zole.org

Seven comments on my first post! I feel like that is a better blog reception than I probably deserve. I realize that is probably a one-time-only thing, though. From here, I will have to blog-sink or blog-swim on the strength of my blogging skills. Also, I’m thinking I should never say “blog” again.

While Death To The Extremist is still over, I still have a bunch of “bonus material” sitting around on my hard drive, and thanks to some computer problems I wasn’t able to upload it all on January 2nd as promised. So, I’m uploading an “outtake” every day until I’m out (probably two more weeks’ worth) and updating the “Background Gallery” on Fridays. I’ve also uploaded the template I used to make Death To The Extremist along with the ill-advised Arcade font. Go ahead and fill the void with your own comics! Send ‘em to me and I’ll put them on the site, if you catch me on a good day!

Just to be clear, these are outtakes for a reason. This isn’t going to be like those Simpsons outtakes where the problem was that they just recorded too darned much hilarity and had to cut some for time. This is more like meat that is deemed unfit for human consumption but suitable for dog food. This is evidence that, contrary to what many have said, I do have a quality control process.

A few of the ones from late 2006 came from a process that I hoped would boost my traffic numbers after going to three comics a week. I thought maybe I was losing readers because I was turning out lousier comics under the increased deadline pressure, so I had a brilliant idea: produce four comics a week. But instead of publishing them all, I’d just publish the three strongest ones. The outtakes could then be discarded or reworked later, and certainly not because it was easier than coming up with a new idea. This production schedule was working okay, but I moved in early November, and I burned through my backlog while I was busy painstakingly breaking down, moving, and reassembling IKEA furniture. My JERKER came through okay, but I couldn’t get back on the schedule. So anyway, you’ll see some of the comics that didn’t make the cut.

Oh, also! If I could direct your attention to the Death To The Extremist store, I finally took a T-shirt idea I had and made it happen. It is a protected parody of an actual subway system’s shirts, although I can’t say which one. The comic it’s based on seemed kind of sad to me after I wrote it, but out of context I find the shirt design kind of sweet.