August 2006 Archives

Not much left of this chapter of Templar. Enjoy. And while we're on the subject... a few quick announcements.

The second chapter of Templar won't be coming along right away.

I'm not taking a hiatus or anything, though. After the first chapter closes out this week, immediately following with be a Templar Intermission: A brief break from the storyline that takes place in the city and showcases some of its features, but not any of the main characters. The first Intermission will be about the Sincerists, a Templar subculture.

It'll probably be done in a different style. Probably all-pencil. But who knows. We'll see.

Oh, and another little something to nudge me a few inches further over into dickhead territory: I'm not so sure about the wiki, anymore.

It's not that I don't want to do it. It's just that... well, I'm probably just going to package all that stuff with the first collected volume in print, along with the first chapter and footnotes, and just make you buy it.

Sorry. :)

Good idea, huh? Wish I could say it was mine. (Thanks, Seth!)

By the way, I'm making over the cast page portraits, too. Not the falling ones; the graphite ones. Reagan's was first. The rest'll come later.

Okay, enough outta me already.

Look, a post that's not about my own shit! IT CAN BE DONE.

There's not much of it, yet, but I'm really liking Uku, by Otto Germain. Then again, I'm kind of easy for wordless comics set in alien environments.

Is anyone else reading this?

Stunned. Into silence.

New Playing with Dolls.

New Templar, and quite nearly late. But I have a good reason. Sort of. You should find out in a few hours or so, anyway.

After I get through this email backlog first, of course.

Weep.

New comic.

This page was surprisingly obnoxious to do, so it's a few hours late. But here it is, all the same. Hope you dig it.

...

I have four rats. One is named Timory. And when I feed him table scraps, he very carefully picks out the green peas and sets them aside, because he can't stand them. So after I gave him a piece of ganmodoki last night, he scarfed down the tofu and carrots, and left a little pile of peas in the corner of his cage.

I like to pretend that this annoys me.

New Templar.

This is probably the closest to sci-fi Templar's "otherness" will ever get. But it's really not that unusual. Sometime in the past, all personal computer monitors were TVs. But eventually, computers needed better support than a TV display could offer, so specialized monitors were made for 'em. The rest is history. For us, anyway. Where Ben lives, I guess the TV people stepped up to the plate, and TVs and computers were never really separated. And the inevitable happened a lot sooner for them than it's happening for us. "Dumb" TVs still exist in Templar, and we'll eventually see 'em, but it's kinda like owning a turntable.

Anyway, that's it for the three-page weeks! For the forseeable future, anyway. I hope you guys enjoyed all the extra pages. You got an extra week and a half of updates out of me this month, and anytime you want more, you know where the tip jar is! I'm game if you are!

By the way, Some Templar ephemera got a shout-out on Gerry Swanson's Protektor Drei, this week. And I really cannot tell you how much that appeals to my bloated, bloated ego.

Okay, so, there's this cartoonist from the Internet, right? And she's this liberal, pacifist, pro-choice, borderline-socialist atheist. And this chick, she walks into a bar with a pro-life, pro-war, conservative fundamentalist. And he's a cartoonist from the Internet, too.

And these two people, the guy and the chick, they sit down together, and the chick, she sez, "You know, you're not such a bad guy."

And the guy, he sez, "You know, the same goes for you!"

...

And then they doodle on the napkins. Cuz cartoonists are all a bunch of big dumb nerds.

Get it? See, the punchline is that was all pretty much totally real. He is a nice guy. For serious.

I've been trading emails with Dan Lacey for a couple of days now. He draws Faithmouse, a pro-life, Christian, political-ish cartoon. And he's in a little bit of trouble. I feel for him, too, since being scarily short on cash is no strange circumstance in my case, either. (I'm a cartoonist, after all. Duh.) But he's trying out that tips-for-toons thing Templar recently took up, and sincerely, I wish him luck. I hope his audience ponys up ferociously and lets him live his dorky dream. I know I enjoy living mine.

Speaking of which: New Templar.

See you guys later.

New Templar, and t-shirt news:

Their idea, not mine. But it's still a good one!

From August 14th through the 28th, input the coupon code SUMMERSALE06 and get 15% off of your order of pretty much anything. Jeepers!

Now would a darn good time to grab yerself a nice new Iron Circus Concessions tee. Five designs to choose from!

Too bad I didn't have the new designs ready yet, but rest assured, a few are coming.

More comics later...

In my defense, I hadn't slept. But I sound motor-mouthed and mumbly anyway in person, so that doesn't mean anything.

Joey Manley, grandmaster of WCN and the Modern Tales family of comic sites, interviewed me for his podcast. We talked about how long Templar's gonna last, why Lucas and Odessa had to die, why Templar's eaten my life completely, the day it took down WCN, John Waters movies, Reagan's heart attack, self-promotion, good and bad wangings, the bafflingly successful tip jar, and more.

Yes, I know what I sound like. LIKE OMIGOD TOTALLY FER SURE. Don't care.

Back to work...

Templar is updating three times this week. Again.

Holy crap, you guys. Holy. CRAP.

Gotta go. Work to do.

I'm a lady of my word: Templar finishes out its second three-update week. Hooray!

I haven't slept. AND THAT'S AWESOME. Not as awesome as doing this to an innocent baby, but still awesome.

Here. Have a huge pile of French animation.

In case some of you didn't already know, I mummified my pet rat, Beavis, in a modified, ancient Egyptian, New Kingdom style a while back, and posted a walkthrough with very, very NWS photos here. Well, poor ol' Beav recently received a brief mention on the August 10th episode of thisisaknife, a BBC 4 video podcast. You can watch for him here.

New Templar page.

I'm listening to the worst OTR (old time radio) show I've heard in a while. It's about a typewriter begging to be brought to life.

It dings insistently when ignored.

"Quiet, Please" has always been a little goofy, but come on. Really.

Y'know what I like? "Dragnet" and "Broadway Is My Beat." They're both cop shows. One's this no-nonsense, reality based pseudo-documentary, lots of dry humor and music stings that sound like the neighbors moving furniture. The other's a melodramatic swell of pulpy nonsense. They're best when they're played back-to-back.

First half-hour, Joe Friday apprehends a teenage car thief. Second half-hour, Detective Danny Clover slogs down "The gaudiest. The most violent. The lonesomest mile in the world."

He's like a Tom Waits album with a badge.

You can listen to 64 different episodes of "Broadway Is My Beat" here. Alternate 'em with these for best effect.

Gotta get back t'work. Later.

New Templar.

In other news, I had my first naked-in-a-public-place dream ever.

I was grocery shopping with friends, when I suddenly realized I didn't have any clothes on. And all I had to cover myself with was one of my sketchpads.

Not exactly somethin' we'll need to call the Windtalkers in to decode, is it?

Anyway, enjoy. New comics soon.

In under the wire: Page 3!

Kinda blowing the load, here. Bye bye, ambiguity. Most of it, anyway. But hell, you've waited 76 pages for it.

This is the third page this week, and I updated three times because of the AVALANCHE OF DONATIONS my brand new tip jar was subjected to. Thanks, guys! You've got another one comin', too, so keep watching.

Templar updated.

Still on track for a three-page week. Stay tuned.

The tip jar hit a hundred bucks for the second time, today. So that's TWO weeks of three-page updates, now. That's like a whole extra week of the comic, this month.

Holy hell. I did not expect this sort of response. At all. You are all extremely strange people. But thank you. Thank you very, very much. I promise to fufill my obligations.

I usually suck at that sort of thing, but half of you probably know where I live. INCENTIVE.

Yeah, I'm still being a dick about that paper bag. I'm sorry. Don't worry, though. Won't be long now.

This is a three-page week, thanks to your generous donations, so I'm getting an early start. I'd like to hit Wizard World Chicago this weekend, so I have a lot to do if I don't wanna be stuck indoors on Saturday.

Thank you again, you guys. I really appreciate your attention and support.