Since JUNE?!? Yikes.

And then there was the time I stopped blogging for four months.

I have to admit that my heart isn't in blogging and tweeting and all the online social stuff the way it is with producing my webcomics. (Not that I've been updating those particularly consistently either...) I often feel like I'm generating a lot of content that's sort of pointless and redundant and nothing to do with my real strengths. There are so many good, intelligent bloggers out there that it can get a little intimidating.

But by the same token, I've realized that I do spend a lot of time commenting on message board threads and whatnot, so why not just organize my thoughts elsewhere into coherent blog posts? Voila, free content.

Combine that with actually freeing up some time after a month and a half of being incredibly busy with illustration projects, and having some big projects on the boils, and I think I'm ready to do this again.

OK, so, where is we?

--I broke down and got a DeviantArt page. I still have some problems with DA, not the least of which is the name (which far too many contributors seem to take literally...part of the reason I resisted this for a long time is not wanting to get linked in any way to, say, people who draw anime furry panty shots), but it IS a good way to network and promote yourself as an artist, so what the hell. And immediately on the heels of sneering at people's sexy drawings, here's a bunch of sexy drawings I did for a local band (the somewhat less sexy cover of the album is here.) (Wait, I apologize to the band members of Disphraxia for suggesting they aren't sexy.)

--I'm on twitter, too, @prankster36 . I've always felt Twitter to be a bit of a waste of time, but again, promotional tool. Plus, I was reading an article with...I think it was Patton Oswalt, and he opened my eyes a bit, pointing out that Twitter can be a valid medium for expression, encouraging conciseness and discipline.

--I'm still cranking out reviews for Thor's Comic Column on Chud.com; over the past two months, of course, I've weighed in a bit on The New 52 (short version: it could have revolutionized comics, and instead DC decided to offer up a heapin' helping of the same-old, same-old, served with a generous dollop of sexism and a truly laughable nostalgia for the early 90s, which aren't ever coming back comics people.) In terms of comics that are actually good? G. Willow Wilson and Pablo Rivera's Mystic has been a wonderful surprise, an intelligent fantasy comic that actually manages to achieve a clever political subtext (as in, tied up with political concerns with our world, even though it's set in a fantastical universe) in an elegant and non-preachy way that you can totally ignore if you just want to read a comic that is basically Harry Potter meets Mean Girls, which is what this is. And Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba's (and Fabio Moon's, though he's not drawing this arc) awesomely mind-melting Casanova has returned with a new miniseries, Avaritia, that tops the already-exemplary work these guys were doing. I just read the first of Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius novels, and it's obvious that Fraction is basically attempting to do one of those, except on acid (and they were pretty trippy to begin with). READ THIS COMIC, people.

--I'm planning to participate in NaNoWriMo, though not in the conventional way. For me it'll be NaNoReNoWriMo (National Not Really a Novel Writing Month). More to come.

--Also probably of interest to no one but a certain blonde Dutch lady: you are the best girlfriend ever. Love you, sweetheart. And I promise I won't grow a mustache for next month.

Here endeth the lesson. Go forth and multiply.