The State of the Site
As you may have noticed, THIS IS ME has concluded. There will be few minor site updates rsn: My wife insists that I remove the "next" button from the front page. Also, the "about" section is in dire needs of a makeover.
There may be additional strips on special occasions. A few new comics might be strewn throughout the site. There may also be sketches and wallpapers – all the stuff I couldn't find the time to polish properly over the past months. I'm also considering to write some well-meant-yet-mostly-useless advice for aspiring comic strippers.
To keep abreast of such developments, you can either subscribe to the RSS feed linked from the main page or to the strip's Twitter stream (@TIMcomic). If that seems too "Web 2.0" for you, send an e-mail to <me AT thisisme-comic DOT com> with the words "UPDATE ME" in the subject and I will mail you announcements when they happen.
There's also a new project in the wings, details of which shall be revealed in due course. Eventually, "This Is Me" may be collected into a book-on-demand, but at this point I still need to figure the how's and the how muches (advice welcome).
Here's the tl;dr version for the ADD crowd, with bold-faced highlights:
Finally: Should you have a pile of money laying around, feel free to bribe me into continuing THIS IS ME. There are a lot of strip ideas left in my sketchbooks (nearly 100 at the last count), but I currently feel no urgency in actually seeing them through. As mercenary as this may sound, money is a great motivator. ("All I want is a chance to prove that money can't buy happiness.")
See you around, my kind and faithful readers.
(And to the rest of you: Sod off.)
Sincerely, Gerald
No real announcement today beyond what you can read in the comic itself. Only that the "Updates..." part of the masthead has become somewhat ill-fitting.
If you have any questions, please e-mail them to me (<me AT thisisme-comic DOT com>) and they will be answered as promptly as I can.
(WTF, I just learned, actually stands for "Wow, That's Fantastic." Who knew?)
A week ago on Wednesday, my hard drive crashed.
First the operating system (Windows XP) didn't manage to load all the drivers, then the BIOS displayed a S.M.A.R.T. error, then Windows complained it couldn't boot because there was no disk to boot from. The purchase of a replacement hard drive triggered a chain of events which culminated in me installing Windows 7 and migrating my applications to the new disk. It is an ongoing process.
Luckily I was able to salvage most, if not all, of my data by cloning the failing drive before it died altogether. Now that I have the main apps working again, the strip can continue. Many apologies to my three readers.
So, three strips in one week, yay, then two weeks without a single strip. What the hey?
I'll keep it short: I went on a one-week vacation (younger readers call this AFK), got sick during said vacation, returned sick and stayed sick and mucous for another week. The webcomic gods from Penny Arcade and PVP have friends who help out with guest strips in such occasions. I have nobody. Hence: no comics.
Now, after two and a half weeks on ludicrously-named antibiotics (the first batch didn't work, the second one did) I still have a stubborn cough, but I am also healthy enough to keep my hand steady and give you more comics. Are we back to "yay" yet?
This is the first three-strip week in WHO KNOWS HOW LONG. They even were roughly on-schedule!
For some reason, I am pleased as punch about this. I know it's not going to matter in the long run, but right now, I'm goshdarn proud of myself. Which is both ludicrous and a bit embarrassing.
Sorry for even bringing it up. Especially on this date.
(Still: Three strips in a week. Wow.)
P.S.: After Michael Bay made a movie about Pearl Harbor, I've never again heard anybody exclaim "Remember Pearl Harbor!" It's like everybody is trying to forget it now that the memory has been Soiled By Hollywood. What would happen if Mr. Bay made a movie about September 11, 2001? I'm just saying.
Oh dear, it's getting worse.
What with work and a marriage (I was asked to be a friend's best man), site updates have slowed down to a crawl. It's August 12th and this is the first strip of the month! Also, July saw only four new strips, a new low. I can only bow down my head in shame and apologize.
Further adding to the delays is that my drawing speed is noticeably decreasing – the longer the pauses between one strip and the next, the longer it takes me to get back into the drawing groove and the more I obsess about details instead of getting the effing strip out to you. I bet this never happens to that Dilbert guy.
Please, dear reader, let me know whether you like THIS IS ME. Criticism is also appreciated. It's feedback keeps me going. Feel free to e-mail me at <me AT thisisme-comic DOT com> (please replace AT and DOT with the corresponding characters, sorry about that hurdle).