unix_surrealism

Strict diet:

n/a

In the year 2532, an elder of a tribal village in the Wild calls for a young child. The girl is told to venture into the world to seek out the mythical FISH of the blowfish clan. After an eventful journey, she tracks it down and enters into the FISH's tutelage to learn the trade of a unix techno-mage (a role highly persecuted by the gov-corp).

The actual origin of this particular Puffy is uncertain, but it's generally understood to be the last of its kind. The girl only refers to it as 'Master'. In several issues of 'Techno-Mage' it is revealed that the FISH is indeed mechanical, but as most free machines of this age, possesses full sentience - (see 'Techno-Mage in AMBUSH: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/336634).

The girl eventually grows up and becomes the revered Techno-Mage, to an extent a blowfish herself, certainly thanks to the OpenWellington brainbus inside her forehead, which was in her youth used to install OpenBSD inside her [brain].

In episode #92 'Root', when the Master is gone and the mage is an adult, it is revealed that the MATA corporation managed to recover a baby-Puffy. The mage sets out to rescue it and raise it herself. This is the little Puffy seen to accompany the Techno-Mage in certain portrayals. The baby could be perceived as the mage's system, but due to its machine sentience, it is not referred to as such.

The mage does have a laptop from 2006, given to her by the Master during her studies, which runs a BSD system, hostname 'Spike.'

Yes. In fact most of the pictures here are made on freebsd. The few monochrome ones are drawn in uxn on openbsd. or 9front, which I like to use to remind myself I'm too stupid to use computers.

Mostly in the future, but you can try: https://merveilles.town/tags/unix_surrealism

The longer comics have mostly been sourced from story boards I sketched in surrealism ~2 years ago. Generally speaking, I will begin with sketching the characters in a seemingly random situation with no pretense and when ideas appear of what the single panel might be a part of, I indulge them and continue. In a way I understand this as opening a window into a world and progressively peeking through more and more.

I spoke about comic-surrealism here https://analognowhere.com/unix_surrealism/ , trying to dispel the idea that the output should be a pile of arbitrarily placed pixels. I use the characters as a medium or a tool for creating a surrealistic output. Ie: I know I will draw Girl and Fish, but not in what situation.

Most of the initial work is still done on paper. And most of it, like you suggest, never makes it into the world of Analog Nowhere.

For the more topical ideas, my mind is indeed not entirely free. Like the MATAVPS comic ( https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/14480541 ), but in that instance as opposed to the characters, I use the topic as my medium and let my hand construct the situation around it.

If it makes sense for you, sure!

Look, I make these drawings with not much clue. If you can find any meaning in them, that warms my heart.

You can't do surrealism wrong. You either do it, or you don't. 😈