04.10.2006 - Terrence Marks:

I-Con Report, part 2
Badges
The names on the con badges were printed very small, in about 8-point font. We hadn't brought the badges Isabel made for previous cons. We should've, just so people could tell who we were. I couldn't read them without my glasses, and even then I'd have to lean in and there's that awkward "Have I heard of this person before?" moment that took a second too long because of the small print on the names.

If you're a cartoonist, it really helps to make yourself a namebadge that's easily identifiable. It should have a recognizeable piece of your art and your name printed large. The first con I went to, I wore an ascot. I don't any more for a number of reasons. Firstly, I know this is a borderline case, but I think dressing as your own character is too gimmicky and comes across as a little desparate. Secondly, Brisbane doesn't wear them consistantly so the relevance is kind of lost. Thirdly, I lost them.

The Panels
We had four panels, all on Sunday. This was our first time doing panels. To prepare, we saw Stan Sakai's "How Usagi Yojimbo Came to Be". I felt mildly intimidated when I realized that he had been doing this since I was nine and Isabel was more likely to eat her crayons than color with them, and I couldn't possibly become as good as that. At least not in one afternoon. It did, however, make me wish we had gone to all of his other panels.

Our first panel was "Getting Started in Online Comics" or something like that. It featured us, Bill Holbrook, and Mookie. It was at 10 AM on Sunday, when the con first opened. It was in a different room than was listed on the schedule. A marathon closed down the road most people used to get to the con. There was only one person in the audience, Dressari, and that was because he came over with us. He'd had dinner with us and Bill the night before and didn't have any questions left over. About 45 minutes in, we went back to the dealers room because nobody else had shown up and they had to relocate the belly dancers' panel to that room because the anime dance had caught fire the night before. I'm not making any of that up, honest. The only thing that would've improved it was more audience, and I'm not even sure that would've helped. They drew Kevin, Tipper, and Dominic on the chalkboard. I considered writing a two-panel exchange between Kimberly and Brisbane up there, but couldn't think of anything that'd stand on it's own especially well.

We headed back to our table for a little while and waited for for our next panels, which were a three-hour block, one right after the other.

What I feared most was that there would be a large audience who were more familiar with our comic than we were, who would ask us detailed questions and embarass us about apparent contradictions in the characters' personalities or the timeline. Ask us things like "Do you really expect us to take the comic seriously with the lounge guys in it?".

I was entirely wrong. What I should have feared most was an audience that we outnumbered, half of whom had heard of our comics once or twice but hadn't read any of it.

The first panel was "Why anthropomorphic characters?". Bill, Isabel, and I each had about five minute answers for that. Mine was the simplest - because there were a lot of other good comics out there that did it and it made the characters seem more iconic. The fact that it was the only way to tell them apart, back when I had a new artist each week, was just a coincidence. There were two people in the audience. They were both very nice and helped us by asking questions to fill the time. Sam "Uncle Kage" Conway was in the next room over. He's famous in the anthropomorphic con scene for his panels. He also had a three hour block that we were scheduled against. It sounded like his reputation was deserved. There were a few times I felt like we should call it off early and head over to see what was going on his side of the wall; it seemed like he was having a better time of it.

Then we had "Three comics at a time" panel, which featured a few aspiring cartoonists who said they'd email me if their comics ever go on-line. We were also scheduled for "The Daily Grind of Updating Webcomics" at the same time. I had hoped they'd combine the panels. They seemed similar enough. There were hints that they might, but it didn't happen. We went with Three Comics; it was in the same room as our panels immediately before and after. During the panel, all I hoped was that somebody told the people at the other panel why we weren't there.

For those of you who missed it, the secrets include: use blue pens or tracing paper so you don't have to erase pencil lines, simplify character designs, use pre-made backgrounds and, the big one - don't do anything else. Three people were in the audience. We seemed to have an upward trend that way.

Our final panel was "Writing with Furry Characters", which featured Isabel, myself, and Amadeus. It seemed like a bit of an awkward fit, especially without Bill there - he had to leave to catch a ride to the airport. He would've been perfect for that panel, as his characters live in a much more anthropomorphic world than ours do.

I'm informed that Amadeus was to do with a film they showed at the con the night before. He would've been perfect for the panel excepting the small fact that he didn't show up. Word on the street was that he was last seen having dinner.

If you were to replace our characters with humans, there would be very few points requiring explanation or changes. You can count the number of species-related character traits on one hand. Species has, purposely, not been mentioned in You Say it First or Unlike Minerva. (That got a bit awkward when people talked about Brent, their pet whose species only remains nameless because we can't think of anything good to call it). There's nothing especially "with furry characters" about our writing. About twenty minutes in, I kind of had to admit it to the crowd - which had swelled to ten people - we must be doing something right! Half of them left a couple minutes after that. I think a few of those people were aspiring novelists. We have no real advice for novelists. Neither of us has written fiction prose in the last six years, and the prose we had written back then isn't a thing we generally choose to show off.

Neither of us, in fact, view "anthropomorphic" as a genre. It isn't. There are a number of specialized anthropomorphic subgenres with their own styles and rules, but it's no more a genre than "movies featuring bald actors" or "songs about weather" is. I haven't read any anthropomorphic fiction - actual prose fiction - since Wind in the Willows. I'd wager money, though that there's less stylization and that readers of said fiction are less "trained" than readers of other conventional fiction. A lot of fiction out there is attenuated to the fact that the average person who buys a romance book, this is the twentieth romance book they bought. If anthropomorphic fiction has that kind of fine-tuning on it, we're unaware. So not only do we not have anything useful to say on the subject. We don't believe that anything really useful can be said.

After I came clean - and I felt much better afterwards - the topic changed as people started asking us again about how to start comics. This was territory we were familiar with. We've started an awful lot of comics.

04.03.2006 - Terrence Marks:

Spare Parts is back! Hope you enjoy it!

So, how was I-Con?

Quite simply, it was the best con we've been to. And here it is, categorized by anecdote, because chronological order is for suckers.

The Table

We shared a table with Peter Prellwitz, who published ND Year One and is an accomplished science fiction author in his own right. He brought along two of his sons to help us man the table, and Dressari, a fan of ours who came all the way from England (and also helped run the table when we weren't there).

We wound up getting Mark Goddard's table (He played Major West in Lost in Space, and cancelled at the last minute). We were next to a company selling what appeared to be independent horror B movies. On our other side was a company called Anime Clash. They had, they told us, just sold entirely out of anime and were selling their other products, also independent horror B movies. Was this a good thing? Well, we stood out from our immediate surroundings, at least.

We were, more importantly, across from Bill Holbrook and Stan Sakai. I often wished we brought a beachball so we could hit it back and forth when things got slow. We dropped by Bill's table a couple times and he came by ours.

The Sketchbook

I've been toting around this sketchbook to conventions since DragonCon 2000. Back when I first got it, I'd get a sketch from anybody who'd give me one, but I've become a lot more selective over the years, in part because it's running out of space. They all mean something to me.

I got three new sketches this con. Mookie, R.K. Milholland, and Stan Sakai. I already had Greg Dean and Bill Holbrook. I went up by the Goats table once, but Jon wasn't there and I decided not to hang around, partly because I was afraid they wouldn't know who I was and partly because I was afraid they would.

I started reading Dominic Deegan because I figured we'd meet at I-Con and it'd be polite. It's an amazing strip. I got a drawing of Dominic; I was thinking of asking for Celesto or Gregory Deegan but didn't. Always better to let the artist decide.

I caught Randy Milholland at his table. There was a sign, "free sketches". An eight-year-old boy was in front of me. Randy asked his mom, "He doesn't read the comic, does he?". "No". "Ok, good. Don't let him". So he drew the kid a ninja. He was selling original art from the strips for about $5 each. I bought one.

We gave Stan Sakai one of our books and he drew an amazing sketch of Tomoe Ame for me. He spent, I believe, a total of ninety minutes at his table over the three days and we managed to catch him. He works with great speed. I'm married to somebody who can sleep in and still draw seven comics a day; his speed still impressed me. He looked through my sketchbook. He's the first artist in a long time to do that. He took the time to look through all the other sketches I had, and he recognized a number of them.

03.20.2006 - Terrence Marks:

Thanks to Isabel, the cast page is finally updated! If you've been wondering who these people are, now's your chance to look them up!

03.06.2006 - Terrence Marks:

Resolution Roundup:

Yes, it's over two months late. But I've got a whole bunch of half-written news updates and I really ought to start posting things.

Looking at my resolutions for last year, how did I do?

I did finish reading everything Mark Twain wrote*. I read three other books (the entire Harry Potter series , the first two Series of Unfortunate Events); I'm sure I went through some non-fiction as well. Kittens for Dummies. That counts. I believe I mentioned "several major programming projects". I think that NamirDeiter.net counts as "several".

I did not send out three pieces of fanmail a week, nor did I add one comic strip to my reading list each week. The fanmail thing lasted a week. The comic thing lasted until I got a job. I should maybe try to add a comic a month. I may try for one comic a month. Or buy book collections. Or find comics that are entirely work-safe and read them during my breaks at work.

I didn't learn to draw, but I did participate in 24-hour comic book day. I was better at it than I thought. Not good at it, but less bad than I suspected.

Anyhow, my resolutions for this year? That's tough. I'm going to get back to writing comics; I've become lazy in that regard. Isabel wrote a supermajority of YSiF and an appreciable fraction of Spare Parts back before it went on hiatus. I still do intend to bring Spare Parts back. I want to write; I just wasn't enjoying it at the time. I also intend to learn to draw and write at least 100 pages of other comics.

*: "Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc" was published under a (different) pseudonym. Skipped it. Didn't read the complete letters, or collected speeches. Majorly skimmed things like "What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us", which is a moderately serious book review for a book that was, I'm sure, quite topical 100 years ago.

02.02.2006 - Terrence Marks:

We did make our $600 goal in January, but not our $800 goal. What does this mean to you, the reader? We're going back to our original schedule, instead of our premium bonus schedule. You'll get five NDs a week and three YSIFs. Those of you who are kind enough to donate will get two bonus comics a week.

Isabel is working on the February book (and December book and January cards) , and we should have the donation bar updated in the next day or two. February's donations are off to a good start.

01.15.2006 - Terrence Marks:

So what's been happening the last few days?

On Friday, we had an appointment to get Buttons neutered. He was about five months old and it seemed like it'd be time. Isabel spent most of Thursday getting him prepared.

I took Buttons in to the vet - we found another vet last week, one who's friendly and speaks English fluently - on Friday morning. An hour later I get a call - they can't neuter Buttons - she has to be spayed. Buttons was a girl the whole time and we never even suspected. Isabel felt like a negligent cat-owner for a while. Me? I figured that if Buttons' regular vet didn't notice it, then what chance did we have.

So, anyhow, we spent most of Friday getting used to the idea. We figured that since we had two female cats we should try to find a boy-cat to balance things out. So we spent the day touring local shelters, trying to find one who was younger than our current cats. We couldn't. Seeing all the cats, trying to get our attention, friendly, needing homes, and having to leave them all behind because they'd upset the delicate power balance between our current two cats - it's difficult. It takes a lot out of a person.

We got her - it still feels a bit weird saying "her" - back. Isabel spent most of the day building a separate enclosure, so Momo doesn't play too rough.

So, there's your dose of kitten drama for today.

01.02.2006 - Isabel Marks:

First off, I would like to give a big thank you to all of you for being so patient with the sporadic, "what the crud is going on?!" nature of updates during December. Even mid-month, things were getting kind of funky, so thank you all for your kindness and patience throughout all this.

Ok, so now... what on Earth happened then? Well...

Mid to late- December, Terrence and I headed off to Florida to visit his family for the Holidays for a week. I decided not to mention this on the site because it seems whenever I mention when I'm away, the site seems to go down. The original plan was to continue to do comics while we were out there. Unfortunately, the shift in my schedule/Christmas/visiting family/a ton of other things did not allow much time for comics, I only did two for Namir Deiter and one for You Say it First. By the time we got home, I thought, "Well, it won't be too bad... just do double comics for a week to make up for it... But the weekend before Christmas I could not get myself to do anything, I would just sleep and lay down and rest.

Christmas came and I got through it, I don't know how... but that afternoon I absolutely crashed. The flu hit me and it really meant it.

Have you even been sick to the point where your sanity was affected? I've only been that way three times, my first hip operation (but back then I at least had morphine), four years ago I had a stomach flu that I caught while working at an Elementary school, and last week.

Between hacking out my lungs, I had to deal with extreme hot flashes and chills (that would alternate every 10 minutes) and a soreness that you would not believe (my tail bone was really killing me during the whole thing, which makes me worried). The strangest thoughts flashed into my mind, including the idea of Cinderella sports stories, boxing, and how to create flowers out of a 9x9 square grate (don't ask, it doesn't make sense now that I tried to think about it). I think I lost a few brain cells then.

But, finally, I feel like I'm feeling well enough to sit up long enough to work (don't get me wrong, I'm still really sick and hacking out my lungs, but I can at least eat now and control my body fairly better) to try and complete the daunting task of 56 comics to make everything up ><, not including scripts, which I still need to write.

So, how is this going to affect things around here? For starters, double comics till the web comics are back on track, then from there namirdeiter.net will receive it's wallpapers for January, then namirdeiter.net will get back-logged bonus comics it deserves and after THAT, I will finally start work on the bonus for November/December. o___O

There will be NO BONUS BOOK for donators until further notice. It's the start of the new year and I'm already stressed out, and I really need to get back to work on the books for the store...

Not a great way to start the new year, but I'll try and make it better, thank you for your continuing patience in all this.