News

As I ship off to NoBrandCon today I leave you fine and wonderful folks with what I think is a fine and wonderful announcement.

THE BATTLE FOR BARTHIS: Dominic Deegan Volume 4 is now available for PRE-ORDER in the SEER'S CATALOG! Take a gander at the cover and the added extras for this newest volume of collected strips! If you pre-order your copy before it goes on sale in May I'll sign it with a personalized autograph. Just let me know who I'm signing it to when you order your copy!

I'm excited about this newest book and I hope you are, too.

That's all from me for now!
Rock on!

Thanks to all of you who sent me and my girlfriend well wishes on our one-year anniversary. We're both saps who like to keep track of that sort of thing and, as you can tell, we also like to include as many people as possible in the celebration of these sappy things.

So, since I really have nothing new to talk about today, here are some of the things Alyssa and I did on our anniversary Monday.

- Went fishing for crabs with some rocks, dental floss and shredded salami. We let them go after we caught them and let them keep the salami bits.

- Alyssa took a nap while I worked on comics to cover my trip to NoBrandCon this weekend.

- We, with the help of her friends, crowded a tiny bar in a tiny inn where sea shanties are sung every Monday night. There was much food, much drink, much merriment, and I learned a few very dirty drinking songs.

I should have some pictures to share later.
That's all from me for now.
Rock on.

I hope you folks were spared any trips to the dentist yesterday. I admit that I'm a hopeless romantic and I try to keep that part of me contained to the comic around here. Every so often, however, some of that mushy stuff seeps in from my personal life and affects things around here.

In regards to today's strip, in case some of you are wondering who those two "friends turned enemies" orcs are I say do not worry. It's something that will be addressed directly later on.

For those of you who can't wait that long, just click here for a quick reminder.

That's all from me for now.
Rock on.

I'm taking a day to celebrate the fact that my girlfriend has been tolerating me as her boyfriend for one year. I warned you folks last week that there would be filler-art / saccharine-sweet mushy stuff today instead of a comic. I do hope you're not too upset... or we didn't give you any cavities.

The comic resumes tomorrow.

Before the end of the week I should be ready to take pre-orders for THE BATTLE FOR BARTHIS: Dominic Deegan Volume 4.

This weekend I'm off to NoBrandCon, so I hope to see you there!

That's all from me for now.
Now I must resume huggling my Snuggly Wubbykins.

Sorry again about the late news update, folks. I closed my eyes last night to battle a splitting headache and woke up around, well, now. Oh well. Better nate than lever, right?

Anyway, I'm pushing back the pre-order date for Volume Four from today to next week before I leave for NoBrandCon. I should have enough work on the book done by then to feel comfortable taking your pre-orders for it, both online and at the convention.

Second, I'm taking Monday off. On April 20th my girlfriend and I will have been dating a year and we want to spend an uninterrupted-by-work day together. I'll probably put some gooey filler art up saying something like "happy anniversary to my snuggly wubbykins" so if you have an aversion to that kind of thing I suggest you come back on Tuesday when the comic resumes updating.

That's all from me for now.
Rock on and have a nice weekend!

It was a slow week for new comic books when I went to the comic book store yesterday, but I did pick up two titles that really stood out and I feel the need to share them with you fine folks.

Green Lantern Corps #35 was really solid. I like this series because I like seeing all the other Green Lanterns in the spotlight, and it helps that they're all wildly imaginative aliens. Anyway, this issue had some great stuff in it, as well as some pretty creepy moments (Arkillo is messed up). I'm going to continue geeking out like this until Blackest Night hits, and then I will hopefully continue to geek out about Green Lantern related stuff.

Action Comics #876 was excellent. Great pacing, brutal action, fantastic dialogue and a satisfying finish with a touch of cliffhanger. I'm really liking the entire World Without Superman / World of New Krypton storyline DC is doing and this issue moved things along nicely. Being a proud Superman fan I was skeptical as to whether I'd like the comics that normally feature him suddenly not featuring him for a while, but so far I remain pleasantly surprised.

That's all from me for now.
Up, up and away!

Thanks to each and every one of you who sent me well wishes and kind regards in response to yesterday's two-thousandth comic strip. However you decided to show me some love it was well appreciated and I remain, as always, humbled by your collective awesomeness. You folks are the reason I keep going back to the drawing board.

In other news, I may be pushing back pre-order time for THE BATTLE FOR BARTHIS: Dominic Deegan Vol. 4 from the end of this week to the end of this month. Things are moving along nicely (for now) and it'll be available for purchase in May, but I'm not sure exactly when and I feel funny making you fine folks wait too long for your pre-ordered books. We'll see how things go the rest of this week and I'll keep you posted.

Now if you'll all excuse me, I have to dislodge my cat from my ankle.

That's all from me for now.
Rock on.

Holy crap.
Have I really drawn two thousand strips already?
Have you folks really stuck around this long to read all of them?

I can only hope the answer to both of them is "yes."

From the bottom of my heart I want to thank those of you who have taken the time to read all of these comics. You grace me with a little bit of your time each day and I appreciate the fact that you keep coming back to see what happens next. I couldn't have done this without you.

Well, technically I suppose I could've written and drawn two thousand comic strips even if nobody was actually reading them. So, I guess it's more accurate to say that I could've done it without you all, but it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun.

Thanks again. You folks are the greatest readers in the world and I am so grateful for, well, everything.

That's all from me for now.
Rock on.

Sorry this news update is coming so late, folks. My girlfriend and I went to New York to visit my family on Easter Sunday and the traffic coming back to Headquarters was nothing less than an atrocity. I only now just got back to my place after spending the evening at Girlfriend HQ. I guess it's a good thing I uploaded today's comic before I left.

Anyway, apart from working on THE BATTLE FOR BARTHIS: Dominic Deegan Volume 4 and making sure my cats don't kill each other things are pretty routine here at Mookie Headquarters. I'll take advantage of things being mellow here before I head off to NoBrandCon in a couple of weeks, and then May's insane conventions are upon us.

I guess I better get back to work.
Rock on.

It's been a long week since I returned from ICON and I'm glad today is going to be fairly mellow. Between playing Doctor Boyfriend to a sick girlfriend and working on the fourth collection of the comic I'm feeling a little drained. Thankfully I'll have the weekend to recover and hopefully not catch whatever made my lovely ladyfriend so ill.

However, if all goes well today and this weekend, THE BATTLE FOR BARTHIS: Dominic Deegan Volume 4 will be available for pre-order by the end of next week. I'll keep you folks posted if anything changes, but keep your fingers crossed.

That's all from me for now.
Rock on and have a nice weekend!

April's Donation Wallpaper is up for your appraisal and approval. I do hope you like it. In case you're having trouble seeing the thumbnail just Refresh your browser and that ought to do the trick.

I picked up a couple of nifty comic books yesterday, too. Here are some of my recommended reads.

The new Green Lantern was awesome, as usual. The first Orange Lantern was an unexpectedly cool and brutal bad guy, even if I don't like his name very much. The Blue Lanterns, however, remain my favorite of the new Corps.

The new miniseries, Deadpool: Suicide Kings, had a fantastic start that captured all of Deadpool's humor and insanity. I'm so glad some very witty writers have gotten their hands on him lately. I only hope Marvel doesn't put him in too many titles at once because, as much as I'm enjoying Deadpool now, I'm afraid the overexposure could make me sick of him.

DC's last attempt at a Warlord series was... bad. The newest attempt has a faster start, more solid artwork and doesn't waste time with a lengthy origin. From the first time you see the Warlord, he's just that. The Warlord. And the people of this sword-and-sorcery world need his help. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one.

That's all from me for now.
Rock on and geek out.

Thanks to all of you who sent me even more musician jokes yesterday. Now I can more effectively make fun of my friends who still play music.

Work on Dominic Deegan Volume 4: THE BATTLE FOR BARTHIS continues now that I've got a break from conventions for a few weeks. If all goes well it should be available for pre-order later this month and in the store itself around May.

And finally, on a completely unrelated note, I recently downloaded Bonsai Barber for my Wii and find it absolutely adorable and endearing. If you've got ten bucks to spare I highly recommend it as a delightfully daily distraction.

That's all from me for now.
Rock on.

If I had to draw Chief Thuen Gor scowling one more time I think I may have shot myself. I've been eager to get to this strip because I finally get to make one of the most tragic figures in the story so far crack a smile at a bad joke.

My favorite real world version of Donovan's joke has to be "How many trumpet players does it take to screw in a light bulb?" For any of you who have ever played music, you know this to be true. I find it particularly endearing because I played the trumpet for about nine years. Go figure.

Here's another one I enjoy.

What's a trumpet player's most effective form of birth control?
His personality.

But just so the trumpet players don't think I'm picking on them, here are a couple of other musician jokes I have come to love over the years.

What did the drummer get on his IQ test?
Drool.

How do you get two flute players to play in tune?
Shoot one.

How do you get a guitarist to stop playing?
Give him sheet music.

What do you call a musician who breaks up with his girlfriend?
Homeless.

How do you get a musician off your front porch?
Pay for the pizza.

A boy says to his father, "Dad, I want to grow up and be a musician!" The father replies, "I'm sorry, son, but you can't have it both ways."

ICON was weird this year. Enjoyable, but weird. This convention has been in the same location for almost thirty years and this weekend marked the first time in its history that it was somewhere else. Actually, it was in three different places, and all at least five miles apart from each other.

I'm sad that I had to miss out on my panel with Greg Pak. I dearly wanted to fanboy at him and rub my hands through his beard.

My thanks to those of you who made this weekend enjoyable:
- First of all, you wonderful readers who came to see me at my meager panels and dealer's table. You folks always make me feel like a million bucks and I cannot thank you enough for making me smile.
- Thanks to Chelsey who manned, or should I say "womanned" my table while I was driving back and forth from my panels up and down the Long Island Expressway.
- Thanks to Alex for loaning me Chelsey and sandwiches.
- Thanks to Bernie for being a cool table-mate.
- Thanks to my best friend Dave for giving me a roof and transportation for the weekend. You really saved my butt, pal. Also, I decided not to link to that video of you butchering "Uptown Girl" at your office party. The world has enough awkward white guys trying to sing.

That's all from me for now.
Rock on.

I'm headed off to ICON today. This convention always holds a special place in my heart because it's the first con I ever attended. My father took me there when I was a freshman in high school and it was my first experience of three straight days of science fiction, high fantasy and anime. You might say that it changed my life in those formative years, and you might be right.

Here's hoping that I can admirably contribute to it this year.

Monday's comic may be filler or updating late depending on my travel plans. I don't think there should be any delays in updating, but I figured I'd give you fine folks a heads-up just in case.

That's all from me for now.
See you at ICON!