Self-Promo: Coming Soon...

Coming Thursday, in fact.

Status Report

Fully dialogued all of the Cool Cat Studio finale, which finally has a real title: "The Best-Laid Plans." Working this morning on Divalicious 2.8, "Cadence."

32 Pages Dialogued On Cool Cat Studio Finale Today

Last line for today: "Trust a woman, Jeremy."


28 pages of dialogue to go, then panel descriptions for 61.

The Pleasures Of Google Docs

Using Google Documents to collaborate more openly on projects like "Sketch" and the Cool Cat Studio finale. I miss page breaks and word count from MS Word, but I love what it does for the writing process to get back-and-forth from people I trust. I'll be using this one more in the future.

Cool Cat Studio Finale In Progress

Completed Act One of the script for the final Cool Cat Studio story. My favorite single word in it: "Bleah-eige."

"Undressing Her"

"Undressing Her" is my favorite Cool Cat Studio story to date. Who is the mysterious Liz, and what does your answer to that question tell us about you?

Farewell to Favorite Advertisers!

Penny and Aggie, Cool Cat Studio and Fans are trading out all but a few of our Project Wonderful ads-- the really small ones-- for ads from other advertising networks. More money for us in the long run, which is good!

But I can't help but be a bit sad that those sites will no longer be so involved with such a webcomics-friendly service. There were a couple of comics sites I was especially happy to receive bids from recently, and since I can no longer display them on those sites, I figured I'd just show them here. Lunchbox Funnies is a nice kid's-comic collective, and Dresden Codak is one of my ten favorite comics right now. So click those ads!

"Meat and Bones"

Another written-in-2001, published-in-2002 Cool Cat Studio story begins today.

In some ways this is a lot like looking at old baby pictures, but at least we did some actual research into bodybuilding culture for this one. Nice to see Gisele breaking away from her usual "type" of female figure, too.

"Fallen Arches," Undrawn Script

Conclusion to Cool Cat Studio's 9/11 storyline, never drawn for a combination of reasons that aren't important now:

1. Aftermath of "Friends in High Places." Sophia looks down at the floor, or perhaps at Billy, her unborn child. Now Mike is on his cellular phone. He's pinching the space between his eyes at the top of his nose, as if he has a slight headache. Liz turns away from us, folding her arms, keeping her thoughts to herself. Jeremy casts a nervous glance at Belinda. Belinda grasps the table. She grits her teeth. She's taking charge.

TV: One hour after the collapse of the second tower...

Belinda: Everybody out.

More.

It's 9/11, Garfield!

I often look back on my old work with a mixture of pride and embarrassment, and rarely is the mixture quite as volatile as it is with this story.

Sometimes it looks absolutely fine to me. The idea is that Camus the cat, like many Americans on September 10, arguably like America itself, thinks that he's got life all figured out and he's pretty close to invincible. At the very least, he thinks his position is secure enough that he'd see any potential threats coming. And then the world just turns upside down. I think that works.

And sometimes it just looks really tacky, stretching a comedy character past the breaking point. Alvin, Simon and Theodore say "no" to marijuana! Betty Boop wears a rape awareness ribbon! It's 9/11, Garfield!

See what you think. The script for an unpublished sequel, "Fallen Arches," airs Monday.

"Vertigo"

Starts today with a guest appearance from Liz and Tony of Cool Cat Studio, one of my favorite songs ever (and one that'll have a long shelf life at dance parties, I think), the return of Rich and, incidentally, our 500th strip. All I'll say about this story is that it features one very expected plot point and one very unexpected one.