A Chilling Thought

All of our experts agree, clicking to enlarge is the way to go!

(Part 4)

That class that hazes together stayses together.

Next week, the series continues!

 - Nolan P.

Owlful Puns

Give a hoot, Click to Enlarge!

(Part 3)

Written by my past self in '08. Direct all complaints to him.

Next week, more Eddie!
 - Nolan P.

What a Hoot

Should you Click to Enlarge? Yes.

(Part 2)

I've gotten a lot of practice thanks to the daily drawings I've been doing since January - all that work has definitely paid off. This week I've been making an effort to put more time in with drawing and getting stuff done. So far so good - I got this comic finished, rebuilt my buffer for daily drawings (I was barely squeaking by for the last month), and started a Possum Tails Tumblr! If you have a tumblr account and don't want to bother with Facebook or Blogger, I'd recommend following it. For now I'm just airing older comics there, but it'll catch up after a month or so.

I've been making the comics for this series in a "Sunday" fashion with shading and other fanciness, simply because I can. It takes quite a bit longer, but I like how it looks. I've found that listening to podcasts while drawing makes it go by a lot quicker.

The difference between this comic and the original (6/5/11)?

Significant.

Stay tuned - new Eddie comic comin' atcha next Friday!
 - Nolan P.

What's In the Fridge?

Do the opposite of not clicking to enlarge.

(Part 1)

If this comic confuses you, it's kind of doing its job. There's not really a punchline here, I'm just kicking off another series.

In other news, Possum Tails is back from its month-long hiatus. I think I learned a bit about perspective over the break. A little bit, anyway. But I can draw the fabled other side of the classroom now, so that's pretty exciting.

If you're wondering why there's a dead owl in the freezer, that's a very reasonable thing to wonder. Owls don't usually inhabit freezers. Even Snowy Owls, which don't seem too bothered by the cold, rarely congregate between the ice cream and tv dinners.

Truth is, Eddie is based off another dead freezer owl by the same name that resided in the real-life Animal Care Class freezer. If I'm remembering the story right, someone called the school about an owl that had flown into a telephone wire, and they came to pick it up. I guess the plan was to use the owl (which didn't survive the accident) for educational purposes or have him stuffed or something, but for whatever reason he was just left in the freezer. Don't worry though, he wasn't alone in there. He had the company of some gouldian finches, a nile monitor, and countless mice and rats. It was kind of a neat little dead petsicle community they had going. Plus, the canned mealworms were chilling out just one room below.

Between the scientific mounts on the walls, the owl in the freezer, the hippo skull on the table, and the daily feederfish, mealworm, and cricket massacres, Animal Care Class had a lot of death in it. But I suppose that's all part of life.

Oh, and for those who are curious, Eddie is portrayed here as an Eastern Screech Owl. (I can't remember the real Eddie's species, it's been too long.) I might try to write about them later.

The series will continue next week. See you then!
 - Nolan P.

Sticks and Stones

 So, like, there's this feature called Click to Enlarge, and it lets you enlarge the image by clicking it, and it's really great and useful, I remember this one time I was talking to this person who needed this image enlarged but didn't have a mouse, would you believe it, so we had to go to the store and get one, but wouldn't you know they were all out, so by that time we had to… hey wait, where are you going?
(Larger view HERE)

Not as colorful as last week's 'Sunday-vision' comment lead on. Sorry about that.

Part two of the series, and a sort-of remake.

By the way, I wouldn't recommend trying to read all of Carly's text. I can assure you, there's not a whole lot of useful information to glean from it. Plus, it'll hurt your eyes.

See you next month with part three!

 - Nolan P.

Glove Hurts

Click to enlarge. It's for your own good.

I guess that counts as a happy ending.

At some point, I want to start using an actual font in the comic instead of drawing each individual letter. For the normal, non-freakout lettering anyway. It'll add some consistency. I'm going to have to find a font making program that works for me, or suck up my pride and hunt down a font that looks good with the comic. Dunno how long that'll take - odds are I won't make the change anytime soon.

Next week, some non-gastrointestinal humor!

...Maybe.

   - Nolan P.

A Moving Performance

When in doubt, click to enlarge.
(Larger view HERE)

Joking aside, GI stasis is a very serious problem in rabbits. But Sammy's gonna be fine, don't worry. I wouldn't kill off any Possum Tails characters. Except Chirpy. Many times.

I realize that this isn't very halloween-y. The holiday's never on my mind anymore, which may be due to the fact that I hardly ever go shopping or watch television. And that I'm old and jaded. So just pretend that Remus in that second panel is screaming at the sight of bats, scarecrows, zombies, hobgoblins, Freddy Kringle, or whatever it is you little punks are afraid of these days.

Next week, the shocking conclusion!
 - Nolan P.

To Boldly Go Where No Possum Really Should

Picture too small? Like most of life's problems, it can be resolved by clicking to enlarge it!

Broke the usual size format again, but I'm willing to change it up for the sake of the joke.

Hopefully I didn't draw too small - this one really depends on the visual. This isn't a "Sunday" comic, but man it sure felt like it when I was drawing it. Eurgh.

Anyway, hope you enjoy, see you next week!

   - Nolan P.

Fish Are Still Boring

You are humanity's last hope! Quick, click to enlarge!

I got extremely frustrated drawing Rontu and Remus consistently, so I've decided to make them a bit more cartoony and stress less over how they come out. I've been way too high-strung with how I draw them. Oh, and sorry about the obviously copy-pasted Remus. I won't be doing that again.

In other news, I didn't sleep. I feel like there's a cement block in my frontal lobe.

So, uh... g'night.

Hgus and Lugnfsih

- Noaln P.

Ah, Memories

ERROR 404 - CLICK TO ENLARGE GAG NOT FOUND

Wire you reading this? The comic's up there! Hur hur.

I still can't find a way to make the cage interior interesting/pleasing to the eye. Oh well, at least I didn't make an accidental fourth dimension or something again.

See you next week.

Hugs and lungfish!

- Nolan P.

Fridays are the Best Kind of Sundays

Click to enlarge. You know you want to.

(Larger view HERE - Just click it to enlarge.)

Whoah man, I think I worked a solid ten hours on this one. I'm happy that it came out well though. My sleep patterns and schedule are back on track, which is awesome! I plan to make large, shaded "Sunday" comics like this on the last Friday of every month to mix it up a bit.

What do you think of the colored speech balloons? Should I keep doing them for "Sundays", or are they too distracting? If you have the time, let me know if you like 'em or not.

Oh, and possumtails.net links to this blog now, so you don't have to say a bunch of gibberish when someone asks for the URL. No hyphen needed!

Enjoy the Spottitude! I'll see you next Friday.

Hugs and lungfish!
 - Nolan P.

A Spot of Tea

Tired from blowing stuff up yesterday? Here's a tarantula drinking tea.

Simon says click to enlarge.

Seems fitting that I'd write a comic about unpleasant arthropods - apparently this week was the official 'House Centipede and Uncomfortably Large Spider Convention' in my room. Whoever invented the vacuum cleaner has my eternal thanks.

I do like tarantulas though. They fall outside of the 'too small to be easily tracked but too big to be ignored' category, they move at a decently slow pace, and they're like big fuzzy spider muppets. I'm still afraid to hold one though, since they might as well be made of glass.

Hey, time for a pop quiz!

What's the difference between the above image and this one below?

About a couple years of practice. Never stop doodling - you get better with every drawing.

Hugs and lungfish!

- Nolan P.

Fish Are Boring

Click to enlarge and make your country proud!

I finished this one kind of early, which is nice... But it doesn't have that same scribbly, sketchy style that the earlier ones have. In fact, the lines here look pretty clean. By my standards, anyway.

Which do you prefer - clean style or sketchy style? Please let me know if you have the time.

Lugs and hungfish!

- Nolan P.

Ever Get That Feeling

Those animals forgot to click to enlarge. Don't share their tragic fate!

Wow. This is pretty graphic. It's weird how used to this kind of thing people have gotten, last time I checked nailing dead animals to the wall sounded a bit psychopathic. Egh... Some things I will never get used to.

Anyway, hi! Looks like Possum Tails is going to be a weekly comic at this rate, hope you don't mind. I can't guarantee that I'll be coming out with a new comic every Friday, but hey, I can try.

I spent what felt like all week erasing and redrawing the first panel over and over, trying to get Remus to look just right. It wasn't until I decided to just say 'To heck with it' and doodle without stressing myself that I made any progress. The trick to drawing is to stop trying and just draw. No matter how many times that lesson is hammered into my head, it never really sticks.

The comic came out pretty nice though. I think I did a bit better with legibility. I put much more detail in than necessary (and visible), but that's not the end of the world. So, yeah. Hopefully next week you'll be seeing another comic. My current plan is to make a brand new one instead of a remake. I figure it's best if I balance them out.

Hugs and lungfish!

- Nolan P.

That New Comic Smell

Click to enlarge.

I guess I was way off when I said this drawing style took less time. It was more fun though, I'll give it that. There are inconsistencies here and there as always, but I'm hoping they won't be too much of a problem.

You might be able to tell that my style and the way I do things kind of changed halfway through. You're probably going to be seeing more of that while I get eased into things, so... sorry. But it means that I'm (hopefully) getting better and more efficient. At any rate, hope you enjoy. I'll try to get another comic out when I can.

- Nolan P.