Video Games Next?

Laura-

Ok, school’s done my fine fellows, so I’ll have some time to try and get a backlog for you so that I can keep some sort of schedule for the next semester.  I’m really sorry, because some of you expressed that you want MOAR UPDATES.  Well, actually I’m pretty pleased you’re interested.  I  don’t have a schedule for updating, though, because I can not keep one due to the whole school thing.  So.  I’m working my whole vacation (on stuff that I find fun to work on) so that I can make a schedule and keep it.  I <3 you guise.

Comics

Laura (Gabi)-
First off- spoiler warning! Some spoilers about various comics and possibly the new Watchman movie, if it follows the comic book.

Gabi's indoctrination continues.

Second, in regards to VGX, Thank you! Thanks for coming to see us at the panel. Thanks for talking to me and making me feel loved. Thank you even for yelling at me to update more, because I always have a hard time believing anyone cares. Thank you for talking to us about D&D, because we always love that. Everyone we met was really cool and we had a great time. I wish that that special convention time could be all the time. It’s so exciting to be surrounded by people who know what we mean when we say “Epic” and don’t look at me funny when I mention Star Trek. Can’t wait to see you all again next time!

VGXPO 2009 Report

Let me start off by saying at the time of this writing it is disgustingly early, and I’m slogging forward from the magical fairyland wonder of a convention to the cold harshness that is real life and my “real” job. I realize that you, the reader, may not see this until seven or eight pm tonight, but I wanted you to know that it is sadly early and that is the excuse that I am going to use if I forgot anything, or did not post anything I should have.
Ok, for starters to anyone who came to the panel on Saturday night, thank you. I hope we were informative and you were able at least glean something from our ramblings. The panel went well, but unfortunately I was unable to give you guys any websites because my outline was torn, so as promised the websites are as followed:
Everyone seems to be stressing the Orphan act, and rightfully so, here are a few websites that is keeping tabs on the orphan act, and the problem it is causing:

http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/
http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html

If that mess fails, and we can only hope that it does, as an artist you’ll want to know about our current copyright laws.
http://www.benedict.com/Digital/Web/WebProtect.aspx
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

The Templetons site is a particularly good article for debunking what is common myth regarding copyrights.

As for the rest of the con, it was a particularly good con for us. We ran into a lot of people who are old con friends, some real life friends, and we got to meet a lot of new people, a few who like the comic, and few who just wanted to hang out with us and talk gaming. We like all of that stuff, we try to be as approachable as possible, and we love chatting with people about the comic, and gaming and what not. So in that respect this con was very good to us.

A word on the update schedule issue, well, we’re kind of on the 3D realms update schedule of each comic will be done when it’s done. We’re trying to put something in place so that we can get a bit more of a regular schedule going, but that won’t be in place until after the New Year, and it’s experimental so it may fall flat on its face. (Life can be terribly invasive sometimes.)

Ok, so Picture Time!!!

After the panel Gabi hung around and chatted with a few people. For everyone who came, thank you. We’re going to work on it over the winter so that next year it’s more interactive. Gabi was dead serious about that circle thing…yeah, I don’t know how I feel about that hippie shit!

Us Hanging about after the panel, just having fun and chatting!

Code Monkeying Around

No update, just your artist/writer/inept coder making an update in only words. That’s Laura for those of you who don’t know that the guys have as little to do as possible around this website. The stupid things that I have to do to code to get this site to bend to my will are unbelievable. There is only so much I can learn to do at a time, and coding is definitely not something high on my list. Yet I still have a need to try and make this place better. Whenever I try to add something (See ad space –>) I lose something else. Really, it is more scientific than that. Things don’t just disappear on me. If I try to change something I end up only being able to do that through changing the whole wordpress theme I’m using and then I have to basically do all the style and image changes that I did in the beginning of building the site again. Except I have no idea how I did them… so I have to try and duplicate everything through trial and error. Tedious, boring and definitely not how I want to be spending my time. I’d rather be drawing.

I do feel satisfied that I finally have a little ad box there, though. Maybe we’ll finally join the wide wonderful web comics schmoozing scene. I dunno, we’re not much for that around here because it always feels fake. I feel a lot happier talking to other artists now since my experience with Geeks Next Door and Subpar Comics. Positive reinforcement! <3 Ok… back to drawing… or homework… or sneaking in some anime. Weekends are a good time to try and sneak in something nonproductive.

Phillies

Wow, guys. Skool is hard. Not really… but it is time consuming. I thought I didn’t have time when I was running round after the rugrats, but nope… definitly less time now. Mostly because I have to do all this work and nonrecreational reading at home. I forgot how much I missed my fantasy and sci fi novels during the school year. No matter… I still draw.

Convention coming! We’ll be at VGX! Also…

Matt Nortnic drew a fanart and colored it of FK! I was really really pleased. It made me happy and excited. Go look at his deviant art so he can get lots of page views!

Monster Mashing

This is not a Friday Knights comic, but click it to see my new baby! Monster Mashing. A comic done completely by me, no guys writing it. This means that not everyone who likes this comic will probably like that one. I posted the first comic for it today. It is going to be a comic involving vampires, werewolves and other classic horror figures… I know, done to death, but I like that stuff. Forgive me while I spray my fantasies all over the internet, look away if it gets too cheesy and spare me the embarrassment… wait! No, don’t look away… watch with avid attention as I make amazing stories out of these cliche archetypes. I promise, at least one of you will like it.

That comic is going to be on the same update schedule as this one: namely I will try for once a week and you will get more if I have more free time and less if school encroaches on my drawing time. Hope you all like it! Don’t fear clicking the link, I own that site too so it’s safe. Go! Read! Let me know if it is a good beginning!

Zkon was sure motivating.

Laura-

I cannot express the sheer joy of someone telling me they like what I drew or wrote. I didn’t expect anyone to like anything, so it was extremely motivating. I hear you want me to update MOAR… well ok. I’ll try hard for you guys. I have to put my schoolwork first (because I put money into that and actually expect to eventually get money out of it, yanno what I mean?), but I’m going to strive to update more often. The reason we don’t have an update schedule thing here is because I don’t want to promise what I can’t deliver. I can promise that I’m working hard to bring you better art and writing each time you come to check us out.

Also- so very many people like the shirts we make so I’m trying to get a permanent store set up on here. For those of you that saw us at the convention, just comment with which design and size and your email and I’ll email you and let you know what it will cost… unless you want to just wait for the store.

Websites-making is hard for me. I like drawing better. I get more work done per time spent that way too. Gah. I shoulda taken a class when I had extraneous classes to take the first time around in college. Silly me, learning Japanese seemed more useful at the time. I guess it is sometimes. Ne?

Movie Time!

Here’s a comic.  I have a speech, a midterm, a test and a panel this week, so we’re going to leave it at that.

Laura-
School is awesome! (Also making updating a bit slower, sorry folks) I missed class. I love class. A&P (Anatomy and Physiology) is realllly challenging. Public Speaking is looking like it will be useful, so I guess I get why I have to take it. The teacher has revolutionary ways of teaching it that are Psychologically sound (says the former behavioral therapist). I am totally not sucking up because he can read this. Anyway, it seems like it will be useful for the upcoming Zenkaikon panel. (see the news section) Chemistry starts Friday, and I am very very afraid. I hope I can handle it. I also have an A&P test. It’s on a lot of material. I am studying, studying, studying. This will continue until I am a nurse. Then I’ll study something else.

Financial aid kicked in, so I should soon be able to pay my father back for fronting me the money since if I didn’t pay they woulda dropped all of my courses. I thought it would be a pain in the butt to get money because of the economy, but PA still seems to love me in the way of grants. Maybe I still have some left since Temple was so cheap and I had some scholarship money there. It doesn’t cover everything, but it makes it affordable.

Art-wise I’ve been working with Fimo clay (also taking time from drawing, gimme a break) to try and create things to sell. It is really a very neat type of clay. I don’t need a kiln to fire it. I can make all sorts of things. I’ve just been making little charms and cell phone straps right now. I want to sell them because being jobless has meant being poor. I hate that. I mean, I was pretty poor before, but now it is worse, as expected. Wil’s paycheck sorta kinda gets us by. Everything’s pretty expensive, so now I wanna try and make some money by creating different forms of art for people. It was pretty nice selling things we’ve made at Otakon, so I thought I’d try and sell stuff online. Coming soon: stuff to buy from me. Don’t at all be swayed by the free comics provided for your entertainment. ^_~

Fun!

Fun?

Laura-
I apologize for the long time between last comic and this. Our interwebs went through an interruption period. We were upgrading and apparently the company thought it was all right to be slow about it. The wage minions responsible for this interruption in our primary form of … everything… have been stuck in tubs full of frozen strawberries to teach them a lesson. That is all.

In boring news, I am about to talk about the weather. This is apt to happen every time the leaves start to turn amazing colors. Is anyone else (in a similar climate to PA, USA) as excited as I am that it is finally fall?! I found one orange leaf today! I know the rest won’t be changing for some time, but I am pleased as Angel right before he turns into Angelus. (This brought to you by Seth Green’s voice coming out of the video game Wil is playing.)

We have come by an itteh bitteh basement kitteh. She is adorable. Her name is Queen Medb (Maab!), and all should welcome her to the world.

Wil-

The plot is moving along, it’s taking time, but we are getting where we want to go. With Gabi in class I expect the updates to slow down a wee bit until December. Who knows, maybe someday we’ll become independently wealthy and we’ll be able to quit all of these distractions and work solely on our creative endeavors…until that day come, I’ll be happy to dream.

Ganz and I have had a bit of a row about these upcoming comics, we always seem to disagree on things, how we think the characters should act, how they should comport themselves, what they would do in given situations, etc, etc. We usually argue about dialogue, but occasionally we toss around things like “Dude, she would never do that,” or “maybe we’re making her too slutty,” or “too chaste,” or “too air-headed,” or a number of different things that are ironed out over a few cans of Bawls, and a bout of DOA. We also have our favorite characters: I’m an Akiko fan, Ganz, not so much, even if he was the primary writer behind the Gayako comic. (Which by the way, in case anyone didn’t get the reference, and I know this is a bit late, but it was a play on the name of a famous specter from Japan.) It isn’t always easy working these differences out, but we always figure get by in the end, and sometimes we even both manage to walk away satisfied, which is what happened when we were writing this arc. I’ll probably talk more about it next update, or not. But for now, I guess I better get back to videogames. Sayonara!