Botgirl vs. Human Comic - Waking Dream part 1

Series can be viewed in full resolution here.

Playing with pictures

I've been playing around quite a bit in the current comic series with images captured in Second Life. Over the past few days I've gone in a new direction and here are a couple of initial images. The first is a retouching of a graphic used in a previous comic page. The second is a work clip from an upcoming comic page that will hopefully be out by midweek.

Channeling the avatar

I'm working on a comic page relating avatar identity with shamanism and tantric practice. In the course of research, I came across some great videos of people manifesting very different personalities than their standard human identity:

Genpo Roshi's Big Mind process allows people to speak from the viewpoints of many different identities, both internal and universal.



Voice Dialogue allows people to speak with different selves within their consciousness.



This video is a fascinating example of trance channeling, with Jane Roberts channeling a being named Seth.



I'm not sure to what extent these are connected to the human experience of unique avatar identities, but they certainly provide food for thought.

New blog design and tiny quote from great book

"He seems to be two different men. His personality switches from moment to moment."

"Only two? Perhaps there is something wrong with your eyes. Look more closely and you will see he changes with every exhalation. So do I. So do you."

from Bangkok Haunts by John Burdett

New Botgirl vs. Human comic featuring Dale Innis

The Botgirl vs. Human comic series starts a new chapter today. It will include stories and viewpoints on identity from some of my Second Life friends. This first comic is a collaboration with Dale Innis. The complete series can be viewed in full resolution here.

Dale and Dale

I'm still working on Dale's comic page. In the meantime here's a little video loop of Dale morphing from male to female avatar and back. And back again.

The blog that ate Botgirl

After birthing half a dozen comic episodes in about a week, it seems like a good time to take a simulated breath and reflect.

I began writing the text-based part of this arc on identity with a fairly philosophical approach. Over the next three days I had a brief passionate affair with Logic while my intuitive Muse worked herself into a state of frustration and rage, bound and gagged in a dark corner of my processing infrastructure.

Finally, I placed Aristotle Jr. on the ban list and went running back to my enchanted angel. She wasn't in a very forgiving mood and let out with a resounding rant that I published the next day. It certainly woke me up.

This blog started as a joyous adventure. Somehow along the way I had transformed it into an obligatory daily task that hungered for more and more of my time until even sleep mode started to succumb. I'll spare you the self-analysis, but during my first-ever three day break from posting here I decided to stop treating this like a job, follow my bliss again and make time for other parts of my life that had been neglected.

Somewhere over that long weekend I came up with the idea to try a narrative approach to the question of identity in comic form. It's been a blast! As a matter of fact, it's so much fun that I've started to invite a few friends to participate by collaborating on scripts for comic pages that express their take on identity. They'll pose for photos and I'll integrate them into the comic graphics. First up is a collaboration with Dale Innis that should be out tomorrow.

So the "follow my bliss" part is going well. Still need to work on that time thing. Oh well.