Next year I will be starting a new strip and wanted to change my hosting company over to a host who could support both of my websites. After putting it off for over a year I decided that it was time to switch the site over. As I’m sure you are aware of that went less than smoothly and the site went down for a week. Everything is up and running now and hopefully will continue to do so. The site has been restored and all that remains for me to do is to draw and load up the final six Surviving Retail strips. I have told pretty much all of the stories I wanted to tell and after much thought decided it was time to end the strip. I’ve done my best to try and tie up any loose threads and hope that you get as much enjoyment out of reading them as I have had creating these final strips over the past few months. The final strip will post on December 30th. It has been a great three years I’ve learned a lot and grown as an artist and hopefully as a writer.

Next year’s new strip will be called Letting It All Hang Out. It’s a much more labor intensive comic. For years I’ve felt I’ve been holding back my drawing and have never really pushed myself to draw the way I knew how. Letting It All Hang Out is a relationship comic that I have been working on for a few years now off and on. It deals with much more mature (or juvenile) themes than I tackled in Surviving Retail. It’s a comic I’d planned on doing before I ever started on Surviving Retail and finally feel that I can do it justice.

I wanted to thank all of you who stuck with Surviving Retail and checked in on it every week. I wanted to thank those of you who took the time to comment and offer words of encouragement over these past few years, it was a relief to know that there were actually people out there who were reading this.

Danielle does a comic strip called Girls With Slingshots. The short answer is it is a strip about two girls, a bar and a talking cactus. The long answer is that just about nothing is out of bounds in this strip: booze, sexual orientation, language, dick and fart jokes it’s all there but done in such a way that you embrace the characters as people you could actually know. She crafts her characters in such a way that they seem very real and relatable. Her art has simplified over the course of the strip to a point where it just looks so easy but trust me it’s not. With just a few simple lines she is able to convey a great deal of emotion from her characters.

Girls with Slingshots isn’t your typical gag a day strip, it’s more like a developing storyline that is just funny because more times than not you can relate to it. Everyone I’ve ever shared this strip with has enjoyed it. Especially if you are a woman I’d recommend giving this strip a read. There’s just something about it that everyone can relate to.

Danielle tends to draw herself drinking but had a cold the day she did this for me and therefore we have cough syrup instead.

I was excited, at first, to see that my store has a list of back to school items right in the Seasonal department, but it was very store specific and really leaves out a lot of the true essentials that we don’t sell. I’ve continued thinking about this and even branched out into an internet search. Success! It took me a bit but I think I found the best list out there. Over at Good House Keeping they have broken down the lists by grades, with a super extensive college list. If you’re thinking you’re not quite sure what you’re gonna need or think you might have possibly forgotten something go head on over and give it a look. And if anyone else has any suggestions feel free to post them in the reply section. Rock on.

In addition to his comic work Lar holds Ustreams every friday night usually starting around 7 or 8 and running just past midnight eastern time, except when he’s at conventions. You can find Lar’s Ustreams here. He also has a number of tutorials recorded so if you are looking for inspiration and it’s not yet friday you can catch up on previous ustreams. His ustreams are very interactive. He is constantly telling stories and responding to comments from those viewing in the chat rooms. If you have some spare time on a friday night I would invite you to stop by and give it a look. Lets be honest there’s nothing worth watching on TV anyway.

I purchased Octopus Pie while up at the New England Webcomics Weekend a while ago. After spending a lot of money earlier in the day I was hesitant to purchase it but I figured why not what’s another few dollars it’s not like we’re in a recession or anything. I really enjoyed it and feel like I shoulda picked up the second one while I was up there so I could continue the story. I’ll probably wait now. Vol. 3 is being released very soon so when I do pick up the next one I’ll be sure to pick up vol. 3 as well.

I’m a sucker for buying the Marvel Omnibuses, or pretty much any mammoth sized collection. I currently own about twenty four omnibuses/compendiums/one volume collections and have about another five or so on order from Amazon that have yet to be released. Averaging about 700 pages each that equal out at about 16,800 pages of reading. Half of them I have yet to crack into and the majority I’ve read a bit and have to get back to at some point. I’ve never been a huge fan of Wolverine but I’ve always been curious. The great thing about the Omnibuses is that they collect all of the earliest appearances and issues that would cost thousands if I were to purchase them individually. I’ve really enjoyed it through the first few stories that I’ve read in this volume (Weapon X storyline, 1st appearance in Hulk, and Wolverine miniseries) and that’s just the first quarter of the book.

I’ve heard of Goats but never really seriously checked it out. But then someone on twitter mentioned that all of the Goats books were on sale for $5 each. It was a trusted source so I figured why not, so $15 later I am now the proud owner of the first 3 Goats books. I’ve made the first book my break time reading material at work. I have really been looking forward to those two half hour breaks every night. Goats is some funny stuff and I always get a kick outa seeing the early evolution of a comic strip. Being a new comic stripper myself I find these early strips in a long running series to be very educational. One of the extras that I appreciate is the occasional commentary Jonathan throws in about a specific strip or storyline.

I’ve read all of Dan Brown’s books now. They’re all quick reads with a fast moving story and Digital Fortress is no different. It is Brown’s first novel and it shows. The plot originally seems very straight forward and predictable but eventually moves along into different directions allowing for the story to develop some depth. I am usually surprised by a plot twist but the majority of twists in this book were very easy to spot. The last few chapters I felt were the most disappointing. As the characters are looking for the possible code that will save the day the eventual answer is rather obvious if you had been paying the slightest attention throughout the book. If you’re looking for a quick read while you’re sitting at the beach this would be an ok choice but if you’re looking for something to make you think, I’d look elsewhere.
So there you have it, that’s what I’m reading at the moment. If it intrigues you enough to go out and give these books a look than by all means go for it, and if this turns you off to some then I’m glad I could save you from wasting your money. As always thanks for reading and hopefully in the future I’ll be able to update again on some books that you might want to check out.