Geek Tragedy Blog Archives

	January '08
.
31 / JAN / 08 - 1048 CST : Off by a single digit... Okay, so I was too tired to think straight when it came to reworking the script, but *sigh* I'm beginning to think that drawing cartoon characters for so long has made me forget basic human anatomy. Anyway, I'll fix that up later on in the day. For now, I really want to try and get some sleep. Later, -Ed 1039 CST : Couldn't sleep... So instead of laying there trying to will myself unconscious, I decided to get my ass up and finish rewriting the strip. So here you go folks. Enjoy! Later, -Ed 0845 CST : 'Cause I'm usually funnier after I've slept... Hey folks. A new GT² will be making its way out to y'all later on today. I've actually finished the artwork for it already, but I'm still not convinced that the funny is quite there yet. Unfortunately at this point I'm too tired to remember name, never mind play script doctor to my own work. So in an effort to remedy this I'm going to lay down for a while, grab some sleep, and then see if I'm any better at writing jokes when I'm fully rested. And if not, well I guess I'll just go on ahead with my original script. Either way, I should have it up by later this afternoon. Oh, one more thing. I've *finally* gotten around to doing up a little banner that let's you guys know about the T-shirt pre-sale that's on from now until Feb. 15th. But seeing as how it's at the top of every page on the site I'm guessing you've already noticed it. Or at least I hope you have. 'Cause if not, I'm obviously doing something way wrong when I design banners. Anyway, if you get a chance, feel free to head on over to the store and check out what's for sale and what kind of deal you'll get if you preorder a shirt. Alrighty, all that whoring my shirts has left me plum tuckered. Time for bed. Later, -Ed **** 29 / JAN / 08 - 1007 CST : Drive by posting... Hey folks. Can't talk long right now. Just wanted to let y'all know that that strip will be up later this afternoon. See ya then. -Ed ** 28 / JAN / 08 - 0845 CST : If you've got it, font it... Hey folks. When it comes to the GT² strips I try my best to shy away from ideas that will require me to use my keyboard more than my Wacom table to create for two reasons; 1) Because I actually enjoy getting to draw any chance I can get. and 2) Because I am truly awful at spelling, so strips that are entirely (or almost entirely) composed of text take me forever to edit. That being said, every once and a while I come up with an idea (much like the one I had for today's offering) that simply can not be expressed any other way than through the use of various fonts. Or maybe they can and I just don't have the skills to express them in any other way. Who knows. Alrighty folks. I've actually managed to get a bit ahead of schedule with tomorrow's full strip and I'd like to see if I can keep that momentum going, so back to work for me. Later, -Ed ** 25 / JAN / 08 - 2334 CST : DONE! With 26 minutes to spare! Later, -Ed 2207 CST : ETA, one hour... The strip should be up shortly after 11pm (CST). In the mean time though, if you'd like a sneak peek / spoiler of the strip as it looks right now before I've converted certain parts to grayscale (and without any of the word bubbles) CLICK HERE! Okay, time to put this strip to bed! Back soon. Later, -Ed 18024 CST : Slight delay... Hey folks. I decided to lay down to take a little nap before finishing the strip. T I just woke up now. Which really makes it more of a "full day's sleep" I guess, and less of a nap. Yeah, so I figure the moral of this story is you can only push by on a few hours of sleep a day, before your body decides to push back and say "Hey! I've got needs too you know!" Anyway, I'm back at it now, and the strip should be ready in a few hours (and by god it will be done before midnight!). I'll try to post a little snippet of the strip before it's finish to help hold y'all over. In the mean time, thanks for your patience! Later, -Ed 0930 CST : Getting some answers... Hey folks. As far as I can estimate, today's strip will be up around late afternoon / early evening (though I'll try to get it done sooner, as I'd really like to get Sunshine and Lollypop off the main page ASAP). I don't want to say anything about it right now, as I know some of you out there don't like spoilers, but I do want to talk about another strip that I did last year. Now I don't get e-mails commenting on specific strips very often. And even if I do, it's usually one e-mail, from one person, about one strip and that's it for a few weeks. However, when I first posted the strip "After Dark - Noname" not only did I receive a few comments in person from friends and family, but I also got a slight influx of e-mails as well (and by "slight influx", I mean more than none). It was at this point I learned that for me to get a sudden spike in strip related e-mails I simply needed to do one of three things; 1) Screw something up enough to confuse people. 2) Do something intentional to confuse you guys. or, 3) Both screw something up and do something intentional to confuse y'all. And in the case of that particular strip, it seems I went with #3. Part of the confusion came into affect because a few of you didn't realize that the point of view in those panels kept flipping back between looking straight at Noname, and looking at his reflection. And once I took another look at the strip, I realized that was because I "screwed up" and didn't give you enough visual clues to tip you off about that. So I ended up going back and reworked parts of that strip to try and help remedy this. The other part that confused folks was that no one understood why Noname suddenly saw his zombie self in the mirror, and then grabbed his head in pain in the last panel. Now that was intentional. So, the question you may be asking yourself now is, "Why are you suddenly bringing this up today?" Later, -Ed ** 24 / JAN / 08 - 0845 CST : Pummeled with care... Hey folks. Not much to say right now, but I do have a couple of things to mention. I know there are a few new readers out there, and so in case you weren't sure, I wanted to let y'all know that the site updates four times a week. New GT²'s are posted Mondays and Thursdays, and new "full strips" go up Tuesdays and Fridays. Generally I try to get these up around 8:45am, but sometimes (mostly on Fridays) I don't get a chance to finish them up till much later on in the day. I figured this would be worth saying seeing as how I don't really have it stated anywhere on the main page like I ought to. Also, the FORUM, CONTACT & INFO, and MEET the GEEKS (where you'll find descriptions of the cast and a story synopsis) pages are still under construction. And while I'd like to say that I'll have them all up soon, chances are they won't go live again until I've finished with the site redesign I have planned for later this year (I'm shooting for late summer). Whoring mode /on... Also, I now have a definite date as to when the shirts will be printed up. I've been told that I'll have them in my hands in three weeks (actually, it'll most likely be a bit sooner than that, but I figured it was best to give a worst case scenario there). Which means the presale will be ending on February 15th. After which I will no longer be giving away a free button set with each shirt. Also the price will be going back up to $17.00, with all XXLarge sizes being an additional $2.00 each. So if you'd like to get a discount and some free stuff with your order, it must be in by then. And on one final note, I know pre-sales may rub some of you the wrong way. Paying now for something that won't be sent out to you for a few weeks to come is always a bit much to ask. But please keep in mind that hookers and blow don't come cheap and I need...oops. What I meant to say was, even with the pre-sales, the lion's share of the cost for these shirts will still be coming out of my pocket. And truth be told, my pockets generally aren't all that deep. So I can't even begin to describe how important pre-sales are. Not only do they help cover the initial costs, they also act as a way for me to gauge if I should continue to offer more Geek Tragedy items in the future. Also, in the long run, they will go a long way towards keeping this site up and running and making sure the updates continue to flow in a timely manner. So please, if you do want a shirt, or even if you'd just like to help support the site and get something out of it for yourself at the same time, please consider placing an order in the next couple of weeks. Okay, that's enough salesman babble for now. Whoring mode /off... Alrighty folks. I've got a few things to do before I can even hope to get a jump start on tomorrow's strip, so I'm outta here. Later, -Ed ** 22 / JAN / 08 - 0947 CST : By (for some ungodly reason) popular demand, they're back... Hey folks. I honestly don't know how many strips I've done over the past three years (minus a couple months). It's somewhere in around the high 300's I think. And of all of those strips, the one that seems to get brought up the most when I meet new readers, is the freakin' Sunshine and Lollypop one (or "Lick Me" strip, as people tend to call it) I did on April 1st, 2005. As you can most likely tell by the date, that...thing, was originally done as an April Fools joke. It was meant to be, and in my opinion truly is, an unforgivably awful strip. I did that by intentional design. 'Cause as bad as my early artwork was, I still like to think that overall the "Lick me!" strip was a whole lot worse than anything else I was producing at the time. And yet people keep telling me how much they like. Which in a way is great to hear (I guess). After all, it's nice to know something I did seems to have tickled more than a few people out there to a point that they wanted to share that fact me. On the other hand though, it's kinda jarring to realize that the one strip I tried so very hard to make suck, in some ways overshadows three years of (somewhat) carefully planned storytelling in some people eyes. However, that being said, I have always wanted to bring them back eventually. In fact, I even toyed with the idea of having Lollypop be revealed as Noname's tormentor instead of The Albino (I think I was drunk at the time), but in the end decided against it (thank God!). So there you go folks. For those of you out there who really got a kick out of that particular strip, enjoy! Because chances are you're not going to see these two again for another three years. Later, -Ed ** 21 / JAN / 08 - 2013 CST : T-shirt Pre-Sale! Hey folks. Well it's finally time. Time for me to become a merchandising whore, and try to peddle my goods on the cyber street corners. So let's get to it shall we... There are currently two designs available for pre-order. There's the Anarchy Bear design. And the Geek Pride design. The Bear will be primarily be done up on Ladies style shirts, but (as I know a few women out prefer the regular cut) I will be getting some printed up on regular style shirts as well. However, regular style shirts of this design will be rather limited. So if you want one with that type of cut, it may be a good idea to order (or better yet, pre-order) early. As for the Geek Pride shirts, pretty much the opposite will be true. Mostly regular style shirts, with a few ladies style ones thrown into the mix. Both shirts are being professionally silkscreened with the design, on high quality 100% pre-shrunk cotton black T-shirts. These are not iron on transfers being applied in my basement on shirts that I got at a discount store. I've used this company before for making shirts, and I was very impressed with their work. And while I don't have a definite date yet (I'll know more on Wednesday), I do know they will be ready sometime in February. I should also note that last time, they got me my shirts several days before they said they would. All shirts will come in Small, Medium, Large, X-Large, and XX-Large, however the XX-Large shirts will cost $1.00 more per shirt. And speaking of price... Both the regular and ladies style shirts will be $17.00 plus shipping (which for the most part will be $4.00). And like I said above, XX-Large sizes will be $1.00 more. However...** If you pre-order a shirt anytime between now and the end of February, you will get a free set of Geek Tragedy buttons (which I normally sell for $4.00 each), and I will knock $1.00 off the price of the shirt. And just incase you've never seen the what the button sets look like, head on over to the store and check them out. So once again, you'll get a shirt, plus a button set, for $16.00 (plus shipping). So there you go folks. If you like the work I've done above, all I ask is that you consider pre-ordering a shirt. Or even if you don't like the work I've done, but you know someone who might, buy them a shirt. Hell, there are starving children in third world countries, so help 'em out and buy them a shirt! Yes, I know. They'll still be starving even if you buy them a shirt, but at least they'll be able to wear something cool while that's all going on. Oh, and one last thing. I spent the entire weekend (and most of today) completely redesigning the store using Zen Cart. And while I still have some tweaking to do here and there, I think it worked out pretty well. However, if you have ANY problems with store whatsoever, please drop me an e-mail at ed (at) geektragedy (dot) com and let me know! Okay folks. I'm sure I'll be banging this pre-sale drum for days to come, so I guess for now I can call it quits and try to get a bit more sleep. Later, -Ed PS: One more thing, all orders can only be paid for using PayPal (which in turn allows me to accept credit cards and e-cheques / checks). However, if you'd like to try and work out some other method of payment, drop me an e-mail and maybe we can work something out. PPS: And just so we're clear, by "other method", I still mean with real money. Y'know in case you thought I was trying to solicit...never mind. 0910 CST : I guess that means waxing doesn't take place till Tuesday... Hey folks. New GT² is up. Crazy tired. Going to bed. Big news about the T-shirt pre-sale later on when I wake up. Later, -Ed **** 18 / JAN / 08 - 1935 CST : While you're waiting... Almost done guys. Just have the first panel left to colour. I left that to the end because it's the only one I had to use something other than grayscales on. And for those of you who need a little something to hold you over for the next couple hours, here's a little snippet from the incoming comic (I took the text out of the bubbles so as not to make this any more of a spoiler than it already is). Alrighty! I'm in the home stretch, so back at it! Later, -Ed 1525 CST : UPDATE... Hey folks. I took a nap, so I'm a little behind now. Which means the strip won't be up till later on in the evening. However, when I do post it, it'll be all coloured up. Well, the first panel will be anyway. The rest of the strip is going to be in grayscale, as the last three panels are all flashbacks. Okay, back to work. Later, -Ed 0845 CST : Because I'll be too tired later... Hey folks. Today's strip isn't up yet, but I figured I'd do the news entry now while I'm still wide awake. Granted I haven't got much to say at the moment, so I guess having a fully functional brain isn't really too important right now, but at least it'll hopefully help me cut back on the typos. Anyway I just wanted to remind y'all that today's strip will be posted in the early to late afternoon, and will most likely stay in the inks stage until later on this weekend when I get a chance to colour it. Also, just a reminder that the pre-sale for the new T-shirt designs will kick off next week. Also I'm still messing around with the site a bit here and there, so don't be too surprised if pages seem to blink out of existence now and then suddenly pop back up for no good reason for the next couple of weeks or so. Oh, and I took the shirt designs from the main strip area and threw them into the alt-archives section. So if you wanted another peak at them you can head on over there, or just take a look at these smaller versions down below... Well that's it for me. See, I told you I didn't have much to say (but if I think of anything else, I'll swing on back after I've finished today's comic). Later, -Ed ** 17 / JAN / 08 - 0845 CST : CHARGE! Hey folks. I'm killer tired, so I'm gonna try and make this brief. As you can see at the top, I've finished the second T-shirt design that I'll be rolling out this year (if you missed it, the first design can be found here). There may still be a third one on the way too (one that will be more directly related to the comic itself), but I'm not sure. What I do know is that pre-orders for the T-shirts will start next week, and the T-shirts themselves will be done next month. So keep a look out for more info after the weekend. As for today's GT², well it pretty self-explanatory. I haven't had much need to use the old credit card for the past year or so, but since 2008 has come around, I've been throwing a lot of money into the site in various ways (paying for tables at cons, airfare, hotels, software, and merchandise) and that little piece of plastic is really starting to feel the burn. Alrighty guys. I've gone several days now with very little sleep, so I think I'm gonna try to get my ass to bed early today. Later, -Ed PS: Tomorrow's full strip should be up by the early to late afternoon, but it may be black and white till the weekend. Also once I get all caught up on the non-strip related stuff I need to get done for the site and a few personal things (like taxes!) I'll see what I can do about going back and finishing off any of the past strips that have been left without colour. * 16 / JAN / 08 - 0845 CST : (Me + forum) x host change = broken shit... Hey folks. Okay so the move to the new host is done, and everything seems to be working fine...except for the forum of course. Yes, once again I've managed to screwed up something with the database during a move to a new home, and so for now that part of the site is buggered up. Unfortunately with all the other stuff I need to get done this week, I don't think I'll have a chance to even attempt to fix it until this weekend at the earliest. So for the time being I've made the link inactive. Yes, yes. I know. The four of you who post there are most likely quite upset right now, but there's little to be done I'm afraid. Okay folks, I best start doing something productive now or else I'm likely to fall asleep where I sit. Later, -Ed PS: Oh, and one more thing before I get my ass back to work. If you look above (you may have to hit refresh first) you'll see that I've tweaked the ladies T-shirt design a bit. More on that another day though. ** 15 / JAN / 08 - 0845 CST : I'll make this brief... Hey folks. I've got to get started on screwing up the site right away, so this is gonna be a quick one. I should have all the T-Shirt designs done by Monday, and after I get a quick quote from the printers, I'll throw up some links for the pre-sale. This time around with T-shirts I decided to focus more on designs that would (hopefully) sell well on their own, and less on a direct connection to the site itself. For example, I did get the basic idea for the ladies design you see above from the Tempting Fate storyline I did early 2006, but it's not an exact translation of Frank Tender-Tush bodyguard. Also keep in mind that I may tweak the design a little bit between now and the pre-sale (specifically adding something to the bear's tummy) so if you have any input feel free to drop me a note. Okay, that's all for now. Please keep in mind though that the site may be down here and there throughout the week while I do the move to a new host as well as some other site stuff. So be warned. Later, -Ed ** 14 / JAN / 08 - 0845 CST : A coincidence, not a trend... Hey folks. Right off the bat I gotta ask...is that really how coincidence is spelt? Wow, I thought for sure I'd get those little squiggly red lines under there the second after I typed in that last "e". And secondly, I assure you that mentioning / alluding to prison rape for two GT²s in a row is not the beginning of some kind of twisted theme this month or something. It was just a happy accident (okay, so maybe that's not the best term for it, but you get my point). And speaking of the square strips... As you might have been able to tell from what you see above, I do in fact get my mother to help me with my taxes each year. And by help, I mean she pretty much does them for me. Keep in mind though she is an accountant, so it's not like I still haven't cut the apron strings or anything along those lines. I just feel she's far better qualified in that particular area than I am. Plus I really don't want to go to jail, and so far she's done a wonderful job of preventing that from happening. Also I hear numbers are like crack to accountants, so who am I to deny my own mother an extra fix each year. WARNING!! WARNING!! Okay, now that I've got your attention... I'm going to be switching webhosts this week, and while I'm hoping everything will go well, it never actually does when it come to the site. So here's the thing, the site may be kinda up and down over the next few days. If that happens though it should only be for brief periods of time, but should the site be down longer than expected either tomorrow, Thursday, or Friday, I will be posting the updates for those days at an alternate location so as not to miss an update. At the moment I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to go with as far as an alternate location is concerned, but I can tell you it will be either the barren wasteland that is my Livejournal, or the only slightly less barren wasteland that is my MySpace page. However, if you follow my twitter posts I'll be letting you know there where to find them should the need arise. Or I guess you could always just check both whenever the site is down. One more thing, due to all the site moving / upgrading wackiness it's 99% likely that tomorrows comic update will be of the splash / filler art variety instead of a full strip. If that is the case, I promise you the strip will get back to the storyline come Friday. Alrighty guys. I've hear a pizza calling my name, and I feel it would be rude not to answer. Later, -Ed ** 11 / JAN / 08 - 1346 CST : Text-a-palooza... Hey folks. Where to start? Well I guess I should begin by saying that the Golden Girls reference in the first panel goes out to the two biggest fans of those silver-haired jesters I know. My mother, and Brooke from A Girl and Her Fed. Next, I should bring up the fact that I guess I kinda put my foot in my mouth during yesterday's post when I eluded to the fact that today's comic would be "colourful". Especially considering that I knew damn well that it was going to be mostly a grey-scale "flashback" strip not unlike the one I did a few weeks ago. Sorry about that, it kinda slipped my mind that I was going to convert most of those snippets from past strips into black and white. Now, as for all the text in this strip...well I know this sort of thing only seems to bother me when it comes to the strips, but I still feel kinda bad about it. The funny things is too, that I actually had scripted a lot more dialog for this one, and ended up having to break it up over two strips instead. Honestly, I don't know what I'm thinking sometimes when I sit down to write. Okay, what else... Oh, for those of you who were confused about yesterday's GT² and its accompanying news post: 1) That is blood all over Dr. Phil, which he got when he dug in to "help" with Spears' operation. 2) It was essentially a comment on how I feel the good doctor tends to overstep certain boundaries, and generally seems to be under the mistaken impression that he's in any way capable of being useful in the lives of others. 3) In no way am I defending Miss Spears in any way, shape or form. So there you go. I usually don't go out of my way to break down the thoughts behind my strips this much, 'cause nothing helps augment the funny of a joke like explaining the living hell out of it, but in this case I got more than a few questions about it. So in the end I was beginning to feel that maybe there wasn't a whole lotta funny in it to begin with. Hey, you can't knock them out of the park every time you go up to bat, right? And last but not least, I unfortunately don't have any of the T-Shirt designs to show you at the moment, so it looks like we're all going to have to wait a bit longer for that. Also, I still haven't had a chance to do up that "What Ed uses to create the strip" thing I've been wanting to do. However, I will try my best to get to both of those things this weekend. Alrighty folks. I think I'm done now. Have a great weekend, and I'll see y'all on Monday. Later, -Ed ** 10 / JAN / 08 - 0845 CST : Just one of the many reasons I hate Oprah... Hey folks. Few things to mention. First off, I have mixed feelings about today's GT². As far as the joke goes, I'm okay with it. Also I think I did at least a passable job of cartoonifying Dr. Phil. Oh, by the way, after studying pictures of Dr. P's face for an hour or so, I've discovered that while some folks have "crow's feet" (myself included), Philly boy looks more like a flock (or murder, if you prefer to use the technical term) of crows one day decided to curb stomp the living hell out of his temples...but I digress. Anyway, the reason I'm still kinda on the fence about having done this strip is that simply making a joke about something even remotely Britney Spears related leaves me feeling a bit dirty (or perhaps "Toxic" would be a better...y'know what, never mind). However, in the end my revulsion towards Dr. Phil won out over my dislike of the idea of being yet another website that makes mention of everyone's favorite meltdown queen. I mean how much of a dumbass does someone have to be to do something that makes even the bottom feeders of the media take a step back and go "Whoa, dude. Respect the woman's privacy!" Seriously, this guy thrusts himself into a news story involving Spears, and in the end, he came out looking like the fucked up one. For the love of God, can you imagine how difficult that must have been? I mean, this is the woman who in the past few months has managed to make freakin' K-Fed a sympathetic character! Okay, y'know what, enough about that crap. One of the other things I wanted to mention was that Orlando, FL's MegaCon has now officially gone from tentative to confirmed on my '08 con schedule. I'm pretty excited about this con for a few of reasons. For starters it's going to act as sort of a mini vacation for Grace and I. Something we've never had the chance to do together. And also because it will officially kick off the '08 con season for Geek Tragedy! Which is something I've been looking forward to since October of last year. Oh, and one final thing before I head off to work on tomorrow's (hopefully colourful) strip. Before the con season does start this year, I will have new T-shirts made up. And while I've decided to retired the previous GT-shirt design, there will be two (maybe three) new ones for you guys to choose from. The first of which I will most likely be showing to you tomorrow, and if so, hopefully y'all can let me know what you think. But I guess we can talk more about that later, huh? Alrighty folks, I'm gone. Later, -Ed ** 09 / JAN / 08 - 0937 CST : Casey gets pixel'd... Hey folks. I forgot to mention this when it first went up, but Ben over at Ansem Retort (who you may remember from his guest strip a little while back) did up one of the GT crew at a sprite, and slipped him into one of his strips. So if you get a chance, check it out! Plus be sure to check out the rest of Ben's site / strips too. Ansem Retort is pretty much the only sprite comic I read, and even though the man freely admits that he can't draw (thus the reason for the pixels I imagine), he sure can write the funny! Well, that's all for me for now. Later, -Ed ** 08 / JAN / 08 - 0915 CST : It's not black and white, it's just coloured in shades of clear... Hey folks, Yeah, about the colours. This one may have to stay black and white a little longer then just a day or so. Eons ago I promised some friends that I'd help design a tattoo for them, and I really need to get on that today. It was one of those things that I kept putting off, and putting off, and then yesterday I get a call saying, "Uh...about that tattoo. I know you've only had like 8 months to do it, but we've got the appointment to get it done next week so...do you think maybe we can get it from you sometime soon?" Which in turn reminded me of a couple other things I've been putting on the backburner for so long that they've no doubt been cremated by now. So instead of colouring today's strip, I think I'm going to spend the next couple days getting a few other bits of artwork done. Yep, really going to have to work on that procrastination problem I have this year I think. Oh, and I made some minor changes to yesterdays GT² as well. Nothing really too noticeable I don't think. Just a few touch ups to Noname's hair, nose and eye to fix a couple things that were bothering me more and more each time I looked at it. Alrighty guys, time to get my ass back in gear. Later, -Ed ** 07 / JAN / 08 - 1345 CST : Still not a gaming comic... Hey folks. I always feel a bit weird whenever I do a strip that centers around gaming references. Not because I don't read or enjoy gaming comics, because I do (well, some of them at least), but because I myself am not much of a gamer anymore. However, I do now own an XBox 360, so I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. And yes, like 90% of the time (when I actually have the time to play it) my game of choice is UNO. So today's strip is pretty much what goes through my mind each and every time I use my high-end Atari 2600 to play this inexpensive little card game. Oh, and I wanted to mention that I had hoped to have a little news post on what type of stuff I use to create the strips done for today (for those of you who are interested in that sort of behind the scenes insight), but I'm currently trying to get ahead of the game as far as the strips go this week, so it looks like I won't be doing that till later on in the week. Hopefully around Wednesday. Alrighty, that's it for me, see ya tomorrow when I post the next full strip. Later, -Ed ** 04 / JAN / 08 - 1445 CST : Colour me tired... Hey folks. I was really hoping to be able to push on through till I got the colours done, but I kinda got sidetracked for while there, and by the time I got back to them I was fading fast. Still, I'll be getting them all finished up over the weekend, so there won't be a black and white-out on the main page for long. Oh, and on a side note, half of today's strip originally had a different script until last night. So for those of you who might be curious, here's how it was originally going to play out. (starting at the third panel) Noname: Calm down dude. He's not a vampire, he's an albino. Frank: Oh. Really? Wow. (fourth panel) Frank: So is everyone from Albania that pale? (fifth panel) Grey: Yep. You can never use too much duct tape. Casey: It's funny though. I never imagined that stuff could stick to stupid so well. So there you have it folks. A DVD style alternate scene / ending. Don't say I never give ya any bonus features. Later, -Ed ** 03 / JAN / 08 - 0845 CST : Some are easier to keep than others... Hey folks. I decided to add a few items to my New Years resolutions list since yesterday. And no, owning a vegetable is not really one of them (however I am actually eating a salad as I write this, so I guess it might as well be). First off, I wanted to come up with at least one "safe for work" GT² strip this year (in other words, one that doesn't talk about genitalia or have and of those nasty cuss words in it) so that my mother and sister can feel comfortable showing their co-workers what I do on my spare time for a change. Mother : It would be nice if I could actually hang some of your work up at the office to show people, you know. Me : So what's stopping you? Just show them the last one I did. Mother : I don't think a comic talking about an "anal violator" is workplace appropriate, do you? Me : Oh come on! It's not I showed it being used! So there you go guys, a totally G-rated Squared (I'll see what I can do about a gentler sort of full strip later on in the year). The other thing I added to my resolution list is taking a bit of time out of my day and doing at least some sort of write-up every time I post a new strip. So I guess as of right now I'm two for two, huh? Alrighty, I'm outta here guys. Later, -Ed ** 01 / JAN / 08 - 0845 CT : Resolutions are made to be broken... Hey folks. Well, 2008 has finally arrived, so I guess it's that time again. Yep, time to set down a few goals that I'd like to achieve in the coming year, which by June I will most likely have giving up on or forgotten about. Still, despite my ever-increasingly jaded attitude towards life in general, this year I'm going to try and stay positive and focused, and really go after what I'm shooting for with my artwork, myself as a person, and of course the site. As for what exactly it is that I'll be working towards accomplishing on those fronts...well I won't bore you with my personal or artistic ambitions, but I will talk about the other one for a bit. The Site... Okay, I tend to get way too ambitious with what I'd like to accomplish with the site each year, and so in turn I pretty much set myself up for failure...which leads to disappointment in myself...which in turn leads to anger...which, as we all, know leads to the dark side, and before you know it I'll be running around whining, betraying the Jedi council, and essentially destroying a perfectly good movie franchise...on the bright side though, I would get to bang Natalie Portman (just kidding honey!). So this year, I'm giving myself just one main goal as far as Geek Tragedy is concerned: CONSISTENT FREAKIN' UPDATE SCHEDULE! Last year was a bloody train wreck as far as updates went. I shifted the schedule around so much in 2007, that it got to the point where even I had a hard time knowing when new content was supposed to be posted. And so in 2008 I will be putting most of my focus in to remedying that problem. Starting now, and continuing for the rest of the year, the update schedule will be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Those are the days. Etch it in stone, tattoo it on your naughty parts, do whatever you want to do, but those are the days to remember. Now in a perfect world that will mean that Monday and Thursdays will be new GT² strips, and Tuesdays and Fridays will be new full-sized strips, but my world is far from perfect. I work full time ('cause GT doesn't exactly pay the bills), I have other art projects that I've committed myself to this year, and I plan on going to at least six cons this year (btw, check out the tentative con schedule up and to your right). Which means while I would really love to say that you'll get either a full-size strip or a GT² on those days, I know damn well that's highly unlikely to happen 208 times in a row this year. And so there will be times that you may have to settle for something else instead. Maybe it'll be a sketch, or a pic from some project I'm working on, or a bit of macaroni art I did on the weekend...whatever. The thing is, on those four days of the week, I will be giving you something new to look at. Also, at the moment my site isn't set up for automated updates (something I hope to fix come summer), so I'm currently working on a way to get them to y'all should the unforeseeable happen (like my internet goes out, or I'm unable to get to my laptop, or the Green Lantern Corp finally accepts my application). More than likely this will mean using a flickr account or my Livejournal (I might as well use it for something) or some other thing I can access away from home as sort of a backup area for posting updates, but at this point I don't know. Once I do have that finalized though, I'll be sure to let you know. Alrighty, I think that's it for me for now. I'll see you guys tomorrow when I post the first GT² of the new year! Later, -Ed PS: I don't have an exact time of day worked out as far as when the updates will be posted is concerned, but just off the top of my head, I'm going to say between 8:30am and 6:30pm CST. ****