I have wanted to give the Pixel kids a swingset/playfort since the beginning of the strip. My original plans were to have Harry build them one shortly after they moved in. But the story just took another direction and we never were able to fit it in. With things wrapping up with Rasterman, I wanted to go back to something ordinary and family-related, so the timing was good now. (Issue 251)

Our kids have a playfort and I have to admit they live on/in it during the warm weather months. It provides them with so many opportunities for imaginative play and just plain fun. The whole story about setting up the swingset is loosely based on how we built ours. Much like the Pixels, we just didn’t have the money to pay a company to build one for us. So, we went and got the plans, bought the wood, and then decided how we would do it over a series of weekends. As it turned out, my sister suggested that maybe my family would offer to come over and pitch in. Thus, we turned it into a small party. Now, in our case, we did not have 200 people show up. My family came, and a few neighborhood kids dropped by to watch the activities–and grab a burger or two (we actually grilled, not doing the pizza thing). It was hardly an hour and a bit of work. Everyone put in a good 8 hour, and during that time we managed to get the main frame up. Jim and I finished the project up an hour here, an hour there in the evenings and weekends over the next couple weeks. Anyhow, that is how fiction is often written, taking a bit of your own life and exaggerating it a bit. I am looking forward to all the fun the Pixel kids will have on that swingset, and the potential for storylines it will give us.

Now I guess it would be good to note, however, that if we did do something like this we could totally see it turning out like it did for the Pixels. Harry’s line about how these things always turn out that way for them is pretty much something we say regularly. We can plan and plan, but things never quite turn out the way we expect, and usually involve some sort of disaster!

That also said, I am truly yearning for Spring. We got teased with some 60 degree weather this past week. Now that it’s back to a more seasonal 30, I am longing for warmth and greenery. *sigh* That and the fact we are STILL sick. Yes, over a month of it bouncing back and forth between family members, and I once again have a horrible head cold. The doctor says it is simply bad in this area and everyone seems to be getting it. Either way, I can’t wait for some nicer weather and for everyone to feel better so we can get back to doing stuff rather than sniffling and sneezing.

I have to admit, we’re having a great time with this current storyline. We are finally getting to do things that we have been planning, literally, for years! Another thing that I am personally enjoying is how much I’m starting to like certain characters. There is a lot of talking in writing that when you develop a character they take a life of their own, and in essence the story writes itself. Well, at least as far as the characters are concerned. Based on their personality, they will do things a certain way, and of course that will affect what is going on around them. For me, I am growing very fond of Verde. When Jim and I first started the comic, we actually had more plans for Char, the mother of the K kids, rather than their father. We knew he worked for the city and that was pretty much it. As time has gone on, he has taken a prominent role in the strip, and his character has not only evolved, but has become a crucial element to the strip. I know it sounds kinda odd that as the creator I could be disconnected enough to see the character in this way–but that really is what writing is about. It’s about creating something that can stand alone and apart from you, even if without you it would not have been here. I suppose that can be said about parenting too.

This storyline also breaks another milestone for us, being our longest connected run of strips. We’ve done other arcs which were covered through a series of strips peppered over a longer run. This arc is now 15 strips long, and has a few more to go before the end. We’re moving into new territory. Granted, we will still have the short mini-arcs, and we like to pace out the strip going between the different storylines and areas (meaning the workplace, home, CD, etc.), but this is setting a precedence, where we will now almost have to be doing more extensive runs, and dare I say a bit more of the serious stuff, in the future.

Another milestone to note is that this month we saw our biggest readership since January of 2008. I will very honestly admit that our erratic updating and other issue caused our hits to dip through the middle of this past year. However, we’re happy that not only are the numbers back, but they are stronger than ever! Over 500 new readers bookmarked the site in December! This readership has been a nice climb over the past few months, but it really is encouraging for us to see those nice high numbers again. We are uber excited and hope to do you proud as we continue this strip into it’s third year! (We’ll officially be 2 years old in March.)

All I can say is this. When we were toying around and throwing out computer phrases to work into the script, the name Cold Fusion (Issue 236) just sounded like the most awesome supervillian name. We came up with this quite some time ago and it’s really neat to finally introduce this character. Of course, getting back to our superhero roots, we’re really excited to have a story with a bit of suspense in it.

Wanted to post that comment graphic here because I know not everyone saw it on the splash page on Christmas. Love Mr. Smiley as Scrooge. Hope everyone had a happy holiday season, and here’s to a better (and more stable) 2009 ahead.

If you are a regular reader of the strip, you’ll know that in strip time, only a couple of months has passed since the Pixels moved into the neighborhood.  However, in real time it’s been over a year and a half since we have been doing the comic.  We already had a Thanksgiving strip last year.  Since technically only a short period of time has passed, we couldn’t do another turkey day strip.  But, I wanted to do one anyway, so we had to be a bit creative.  The idea for this strip came from a recent video I watched about turkey-fryer safety.  In that video, the firefighters were doing everything they could to blow up the fryer (which they did). I figured Harry’s faux pas would be a little less dramatic. Still, in keeping with Harry’s loving bumbling, he has a mini-disaster on his do-over Thanksgiving.

I guess eventually, once the strip gets more time behind it, it will slip into that perpetuality where holidays come and go but the characters never age. I mean, how many Christmases and Halloweens have the Simpsons had in their 20+ years on the air, yet they haven’t aged a bit. Until then, however, we realize that we will have to be creative for “seasonal” and “time sensitive” strips. I’ll admit, it was fun doing this one and I’m proud of our work-around.

Just a note, since this strip falls in the middle of a small arch, we are holding it back. It will be inserted in the continuity after this current storyline is tied up.

Hoping all our fans have a great Thanksgiving! Don’t eat too much! (Yeah, right.)

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 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!

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.

Today’s issue is Number 171. But in actuality, this is issue number 1. This is the very first Bitmap World comic we did…ever. After the “throwing around ideas” stage, and we had settled on actual characters, storylines, and whatnot, we put together this prototype strip. In fact, had you visited our site in the months before we officially went live, you would have seen this sole comic up on the site. Our site was very much like it is now: the pseudo computer with the framed comic within and the navigation buttons on the “keys.” Though, back then, there were much fewer links on the keys.

Of course, you will also recognize this strip as one of the templates in our Build-Your-Own-Comic maker. But, be assured, this strip was not made using this utility. It was done months before we even dreamed of the BYOC.  It truly is neat to have this stand-alone comic done so long ago slipped into the regular continuity, rather seemlessly. Though, if you do look closely, this strip has been altered slightly from the prototype (this alteration was done recently since we have certain style aspects to the comic now we didn’t in the beginning). 5 points in the forum if you can see the differences.

We always planned to have Rasterman come on the scene a bit into the strip, but I don’t think Jim or I ever planned that it would be nearly a year and a half and 170 issues in. The strip, the characters, and the story really have taken on a life of their own, and have gone in so many directions we didn’t plan.  But it’s been so much fun, and ultimately it’s worked out that we’ve been (up to this point) been able to add the elements we’ve wanted to.  It’s funny because many of the stories we did plot out in the beginning are still yet to be told.  In fact, Jim and I were just hashing out a few things and realized a couple of the storylines probably won’t come up until year 3 or 4!  How’s that for planning ahead. And we have new ideas popping up every day, so who knows where that will take us. That said, I guess it would be hard for you all to believe we actually struggle with writer’s block on occasion and pull our hair out to get one strip up.  That’s because it’s not the pictures that give us fits but getting the words just right.  While this “little comic” may not be Pulitzer Prize material, we still taking it seriously and don’t want to shell out just anything.

Anyhow, thanks for making Bitmapworld part of your weekly routine. Here’s to strip 200 on the near horizon, and to many more after that.

First of all, thank you to everyone who sent well-wishes this past week. I had a couple of scary days there–almost considered going to the E.R. But I’m fine now and that’s all that matters. Thanks for being understanding and such loyal fans. You guys rock!

I have wanted to write a bit more detailed comment about some of the strips, but life has been kinda crazy. I figured the Booyah would be a good time, so I’m going to backtrack a bit.

Issue 158 - The orange joke was totally inspired by the art. Those oranges are some Japanese pixel art which I used for the strip. When I saw it, the gag immediately jumped into my mind. It is SOOOO appropriate for the Mayor.

Issue 159 - I am a little bummed the second float was blurred. I had done some great “celebrity” smilies for it and they are obscure. 5 points in the forums if anyone can guess who it is! I do hope to feature them in another strip down the line. Also in 159, I love the line “Hey, Mac.” Double play on words there.

Issue 160 - I am really proud how this strip turned out. Not a word spoken, but everything is said loud and clear. I really wanted to do the last panel justice, and I went over a lot of ideas on how to depict it. The long-shot shadow definitely worked best, and I love how it turned out.

Issue 161 - I already commented on this one in an earlier blog, but I did want to note Jim’s favorite line is the cop chiding his partner about wanting to shoot the volcano.

Issue 162 - I think it is so funny, and convenient, how there is always a reporter in the crowd anytime something exciting happens in a movie or on t.v. I thought it would be great to have something happen and there NOT be a journalist around.

Issue 163 - Rasterman was not our first choice for the superhero name, but it was in the top 3. I totally wanted to do the spotlight shot for the second panel, and made sure to use a snazzy comic font for the wording. I just crack up when I see the paperboy ready to bean the superhero to keep him from flying away.

Issue 165 - We debated how we were going to have Blip get a newspaper in this strip. We thought of having the paperboy deliver it, but that would have distracted from the story. We toyed with him just having the paper on his front step. Eventually, I went with the idea of him going out at the crack of dawn to get one. I wanted to do a news-stand, and went searching for pictures for inspiration. The stand I did was replicated from this picture. The Times New Roman is a great name for a newspaper and I’m psyched to have come up with it!

Issue 166 - Designing a new set is always stressful for me. I really try to get something that will reflect the characters. Since this is the first time we see Blip’s wife, I wanted it to be extra special. Originally I was going to go with a different look, but once I got the retro-modern blue theme going, it fit the best and I ran with it.

Issue 167 - The mayor is such a hopeless dope. He was supposed to be a small supporting character, but he has totally developed beyond that and we have a special place in our heart for him.

Issue 168 - I wanted to have a nice strip just showing Pixel life. It was kinda inspired to have Smiley in there cogging it up. While I was doing this strip, all that kept running through my mind is the Simpsons episode where they have all the major league baseball players, and Bart is heckling Daryl Strawberry (I think that was who it was). ROFL!

Issue 169 - Yes, the first three panels are identical to Issue 39. That was totally deliberate, and not simply to be a cheat. I just felt it best illustrated Harry’s transformation from psycho newspaper boy hound to indifferent and rational smiley.

Issue 170 - Are we really only 30 away for Issue 200? I know we poke so much fun of corporate American in this strip, but we can’t help it. Have you ever seen the movie Mystery Men? Captain Amazing is covered in endorsement badges and does commercial. I just think the idea of that is wild. Seriously, would any good, upstanding superhero stoop so low?

This is one of those strips that is based on real life. Granted, this doesn’t happen every time, but enough times to drive you batty. The kids will have an exciting day, running around and playing. On the way home they will knock out for a short nap–something the adults can’t do. Then, when we get home, we’re hopeful everyone will crawl into bed and sleep through the night…and the kids are wide awake. And not just wide awake, but recharged and hyper so they can’t sleep at all. So we end up half-asleep on the couch while they do their thing for hours. *deep sigh*

There is a lot more I want to comment on about the whole Rasterman storyline, and I’m going to do that during our Booyah next week. Though, I do want to mention (again) that Rasterman was one of our original characters, and the very first test strip we did was about him. It’s amazing to see him finally introduced all these months later.

Oh, and as for my computer woes. Truly, you would all think I was a troll if I was just a stranger on the forums! But, yet another minor hiccup (aside from part of my hard-drive being corrupted, which I reported about on the forums yesterday). Jim had built me a custom keyboard tray for my computer. Well, I came home today to find the kids had demolished it. The way it was/is setup makes it that I can’t just take the keyboard off and use it on the desk. I would have had to do it on my lap, which makes it impossible to do pixel art.

Certainly the gods have it out for me.

Thankfully Jim got up at 3:30 a.m. this morning to fix it.

See you all tomorrow with a new strip.