News

Okay.
Here's the deal with all the commercial December stuff.

The "holiday book sale" will be going up tomorrow along with the very, very limited edition Dominic Deegan scarves. They'll both be going up at different times, however. The book sale will be going up overnight, since that's simply another option for buying stuff that's already on sale.

Scarves will not go on sale until 3pm Eastern US Standard Time. This will give people who don't stay up all night an equal opportunity to purchase a scarf if they want one.

Oh, and I'll be adding a permanent link to the Dominic Deegan store front at SHARK ROBOT, where lots of awesome shirts are available for your approval. Well, I think they're awesome. I hope you do, too.

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

Holy crap. It's December already.

Lots of people I know dislike this time of year. Whether it's because of the holiday shopping crowds, the pressure of "finding the right gift" or the dread of seeing one's family gathered in one place, this is a stressful time for lots of folks.

Me? I love this time of year. Maybe it's because my family and friends have always had strong holiday traditions, or maybe I'm a sucker for holiday music (be it commercial, religious, or both), or maybe it's because this is the ideal weather to drink delicious stouts and porters. Whatever the case, I'm a happy guy in December. I hope you folks are, too.

Remember that new and classic t-shirts are available for pre-order at SHARK ROBOT! I'm very proud of these so I do hope you folks like what you see.

Information on ordering your very own home-made Dominic Deegan scarf will be available tomorrow. These will just be how and when to order them. I want to give people plenty of heads-up since I have an extremely limited number of them and, if years of conventions have proven anything, they're usually in very high demand.

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

Man. I think I'm still processing all the Thanksgiving food I stuffed my face with this weekend. I hope all of you had as hearty a Tofurkey Day as I did.

Anyway. Back to business.

I am very pleased to announce that a whole bunch of brand new and classic shirts are available for pre-order through SHARK ROBOT! The classic Death From Above! shirt is back, and I'm very proud of the six new Orc Clan shirts that showcase the clans' symbols and their respective traits. Thanks to my new partnership with Shark Robot I can now offer you fine folks more of a variety than ever, so I do hope you like what you see.

A permanent link to the new shirts will be going up in the Seer's Catalog later this week, along with a holiday book sale and details on how to order your own Dominic Deegan scarf!

In other news, some of you wrote to me in regards to the closing of the old Keenspot Forum. For those who used to frequent that message board, many of the regulars there have gone and made a new forum called 9gig. It's not a Dominic Deegan-dedicated forum so it won't be going in the LINKS page, but I figured it would be fair to mention it in today's news post so curious folks would know where to go.

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

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and here's what I'm looking forward to...

- Stuffing my face full of delicious vegan food.
- Trying to make myself heard over my family.
- Trying to speak fast enough so I can get a full sentence out before a member of my family cuts me off.
- Watching my girlfriend win over my family with cupcakes.
- Impressing all my young cousins, who are decades younger than me, with my knowledge of video games and comic books.
- Falling into a food coma.
- Waking up from said food coma, only to stumble a few feet over to my next resting place and resume the aforementioned food coma.
- Stuffing my face full of delicious vegan desserts.

If you live outside the U.S. and don't celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, do me a favor and eat a big, hearty meal for me if you can. We'll share in the spirit of the holiday anyway.

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

It's a little strange coming closer and closer to the end of The March Across Maltak. I've been with this cast of orcs for close to a full year now and it's weird thinking that the spotlight won't be on them any more. That's not to say I'm not excited to bring things back to Callan and the rest of the cast. It just feels a little odd beating up certain characters that have remained untouched, seeing sleepers awaken and other climactic things after such a long time, but in a good way. I only hope many of you are as affected by the oncoming end to this tale as I am... but in a good way.

In other news, there seems to be a slight glitch with the program that updates the comic and the news posts. Whenever I try to adjust the time to compensate for daylight savings, the comic updates at the newly adjusted time but all the news posts are one day off in the Archive. So, rather than try to fix this during the week of a major holiday I'm just going to let the comic update an hour earlier than normal. Big news, I know.

Just a quick reminder that there will be no comic up on Thursday, since it's Thanksgiving here in the U.S. There will be a crummy filler doodle or a photograph of my cats, or something like that. The comic will update normally on Friday. I guess you could call the filler for Thursday... stuffing.

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

Good lord, what happened to November? I feel like it's just flown right by me. I mean, I can hardly believe that this Thursday is already Thanksgiving (for those of us in the United States, anyway)! Since it's a major holiday here it bears making some announcements in regards to the comic.

Obviously, there will be no comic on Thursday. There will be some silly filler, be it a crummy filler doodle or a photograph of one of my cats. The comic will update normally on Friday.

After Thanksgiving it will be December, which means it's time to start holiday sales and such. I will be offering another "holiday special" similar to last year's in the Seer's Catalog, as well as offering an extremely limited number of Dominic Deegan scarves.

Brand new t-shirts will also be available for pre-order soon through Shark Robot! They will be based on the symbols for the various orc clans, so I do hope you like them. Also, for the first time in years, the original Death from Above! t-shirts will be available again, also through Shark Robot. Keep an eye on things there for more ordering information, and I will also be keeping you folks informed here.

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

The folks at Keenspot, who graciously hosted me for a few years and helped me build this awesome fan base, have informed me that they are taking down my old forum from their collection of message boards. I figured I should make this announcement for those of you who frequent that forum.

Truth be told, I have an aversion to internet forums in general. For any reason, for any website, for anything, I get a tiny dose of anxiety whenever I click the "Forums" button. Sometimes I feel like a boxing glove is going to fly out of my monitor and punch me. I just get this constant vibe of negativity, whether it's forums for a TV show, a video game, comic book or webcomic. Sometimes they are very useful sources of information, but I just always get overwhelmed by the arguing and/or complaints.

It's like my relationship with asparagus. I'm a vegan. Asparagus is a vegetable. Asparagus and I should get along because it's good for you and provides some very useful nutrients. I cannot stomach it, however, because for some inexplicable reason I hate the taste, regardless of how good it is for me.

Maybe that's why I go to so many conventions every year. Maybe I'm trying to make up for my lack of internet forum-going by letting everyone know where I'm going to be for three days a time. That way folks have the chance to say what they have to say to my face.

On a totally unrelated note, the newest Brave and the Bold comic that came out this week, featuring Batman teaming up with The Geek, was surprisingly touching. I highly recommend it.

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

Okay, I know in yesterday's strip that the Rhazgala archers all had their bows pointed up and today those arrows are flying horizontally past Suyan's head. This "continuity error" is just a dramatic choice on my part because I felt the arrows flying straight on past him looked cooler. Should I have just had them pointing their bows horizontally in the first place? Probably, but I also originally thought the original path of the arrows was what I wanted. Oh well.

Also, just in case anyone forgot who Suyan is talking to in today's strip, it has admittedly been awhile since we've seen Zinirenku in the comic, so I hope this linky little reminder helps.

As of writing this I'm still working through the week's new comic books, but one that especially stood out for me this week was the Realm of Kings one-shot, which sets up Marvel's next space opera. I'm often the first to criticize Marvel for its crossovers and events, but I am unabashedly in love with their cosmic heroes. With this featuring the return of Quasar and the revelation of a Lovecraftian threat on the horizon... this is something I'm really looking forward to. Also, "what the ftaghn?" may be my new favorite phrase, if only I could figure out how to pronounce it.

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

I've always been a fan of archers in fantasy settings, too. I was thinking of writing a news post on how archers never seem to get any love, but then I realized I would look like a moron because archers always get respect in fantasy. From Legolas to Robin Hood, archers need no help from me in being badass. So yeah.

While we're on the subject of fantasy settings I must again sing the praises of Pathfinder. I know I've linked the hell out of this and you're all probably sick of hearing me kiss its (beautiful) ass, but I've been having such a blast playing it with some good buddies of mine that I felt the need to once again spread the nerd love. Leveling up is very, very satisfying and the game mechanics are so smooth that you feel like you're playing an easier game while still capturing that glorious pen-and-paper roleplaying game feel. It honestly makes me feel like a sixth-grader again when I geek out over how awesome my multiclassed half-orc bard/sorcerer is.

Oh, who am I kidding. I've never stopped geeking out over stuff like that.

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

Things are looking bad for Stonewater's clan, huh? In keeping with my "blunt weapons are badass fantasy weapons" theme... well, I don't know about you, but I would be equally afraid of an orc coming at me with a giant club as one with a giant sword.

A few of you e-mailed me about the validity of yesterday's "non-lethal assault" by Stonewater since there are arrows flying all over the place. I'm going to address that within the next few strips. Keep in mind that the Rhazgala are the finest archers in Maltak, if that helps any.

Otherwise, there's not much of interest to say today.

Oh. Here are some soundtrack recommendations, if you're the type who likes to imagine these scenes to music. I know I am.
"Cry of the Blackbirds" - Amon Amarth
"Eradication Instincts Defined" - Dimmu Borgir
"Hair Doesn't Grow on Steel" - Zimmer's Hole
"Freya" - The Sword

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

An old issue of Moon Knight once had him saying, "Killing? It's the easiest thing in the world. That's why it's so f*cking popular." That quote struck me and is probably one of the reasons for Stonewater's non-lethal assault on the Bikta. Or perhaps there's more to it than that? Stonewater is a little busy at the moment making shields look badass so we'll have to wait for his explanation.

I've never been one to court popularity anyway.

In case you missed it later on Friday, November's Donation Wallpaper is up for your approval. This was a lot of fun to draw and it has a very Captain America feel to it. Maybe Stonewater could be Captain Maltak. He could fight alongside SuperGreg and you all would be very mad at me.

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

Sorry about the lack of a news post yesterday, folks. I literally had nothing of interest to say, even about the week's new comic books. I would've just been repeating myself saying how much I love Deadpool written by Daniel Way and that Blackest Night continues to impress and sadden me. So, good stuff, but nothing terribly new.

My friend, ever-ready model and frequent filler art contributor Tarah told me yesterday that one of the things she likes about me is that I give the spotlight to blunt weapons in fantasy. I guess between Melna's hammer wielding, Hukthak's staff swinging and Stonewater's "shield stomp," she's right. There are so many awesome weapons in the fantasy genre but everyone loves focusing on swords. Sword of This. Sword of That. Give me a warhammer or an axe or even a quarterstaff any day! And shields! Poor, thankless shields! Sometimes I think shields have been forgotten in favor of the dual-wielding swordsman. I'll tell you this much... if I ever go into battle, I'll be wielding two shields. I think I'd need that much protection.

Oh, I almost forgot. This month's Donation Wallpaper ought to be up later today, so check back if you're interested!

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

Thanks to those of you who pointed out the spelling error in yesterday's comic. It's since been corected. My grammar may not be the best in the world but I'm proud of my speling, and when a mistake liek that gets past me I just dye a little inside.

See what I did there? Spelling humor.
Har har har.

Moving on.

Most everyone in the world is all up in arms over the new Call of Duty game (no pun intended), but I've been spending some quality time with Dragon Age Origins myself. If you're a fantasy nerd like me and you like games with powerful stories and great voice acting, then this one is for you. Granted, I'm a sucker for most games where you get to create your own hero and make choices between good and evil. I always play good guys. I can't help it.

I'm off to buy some more comic books. Yay Wednesday!
Rock on.

I'm mostly happy with the way today's comic turned out. I felt like crap all day yesterday and banged out a strip the best I could.

And just in case anyone in particular is worried, I wasn't feeling "swine flu" crappy. It was just a stomach bug. You can relax. Mom.

Although I must admit I am finding a great deal of joy in drawing Adrak. I anticipate he's going to get more and more disgusting growths on his skin because I am having such a good time making him as gross as possible. Whee!

It feels almost weird knowing that I have no more conventions for the remainder of the year. Normally I squeeze one or two in before the holidays, but this year I'll be riding out the rest of the "season" tucked away in my headquarters, working hard to bring The March Across Maltak to its conclusion. With any luck and no more surprise delays I say this storyline should be done by the end of December. It will mark the longest story in the strip's history, having taken one full year to tell. I do hope you folks have enjoyed the ride, because we're on the last leg and I hope to deliver a conclusion worth waiting for.

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

With Halloween behind us and Thanksgiving (here in the U.S. anyway) not a very "commercial" holiday outside of the grocery stores, many retailers have already begun to promote their Christmas sales and merchandise.

And I'm going to do the same right now.

Kind of.

It looks like Dominic Deegan Volume 5: THE WAR IN HELL will not be ready for the holidays after all. With October being a much more draining month than I anticipated, there simply isn't enough time for me to put something together that I'd feel comfortable asking you fine folks to pay for. I anticipate it will be ready before KATSUCON.

In place of a new volume, I will be making a very, very limited-time offer for Dominic Deegan scarves. These hand-made items have only been available at conventions over the past few years, but now I will be in a position to offer a very limited number of them for online sale. I'll have more information later this week.

I'm also planning to offer a series of orc clan t-shirts. More on this as talks continue.

November's Donation Wallpaper also ought to be up for your approval by the end of this week. This isn't so much a holiday item as it is, um, something I should've gotten around to doing already. Aheh.

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