It hasn’t been really official, but I tend to do some more in-depth commentary on the most recent past strips during the Booyah. So, I am now making it a standard Booyah addition. We have gotten some good feedback that our fans like the little additional information, so I hope you enjoy it.

• Issue 208 was literally inspired by a day where I got 10 different email scams from someone in Nigeria (or someone else abroad) asking me to help them claim $4 million dollars. This is such a blatant scam, but oddly enough I just read an article about a woman who was fleeced $400,000. So, we ran with the storyline of Mr. Smiley dressing up as a woman (that is always a funny sight-gag), and Mrs. Smiley dressed as a koala. Of course, the comedy is just as much the Smiley’s plan, as Harry being gullible enough to fall for it. Particularly after just warning Dott about the whole “if it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t.”

• Issue 212 - I just laugh every time I think about Mrs. Smiley using ninjutsu on Skippy! I like the touching moment at the end, something we don’t get to see a lot of. Though, I did feel it was important to establish that regardless of the drama, the Pixels have very much settled into their new home…and are here to stay!

• Issue 213 - I commented on this below. However, I will add that I did add the line about the “smile” as an indirect reference to Barack Obama. I heard many people comment on his smile and charisma. So much of it was apart from what his stands were on the issue. Granted, not knocking him at all, but just commenting that while there are a good many people who truly vote on the issues, there’s some who really just make their judgments on looks and superficial things.

• Issue 214 - This was just a throw-away strip, but I think it’s still pretty funny. Honestly, one morning I was particularly hungry and thinking of a bagel. Then I started thinking about Harry and Blip, and this strip just came to me. Thing is, it really does work, and again gives us a little more insight into Blip himself, as well as the continuing warring between the two cubicle-mates.

• Issue 215 - Jim wrote about the grocery store, but I wnated to add a few comments. First of all, I LOVE the pinata. That totally made the strip for me. Plus, I do love his little details. While it took him a long time to do–and admittedly I probably could have done it much quicker–I think his art is great. When we talked about this strip, I didn’t have nearly as detailed a store in mind.

A side note about the pinata. We were at our local grocer the other day, and I saw a pinata on top of the display. I laughed and pointed it out, and Jim admitted that was his inspiration. Funny, I hadn’t noticed it before then. Anyhow, Jim wanted to take a picture of it with his cellphone to post here on the site to comment. Well, as he was taking the picture, security came up to him and threatened to kick him out of the store. They said that he was not allowed to take a picture of the pinata! As we left the store after paying for out groceries, we had to wonder what was up with that? Seriously, it wasn’t like we were taking pictures of the whole store to case the joint, we just wanted a picture of the horse pinata. Very curious. Guess it shows the dangers of webcomicking!

• Issue 216 - I wrote about this in the forum, but for our visitors that don’t get over there…this strip was inspired by our daughter, Violet. She is a singer. She sings all sorts of little songs, and she sings all the time. The three youngest love to watch videos on the computer, and there is not a lack of kids songs playing over and over. It is not uncommon for me to have 1 or 2 running through my head at any given time. However, recently, Violet has been on a “Mary had a Little Lamb” kick, and there was one point where that song literally ran through my head non-stop for 3 days. Thus, this strip.

A sidenote, this strip is very reminiscent of a BYOC strip done by our fan, Tah. However, it was only coincidental that they have the same theme.

• Issue 218 - We have plotted out a lot of the storylines for the strip well into the future. There are things we have in our heads that we know won’t be seen for a couple more years. However, sometimes the day-to-day strips escape us. We feel pacing is important, so after we do a storyline, we like to do a few stand-alone strips, and then start a new arch, or pick up on an old one. Anyhow, we wanted to get back onto the Rasterman storyline. It would seem obvious that Rasterman’s flying would be a hinderance to the police’s effort, so we ran with that. However, in the very next strip, we learn that even despite having that ability, Blip has his problems. Of course, his problems aren’t merely forgetting some of his superpowers, but handling his increasingly lonely wife. Again, I love the Rasterman storyline as I think it gives the strip some much-needed depth.

• Issue 219 - You often watch shows on how they make movies. You’ll hear how the production crew spends weeks building this set, creating the minutest of details, and then after all of that work, blows it up in a few seconds. That is how I felt about this strip. It was an *easy* strip dialogue-wise. I really thought it would take like a half an hour, tops. That is, until I realized I needed to do the street set. And when I realized I wanted to do something more substantial than I have in the past. I wanted to create some sets I could use, and some templates to do other buildings in the future.

Now, I readily admit that I use outside art. These buildings heavily use pre-existing VG backgrounds. However, I don’t think I have ever just ripped art and used it as-is. I usually end up doing extensive work on it. The reason being is that most videogame art is from a side-top perspective. Meaning you view the action as if you were looking down upon the world. Even the art that has more of a frontward perspective, still has a front-side look for depth. Again, that’s great for a game, but really doesn’t work for our strip which uses more of a “television camera” perspective of the action being mostly forward facing (the obvious exception to this is the Cosmic Dungeon strips–but that is because it is set in a video game and thus utilizes that perspective on purpose). Anyhow, it took me HOURS to work on these buildings and get them to a point where we could use them. Plus, I did create several from scratch. So, in the end, this strip which should have been super-easy, took me upwards of 6 hours to complete. The only good thing is that I have a lot of stock art now that should make certain future strips faster and easier.

• Issue 220 - The relationship between Blip and Audrey is still very new to the reader. It’s new to us too. However it’s one that we really like and look forward to exploring. It’s a bit cliche to have the wife at home who doesn’t know her husband is a superhero. Still, we hope to do a few fresh things with it. I should note that Jim and I have two slightly different ideas of where this particular subplot to the strip should go. It’s kinda neat when you can work so closely on something, yet has some conflicting views of things. Either way, it should be fun…and make for some interesting storytelling.

I don’t really like to do political cartoons. I am not one who gets into tight political debates. I like to talk about issues, and will get into some engaging talk, but I don’t like when things get rough. So, when I decided I wanted to do a strip to honor American election day (Issue 213), I didn’t want it to be preachy.

The whole premise and the punchline actually came from my boss. During our last major election a couple years back, he made the comment that all elections ultimately boiled down to a choice between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Thus, the strip. The one thing that I did kinda comment on is that in most elections, the candidates are usually very close on the issues, and it really is just a few core ones that distinguish them. But, for the mostpart, their answers are the same, just with a twist here and there.

Anyhow, we both got a kick out of doing it, and I had a lot of fun doing my smiley versions of Dee and Dum, whom I based heavily on the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland (which just so happens is my favorite Disney movie).

Okay, there is probably an argument that we are not a big enough comic to have a Wiki. But, since there are lots of little insides and such, and that even we have a time tracking them, we thought a Wiki would be good to set up and have anyway. Once the strip (hopefully) gets big, it would already be in place.

And thus the nightmare began. To say that this has been a mini-curse would not be an understatement. I cannot tell you how many wikis we installed, how many problems and roadblocks we ran into. I cannot tell you how much miscommunication, misunderstanding, and downright frustration grew out of what was to be a very simple thing! On the very eve of us putting up this Booyah, yet another snafu happened which caused us to take a detour, scrap our current wiki (again) and try something totally new at the last minute, only to find out that the alternative was not to Jim’s liking and we ended up going back with the previous version.

So, it is up, and (we hope) this current nightmare is over! Ugh and ugh.

I had thought to mention this quite a few times and never really did get around to it. When we first started the strip a year and a half ago, we made the decision to stick to a fixed-panel format. Now, there are many webcomics who use a fixed format, but they are usually ones who have the hopes of moving to print some day. We don’t plan to go that route, so that wasn’t our reasoning. In fact, most “indie” comics love the freedom of the web in order to create comics of varying size, and use whatever number of panels it takes to tell a particular strip. My first comic strip, Just One More, did that a lot–using varying panel and strip size. Anyhow, because of the small graphics of Bitmap World, we decided from the beginning that a 2 row max, with 1-6 panels, would be the standard comic. Honestly the number of panels was less important than the actual size of the strip. Still, 6 panels seemed like a good number. Actually, it worked out well for quite a while. As the plotlines started getting more involved, and we started doing different things, the limitations of 6 panels started becoming painfully obvious. There were many times I so wanted to roll over into a whole other row. I refrained from doing so for 2 reasons. The first reason is I like the way the strip looks. The layout of the site was deliberate and the format of the strip works well within it. The second this reason is really a personal thing, the format makes us WORK. Meaning, it keeps us tight, makes us trim our dialogue and keep our writing concise. Also, it helps with pacing. Granted, I had used mini panels before, usually when I needed a bigger than normal panel, so I had one tiny one on either side, or flanking it. But I had always kept with the 6-max panels. As it became apparent that there would be many strips ahead that would roll over into the 7 or 8 panels, that was when I had to sit down and template the mini-panels. Even though it might have not been a huge change or difference to our readers, it really helped make my life a lot easier. It was a testament of how you can make something work, even within certain constraints.

Getting to the current storyline (starting with Issue 200 we just wrapped up. How many people knew there was really a gopherspace? If not, Google it. When we first came up with the story about the monkeys, we always had the idea of a Narnia-esque closet. But what was beyond? Jim immediately thought of gopherspace. This storyline was a lot of fun, and we got a kick out of incorporating a lot of subject-appropriate inside jokes. As for the gophers themselves, Jim commented that the weren’t very nice, even though they did a lot of smiling. My theory was that was why the monkeys started trashing their place after being nice in the beginning!

Issue 206 - This strip is actually a little nod to our own dog and cats. Our dog has been here a year and our cats still only tolerate him. It’s funny to watch their little war. They co-habitate, and tolerate each other, even though I know our dog would love to be friends. But, every now and then, when they just relax, they actually can be nice to each other. We’ll occasionally see them sleeping near each other, even touching a little. Cute. Until they wake up, that is.

Issue 207 - This strip is not a true slice-of-life, but it could be. Our son and daughter bicker a lot like this. The funny thing though is the whole idea of Care Bear throw-offs doing battle. And honestly, while that particular game is an extreme parody, it is pretty amazing some of the things you will find. I have mentioned my brother before…Mr. Video Game. There have been quite a few times my kids have had a “fluffy” game which he was convinced was not worth his time. Of course, once he started playing it, “just to try it out”, he’d end up sucked in. Pretty funny.

I want to thank everyone who wished me well last week. I have a couple of chronic conditions–nothing life threatening–but they can cause intense fatigue and other minor issues. I’ve suffered with a lot of this for years, so it’s nothing new. Just annoying when you can’t do everything you want to. But, I do manage fine. Last week was kinda bad, but I’m back to my old self now. Thanks for the concern and good wishes. I appreciate them.

We did have a couple of things planned for the Booyah that we held off on in order to do a few other things (and because I just wasn’t up to it either), so here’s to hoping next month will go a bit smoother. Though, knowing our luck…NOT! LOL!

Yeah, we liked the minimalistic design of the previous layout, but we had readers telling us they wanted an easy way to read past entries and search. So, we have accommodated that with a new blog design. It’s still pretty simple and we like it, but you can now access a search at the top of the page. Also, you can read by category by scrolling to the bottom and access more navigation stuff. Cool beans!

It’s been a while since I’ve done some real commentary on the actual strips, so I’ll play catch-up now!

Issue 177 - The Cosmic Dungeon storyline featuring Max Madigan was really fun to do.This was actually inspired by my brother. He is one of those people who is a video game master. And, no, this is not an exaggeration. He is on the top-10 best list of worldwide players in several games. In fact, he has been approached to game professionally and in tournaments, but has turned down the offer because he has a career and a girlfriend and wants to focus on a normal life. Nevertheless, it’s still pretty amazing watching him. Even when he was a kid, he would play for days until he mastered every little nook and cranny of a game. Now, as an adult, he can master most games in hours. He can whomp about anyone on any game, to the point people don’t even dare challenge him! My kids beg him to come over to unlock all the secret characters and stuff they can’t get to. All of that said, with his computer prowess comes a huge ego. He’ll admit it himself. He was one of the top WoW players on his server, and everone hated him for it. Not because he was so good, but because he made sure everyone knew he was a mini-God. So, when the idea came up about the Bitmap World kids being bullied in CC, we thought that a character based on my brother would be appropriate. And it only seemed appropriate to pit him against the other character in the game with as big an ego…Dren! So, while you may think this is an exaggeration, it really isn’t. Though, I think that most people who have played any type of MMPORPG has run into someone like my brother. Maybe you’ve even run into my brother! With respect to the storyline in general, it was oogles of fun to do. There are tons of references to pop culture and stuff in the storyline. You can read about that in the Laugh Olympics section of our forum, or in the soon-to-be-up Wiki.

Issue 191 - The next storyline was the Rasterman/Mayor plotline. I do really love the whole Rasterman aspect to BMW, but that is because Jim and I are incurable superhero geeks. Batman is my hero of choice, but I pretty much love them all. It really has been huge fun creating our own hero and history. The only thing that I think we struggle with is that much of the rest of the strip is light and fluffy. Even though it’s parody and funny, the Rasterman stuff is more intense, simply because it has to be given the nature of crime and justice. So, it takes a little more work to transition from one element (drama) to another (comedy). I think we’re doing okay with that, but it does take a lot of effort on our part, and it was not something we expected when creating the comic.

Issue 194 - The press conference (http://www.bitmapworld.com/smcomic.cgi?a=194 Issue 194) always makes me laugh. I love when the policeman is pushing the reporters out the door. We’ve said this before, but I’ll repeat it for good measure. The mayor really has become one of our favorite characters to write for, and the whole subplot with him has certainly made the strip both funnier and more intriguing.

Issue 196 is a little homage to the first Superman movie with Christopher Reeves. I do like the idea of a superhero having to do all of these little “rescues” and being so bogged down by that he can’t go after the real crime. A cat in the tree seems to be an epitome of that. Speaking of which, it wasn’t until recently that I learned why cats get stuck in trees. Here’s a neat informative page that gives a little more info on it for the curious (answer is further down the page).

Issue 197 - Yes, it’s ME in a cameo here! I actually had a little thing where I did not want to put myself in the comic (even though Tess and Jim’s smilies have appeared in there). But when I was trying to come up with a newscaster, my smiley fit. So, I guess I’m part of the t.v. news team! Doh!

Issue 198 - Scrubbing Saturday is actually an event in our house, and has been for years. My kids groan, but we do manage to get the house tidy then. I can’t say I have any catchy phrases like Dott, but hers is pretty good. And I will be embarrassed to admit I haven’t defragmented one of my computers in years! That little joke is one of my favorites. Of course, I have to question, how many of our fans thought that was a stand-alone comic and didn’t think it was the start of a new storyline?

On some technical points, I am happy to say that as I reported a few weeks back, I am using PSP7 and it has made the comic-doing MUCH faster. Well, actually just the speech bubbles, but I’m not complaining. That font-maker program we bought months ago is still dusty on the shelf…er, hard drive. Perhaps when we finally get it installed and learn how to use the dern thing, that will help things go quicker too.

It is exciting to be at strip 200. Again, this is not the most popular strip in the world, but it does have a small but nice following. We are very appreciative of the support all of our fans have given us over the past couple of years.

Oddly enough, two food-related entries have come from BMW! Figured I’d post them here:

Bananas and Pepperoni - I was looking over the bonus section of the site recently, testing for dead links and all, and started reading the extras. I came upon the strip we did for the Monkey Day last year. What got me going was the punchline of the strip. **Note, the following is a spoiler, so if you haven’t read the strip, you should or you should skip this.** In the end of the post, Harry talks about having a banana and pepperoni pizza. I thought that was pretty funny and bizarre, and still do. Thing is, the idea of “banana” and pepperoni is not that far-fetched. Tostones are a Hispanic dish. They are made using plantains. Now, plantains look like bananas but they are not. They are bigger and they are not as sweet. However, they are related to bananas and despite what people say, they do have a bit of a banana taste. In a lot of countries they are used in a manner in which we would use potatoes in America. Tostones are often eaten with chorizo, which is a Mexican sausage. If you can’t get chorizo, an alternative is to use pepperoni. Thus, pepperoni and banana! Would it taste good on a pizza? No idea. Still, I was really tickled by this and thought I would share with you. If you want a recipe for tostones, check out this page.

Monkey Bread - It was about 4-5 years ago that I first learned about Monkey Bread. And all I can say is…where the heck was I? Simply put, monkey bread is awesome. It’s a sweet, pull-apart bread that you can make from bread dough or store-bought biscuits. It’s sweet and gooey and delicious. For our family, we like to throw in some walnuts, to it’s also nutty…just like us. When we first started making monkey bread, Linus was probably about 4 or 5. We used to muse about why it was called monkey bread. Linus’s explanation was that it was “made by monkeys in their tree ovens.” That imagery always made me laugh as I thought of this group of monkey cooking this bread up in the trees. Honesly, I never thought I would have an opportunity to translate that into an actual picture, but with Issue 199 I was able to do that! So, I do have to admit that this strip has a special place in my heart because of that, and it was so much fun to do. Of course, Jim’s favorite part of that panel is the Mustafa sitting in his armchair with his sidetable! If any of our readers are interested in monkey bread, here is a link to a page with a bit of history and some recipes.

When you are growing a readership, one of your best friends is your statistics program. Much like the phone company. internet connections can be tracedl. By viewing your statistics you can see how many people visited your site, how many people returned, and just get a general idea of your audience. Granted, just like a phone number, the information is really technical–just numbers, no real identifying information. Still, it shows you how many people are visiting your site, and thus its popularity. When Bitmap World started, we had about 300 monthly visitors. That’s “uniques”–meaning separate individuals. It’s possible, and likely, that 1 person will come to your site several times a month, so numbers are broken down into overall visits and unique visitors. As time has gone on, our readership has grown to between 1500 and 2000 uniques a month, with the average hovering around 1750. What is amazing is that comes from very little advertising. Some of our loyal fans have been so kind to grab buttons and banners from our link page to put on their blogs and sites. But, for the mostpart, we just don’t have the resources to do formal advertising. And that is where the amazing part comes. Okay, not really amazing, but cool Over 90% of our hits come from direct hits and bookmarks. 5% come from search engines. A mere 5% of our hits come from ads and banners. While I will admit, we are very grateful for everyone that promotes the sites (and anyone reading this is free to pick up a banner), there is something very satisfying to know that vast majority of the people who visit our site are doing so deliberately and not simply clicking-through for curiosity. Word of mouth is powerful. And statistically it is showing that while we may only get a handful of new visitors every month, the vast majority are staying. That is SOOOO encouraging for two 30-something year old parents juggling work, home, and everything else, and trying to squeeze a comic in there too. Our numbers are growing. Not leaps and bounds, but growing strong and steady. That’s the best kind of growth! I remember the time we got 10,000 hits one month, mostly from StumbleUpon. Gee, those numbers were awesome to look at, but they amounted in only a few regulars. This way is longer, and harder, but definitely more rewarding.

Oh, and if the above sounds like I am dissing linking to our site…NO WAY! We appreciate every link and want to continue getting the word out about the site! It’s still the best way to introduce others to Bitmap World. I am just mentioning this because it’s nice to know that even though we don’t have that many people linking to us (yet) that the word is still getting out and people are coming. That is just a real feel-good thing.

Of course, as our numbers grow, so does our anxiety. We would love to be able to update more often…and on-time. But we are trudging along, and we are ever thankful for our fans who are trudging along with us. Thanks for making Bitmap World part of your routine. And thanks for coming back, and bookmarking us, and linking us, and all that. On those days when we are so tired and would just as soon skip a strip, it’s knowing you guys are out there that makes us get our butts out of bed and keep thing story going!

Here’s to another 200 strips!!!

Quick entry here. This past week our kids started school. We thought to do a strip to commemorate this, but since in the BMW world only a couple of months have passed, it wouldn’t work well in the timeline. Anyhow, Jim came up with the Helpdesk joke, which is so surreal it’s funny. Sad thing is, I have talked to a lot of helpline people, and this joke is not as far-fetched as you think. As for the Mr. Smiley joke, this is actually a strip Jim thought up in the very early days when we just came up with the idea for the comic. Funny that a year and a half later we are just getting an opportunity to use it. Other than being a very funny joke, it certainly tells us a lot about Mr. Smiley.

And before everyone gets really upset about the comic being late, note that we have not been idle on the site. Jim has been working hard on finally getting our Wiki together this past week. Since we have enough content, we think we can finally open it. So, stay tuned for its premier at the next Booyah.

Today’s comic (Issue187) is another slice-of-life. Our dog is such a bright spot in our family, and there are times when the people just cannot console a child, but one of our animals can. We have cats too, but there is nothing quite like a dog to warm the heart of a child. Our kids call Angel their “little sister,” so that tells you how they feel about her. This past week was particularly hard in our house as the kids grappled with the thought of losing their dog. Even though she was not critically injured, it was a scary time, and our kids needed a bit more TLC to deal with it. Having the kids want the dog next to them to go to sleep is a regular occurrence in our house, and we wanted to showcase that in the strip.

Mike is pretty cranky in this issue, and his behavior is very much like our youngest, Violet. Our 2 year old has a fierce temper, and when she is tired, watch out! Nothing will console her, yet she just feels like she needs something. It can be frustrating as she screams “no” and slaps away all of our offerings of comfort. The dog will work to calm her on occasion, but honestly there are often moments nothing works. Usually she will simply find a place to lay down and go to sleep on her own–she is one of those children who really needs to be left alone in order to relax enough to take a nap.

On a side note, I have to admit that our 2 most explosive personalities kids-wise are Monty and Violet. I have to wonder if there is something to the fact that they both were born on the 4th of July (yes, both kids were born on 7/4, 4 years apart).

I do want to note, just in case anyone gets upset, I am not an advocate of “cry it out.” That is the method of putting a kid in their bed to go to sleep and leaving them alone in their room until they do. I know people who use it and swear by it, and I respect that. We are more inclined to have baby in our room with us, or sit with our kids until they go to sleep. Despite common fears that such method will not teach your kids to go to sleep on their own, I can safely reassure that our older ones have no issues with falling to sleep by themselves. We tried CIO years ago with our first and didn’t have the heart to do it. Anyhow, I do believe there is a time, though, that kids are just so overtired, they need a few minutes alone to relax. With Violet, typically she is in the same room as us and we simply ignore her. She usually comes around and calms down on her own, or she falls asleep. I don’t have any problems leaving a kid for 5-10 minutes to get a break. However, any longer and I usually have to go in and try something else. Okay, end of explanation.