For some reason I feel the need to explain the See Also updates more than actual Scribs. Well, maybe not “explain” exactly…ah hell I just like chattin’.

Figure 4 happened at work. Heard that as a guy was walking by in a hallway. Was a very “if it weren’t for my horse” moment for me, but instead of getting eight months’ worth of standup out of it, I got a Tuesday update.

Figure 5 was after Debb and I got supermarket sushi (“what, the gas station was fresh out?” Craig asked). I opened it up and there was a really pointlessly small amount of wasabi in it. “Geez, lookit this,” I said to her. She looks and says, “that’s rude.” And that was when I decided I should take it personally. That was an insulting amount of wasabi.

Comment I just found in my comic update scripts, that I forgot I wrote last week.

function doSingleUpdate($data, $update_time = 0) {

/* while this is all about inserting comics, I'm generally assuming I'm just inserting one at the end of the current comic list. not really planning on inserting a new one in the middle of previously released comics. if I want to do that I can do it manually for fuck's sake, why am I like worrying about this like it's air traffic control */

The score goes up to: Admin interface stubbornly refusing to get done, 143; me, 0. So in the meantime I do little things like draw the next See Also for Tuesday, and make a few changes to the sidebar. Got a page with many of the ads I’ve made so far, which have been kinda fun.

Also I’ve signed up for several web comic ranking lists with votes n stuff. I was thinking about getting fully involved with them, but all the vote incentives, watching the numbers, the constant pleading…it’s like trying to sell Amway to your relatives. So I just have them there, and if you feel like clicking through to vote, fine, and thanks. But ain’t no thang.

Figure 2 came about because I ran across Small Things Eating Big Things and drew a couple for it. Its web interface reminds me of the way I usually wind up doing web interfaces: quirky, fun to put together, works in a way that amuses me, and probably ultimately irritating for the user.

I’ve had some reactions to the Series Two Scribs art, and responses have been more mixed than I’d expected. It didn’t even occur to me that some people would prefer the previous minimal style over this; I’ve just been thinking of it as “better”. Fortunately I’m at a point where I’m happy with it — usually this feedback would make me all stupid and second guess myself, but nah, I think it’s okay. Actually right now it’s still sloppier than I want, but the later ones are pretty good. Not sure how much time it’s actually going to take to get to those, though.

Oh, and P.S.: for those of you who read the comic via RSS, I’ve decided I’m leaving the comics in the feed. I’ll just have the question answers linked to the site, so you’ll just have to get a taste of the site every so often.

Occasionally I get the urge to draw something quick n stupid…and then I draw Scribs! Ah ha ha ha ha. No, I mean. I get an idea like Figure 1 and feel like putting it somewhere, but it feels kinda dumb putting it up as a Scribs update, so I’m thinking sometimes I’ll put something up on off-update days.

Figure 1 actually happened, more or less, on Tuesday. A co-worker pointed out that Guy 1 is actually kind of intense and high-strung, which made it funnier that he was the one saying I had too much coffee.

The first new question-as-update. So, I drew a load of these since September. And I knew I wanted to work a new style but wasn’t quite sure what. So I said, well, just start drawing; it’s Scribs. Whatever you do is fine, you’ll probably come to something you’re happy with, just draw until you find something.

Which means this one looks like crap to me and I’m really itching to do it over. Not like it’d be hard to do, I’m just trying to fight against my fussy nature a bit and let it be. It’s not until three or four weeks from now you’ll see comics where I’m happy with the style.

Except for the next six or so, because I redrew them anyway. sigh.

I kinda feel like I cheated myself out of an intro fanfare. Now that I think I’m finally down to a text updates format on Scribs that I’m happy with, I wish I had it up last week so I coulda started with a big ol’ HI! and all that. But I’ve integrated my blog onto the Scribs page, as I’ve said, and I think this’ll do several things at once: get more action on the comic than just the comic; get me writing in my blog more, and give me a relatively lower-hassle way of putting updates here. But it still took some learning and programming, so my geek ancestors are appeased. FOR NOW.

Getting a bunch of traffic, but not much interaction yet. Though I’m basically getting the traffic by buying it. I gave myself a $300 budget for ads, which I’ve only gotten a third of the way through so far. But really I’m hoping for some reader engagement, because I’m thinking that’s going to be how I get enough ideas to keep this up. I think probably I spent the last three years storing up Scribs ideas in my head, but when I do it on my own, the passive idea creation happens at a slower rate than my preferred update schedule. I possibly gotta get more stimulus from outside my head to be able to maintain it.

The idea of a separate comments section for each comic just wasn’t sitting well with me, so I figured out how to integrate my SpinnWebe blog on to my Scribs page. So YES BRAIN I COULD’VE JUST WENT WITH WORDPRESS/COMICPRESS IN THE FIRST PLACE SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.

More things I want to say here but I spent too much time trying to push to get this done before I went to bed, so zzzzzz