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.

The comic (Issue 172) was late because Jim spent all of yesterday cleaning the house of a dead woman so her family can sell it.  Yes, I know that sounds pretty crazy, but it’s true.  We’re just trying to find a way to work it in the comic.

Oh, and between the time we last posted a comic, my computer has been hit with a worm, which required a frantic backup and export of the data and speedy reformat of the hard drive.  I am working at half mast not having any of my stuff!  Oh…and I lost all my favorites.  Then, just today, I ended up infected with Antivirus XP 2008!  Thankfully, some good malware software cleaned me up.  *sigh*  Truly, my computer jinx is still around.  Trying to think of ways to write that into the comic too!

Either way, today’s comic was totally Jim’s show.  We just got off of the Rasterman storyline and we decided we need a few stand-alone “filler” strips to kinda space things out before jumping into the next plotline.  Since we left off with Harry at the office, I wanted to do a trouble ticket strip.  Jim came up with this idea, and after a bit of hashing out, we came up with this.  In fact, we came up with 2 jokes, and will be doing the other one in the future. 

Barring any major emergencies–and you never know with us–Friday should be up on time.

Oh, and just to be clever, three points to the first one who comments here in the blog with the correct answer to the question posed in the strip.

You know, when we created the BYOC, we never imagined it would be the greatest “save-face” for us! On days when things just get too caught up, we can create a filler strip in 10 minutes so that YOU, our fans, have something to read until we can get the new strip up. Now, we don’t always put one up, but when we do, we always have so much fun with it. I do have to give credit to Jim, because he is the one that does them the most…and I think they are just hysterical. He truly is a great comedy writer.

Just to appease your curiosity, Jim and I are working on 2 projects: 1 personal and 1 freelance that will bring us in some much-needed money (can’t blame us for that). Bitmap World is still very important to us, so we want to assure everyone we do make every effort to stay on schedule. But, when we can’t, we’ll still try to entertain.

See you tomorrow!

My friend, Anne, has a popular Blog. It’s simply called, “Cooking with Anne.” From the first time I heard that, I thought it sounded like a good title for a cooking show. That was what spurred the idea of making it a show in the Bitmapworld universe. I ran the idea past Anne some time ago, and she graciously gave me the green-light to go for it. Even though I toyed around with this concept months ago, today’s comic (Issue 133) is the actual strip I had in mind from day one. Anne is very smart and sassy, and I knew that would be reflected in her BMW alter-ego. I just thought the idea of this total chauvenist coming on her show and trying to take over was hysterical. Of course, I immediately knew how she would end up handling him. Her ending monologue, however, came to me as I was doing the actual strip, and I totally love it!

On a somewhat-related note, there was a webcomic that was/is called “Cooking with Anne,” done by Ben Bittner. It’s a short piece and is not your conventional cooking-show type take on the title. When Anne was first starting out, she wanted the URL, but Ben had it for his strip. That comic has not been updated in a while, and Ben no longer kept the name, and after switching hands a couple of times, Anne just got the domain for herself recently.

If you are looking for some great cooking, be sure to check out Anne’s blog. It’s a great read, and the recipes are soooo good. Oh, and if you were wondering why the strip has been running late lately (aside from our server woes), you can look at Anne’s site design, which was done by the BMW team (Jim and me under our Mirz-Jiles moniker). We’ve been doing web-work to make extra money while Jim is still out of job.

When we first started on this storyline, I thought it was a fun way to put Evil Couch into Bitmap World. What I didn’t know would happen is that I would end up loving the character. I’m almost sorry this was just a “cameo.” I think there is so much potential for this character, and want to know what happens next! Of course, there is one small problem–he’s not our character! We did plan to leave the storyline like this, a virtual cliffhanger of sorts. I’ll be honest and will say I hope we see Evil Couch again. Though, of course, that is more up to Couch than us. Still, if he can’t take over the real world, maybe he’ll be content taking over Bitmap World. Or better yet, both?

Sometimes the biggest delay in doing something, particularly a webcomic, isn’t so much one large thing, but a dozen little things. Though, yesterday, we had a pretty big deal with one of the kids’ schools, and that put us back. Again, we appreciate our reader’s understanding. Some people have asked us why don’t we make a buffer of strips. We have made small buffers in the past, just 2-3. But usually when we have extra time we concentrate on story development. It’s not unlike us to sit and have a pow-wow about what’s gonna happen next and in the future. That’s also easy to do when we’re cooking dinner or cleaning around the house. Multi-tasking!

There has been one thing we have been doing a lot of work on, and that’s getting together a new system for doing the strip’s lettering. We use a custom font that I created. However, due to limitations in the font program that created it, the font is not rendered perfectly when we do that lettering. It requires hand clean-up and kerning. For a wordy strip, like today’s strip (issue 116), that process can take almost as long as drawing/piecing the comic. We’ve been searching for a program to remaster the font. Hopefully when we do, it will cut down the overall time to do the comic, which will be a good thing.

It’s been in the single digits and teens around these parts for the last couple of weeks. It’s almost been too cold to do anything. Spring is a while off, but we can’t wait. The cold weather stinks.

Just taking a moment to wish all of our readers a Merry Christmas (and wonderful *insert holiday of choice*, if you don’t celebrate Christmas). The best gift we have gotten this year is seeing Bitmap World grow. We thank you for your support and your help in spreading the word about this quirky little comic!

Hope you get everything on your list!!!!

Strip #97 finally gives our readers some information about the paperboy. And, to our astute readers, it may even give them the hint to what movie we are parodying with this whole storyline.

Oh, and I should note that this is the first strip that has even the remotest hint of a political commentary. It was not intentional. Frankly, I am not into Bush-bashing, or any political bashing for that matter. Certainly I have my opinions of these issues, but a fun family-friendly comic is not the forum in which to get on my soapbox. So, fear not, this isn’t the start of a precendence. However, Verde’s line originally was written to use the word bush. By capitalizing it, the phrase has double-meaning, and still is very much in-character for Verde, considering he works for the mayor and therefore has political preferences.

Strip #98 is just a simple slice-of-life comic. No, it’s not over the top funny, but it’s amusing…and true. The story about the hot dog/pigs-in-a-blanket actually happened at Tess’s school a couple years back. I should note, the pigs-in-the-blanket were supposed to be pancakes wrapped around a sausage link, but instead the lunch ladies used hot dogs. Dott’s reaction was pretty much the reaction of the whole school. Tess said that the kids were so grossed out, they gave them all free ice cream to make up for it.

As for the flooding of the bathroom, I think any parent who has a 2 or 3 year old can relate to this. That whole “too quiet” moment, when you realize your little one is getting into mischief. Our kids love of water, and flooding the bathroom happens every few months. Why, you ask? Well, kids need to use the bathroom, and they need to wash their hands. Believe me, it can take just a couple of minutes to overflow the sink and start a waterfall. If someone isn’t constantly playing potty police (which is sometimes not possible), these things happen. Of course, having older kids who are *supposed* to be watching little siblings but aren’t is just as plausible in these parts. Makes us consider getting those automatic sensor faucets they have in public washrooms. Hmm….

Black Friday has actually become as a much a holiday as Thanksgiving itself. Though it has many definitions, predominantly the term “Black Friday” is used to mean the day after Thanksgiving, when most retailers start getting Christmas shoppers. Since holiday shopping sales (meaning the 8 weeks or so in November/December) often account for as much money as the stores makes the rest of the year together, they essentially go from being in the red to the going into the black on their financial books.

This comic (issue 94) was yet again inspired by Linus. Even though in real-life he is a bit older than Max, Linus does provide a lot of material for this character. The other day while watching a television commercial for After-Thanksgiving early bird specials, Linus proceeded to tell us why it was called Black Friday. His explanation (which was identical to the one Max gives) made me laugh out loud. Kids are so innocent and their sincerity is priceless. Of course, I explained the real reason it was called that to our son, but I thought it would make a great strip. Particularly since a lot of people will be celebrating the long weekend (as well as starting their shopping) and won’t be checking the site until Monday or Tuesday. We wanted a small stand-alone strip before jumping back into an ongoing storyline.

On another note, Max and Ada are on the floor coloring in this strip. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while. Our kids are all very much into art and drawing. I think we go through more crayons and paper than about anything else. High priced toys and gadget hold nothing over pencils and notebooks. Even though this is a “smiley comic” we really try to add little bits of real-life to it. I think a lot of parents can relate to sitting around while their kids draw and color. Oh, and of course Mike taking a nap on the couch! One of the biggest compliments we get on Bitmap World is how expressive and descriptive we make the smilies and their world. It’s a conscious effort on our part, and we’re delighted people take notice.

Hoping our American friends had a great Thanksgiving, and that everyone has a great start to the year-end holiday season!

Another series of Cosmic Dungeon strips. I thing I’ve said it before, but I both loving and hate doing those strips! I love them because they are so much fun, and I think the story is great. RPGs and MMPORPGs have been a part of our lives for so many years, it’s really exciting to draw upon that experience for this storyline. The reason I hate these strips is that they require so much more work than the regular strips. Truly, a price for affect.

We hadn’t planned to go back to CD so soon. We were going to come off of the monkey storyline and were going to jump back into one of the other ongoing plots. But, even with the couple of filler strips we had, we decided we wanted to pad things out a bit more in the pacing department. Since we’ve had quite a few fans tell us how much they love the Cosmic Dungeon strips, it seemed natural to go back sooner than later.

I personally hit a big writer’s block when scripting these newest 3. I knew what they were going to be about, but the dialogue just kept escaping me. I was actually getting worried that we’d have a series of stinkers, which I really didn’t want. Then, while walking to the commuter train on Wednesday night, inspiration hit. There is often a lot of musing among webcomic writers about where and how ideas hit. In this case, there was no inspiration, but rather working through the story over and over, and on the 20th time, an element coming to me that hadn’t before. Once that happened, the words came naturally. The added plus was that the idea blossomed into something I’m very excited about.

For those wondering about the other story arcs, be assured, it’s coming. We’ll be in CD a few more strips, and then we move on. Be assured, answers always come. All in good time…and pacing.