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Hopefully, this post comes through okay. When I sat down to write it, my offline blogging software, Zoundry Raven, just sort of decided to quit on me and wouldn't restart for anything. Of course, Zoundry hasn't updated this software in a few years, so I guess it was just a matter of time. Let me know if the post comes out weird though.

Anyway, about this week's comic. Every time I go to a con, I get asked the same question. Mike Pederson, who runs Ravencon (no relation to Zoundry Raven!), always asks about the Hubster and the kids, and wants to know when I'm going to bring them to a convention. The answer is NEVER. We tried, when Pixie was a year old, to take the whole family to a few conventions, and it was a disaster. The kids couldn't sleep in the hotel room, which meant the adults couldn't sleep either. In fact, at one con, Pixie got up at 2AM (she was sleeping in a trundle bed on the floor), picked up the phone, and ordered room service. That ended family convention attendance right there.

The fact is, I go to cons to work. Yes, I go to see people and have fun, too, but the main point of my being at a con is to work. I have a table to man all weekend long, and books and zines to sell. Plus because I write erotica, most of the panels I do tend to be held around 11PM or later, which makes staying in a hotel room with two children a problem. They'd wake up every time I walked into the room, if they weren't already being kept awake by the room party down the hall.

And on top of it all, Hubster just isn't interested in schlepping two kids around a con all weekend. I mean really, it's a pain to travel with kids under normal circumstances, even when you go some place where you know the kids will have plenty to do. But at a science fiction convention? I don't care how family friendly a con says it is, it cannot entertain my two little monsters all weekend long. They get bored, they get hungry, and then they go feral and that's it for the Hubster.

So no family at cons. But I'm there, and isn't that what matters?

Next convention I'm attending is Farpoint, February 17-19, in Maryland. Be there, or be… absent? I dunno. Just show up and buy issue two of Mustachequerade, okay?!

Click on the thumbnail above to see the full-sized comic!

Still testing out BlogJet to see if it will be viable for all my blogging needs. Hopefully, this post came out okay.

Anyway, I always hated early morning PT. I had to get up at the butt-crack of dawn so many times, and often even before dawn to get out to Lane Stadium to run stadium steps. Running flights of stadium steps SUCKS! Although at least I could see my toes. I never ate so much that I had problems fitting into my uniform, you see.

And in fact, I'm still in pretty good shape today. My weight hasn't gone up too much in the last 20 years, and except for a couple of bum knees, I'm pretty fit. Although those bum knees would certainly prevent me from running any flights of stadium steps today.

Can you hear me crying over that? No? Me neither.

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Yes, this actually happened. Our hotel room at Marscon was interesting. In addition to being directly across from the never-ending room party from hell (on Saturday night, it shut down at 5AM), we also had a little problem with the coffee maker. It would only intermittently heat the water. Now, I brought instant coffee with me, so when the water came out cold Saturday morning, I cursed my fate that most hotels don't have microwaves in the rooms anymore. And I probably did that cursing while standing in front of the microwave that I was somehow blind to all weekend long. All I can say is, I was very, very, very tired. And really, it's so frikkin' rare these days for me to get a hotel room that actually has a microwave in it!

And did I mention that the shower handle had a habit of turning itself so that the water kept getting hotter while I showered? I nearly boiled myself like a lobster. Oy!

I believe I actually sat down with a course schedule catalog and found all these courses listed in it. I couldn't believe there was a wine tasting class, but then Virginia Tech does offer majors in the Hospitality and Restaurant business. I never took any of these classes. My one easy A class turned out to be Japanese, which I only took because somehow, inspite of the Professional Military Requirements classes I had added on top of the requirements for my major, I hit my senior year with only 9 credit hours per semester of requirements to fill. Since I was a member of the Virginia Tech Animation Society (VTAS), I decided to take Japanese on the off chance I might someday be able to understand what the hell was going on in all those animated movies I was watching every Thursday night.

Ah, I miss those days when my biggest worry was whether or not I made it to my weekly movie night on time to get a good seat...

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I was sooooooooo tired before, during and after Marscon. I was up late Thursday night getting ready, then up late Friday and Saturday night doing panels, and then there was this damned room party right across from our room that kept spilling out into the hall. You know a party is a real classy event when the people have moved to the hallway because they're waiting for someone to clean up the puke in the room.

Anyway, mid-way through Saturday, while Mich and I were sitting at my table in the artist/author alley, she reached over and tweaked one of my horns, then declared, "They're soft!" It all seemed so... weirdly sexual, like I had somehow forgotten to take my "Viagra for Devil Horns" and been caught wanting in the hardness department. So I filed the idea away for later to make into a cartoon.

Speaking of tired, did you notice the very obvious mistake in the cartoon above? I drew this right after getting back from Marscon, thus my "boo-boo."

Mich had originally suggested to me that I try the sketch cards as a little something extra to offer for sale while working at my artist table at cons. But apparently there's a lot more I could do with sketch cards, and I have to admit, I'm sort off addicted to them now after having drawn a handful. Here are some samples of what I've done so far:

The mustaches were inspired by my new zine, "Mustachequerade." I start work on issue two of "Mustachequerade" this weekend, and plan to offer it for sale at Farpoint next month, along with what I have left of issue one.

So what do you think? Do you like the sketch card art? Let me know!

Click on the thumbnail above to see the full-sized cartoon!

I always hated having to go to drop-add to get my class schedule fixed. I have no idea what it's like today, but it absolutely boggled my mind the hoops I had to jump through to get the classes I wanted. By what process did the university decide that I needed Underwater Basket Weaving in lieu of Public Speaking or First Amendment Law and History (required courses for someone in my major!)? To make matters even worse, my sophomore year, the Army ROTC department introduce the Professional Military Education requirements, additional classes we needed to take in order to become commissioned officers. I cannot tell you how many cadets went from 4-year degrees to 5-year degrees when that came out.

It was always a mess. So many hours wasted tracking back and forth across the campus to find a professor who would let you into the class you needed even though it was full. To this day, I have nightmares about trying to get into a class I desperately need, only to discover the professor has left for his Hawaiian vacation, and will not be back before I graduate.

Hope all you current cadets have settled into the new semester without too many problems! Now quit reading webcomics and get back to studying!!

Click on the thumbnail above to view the full-sized comic!

For those of you who don't recognize the character speaking to me, that's Mich. She's never had a formal introduction in the cartoon, but she has shown up here a number of times, starting with last year's cookie season. Mich is a life-long Girl Scout, an engineer, an avid and fantastic knitter, and the official keeper of my brain at conventions. She's also become my manager this year as we attempt to move career more and more into cartooning and art.

Mich and I went to Marscon this past weekend and we had a fun time. In addition to the usual adults-only panels I worked on (speculative fiction erotica, repopulating the world after the apocalypse, zombies in love), I also got to be a panelist on a couple of podcasting, digital art and webcomic panels. Many thanks to Barb Fischer for inviting me to participate in the latter. Yes, I am a webcomic artist, but it's only been recently that I've been more known for the webcomics than for the erotica writing and podcasting. I expect I'll be doing more webcomic panels at more cons in the future.

I also had a table in the artist/author alley at Marscon, where I sold several copies of Mustachequerade and the new Zombie Valentine (the Zombie Valentine is available on Zazzle if you want to get one!). I sold NO books, which doesn't surprise me. It's not that my books aren't good. They are good, but they are for a niche audience (adults interested in sci-fi, fantasy, and horror erotica), and the print versions certainly cost more than the 'zine () or greeting cards () that I brought. It was just far easier for people to buy those things, and I ended up making more money selling those two items than I have ever made selling books at a convention. This is one of the reasons why I'm moving more into the cartooning and art and spending less time on the writing. I will continue to write, but it's far easier for me to sell the art, and frankly, it's easier for me to produce the art as well. And frankly, I just enjoy cartooning more than anything else!

Overall, Marscon went very well. Now Mich and I are looking forward to Farpoint in February. I start working on Mustachequerade 02 this week, as well as a Zombie Easter card, and plan to have both of those in time for Farpoint. I have been assured I will have table space at the con, so if you're going to be there, stop by and see me!

Oh, and I should point out, today's cartoon was drawn on my iPad, using an app called Adobe Ideas. It's as close to pen and ink drawing as I can get on the iPad. It's not the perfect solution for drawing the cartoon on the go, but it's the closest I've come so far! Adobe Ideas draws in vector format, but acts like a pen and ink program. So I can cartoon the way I'm used to, but scale the drawing up or down to any size with no loss of quality!

Click on the thumbnail above to view the full-sized image!

I seriously miss the days when my biggest worry in life was whether the exam was going to be multiple-choice or essay. Life is rather complicated right now, and the memory of studying for finals or mid-terms seems so simple in comparison.

Click on the thumbnail above to view the full-sized comic!

For those of you who don't recognize the character speaking to me, that's Mich. She's never had a formal introduction in the cartoon, but she has shown up here a number of times, starting with last year's cookie season. Mich is a life-long Girl Scout, an engineer, an avid and fantastic knitter, and the official keeper of my brain at conventions. She's also become my manager this year as we attempt to move career more and more into cartooning and art.

Mich and I went to Marscon this past weekend and we had a fun time. In addition to the usual adults-only panels I worked on (speculative fiction erotica, repopulating the world after the apocalypse, zombies in love), I also got to be a panelist on a couple of podcasting, digital art and webcomic panels. Many thanks to Barb Fischer for inviting me to participate in the latter. Yes, I am a webcomic artist, but it's only been recently that I've been more known for the webcomics than for the erotica writing and podcasting. I expect I'll be doing more webcomic panels at more cons in the future.

I also had a table in the artist/author alley at Marscon, where I sold several copies of Mustachequerade and the new Zombie Valentine (the Zombie Valentine is available on Zazzle if you want to get one!). I sold NO books, which doesn't surprise me. It's not that my books aren't good. They are good, but they are for a niche audience (adults interested in sci-fi, fantasy, and horror erotica), and the print versions certainly cost more than the 'zine ($1) or greeting cards ($3) that I brought. It was just far easier for people to buy those things, and I ended up making more money selling those two items than I have ever made selling books at a convention. This is one of the reasons why I'm moving more into the cartooning and art and spending less time on the writing. I will continue to write, but it's far easier for me to sell the art, and frankly, it's easier for me to produce the art as well. And frankly, I just enjoy cartooning more than anything else!

Overall, Marscon went very well. Now Mich and I are looking forward to Farpoint in February. I start working on Mustachequerade 02 this week, as well as a Zombie Easter card, and plan to have both of those in time for Farpoint. I have been assured I will have table space at the con, so if you're going to be there, stop by and see me!

Oh, and I should point out, today's cartoon was drawn on my iPad, using an app called Adobe Ideas. It's as close to pen and ink drawing as I can get on the iPad. It's not the perfect solution for drawing the cartoon on the go, but it's the closest I've come so far! Adobe Ideas draws in vector format, but acts like a pen and ink program. So I can cartoon the way I'm used to, but scale the drawing up or down to any size with no loss of quality!