Wandering Ones-The adventure webcomic

Latest News

5-14-09
I always feel a bit funny trying to tell you folks my latest news. My life, while fine for me doesn't really make for all that interesting reading.

You might have noticed that Wandering Ones is now updating Tuesday and Friday. This fits my new schedule better. I'm having trouble getting Shin Kage updated more than once a week.

Wandering Ones is now available for the I-phone.
#1: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSt ... 07598&mt=8

#2: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSt ... 10875&mt=8

As for the second Wandering Ones book, I gave the files to Keenspot at the first of the year. Chris keeps telling me the bottleneck is at ComicsXpress. I wonder if I should just publish it myself, through Ka-Blam.

For anyone wondering, I was not laid off, though some of my friends were. The ones lost, were not the ones last hired, but those with the most years with the company. IE: the more expensive (and loyal) employees. I probably shouldn't have worried, with what I make here, it would hardly have saved the company much to have let me go.

There's a silver lining for us though, Susie and I have learned to be a lot more frugal. Feels kinda good, as long as the bills are being met.
I've started e-baying my knife collection, for financial reasons, getting rid of a few each week. If I can make a couple hundred buck a month doing that, it might offset the lack of commissions at my job (since about Feb of 2008). Most of these are knives that I once valued, but have rarely used. I find that having extra.. stuff... around my house has greatly lost its appeal, while having enough cash still has great appeal.

Not to say I'm cured of knife-a-holic behavior.... I'm now making one of my own!
It's made to be similar to the Tom Brown Tracker knife, only a little longer with 4/16" thick 5160 steel. The cord wrapped handle is temporary as my friend Howard (who helped me heat treat the steel on his forge) drilled holes and provided pins for a slab handle. I made this using a dremel tool, hacksaw, files and sandpaper. I used gun blueing for the finish.

Prince Valiant Stuff: If you need a place to read the new Shultz written/Gianni drawn PV, my newpaper carries it on site. You can read it for free here. (along with others)

Fantagraphics hasÊ 2 new Prince Valiant editions coming out. One is a hardback version of the editions they put out a few years ago, and the other isÊ an imported black and white version from Portugal that caught my eye.
The hype copy reads: "In February 2008 a Portuguese Prince Valiant fan published a special, English-language black and white edition of the first two years of Prince Valiant, shot from the very best proof sheets and carefully restored. Due to contractual limitations on territory this edition was NEVER made available in the U.S. Ñ until now! By special arrangement with King Features Syndicate and the publisher, Fantagraphics has a little under 300 copies available for mail and website orders. Fantagraphics is the EXCLUSIVE distributors in North America. This book is not available in comics shops (well, except for the Seattle Fantagraphics store). It is not available in bookstores.

It is not available through Amazon.com. (We expect copies will turn up on eBay and Amazon's second-hand store at hugely inflated prices before the year is out, though.) This is it! And there are, as we said, fewer than 300 copies. We expect to be sold out within no more than a month or two. It's a gorgeous, big 11" x 14" hardcover, and it's a thrill to see Foster's sumptuous linework for these first two years reproduced so crisply. Every Foster fan will need one! (It also includes a good, heavily illustrated five-page introduction chock full of rare Foster art.)"
I actually study Foster's artwork a bit obsessively, and I have to admit, this is a tempter. (Must be FRUGAL..... hisssss)

2-25-09
Ok, first thing. Here is the actual working link to Melpomene. Go read it before Jamie moves it again!

Susie and I are finally getting a vacation! We got a good tax refund last year, and applied it wisely. Admittedly, we'll be going econo class all the way, but it's our first "get out of the area" vacation since 2003. I actually worked furiously to make sure that there would be Wandering Ones uploaded for this week, and the next, but I may actually be able to not miss an update! (Yes, I am taking my drawing stuff with me) Unfortunately I wasn't able to keep up the new format for Shin Kage up as well. Shin will be taking a little hiatus until March 10. Then things should get back to normal.

Hey! Keenspot has been accepted by the Iphone App store as a vendor! Soon you will be able to read certain comics from your favorite Keen creators on your Iphone. I'm currently working on getting my Mountainworld comic formated for the new... um.. format. I'm also prepping it in book form.

Lastly, I have fallen behind on my email. Gomen Nasai. If you haven't heard back from me, it's not because I'm purposely being a jerk,...

I'm just a jerk who can't seem to keep up.

01-23-2009
Ok, the good stuff first. Since Melpomene: Chaos Orb isn't really selling, I thought I'd just go ahead and clue you in on the fact that Jamie has brought the webcomic of Melpomene from behind the failed Keenspot Premium subscription wall. You can go read it for FREE here. But, here's the usual caveat. lots of undressed people and gore. (kids stay out!) It IS about were creatures after all...

Shin Kage is getting kind of far along (more of an illustrated story that a true comic), though I admit it is a bit of a slow moving story as I just got Shin, Felice and Shoto aboard the Sea Wolf. Oh well, since that site was kicked off ADS DaQ, I'm not making anything from it. It's pretty much only done for fun at this point.

I took the right too publish Mountainworld back from Brainscan Studios. Since last May, they've done exactly nothing with it. I hope to shop it around next summer, and while I have quite a few pages done, I still have more to do. Unfortunately, this will probably never see the inside of a comic shop as I had hoped. (If you're not that interested in comics, you should probably give this a skip...) The monopolistic Direct to Comic Shop distributor, Diamond International has instituted new policies that will arguably squeeze all the little guys out of the shops. Diamond VP Bill Schanes is interviewed here. Stephen Grant offers his opinion here.

You know I'm a Star Wars geek, right? Just finished reading Karen Miller's Clone Wars: Wild Space.
She has a REALLY good spin on what being a Jedi must be like.
Dawn Kravagna has an interesting detective story to share. The lead character is a.... cow. Check out Cattle Capers.

Forum regular Storm Crow has been making knives again! Check out this thread on the forum. And more here!

On the home front, things are going pretty slow. This is usually a slack time of year here in North Central WA, but man! No one is doing much of anything. Hopefully I will stay employed. I hope things are going well with you and yours, folks. We've got a new president who's made some fairly large promises. Let's hope he can deliver. I'm hopeful.

Courtesy of the IRS, Susie and I will be taking a little vacation at the end of February. I'll see if I can get ahead on the comics...

Man. I'm just NOT the most interesting blogger you'll ever find, that's for sure.

01-04-2009
Happy 2009! I thank you all for your indulgence as I took a little time off. I can't tell you how nice it was to not be under a deadline for a little while. I hope your holidays were good.

Keenspot had a bit of a problem with our ad system and a malware hacker. If you're on a windows PC, and found anything funny on your visits during December, PLEASE run some up-to-date anti-virus software on your machine. KEZ of Xylia and War of Winds fame had this to say...

"..or some good anti-sypware freeware, I also highly recommended Avast On-Access scanner. It takes up some CPU, but it's a real-time scanner that keeps you safe as you browse and automatically alerts/barricades you from stuff like this. Also Comodo Firewall if you don't have another firewall other than the one that came with your computer. http://www.avast.com/eng/download.html
http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/ ... ewall.html If anyone is looking for stuff like this...and wants it free..."

Kisai, Keenspot's tech person says... "the software I want people to check against currently is at http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Stay safe everyone!

11-10-2008
Starting on a good note, I had an article printed in the Backwoodsman Magazine this month (November-December 2008) on "Layering Your Survival Gear." If you get a chance, check it out!

Also, the new Shin Kage story is starting to get to an interesting point. Thanks to those who have been reading it. The extra income from that comic helps at the end of the month.

Sorry to all my readers out there for not getting at least one page up last week. It was a heck of a week though, wasn't it? A new President Elect, and half my friends are thrilled at Mr. Obama's success, seeing a bright future, full of hope of a better economy, help for the environment, better education. The other half of my friends are terrified that the new president will turn the U.S. into a socialist state where a person's gains are consfiscated (through even more taxation) by the Government to share with the lazy, and that he will take all our guns and gut the 2nd amendment. To some point, I see their fears. The reason for the 2nd amendment is the same as the slogan for "V for Vendetta". And I no longer trust my government.

The future will tell us what happens, but I would like to make two observations.
1. After the economic bailout package(s) and the"peace keeping action" in Iraq, the government is going to have real financial difficulty making good on ANY of it's promises. 2. If either McCain or Obama had won the election, they would have had to be absolutely God Awful to be worse than the hand puppet frat boy we've had in there since 2000. But, as Dennis Miller is so fond of saying, "That's just my opinion, I could be wrong." All I know is that GW did everything in his power to sell out the environment. He is unforgiven. I'm perfectly willing to see what the other side can do.

The troubles with the economy have finally trickled down to Wenatchee. For the last few years, My job has been VERY busy, making ads for the businesses in the area to go into the our paper, The Wenatchee World. The owners were kind of thinking (as many local business people also thought) that our somewhat isolated area could weather the bad economics times with little impact. Well, Hell's come to Frogtown. The high gas prices impacted the very limited incomes here in the valley (and all of North Central Washington) and to put it mildly, business is down. EVERYWHERE. So people aren't advertsing as much (Sure times are tough, so STOP telling everyone where you are and what you have to sell). This means I, and my fellow designers are not as busy. Can you see where this is going?

We had a company wide meeting this week, announcing some changes, and how the company was not projected to make all their budget goals in 2009. No Christmas bonus (No surprise, we expected to have a "frugal" Chrismas), no profit sharing for our 401Ks (again, no surprise, ya gotta have profit to share it) but the scary part? Lay-offs aren't ruled out. And the way I see it, the 2nd designers on each sales team would be very vulnerable in this situation. Susie and I have learned to live OK on very small paychecks, but if I get laid off, we're in BIG trouble. Part of the reason I fell behind last week, is just that I'm pretty stressed by it all. As are a great many people I'm sure. (Sorry for whining folks)

Ah well, perhaps new opportunities are getting ready to present themselves.

I need some woodstime.

09-29-08
TARZING-I can't seem to send private messages through the forums - could you email me?

The Wilderness Awareness School is coming out with a book on Coyote Mentoring that looks interesting. Check it out here.

I guessBy this point, everyone knows I've restarted Shin kage? I've been reading Partrick O'Brian's Capt. JACK AUBREY books, (Master and Commander) and I've been dying to do a sailing ship tale of my own. So Shin and Felice are heading for the oceans of Araoa. If you'd like to see the start of the story, go here. Updates on Tuesdays & Thursdays.

I got to take a trip into one of the lakes that I went to in my twenties and thirties, the Chain Lakes in the North Central Cascades. It damn near kicked my butt. You can look at the pics here, I split it over 4 pages so that it doesn't take forever to load. I think my legs are still sore half a month later.

I now live in a very conservative area, and have been informed that the last 8 years had nothing to do with the Bush presidency, it's all still Bill Clinton's fault. I wish Bill would stop destroying the country. And he should have NEVER made Mt. St. Helens blow up back in 1980. Unforgivable.

In 2 weeks, I'll be accompanying Susie to the Northwest Romance Writers conference. Call me support staff. She's still looking for a publisher or agent. Maybe this time will be the charm! If nothing else, these get togethers help get her fired up.

8-18-2008
4 Days a week! YAHOO!!!!
I now have Fridays off from the Wenatchee World. It's like having a large part of my life back. I'm using the time to do work on Shin Kage, which I intend to start up again very soon. I'm also going to be doing some e-baying to make ends meet. One of the great things about this is that being out of the office one day a week I find myself a bit... separated from the office drama. I cannot express to you how precious that is. There's a thread on this in the Wandering Ones Forum.

With Keenspot's new ad program, I'm just about making up for what I lose not working the other day. (unless you factor in the Sales bonus, that extra third of my salary needed to make a decent living, which my team hasn't hit since February!)

I'm also working on two more books of Strip reprints similar to the Ghost Wind book. The first will chronicle Hawk Talon and intriques in the West, the second will chronicle the mission against the Reich's fuel depot. Of course all the side stories will be there, along with a few extras...

I took a little overnighter to Ingalls Creek. Click the link if you'd like to read about it.

Next weekend, I will be at the Earthwalk Northwest Gathering, so comics may be a little spotty.

For any of you in the Portland area, Jon Young will be conducting a lecture called
Bird Language: Epic stories of ancient trackers & the wilderness 7pm-9pm, September 2, 2008
for Tracker NW.

6-30-2008
It's Too Darn Hot!
Well, it's 111 degrees this weekend in Wenatchee, and I have had a heck of a time just trying to draw (or even think). We really like the house we bought here, but being 20 something years old, it's got it's share of repair needs. (after I get done typing this, I have to go downstairs and try to fix a door that's fallen off it's hinge) One of the problems that we've had is that our air conditioning has not worked in all the time we've been here. We've contracted to spend the last of our savings to remedy the situation, but the friendly AC guys are taking their time getting here. It's hard to think when you're this hot. (Before you folks in Arizona or Australia start in, yes, I know I'm a wimp for heat - come up here in January, and we'll see who does better)

I have a favor to ask, if you see the ads for the Survey, that's from Burst media, one of my ad services, could a few of you could take the time to take the survey? I'd appreciate it! They're not too intrusive, and they help me get more ads.

Some very good news is on the horizon. I talked with my boss Russ, and it looks like I'll be able to work a 4 day schedule. I can't espress how much this can mean. An extra day a week could mean another strip, feelance illustration, or finishing the outdoor book I've been writing. It's not set in stone yet, so keep your fingers crossed for me! I'll need to generate around $300 a month, one way or another, but even if I have to Ebay stuff to make ends meet, I'll do it.

The scribble that you clicked from is just a cover idea sketch that I'm working on for a second Wandering Ones book, that follows the events in Wandering Ones: Ghost Wind. I don't even have a working title yet, and I'm also trying to decide if I want to include the Walking Man story or just leave it web only with the book being solely Wandering Ones material. (and do I include the Mad Scout or not?) I was looking at Booksurge as a publisher, but Chris Crosby indicated that he would like to publish it POD style (Print on Demand). As publishing through Booksurge would cost me several hundred dollars and Keenpspot won't cost me a dime (and also published my first book) it took me about 2 seconds to make a decision. I could expect about the same amount of promotion from both. I eventually hope to have the whole series in print form.

I thank those of you who gave your condolences about my family loss, it was my uncle Howard, my mom's brother. To be honest, I did not know him well, but I'm sad for my mom's sadness.

5-19-2008

I took a little trip out to the Columbia River last weekend.
(Warning though, I left the photos at 1000 pixel width, so if you're on dial-up it may not be worth the wait)

Things have been going pretty quietly lately. I still have not gotten around to talking to my boss about going to a 4-day work week. With as little as my team has been making it's sales goal (and thereby commission) I don't see how I could possibly make less using that extra day to work for myself, if I even half gave it an effort. (I was originally hired to work 4 days a week and the extra "marketing" day was added to entice me to move accross the mountains.) Just need to find a way to get my boss to agree. They actually don't have enough marketing stuff to keep me busy for 8 hours, anyway.

I'm looking at a few other creative outlets recently. I've made an aggreement with Brain Scan studios to distribute Mountainworld online. I'm busy prepping the pages for the first issue now. Others will soon follow. Eventually, though, I will need to draw the remaining 56 pages. Another reason to go to 4 days a week at work.

I'm also looking at starting the reprint books again, taking up where Ghost Wind left off. I'm currently in contact with Amazon's Booksurge division about doing a reprint book with ISBN number and the whole works. I'm finding, however, that there is a fee for everything. To get the book reprinted and ready for sale on Amazon will cost a minimum of $300 just to get the thing done, without even getting any copies for myself.

I may just stick with Ka-Blam.

Susie still has not heard back from the publisher about her requested manuscript. She's starting to lose hope on this one. She's started her next manuscript.

For some reason, I went a got myself a MySpace account. Still not sure why... if you have ideas on how to network with it, please email me and let me know!

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