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!

No, no server issues.  No dramatic power outages (we did have that the other night, but not last night).  No other acts of God.  I fell asleep.  Yep.  After a couple of days of exhausting work at my day-job and on one of my other sites, I told myself I would take a short nap and then put up the comic.  Funny, Jim laid down next to me to do the same thing.  We woke up this morning.

Upside?  We feel pretty good.  Still overly busy, but sleep is a good thing.  So is getting the comic up on time.  Perhaps next time we’ll manage both.

Sorry…

Okay, so pretend I didn’t say last entry that our server issues were resolved. Apparently they weren’t, but now they are supposed to be. Actually, the issues are not at all related to our server, but DNS records and propogation and all of that. It appears that the problem is fixed now, but since that can change at any minute, we’re just gonna act like it’s fixed, okay?

I am super proud of today’s strip (Issue 138). I loved the idea of doing a “noir” strip in pixel art. I think one of my biggest challenges is that I am working in a cartoony style. There is plenty of pixel art which is amazingly rendered and looks like…art. My job is to make things look real, yet keep their “smiley” feel, which can be harder than it would seem. I wrote a little more about this in my pixel-art blog if anyone is interested.

As promised, we are steaming ahead on the whole crime storyline. We’ll be peppering in a few other threads in it, but suffice it to say, some answers to much-asked questions are coming soon!

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.

What a whirlwind! Okay, I’ll admit, we probably shouldn’t have had the cut-off for the contest on Friday and plans to announce the winner on Tuesday. Since many of our judges work and have families, it was difficult to get all the votes together (not to mention that Jim wanted to create a utility to help make voting super-easy). Still, we’re really happy with the way everything turned out. For an upstart comic, we got quite a few strip submissions. It always amazes me how creative people can be when using comic-makers.
 
We didn’t really plan on inserting the monkey strip exactly here, but it actually works as a good segway to issue 109–where Harry is next seen walking into work drinking a coffee. I love the idea of the Macrohard guys making a coffee run. That’s something I can totally relate to working in downtown Chicago where there is a Starbucks on every corner.
 
Now, I don’t know if it needs a lot of explaining, but I should give some backstory as to the whole “Allied Pay” thing in issue 110 and issue 111. When Jim was at his last job (a Fortune 500 company), there was a yearly push for employees to donate to the United Way. Now, I’m not knocking the United Way or any other similar organization. I think it is a good thing to donate to those types of agencies. What we didn’t like was the yearly extortion by management. There was this huge push for “100% participation.” They always stressed it was voluntary, and that your job wasn’t dependent on it, but the insinuation was otherwise. Literally, as the cut-off date rolled around, Jim would get 1-2 emails a day, plus calls, kindly reminding him that he hadn’t made his donation yet. Though not in the official rulebook, it was well-known that management was expected to sign up for the “weekly give” where a certain percentage was withdrawn from each paycheck. So, why the racket? Even though employees gave the money, the company got to take the tax deduction. Certainly a good reason for them to rough up the staff. Anyhow, I had a lot of fun with poking fun of this, including creating a good mock-up of that type of logo. Also, I am enormously proud of the artwork in these strips. While some pre-existing elements were used in the school gym, a good deal is my original art. It really took me a long time, but I think it looks great. If you want to know more, I plan to talk about that a little more in my pixel art blog soon.
 
I always try to end Booyah strips with a little bit of a cliffhanger. Thankfully, the current storyline allowed me to do this. I will note that we are starting some things in motion now that we hope will come to fruition just in time for our year anniversary in March. Stay tuned!

We have had a lot of people tell us they would like the ability to comment on our strips and our blog entries, as well as the ability to search the older blog entries. So, we have move to a new blogging system to provide these options, and hopefully make reading our blog easier. If you encounter any problems, drop in the forum and let us know.

Okay, the Booyah was late. First it was Michelle’s fault. We were running behind due to yet another doctor’s appointment. She ended up putting the last finishing touches on the strips at work–and then forgot to send them to herself. I had come to pick her up from work, and I offered to turn around, but we were already halfway home so she decided to wait. The decision was fortunate because…

Our second delay was purely technical. Who knew that emails could give a programmer so many fits. Well, not email, per se, but collecting emails for our new contest. I had to modify our BYOC maker so that contestants can give us their contact information, and a form that should have been easy and quick ended up being complicated and time-consuming. I’m sure many a programmer can attest to projects like that.

So, a day late…again. Though, we are proud to say we have never missed an update. Sure, they are late, but we eventually get them up.

Of course, I’ve probably just jinxed us saying that…

Today’s strip (Issue 87) looks like a filler strip. Well, it is and it isn’t. See, we had come up with this idea a while back, and planned to run it at a future date. But over the weekend, a lot of the time we were planning on devoting to creating comics ended up being used for fighting off hackers. Not quite how we like spending our Saturday night.

This strip was actually inspired by watching our kids play a “family-friendly” online game. It was notorious for hanging on the initial load if too many people were accessing it. It was funny hearing some of the comments they would make waiting for the program to pop up, and how they occupied their time before it actually loaded. We thought it would be an amusing addition to the Cosmic Dungeon storyline, considering many online gamers have encountered this type of thing and can relate. As it goes now, it was a quick and easy filler, but very legitimately acts a segue back into Cosmic Dungeon, which we haven’t seen since strip 66.

Note, I DID edit/update this blog entry a bit, because Michelle said the first version was kinda sparce. She’s always getting on me for not making more entries here. Sorry.