The Con Calendar is up!

And that means the store banner gets replaced on the front page, so I'll put it here instead! The banner above links to the comic collections page, but you can find art cards, merchandise and original art on there too! (There's nothing on the comic originals page as I wrote this post, since we may implement another system for purchasing those, but you can contact me if you want to purchase a strip.)

Anyway, here is the current master list of conventions I will be attending this year, along with my con wishlist and other comments. Once this blog post goes up, I will link the con calendar banner on the front page to it, so people can get more information long after this news post has scrolled off the front page.

The current convention calendar (updated as needed, and when I remember to do so)!

Fur The 'More - March 14-16 - Baltimore, MD
This is a second-year con that was a blast to show at last year! If you are in the area, I highly encourage you to come check it out. I've been looking for a solid local-ish furry con I can make my home, and this one has an amazing staff and a wonderful vibe to it. (And it's 20 minutes from one of my best friends' apartment, so I get a cherished visit in as long as I keep attending!)

Furry Weekend Atlanta - March 20-23 - Atlanta, GA
The birthday con! I'm introducing Becca of Nattosoup to the furry con scene, and we both have birthdays that week. (She's the 19th and I'm the 24th, so we *just* miss out on exact days.) This means you must be EXTRA NICE to us! This is also my return to the first con I ever tabled at. I don't live in Georgia anymore, so FWA is usually too out of my way to attend, but this year we're making it an event!  Treat us well, however, and you might lock me in for the future!

Awesome Con DC - April 18-20 - Washington, DC
Look, another "home" con for me! This is my first year showing at Awesome Con. People who attended it last year had nothing but good stuff to say, so I'm really excited about it! If my hometown peeps don't show up to cheer me on, I'll be so distressed! (It also looks like a fairly powerful con for fandoms - what a guest list! - so there's lots to amuse you when you aren't fawning over me.)

Anthrocon - July 3-6 - Pittsburgh, PA
This is the big special furry con, and also marks the estimated debut of Precocious' third book! This is always a super-fun even for me. I cherish my time with my cartoonist buddies - our hotel room alone will have the combined powers of me, Mat of Badly Drawn Kitties and the Bittersweet Candy Bowl team - and I love checking in with all my con regulars. Even if I keep getting sick and die before this, my stuffed corpse will attend and be propped up at the table. IT WILL BE MY FINAL WISH!

Mechacon - August 1-3 - New Orleans, LA
After I drag Becca to a furry con, she's taking me to her hometown con, along with lots of my SCAD buddies. I'm really looking forward to this one. I've heard nothing but glowing things about the con itself, and it is only enhanced by it being New Orleans once I walk out the doors!

I ended up missing out with lottery for Small Press Expo (SPX), AND the SpiderForest crew I'd be with for SPX needs to murder 28 people for any of us to get it, so I expect to miss it this year. (Hey, I won every other con lottery I've tried, so I can't really cry about bad luck.)  FurFright, the Halloween con in Connecticut, has closed its doors - but there's a chance something new may rise from its ashes. It was such a positive con, I'll check out the new version too. (Wishing the best to the FurFright founders, by the way! Thank you for everything!)  I adore Midwest FurFest, in Chicago, too, but it's very hard to justify the travel costs unless I have lots of buddies there to make it worthwhile. I wish I was more popular, guys! It would make these trips so much easier! One of these days I'll be powerful enough to justify a west coast con! I don't expect to be at any shows mentioned in this paragraph, but they remain on my radar for future years.

I don't have an interest in returning to ConnectiCon or InterventionCon this year. As much as I enjoyed the attendees I met, both those cons have awful staff and I don't wish to deal with them again. I don't appreciate people refusing to reply to me and never paying back money I'm owed (ConnectiCon, which did this to SEVERAL of its guests) and a shyster outright lying to people to get their money when they fully know it's a ripoff (InterventionCon).  I made profits at both last year, but the people behind the cons DO NOT deserve support. I don't like being negative, but artists have to pay and put in lots of work/travel hours to make these trips. Ripoffs are devastating, especially to those with less-known names, and thus a smaller margin of error.

Back to the happy, I really hope to see a lot of you around the shows!

Back to comics! (Wish me luck...)

I hope you all enjoyed the doll onslaught! If you want more in the future, save up some money so you can help me unlock dolls as part of next month's Kickstarter - or toss me some donations so I can at least commission a set for meeeee!

For those that missed any of last week's Copper Road story, I've compiled all seven strips together into one incentive. Vote on TWC to see it!

My hand is out of the cast, but things aren't so encouraging yet. The finger is VERY sore after being held in place for two weeks, so right now the pain is worse than it ever was and I have no indication those two weeks did anything positive for the issue we were trying to fix. The hope is that the hand will calm down from it's cast anger, and things will at least to be back to (the unideal) normal come morning. There is potential for a deleted scene comic later in the week, though it might get saved for later if drawing is too hard for me.

Please be nice to me this week. I don't see any probably outcome where I won't be really struggling to stay afloat.

Hand-in-Cast Week!

If you've been following my Twitter, you already know my hand ended up in a cast thanks to me re-aggravating an old drawing injury. (The legend of these kids' destructive powers lives on!) Since I didn't expect the cast to happen, I didn't have the buffer to cover two weeks of limited drawing ability. I had to bump a rather drawing-intensive story back a week and improvise! Enter the Precocious dolls, created by the mighty Eric of Duae Designs! (By the way, if you all want a second doll set to happen for book 3's preorder, make your voice heard now.) Further down in this post, I'll give you info on how you can take part in this silly week, but first...

THERE ARE ACTUAL COMICS HAPPENING THIS WEEK TOO!

Every day this week, a new page of a Copper Road story - inspired by *ahem* certain events - will go up as a vote incentive on TopWebComics. (Yes, the first comic of the story is the one the dolls are "helping" with.) You have to vote to see the updates, and you can do so by clicking the TWC button, the Copper Road preview image off to the left of this post, finding the link I post in the comments each day... or just clicking this link right here. I'll do my best to update Copper Road at the normal daily update time.

So why are the "real" comics the incentives and the doll stuff the main updates? First, doing it this way means all of these will go into the archive. Second, the comics are decidedly Copper Road and not Precocious. Third, we can ALL play with dolls! Readers, you can take part in making this week a lot of fun!

I know a bunch of Precocious dolls are out there, which means those who possess them can totally join in with the photo and caption fun. Set up a scene, take you photos and post them into the comments sections throughout the week!  Need help? You can email me your photo and idea, and I can put it together for you. In case you haven't figured out those blue letters mean those words are a link, my email is on the Contact Page. You can also enjoy the resources below:

No doll? No problem. If you have image editing skills, but no doll to photograph, feel free to use these provided photos of the dolls, with transparent backgrounds for your convenience!

Right click and "save as" to download all resources:

- Doll Bud
- Doll Autumn
- Doll Jacob
- Doll Tiffany
- The Precocious Font TrueType file

As for posting your image in the comments sections, let me borrow this handy graphic from the FAQ page to help you out:

You still need to have an image host to post anything. If you don't have one, drop me an email and I can upload it for you. If I'm missing anything, ask any questions in the comments and I (or a reader in the know) will reply and help you out.

I'm always nervous when I ask for reader participation, but a little involvement from everyone can turn this cute week into something memorable. DO IT FOR MY POOR MANGLED FINGER!