Let's give everyone some love!

This week was full of some amazing birthday gifts, from amazing artists! I'm so grateful to those who sacrificed their time to let me pull off my sneaky idea! Each one of them delivered, giving me the variety of styles and intriguing interpretations that were exactly what I wanted when I reached out to them. I had so much fun tossing them scripts and anticipating the wonderful things I would get back.  Everyone who was involved, I salute you!

Now, let's cherish everyone who helped make this week a success! Go add them to your watch lists, read their comics and throw praise and every last one of them!

Tuesday:  Frosty
Wednesday: Mandy Seley and Alex Hoffmann
Thursday: Raiettei and Jennifer Wilder
Friday: ArtistJess, Mat Sherer and Dark
Saturday: Matthew Dawson
Sunday: Mandy Seley, ArtistJess, Becca Hillburn, Alex Hoffmann, Carl Sjostrand, Erik Amill, Frosty, Dark, Raiettei and Isabel Marks!
Panel up above: Artist Jess, who accidentally sent me extra art. Why not share it?

(Also a special thank you to DRB for chipping in with coloring efforts for Monday, Tuesday and Sunday!)

Charm offensive! (Sold out!)

If you've been properly stalking me around the internet, you already know the charms are in! And you should also know the book two preorder will be happening soonish!  (I haven't decided the exact date, just because I want to keep fiddling with the tiers and timing and stuff. It's in the process, though)

Well, I can't sell charms AND books at the same time! That's a conflict of interest! The books take priority, as it's a Kickstarter and it'll only happen if I can meet my goal.  Once the goal is met... FULL CHARM OFFENSIVE BEGINS!

But there's one more mitigating factor... I AM OUT OF MONEY. Well, my business account is empty!  I need it for business things! So let's do a thing!  There are only 25 sets of charms, so you might have to fight to the death over some of them.  That'll be fun, but that's not for now.  I only have a handful of envelopes left, and I don't want to spoil much for the Kickstarter... so ALL PRE-SALE CHARM SETS ARE SOLD OUT!

Ursa Major Awards + Conventions!

So I got a surprising bit of news yesterday. It seems Precocious is a finalist for Best Comic Strip with the Ursa Major Awards. What an honor!  This award is determined by fan voting, so it's up to you all to help me out! Voting runs until May 15th, so expect periodic reminders.  (And no time like the present?) You have to sign up to vote, but aren't I worth it? *Bambi eyes*  And be sure to vote for as many categories as you can on that ballot. They need your contributions!

Convention season is about to start up, so let's provide you guys with updates!

Fur the 'More, in Baltimore, is right around the corner, April 5-7! I will be there, even though I'm still broken, so please stop by and make me happy! To keep myself from facesploding too much, I'll probably only be around on Saturday and Sunday. Keep watch on my Twitter feed that weekend for updates. (That goes for any con weekend, though.)

The next conventions for me are the big boys:  I will be at Anthrocon! (July 4-7.) It's the big one for the furries, and a lot of fun! Just like at Midwest FurFest, Mat of Badly Drawn Kitties should be my booth babe. Bonus: I am next to Bill Holbrook this year, which means I get to bask in his awesome glory the whole weekend!

And here's a surprise:  I should be at Connecticon too! TWO BIG CONS IN TWO WEEKS! I'm really looking forward to taking on something more mainstream, and I get chances to see a lot of my New England friends, who really need to live closer to the convention center! Where's my free place to crash, people? Show mercy!

The other cons for the year:
Intervention, Bethesda, MD - August 23-25 - Confirmed!
Small Press Expo, Bethesda, MD as well! - September 14-15 - I've applied, but we shall see!

These two aren't open for sign-up yet, but I'll try for 'em:
FurFright, Cromwell, CT - October 25-27
Midwest FurFest, Rosemont, IL - November 22-24

Kaitlyn's Sketchbook

I am performing an experiment this week! I've wanted to try the sketchbook pages idea for a while, and I decided to add the twist of the sketchbook being drawn in over the day.  At various points in the day, Kaitlyn will add new sketches to her page, so keep checking back!

The pages have three to five sections, and when they are complete the note atop the page will tell you. (Assuming I saved the files correctly.) If all goes according to plan, the first sketch for each page goes up at midnight.  The next should come when I wake up to the point of being functional the next morning, with the rest spread out through the day, depending on how many updates are left to do.  I hope to have each page fully updated around 8pm Eastern time, but it won't be an exact thing.

Why do this? I like the idea, plus a few of these should get good speculation and debate going. (Though I ask you to try not to get angry at the opinions of a fictional 10-year-old girl.) I hope you enjoy the ride!

Your feedback will have a direct result on one of the comics, but the rest were drawn last week.  I would like to do another sketchbook run, with more live-drawing/feedback-guided stuff, but that's for the future. (And only if this works out.)

Decompression time!

Precocious has had three lengthy stories during its run. Group Projects was huge, Party Crashers took a long time, and now the Fall Festival joins them as huge entry. The previous two biggies ended with a quiet week for me to recharge myself, and this one is no different.  This time, the comics have more meat on them than previous recharge weeks. Even if they're all single-panels, I think you'll enjoy them.  Plus, it's less drawing strain, as I promised my doctor I'd cut down. (No real update on the facesplosion front, by the way. Still in pain, but slowing myself down softens it a bit.)

Even with some nuttiness on my end, March is looking pretty cool for Precocious. You shall see!

New Copper Road! 3/1/13

A new month is a new incentive for me to post an incentive to get you to vote on TWC!  Vote and see this lovely comic about the horrible ways the internet can ruin children! And then laugh.

This may be the only Copper Road to appear this month.  It's not for lack of scripts. I have tons of those. It's  the lack of health. I gotta use my good hours the best I can in March.  If do extra art these days, I tend to post 30 minute and under exercises from my sketchbook over on Tumblr.  Anyway, don't fret, everyone. You know when I have to slow down a bit, it's always followed by an eventual burst of awesomeness.

Working on cover art

Here we go! I've turned that sketch into something pretty! It may still seem a bit wide for the cover if I stick exactly with the prior book layout, but one well-placed bit of text will make up for that!

I need to come up with a clever caption and throw this on a t-shirt or something.  Unlike the last book, the working title isn't shirtable without context.

Update: How about a possible magnet design? Heh. I should stop messing around and get back to doing actual work things.

Charm change?

(Since there's been a flurry of news posts, I'm obligated to remind you to read down the page and see them.)

Working on final charm designs today, and I decided to see what I had to make an alternate to the Bake Sale one, since it seemed to lag behind in support. Going through the art done for the book, I found Dionne pulling a Nixon and decided to try that.  My guess is it would get more love, so I'm likely to keep it. Oh, and those little dots are where the holes are going to be punched in the charm, of course. I'll surely make some tweaks here or there before I'm done, but please enjoy this preview.

Guest art everywhere!

It's a SpiderForest collective lovefest today, featuring two pieces of guest art by me and the one above, by Nick Perkins of Cooties. This one was part of a Secret Santa art exchange, so apologies for just sharing this amazing piece now. Cooties is the story of a bunch of kids dealing with an alien invasion. Check it out!

As for the stuff I drew, head on over to Spare Keys for Strange Doors to see my guest art contribution. Stick around and read the comic too! It's a brilliant collection of cute and fun supernatural short stories, making for easy reading and great entertainment! Oh, and congratulate her on her babytimes, and maybe draw her something cool too!

Finally, here's *my* contribution for the SpiderForest Secret Santa, a guest comic for Silent Pirate! When I entered that draw, I admit that I was totally hoping to get Silent Pirate, as it's so cute and unique! I got what I wanted, and rewarded Ahmed with a comic that RUINS EVERYTHING. That's how I show love.

Thanks for the responses!

My thanks go out to everyone who submitted surveys. They have been very helpful in evaluating stuff. For the charms, I feel confident enough to do a test run. I will start getting 25 of each set, and we shall see what happens with that. If successful, future runs (and more sets) will happen.  Incentive: Future runs will have to be with another, more expensive, charm maker, so this first run will be the most cost-effective!

There's a chance the book 2 pre-order and charm sale will overlap, but they will be separate. The book preorder is now planned to start early March, and the charms will only go on sale when I have them in my possession - and printing may take a while. At worst, people buy the book and will have to grab the charms later, like maybe at my Anthrocon table? (Table N19!)

For survey results, I thank you folks for being surprisingly kind and gentle with me. I didn't expect to see so many nice statements! Informative AND sweet. You all rule!  And here are some reactions to what I've read (many were prompted by only one or two replies, but I felt it was worth talking about anyway):

-Most issues raised about the website are already on my list. Can't say I'll get them fixed soon, but know I'm aware of them. Some things I can't do, as the site has to be versatile enough to work on many screen resolution/font size configurations. On, and sometimes your questions are already answered! Just look at the links on this page and you might be surprised!

-It's a wonderful problem when I get a many "I'd like to see more of..." requests, especially since they're varied. I have many more stories to tell, and even with daily updates it takes a long time to hit every note. I hope to make you all happy down the road!

-As much as I'd love to offer everyone the world, I'm one guy - and that guy is currently broken. To keep Precocious moving, I need to be a writer, artist, colorist, designer, publicist, accountant, secretary, marketer, packer, courier, etc.  I am *trained* to do... funky looking fine-art prints using archaic methods? Uh oh. I'm doing a LOT of learning on the go, and I don't have the means to bring on assistants. I try to put the comic updates first, even before me earning money, so a lot stuff slides until I can get to it. So many of you were so kind about this, and I thank you again for your compassion.

-On a similar note, I am a tiny enterprise and very limited in what I can do right now. That means many grand ideas for high-end merchandise and various goodies can't happen yet. That also means I MUST do what I can to start earning more and preventing more loss. The prices I charge for various things are as low as I can reasonably go.  I can't compete with major publishers who make up their discount prices by sheer volume of sales. Bargain basement and discount options might be great for you, but I know I can't sell at the volume needed to keep me afloat. (I mean, it's already a free comic. I'm not begging for charity here. Just let me get something from the merchandise!)

-And with *that* being said, there is a plan for simple, low-cost bonuses. It likely won't be ready until the second half of the year, though. I'll talk more about it when I have the system more in place. Again, the delays are because I lack the hours and manpower to do things quickly, and lack the funds to buy those manpower hours.

-I can't stress enough how amazing your responses were. All of them were helpful, no matter what they said. I love you all. (Even the one person with wildly unrealistic ideas was useful, as that survey alone prompted half of the above notes!)

Of course, now you've spoiled me. Now I know that these surveys are a great option, and I shall use them again when needed!