CONTEST 1: Recreate an HE Comic
PRIZE: 1 Copy of Gearbox Software’s Borderlands for PC on Steam
RULES: Recreate ANY HijiNKS ENSUE comic WITHOUT drawing it, painting it, etc. You can use photos, legos, video, audio, clay, GI Joes, whatever. The final product should be laid out like an HE comic with sequential panels (unless your chosen medium negates this rule; ie video). Speech balloons are optional but encouraged.
SUBMISSION: Post your entry online and email a link (not the actual product) to comics (at) hijinksensue (d0t) com with the Subject line: HE CONTEST 1
DEADLINE: Friday Night 10/30/09 SUNDAY NIGHT 11/1/09

CONTEST 2: Hottest Fancy Bastard
PRIZE: 1 Copy of Gearbox Software’s Borderlands for PC on Steam
RULES: This one is all Josh. Let me stress that. THIS ONE IS ALLLLL JOSH. Take your fanciest, most alluring FB photo…
SUBMISSION: email it to dopefish3d (at) gmail (d0t) com with the Subject line: HE CONTEST 2. Josh will pick the winner based on his own criteria. Men and women are encouraged to submit but in the end he’s going to pick whoever HE likes best. (I have nothing to do with this).
DEADLINE: Friday Night 10/30/09 SUNDAY NIGHT 11/1/09

CONTEST 3: HE Pumpkin Carving
PRIZE: 1 Copy of Terminal Reality’s Ghostbusters for Xbox 360 (donated by Eli)
RULES: Carve an HE themed Pumpkin. That’s the only rule. Oh, and that it has to be awesome. That’s the other rule. Eli and Denise will choose the winner.
SUBMISSION: Post your photo online and email a link to elivorio (at) gmail (d0t) com with the Subject line: HE CONTEST 3.
DEADLINE: Friday Night 10/30/09 SUNDAY NIGHT 11/1/09

UPDATE:
Winners announced HERE

(Download 580k – Print this out landscape style on 8.5 x 11 paper and fold it over to complete the romantic magic)

Click the orange icon to go to the sign up page. I’ll be adding a sidebar widget later today with a link to the sign up page as well.

On to the aforementioned “Other Goodness”

• A quick reminder: if you aren’t already following me on Twitter, you probably should. It’s the best way to communicate with me through out the day other than email. I post most of my day to day stuff there as opposed to making full on blog posts.
• Jackson Ferrell from “This Week In Webcomics” did an awesome write up about HE and The Experiment.
• Fancy Bastard KravStorm is writing a play about HijiNKS Ensue. Or, rather a play starring the HE cast transposed into a sporting goods store. I believe this is officially the first HE fanfic. It hasn’t taken the turn into “slash” territory yet, but it’s also not finished...
• Fancy Bastard PatrickCentral showed off his geek projecting skills by making the “Problem Button” from Venture Brothers. Check out his other projects and despair at the geekitude.
  

FB Sean proudly displayed his fanciful bastardity at a JoCo show

FB Chee Dawg sent me a pic of the 2nd confirmed Fancy Bastard Cake

And FB Dram sent me his HE pixel art which was spawned from a “bored…very bored” night

Thanks, guys! If you have any pics of your in your FB clothing or art you would like to share, send them to comics(at)hijinksensue.com.

You can see more of Will’s art at his comic “The 602.” If you have any HE inspired art, please email it to comics(at)hijinksensue(dot)com.

I’ll be showing off more rough art, unpublished ideas, and complete orignal comic sketches (before the comics go live) on the Super Secret Blog that only HijiNKS Ensue Donators will have access too. I’m working on this now and hope to have it all squared away this week. Anyone that has EVER donated to HE in the past will have access to this content as if they donated the month it goes live.

It’s going to work like this: if you make a donation, you’ll get a password emailed to you that will give you access to the Super Secret Blog (need to pick a name for this). You’ll be able to view all the content from the beginning up through the month that you donated. The password will change each month. If you donate the last few days of the month, you WILL get next month’s password.

I’ll be posting: 

• Unfinished/Rough Art for comics, books and shirts, etc
• Monthly Desktop Backgrounds
• Videos and Audio that won’t be seen on HijiNKSEnsue.com
• Behind the scenes blog posts and such
• Various contests, drawings and other fun stuff

Remember, Donations are just that… donations. If you want to buy something valued equal to that of your monetary expenditure, please visit the store. If you want to help support me for making the comic, the podcast, the video blog, the forum, etc, etc, etc. then please consider donating. The Super Secret Blog and extra content will serve only as incentives or “thank you’s” for your generous contributions, and are not intended to be any sort of subscription based premium content.

Regardless, I’ll be playing this by ear and listening to your suggestions and feedback. Hopefully this will turn into a fun part of the HE experience, and help allow me to continue making the comic/podcast/etc. by supporting myself with these endeavors. 

Oh, I met an HE reader (that I didnt already know) for the first time. We were at a karaoke party hosted by FarrisG. He was a damn fine singer and had shoes with toes… like barefoot shoes.

Check them out on Flickr.

I’ll keep posting these, so send me your HE inspired creative masterpieces, either via email (comics (at) hijinks ensue (dot) com) or mail them to

Joel Watson
C/O Hijinks Ensue
PO Box 1649
Little Elm, TX
75068

You can see more Fancy Bastard Art on the Forum.

If you are creatively inclined, check out this thread and help me come up with some link banners, won’t you?

Thanks for sharing your art, guys!

-joel

Wait, what?! There is?!

Ok, enough pretense. Theres a Fancy Bastard Forum now. It’s been up in secret for a few days while a smallish group of FB’s helped me work out some of the major bugs, and FB Bill will be helping out as a moderator. There are also a few more FB’s that have offered to moderate should the need for more mods arrise. It’s built on Vanilla, which is a light weight and easy platform with lot’s of available functionality through add-ons and extenstions.

The forum is still basically in beta, if you will, so use the approriate threads to let me know if there are bugs that need to be resolved or features that you would like to see implimented.

Head over and sign up. You can read some of the great discussions already posted while you wait for your account to be approved. Please read the basic rules (don’t be a jerk, don’t start fights, etc), and have fun.

One of the  things I enjoy most about making HijiNKS Ensue is the community that has grown around the comic. You don’t typically see a group like the Fancy Bastards attach themselves to comics that have been around for 5 years, much less 1. You guys are witty and creative and add to the enjoyment of each comic with your comments and discussions. You are geeks among men, and you deserve a place to call your own. The FBF is my gift to you. Please use it wisely and respectfully.

Finnish FB, Jarmo, started an HE Facebook Group.

I’ve finally started uploading reader pics to Flickr.

I also posted some pics from one of our first HE Podcasts. Probably episode 4 or 5.

I’ll keep updating these as I get new pics, so send yours to comics(at)hijinksensue(dot)com.

I also wanted to remind you that if you use Twitter, you can follow me here.

And you can check out my video blogs, where I chronicle my attempts to make a living from this comic, here.

Lastly, looks like I’ll be working with FB Bill to set up a Fancy Bastard Forum. More on that as it develops.

This one is using the art directly from the comic, so it’s either one or the other. I’m partial to the 3 panel version myself, because it tells a sharksplosion story.

I also think Im going to put up a version of “GYFB” with just the text on black. Thoughts?

(click to embiggen)

That’s fucking awesome (if not a little bittersweet since I couldn’t do something that simple and elegant if I had a gun to my head).

Onto Linksplosion!

• Iron Man trailer to be made into a feature length movie 
• The Spider-Man 2 that wasn’t
• Clone Wars CGI trailer does NOT give me any sort of boner
• Blockbuster to buy Circuit City increasing my ability to ignore them both by 50%
• Austin Powers 4 “Jumping Her Majesty’s Secret Shark”
• Ron Moore has a new SciFi show in the pipetubes?
• Magic Pen = Crayon Physics Clon = fun times
• “Steam Wars” action figures
• Bill ORLY Goatse on live TV

Special thanks to the Fancy Bastards that helped design this one. I think it turned out fantastic and that’s mostly due to your suggestions and feedback during the design process.

Head over to the store and pick one up.

I’ve been reading all the suggestions and messing around with new design concepts. I normally would just design the shirt and put it in the store, but this one is special. It’s the “I’m A Fancy Bastard” shirt. This brands you as an HE reader because NO ONE ELSE could ever understand it. Taking the best bits from all the suggestions and mixing them with my own ideas I’ve come up with these:

Ignore the background color. I just used a neutral gray to sketch over. I think Joel and Eli would be in gray tones kind of in shadow.

Thoughts?

UPDATE (4/10/08 @ 2:56am):

Ok, so it seems the consensus is “Why is he an astronaut? That isn’t very fancy.” Oh well, I tried. Check the comments to see the next direction I went in: SUPER FANCY JOSH IN FLASHDANCE GEAR. I finished it and hated it.

I’m not going to cling to the first design with a death grip if no one likes it but what about something like this?

Can I fancify the space suit?

========================================

Here’s the first design I’ve worked up for the GYFB shirt.

(click to enlargerate)

I’ve gotten a couple of positive comments and a couple of “why is there a guy in a spacesuit?” type comments.

The idea that hit me the first time I said that phrase outloud was that it might be a take off of “Godspeed, John Glenn,” so I’ve always had a 1960’s astronaut in mind. I also think it came out looking pretty cool. But then, the shirt isn’t for me. It’s for you. So what do you think? Would you rather it just have the slogan and no graphic, or do you dig astro-josh and his reverent stare?

This is actually the design formatted for a black shirt. I am also planning a charcoal, and a light blue for the ladies.

The “Male Sack” was a huge success last time. Your questions were fantastically geeky and created some great moments on the HE Podcast. Let’s go ahead and make this a regular thing. Hit me with your questions. Same format as last time.

I know this is short notice but it’s been a busy week.

BIG ANNOUCNEMENT coming next week. Sit tight.

(remember I won’t answer your questions in the comments. We’ll save them for the show.)

PS

We are going to be interviewing (hopefully) the guy who owns the house where Joss Whedon filmed scenes for “Dr. Horrible“. He probably can’t say much, but if you have questions for him, let us know.

Please post your questions in the comments of this thread. I won’t respond here. Rather, I will save them and read them during the show. Then, here’s the tricky part, we’ll answer them!

Feel free to add on to each other’s questions and such. I want to make the Podcast more interactive and get some audience participation.

What can you ask? Anything, everything, whateverthing!

If you are a regular reader/listener you know what we normally talk about. Here are some topics we have extensive knowledge on:

• TV – Lost, Battlestar, Firely, The Buffyverse, The Office, 30 Rock, Arrested D., Star Trek, ALL 80’s and 90’s shows, any scifi or geek show…even Sliders
• Movies – Upcomming movies, trailers, geek favs from days gone by, you name it
• Gaming – we have two co-hosts in the gaming industry. Ask them about that.
• Comics – I’m reading Astonishing X-Men, Buffy and Angel. Eli is reading everything else.
• HijiNKS Ensue – Questions about the comic? Let me know.
• Technology – Macs, Apple, Steve Jobs, Macs, iPhones, Macs… you know.. techology.
• Life – relationships, jobs, sex, personal stuff, etc. We might not answer these, but there’s no harm in trying.

As a bonus, you may also request the manner in which the question is answered. For instance, you can request that your question be answered by Yoda addressing Frodo. Or that Eli’s grandma answer it. Or that Josh answer it in Sexy-German(tm). Ask me to answer the question in the song styling of your choice (I probably won’t do it). Get creative.

If you want to be a part of the HijiNKS Ensue Podcast, here’s a way to get started. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Check out Intense Debate to learn more in the meantime.

UPDATE:

Ok, so here’s the deal. WordPress (the engine that drives this beast of a website) has a pretty terrible comment system. No avatars, no ratings, no profiles, no threads, etc, etc. It’s just bad. I’ve added some functionality to it (like threading) but it’s still hard to tell who’s saying what to whom and harder still to get to know regular commenters on the site. I want to foster the sense of community developing around Hijinks Ensue and I think commenting has to be fun and friendly to make that a reality.

Enter Intense Debate. Basically ID replaces the default WordPress comment system with a better one.

Features:

• Threaded comments
• RSS feeds per comment thread OR PER USER!
• Emailed Updates
• User Friends
• User Profiles with avatars, and links to your other social networks
• User rankng system with D&D XP or some such nonsense!
• Your profile follows you to other blogs using ID (no one is using it so don’t worry about this)

Signing Up:

If you are a regular commenter, I suggest you sign up with ID. It takes about 30 seconds and has some pretty cool benefits for interacting with other Hijinks Ensue readers.

The coolest part is that you can sign up with your OpenID. You probably have one and don’t know it. Sites like Yahoo, Flickr, Livejournal and pretty much everyone else use OpenID.

You can also choose to NOT sign up and comment just like always by typing in your nick and email address. The best part is if you ever decide to sign up you get to inherit all your previous comments.

The End Result:

I’m going to try this for at least a couple of weeks. If it sucks I can import all the ID comments back into WordPress and get rid of ID.

You guys are going to decide if this is the way we want to go. Try it out, put ID through its paces and let me know what you think.

All comments on posts prior to TODAY will remain WordPress standard comments. ID says you can import them, but I don’t trust that feature yet so I am leaving well enough alone in that respect. If this takes off, I may contact them about importing and somehow trying to associate previous comments with current commenters.

If you’re a Digger, please help support the comic with your Diggs, and clicks and loves. Spread the word and I will reward you with more delicious desktop wallpapers. How about a desktop with the Omega Directive symbol looming over the city?

I also added a contact form to the contact page.

My very good friend Daniel is a father today. To clarify, he was not one yesterday. I would be a super way to congratulate him if you checked out his photoblog, Arranging Light, and bought a print of one of his awesome photos. There are photos of trees and skies and animals and boobs. I swear they will make you happy.

Thursday’s comic will almost certainly be posted on Friday due to H.I.B.L. (Holiday Induced Bastard Laziness). It’s a serious affliction that, if not treated, can lead to C.L.A.S. (Chronic Laziness Asstard Syndrome).

In closing out “ought and seven,” I wanted to give my readers (you lot) a present. This comic pretty much sums up what Christmas means to me. Family, and togetherness, Eli with beer, and Ameria, and Truthiness, and Tron, and LOL Cats and the dark side of the Force. Yep, that is exactly what Christmas means to me.

So, you’ve been good boys and girls. On to your present. Here’s the above comic in nice downloadable desktop wallpaper format. I’ve done one large 4:3 aspect and one large wide aspect. Not sure what dimensions are really popular these days but I assume most of you know how to edit an image to a desired side. So pick square-ish or retangulish and have at it. MERRY SOMETHING WHATEVER!!!

1600×1200
1920X1200 (wide)

Update 10/13/07

Pegg Trek Wins!!!

Thanks for Voting.

You can download it HERE.

If you REALLY liked it, head on over and Digg my story. [end shameless whoring]