News

The criminally neglected Fan Art pages have been updated once again. There's lots of awesome artwork to look at so be sure to pop your head in and take a look at these stellar contributions. Thanks to all of you who bless me with your work, and an added thank you for putting up with my inability to make updating those pages a regular thing.

Other than that, there's really not a lot to say today that I didn't say yesterday, so if you need a recap just take a look at the previous news post. It'll have everything vital you need to know about this upcoming weekend.

Short post for today, but sometimes short is sweet. Like a dwarf. With a battle axe.

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

Like I said last week, these next two weekends mark two of the busiest and craziest conventions I attend all year. Anime Boston and AKON are right around the corner and are within a week of one another, so let's get right to it, shall we?

For those of you coming to Anime Boston there will be a number of treats. THE BATTLE FOR BARTHIS is on its way from the printer and will (hopefully) be available for your purchase and approval. There will be convention-only scarves, as hand-made by my mother. Since it went over so well last year, I will be selling the Love Scarf T-shirts for charity again this year.

Finally, I won't be in the Artist's Alley this year. I will be in the Dealer's Room at the ConnectiCon table. I've been very involved with them for years and they'll be "pimping me out" as a Guest there later this summer. If you pre-register with them at Anime Boston this weekend, there may be an added treat for you.

Well, back to work for me. I have to gear up for two insane weekends.
Rock on.

I'm going to enjoy this weekend as much as I can. I'm going to do my best to do as little as possible and emulate as much laziness as I can muster. Why am I going to try so hard to be such a human lump, you ask?

Because the following two weekends are Anime Boston and AKON. These are traditionally two of the craziest weekends of my entire year and this year they happen to fall within seven days of each other. I have to be lazy and unproductive this weekend so I can charge up my internal batteries to be ready for two weekends of absolute chaos. This ought to be an experience.

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

I've updated the LINKS page to include some more high quality webcomics that I think you fine folks should check out if you haven't already. The most metal of these new additions, Nine-Shot Sonata, has a latest updated featuring a metal character reading a fairly metal book, but I happen to be biased about these things.

Speaking of metal and things I'm biased about, I'm very happy that Darkhawk is getting the spotlight lately in War of Kings: ASCENSION. It's a pretty nifty read so far and I've come to like the War Of Kings as a good old-fashioned cosmic comic.

Why am I biased about Darkhawk? Well, most people regard the nineties as a ridiculous time for comics, and most of those people would be right. However, I got into comic books in the nineties and there were a few heroes who were cast aside as the years went on but I latched on to them for various reasons. Among them were Speedball, Sleepwalker, and Darkhawk. Sleepwalker never really made it out of the early nineties and don't get me started about what Marvel did to poor Speedball. Darkhawk, however, has been blessed with good writers nowadays who realize he was an interesting concept and his armor looks really, really cool.

So here's my keeping my fingers crossed that Darkhawk stays in the spotlight and doesn't end up like poor Sleepwalker or Speedball.

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

This is another one of those news posts where I don't really have anything terribly interesting to say, so I'm going to keep things relatively short and sweet.

THE BATTLE FOR BARTHIS is on its way. It's still up for pre-order and it should be available for regular purchase by the end of the month.

I seriously cannot stop listening to Mastodon's new album, Crack The Skye. I find it impossible to only listen to only one song off this magnificent album. I have to listen to all of them.

Emboldened by the great response you fine folks have given me and the renewed eagerness of my friends (and cats) to model for me, I've been taking more photographs. Take a look-see if you're interested in my little hobby.

The Fan Art pages will be updated either by the end of this week or the beginning of next. There will be, as always, lots of stellar work to look at so be sure to check it out when new stuff gets put up!

As much as I'm geeking out about Green Lantern nowadays and the upcoming Blackest Night storyline, I'm worried that it's going to be just another zombie story. Many people like zombies. I'm sick to death of them, no pun intended. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Black Lantern Aquaman doesn't have a hungering for space brains.

And finally... um... actually, that's all I got.
Rock on.

I had considered Suyan's "bad Callanian" to be as bad as Donovan's "bad orcish," but I figured the young Bikta should have a slightly stronger grasp of a foreign language than the old bard.

Mistranslations are very funny to me and the more outlandish the better. My favorite example of this, and the direct inspiration for Donovan's horrid grasp of orcish, is the Hungarian Phrasebook sketch. It's a classic and I bow to Monty Python's Flying Circus, my lords and masters.

That's all from me for now.
On rock.

May's Donation Wallpaper is up today, even though I said it'd be up last Friday. Turns out that Mastodon concert left me more sore than I'd anticipated. As always, if you're still seeing the thumbnail for last month's wallpaper, just hit the Refresh button on your browser and that ought to do the trick.

On today's comic, of all the times I've smacked Dominic in the mouth over the last seven years I would say that today was one of the occasions where he undoubtedly deserved it. As dearly as I love him, I think every so often every one of us wants to smack a know-it-all in the mouth, especially when he's being condescending.

THE BATTLE FOR BARTHIS goes to the printer today, so cross your fingers that nothing goes wrong. If the Gods of Good Fortune decide to give me their blessing the fourth volume ought to be officially for sale by the time Anime Boston rolls around.

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

I know I said May's Donation Wallpaper would be up by today, but there's going to be a slight delay. You see, I had every intention of coloring it yesterday, but I got a last minute opportunity to see Mastodon here in the Boston area. Naturally, I jumped on the opportunity and as I write this I am still recovering from their stellar show.

Remember how I was raving about their new album, Crack the Skye, yesterday? I was floored when they spent the first half of their set playing the entire album, song for song, note for note. I was highly recommending them yesterday, and so I do so again today. Mastodon rocks.

Oh right. May's wallpaper will be up later today. At least, as soon as I recover from the Mastodon show.

Ouch.

In case you haven't noticed, I do enjoy drawing these no-panel, full page, weird looking vision strips. They're just so liberating and fun for me that I think I'm getting addicted. I always try to make them move the story forward even though I'm essentially going "Whee!" the whole time I'm drawing them.

Mastodon's new album, Crack the Skye, is certainly lending itself to the creation of these out-of-mind vision comics. This album, as far as I'm concerned, is a masterwork of progressive, aggressive, almost ethereal metal that I simply cannot stop listening to. Oh, and it kicks a ton of ass, too. Highly recommended.

And finally, thanks to all of you who had nice things to say and constructive criticisms about my amateur photography. This is just a hobby of mine, but it's always nice to share stuff with you amazing folks because you always make me feel like a million bucks.

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

THE BATTLE FOR BARTHIS is still up for pre-order. I sound like a broken record, I know, but I was always told that one of the most effective forms of advertising is repetition.

I went ahead and put up some of my (amateur) photography on deviantArt. Some people love this thing, others hate it with a passion. I decided to give it a try because, well, because I wanted to. I just do photography for fun and I'm happy to share my attempts at being photographically artsy. Just to warn you, though, some of the stuff is mature-restricted (oh god! not breasts!) so it may or may not be work safe. Otherwise, browse at your leisure.

THE BATTLE FOR BARTHIS is still up for pre-order. I sound like a broken record, I know, but I was always told that one of the most effective forms of advertising is repetition.

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

Life imitating art, or vice-versa?
With cats, I can never tell.

I worked my ever-loving butt off last week on THE BATTLE FOR BARTHIS, giving myself several migraines, back aches and a recurring hatred for everything that showed up on my monitor. The reward, however, is that it's almost guaranteed that I'll have Dominic Deegan's fourth volume ready by ANIME BOSTON, and if anything funky happens between now and then I'll definitely have it by AKON.

It's going to be nice to only work on the week's comics. Almost relaxing. Refreshing. Unless I've forgotten something...

Oh yeah.

May's Donation Wallpaper ought to be up by the end of this week. Whether it'll be one or two wallpapers has yet to be determined.

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

Some weeks you have to end on a cliffhanger.

Some weeks you just have to end making fun of yourself.

Because of all the work I've crammed in on THE BATTLE FOR BARTHIS I've admittedly fallen a little behind in sending out April's Donation Wallpapers. I should have that fixed by the end of the weekend at the very latest.

Other than that, it's been a very long week and I'm going to keep things nice and short down here in the news box. You folks have a nice weekend and I'll see you on Monday.

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

If there's one good thing that's come from locking myself in my apartment for the last few days to power through the last parts of working on The Battle for Barthis, it's that my isolation from humanity has kept me safe from contracting swine flu.

Global epidemics aside, things are looking good with book four and if all goes well (cross your fingers) I should have them in time to debut at Anime Boston. If not there, then I definitely ought to have them for AKON, which would be strangely apropos because I've debuted my last two volumes there. Go figure.

That's all from me for now.
Oink.

Working on The Battle for Barthis these past few days has quite literally dulled my brain to the point where I have absolutely nothing of interest to say today. One can only be so interesting when one spends all of one's day staring at a computer screen as cobwebs slowly form from one's head to one's monitor. Those spiders are bastards.

The last couple of days have been really, really nice, too. The weather is almost taunting me as I stare longingly out my window at the shining sun and blue sky. With any luck I'll have the last of the book work done today so I can spend my weekend taking pictures out in the lovely weather, provided it holds up.

Ah well. Back to work.
Rock on.