Phoenix Comicon 2012 Fancy Sketches

Once again Phoenix Comicon was a fantastic success. Next to Emerald City in Seattle, it is my second favorite US show. Thank you to everyone that came out and got a t-shirt, a book, a sketch or just said hi. The Phoenix Phancy Bastards (fancy withe a PH) also REALLY came through with the baked goods, caffeinated goods and beboozed goods. I was able to get David terribly drunk off of too many tiny bottles of Jack (which is a necessity since he’s at least twice as much fun when he’s hammered).

In addition to my comicing bros, I usually get to run around with the entire Wheaton family at Phoenix. This year was no exception, and shenanigans’o plenty (which is my Dropkick Murphys cover band) were had. Wil and I (along with Blind Ferret) debuted the prototype of the Wil Wheaton plushie we’ve been working on since ohhhhh… around the time of this comic dare.

It’s been almost a year in development, but we are all very proud of the final result. They’ll be going on preorder in a week or so and a good preorder means we get to make enough to NOT have to reorder before the holidays (reordering means months of time waiting for chinese shipping crates to arrive on boats). I hope you guys dig the plush and consider picking one up during the preorder. They’ll be $20 and you are fully encouraged to knit space sweaters and clown sweaters for them.

HEY! I started a Facebook group for Fancy Bastards to share ideas, get support and be a community of geeks and weirdos. Godspeed, You Fancy Bastards!

Doorstep Darkened

If you are confused by the incident Joel is referring to in panel 3, feast your head-orbs over yonder. Despite that comic being Pre-Continuity (PC) in the HEniverse, let’s just go ahead and assume it happened in a little pocket universe of canon. Hows about a little Evil Fox Executive primer? Whether the events in these comics end up sticking in the Post-Continuity (PC… wait, fuck) HEniverse remains to be seen.

The EFE has his own reasons for hating sci-fi. He is able to cancel far more than just TV shows. He occasionally consults with coworkers on corporate strategies. He has an uncommon appetite. He has a shared history with Joss Whedon (which directly contradicts his previous origin story AND the one in this blog post). He’s a bit of a Grinch, and his secretary has to deal with a lot of bullshit.

Major thanks to all of you Fancy Bastards that have started donation subscriptions since I added the new $2, $3 and $4 monthly levels. There is a now a premium RSS feed just for subscribers that has the full comic in the feed.

I am have a lot of fun expanding the comic from single gags to a tiny world. I am finding myself thinking 3 and 4 and 10 strips ahead, something that was never possible with HijiNKS Ensue before. It’s still very early into this new experiment, but I like how things are going and I’m quite enthusiastic about what’s to come. I hope you are digging it as well. So this is what world-building feels like, huh? Weird.

HEY! I started a Facebook group for Fancy Bastards to share ideas, get support and be a community of geeks and weirdos. Godspeed, You Fancy Bastards!

PHOENIX COMICON IS THIS WEEKEND!!!

I will be at booth 707/806 with Blind Ferret.
More info HERE.

COMMENTERS: Has an enemy or at least someone who was a total jerk to you ever turned to you for a favor? What did you do? I used to work (at a real job) with this unbelievable shrew of a cunt. She hated my insides so hard with her eyes that they eventually caught fire and I died coughing up smoke and burning guts. It was quite an ordeal. Then she needed me to fix her computer. I thought this a good opportunity to decrease my workplace misery so I obliged. The entire time I was at her place she talked on the phone like I wasn’t there. The next day she went right back to treating me like garbage. The moral? DESTROY YOUR ENEMIES! NO MERCY! NO WEAKNESS! NO FIXING OF THEIR DELL DESKTOPS!

Discharged

Alternate Title: Guess Who’s Coming to Cancel Dinner

When I saw that Fox had finally, with Fringe going into its final season, purged all the icky sci-fi nerdity from their otherwise pristine network, I knew exactly where to go with the next HE storyline. The Evil Fox Executive (can he even still be called that?) is a soldier without a war. A man without a country. A panda strangler… ALLEGED panda strangler with nary a panda to strangle. And they really are such satisfying creatures to strangle. Their fur and fluff are easy on the hands. No strangulations calluses with a panda. No sir.

Major thanks to all of you Fancy Bastards that have started donation subscriptions since I added the new $2, $3 and $4 monthly levels. There is a now a premium RSS feed just for subscribers that has the full comic in the feed.

PHOENIX COMICON IS THIS WEEKEND!!!

I will be at booth 707/806 with Blind Ferret.
More info HERE.

COMMENTERS: So where does this leave us? Are we better off with Fox leaving the sci-fi greenlighting/cancellation cycle to the other networks? Is this like giving up on relationships to prevent heartbreak? Can it not be argued that Fox has actually produced some of the finest sci-fi that television has ever seen? Are we going to lose more than we would have gained if Fox gets out of the science fiction game altogether?

Dallas Comic Con 2012 Fancy Sketches

Dallas Comic Con and I have always been at odds. I resent it for being so close to my home and yet such a poorly organized, terribly mismanaged convention, and it resents me for being alive apparently. Don’t get me wrong, all of the fans I talked to (all half-dozen of them) were quite kind and wonderful. But I spent a day away from my family, paid for a table and sat there for 8 hours for basically no reason. I’m sorry, Dallas. You must have done something VERY wrong, because you don’g get a good con. [I wrote a GIANT post about why this con was an incredible disaster, but I realize it was a bit of downer so I moved it to this TUMBLR post.]

Major thanks to all of you Fancy Bastards that have started donation subscriptions since I added the new $2, $3 and $4 monthly levels. There is a now a premium RSS feed just for subscribers that has the full comic in the feed. You’ll get an email with a link when you sign up. If you have already signed up, you’ll be getting an email this week.

When I told you all that I was rethinking what I was doing with HE, I opened myself up to a lot of criticism. A lot of it was constructive, and a lot of it was painful to take in (because it was true). Still some of it was painful just because a few of you took my self evaluation as an invitation to let me know how badly I’ve been fucking up for the past year or so. Not many of you, but enough. One thing that KEPT cropping up was a deep, all consuming hatred for the photo comics. Many readers told me they were the very reason they stopped caring about the comic in general. A lot of people said they were all in-jokes with my friends and this inaccessible. This is a criticism I can sympathize with despite not really understanding it at all. I always assumed the appeal of the photo-comics WAS that I was bringing you inside. Many of the people I feature in the photo comics are far more famous than I. I never expected writing silly situations for me and famous friends to act out would seem exclusionary.

Now, before you jump to their defense and tell me you LURV the photo comics, rest assured that I have heard from your camp as well. I have determined that these photo comics are the MOST DIVISIVE thing I have ever created. You either ALL THE WAY love them or hate them, but you do not KIND OF anything them. I admit they are a bit self indulgent, and certainly not in line with the regular drawn comics you might be accustomed to here. Since I do enjoy making them, and SOME of you do enjoy reading them, I am working on a way to separate them from the main archive. I am also considering moving the convention sketches along with them. I am thinking you would see regular HE comics on the site when you visit it, and then there would be a sidebar widget they told you if there was a new “Convention” comic or a new “Lo-Fi” comic.

I am definitely doing this with the Lo-Fi’s, so that’s not up for debate. The reason is, if I move them I can actually do them multiple times a week (on the same days as the regular comics even) which was always the plan. I’m just not sure if I should break out the photo comics, the sketches or both into their own area. I am opening the floor to your thoughts on this matter. Please don’t use this as a reason to let me know why you hate the photo comics. I’ve heard enough of that for a lifetime. I just want the site to be as user friendly as possible.

COMMENTERS: Weigh in on this idea if you have something constructive to add. I am going to base my decision largely on your feedback. This site is for you to enjoy, and I don’t want to go breaking it needlessly. If you read my TUMBLR post about Dallas Comic Con, feel free to add your own convention (or other gathering) nightmares. I once went to a ren faire where the sewers backed up and started creating little cesspools here and there throughout the faire grounds. It was very… authentic.

Know What I’m Saying, Holmes?

UPDATE 05/18/12: Donation subscribers of any level will get access to an RSS feed with the full comic in it.

I am going to be at Dallas Comic Con this weekend with Randy Milholland of Something Positive. I will ONLY BE THERE SATURDAY. Randy will be there Saturday and Sunday. You can find us at table 132. I will have books, prints, stickers and sketch cards, but no shirts. Really testing the waters on this one. If you guys come out and make it a good show, I will probably be back next year in full force.

Here’s another stand alone to break up the continuity before the next mini story arc. Read more about the new direction I am taking the comic in and how you can help HERE if you haven’t already.

Gigantic thanks to everyone that has donated last week, especially to the new donation subscribers. If you enjoy HE and would like to see it continue and even flourish, I have added $2, $3, and $4 monthly donation subscription options. If you can spare $2 a month for a bunch of comics, I would consider you to be a pretty awesome type of person.

I am giving T-shirt ads in the posts a rest for a couple of weeks while I make some new ones, but why not check out The HE Store anyway? It’s still there.

Professional Science Doers project that by 2020 we will have moved to an entirely Sherlock Holmes-based entertainment society. Between House, Moffat’s Sherlock, Robert Downey Jr.’s steampunk bromance with Jude Law, and the new CBS Holmes series, Elementary, I just don’t see any way out of this inevitability. I say we all start investing in double-brimmed caps, pipes, magnifying glasses and cocaine before the crowd gets wind of this. And yes, I am counting any and all modern iterations of Jekyll And Hyde in this equation for obvious reasons. Or rather, for what are OBVIOUSLY reasons. Reasons that I have. Reasons that you should not question. Reasons involving scarves.

COMMENTERS: Do we need a new Holmes-boy, or is one Sherlock enough? Any thoughts on the upcoming House series finale? How are you hoping it will resolve? Personally I’m glad it’s ending now rather than dragging for another year. This last season really felt like a running start towards the shark with strong intent to jump. Otherwise, please make up more silly British detective names.