07.16.2008 - Terrence Marks:

I went to Anime Expo a week or so ago. I stayed for a few hours, mainly walked the dealer's room. While some of the panels looked interesting, if I stayed longer I'd have to fight downtown LA traffic. Most of the anime they were screening was available through Netflix; I can theoretically watch it in the comfort of my own home. I won't. But I could if I had to.

But I had a good time. Scott Ramsoomair and Shawn Handyside had a booth, and now my sketchbook is two pages closer to being filled. That's what I went for. What interested me the most was the Artists' Alley. There were a lot of very good artists there, but most of them, all they had was anime characters. Ouran Host Club, Bleach, Fruits Basket, or what-have-you. You could get bookmarks featuring the characters, prints, custom drawings. It looked good. It looked on-model. But it didn't say anything. No commentary. No clever juxtaposition. There's already someone who draws Fruits Basket, and she does a really good job. Why would you want to compete with her at it, in an imitation of her style? It's kinda like learning guitar just to play in a cover band. And I'm not trying to put anyone down if they enjoy it. That's just not where I'm at.

I'm used to everyone having a story to tell. Maybe the artists did have their own stories to tell; perhaps they weren't confident enough, or the story wasn't finished or they just didn't think it'd sell. Or maybe I've been hanging around cartoonists too long.

07.11.2008 - Terrence Marks:

Current video game status:

Most games these days have post-game content. You beat the game, now you can go and spend a few months beating every scenario with ever character, or such. I'd beat a game, get about two weeks into the bonus stuff, and give up, because I don't really care that much about unlocking the bonus attacks for the enemy commanders, or what-have-you and that there's a lot of more responsible (and/or more enjoyable) things I could be doing. That's why a year ago, I decided I wasn't going to do that any more. With some exceptions. I am now playing:

Pokemon Pearl - yes, I beat it. Now I'm trying to beat the battle tower and win a master contest. I know what I said above. Exceptions.

Pokemon Emerald - Never played it before. Technically, I'm playing through it in order to complete the Pokedex in Pokemon Pearl

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney - Got to the start of case 3 and totally lost interest. I liked the other games. Perhaps I'll pick it up again.

Final Fantasy II - There's a part of me that wants to finish the game before the re-release of Final Fantasy IV. I mean, I beat FF1 and FF3, so I ought to complete the set, right? But I'm don't have the time to beat Final Fantasy 7-10 any time, well, ever. And FF2 is very grindy, combat is too random, and the game is unforgiving. When you start the game, if you go too far west, you encounter massively powerful enemies and die. There's a "flee" command. I've never had it work. It makes me appreciate Nintendo games - you've got a sprawling world map, but you need to get the jumping boots to get to the really dangerous places and they're in dungeon 6. In this game, if you go too far west, monsters kill you. There is, technically, a "flee" command. It's never worked. It just makes the monsters laugh at you. There've been three times in the last few days that my entire party gets put to sleep before they can do anything for ten turns in a row. So the game is kinda interesting, and I figure I'm halfway through. I want to finish it, but it's not really fun.

Super Smash Bros: Brawl - The only challenges I have left are the ones for finding all the stickers, beating Boss Battles on Intense mode, and playing 100 hours of brawls. In other words, the most difficult one, the most random one, and the most time-consuming one.

07.10.2008 - Isabel Marks:

Hey everyone, welcome to another month... first and foremost, yeah, we didn't make the goal.As such, all webcomics are back to the non-bonus updating schedule. I'm happy to say that as of last Monday the webcomics are back on track. All the comics for the month of June's bonus update schedule (with both web comics updating seven days a week) are in the archive. Namir Deiter for the month of July will have comics five days a week while You Say it First will run Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Namir Deiter's comics from the past month now have titles to them and the archive drop down for Namir Deiter has been updated, for whatever that's worth. We thank you all for your patience in all this and hope you enjoy the comics in the archives if you happen to have missed one of those mass updates.

NamirDeiter.net news... wallpapers are now up! Please visit the wallpapers sections to see them. This month's main page bonus comic story will feature a chapter from the made up romance novel "Victorian Lurve". It will update seven days a week until all the bonus comics that were missing from the previous month's delayed pages are made up (and perhaps a few bonus ones as well). If you had an account that expired during the month of June, please contact Terrence with your information, and he will give you two more weeks so you can see some of the comics you missed.

Also every week at NamirDeiter.net, we'll have Jun and Tori's Mailbox Saturday, where ND.net's semi-offical question-asking mascots, Jun and Tori, interview and interrogate various characters from the ND Unlimited multiverse with YOUR questions. If you're a donor and have any questions you'd want to see answered, send them in and we'll see what happens. We seriously need more questions for this week, so please send them in!

Once again, we thank you all for your patience! We hope you enjoy the month of July and the stories it will bring!

07.10.2008 - Terrence Marks:

I start my blog, then wind up working overtime and not updating it for a week. It's amazing how two hours a day can just cut into things.

I've been listening to a collection of Brazilian music this week. Most of it is from the 1960s, back when it was cool to have 5 cover songs out of, say, twelve. These are mostly translated into Portugese, which makes it a bit tough to figure out what's what. I was just listening to "Soneco Contra O Barao Vermelho". It sounded familiar. I played it again and realized - it's "Snoopy vs The Red Baron". Wow. I mean, I expect a few Beatles songs, but who covers The Royal Guardsmen?

07.05.2008 - Terrence Marks:

We're working on another big batch of comics and expect to have them finished some time this weekend. We had hoped to have them up tonight. We spent the morning at AnimeExpo (just visiting), figuring we'd have plenty of time to finish things up this evening. Then we were invited to a last-minute family get-together. Now it's about eleven. We've had a full day. Expect a big update this weekend.

07.04.2008 - Terrence Marks:

For July, we're going back to the regular schedule for both comics. Namir Deiter will update Monday through Friday. You Say it First will update Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We hope to switch back to the bonus schedule in August and look forward to your help. NamirDeiter.net will have bonus comics on Tuesday and Saturday (plus extras, because we owe you guys). Wallpapers for the month should be done soon.

Now, every week at NamirDeiter.net, we'll have Jun and Tori's Mailbox Saturday, where the two of them interview and interrogate various characters from the ND Unlimited multiverse. If you're a donor and have any questions you'd want to see answered, send them in and we'll see what happens.

Also, You Say it First's links have been updated (for the first time ever) and I now have a blog. If you're looking at You Say it First, it's just to the right.

07.01.2008 - Terrence Marks:

Now, since Isabel has her blog (over on NamirDeiter.net, our donor site) I figure I may as well have one too. As you've seen, I redesigned the front page a bit and created a links page for You Say it First, because it needed it. Previously, it just told you to go to Spare Parts' links page, which was a bit outdated. I mean, it linked Algernon's Dilemma, and that comic's been gone for about five years now. I intend to keep this one more-or-less current.