Cocktail Hour, a webcomic by Scraps

Wow… only a month left of the second year of Random Acts… It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long!

On deck for April is my take on that 25 Things meme that’s been going around the webbernets for a while. I was tagged at least once on Facebook and decided it might be fun to put that in comic form. Since we’ve got 14 updates in the month of April, 14 of the 25 will be illustrated in one way or another with the other 11 items found in the blog section throughout the month.

This works well, for me, because these tend to be a bit less intensive art-wise which means I have time to get them, my articles and the ‘Geeks’ strips all done with time to pack because I’ll be moving house at the end of April. This is a very good thing, but it also makes for a hectic month! In addition to all of that, I’ll be preparing to roll out a new site design that first weekend of May so that’s going to take some time, too. It’s gonna be a busy April!

On deck for May and Year 3? Well, in addition to site revamp, Random Acts… is getting a new name and a new update schedule along with even more additional blog content! I’ll be shifting Random Appetites (under a new heading, you’ll have to wait and see) to Mondays, the comic itself will update Tuesday through Thursday (still 3x a week!) and then on Fridays I’ll be adding another blog feature, more of a tidbit really, that sorta goes along with Random Appetites but is it’s own entity.

That’s right, folks, you’ll find new content here 5 days a week starting May 4th. And, yes, despite the name change for the strip, Random Acts Comics is still going to serve as the company name for all of my projects so you won’t have to change your feeds or your bookmarks, at least for the forseeable future.

So, a few things from the “state of the comic” report this Monday:

• While at MegaCon, the charming JT Shea of NightGig Studios and The Gigcast interviewed little ol’ me and that 3 minutes and 29 seconds can be found on the latest episode (#183) of the The Gigcast, right here.
• Oh, look, up there, in the sky! No, wait, little farther down, just in that menu bar there… see it? It’s a new link! A Store link, even, and following that link you’ll find how to order the dead-tree version of Random Acts… Year 1: Party in the Handbasket! Over time there will be more items available there but I’m having a bit of an issue getting the PayPal cart to fully cooperate.
• Finally, because I like things in 3s, a funny from this weekend. Just the punchline but, hey, with the lag between real-life and comic-life, by the time this makes it into a strip you’ll have forgotten all about it. Ready? 3 words: Biscuit Protection Program.

With the Con wrapped up and my merchandise in the car waiting for the ride home tomorrow, only time will tell if this trip will actually “pay out” or not. The proof will be in my stats–will I see more steady traffic to the sites? Yes or no, I made some people smile, others laugh, and I guess that’s what really counts when you get right down to it.

More flyers handed out today, no sales, but it’s all good. Got to meet an online acquaintance, gave an interview to the Gigcast (the NightGig Studios gang is awesome, btw) and froze my fingers off trying to get some drawing in. It was fun! Called my brother (whose a local here) for dinner and had a good chat with him before coming back to the hotel. One more night in our temporary home and then it’s back on the road tomorrow morning. Now to finish those drawings!

Another great day at MegaCon! Made  a few more sales, so that was good, but more than that we handed out the vast majority of my flyers! The best part? Most of the ladies who took the flyers actually seemed to have a positive reaction to the sample comic so I hope they stop by and check things out. Some were actually surprised to hear that there’s a comic out there by and about women… well, ladies, there’s a lot of them! Come on in and explore!

* * *

As to the site changes: after fiddling with things last night and becoming more and more frustrated I gave in and upgraded to the newest version of ComicPress and chose a site that actually shows posts in the right places and has a feed that actively works (with the comic included!) over one that sorta kinda mostly had my color scheme in place but was missing a sidebar and posted things in the wrong section. Tonight I was able to tweak the color settings so it should look like what we’re mostly used to and this will do, I think, until the revamp goes live in 2 months. It’ll be the same humor you’ve become accustomed to but in a shiny new wrapper.

The first day of my first Con-as-Artist experience went pretty well. Got to meet some readers I didn’t know about and hopefully turned a few more people onto the strip as well as touch base with some fellow SoulGeek-ers. I also managed to sell a few things, which is especially nice, and I’m looking forward to an even better day tomorrow. Of course, I’m sort of a fish outta water, style-wise, compared to my neighbors but I’ll hang in and make the best of it!

Just to reiterate, if you’re coming out the booth is listed under my name: Jennifer Walker, Yellow #6 in Artist Alley.

So, see, you have an idea and you think, “Oh, yeah, I’ll just go upload that now while I’m thinking about it and deal with it later.” Only, then, you click on the wrong domain’s “WebFTP” link and accidentally overwrite the theme you were using.

Change those ‘you’s to ‘I’s and that’s why the site looks a little different… And wouldn’t you know it, I go and break things just before I leave for a Con where I’m going to now promote my barely-patched-together site. This’ll have to do for now, folks–thankfully Dreamhost keeps a copy of your most recent site pre-upgrade so I had something to fall back on but it’s not the most recent version. Save, folks, save!!!

And, hey, I was going to do a major facelift in 2 months, anyway, I guess I’m just making sure I get it done???

This weekend, February 27 to March 1, is MegaCon in Orlando, Florida and Random Acts Comics will be there! Woo!

Where? Right here…

MegaCon Floor Plan

Table Yellow #6 (the red star in the yellow oval up there) is where you will find me, Todd and my comics for the duration of the event! What will there be to see? Well, let me tell you!

My books arrived yesterday (to much jumping up and down in excitement) so there will be the Year 1 Books (Party in the Handbasket), the print version of my 24-hour comic “Rings on her Fingers”, copies of Satyr #8, 2 minicomics (“Mixology Mini” and “Food of the Blogs”) and some very cute mini martini glasses will be for sale plus we’ll have SoulGeek goodness! SoulGeek is sending a supply of t-shirts and vouchers for a free month of Uber-membership. I’ll also have some info about Where the Geeks Are with me for those who are following the progress of my second project. So come by and say hi if you’ll be in the area!

MegaCon Price List
(all applicable taxes are included in the price to keep my record-keeping simple)

Mini Comics:
$1—-Mixology Mini (8 pages,5.5×8.5, black ink on pink paper, 5 drink-themed comics from years 1 and 2 in a handy, sip-size format)
$2—-Food of the Blogs (16 pages, 5.5×8.5, black ink on orange paper, selections from the Random Appetites blog feature)

$3—-Satyr #8 which features the exclusive “Random Acts… of Autos” 8-page story. This is a show-only price, regular cover price is $3.95.

$4—-”Rings on her Fingers” (24 pages plus cover, 6.625×10.25, color cover, b/w pages–the complete 24 hour comic featured in the November-December 2008 updates)

$5—-Mini Martini glasses–so cute! Limited quantity! (features an olive and “eat your veggies” design)

$10—Party in the Handbasket, Random Acts… Year 1 (80 pages, 8.5×11, color cover, b/w pages, all of the year 1 content plus 10% new content!)

$15+–Year 1 Originals (sizes and materials vary, prices as marked–Most strips from year 1 are in the $20 range, the painted ones are a bit more along with those that I drew really big and so, therefore, are spread over 2 full-size sheets, the ones I did smaller are less.)

Anything that’s left (allow me a bit of hubris in thinking anything might sell out this weekend) will be offerred for sale here at the website once I get back and recover. It’ll be cash-only at the show, I’m afraid, as a mobile credit card set-up isn’t feasible at this point, but I’ll be taking PayPal for Internet orders, so there’s that! Still haven’t decided if I’m comfortable doing sketches yet, or not. We’ll see.

With Valentine’s Day having just passed and many still feeling the love (or lack thereof), it’s no surprise that SoulGeek is finally getting some well-deserved notice among the geek media. Now, we all know I’m a fan of SoulGeek (or did you, somehow, miss all of September’s comics?) and SoulGeek has been very good to me, both personally and professionally. As such, I’m hoping you, my friends and readers, will check out the articles that are linked below, pass them around and give them the attention they, and SoulGeek, deserve.

Fall in Love in February, Episode IV from examiner.com
direct digg link here

Geeks Gettin’ Lucky? from Geeks of Doom
direct digg link here

G4TV’s Olivia Munn and her Super Geek’s Valentine’s Present (video)
direct digg link here

Well, okay, in retrospect it’s not completely different, it’s actually kinda similar in a lot of ways but different enough where it counts. Trust me.

My 2nd webcomic launched today! Wohoo!

“Where the Geeks Are,” the newest comic in the SoulGeek Webcomics pantheon, launched at 15 minutes passed midnight, EST, on Thursday, February 12, 2009. It’s a story about a topic many self-proclaimed geeks know oh-so-well: finding the person that really gets you. Follow the (mis?)adventures of Meredith, Trina, Carson and Sophie as they look for love in what they hope are all the right places every Tuesday and Thursday.

My Small Press Idol aspirations are over for this year, at least. I had really high hopes for the cover and pitch I turned in this weekend but apparently they were too high: 2 “no” votes and I don’t move on to Round 2. For my part, I obviously failed to convey the right tone of the project, the humor inherent in the situation and the potential I saw there. Also on me is the very real possibility that I brought the wrong project to the wrong audience. Oh, well, it happens. And this project, which originally started life as an offshoot of “Random Acts…” and then took on a life of it’s own, was originally intended for the web and I have no problem continuing in that vein. So Gamma Girl, the Hospitality Heroine will see web-production at some point this year (at least the first episode) as a “Random Acts Comics presents” feature and we’ll go from there.