Penny and I recently discussed finding regular time to draw. Normally this would be in the evenings, but we don’t get home until about 7 PM, and by the time I fix dinner and we eat, it’s 8PM. I first thought that next hour would be good, since we keep the dogs out of my studio, since there’s so much for Vivi to get at and want to destroy, including stuff that would be very bad for her. This is kind of a problem since the dogs necessitate almost daily cleaning of the house, that seldom gets done after we sit down and relax. I though about a half hour a night, and we decided that’s equally a problem unless I can organize the studio in a way that it’s dog safe.

It hit me the next morning at work.

When I come home for lunch, I keep the dogs outside most of the time and usually goof off online for half an hour until I fix a sandwich to eat on the drive back to work and bring the dogs in. This would be a perfect time to draw. I tried it out and it seems to work pretty good. Hopefully, this’ll mean that I can get back to regular additions to my Jet-Pack Jenny webcomic.

Welcome to the revamped Carpal Tunnel Press. The header is temporary but the layout looks like it’ll stay that way for a while. The purpose is to make the comics easier to read, and especially since I plan on resuming Jet-Pack Jenny and the Factor of 01. I can’t say when the next strip will be posted, but it’ll be soon.

Thanks go to Chris McCorkle, who came to my help when I was ready to give up on WordPress when it turned out that my previous web hoster hadn’t set me up to use wordpress. Chris was really cool to help out like he did and you guys should throw him a little love over here.

I’ve still got a little work to do, such as building the gallery and the store. In the meantime, keep coming back for new posts and new comics!

Jet-Pack Jenny and the Factor of 01 is almost set to restart after a hiatus that we’ll never speak of lest we give it power. The plan is to keep regular updates going on the comic, and occassionally going back and redoing the older strips. I’ve never been completely satisfied with the font or the perfectly symmetrical word balloons. I thought I would be, but its amazing the difference a little time can make.

The new layout will make for easier browsing of the comic, and the header will change (that’s for you, Antar) to reflect not only Carpal Tunnel Press but the comic as well. I still need to learn a few things for the site to work as I want it. There will be a gallery page coming soon, as well as the store, which has been in desperate need of restructuring since I’ve sold out of a few minis, and have no intent to reprint them. A links page for friends’ sites is needed as well, but on the left will be the links for where to find me on facebook, etsy, livejournal, etc. I haven’t decided if I want them to be graphic links or just text links. I don’t want the page to get too busy, and I feel that right now, it’s on the cusp of getting too busy.

In the meantime, there’s plans afoot to go to a convention this summer, albeit only as a normal attendee, not to exhibit. I don’t want to say until it’s certain. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to any type of show, and I’m a little excited about going, provided all goes well.

If anyone has any suggestions for plug-ins that might make the web site run a little smoother or do what I need, let me know in the comments.

Dr. Sketchy’s in Savannah is this weekend! Come to Moon River Brewery on Bay Street and go down to the basement for life drawing in a cool setting with cool people. Admission is $7.00 at the door, but if you go to drsketchysavannah.com you can pay in advance for just $5.00.

The picture above was taken at last month’s session where I actually won a neat poster for the drawing session and an advance pass. There are neat little contests all night long, and not all of them necessarily have to do with drawing ability. It’s a real fun time, and a great way to get some life drawing exercise.

In related news, I’m one panel away from having a strip updated and revised with hand lettering and being just plain drawn better. Stay tuned.

I know that it’s been over a month since you last got a Jet-Pack Jenny fix, but in that time I redrew and colored strip #2, which, when one only takes 1/2 hour a day to work on it, takes a lot of time.

Currently on my drawing table is the next strip, and because the next few strips are going to very expository, I’m going to resort to Wally Wood’s 22 panels that always work. I’m not doing them in order, but I am doing them. I’ll also color this one, immediately after posting the black & white online. I’m thinking about saving a lot of the steps in order to make either a process animated gif or video.

I don’t know if anyone felt the last blog post was out of place, but like it or not, being a skeptic is something that I’m about. I’m neglecting the other blogs that I started in favor of making this my home online. I may try to incorporate them here as long as I can figure out an easy way to post them and keep them backdated to reflect the order in which they were done.

Anyway, it’s morning and I’ll need to hop in the shower in a minute. Thanks for listening.

Thursday and Friday saw my drawing time go into a redraw of a previous strip.  There’s no lettering in the original strip, and I’m really thinking that adding captions would be counter-productive. I’ll research a little about captions, especially in the context of sci-fi comics, but right now, the impulse is to leave the strip captionless. The Science Fiction comics of the 50s, especially the really great EC comics made heavy use of captions, but they were building upon the prose science fiction of pulp novels. So far, I’ve not used captions in this story, aside from the “elsewhere” blurbs, and I really feel like captions in this setting would be useless and be telling things that I can show.

Also, I’m aware that some may be using larger monitor settings to view the Internet, so if you’re having trouble reading the lettering, here’s a tip, if you’re using Windows XP. While pressing “Ctrl”, slowly roll the scroll wheel on your mouse away from you. This’ll enlarge the page and rolling it back will return it to the larger resolution.

There’s gonna be some big changes going on pretty soon around me, and I want to let anyone following the strip that updates might be a little bit sparser over the course of the next few weeks. I can’t go into details right now, but in line with living my life online, you’ll know when I can tell you.

Now, over the course of many years, I was posting on livejournal almost primarily, and since re-establishing this site in a way that I can post everything here, I’ve ignored it. I’m going to attempt to transfer things over here as efficiently as possible. I’m also going to do it with the original posting dates, so even if you don’t see new posts, the archives will be filling up. If you pay attention to the tag cloud, you’ll see it changing. For those of you new to my stuff, these old posts may prove interesting.

I’m almost done with the next strip, but it might be as late as next week when it posts. An updated old strip will be posted as soon as I can draw some pigeons and add them to the foreground.

Stay tuned!

The time has finally come for me to reveal what I’ve been a little mystrious about for the past few weeks. There’s been a big change in my life lately and it’s not all for the better.

I’m getting divorced.

It wasn’t my choice and I did everything I could to keep my marriage together, but you can’t force someone to stay married to you. So, that decided, I resolved to move on and make my way. I’m moving to Orlando, where a good friend that I’ve made through comics needs a roommate, and another good friend that I’ve known for two decades lives. Orlando has a great community of artists, and a burgeoning community of skeptics. I’m really looking forward to the move. A recent trip to arrange some things showed just how much support is down there, and how good it probably is for me to move down there around friends.

Do I regret the past 17 years? No, My wife shaped me into a much better man. I’d like to think that I had some positive effect on her, but if I never get to know that, I’ll be okay. I do love her, and wish I could be around to help her through whatever he future holds for her, but since she wants to go forward alone, the least I can do is get out of her way. We’re parting very civilly, so all should be cordial up until the day I load my share of stuff into a truck and head south.

I’m looking forward now, and hopefully the next few weeks will go smoothly. If anyone wants to help, I’ll happily do commission drawings so you can support my move and not feel like you’re giving me a hand out. Contact me. I’m making a trip to Athens this weekend, and one to western NC a couple of weekends later, to see friends and family. There may be a short jaunt to Orlando if someone wants to interview me, but I look to be moved completely down by the middle of October. If anyone wants to meet up, I’d be happy to do so as long our schedules can sync up.

That all said, there’s a list of about twenty separate steps to take before I move. That means that the updates will be few and far between for the comic. After I settle in, I’ll be drawing a lot more regularly and hopefully updating like mad. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Oh, and keep your fingers crossed for Penny, too.

The very first story I wrote upon nearing the completion of my college education was an autobiographical tale of the internal fears of going into a world filled with uncertainty and faced with the challenges of a marriage and the physical limitations of a malady caused by years of doing the very thing that I loved. In it, I confessed that at times in my life I had even considered ending my own existence. I titled the book after one of the motivators for continuing my journey through the world, and that was a fear of dying. Not necessarily for the fear of the concept of dying, but for the sense that I wouldn’t be done. I had too much to do, and it seemed inevitable to me that upon dying, one is almost certain to leave something unfinished. That comic, Too Scared To Die, was my first foray into comics, and it was very personal.

Eight years later, as I set forth on another journey, not completely of my own choosing, I think back on that work and many times I’ve tried my hand at a sequel. Once was during a particularly low point when I was involuntarily unemployed. A couple of times I attempted to continue it as a journal comic. At no point did any story seem right. Maybe it’s because I’m not looking at dying in the same way anymore. Call it the gift of atheism, as I know what the end result of our mortality has in store, and thus, every moment is precious and should not be wasted. If I have a story to tell, then I should bloody well share it and not wait to do it.

Now, one would think that as I stand on the precipice of another life-changing event, I would feel that the time is right for a sequel. Well, not just yet. I’m really chomping at the bit to continue Jet-Pack Jenny. Also, this stage is incomplete and to start documenting it would take away from the point of any story I want to tell.

With the moving plans, the progress has slowed as I pack my studio up for a full move. A lot of things that have just accumulated are being thrown out, as I can’t imagine anyone wanting some of this stuff, and a few things might find their way onto eBay or craigslist.

Stay tuned.

PS: In the next few days, Too Scared to Die will wind up in the store for purchase. I just have to find the time to do it.

Okay, I really wanted to post the next strip before the move, but It’s just not going to happen. Moving to a new city is leaving me too little time to finish the little bit of inking that I have left and then scan and correct it.

Today was my last day at work in Savannah, and it was a little anti-climatic. The going away dinner we planned didn’t happen as we’d liked, either, but it was a nice farewell. That being done, I came home, and reread the latest issue of World of New Krypton and really enjoyed it for the sci-fi story it truly is.

I wish I had more to talk about than that, but it’s getting late, and I’m beginning to feel the pangs of sleep riding on my shoulders, and I need to pack just a little more before bed. I’ll open up after the move.