News: August 2000

         

Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2000
    My California trip begins tomorrow! I'll have pictures posted on the web when I return on the 6th. There will be new comics until Friday, but no Guest Artist Sunday. Also, there won't be any new comics on Monday or Tuesday. There should be a new comic on Wednesday, and with any luck I'll post three that day to get all caught up.

Sunday, Aug. 27, 2000
    Sorry, no Guest Artist Sunday this week... y'see, I'm currently on vacation and can't update the Sundays. However, the weekday strips can be automatically updated; therefore, Monday will bring a new comic, and on time, too! ;-)

Thursday, Aug. 24, 2000
    Finally, a new poll! First, let's review the results of the last poll... 37% of readers couldn't handle the ramifications of such a question. But as for those who actually answered the question "are you lying," 36% of people voted Yes. It can only be concluded that these people don't even know what they're talking about; if they were really lying, they would choose No (since stating Yes would be truthful). They're just plain confused. ;-) The remaining 27% did the right thing, and just said No.
    And now for another in the parade of useless polls... just answer the question. :-)

Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2000
    Well, I got a hold of another 13-gig drive (it was purchased for my family's computer, Asuka, but it didn't work in that one... LBA problems or something). I'm still in the middle of downloading all sorts of crap and installing it on Enya. Unfortunately I haven't gotten to CorelDRAW or the scanner software yet. :-/ So could you wait just one more day for the new comics? Please? :-)
    Also, perhaps the most annoying thing that came with the hard drive explosion was that I lost all of my saved e-mail, as well as my address book. So if anybody needed my response on something, you'll have to re-mail it to me.

Monday, Aug. 21, 2000
    'Kay, here's the story: I'm happily surfing the web on my computer when all of a sudden it just turns off. "Hm," I think, noting that only my computer turned off... none of the lights in my room went out, so it's not a blackout. I check the power bar, but it's still on. I try hitting the power button on my computer, but nothing happens. I put my hand on the back of my machine, and nearly receive a third-degree burn. Yes, my power supply is hot enough to fry eggs. It turns out the fan in my power supply neglected to rotate for the past two hours. Big deal, I can get a new power supply. But I notice that the devices around it are also really quite hot... like my 13 GB hard drive sitting a few inches away from it. I pulled it out to cool, and an hour later I put it all back together and powered the machine up. Well, good news is my power supply still works, and the fan is unstuck now. The bad news is that my hard drive isn't even recognized by my motherboard anymore. :-P Thankfully, the ol' 6-gig that contains all my documents is still alive. I just need to find a new applications drive. As if I haven't spent enough money this summer. :-P
    So to make a long story short, no new comic today. I am getting them drawn though, and I am still working ahead to make sure there'll be comics during my vacation the end of August. I apologize on behalf of my stupid power supply fan.

Sunday, Aug. 20, 2000
    Chris Koeberle is this Sunday's Guest Artist! He does a comic strip called Flail. This one didn't make much sense to me at first, so I asked him what was going on. Here's what he told me:
    The story I'm getting at is, Joe is drowning, and when he passes out he dreams that he is a Viking warlord, and his entire life was just some crazy dream. Naturally, he winds up disappointed. Maybe if I added another panel where Joe's unconscious body is being dragged up from the depths... Or the thought-balloon dissolve from panels 4 to 5. Hmm.
    I thought the viking warlord idea was cool. :-) Thanks Chris!

Friday, Aug. 18, 2000
    200 daily strips! Boo-yah! So, how does everyone like Avalon so far? Has it improved? Stagnated? Is it drawn out way too long, or are things progressing too quickly? Feel free to comment and critique over at the Avalon Forum, or e-mail me personally.

Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2000
    Hey, this Friday's will be Avalon's 200th strip! Holy milestones, Batman! That's the perfect excuse for having two strips in one day... a much better excuse than being a day behind schedule, for sure! ;-)

Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2000
    According to last week's poll, 40% of you will be going back to soon around the turn of the month. Laughing at those 40% are the 19% of rearders who aren't even going back this year. :-) Another 19% will be going back to school within the next few days (poor souls), 12% go back sometime later in Spetember (lucky buggers), and for 7% of readers, school hasn't even ended yet (hey, that includes me... *grumble*). And there's the remaining 3%, the most unfortunate people who already had to go back to school a few weeks ago. I apologize that this poll hasn't answered any of life's great mysteries. ;-) And this week's poll doesn't even try to... vote now!

Monday, Aug. 14, 2000
    Now I'm only one day behind again. :-) Oh, and you'll all want to check out the Keenonball Run today. New poll tomorrow (and I'm entertaining poll ideas from anyone who's got 'em... :-) )
    And Ein Stuck Natur's back! Read it!

Sunday, Aug. 13, 2000
    Today's Guest Artist Sunday is by Zack Bly, known as MrGoose over in the Forum (and I do hope he doesn't mind me using his real name... :-) ). Actually, this comic should make absolutely no sense unless you're familiar with this discussion in the Forum. Go check it out at your own risk. :-)

Saturday, Aug. 12, 2000
    Wow... through some strange twist of fate, Ceilidh is now number one in the Bikeeni Summer 2000 Hottest Babe Poll! Thanks for making Margaret angry! ;-)

Friday, Aug. 11, 2000
    Sorry, the drought continues... though it still looks like I'll be back in action (with a serious backlog of comics) on Monday. In the meantime, Kendra sent me this amazing portrait of Ceilidh, and I thought it'd be better to look at than Tuesday's comic. :-) Kendra started her own webcomic/manga just last week, called Death Tastes Like Chocolate - very eclectic, and funny too. :-) Thanks, Kendra!
    And remember, you can check out other Avalon fan art in the Misc. section.

Thursday, Aug. 10, 2000
    Well, hopefully no one's gonna lynch me for this... but I need to take a break. I have a hefty work term report due to my co-op office *very* soon, an exam next week, a wedding this weekend, and I've been running on very little sleep for the past few months. So odds are I won't be posting any new comics this week... but I'll try to catch up over the weekend. Also, once all this extra work is done with next week, I can start working really far ahead, in preparation for my trip to California at the end of the month. I won't be leaving before I'm a week or so ahead of schedule with Avalon... this story is getting really big really soon, and I don't want to interrupt it for a long time. So anyway, I'm working on it. Sorry for the delays!

Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2000
    Okay, so I'm a day behind again. As a bit of clarification of what the Civic Holiday is, it's an Ontario provincial holiday which is taken only if your town/county/region doesn't have it's own special holiday. Since Ottawa's a pretty dull place, we don't have any fancy specialty holidays in the summer, so by default we get Civic Holiday as a day off. Either way, I get to enjoy a four-day work week. :-)

Monday, Aug. 7, 2000
    The results are in... Ceilidh is the grand champion of the Battle of the Characters! She took out Phoebe with ease, beating her in the no-holds-barred pillow fight with 69.7% of the vote. Now go vote in the new poll!
    Now, for all the confused... today is Civic Holiday for us Canucks, a bunch of lazy bastards who just wanted a dang holiday in August. :-) Hopefully I'll have two comics fer ya on Tuesday. Meanwhile, that there up above is the Avalon business card I threw together a month or so ago. I've been thinking of throwing together an Avalon poster, for people to post shameless in their school halls... ;-) I'm almost tempted to rip off Sluggy Freelance's poster contest. I'll think up something diabolical.
    Hey, Ceilidh briefly tied for first yesterday in the Bikeeni Summer 2000 exploitation poll! :-) Keep voting shamelessly! You know you like to see CRFH's Margaret angry! ;-)

Sunday, Aug. 6, 2000
    Thanks to Quasispace for today's Guest Artist Sunday submission! He's a regular over in the Avalon Forum, and says some inspiration came from this particular thread. Thanks, Quasi!
    Phoebe beat Joe handily yesterday, taking 68.2% of the vote. Today she meets Ceilidh, the final challenger! The winner of this battle will reign triumphant over all the others... vote now!
    And on the topic of various webcomics going bust... the venerable Road Waffles by Eight is supposedly at it's end. I've only heard rumours, and I don't know where such info is coming from, but in the last new strip, the remaining main characters were killed in a very convenient missile explosion, and there have been repeats ever since. Of course, Eight left the resolution (or lack thereof) *so* open-ended you can't help but think there's more. Now, Road Waffles was (and still is) a great strip, and it's hard to imagine a web without it. Plus, Eight has been a constant Avalon supporter, so I've had quite a bit of respect for him and his vastly-different comic. :-) Anyways, Eight, if you truly are ending Road Waffles, it will truly be missed.

Saturday, Aug. 5, 2000
    Phoebe torched Alison something bad yesterday, taking a whopping 73.9% of the vote in the Battle of the Characters. Today she meets Joe... who will make it out alive? Vote now! And come back on Sunday for the final showdown!
    Ceilidh's in second place in the Keenspot Bikeeni Exploitation Poll! ;-)
    Also, I just discovered this today... Jesse Brack, artist of Being Seventeen had to hang up the pen and pencil. It's a shame to see it go after such a brief existence; it had a lot of potential, and I love to see new artists sharing their creativity with everyone over the web. My hat's off to you, Jesse. Thanks for all the effort you put into your comics! (And by the way, Jesse won't be leaving the webcomic community entirely, but rather he's offering to assist other Keenspace comics... check out his site for details)

Friday, Aug. 4, 2000
    Woohoo! All caught up again. :-) In case you missed Thursday's comic, it got posted in the evening. You can see it using that little back arrowy thing under today's comic.
    Ceilidh is still just the 3rd hottest babe on Keenspot! C'mon, I thought there were more Ceilidh "afficionados" out there. ;-) Go to the Bikeeni Summer 2000 site and vote for her!
    And as if you weren't sick of voting already, yesterday's Nerf bat duel was another big win for Alison, beating Helène handily with 65.3% of the vote. Can she keep the streak alive when she meets Phoebe in today's battle?

Thursday, Aug. 3, 2000
    Sorry for the lack of new comic today. Turns out Sinfest got slashdotted! The lucky bugger! :-) Meanwhile, the rest of Keenspot went down with the unprecidented server load, and I couldn't upload or change anything. So today's comic will be up this evening, once I get home from work. Also, the new challenger who was supposed to appear in today's Battle of the Characters will appear tomorrow instead. Meanwhile, Alison and Helène can continue beating each other silly with Nerf bats. :-)

Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2000
    Alison beat Alan silly with her staple gun yesterday, taking 71% of the votes! Today, she moves on to face Helène in a to-the-death Nerf bat duel!! Vote for the winner now!

Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2000
    Currently Ceilidh is in third place in the Bikeeni Summer 2000 hottest babe poll. She still has Margaret (from CRFH) and Monique (from Sinfest) to beat! Keep voting shamelessly! ;-)
    The latest Keenspot Mini-Series Event will be one to keep an eye on...
    Meanwhile, in this week's Battle of the Characters, Alan just barely eeked out a win against Ryan in the Super-Soaker duel, winning with 50.45% of the vote! Alan moves on to face Alison in today's battle! Choose the winner!
    And finally, another really cool comic you should all check out is Odd Jobs by Tim Broderick. It's a dramatic serial strip, unlike anything I've seen to date on the web. Reminds me of Twin Peaks, only in a good way. :-)
    Oh yeah, discovered an awesome band called Chicane. Their latest album features Maire Brennan of Clannad (along with Bryan Adams, whom the Canadian government has apologized repeatedly for). Very cool soft-electronica style of music.