February 2008 Archives

But if you're on his good side, he'll go to bat for you, even when he probably shouldn't. He's weird that way. Under the facade of Wimpy Kitten lurks the heart of a... Well, I'm not sure. But he's got one. Definitely.

Hey, bit of very surprising news just came down the pipe: I've been telling people that MoCCA was a no-go for me, but it turns out my buddy Dirk scored a table, and he's willing to split it! So look for me in New York in June! Woo, EXCITEMENT. This was very unexpected, but very welcome. Maybe I'll see some of you there?

Hopefully I'll even have the second book ready by then. Speaking of which, that's what this weekend's for: Getting the new cover art for book 2 and re-doing chapter 2 art. Eesh, so much work.

By the way, you guys are reading Barbarian Diary, Anders Loves Maria and Octopus Pie, right? Cuz DANG.

Provided she's sufficiently pissed at you, that is.

If you listen closely enough, you can practically hear Ray freezing over completely at the mention of Pippi's name.

When we last left the giant pansy and the living id, they were walking down the hall and discussing screwed-up kids. Let's rejoin them, shall we?

Computer's fixed and thing are back on schedule, folks. Hard drive is fine, no data lost; the power supply just futzed out due to a preexisting manufacturer's defect, like the customer support guy suspected. I got to spend a week building a buffer of pages, too. So, for at least a few more days, expect me to actually update ON SCHEDULE.

I know, I'm freaked out, too.

I have to thank you guys not only for your patience, but for the definite and noticeable bump in sales while I was out of commission, and the gift that arrived offa my Amazon wishlist while I was maybe 80-90% offline. It was this, which I had basically wanted for-freaking-EVER and put on my list after getting back from Quimby's. I'd seen it there, fallen in love, checked the price, and wailed in horror when putting it right back of the shelf. (Before you snort back a laugh, that was 2004. My poverty was pretty significant, back then.)

I'm going to have to start spewing back out all of this great stuff I've been poring over for the past several months, hopefully in the form of Etsy output. It'll have to wait, but stay tuned.

A lot's been going on while I've been away.

The Webcartoonist Choice Awards voting period closed and I didn't get to do my usual barnstorming for votes, which sucks. But that's okay.

Cartoonist Jess Fink got ripped off yet again, this time by Hot Topic. She's found herself a lawyer though, so this should be worth watching. I strongly suspect the Todd Goldman "A junior designer submitted it, we had no idea, we can't check on everything!" defense will be used.

The first movie based on a webcomic's been making the rounds. It's South Korean, but that hasn't stopped it from planting unrealistic expectations in heads worldwide. I'm sorta glad it's not American, because our movie execs tend to paint with the widest brush possible. If this thing did poorly with a Hollywood production company at the helm, "Nobody wants to see movies based on webcomics!" would probably be chipped into a tablet on a mountaintop somewhere, right next to "2D animation is dead" and "Everything translates well to live-action."

And I am pleased to announce that the last of the first book's finalized commissions will ship this week, barring horrible mishap. Hooray!

Now all that's left to do is ship a few more books to Diamond, finish prepping the second book for print, get my UPC codes ready, keep updating thrice-weekly, work on my side projects after a week of no communication with my partners...

Good God.

No Templar updates for a bit, possibly a week. I'll also, somehow, be managing to be even worse about email than usual. Sorry guys, it can't be helped.

My Dell Optiplex (hilariously enough, recommended to me for its reliability and stability) blew out its power supply and motherboard around 6:00 AM this morning, with page 44 of the newest chapter about 90% toned. This would be understandable if it were old, but my relatively new tower just managed to shave about a year off of my previous record of "fewest months between purchase and catastrophic hardware failure" when it comes to computer problems.

The guy on the phone assured us twice that this was "rare," but shit, obviously not so rare that he didn't instantly know what we were talking about when we called.

Good job, Dell.

Fortunately, the stupid thing is still under warranty. Unfortunately, the tech won't be here for it until Tuesday, at which point he may or may not take the damned thing with him.

Worst case scenario, I'm out of commission until Friday, possibly later. Best, I'm back Tuesday afternoon-to-evening. In either case, I don't have much to do now except ink pages and prep them for scanning and coloring that I am currently incapable of.

Yeah. Not much to say other than that.

Well, other than to mention I attempted to hug my dog for solace shortly after the flameout, and he farted on me.

D:

And now, my husband gets his computer back. See you in a few, guys.

Even if it's being delivered with rolled eyes and a sneer.

Scip and Ray are about to get into it, because they basically just can't help themselves. let's see if I can make either of their positions even remotely defensible, shall I?

Hi, guys. Still behind, but posting as both a heads-up and a thank-you: I've been nominated for three Webcartoonist's Choice Awards! It's probably not cool to care, but I've never been cool, so there's no point in pretending now. I'm up for Outstanding Writer, Outstanding Character Writing, and Outstanding Long Form Comic. Voting starts February 8th, so expect me to start being especially insufferable around then.

Back to work...

I'll post an update, even though I'm not caught up, yet. ARGH. Sorry, guys.

But I have some news and excuses and stuff you guy might want to hear.

If you've been following my Twitter in the past few days, you may have noticed me mention having to deal with post office customer service. That's because my mail service was inexplicably fucked for about a month; it seemed to be a combination of the USPS convinced that I'd changed addresses, and all the mail I sent from my home address (as opposed to walking it down to the post office) either not arriving or taking ridiculously long to arrive. A phone call cleared it up, though, and all the packages I've been holding on to went out today.

What went wrong? NO IDEA. But hey, I didn't pay my electric or phone bill this month, because it never arrived! Let's see if they shut my lights and phone off!

Sigh.

More news: In case I've yet to mention it (and I think I have), I'm mirroring Templar on both Drunk Duck and Comics Genesis. This is mostly for self-promo reasons, and it's updating with the comic's full backlog. So, yeah.

Also, Templar is now in comic shops! Some, anyway. I'm getting reports of them showing up in Canada and New Jersey, at the very least! THANK YOU to everyone who ordered copies. Buy them in the stores, most of those bastards are undercutting me. :D

And a new shirt is in progress, and it'll probably be Templar-related; in-world merchandise, like a Borndown shirt or somesuch. If you guys have a preference, let me know.

Oh yeah, and I'm doing things. Well, WRITING things, really. Writing these.

One's a webcomic, one's a print project. Both are gestating nicely. Neither will stop Templar, though. More on both quite soon, possibly by the end of next month. The artists are Stevie Wilson and Dan St. Clair, and they are both very awesome people.

Okay, this post is long enough. Maybe Friday's update will turn up on Saturday. God, I hope so.