News: June 2001

         

Sunday, June 24, 2001
    Big thanks to S-D for this week's Guest Artist Sunday! And the game they're talking about in the first comic is baseball. Now repeat after me: "GROOOOOOAN." ;-)

Friday, June 22, 2001
    For a moment I thought the bout of writer's block had disappeared... but then it popped up again. :-P Yesterday's comic was actually for last Friday, so I'm exactly one week behind at the moment. I'm going to figure out what to do about it this weekend.
    In the meantime, negativeZero presents Deirdre Bradley, tomb raider. :-) There's a thread in the forum where this image was first introduced, and several people coloured it (and even produced their own Deirdre Croft images). This particular colouring was done by mzacher.

Wednesday, June 20, 2001
    Yeah, David pretty much got it in one right there. ;-) Since, once again, I'm deferring Avalon for a day, you can go read It's Walky! instead! Alison thanks you.

Sunday, June 17, 2001
    First, big thanks to Mark and Elizabeth Sherry, Stig Hemmer, and Pauline Hewitt for this week's Guest Artist Sunday contributions!
    And second, big thanks go to Ryan Smith, artist of Funny Farm, for acknowledging that Avalon exists!!! ;-) But seriously, Ryan cameoed Avalon today (and sorta let slip something I've been meaning to keep under wraps... cough), so go check it out!

Friday, June 15, 2001
    Well, I apologize for another lame week of irregular updates. This time it was a combination of whacked-out schedule and total writer's block. I'll see about getting some new strips in tomorrow and Sunday.
    What you see up there is the latest strip I've drawn up for The Charlatan (Carleton University's student newspaper). Filler is as filler does. :-)
    Hey, if you're sick of Avalon by now -- and you like anime-style art -- check out the brand new webcomic NoRTH! This comic is actually drawn by the guy who let me crash at his place during Anime North, so I owe it to him that everyone checks it out. ;-) Speaking of which, my Anime North journal is up in the forum.
    And finally, MangaJuice, a North American manga news site, just broadened its horizons and posted a news item about Avalon's recent book release! Check out the news item here.

Tuesday, June 12, 2001
    The first Avalon print collection, Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Study Here, is finally available for purchase! This book contains all 135 comic strips from Volume 1 of Avalon -- including the large, full-colour New Year's Eve comic and infamous Barq's spoof. Each chapter in the book is accompanied by some cultural info to help the non-Canucks out there to understand the significance of Avalon's finer details. And last (but not least), the book contains a 3-page, full-colour, original bonus story, not available on the web!
    Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Study Here: The Avalon Collection, Vol. 1 is published by Maverick Camel Publishing, a U.S.-based, independent publisher specializing in webcomics. The book is currently only available for purchase online (though you can be sure that I'll always have copies in tow at future convention appearances, like the San Diego Comic-Con and Toronto's CN Anime/Comic Book Expo). The cost is US$12 plus shipping. Currently, payment is made via Paypal. And unfortunately, shipping is currently only available within the U.S. or Canada, though international shipping (and cheaper Canadian shipping) will be available within a few months.
    Click here to order a copy right now!
    Oh, and if anybody actually managed to notice that the index number of today's comic (2:176) is the same as last Monday's... well, around March 20th, I somehow skipped 5 whole days of index numbers. Shortly I'll be going back to fix all the old comics. In the meantime, we just have to wait a week longer for comic #400. ;-)

Sunday, June 10, 2001
    The Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup last night, thus bringing an end to the 2001 Avalon Hockey Pool. The top three participants were lutheran_jihad, Jacob96, and slichtwark. There was a tie for 2nd Place, which will be broken by random draw later this week. After that, the official winners will be announced. Thanks to everyone who participated in this year's hockey pool, and keep on the lookout for the 2002 Avalon Hockey Pool!

Friday, June 8, 2001
    Yesterday was a... "rough" day (yes, there's a good enough understatement), and I was too forlorn to draw anything for today. However, since I'm two days behind and have a Keenspot Newsbox appearance this weekend, I'm going to draw a new comic for each of Saturday and Sunday. So make sure not to miss it!
    Also, the Colorado Avalanche tied their series against the New Jersey Devils last night, so the final playoff game will be this Saturday. That means that by Sunday we'll know the winners of the Hockey Pool! Another reason to be here this weekend! ;-)

Wednesday, June 6, 2001
    Apparently there have been problems with the weekly view in the Archive ever since I took that week off a while back. It seems that I've hit upon a very obscure bug in Keenspot's automatic page generation, but it may not be fixed for another few weeks. In the meantime, you'll just have to use the daily view during the affected period of comics.

Monday, June 4, 2001
    I'm back... slightly more rested, and a bit more optimistic. Also, I have some good news: The first Avalon book, Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Study Here, will definitely be available by Monday, June 11. This will be changed only by act of God (which has happened at least twice now to this book...).
    Oh yeah, and there's still a poll on this site, isn't there? ;-) In a fight between Ceilidh and Nancy, more than half of people think Ceilidh would lay the smack down on Nancy. About a quarter of people believe it would be a draw, and the rest would put their money on Nancy.