03.28.2010 - Terrence Marks:

Firstly, my friend Rex Broome turned 39 a week ago. And every day until he turns 40 he will cover a randomly chosen song. Right now, that's 10 down, 355 to go. Go check it out.

Secondly, People have asked me: is "They'll Do It Every Time" a real comic strip?

Yes, is it. It's a single-panel strip about how people are. Y'know: "He complains how money is tight when his wife buys an expensive new hat...but when he sees a new set of golf clubs, he doesn't have trouble finding the money". That kind of thing. The strip ended in 2008 when the cartoonist died. There are a few of them here.

A lot of the ideas are submitted by readers; I remember hearing about a comic snark site (and I don't recall which one, unfortunately) that made fun of it pretty regularly...until their ideas started getting accepted. From then on, they thought it was kinda cool. Turns out, yeah. They'll do it every time.

03.27.2010 - Terrence Marks:

Our RSS feed has been having some troubles. Specifically, some readers (like Google Reader) don't show the most recent comics. If someone who knows how RSS feeds work could lend a hand, we'd greatly appreciate it.

03.13.2010 - Terrence Marks:

New bonus book? It has been a long time, hasn't it? It's part two of Final Battle Adventure Online: The Role-Playing Game. Jun sits down to play a pencil-and-paper RPG with characters from a variety of our comics. If you like gaming, you'll probably like this. And if you donated between August and December of last year, you probably already have access to it!

We're working on part three (of at least four) and hope you enjoy it!

03.08.2010 - Terrence Marks:

Firstly, Cheyenne Wright, colorist extraordinaire of Girl Genius, was recently hospitalized. They're taking donations to help with the associated costs. I'd appreciate it if you sent some cash his way. We colorists have to stick together.

Secondly, You Say it First and NamirDeiter.net both had anniversaries last month. YSiF is six and ND.Net is five. We should've mentioned it earlier, but we were really, really busy last month and time flies when you're in a ruthaving fun.

Thirdly, You Say it First and Namir Deiter are both available through Archive Binge. You know how we have thousands of comics in the archives? Instead of spending one day (or a week) reading through everything, this can send up to 10 comics a day to you through the magic of RSS. That way you catch up quickly and easily. If you set it to give you 10 ND strips a day, you'd be up to speed by the end of April.

03.03.2010 - Terrence Marks:

I come home from a twelve-hour workday at 1 AM and there's a notice on our door - water's going to be off for "scheduled maintenance" from 10 to 5 tomorrow. As I've mentioned, I work swing shift so this is a serious inconvenience for us. Isabel is going to try to get comics done, but this will probably throw our schedule off for the day. And what's the point of scheduling maintenance if you're not going to give people at least two days notice about it, seriously?

Unrelatedly, if you've have trouble with any automatic renewal or subscription, please let me know.

03.01.2010 - Terrence Marks:

Thank you, everyone for supporting the comic. We didn't make the full $700 goal in February, but we're going to keep up the five-day-a-week schedule. As you may know, You Say it First's regular schedule is three a week. We're considering adding a space for five comics a week to the donation bar.

02.25.2010 - Terrence Marks:

Hi, everyone! We're back on schedule and looking to stay there. Sorry about the delays earlier in the month; I've been working a lot of overtime, which put a lot more work on Isabel, both with the comics and at home.

We've also been working on things behind the scenes like the new You Say it First cast page. Isabel drew new images for very nearly everybody, and I re-read the comic in its entirety. More than that, I revised things as I went. Typos were fixed. Lines were re-written for clarity and brevity. Punchlines were punched up. A very small number of comics were re-written for continuity. (For example, in the original version of this comic, it was Brisbane's department that met quota. We've established that Brisbane doesn't have a department, so that got adjusted).

This process, going through and revising the comic into a the next draft makes me feel like a writer. I've been reading writerly things lately, and the idea of revising and improving things appeals to me. So, should you re-read the archives? Continuity has not changed. You don't have to. I don't think you'd notice a difference unless you had the comics memorized. Would I recommend doing this to other cartoonists? No. It's very easy to start fixing things and never stop. But I feel better for doing it, and I think the comic is a little better as well.