New Copper Road! 12/25/13

To all those reading this on December 25th, I salute you! Bonus points if you actually celebrate Christmas. I too believe I am more important in your life than your family. (What have they done for you lately?)

Since my family isn't one that celebrates today, I was supposed to use this week to grind out some comics. Instead I got a bad cold, and I'm so congested I lost the use of one of my ears and gave myself two black eyes from coughing. BUT I FIGHT THROUGH THE PAIN FOR YOU! A new Copper Road is here as a lovely stocking stuffer - or Chinese restaurant side dish, as the case may be.

Unlike your family, *I* reliably add goodness to your life! Enjoy!

New Copper Road! 12/16/13

'Tis the season!

Chrispmas time is here again, and that means casual giving, lots of slacking off and fun without pressure! In my family, we mostly use December as an excuse to buy needed or desired items, then give to ourselves in honor of the rest of us. (I got myself a dedicated art and publishing laptop! Mom gets to take credit for it.) We don't really mind exact dates - just get it when it's needed.  That's my big Chrispmas selling point.  The reign of Chrispmas is officially from December 8th to March 24th, but, really, give when you find the right gift - or work out a give-to-yourself deal with loved ones.

Anyway, the Hus might not be enlightened as my family, but they could be getting there... Vote here to see the new bonus comic!

The Giveaways!

So what are we fighting for? This stuff! Below you will see what the art contest winners can select from. Up first are the Precocious goodies! (Crossed out means someone has claimed them.)

Up for grabs:
-Watercolors. Yvette or Tiffany .
-Artist trading cards. Choose from Autumn, Jacob, Bud, Tiffany, Suzette and Roddy
-The original art for the "We are Quietly Judging You" design.
-A set of 10 Precocious pins!
-A set of Precocious magnets

Also available is some of my con portfolio art:
-Watercolors. Calico Cat, Dapper Owl or Happy Squirrel
-Colored pencil. Bridesmaid Lemur or Pizza Boy Dalmation
-Copic marker. Protest Poodle, Phoenix or Jaguar Dude.

Winners and claimed pieces:

Monday winner #1: Jess - We are Quietly Judging You art
Monday winner #2: Emi - (waiting for reply)
Tuesday winner: Unolup - Jacob card
Wednesday winner #1: X-Strike - Tiffany watercolor
Wednesday winner #2: Alexk - Bud card
Thursday winner (giver): Brighttail - MYSTERY GIFT
Thursday winner (receiving):  MacareuxMoine - Yvette watercolor
Friday winner: @ShivaeStudios - Bridesmaid Lemur, gifted to @RutilusFidael

Chrispmas Week Giveaways!

My original plan of streaming art gifts for holiday orphans had to be scrapped due to my continued illness - I am feeling better, but not enough to risk it - but we can still get some holiday cheer in! Keep watch over over this space, as there will be a new giveaway announced every weekday. Up for grabs are artist trading cards, watercolors, original line art, pins and some portfolio pieces.

You'll be given a little task to do each day, such as posting a key word in the comments or sharing a comic on Twitter.  All those who participate are entered into that day's drawing. The winner gets to pick their prize from the available stock!

The posts will go up around midnight, with instructions on what to do, so keep an eye out. After a day's winner is determined, I'll update the front page post and message the lucky person.

Yeah, it's a little more work and less fancy art time, but it's free stuff and that's still pretty cool. I hope to be streaming again next week!

Copper Road! Bonus Comics! More!

It's a special holiday-themed Copper Road for you! Vote here to get in on the cheer and sing along! We'll finish Ursula's story in early January, by the way, but for now enjoy the beautiful color of the holiday's that one kind soul bought for you!

In other news, the big bonus bar on the main page has been filled! 15 bonus comics will be coming your way! These are all double-sized and tell a story. You'll have lots of fun with them. I'm not sure how I'll present them yet. Run two stories at once on the main page? Put them all in one giant update? Spread out their release by using them as vote incentives, then post them as whole elsewhere? I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, and I will listen to your feedback if you have it.

Since I didn't let myself start on the comics until the bar was filled, it'll be a while before your reward is ready. So, hey, if there's a delay, why not keep this party going? The bonus bar now seeks to become a new color! If you all can fill it up, via purchasing Precocious goodies or through happy donations, this bonus arc will come to you in vivid color!

You may have more time than expected too, if my dental hell continues. First it was a toothache, then it was soreness and slow healing of the tooth extraction, then it was my jaw flipping out due to favoring one side of my mouth for so long and now I'm on day four of a brutal and debilitating sinus headache that is freaking me out. (I don't get these normally, and the timing us just too uncanny for me to think it's a random event. Sigh, back to the doc I go...) All in all, while I've kept Precocious going, I've lost a full month of work for my other projects - yes, including the new cast page. I'm not happy about it, but it happened and all I can do is fight on.  As you've probably noticed, this week's streaming was canceled, as sitting up and leaning forward while talking make up the "things that cause pain" trifecta in my current state.  I still hope to recover before my Christmas Eve art giveaway steams, but I really don't know at this point. If I can't stream, I will find other ways to be Santa Chrisp - so keep watching the front page news section for updates!

I will get better. I will get my work done. I won't let you all down. Just cut me some slack until I can get healthy.

Thursday art card streaming!

Thursday, December 13th, 7pm-midnight(ish) Eastern time - http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-sycophant

As long as you guys keep showing up, I will keep this streaming going! Bonus: I might be able to do this one on minimal painkillers! (Might.) I only have one art card commission lined up so far - Winter Autumn holding a cup of cocoa - so who else wants to grab a card slot? Only $10!  By the way, all cards pictured up there currently don't have homes - anyone want to adopt them? (There's also one more Suzette - guess no one loves her.) Update: Vincent hanging his stocking, Max Bond, Saxy Ursula and the Suzette card that *isn't* in this picture were claimed.

While this stream won't have an art card giveaway - those who were there know why, and those who weren't will learn why in the next stream announcement - I might still be embracing the spirit of Chrispmas and drawing some gift art. If you guys are OK with it - and if I have the pencils ready in time (a big if) - I'm thinking of using the stream time to draw gift art for other webcartoonists. With the tooth thing, the buffer I thought I'd have by now isn't here, so I want to use my time efficiently. I love streaming, and I love talking to all who come, so I hope you will indulge me - and maybe find a cool new webcomic to read in the process! Alternately, you can buy up my time slots and get alllll the attention. That's fine too!

I'll draw at least two cards over the stream - the commission one whenever the client's around to see, and another one based on chat suggestions. After that, we'll see what happens as the week unfolds. (If I write/prep a Copper Road in time, I could even do that!)

Cards and comics streaming, Dec 8th

December 8th is a special day, as it marks the beginning of Chrispmas - the season of giving! (Come to my streams if you want the full story of Chrispmas.) I intend to start this season by giving you a bonus weekend stream! Note the early start, 4pm eastern time, as I'm letting those darling people over in Europe get in on the action without wrecking their sleep schedules!

The plan is to draw two art cards and finish up the next installment of Copper Road, which will be posted after the stream ends.

Oh, and didn't I say this was the season of giving? During the stream, I will be giving away an art card to someone in the chat! You don't need an Ustream account, nor do you have to be actively chatting. You just need to be watching when the time comes and be able to let me know you exist. (You can use the chat room anonymously, or even email me if you're that shy.)

The above sketches, with festival outfits, are me getting you all started with ideas for the cards, as at least one will be created from chat requests.  The other card can be a commission, if someone would like to reserve a spot. Send me an email - chrispco (at) yahoo (dot) com - if you want it. Only $10.

The steam is expected to run 3-4 hours, so I encourage you to stop in and try for the freebie when you can! As always, this is the link: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-sycophant

Chrispmas v Christmas

Happy various holidays to all! I've tried to avoid it and deny it as much as possible, but as December 25th moves closer I have to admit it: I'm trapped by the holidays too.

The Paulsen family, for the most part, has canceled Christmas. We have no tree, exchange no gifts and refuse to be jolly! But we are not alone in this universe, so compromise is needed. Our solution: Travel around and have various dinners with various family members. The only pressure is getting there... which *is* annoying, considering we're scheduled to have a little icing on our what. Tis the season!

During this traveling, I might not get the time to do my bloggery, so forgive me if I go silent for a day or two. Precocious is far enough ahead that no one has to worry. That's my holiday gift to myself!

Merry Chrispmas!

That's right, folks, it's the holiday season and Chrispmas cheer is in the air! What is Chrispmas, you ask? Chrispmas is a gift-giving holiday for those who are lazy, tired of stress and want to focus on the good. It's the Chrispian way!

Chrispmas actually started on the 8th, but it took me a while to whip up the image. See, Chrispmas is a holiday that lasts MONTHS! No more pressure to give gifts on one damn day! It runs from December 8th to March 24th, giving you a huge window in which to give gifts! Give when you get the right gift, at the right time. If you don't have a gift by March 24th - which is my birthday, by the way - then you really are hopelessly lazy, aren't you?

Isn't this holiday fun? We're not big on traditions in Chrispianity - I don't even set up my parody tree anymore - so you may celebrate as you please. Play along with the others if you want. Have fun!

And you if want to know, here's my Chrispmas list. ;-)

The spirit of giving

You say the holidays are gone? Well, they are. The holidays are dead and rotting in the ground. Chrispianity will dance on their graves!

This post actually has little to do with equinox-inspired generosity, but themes include compassion, giving, cold weather and an impulsively drawn halo. The topic had to be addressed.

I am still working on building up a nice buffer for Precocious. If I have an epic inking weekend, it's not out of the question that I could end up a month ahead of schedule. (Chances are I'll only be three weeks ahead, but that's still damn good!)

Since I had only loosely planned which story lines would be coming up, I didn't have a firm grip on the numbers of already-scripted strips I had. The next two weeks will cover Max's birthday shenanigans. After that, the goal was to do some random, one-off strips to focus on my visual gag/regular gag writing skills. If not that, then I was going to do the story about the dessert brawl.

Today, I finally picked my direction. What did it? I had already uploaded a one-off gag strip tentatively set as #31, which would make it the Monday strip after the Max stuff. The dessert set turned out to be six strips, which is a week's compliment. Ok, then! I'm too lazy to spend two seconds changing the number, so gag week it is!

I already had two written, and I figured I would try to craft strips around potential t-shirt designs. (It's not soulless if they're funny.) The gag strips are needed because they allow me to show off all characters of Precocious. Not all arcs involve anyone, so new readers might go a month without seeing, say, Roddy. Roddy's proposed t-shirt design (posted here months back - look it up yourselves!) is more of the natural conclusion to several Roddy plots. This is something that four panels alone can't convey.

THE GOAL HAS SHIFTED: Get Roddy some air time! His big debut was supposed to be the class president storyline, but we are now post-inauguration and my time-warp strips will seem even more hopelessly dated. Checking my "Precocious story lines" document, the strip is going to focus on the home lives of the kids soon. In the middle of it all is a placeholder line, reminding me that I need a Roddy storyline to keep him in the minds of the readers. That time is now!

I'm happy with the new batch of strips. Not only did I get to involve Roddy, I established HOW Roddy is able to break into the lives of my insular children. Even better, the strips are seasonally appropriate! By producing these strips, I am officially tossing aside the "Autumn is the new girl" crutch and moving into the strip's regular, time-appropriate rhythm!*

Granted, these four strips are not marvelous. The artwork took a MAJOR step back, as I am still really weak at arranging a bunch of character in one tiny panel. Also, the ending was a little, uh, table-turny. Oh well, they served their purpose.

*If I can build a month buffer, I am using that to do the second "prequel" arc for mass-uploading to the archive - but that is a bonus and not the regular strip. Oh, and the "spring project" arc will briefly draw upon Autumn as a n00b, but I'm not even certain I'll produce it at this point.

It's Chrispmastime again!

Oh, the pun is pain! I was tempted to save this sketch for the sketchbook postmortem post (probably coming tomorrow) but I needed to kill some time. See, it's hard to watch an insanely complex show with a bajillion characters while a drill constantly runs above your head. I have to wait until they're gone. Also, this gives me a chance to preach about personal theology, so yay!

Technically, this announcement is a week late. Chrispmas runs from December 8th to March 24th. (Or, my mother's birthday to my birthday.) Epic holiday, eh? The idea is to reduce stress by giving folks a large window for gift delivery. Sure you can stress over a gift and do a cheap buy to have something before the 25th, OR you could wait for inspiration to strike and give a great gift when the opportunity presents itself. Similarly, if you're stocking up for a gift-giving blitzkrieg on the 25th, mellow out! Why not give a gift when you have it? In my world, holding onto a gift because it's not close enough to Christmas is a *great* way to ensure the future giftee will acquire the same item for themselves. Whoopsy doopsy!

I like gifts to have a personal flair to them. You find something that is tied to an old in-joke or fills a need you know your friend/relative has. Those gifts are as fun to give as they are to receive! (I still love my Darkwing Duck shirt, Dana!) Problem with that, of course, is that you need a level of familiarity to figure out what the perfect gift shall be. The friends I gift to have been busy and largely unavailable - and my epic stays in DC just makes it worse. It's awful, but I have no idea what to give people for Chrispmas. I just haven't had the face time these past few months that is needed to gague gift need. Thankfully, religion comes to the rescue! Chrispianity: The laziest of all major religions. (Why, most followers have no clue they're Chrispians at all!)

For the record, I make no promises for epic gifting. Little things can bring the most joy! Picking up the tab for a nice meal brings with it good fun and great conversation. (Cooking a fun meal for/with friends can also work.) Grabbing that video game someone talks about wanting by never seems to go buy is kind act of enabling courtesy. Sure, the *best* gifts are ones that fill a need the giftee didn't know they had, but those winners can't come every year like clockwork. For me, I'd much prefer the generic Amazon.com gift card to a forced gift. I hate leaving my house so buying goods online is fun times. Most Chrispians should be of like mind.

Cash is still not an option, however. While the "get it yourself" apathy is nice and Chrispian, the giving part comes in procurement. Even gift cards means the gifter chose a suitable store for the giftee. Cash only works as a gift when it's a gift from a family member to one of a younger generation or when it's a company's holiday bonus.

The noise seems to have died down (for now) so I'm going to stop proselytizing and get back to The Wire.