OH EM GEE
Sept. 23, 2007

UPDATE! I've managed to get myself moved into our new flat, but as the more astute among you may have detected that hasn't led to an over abundance of activity herein. We have no internet. We have had no internet for nearly a month and we will continue to have no internet until well into October. This is, to put it as lightly as possible: painful. I've managed to sneak onto the interwebs here at my parents while my webmonkey and his dad fix the brakes on our car, and as I dust off all my email accounts and catch up on webcomics I find there has been alot going on for me to miss out on >_<
The first and most important of these is that the Schlock Mercenary book is off to print and taking pre-orders and oh it's all very exciting to me. I just have to say that Howard Tayler and his clan are some of the best people doing business on the web. Because they deal exclusively in Schlockiness and because it is their very own creation, they always take the time and put in the effort to make it seem like your just dealing with the guy down the road, while offering products and services that you can't get at stores let alone on the web. They're just fantastic and I can't wait to get my hands on that book ^_^ *glee!* And speaking of it as I am, I have to quickly point out how shocked and flattered I am to discover some of the other artists my humble doodle will be sharing The Tub of Happiness with, many of whom are responsible for comics that I love reading. Brad Guigar, David Kellett, and Alina Pete over at Weregeek which I very much adore, and these are only a few of the fantastic additions. I have to say, I feel extremely out of my league. I can only hope my art will stand tall alongside them (eep).
And we're out of time again *sigh* someday my internets, someday!

~cas

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News on books, the comic, and life in general
August 29, 2007

If you don't care about my life but want to know the exciting news, please skip down to the last paragraph!

And here we are again. The comic has been on hiatus again as I tool about with my life and other such wonderful things. But here are the main points of where I've been and what's been/will be:

I have been busy as. I know I say this alot, it happens to be true alot as well unfortunately. I picked up full time work at the beginning of August, which has led to the wonderful 5am-5/6pm hours I'm currently working, these include travel time if I catch the bus, if I take the train I arrive home later by anywhere from 30 to another 60 minutes. This leaves me with time to eat, be with the man I love, and sleep (and occasionally see friends or maybe even do laundry! wow!) It's been hard. Add to that the fact that two days ago I was made manager of one of the two stores I work in. Now when I say this I mean I'd worked there twice before being made manager of it. I now hold the keys and combinations and have no idea where anything is, and the owner has taken this week off to be in Sydney. It's been... interesting.

Now where the rest of my 'free' time has gone.
In the time when I am not at work and not in transit, when I could maybe consider working on the comic, I have not been, I have been house hunting. It has been a task that has fallen almost completely to me as my work day ends just before the realtors so I can actually speak to them, whereas Stephen's does not end until after 5 when they are most assuredly closed. It has been an ongoing nightmare attempting to deal with these people, and that's not even mentioning the inspections for places that had been leased or on days when there actually wasn't one happening. I'm not bitter, really *twitch* But success is mine! And that leads into where things will be going (for the comic and for my own fleshy person) We will be moving this weekend! And there's no telling as yet how long it will be for internet to be up and running as no one has been able to tell us who provides in the area. The internet is funny here in Australia, like TV and phone, everything seems to be less accessible here, like they haven't gotten the hang of it yet...

So, life has been doing what it does and I've been going along with it, with scarce time to press pencil to paper in the meanwhile. I'm not going to say for certain when the next page will be up because I honestly couldn't say. I'll be working on it tomorrow at work, but how much gets done when... If you want to know when things happen EMAIL ME and I will email to back when they do, so you'll always be in the know, and it will be all good, as they say.

AND NOW! The very exciting news (for me at least) Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary is publishing another book, as he does now and again because he is completely great and his comic is one of my all time favourites (that means read it! :P ) A few months back he asked for art to fill out the margins and being shameless, I offered some up. It ofcourse was accepted, and I say of course not because I am that full of myself (or am I?), but because if it hadn't been I wouldn't be announcing it. But yes, it was accepted and will be in the next schlock book (which actually contains the start of the comic rather than the current story lines), so if you want a great read and a chance to see some of my better art, I recommend picking it up. If you're not feeling affluent or simply don't 'do' dead tree books, then you should still check out the comic. The archives are quite expansive and every page is worth it ^_^

You're up to date! Off to eat and bathe (go the 4 minute shower, SE Queensland!) Oh the exciting life I live...

~cas