Hey dudes!  Jonathan Rosenberg, aka The Guy Who Draws Goats And Whatnot, has a new webcomic!  It's called Scenes from a Multiverse, and it involves you, the weirdos of the Internet!  See, every week he draws a set of unrelated strips that take place on various worlds, and whichever gets the most votes returns the next week!  It's like Web 2.Oh Yeah.  Jon continues to be a true visionary, awash in unfettered creativity.

Ten hours left in my spring convention art auction!

And on Wednesday morning, me and my local buds head to BotCon.  Shortpacked! veterans know what this means, though this year the usual all-weekend-long convention strips are getting a twist.  You'll see.

If you're also going to BotCon, I've decided to be less stupid than I usually manage.  Every year I'm met by a few dozen readers wanting to know if I have books for sale!  Well, no, I don't have a dealer table at BotCon -- that's be counterproductive to my goal of Totally Geeking It Out 24/7, what with all the panels and whatnot -- but I figgered I'd plan ahead and bring a  handful of copies of Shortpacked! Book 3 with me.  I plan to have one or two on me at all times.  Y'know, be prepared!  It's like my backpack will be Shortpacked! Express, like those mini-Pizza Huts at Target.  So if you see me out and about, hand me $15 and I'll hand you a Book 3.  I'll even scribble in it for you.

Woof!  I have too many books in the living room!  Please, someone fix this!

I think it's a testament to the growing sensibilities of the world that my books arrived so problem free.  This was the first of my four books I've done that hasn't been held up stupidly in customs.  The first book that said "BRIGS BACK THE EIGHTIES" on the boxes was flagged for customs.  The second book that said "PLUS THE DRAMA TAG" on the boxes gathered suspicions.  The third book that said "ROMMIES OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BEER" was held up for weeks in a warehouse somewhere.

But boxes that say "SHORTPACKED IS TOTALLY GAY"?  Totally fine!  Hooray!  Civil progress!  Gay folks, you can now marry.

Anyway, back to waiting for Cyclonus and Punch/Counterpunch to arrive.

Oops!  I forgot to link yesterday's Fans! Well, here you go.   I'm not used to seeing my art published so large.  Rikk's so big you could smooch 'im.  Those easter eggs in the background that I'd hoped would be less conspicuous are about as big as the characters in my strip are normally!  Well, take it all in.

I'm looking at a delivery time for Shortpacked! Book 3 tomorrow between 10-2pm.  Then I can start shipping them out to you!  (Well, interrupted by a week-long BotCon trip, of course.)

Speaking of convention trips, I'm now confirmed for Intervention!  That'll be in Washington, D.C., on September 10 through 12.

And hey, I've still got that art auction going.  Check it out!

I got word that Shortpacked! Book 3 should be getting to my doorstep sometime this week.  Hooray, the wait is over, so get your orders in if you haven't already.  If you don't order one, you will be sad.

There's a Bob Forward forward by Bob Forward (Bob Forward!), followed by 130 pages of strips, both full-page and Toy News International-style, commentary for every single one, and "Galasso's Secret Files" for each of the store's employees.

It is amazing.

Two advance copies of Shortpacked! Book 3 (preorder it now!) arrived via FedEx this morning for me.  Like, they were sent from Hong Kong yesterday, and now they're here.  I know we have, y'know, jet planes and what have you, but that still seems magically fast.

The books are beautiful, as always!

I'm told that the rest of the books are going on the boat next week and they'll arrive over here near the first week of June.  ... and if you recall my history, they'll spend the next 2-3 weeks in customs.  It's going to happen.  Let's just resign ourselves to the inevitable.

This morning I'm on the road at 8am to get my ass to Troy, Michigan, by noon.  Penguicon is this weekend, and I'll be at Howard Tayler's table.  Look for the two guys in brightly-colored Hawaiian shirts.  One, a successful breadwinner.  The other, an awkward manchild.  Randy Millholland (Something*Positive) will also be there, and he's written a very informative comic strip about it.

I'm determined to get two books out this year.  Shortpacked! Book 3 is the preorder everyone should be familiar with by now, but Roomies! Book 2 better be out by the end of this year, too!  It's faaarr too soon to solicit it, since SP!B3 is still in production, but not too soon to finish putting it together.  An idea for the cover hit me last night, and no sooner than this afternoon I had it completed to my satisfaction.

Take it in.

Also, I was sorely in need of some freebies to hand out at C2E2, so I designed and ordered some double-sided bookmarks.  There's a strip on each side - my recent Skeletor/Luthor team-up strip for ToyNewsI seemed suitable, and of course you gotta have Batman DDR on there, so I cropped it down into the requisite number of panels to fit.  I'll be handing these out at Penguicon this weekend.  A huge purpose of convention-attending I've been neglecting is the romancing of new readers.  This'll help me fix that.  (If you're already a reader, you're still, of course, allowed to grab one.)

Since the new site went live, one of its most awesome features is the ability to order prints of individual strips simply by clicking the $ icon below each strip.  Ha ha ha, so obviously the first one that got bought was Mike's freaky smile creep show.  This is great, because I had to take this file into the print shop and have them give me strange looks as it comes up on the screen and again out of the printer.  How much is my dignity worth?  Apparently $10 and shipping.