Sunday, October 26, 2008

Finally, back from PhreakNIC! (Also, the complete #104...)

Just in case nobody believed me when I said I did the shirts. :-p

Apologies for the "incompleteness" of #104... apparently the internet connection at the convention, in addition to being a source of much pwnage, was going down more than a... well, let's just say I'm happy the amount that DID get through included enough content that you were still able to enjoy it. Either way, I've fixed it and provided an intact version of #104.

(I'm also going to have to remind myself that no matter how urban the location, how connected to the internet I am, or how smart the hackers I'm with are, to either upload the page BEFORE leaving town or else finally figure out how to automate updates. It ain't worth the headache otherwise.)

As always, if you love what you see, go ahead and leave a comment on the forums or right here.

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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Convention Alert: PhreakNIC is October 24-25!

There's one more convention to hit for this year: PhreakNIC's up in Nashville this weekend, and things are... a little different this time around.

Namely, guess whose art made the convention shirts?

Sorry I couldn't tell you folks sooner (well, unless you already caught wind of it on Twitter or otherwise), but it'll be hard to keep under wraps after this weekend for obvious reasons. I expect things to be low-key (since it's a small convention), but safe to say I'm thrilled.

... And yes, there shouldn't be any delays in the comic as a result. It's a hacker convention after all; I'll find an internet connection somewhere, I'm sure.

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Saturday, October 18, 2008

#103, where we separate the women from the... um...

Stomachaches suck. Fortunately I don't sick easily.

She looks like she's about to lose her lunch though. Among other things.

Just a quick update, so you all can head onto the forums without further delay. Also, hello to all the new folks visiting this from BarCamp Atlanta -- all three of you! :-p

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Saturday, October 11, 2008

#102 is on the loose!

As time goes by, it becomes more obvious that the strips aren't getting done any faster so much as it is the art's improving and expanding to take up whatever time saved.

That or I spend more time than is healthy talking to certain folks about the pages I'm currently working on instead of just doing said pages. One or the other.

Anyway, we've got a new page up; tonight's is up a little early since I'm hanging out with the fellow behind Pearls of Mer, and then it's back to the drawing board to get caught back up.

See you folks next week!

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Saturday, October 4, 2008

#101 is up, and we're at the Palace!

Here we are again!

For those of you paying attention, the old Entrecard box has disappeared... for now, anyway. I'm trying a little experiment with the folks at Palace in the Sky, and if it works out, I'll be one happy artist.

Now if only I could get my buffer back up...

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Friday, October 3, 2008

Don't Start Your Webcomic Without Reading This!

Only at my college could the following happen in the span of one day:
  • One friend asked me (via facebook) about how to find an artist for their webcomic.
  • Another one asked about how I started mine, since they already have some webspace and want to put it to use by also starting their own.
  • Both of these people are not only reasonably intelligent, but female.
Hooray feminism! But that's beside the point.

The point I'm making today is that both of these girls have already made the same mistakes most creators make -- that is, that they've already decided to start their projects with certain limitations in mind. There's nothing wrong with acknowledging your own limitations or recognizing outside limitiations, but there's no reason to invent new ones out of whole cloth. Some limitations aren't really limitations -- you may have sunk some money into webspace or a domain name already, but that's not a limitation you have to live with since you can always buy new hosting or a new URL.

But deciding you already need an artist for your webcomic?

That's a big decision you'll have to live with in regards to your comic and its lifespan. That's not to say that artist/writer pairs are inherently bad or that pairing with somebody versus going alone will make or break you... but it IS saying that it's something that should require plenty of thought beyond "I can't draw, but I want to make a comic, therefore I need an artist!"

There's a lot of decisions that can be seen this way; the concept that webcomics must be like newspaper comics. That there's no room for anything but superheroes in "mainstream" comics, so you have to emulate them to get anywhere. That this genre is superior to that genre and you can't make a strip about this or else you'll get raided by 4chan or that the only webcomics that succeed are video game webcomics. What size and what format and what update frequency your comic will be. And yes, no matter what you do, in order to actually start you'll need to make a certain number of decisions before you post the first comic.

Ironically, deciding what your comic actually means usually isn't one of them. It should be.

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