08.30.2010 - Terrence Marks:
Forum registration now works once again. I think something broke when I patched it. I've manually activated a bunch of accounts, so if you registered but didn't get the email it's cool. If you haven't registered yet, now's the best time.

08.26.2010 - Terrence Marks:
So what happened?

Well, after going to work six hours early for training on Wednesday, we finally had a two-day weekend. This means we got to catch up on all the errands we've needed to run. It was a full day of car maintenance, buying of glasses, and a bunch of other things that are even less interesting.

I think we've mentioned our new cat, Frankie, who we got a few weeks ago. We found a tapeworm on him. He brought them with him when we got him. This isn't, strictly, a medical emergency. It is, however, gross and creepy and needs to be dealt with immediately. So we've spent the last several hours dealing with this instead of working on comics. Trust me - we'd rather be working on comics

Random thoughts:

When you're cleaning out your fridge, if you toss out "anything that would trigger a con check", you're a probably gamer.

When you're cleaning out your fridge, if you toss out "anything that would trigger a save vs. petrification", you're probably an old-school gamer.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance has a girl with white hair who dyes it pink and hides that from her friends because she feels ashamed. Namir Deiter has a white hare who dyes herself pink and hides that from her friends because she feels ashamed. Total coincidence, I'm sure, but it's funny how things go sometimes.

08.18.2010 - Terrence Marks:
A Duel in the Somme is live! You know that secret project we mentioned a while back? It's this - a collaboration between some amazing webcartoonists and a legendary science fiction author. The comic is written by Rob Balder and Ben Bova, based on a story by Ben Bova, illustrated by Bill Holbrook, and colored by us!

08.16.2010 - Terrence Marks:
Firstly, we've got public forums. They've been very private and very well hidden until now so they're a bit empty. You're invited to help make them less empty.

Secondly, we've got a new poll up at NamirDeiter.net.

08.01.2010 - Terrence Marks:
Firstly, we're working on Duel in the Somme, a comic book written by Rob Balder and Ben Bova, and drawn by Bill Holbrook. It's going to be awesome.

Secondly, I've been working six days a week for the last few weeks. Unfortunately, I've been too busy to tell you how busy I am. I'm sorry things have been quiet around here lately.

Thirdly, we're running five days a week in August, which gives us a little time to catch our breath here. See you Monday!

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06.25.2010 - Terrence Marks:

So, what have I been up to? Plenty, but I'm too busy to really sit back and reflect upon it. I helped Misty and Bombur get the new Coming Up Violet site up (yes, that was one of my Secret Projects). I'm writing Brent: Agent of B.U.R.R. over on NamirDeiter.net. We've got a short preview up here. There were some issues with the RSS feed showing things late and/or twice. I've made some changes that hopefully should fix that. If you have this issue for Thursday's comics or later, let me know which RSS reader you're using. Been playing Super Mario RPG, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, and Pokemon Pearl (the Battle Tower is the best thing I've got for playing while you're on a treadmill) Watched The Magnificent Seven the other day. Seven Samurai is, by far, a better movie. I understand most of the changes they made to it: the Japanese caste system doesn't really translate to the Wild West. Some plots had to be cut because of length. And they couldn't get Toshiro Mifune. His character really makes the original movie, and his American counterpart isn't as vibrant or as pivotal. But then again, The Magnificent Seven has Yul Brynner. Now, if you're my age or younger, Yul Brynner is just a punchline to bald jokes - when I saw that he was playing the leader of The Seven, I said to Isabel, "At least he won't have to shave his head"*. But if this movie came out in 1985 instead of 1960, the Internet would be full of Yul Brynner facts instead of Chuck Norris facts. *: Which, if you've seen both movies, is hilarious. Trust me.

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05.29.2010 - Terrence Marks:

I'm thinking about adding social networking links to the sites.

Reasons against: There hasn't been any great outcry for it. There are some comics that flourish in social networks. For instance, if I did a comic about Babylon 5 you'd send it to your friend Joe, because he's all about Babylon 5. Or street hockey. Or some other thing that you and your friends share. Y'know, social networking. You Say it First is, generally speaking, not that kind of comic. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there are a bunch of you who resell fragrance compounds and Lemon Technology is just like your workplace, and your coworkers would really get a kick out of it. Secondly, our comics are severely continuity-based. Some of them stand on their own pretty well, but most of them - some of my favorites - require context. It'd be like photocopying page 83 of your favorite book, handing that to your friends and hoping that they enjoy it. We're not poised to go viral in a way that some other comics are. That's just not how we work here. Thirdly, I've seen how easy it is to post a link to Facebook. Do you really need a button for that? Are there people who say to themselves "My friends would really get a kick out of this. But copying and pasting is it too much trouble so I'm not going to bother"? I mean, if they're there I'll add it - I'm not above pandering to the lazy demographic. Reasons for: I'm reminded of the famous Howlin' Wolf album: "This is Howlin' Wolf's new album. He doesn't like it. He didn't like his electric guitar at first either." I mention that because it is the awesomest album title ever. Also, it's relevant to the discussion, but I was going to mention it next change I got anyhow. But my point is that just because I might not get something at first, but that doesn't mean it's useless. I don't want to be the last guy making silent films because I think talkies are just a fad. On the other hand, things aren't inherently useful just because I don't get them (cf. Laserdiscs, Windows Vista, hypercolor shirts). Which brings me into reason against #2: The easy way of doing this - the prepackaged solutions let folks share to about two hundred social networking sites. I was unaware that there were that many. I have never heard of 90% of the sites they list. I'm putting my name with these things I've never heard of and don't know anything about. And if I'm trying to hype myself on a site I've never heard of, I look like a poseur and a shill. It'd make me feel like an unhip corporation trying to rebrand itself into a youth culture that it doesn't try to understand. But that's a reason for: As the social networking environment changes - and I'm sure it will - I can either let the try to keep up with it by myself, fall behind, or go with a prepackaged widget that does the work for me. I've spent more time thinking about how to do this than I it would take to implement any of the above solutions, so I'm going to leave it here. Since this is something that you guys would use, what do you think? Comment

05.17.2010 - Terrence Marks:

What have I learned?

Firstly, I want to say thank you. You guys rock. I mean that. I know we don't have a lot of interact-with-each-other stuff here, so you might feel like you're the only one reading this. You aren't. You're part of a movement. There's a bunch of other people with you. And they're cool. I was amazed at how nice everyone was. The comments - I read them all - were all positive. Nobody said that we suck. So this either means that we don't suck, or that people who think we suck were seriously under-represented in the survey. And in my experience on the internet, people who think you suck aren't shy telling you so. We also didn't get anyone who put "much less" for all the characters. I was expecting that. I was going to post a version of today's comic with just backgrounds, no characters and call it "Hey, Joey - this one's for you" or something like that. Didn't happen. Secondly, how much are we taking from the survey? Some. It's tough, as a creative type I can't really go with either extreme. We have a vision here and believe in it; I'm not going to just scrap everything and change directions. But I'm also not going to act like I know everything, that there's nothing I can learn here. That's why I did this - because I think I'm doing pretty good, but I want to get better. I hope I asked the right questions to get the answers I'm looking for. I spent a while thinking about the distinctions between liking characters and wanting to see more of them. I mean, Ms. Taylor isn't a villain, or exactly an antagonist, but she's not always very pleasant. But she's interesting. Thirdly, what were the results? I've tallied the votes for who you'd like to see more. I've got it in a big spreadsheet that really makes me wish I paid more attention in statistics class. This isn't American Idol, but if it were, Emily and Bram would've been voted off. Brisbane and Kimberly were the least disliked, and Silver_Blossom and Sandra were the most liked. The two best-received stories were Date-Night In and The Troublesome Troubles of Ms. Taylor. Singles Cruise was both the #3 favorite and the #1 least favorite. I expected that. When I was writing it, I thought that if we had a forum, it'd cause arguments. No other story got more than a single vote for least-favorite. (Why wasn't David on there? He hasn't shown up in over four years - if you say you want to see less of him in the comics, what does that even mean?) Fourthly, most of our readers: seem satisfied with the website*, suggest reading Unlike Minerva**, read both comics***, think Kevin & Kell is the most similar comic, and like the more domestic stories****, use Firefox, and read a lot of webcomics. So, once more - thank you *: Which we don't get much feedback on. If it were lousy, who would send me an email just to tell me that? **: Isabel and I are too close to the source material to have any kind of objective opinion on it. The options were "Yes. One should start with Unlike Minerva and read everything in order.", "Yes. But after you read You Say it First first.", "No, You Say it First stands on its own", "No. Unlike Minerva isn't very good" - I agree with all of them, usually at the same time. ***: I check the stats - there are a lot of people who read Namir Deiter but not You Say it First. One of the reasons for the survey was to figure out what was up with that without having to directly ask. Seriously, what's up with that? ****: Which I jokingly refer to, collectively, as "Brisbane and Kimberly sit around the house, talk about doing something, but don't". Comment

05.10.2010 - Terrence Marks:

Happy Belated Mother's Day!

What did I do today? Work. And played Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. There's no way I'll beat it this weekend, but I managed to beat miniboss Dark Priest Shaft today. Y'know. Because he's one bad mother. Sorry. We went comic shopping this weekend and picked up Knights of the Dinner Table, Usagi Yojimbo, Tiny Titans, Uncle Scrooge, Scott Pilgrim, a Blue Beetle trade, Wizards of Mickey, Groo, Peanuts, and Shazam. Hopefully I'll have a chance to read them soon. Also, I watched seven episodes of Batman: The Animated Series and spent a lot of time outlining You Say it First. It's been a good weekend for comics. The new Uncle Scrooge comics are, it seems, reprints of foreign Disney comics. It gets complicated and I don't have many details, but in addition to the American comics, Disney published comics overseas. Then the American non-superhero comic market dwindled and they stopped publishing. They kept on printing in other countries. Then, apparently, they brought it back to the US, reprinting foreign stories or older American stories. Interesting bit: I was reading Critters, an old anthology series and I thought one of the features, Gnuff, bore a more-than-passing similarity to Carl Barks' duck stories. Then I found out that the artist, Freddy Milton, drew for the Danish edition of Donald Duck. So you're wondering...did the foreign issues include translated American stories or were they all original? How many countries had their own Disney comics? Are those $8 Uncle Scrooge paperbacks by Gemstone reprints and/or translations? Do they have the same stories? Yeah. Those are all good questions. I have no idea. Anyhow, I also saw The Seven Samurai. So far, I've found that I really like Akira Kurosawa movies. Not in a "I sit through this so I can act cultured around other people" kind of way, but I genuinely like it. It's three and a half hours long. It's in black & white. It's in Japanese, with subtitles. It, reportedly, invented half the stuff it does - and I suppose I could watch the action movies of the 1940s and pay attention to what they don't do, but I'm not going to. It's kind of how Bugs Bunny, when first appeared, was radically different from everything that came before him. But now, if I say "acting like a cartoon character", that's the first thing you think of. But that's not my point. Good movie. Watch it. Comment

05.02.2010 - Terrence Marks:

I had a brilliant idea. Roger Ebert says video games aren't art. I say he's wrong - you can scroll down to see the exact details of how I said it. Rather than engage him in Internet Debate (which is like regular debate only pointless and with image macros), I'd do one better. The best form of revenge is living well. So I'd find out what games were art - by my definitions - and play through them all. The first part of the plan was to make a list. There were a lot of games I've already played that I think count (Grim Fandango, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Twilight Princess, Planescape: Torment, Starcraft, Star Control 2, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and a number of games that I own that I'm meaning to play (Ico, Beyond Good and Evil, Planetfall, Monkey Island 1-3, Final Fantasy 6, Majora's Mask, Ocarina of Time, most of the Super Mario series). So I was going to ask you which games I should play, then go through and play them. Heck, maybe see if the rest of the internet wanted to get in on the selection process. Write something up, send it around to various gaming sites, and see if they bite. I write a slice-of-life/romance comic strip with anthropomorphic characters. There aren't going to be many times that slashdot reports on what I do. I'd play through the games and review them. Maybe film something. Tell you how awesome they are and why. Celebrate the high points of gaming. Then I realized exactly how long it would take me to do this. It'd be awesome. And I'm going to play through those games sooner than later. But someone ought to do this right, and I'm not that guy. That's why I wrote this up - in the hopes that someone else will. So, brilliant idea, out there for the taking. Want it? Comment

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