I helped Misty and Bombur get the new Coming Up Violet site up (yes, that was one of my Secret Projects).
I'm writing Brent: Agent of B.U.R.R. over on NamirDeiter.net. We've got a short preview up here.
There were some issues with the RSS feed showing things late and/or twice. I've made some changes that hopefully should fix that. If you have this issue for Thursday's comics or later, let me know which RSS reader you're using.
Been playing Super Mario RPG, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, and Pokemon Pearl (the Battle Tower is the best thing I've got for playing while you're on a treadmill)
Watched The Magnificent Seven the other day. Seven Samurai is, by far, a better movie. I understand most of the changes they made to it: the Japanese caste system doesn't really translate to the Wild West. Some plots had to be cut because of length. And they couldn't get Toshiro Mifune. His character really makes the original movie, and his American counterpart isn't as vibrant or as pivotal. But then again, The Magnificent Seven has Yul Brynner. Now, if you're my age or younger, Yul Brynner is just a punchline to bald jokes - when I saw that he was playing the leader of The Seven, I said to Isabel, "At least he won't have to shave his head"*. But if this movie came out in 1985 instead of 1960, the Internet would be full of Yul Brynner facts instead of Chuck Norris facts.
*: Which, if you've seen both movies, is hilarious. Trust me.
We got the proofs for You Say it First book 1! It looks awesome! How can you a copy? We've been sold out of You Say it First books for the last several years. We're getting them reprinted and we're opening pre-orders now.
When? Book 1 is ready to print and we expect it to ship in about four to six weeks. Preorders will be open until Friday July 9.
What's awesome? Sketch preorders. The book - unsigned and unsketched - is $8. With signature and sketch (your choice of any You Say it First character) it's $15. The sketches will only be available on preordered books. And if you've got an active NamirDeiter.net membership, you get upgraded to the sketch edition at no additional cost!
What's different? The 2010 editions are a bit smaller. Several of the strips have been re-lettered. The content is essentially the same; if you have the earlier editions, you don't have to throw out them out and replace them. I always hate it when a musician puts a brand-new song on a greatest hits album, so I'm not going to do that to you. But if you don't have the books, this is a good time to start. We expect all future You Say it First books to be printed at this size.
What's next? We expect You Say it First books 2 and 3 to be ready in 6-10 weeks. Expect the preorder for those books to open in the next few weeks. Namir Deiter Year 3 and You Say it First volume 4. Both of those require a bit of extra work. And we've got about five secret projects left now. It's like a hydra - each time we complete one, we get two more.
Secondly, June's wallpapers are up!
Thirdly, we're going to be at Anime Expo, in Los Angeles, July 1-4. Not as guests or dealers, but as con-goers (I couldn't get July 4th off work). Is anyone else going? Let us know!
Isabel had a great birthday. Thank you all for your well wishes!
In major news, our store is now open! We don't have very much in stock right now but we hope that will change very soon! In addition to the Namir Deiter and You Say it First books, we have the last copies of Isabel's other series - The Shokora Diaries and Undoubtedly Kawaii. The Shokora Diaries and Undoubtedly Kawaii are only available in two places: online in as NamirDeiter.net bonus books, and in print here. There are limited quantities and we do not plan on reprinting these books.
We've been working on a secret project, a secret project, and a secret project. We hope to have more news on them in the near future. Sorry if we've been quiet*, but it's because we've been busy.
*: And there aren't many folks who could call twelve comics a week "quiet", you know**.
**: Ok, for Bill Holbrook that's practically a vacation. But besides him.
Secondly, our comics are severely continuity-based. Some of them stand on their own pretty well, but most of them - some of my favorites - require context. It'd be like photocopying page 83 of your favorite book, handing that to your friends and hoping that they enjoy it. We're not poised to go viral in a way that some other comics are. That's just not how we work here.
Thirdly, I've seen how easy it is to post a link to Facebook. Do you really need a button for that? Are there people who say to themselves "My friends would really get a kick out of this. But copying and pasting is it too much trouble so I'm not going to bother"? I mean, if they're there I'll add it - I'm not above pandering to the lazy demographic.
Reasons for: I'm reminded of the famous Howlin' Wolf album: "This is Howlin' Wolf's new album. He doesn't like it. He didn't like his electric guitar at first either." I mention that because it is the awesomest album title ever.
Also, it's relevant to the discussion, but I was going to mention it next change I got anyhow. But my point is that just because I might not get something at first, but that doesn't mean it's useless. I don't want to be the last guy making silent films because I think talkies are just a fad. On the other hand, things aren't inherently useful just because I don't get them (cf. Laserdiscs, Windows Vista, hypercolor shirts).
Which brings me into reason against #2: The easy way of doing this - the prepackaged solutions let folks share to about two hundred social networking sites. I was unaware that there were that many. I have never heard of 90% of the sites they list. I'm putting my name with these things I've never heard of and don't know anything about. And if I'm trying to hype myself on a site I've never heard of, I look like a poseur and a shill. It'd make me feel like an unhip corporation trying to rebrand itself into a youth culture that it doesn't try to understand.
But that's a reason for: As the social networking environment changes - and I'm sure it will - I can either let the try to keep up with it by myself, fall behind, or go with a prepackaged widget that does the work for me.
I've spent more time thinking about how to do this than I it would take to implement any of the above solutions, so I'm going to leave it here. Since this is something that you guys would use, what do you think?
I was amazed at how nice everyone was. The comments - I read them all - were all positive. Nobody said that we suck. So this either means that we don't suck, or that people who think we suck were seriously under-represented in the survey. And in my experience on the internet, people who think you suck aren't shy telling you so.
We also didn't get anyone who put "much less" for all the characters. I was expecting that. I was going to post a version of today's comic with just backgrounds, no characters and call it "Hey, Joey - this one's for you" or something like that. Didn't happen.
Secondly, how much are we taking from the survey? Some. It's tough, as a creative type I can't really go with either extreme. We have a vision here and believe in it; I'm not going to just scrap everything and change directions. But I'm also not going to act like I know everything, that there's nothing I can learn here. That's why I did this - because I think I'm doing pretty good, but I want to get better.
I hope I asked the right questions to get the answers I'm looking for. I spent a while thinking about the distinctions between liking characters and wanting to see more of them. I mean, Ms. Taylor isn't a villain, or exactly an antagonist, but she's not always very pleasant. But she's interesting.
Thirdly, what were the results? I've tallied the votes for who you'd like to see more. I've got it in a big spreadsheet that really makes me wish I paid more attention in statistics class.
This isn't American Idol, but if it were, Emily and Bram would've been voted off. Brisbane and Kimberly were the least disliked, and Silver_Blossom and Sandra were the most liked. The two best-received stories were Date-Night In and The Troublesome Troubles of Ms. Taylor.
Singles Cruise was both the #3 favorite and the #1 least favorite. I expected that. When I was writing it, I thought that if we had a forum, it'd cause arguments. No other story got more than a single vote for least-favorite.
(Why wasn't David on there? He hasn't shown up in over four years - if you say you want to see less of him in the comics, what does that even mean?)
Fourthly, most of our readers: seem satisfied with the website*, suggest reading Unlike Minerva**, read both comics***, think Kevin & Kell is the most similar comic, and like the more domestic stories****, use Firefox, and read a lot of webcomics.
So, once more - thank you
*: Which we don't get much feedback on. If it were lousy, who would send me an email just to tell me that?
**: Isabel and I are too close to the source material to have any kind of objective opinion on it. The options were "Yes. One should start with Unlike Minerva and read everything in order.", "Yes. But after you read You Say it First first.", "No, You Say it First stands on its own", "No. Unlike Minerva isn't very good" - I agree with all of them, usually at the same time.
***: I check the stats - there are a lot of people who read Namir Deiter but not You Say it First. One of the reasons for the survey was to figure out what was up with that without having to directly ask. Seriously, what's up with that?
****: Which I jokingly refer to, collectively, as "Brisbane and Kimberly sit around the house, talk about doing something, but don't".
Also, sorry for not mentioning it sooner, but we have some new fan art- please check it out (and thank you Scene)!
There was supposed to have been more news- but it didn't get finished in time for tonight's update- hopefully it'll be up... sooner than later. Till then, happy May (oh and my birthday is coming up on the 27th, fan art is the gift that keeps on giving *hint* *hint*).