[TRENCHES] Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - Guest Art - Alex Hobbs

Geth

Guest Art - Alex Hobbs
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/guest-art-alex-hobbs

Aimed at no one in particular

Anonymous

Here’s a small tidbit of advice/a mercy plea: If you have an idea for a game, or opinions on how people SHOULD be doing things in the games industry, the people working at EB Games don’t care. Please don’t
share it with them.

Especially if you’re a crazy person who comes in every day and doesn’t stop talking until you run out of things to say, regardless of circumstance, and once followed me around the entirety of Walmart talking about how cool Beast from X-Men is without even noticing that I was acting distant and actively taking evasive maneuvers around corners that I had no reason to go around otherwise.

And double especially don’t somehow get a job at the HMV right nearby and act like you’re friends with me and start up reminiscing banter when I’m trying to browse through the games or books section so often that it gets to the point that I have to stake out the store by pretending to be on my phone just outside to check and make sure you’re not working because you make me uncomfortable and I like my personal space and forced small talk is by far my biggest pet peeve!

Also you smell like uncooked ham and I hate you!!!

agoaj

Beast is pretty cool.

Secretagentman

I'm still puzzling over the "uncooked ham" comment: is that a completely obnoxious way of saying the annoyance smelled like a recently deceased pig?

zepherin

It sounds like the tales writer is kind of an asshole, but lacks the social skills to express himself. Be yourself bro he will catch the hint once he gets to know the real you.

Also beast is awesome.

Liquidcool

The art is amazing.

Crafty

Secretagentman wrote: »

I'm still puzzling over the "uncooked ham" comment: is that a completely obnoxious way of saying the annoyance smelled like a recently deceased pig?

Maybe it's the aromatic symptom of some chemical imbalance?

ArbitraryDescriptor

I am assuming that the floating music holder is a sentient familiar, because the alternative is unacceptable.

I will name mine Sheets.

Dark Raven X

Wooow. Alex has improved a helluva lot in a very short time. The art here and his Elimination Comic in Strip Search are night and day.

Gosling

Dark Raven X wrote: »

Wooow. Alex has improved a helluva lot in a very short time. The art here and his Elimination Comic in Strip Search are night and day.

They touched on his rapid rate of progress just by the time he'd gotten to them in the elimination interview. If Alex is not the most talented last-place contestant reality TV has ever seen, he's certainly in the team photo.

Tofystedeth

Well he also only had 90 minutes in his elimination comic. But, yeah, he's a pretty great artist.

Tofystedeth

Also basically everything about these musical weapons is perfect. Especially the maceracas wielded by a trihatted sloth.

marsilies

Secretagentman wrote: »

I'm still puzzling over the "uncooked ham" comment: is that a completely obnoxious way of saying the annoyance smelled like a recently deceased pig?

From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ham#Uses

Preserved ham can be cooked (although there is no requirement), and usually requires washing in water to remove salt. Whole fresh pork leg is also served cooked as gammon, known as ham in the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gammon_(meat)

Gammon (ham in the United States), is the cooked leg of pork, and is differentiated from ham by being cooked, rather than preserved uncooked.

So the author of the tale could've been using the phrase "uncooked ham" to distinguish it from gammon, or to indicate that the preserved ham in question hasn't been cooked.

fightinfilipino

funny thing is about the Tales, i feel like it's usually the store associate that feels the need to drone on about "the game industry" or his or her favorite JRPG or whatnot.

every single time i walk into a GameStop, just to browse or out of boredom even, i'll be accosted.

dude i just want to look at the box art and maybe see how overpriced your used 3ds carts are goddamn

marsilies

No new comic today, but a new tale:

A Real Go Getter.
10/24/2013 - Anonymous

I was hired on by a company that is famous for it sports games. I was excited because fresh out of school (a school that offered art & game design) I was able to get a job in the industry that I loved so much. I tackled my game testing position with great zeal.

I was finding many bugs and felt overall very productive.This went on for a few months. My superiors called me into the office one day “We like your enthusiasm and you have an excellent bug count, we would like to move you to another game to help finish up a title that needs some work before we launch in couple months.”. I thought to myself “cool my work here is appreciated”, so I agreed and in the next couple of days I moved to the new title and started my work with a new found excitement.

After a couple of weeks of testing the online portion of the game I had come to realize that 90% of the [bugs] had been found and cataloged, even then I found some bugs and felt I was being helpful.

One day I get called into the office and was asked ” We noticed that your bug counts have been low lately would you care to elaborate?”, I responded ” Well I have found some bugs, but you brought me in late into this games cycle and obviously there won’t be as many bugs for me to find. I will try to crank up my bug count for for you.” Then my bosses said ” Keep up the good work, we like your enthusiasm.” and sent me on my way.

The next day I get called in again ” Your bug count is not up to our standards, I’m sorry we are going to have to let you go”.

One word of advice, beware of platitudes.

To me, the real lesson should be "beware of idiot supervisors". Looking at just bug count without any other context is just dumb.

fightinfilipino wrote: »

funny thing is about the Tales, i feel like it's usually the store associate that feels the need to drone on about "the game industry" or his or her favorite JRPG or whatnot.

It's all relative, and anecdotal. Perhaps this particular store associate isn't the social type that would bug you. However, having worked retail, I can say that you do have to deal with the crazies. 99% of customers are fine, but those 1% of customers that are crazy can demand something like 80% of your energy.

Shadowfire

Crazy perhaps, but also generally harmless. And they tended to be my best customers.

Psykoma

I remember one guy at EB games last week while I was there.
Dude took like half an hour at the cash, getting the cashier to place pretty much every skylander figurine on the counter, then he'd arrange them, examine them, and occasionaly give her one back and ask for another one.
It was pretty annoying cuz they only had two cashiers and a long line was forming, but in the end he must have bought at least a thousand dollars worth of that stuff, no doubt he was probably their best customer that week.

The crazy ones can definitely be profitable.

Regdren

For the second story, it didn't seem like the supervisor was just being dumb about using bug count as the only measure of useful work. I think it looks more like the supervisor just wanted to get rid of the story writer and used the transfer and bug count as an excuse.