Girlamatic has launched

And that is where you’ll find new pages of Dicebox, one
every Wednesday. The first 41 pages will remain free to the public both
here at Jennworks and at Girlamatic.

If you are planning to subscribe to Girlamatic, now is the time to do
it: until the end of April, a yearly subscription will only run you $19.95
as opposed to the regular $29.95. And if you do subscribe and mention
Dicebox, I’d be much obliged. Also, if you become a subscriber,
be sure to log-in before reading any of the features—even if there
are free—as it gives the respective creators points.

I really had hoped to release more pages before this, but with needing to be a few weeks ahead in my pages for Girlamatic and demands of he day job, it just couldn’t happen. And I really wanted to finish Chapter 2 before starting Girlamatic, just for a clean break. But, as I mentioned before, those last pages of Chapter 2 will also be made made free to the public within the year.

I will still notify the mailing list when I complete Chapter 2, so if you haven’t joined Girlamatic at that point, you can always take a test drive for a month get access to all of Chapter 2 plus the works of 14 other cartoonists.

The Dicebox
Mailing List is still worthwhile. I will send out a reminder on the
update day over at Girlamatic—each new installment is free for the
week—as well as let people know when a scene is complete. If everybody
on the Mailing List subscribes and finds the weekly emails annoying, I’ll
stop and just send notice when a Scene is complete, like I do now. Also,
I will send notice when I upload others comics to Jennworks for free.
In fact, I plan to resume work on a non-Dicebox comic short story that
I had to put aside while gearing up for Girlamatic.

Another thing that will make doing more art and comic easier is the end of a huge project that I had been working on for the day job for the last six months. It was a total design program for the newest branch of Umpqua Bank in Portland, Oregon–which has it’s Grand Opening on March 31st as well (of course, why not.) For you Portlanders, it’s in the Pearl District at 12th and Lovejoy. My company designed about 90% of what’s in the space: furniture, counters, banners, frames, brochures, shopping modules, the big mural. Though I think it came out well, it robbed me of days off and subjected me to 12 to 16 hour days (and I am no where near the hours some people put into it) And there are Pantone shades of blue, green and orange that I now have had just about enough of.

But tell us how you really feel

Patrick Farley has an informative new comic over at e-sheep that outlines Dubya’s empathy schedule. It’s called Our Leader Speaks.

And today my hero is…

Bruce Willey.

Who is Bruce, you might ask? A co-worker, top shop dawg and all around good guy.

Why is he my hero? Well, there are dozens of reasons, not the least being all the incredible shapes he can coax from wood, foam and plastic. Or his winning smile and his constant bad jokes. But today it is for his organization of useful information. In a company of managers, directors, strategists and information specialists, he has the best record of job specifications, past and present. I found just what I needed in under five minutes, opposed to the hour long procedure of hunting through databases and archives.

And is this amazing record some magical digital spread sheet, some elaborate cross referenced system? Heck no. It consists of a rolodex and file boxes of uniform pieces of sheet metal, each with a unique color on the front and all the pertinent information written upon the back with your basic black sharpie. There is hell to pay if one of these goes missing(Bruce fears no one).

But you got to watch your fingers while rifling throungh this unique filing system. When the pieces of metal decide to slide back, cause, ow!, bruised fingertips.

The Art of Linking

Amos Satterlee has written an interesting short essay discussing the origins and trends of link art as well as analyzing what makes a successful banner and what fails. I like the fact that he rates the success of the banner on how well it survives in a field of other banners on a link page as well as its own composition.

And, yes, Amos does display a couple of mine—and made them active links back to my site which is how I discovered his essay in the first place. He did ignore the one I think is the weakest in a field of banners. Honestly, it was something I didn’t consider as I designed it—I hadn’t previously seen such a layout until I track-backed people using my link art. It clearly needs a redesign, and someday
I might actually get to it.

Middle Management

I go to this gym right off of Foster in SE Portland. It’s part of a tiny local chain that the original gym that I signed up with on Belmont belonged to. Since the one on Belmont closed a few months ago, I’ve been obliged to go to the location off of Foster. It’s not a perfect fit—I now have to drive instead of being able to walk to the gym, and they don’t have some of the equipment I need to effectively do my weight training. Bottom line, I’ve been planning to quit when my obligation is done with.

But I would miss all that inadvertent political commentary.

Today, on the elliptical trainer again. This time the TV is showing Bush’s
surprise speech about his commitment to the peace efforts in the Middle
East. Now, at the same time, Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck
in The Middle With You” was blaring on the radio. And since the mind
is a multi-layered thing, I instantly thought of the
infamous scene in Reservoir Dogs, of Mr. Blonde and that can of gasoline,
and had that playing in my mind’s eye as I watched and listened.