Everything In Its Right Place

[From August 22, 2016, Replying to the comment: “Can we get any kinda status update on when/if HE or SS will ever be coming back? Or at least a “not until XX”? Are you ok? Hope all is well.”]

I’m quite well. Thank you for the concern. The truth is the ways in which this comic, or all of my comic endeavors, previously allowed me to the support my family all pretty much started to dry up at the same time. Ad revenue, convention sales and online store sales all took a STEEP dive right around the same time, and I found myself unable to continue down the same path. To do so and to continue to just HOPE it would all pick up soon would have been dangerously irresponsible for my family. So I took a job. I had been working as a freelance writer and voice actor for Cyanide & Happiness for a few years and, when I realized my current situation wasn’t stable enough, I made the transition to full time. For the last 6 months I’ve been working every day on the recently announced (as of just a few days ago) Season 3 of The Cyanide & Happiness Show. I’m very proud of the work we’ve done, but it has taken up 100% of my creative (physical and emotional) energy, and left no time for other projects.

I am grateful to anyone who is still checking this site, and still interested in seeing more of my comics. I am ESPECIALLY grateful to my Patreon Patrons. When all of my other sources of HE related income dried up, Patreon was the one thing I could count on (and STILL count on to this day) for some level of stability. I want to reward those of you that remain for your patience, persistence and… another P word. Let’s go with “pants.” I still don’t know exactly how and when I’m going to finish HijiNKS ENSUE or if I’m ever going to revisit Sharksplode. I know what I WANT to do, but I’ve finally learned to stop announcing wishes/plans as if they were concrete facts my audience can rely on. Best to announce the things I’ve already done as opposed to the things I’d like to do. Less disappointment all around that way. I know that I would prefer to be able to say, “HijiNKS ENSUE is a completed project. It’s a comic that I made for almost a decade and you can read the whole thing, including the end, HERE.” I can’t currently say that, and it bothers me. Eventually that bother will evolve into action.

~Joel

[June 23rd, 2015] I’ve been spending most of the last month focused on my new comic, Sharksplode, but I’m still working on HE comics and I’ll be uploading and backdating them as they are completed.

Figuring out what makes you feel alive is pretty fantastic. Whatever that is can, and should, change throughout your life. Hopefully you will discover multiple and varied things that bestow new enthusiastic energy upon your rapidly decaying corporeal bone bag in the time that you have. Each time you stumble upon a place or a group or an activity and that experience makes your brain scream to the rest of your dumb body, “HEY! THIS IS YOU! THIS IS WHERE YOU GO! THIS IS WHAT YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE ALL ABOUT RIGHT NOW! STAY HERE AND BE THIS RIGHT NOW!” it’s like your own little personal sorting hat ceremony.

Live Action Roll Play

IMPORTANT REMINDER!
HijiNKS ENSUE just turned 8 years old!
(*COUGH! COUGH! Obligatory links to Patreon, donation page and wishlist *COUGH!)

Also HijiNKS ENSUE ~~has moved to a once a week update schedule and is ending in 2016~~ is on hiatus while I work on how and when to end it properly.
Read more about the end of HijiNKS ENSUE HERE.

ALSO ALSO I am launching a new comic on JUNE 1st!!! Stay tuned for info and a link.

Also also also, I am going to be at Phoenix Comicon as part of Cyanide & Happiness this weekend. Details HERE.

This is mostly a transcript of a real conversation. I got SO EXCITED when we came up with “Hermione Danger,” but Emily’s league has rules against duplicate names even if the other person is 40 states away. I also have to confess that our daughter came up with “J.K. Rolling” after I suggested “J.K. Brawling.” Kiddo plans to start in a kids derby league this summer. They don’t really get to bought. They just learn the rules, the skating and practice eternally until they’re 11 years old (the legal age for smashing into people on roller skates). There’s a guy in Emily’s league whose name is “Problems” and he’s number 99. That’s pretty clever.

Roll Right! Roll Call!

IMPORTANT REMINDER! HijiNKS ENSUE just turned 8 years old!
(*COUGH! COUGH! Obligatory links to Patreon, donation page and wishlist *COUGH!)

Also HijiNKS ENSUE ~~has moved to a once a week update schedule and is ending in 2016~~ is on hiatus while I work on how and when to best end it. Read more about the end of HijiNKS ENSUE and the super exciting new comic project I am starting in June HERE.

HijiNKS ENSUE has always been about real life me finding MY thing. In the HE CLASSIC days, the thing I found was the comic I was making. When HE shifted to semi-autobio territory, the comic (which itself was still MY thing) became about the comic version of me finding HIS thing. Makes sense? No? Did I use the word “thing” so many times that it no longer holds meaning and now your brain just registers it as a guttural, primal animal sound? Cool.

Last year, my wife (who was already a full time mother, and running two successful side businesses) decided to find HER thing. It turned out her thing was smashing into other ladies while on roller skates. Almost 9 months of practice, trials, tests and scrimmages later, she was drafted to a team and will soon start officially smashing into other ladies on roller skates in an organized and uniformed fashion. I’m very proud of how hard she’s worked, and happy for her that she found a thing that is all her own. Expect about 4-5 comics concerning her derby adventures.

Darlin’ Don’t You Go And Cut Your Hair

BIG BIG BIG BIG NEWS!
Today, HijiNKS ENSUE turns 8 years old!
(*COUGH! COUGH! Obligatory links to Patreon, donation page and wishlist *COUGH!)

Also HijiNKS ENSUE is ending. Read more about the end of HijiNKS ENSUE and the new comic project I am starting in June HERE.

With this comic ending, I wanted comic Joel’s haircut to reflect my own for the last leg of the journey. At least, that’s what I wanted until I drew it and realized it takes maybe 100 times longer and a million percent more lines to draw than his own “hair tusk,” as my friend David Willis liked to call it. You’ll know if I get sick of drawing it when comic Joel just magically grows all of his old hair back and no one ever mentions it.

This comic is based on two very real problems for me. One: I hate making, hearing or in any way otherwise participating in small talk. I have documented this issue previously. Two: I take off my glasses when I get a haircut, so I have to squint to see what the stylist is doing in the mirror. This invariably leads to me looking like I am HORRIFICALLY PISSED OFF during the entire haircut. So then I sit there, blind and terrified to speak, worried that everything the situation I am in is making me do… is making said situation worse, while having the added benefit of making the person holding blades near my head and face uncomfortable and annoyed. Cool brain, right? Please contain your brain related jealousy.

The third issue of mine this comic illustrates is that not everyone immediately understands how fantastically hilarious I am. In fact, some go so far as to interpret my HILARIOUS JIBES as ACTUAL RUDENESS or HURTFUL INSULTS. I am much better and not saying everything I want to say now than I was 10 years ago, but I still manage to show my disdain for smallness talkings in an incredibly effective manor to anyone who attempts to engage me in the littlest of tiny speech.

I wrote the idea for this strip over a year ago, and when I sat down last night to draw it, I realized some ways in that comic Joel does not in fact WEAR glasses. This sort of undermined my plans and required a bit of a reimagining of the problem at hand. I should point out, should she ever end up reading this, that my current stylist is the first person to ever cut my hair that I actually enjoy talking to.

Risque Cryptography

4 NEW PRINTS IN THE HE STORE!

Coffee Is Life, There Are Four Lights, Such Darmok and the remaining (25 or so) signed and numbered Daddy/Daughter Digital Drawing Time Posters have just been added to the HijiNKS ENSUE Store.

The regular prints are available in 8.5×11″ for $9.95 and 11×17″ for $17.95. The Daddy/Daughter prints are marked down from $35 to $15 while they last!

WE FOUND MORE LIL’ WIL WHEATON PLUSHIES!!!

There are about 40 left. GO HERE and get yours.

UPDATE 4/13/15: I’m over my con crud, done with my taxes and working on the comic backlog. Thank you for your patience.

COMMENTERS: What were your best hiding spots (physical or digital)? Were they ever discovered? I had a hollowed out book when I was a teenager that I used to hide condoms in. I still have the book, though it’s decidedly less full of clandestine prophylactics these days. Maybe I can use it to hide leftover Cadbury Eggs from my kid.