I consider these comic strips as a vacation from all the other projects that I’ve been working on. I even consider them a break from reality. I’ve made the time to work on them to satisfy an itch that I’ve had for a while and while I won’t say that I’m going to start producing these regularly any time soon (being honest with myself here) I have been writing down several ideas that I’d like to get drawn out sometime in the near future.

And you never know what the future may hold in store for you. That’s what makes it so exciting.

So here’s the story:
I left for a week on vacation to Sanibel. Cleared my head, Sketched on the beach, and pretty much did nothing all day. Had a surge of inspiration and arrived back in Miami itching to start drawing comics. It’s strange when inspiration hits.

For now I know that I want to keep drawing comics more regularly. The time I’ve spent on and off from this practice has given me time to reflect on what I’ve created. I spent some time reading over the old archives of The Lodge and re-read all the aloof comics. Not like is was that much to begin with, but I believe it is a substantial amount of work. I’m constantly reminded of the time and effort I put into the comics as I read over them. And it made me realize (yet again) how much I enjoy drawing comics. It’s fun. Really, it is.

Unfortunately my free time becomes more and more scarce as time goes on. A full time job, the occasional commissioned artwork, my other personal projects, my blog, and all the other small things that take up minutes of my day. I’m not complaining. I enjoy doing these other activities a great deal, but there usually isn’t time to get everything I want done.

Now that i’ve acknowledged all of this I feel confident in saying that I will more than likely continue to draw comics until I physically cannot anymore. There may not be a set schedule and there may be long periods of time in between strips. Sometimes it’s out of my hands and sometimes it’s not. I don’t want to say that I’m going to update regularly and then fail like I have several times in the past.

Doesn’t mean I won’t try to  keep some type of consistency here. That is the goal. We’ll see what the future holds.

Starting this up again for 2008. Maybe this time things will be different. Maybe everything will stay the same. If I’m still updating on a somewhat regular basis two months from now I’d call it a good start for the year.

The time has come to relinquish my throne here in Tallahassee since I’ve graduated and I really feel the need to get out of this town. Despite the memorable times I’ve spent with friends my last Two weeks up here, this town really is barren during the Summertime. I also find that it hinders my art making in a way. Never thought I’d be saying that, but my environment and the people I spend time with everyday affect my art. I think it’s time for a change of pace.

Since the comic follows daily experiences in my life, naturally the characters appearing in the strips will also change. Decided that I’m just going to go with the flow, much like I’ve been doing my entire life. We’ll see what happens.

I predict more good times up ahead.

As you may have noticed the past few strips were in full color. I actually sat down and set aside the time to color the comics for a few reasons. The main reason was because as much as I love working with Black and White designs and illustrations, I love color even more.

The goal behind this project right from the start was to get accustomed to setting a schedule for myself and updating regularly no matter what. I’ve only been working on this comic for about Four months now and so far i think I’ve been hitting the update mark pretty regularly. I started with the idea of doing the strips without color so that I could meet the deadline I set for myself. As the comic started I was starting full-time at work and also enrolled in 2 classes (One of which is becoming more of a burden than I had anticipated) so my “free time” for the comic was limited.

After working on this color strips I’m thinking that I can make the effort and try to keep adding color to them from now on. I’ll be experimenting with different coloring methods to see which one is the most efficient, but I think as long as I keep the strips to only a few panels like I have been doing I should be able to keep up without overworking myself.

The idea is to keep the regular updates Three times a week with or without color. After the erratic updates towards the end of The Lodge, keeping a regular schedule is what’s important to me.

I’m writing all of this because I received an email from someone whom I’ve never met that discovered the comic about a month ago and was also a regular visitor of The Lodge when it first started. Basically the email was to inform me that visiting this site every Tuesday and Thursday was something they looked forward to at work (apparently they check the Sunday comic Monday Mornings). It may not sound like much, but I really appreciate it when I hear things like this. I’m glad someone enjoys the comic as much as I enjoy creating it.

I’m going to keep this going as long as I can or until I decide it’s time to start the next comic project about my life. We’ll see how it goes.

And I return. Actually I got back into town Sunday night, but I’ve spent my time catching up on work and organizing a new project that was awaiting my return to the office. Joy.

So far I have about five vacation comics drawn up and I might do one more depending on how I feel at the end of the week. I will be updating regularly this week and I do plan on staring the regular comics next Tuesday.

Vacation was awesome as always. Did pretty much the same thing I did last time I was in Sanibel, which is a whole lot of nothing, and enjoyed every second of it. As usual there were visitors that stayed with us for a few days and even Adrian drove up to partake in some of the good times. And being a family of artists and photographers, I have about 800 pictures to sift through and organize. I’ll post a few here after I finish uploading them.

Top 10 Video game weapons.

Check out #5.
pwnd.

Those of you that have been following my comics since the beginning know that I take a week off during the Summer to go on vacation with my family. Sort of a family tradition. During this vacation time I don’t make any updates since I’m trying to stay disconnected from the world and relaxed. I do, however, draw a comic for everyday that I’m gone in my sketchbook. So as usual you can expect a handful of comics after I return. Not sure if it will be a full week’s worth, but I will be updating more than the usual days the week that I get back.

I will be gone from the 15th to the 24th. So everyone will have to get there fill of news and comics elsewhere. I was told that there is wireless internet in the place we usually stay and I always take my laptop to clear my cameras memory card so I might throw up a picture or two if I feel compelled.

There will be a comic this Tuesday and Thursday even though it’s a pretty hectic week for me since I have to get all my things in order before I leave.

If anyone knows how to do a batch upload of images inside Wordpress please email me. I’ve searched everywhere and haven’t found anything that can do this.

So I finally gave in and upgraded to the latest version of Comicpress. So far everything seems to be running smoothly. I was avoiding all work on the last version of this site since I knew there was a newer and better version around the corner. As always with these upgrades there might be broken links so if you find one please email me and let me know.

Some changes to note:

Cast page is still not up since I’m lazy.

You can now subscribe to the comics if you have a RSS/News reader. Mac users have it easy since Safari has an RSS reader built into the browser. IF you have no idea what I’m talking about I suggest you find out since RSS is already being integrated by all major newspapers and news sites and it will be how news is handled in the near future. (you’ll have to learn to use it eventually so what better time than now?)

That’s pretty much it. I’ll adding subscribe buttons so the news readers will pick up and update everytime I update this section of the site.