That First Webcomic Love

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Hey all you loyal, lovely Gods & Undergrads readers. I unfortunately have something really tough to tell you -- I've decided to put G&U on a sort of permanent hiatus for the time being. This is a really difficult thing for ME to do, but I'm sure for all of you out there who've managed to stick with it all this time, it's way more obnoxious! G&U has always been the book I've been MOST passionate about and the majority of people have been the LEAST interested in, and it was only recently after interventions from some friends and colleagues that I realized it was time to throw in this G&U towel for the moment. Not because I don't think it's worth it to put time and work into a story no one reads - hello, I'm in comics - but because the story itself is now REALLY suffering from my lack of attention. So I need to grow up and realize it and do something hard . . . like ending my first comic.

I started Gods & Undergrads wayyyy back in the year 2000 when first discovering an early love for (and awareness of) webcomics. While working at my college's art office and photo lab, I alternated between reading Scott McCloud's Zot, Derek Kirk Kim's Same Difference, and Jason Little's Bee Comix. I especially loved Dylan Meconis's Bite Me and Faith Erin Hicks's Demonology 101, too.

But what all of these people DID with their web sagas I failed to do -- they eventually finished them. They moved on to other things. While I, also, moved on to other things, other stories I wanted to tell . . . and yet I still dragged Gods & Undergrads along behind me, bumping it onto every pothole and street sign along the way. Leaving months, even years between updates sometimes. The audience I'd managed to build up until that point put up with a lot of unknowns, changes in style, even going from its initial full color format to all black and white, . . . but eventually most people have stopped reading. That's just one of the troubles with continuing a story after 14 years (and intermittent shoe-horning between other comics projects). It gets lost among the shuffle and doesn't get the attention and care it deserves.

HOWEVER, one of the reasons for me to tie it off now and put an (abrupt) ending on this 14-year-long saga is not just to stop me from dragging it through the mud, but also to give myself a chance further down the line of resurrecting it in a newer, more planned out storyline (rather than its current Frankenstein one). Oh, did I not mention that I would totally reboot this? I WOULD TOTALLY REBOOT IT.

So anyway - sorry for the lame news, everyone. I'm going to be posting the final, abruptly-cut-short 10 pages of Gods & Undergrads over the next few weeks. Sure, if I'd pulled the trigger earlier I could've ended it at the end of Book 3, with Lelaina gone and seemingly dead but WHO WANTS THAT ENDING??

I'll still have the books for sale (tons and tons of books) and will do sketches and things for anyone who wants them. And the archives will all remain online indefinitely. A BIG, HUGE, HEARTFELT THANK YOU to all of you who've kept up with the story all this time! Again, this definitely isn't the END end of Gods & Undergrads . . . just the end for now. *sniff*

And, of course, I'll still be doing Bonnie twice a week. And other comics. And I love you guys!

***UPDATE: I've decided this last chapter will be a FULL chapter, hooray! 48 pages of fun coming your way, so stay tuned! You'll have more G&U for a while yet. :)

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Local Times and Sportscar Designs

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Hi guys, it's me! What have you been up to this summer?

After running around to different states the last couple of weekends (Boston 2 weeks ago, California 1 week ago), I'm finally here to stay! So here are some of the (exciting) things happening that I get to tackle now that I've got the whole rest of the local year ahead of me ...

  • My next graphic novel (written/drawn by me and published by Oni Press) is ALL DRAWN! Now it just needs to be scanned, sent and VAMOOSH you guys will be seeing it soon! Can't wait!!
  • My comic 4 States 2 Months, which you may/may not have been following in its sporadic spot on my website, is now almost complete and will be available in print at this year's SPX!
  • Speaking of SPX, I will be there this year but FIRST I will be at Baltimore Comic Con at Table A-234!
  • And . . . oh right, I've got a wedding to finish planning! Expect some possibly-complainy blog posts about that to come.

As far as my trips went, my fiancee and I checked out Monterey Car Week for a few days (total lifelong dream of his to be basked in hot cars and foggy, perfect weather) this past weekend. Not being a car person myself - I see my car as IT BETTER LAST FOREVER rather than a stunning piece of engineering equipment - I was surprised at how enjoyable it could be for a spectator. I mean, yes, most of the car "shows" took place on gorgeous Carmel Valley golf courses, on breezy/sunny days, where all you do is walk around with your solo cup of wine and peer at the most beautiful vintage sports cars you'll ever see - so really, what's not to enjoy. My favorite part was seeing the crowd of fans - a perfect blend of fancy European men in tailored suits and old, chubby white men who dress like my dad. I overheard a lot of important conversations, but the people who really knew what they were doing were the wives who brought pop-up picnic tables stocked with wine, cheese, and camped out behind their husbands' cars for the duration. I was more than a little jealous of these women.

One of the things that fascinated me the most was the combination of colors and textures people chose for the exteriors/interiors of their car. So while my fiancee was snapping off engine pics and getting the full car in the frame, I was focused on all of these lovely combos:

Oh, but then I couldn't help but take a picture of this little guy too:

I love when form and function are considered and put together in such a fun way. You sportscar fans out there can have all the horsepower and torque you want, but throw in a good deep orange and some houndstooth pattern and I'm sold.

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Bmore Into Comics #4!

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That's right Marylanders and DC'ers and Virginniers! It's time for another Bmore Into Comics!

What IS this magical thing, you wonder? Why, it's just another reason to get into comics and support your local business scene in the meantime! Support by showing up to a bar and buying alcohol and comics, I mean.

So far we have had THREE WHOLE MAGICAL events, and we're returning to The Wind-Up Space for #4! What you can expect: a super-casual atmosphere, friendly local creators, a bar, a hip space to hang out in, and COMICS!

It'll be from 12 - 5:00 Saturday, July 26th at The Wind-Up Space. Right next to The Baltimore Print Studios and Red Emma's! A.k.a. a fun place to spend a couple hours in Baltimore on a Saturday. We'd love to see ya!

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Wrappin' Up A Comic

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Slidin' down into the home stretch, wee-hooooo!

As some of you already know, I'm finishing up my 2nd graphic novel for Oni Press, a project which has taken me a couple of years, some new tools, some dragging my family to amusement parks AND a healthy heaping of self-doubt to accomplish - and I'm NEARLY FINISHED!

I had planned to be finished early-mid July, but alas my neck and back had other ideas and took a moment to punish me for all my slouching. BUT physical therapy and lots of stretching have been helping, so I'm gearing up to punish my body all over again, wahoo! And if I can plug in ~30 hours a week or so for the next month, I'll be done come early August.

Now the reason I'm boring you all with the details of how long it takes me to do things is because I'd like to put a call out for guest artists for my webcomic Bonnie N. Collide! Seemed like a good time to do it, an opportunity to let my characters roam beyond my clutches for a bit, and a way to get all the readers out there to share their guesting skills! If you're interested, I'm looking for black-and-white, 839 pixels wide x 332 pixels high, having something to do with either the story or the world or the characters in which Bonnie n' friends live. You can email me whatcha got here. Browse all the archives for inspiration here!

Depending on how many (if any) guest strips I get, I'll be starting them the 7th of July and going through until August 6th. I love seeing other folks play around with my characters, so if you have any comic inclination, I do hope you'll be willing!

In the meantime I'll be over here guzzling coffee, and nerdily chuckling at The Thrilling Adventure Hour (for those of you who follow me on Twitters, you know I'm WAY behind the times and recently obsessed) whilst I draw endless crowd scenes. (ENDLESSSS) Thanks so much for all of your patience and support and HOLY GOD I can't wait to show you this book!

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When Your Neck No Longer Wants to be Friends

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About a month ago, I started getting this really curious sensation. At first I was like "HO, wow, I'm even clumsier than I thought - I spilled coffee all down my thigh!" Except I wasn't drinking any coffee. Or holding any coffee. I filed it away into the "oh you crazy body" category and promptly forgot about it. It kept happening, and more frequently. I continued to ignore it.

Then I started to get pins and needles in my hands - you guys remember pins and needles, right? That sensation you get after you almost break your foot walking on it when it's asleep. All that weird feeling comes rushing back, in the form of prickles and sparks and ouches.

Prickly, sparkly pins and needles and spilling coffee down my leg. I thought there might be something off.

Now, because I am a person prone to anxiety, I wasn't sure the best course of action. Do I dare researching it online? Do I just tell everyone I know and let them tell me I'm a freak? Finally I dabbled online, fully expecting cancer, which didn't disappoint me. But another pleasant one was stroke - ah, yes, STROKE! That classic. My fiancee wisely advised me to do things to treat my anxiety first while I waited to see the doctor. Take a bath, drink wine, relax. Which I did, while thinking STROKE-STROKE-STROKE and my appendages prickled off into the night.

Eventually I got to see some doctors, and they diagnosed me as having nerve damage/compression. They kept asking me: "Have you been in a car accident recently?" "Hurt yourself physically in any way?" "Done anything unusual?" I remembered I carried a heavy table for longer than I should've, and brought that up - but realized I did that after my symptoms started. They were disappointed. Slowly it dawned on me - I was injured from SITTING. LOTS OF INAPPROPRIATE SITTING. My posture sitting is a cross between Nightcrawler and a tree frog. I perch, I sit on my feet, I twist my legs around like a pretzel. I don't sit straight, and I sure as hell don't put both feet down on the floor.

I just didn't realize it could get this bad. Sure, I've been sore from not exercising before. Too many days without physical activity of some sort and my muscles decide I've contracted the flu. But when my neck/back decides to start pinching nerves in order to let me know it hates my lifestyle - that's a low blow. That's some middle school / going around talking behind my back bullshit right there.

So I've had an MRI done (which is the equivalent of a horrible indie rock/muppet band who've created an album dedicated to preventing you from ever sleeping again) and a blood test done (this time the terrifying technician threatened me with having to draw blood FROM MY HAND if my veins didn't snap to attention) and physical therapy, and what they've determined is that, yes, I am out of whack and that's all there is to it. I don't have a vitamin deficiency or MS, I am a delicate flower who cannot handle sitting for long. And as grateful as I am that it's not anything worse, I'm pretty embarrassed.

So now I have "restorative yoga" classes on my schedule and foam rolling every day and 2 ball chairs to sit on. I'm hoping that, like my stupid diet problems, this will be yet another thing that forces me to be a healthier person. I just wanted to vent to you all. And preach the importance of getting up frequently and freaking out your coworkers by only talking to them while standing up.

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Gods & Undergrads SALE up in here

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In celebration of my webcomic Gods & Undergrads returning this month, I'm throwing a SALE PARTY and you're all invited!

Just use the coupon code CHEAPGODS to get 15% off Gods & Undergrads merch (or, really, any merch in my store) AND when you get a G&U book, I'll draw in it the Greek God of your choice!

Like this here Poseidon (who hasn't shown up in the comic ... YET) I did for a fellow reader:

So come on down to my shop and get some 15% off things! It'll help the comic and me and we'll all celebrate Greek Mythology Nerdiness together!

(psst - and if you haven't seen them, I also have a whole slew of Greek Gods inspired prints!)

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West Coast Signings - THIS Weekend!

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It's West Coast Whirlwind Weekend Time! This weekend I have TWO signings coming up on the west coast:

I can't wait - I may never leave. I'll be signing books, drawing sketches, and I'll have prints and original art with me to browse through. Come visit and say hello!

(psst - and if you say the magic word - aka QUELLISH - get a free sketch of your choice!)

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Gods & Undergrads Book 2 - Back in Stock!

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That's right, Gods & Undergrads Book 2 is now back in stock!

Want to find out what happens when Lelaina really falls for Linden? Or what rage in a college undergrad whose parents happen to be Greek gods looks like? Or who the next God to arrive at Troy University is?

Here's the book in my shop - and order ANY Gods & Undergrads books now and get a sketch of the Greek God of your choice on the inside! (just don't forget to tell me which one)

Oh yeah, and I managed to get it reprinted in full color without sacrificing one of my cats. Hooray!

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Bmore Into Comics #3

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Saturday, May 17th 12:00 - 4:00

It's time for our next installment of Bmore Into Comics!

Created last year, Bmore Into Comics is a series of small, one-day shows stocked with local comics creators and set in bars in/around Baltimore. If you're a localite, come out this Saturday from 12 - 4:00 to Hampden's new Belgian Beer Bar De Kleine Duivel. We'll have comics creators, books for sale, banter, and oh yeah - a TON of specialty beers! I'll be there with all my books and prints in tow!

Here's the list of creators on tap (GET IT? TAP? Because there'll be beer?? Ok, I'll slink away now):

(and of course, me!)

Click on the event page and join us!

Can't wait to see you guys and toast to comics!

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The Perils of a Non-Wine Diet

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No, no, not having wine has been fine - TOTALLY FINE.

I've mentioned before that I have SIBO (aka Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth), which basically means at some point I had one too many bouts of food poisoning/food allergies, and now I have no clue what I should and shouldn't be eating to get better. I've spent the last couple of years dabbling amongst gluten-free, grain-free, dairy-free (EGADS cheese-free) and sugar-free diets. Oh, what a joy it's been!

For the last year, I've been mainly sugar and grain-free, which hasn't been too terrible. Sure, I gave up a lot of bread and desserts, but I still had my honey and my wine, so they were my trusty companions on my life raft of diet isolation. The funny thing was, being a candy/sugar-holic my whole life, I actually started to TASTE things in vegetables that I hadn't before. Now, I'm not going to tell you that suddenly asparagus tasted like Lucky Charms, but I have found veggies to be not as horrific as I once thought. Tea is suddenly less bland! I can stomach the idea of cauliflower! WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME!

But, unfortunately, as much as I wanted to convince myself that the diet was slowly choking out the SIBO on its own, I had to admit it wasn't quite gone. And swallow my fears to visit the doctor my gastro recommended . . . who just so happens to work at the CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE - how's that for reassuring me and motivating me to try the next step? So yeah, I put off going there for ohhhh about 6 months. Maybe a bit longer. C'mon diet, do your magic! Ugh. So eventually I sulked on over to the CID and met a lovely doctor who was completely reasonable and non-panicky and recommended I try both the antibiotic I'd had previous success with combined with another one that MAY OR MAY NOT CAUSE LIVER DAMAGE AND HEARING LOSS. She laughed and said "Ohhh, only if you take it for months, and you'll only be taking it for 2 weeks, no big!" So I got the prescription filled in record time (I was hoping they'd have to take years to fill it) and sat staring at my latest round of antibiotics. And proceeded to put off taking them another 2 months. Hey, I'm a travelin' fiend, alright? I can't be expected to sell comics and travel AND be taking a zillion ear-murdering pills every day!

So I waited until I was going to be at home for a solid 2 weeks. And I decided that in conjunction with the liver/ear slaughtering meds, I should probably give up alcohol for the duration too, just to give it the best chance to work. As much as I was dreading taking the pills (because it's always fun having people make assumptions about you when you're a lady of a certain age being nauseous in public), I was dreading going alcohol free more. Two weeks without my wine! Now I'm just trapped in this boat with my honey!

So here I am, a week in. One more week to go! Will this work?? WHO KNOWS!

Here are some of the things I've discovered so far in not drinking wine:

  • I am much more active. Not drinking means I won't go "Oh, I had a glass of wine today, therefore I can't go for a run/bike ride/exercise activity at all".
  • A lot of times I feel obligated to drink. Not by any other person, more just in the situation. I used to feel the same way about food before I had any restrictions in my diet. "I CAN eat chips, so I might as well eat chips nonstop at this party" became "I might as well drink wine, since it's not like I can have dessert"
  • I'm also more productive. "I can't drink, so I might as well get these pages inked." Not drinking wine = boredom = gettin' shit done.
  • I sleep better. Like a ROCK, in fact.

Now, I'm not making this list to tell y'all that I'm going to be giving up wine. Rather, I find it kind of interesting that as with restrictive diets, I've discovered cutting out one or two things for a short duration provides me with perspective and an opportunity to learn how good I can be at flexing my willpower muscles. And it's true when they say that flexing willpower gives you more confidence to conquer other things. Hell, I should've already learned that when I had to give up cheese. If I can do that, I CAN DO ANYTHING. The thing I need to figure out is how to do that without restrictions when (if ever) I'm back to my normal life. How to retain some good habits without being all hardcore about it? I'm like a cheetah in that regard - I'm successful at short bursts. I'm not a monster.

But I did already pass my first test last weekend, when a mistake with the food at my favorite restaurant motivated the manager to BRING US OUT FREE MIMOSAS. My fiancee, who's kindly been having a dry 2 weeks with me, had to take one for the team. Because of course you're offered free, delicious alcohol when you can't have it. Of course.

And thus continues the latest chapter in my ongoing GUT WAR. I'll let you know what happens when I get my wine back.

Wanna read the whole story of my food drama in exciting, whiny installments? Click here!

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Panels of Fun

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Note: all of those pictures were taken from Rafer's tumblr - check him out!

Yesterday I was honored to be part of a panel on "Beyond Text and Line: A Discussion on the Art of Comic Books” at the incredibly beautiful Strathmore Institute, which is currently running a really cool art exhibit on Comic Books and Comic Book Art (it's running until June - check it out!). Together Emily Gillis, JD Deardourff, Rafer Roberts, moderator Greg McElhatton, and I all perched ourselves on stools in one of the Strathmore Mansion's gorgeous old rooms to chat about working in comics.

Panels are something I've only had limited experience with so far, but I'm thrilled anytime I get to be on them (even though for a while it's touch-and-go with the butterflies and the heebie-jeebies and the "where will my sweat stains appear THIS time?")

One of the interesting topics brought up in the discussion of comic strips vs. comic BOOKS vs. the illustrious graphic novel was whether trends in audience preference or in technology have driven the evolution of comics. I've always thought that as television shows and movies have gotten more sequential and placed more importance on the narrative (story arcs and movie sequels vs. monster/moral of the week sitcoms), a lot of comics have followed suit. While there still are one-shot comics with gags or single strip stories, it seems people like a good, continuing story arc. But as one of the panelists pointed out, that could be because technology has allowed us to view things as tv shows and comics as worth preserving rather than as disposable, therefore logically story topics have followed suit.

We got a couple questions on what "gateway comic" we'd use to get folks interested in comics, which spurred some Contract With God, Sandman, Y The Last Man, The Dark Knight Returns shout-outs. When I recommend comics, though, I tend to go by the genre that the person is interested in - for one friend who's into strong, female characters - I recommended Strangers In Paradise and Queen & Country. For another into a lot of film noir, I recommended You Have Killed Me. I think the more we treat comics as having many different genres contained within them, rather than comics as a whole as ONE genre, the more we hope to get comics more into the mainstream reading public.

See, this is why I love being on panels so much, and in non-convention environments in particular. It's the chance to combine fellow comic industry buds with people who think comics are a weird, mystical land of nerds - all of us coming together and figuring comics out. :)

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Stripped at Strathmore

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Hey locals!

Tomorrow I will be at the Strathmore in Bethesda to participate in a discussion on comics for “Beyond Text and Line: A Discussion on the Art of Comic Books”. I'll be chatting with fellow comics creators Emily Gillis, JD Deardourff, and Rafer Roberts about our work, our history, what comics we LOVES, etc. Afterwards we'll be viewing the Stripped documentary, which I can't WAIT for - all my beloved comics professionals that I grew up obsessing over, all in one place on screen!

If you're around, come in for a lovely afternoon of grinning about comics. Click here to get tickets!

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Pirating Those Comics

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Recently, a friend of mine told me that my comic Boobage had showed up on one of those tricksy pirating websites, where it had been downloaded a WHOLE mess of times. Way more times than any number of copies I've sold through my website, stores, or via Comixology. Okay, way way WAY more times. (I feel it's necessary to mention here that you can BUY Boobage from me here in book form or read here on Comixology, or find in one of these many fine stores.) It's by far my most popular book, since it containts both boobs and true stories, and has gotten a slew of good reviews.

He asked me how I felt about this, and I thought it was an interesting question. I've been doing webcomics for over ten years now, back when I started my "Greek Gods invading college" comic Gods & Undergrads in 2001. When you do webcomics, the model has always been that you create and have available comics on your site, updated regularly, all for free. Over the years cartoonists have been able to live off of their comics by employing ads, doing Kickstarters, even joining paid webcomic subscription services like ye olde Webcomic Nation back in the day (yep, I was part of that - I'm OLD!)

For those of us who regularly produce comics via the internet, it's always been kind of understood that we're going to have to give away a lot of content for free. Heck, just being an artist of any sort, people expect you to give away a lot of stuff for free, whether by offering payment in the form of "exposure" or "portfolio pieces" or being severely underpaid for loads of work. So we webcomics creators are already kind of predisposed to this. Finding a way of monetizing work that is already widely expected to be free has always been a challenge.

And why do I want to find ways to get money from my work? Nope, it's not to get ridiculously wealthy (though it's cute that anyone might think you can GET ridiculously wealthy from comics). For me, the goal has always been to live off of doing what I love. And what do I love? Comics! Drawings! Designing art stuffs!

Chuck Wendig wrote a post a few weeks back about his feelings on piracy and things such as Patreon, which pretty much sums up a lot of my feelings on the subject. But he also particularly calls out Patreon and Donate Buttons (things which I have and will be making use of on my site) as something that's beside the point of what he's doing - he'd rather you just BUY AND READ HIS WORK. As someone who is excitedly considering Patreon and Kickstarter as means of supporting my comics, at first I was a little disheartened, thinking he was criticizing those tools as being "beneath a true creator" or something. But no, what he's saying quite simply is - if you like the art, support the art. If you read the comic for free, tell people about it, blog about it, drive up those traffic numbers, buy a book version of the comic at a convention or a store or online.

When I found out my work was being swiped and read for free (well, the few books of mine that aren't already free), I felt the same way probably a lot of creators have in my place. AWESOME, there are people checking out my stuff - perhaps I have a new fan! Or two! Maybe they'll say hi!!

I'm off to go buy some of Chuck Wendig's books.

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Asbury Park Recap!

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I'm back from the magical Asbury Park!

Since growing up in Maryland and heading over to Ocean City several times in my youth (and a few, unfortunately, as an adult), I was super pleased to see Asbury Park was what I expected from a longstanding beach town. Old, historic architecture that was once flashy and now delightfully creepy and antique. Give me authentic buildings with some stories to them over brand new strip malls and gaudy hotels any day of the week! Especially since I assumed they were all haunted. Including my hotel room, in which all of the walls appeared to be crying. True, it was because the A/C wasn't working and condensation was EVERYWHERE, but it could've been blood dripping down the walls. (Yes, I switched rooms - me + humid and soggy does not equal happy fun time).

So the show was a lot of fun - again, I prefer shows that are housed in a building unique to their town to a generic convention center - and this one was located in the blood-crying hotel where I was staying. Which mean fun architecture and natural lighting galore!

My table set-up wasn't that exciting this time:

But I enjoyed trying to simplify my books in the hopes of making it easier on visitors' eyes.

This super cute family ordered a Mother/Son portrait - they were rocking these costumes!

I also met a BUNCH of the Red Bank Roller Vixens, and the Jersey Junior Roller Derby League! AAAHH, they were so awesome and fierce and holy god they are going to be a million times better than I ever was at derby (okay, they probably are already). More junior derby leagues in more towns NOW!!

I didn't get out much during my brief stay, but I'd definitely head back for some more magical creepiness. I'd just bring WAY more layers - never underestimate the power of a windy beach town! BRRRR!

BIG HUGE thanks to all the great folks that came out and said hello to me!

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Emerald City Con Recap & Sketches!

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Yayyyy it's good to be home! Well, kind of. It was really nice getting to see the gorgeousness of the west coast again, and traipse about in Seattle's perfect (PERFECT) weather and pretend I lived there. I'm therefore always a little sad to come home again.

Comic conventions are always a gaggle of emotions and experiences for me, and after they're over it's good to get to relax, but also hard to relax when you've been so motivated and inspired to DO MORE COMICCCCSSSS all weekend. That is just part of the delicious nature of this comic beast - get all ramped up and exhausted creating stuff, then spend a weekend yelling and laughing and discussing comics all weekend, then flop home exhausted, but still wired and inspired to do more comics stuff once again. Sigh. Sometimes it's hard to sulk back to my day job after such experiences, remembering I have some Clark Kenting to do in my real life until comics become my real life.

Every convention I try to do better at The Thing I Am Worst At - i.e. promoting myself and networking with fellow comics peeps. This year I think I did a bang-up job, even though it wasn't without it's awkwardness (Yes, I did splash myself in the face with water as I was talking to someone). To put things in perspective, last year at ECCC I spent a lot of time hiding out in my hotel eating my meals alone. So this year it was bound to be better! Plus, it didn't hurt that I found some beloved comics peeps I've hung out with before, and they allowed me to chat within their orbit and meet others through them.

I think I've learned one of the most important aspects of networking - just try to be a pleasant human that's in the conversation. Just stand there, absorb, and most importantly, ask about and listen to the other people. Don't push yourself or your work on them. Participate, be a good conversationalist, enjoy the moments, and hey, maybe they'll remember you next time. And don't beat yourself up if it doesn't work. Or rather, if you THINK it's not working. True, you may get into an annoying situation where the other comics peeps pretend you don't exist or that you've somehow invaded their elite comics party, but sadly that's the nature of the beast. All of us creators are socially awkward in SOME way, and it's best not to assume others are maliciously being tool bags, just unintentional tool bags. (Plus you can quietly go home and unfollow them and they'll NEVER KNOW.)

Okay, enough of my convention musings. All of you guys who came by and chatted with me and told me you read Bonnie and/or Gods & Undergrads (and didn't hit me for not updating it for a while) and bought sketches and did things - you're all so wonderful. THANK YOU for being the awesome people I'm lucky to have as readerssss!!

Let's get on to the sketches! I was really happy with this bunch, they were so much fun to do.

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