My dad brought me to my first convention, and wants to come with me to conventions again. In all honesty my dad really is the “Cool Dad” for fellow geeks, so I guess I may never understand.
MY DAD’S -DEAD-!! *sob* *sob* …okay, he seriously is, but it was years ago.
I think Anime would have confused him, but he liked Star Trek.
Mom took my brother and I to a couple of Conventions back when we couldn’t drive ourselves. She found them weird, but accepted she had weird kids. Enough stuff around she didn’t get bored.
I had my dad *staff* my convention.
Wow I don’t really want to talk about my dad cause I have a variety things to say about him. He’s accepted my geekiness now but growing he was a prick about it. He had his own interests mainly airplanes(having a private pilot’s license and all) and deer hunting. Plus he’s done lot in the last 10 years to break my family apart.
Wow, Trae, looking at this comic and Sarah’s model sheet, I’m very impressed at your ability to get so much expression out of a stick figure.
It’s the way I’ve designed her eyes. The smaller eyes and the eyebrows give her a lot more flexibility in expressions. Sarah is an expressive, extroverted character — so I needed her to have a range. Contrast that with Ruth — Ruth is always in a state of calm, even when stressed out. She’s much more introverted, so she emotes quietly. Because of that, her eyes never really change. In fact, she almost never smiles.
I do think about these things when I design the characters. 🙂
I’m probably going to be unconsciously examining the other characters’ eyebrows from now on… 😀
Early characters who I wanted to do more with their eyes are like Lynn, Veronica and Megan — where the brow is integrated. Awesome Roy was the first to get separate eyebrows (to go with his dot eyes).
Scrappy and Barnes both have eyebrows, but you can’t always see Barnes’s because of his hair. Random other characters, like Marcus, do too — I just can’t remember off the top of my head.
Between my wife and I, we have 5 kids. We’ve been taking 4 of them to conventions for the past 5 years. We’re also on staff for our local con and have roped a couple of them onto staff, as well.