Detecting Phantasmic Activity in proximity to the Web

OK, I surrender. I'm twittering now. I'm sure it's the kind of thing everyone will find utterly fascinating.

Perhaps less insipid content can be found at Chud, where Thor's Comic Column lives on. (Even though that particular page doesn't list me among the contributors for some reason....) New columns go up every Friday.

I'm working on a couple of big projects, one for an ongoing client, another for a potential client (which will be really cool if it gets off the ground), and a third which is entirely personal, a gift for my sister and her new husband, who just got hitched over the weekend. In case you were wondering what's been occupying my time. It's a pair of nifty-looking Art Nouveau-ish posters, and I'll post 'em as soon as they're finished.

As for strips, as you may have noticed, a new Freak U. went up today, and I'm hopefully back on track from this point on. New Lemuria on April 4th. I'm still trying to get the backlog of strips coloured in, don't know how long that'll be, but I'm trying to get it done soonish. Possibly by the end of April, at which point I plan to unleash a marketing blitz on the web. Stay tuned.

As Promised....

...you can now buy Freak U. Volume 2 in a handsome 192-page trade paperback format. By clicking on that link. Right there. Or this picture:



Go do. Need money.

Excuses, Excuses...

So Sunday afternoon I get home from a baby shower* with the coming week largely clear of obligations, professional and personal. "All right!" I think. "I can use this week to catch up and get get ahead on my webcomics!" So I sit down and pencil this week's Freak U. and Lemuria, going great guns, all fired up to keep the pace going for the next few days...and by the time evening falls, I'm feeling an ominous tickle in my throat...

Monday morning I awaken to find myself buried under a pile of bricks. On closer inspection, the bricks turn out to be mucus, and Monday turns out to be Wednesday. Possibly time travel was involved. As far as I can remember.

At any rate, the biohazard seems to have receded to the point today where I can actually accomplish something beyond turning over frequently enough not to get bedsores. (OK, I exaggerate--I was briefly online, but I wasn't up to doing much of anything that didn't involve pressing a button or two.)

I mention all this because, despite the inauspicious start, I still have a fair amount of free time this week, and I'm hoping to use it so that you guys don't have to see anymore non-updated strips. Famous last words, I know...

Just so as not to leave this post as a bunch of whinging, here's a bit of linkblogging. The website Comics Alliance has made the wise move of employing comics blogger extraordinaire Chris Sims, and he, along with main editor Laura Hudson and...other guy Caleb Goellner, have been providing the vital public service of mocking some of the more idiotic and poorly-researched coverage of comics that have been popping up in the mainstream media of late. First they took on this eye-gougingly smarmy and cliche-packed CNN article, and now they've tackled a less absurd but still fairly dumb article about Mark Millar.

Oh, and speaking of ambitious plans of my own and entertaining comics blogging, I have a rather epic post about Tintin that should be going up in the next day or two. Yeah, Tintin. Can you stand the excitement?

*It's now pretty much normal for men to go to baby showers, right? I mean, I'm aware that's not how it was done, traditionally, but that tradition seems to have existed primarily because society wanted to keep baby-rearing squarely the responsibility of the ladies, which makes it pointless and outdated. And I've been to several amongst my baby-having friends. I'm not part of some cutting-edge progressive commune (contrary to what Americans seem to think of Canada) so I have to assume this is basically normal amongst my generation now.

The Lens Cap of My Blog Was On

OK! The first Lemuria story, "Slaves of the Demon God", is (basically) finished. I'm hoping to complete all the colouring and so on by the end of this week. Then I go full tilt into finishing the backup story for the print comic--which, for you to see, will require you to buy it! This story will be set in Lemuria, but feature a different set of characters--I guess it's a Terry Pratchett sorta thing. (Ironic, because I'm not really a huge fan of Pratchett, and I didn't set out to emulate him in any way.)

However, Swordi and Sorcera will remain the primary characters, and their new adventure will be hitting the web early next month--I'll tentatively say August 3rd, though that may change. The working title is "Entangled by the Tourist Trap".

From there on out, I'll be updating once-weekly, probably on mondays. The pattern will remain the same--Swordi and Sorcera on the web, other stories that fill out the world of Lemuria (and will cross over with the S&S stories eventually!) will be print-only. The first of these is a 13 pager about two other important characters who will also be recurring in the Lemuria stories, Hummu Stitchthrice and Hordo of Atlantis. I'll let you know when this is available to buy!

As for everything else: Freak U. will update twice-weekly when Lemuria isn't running, and downgrade to once-weekly (on Wednesdays, I think) when it is. To be honest, one of the reasons I'm a bit spotty with updating the current storyline is that I'm rehashing the script pretty heavily. I do have an outline worked out for all this, but it's amazing how much it changes and shifts when I sit down to thrash out the details in script form. For instance, there have now been several occasions when a character was meant to be killed, or turn out to be more villainous than they ended up being, but I ended up having too much affection for them and shifted the story. I've mentioned Brandina, who was going to be Smiley's first victim and ended up a major character; Mo was going to die at the end of Book One as punishment for colluding with Smiley; and most recently, we've got Ruy, who was intended as more of an antagonist (though he was always going to be conflicted and sympathetic). But you know what? I'm not Joss Whedon or Brian K. Vaughn, as much as I love those guys. Freak U. is meant to be more simply lighthearted and comedic, and I don't want to fall into what Eric Burns calls "First and Ten Syndrome" (when a formerly lighthearted strip gets really angsty and dramatic and horrible things happen to the characters). There might be room for a sweet or sad moment, but I don't want them to overwhelm the strip.

Which means less struggling with The Dark Side and more rocking out. Of course, there's also the advantage that now I get to introduce the completely ridiculous and completely AWESOME Vatican Vampire Hit Squad to be the main source of conflict, in a last minute addition to this storyline. Of course, now the Ghost of Whedon is once again looming over the proceedings. Damn you, Whedon, get out of my brain!

(For the record--at least one character has actually gotten darker and nastier than they were intended to be originally. I'll leave it to you to look over Book Two and decide who that is, though I'll reveal it pretty unambiguously at the very end of Book Two.)

Oh, and then there's poor Night Shift, my bastard spawn. I always assume it'll take less time for me than it does because it's so easy to draw...but unfortunately, it's probably hardest to write. Because I have to be funny. In four boxes. Every freaking day. But anyway, it's going to update from next week (starting July 20th) through to whenever Lemuria starts up again. That will be the pattern for a while--Lemuria takes a few weeks off, Night Shift fills the gap.

As for Critterville, I'd really really like to do more stories, but obviously it's forced to be a bit of a low priority right now. Maybe once Freak U. Book Two wraps up?