Hopping on a plane to Austin in just a few hours!  I'll be there, along with some of my best webcomic buddies.  It's gonna be crazy awesome.  Get more information on Dragon's Lair's website!

I will have a bunch of Shortpacked! Book 4s with me and... three Dumbing of Age Dina hats.  Just three.  Perhaps their owners will be determined by brutal gladiator sport.

Dragons Lair is hosting the 3rd AnnualWebcomic Rampage at their Austin, TX, location on December 10 and 11! If you want to get into the Q&A panels, yougotta RSVP, as theres limited room. There is unlimited room for the buyings and signings.

Who else besides me will be there?

Danielle Corsetto ofGirls with Slingshots
Randy Milholland ofSomething Positive
Joel Watson ofHijinks Ensue
Bill Williams ofSide Chicks
Jeph Jacques ofQuestionable Content
Rob DenBleyker ofCyanide and Happiness
Nicholas Gurewitch ofPerry Bible Fellowship
Josh Lesnick ofGirly

It will be fantastic.

If you need fodder for questions, know that Joel and I will be sharing a hotel room.

So this is the infamous half-blender of Webcomic Rampage.  For those readers of mine who still haven't heard this story, let me retell it here.  I shipped two boxes of books to the Austin Dragon's Lair comic shop ahead of myself so that I could sell them to my fans.  One box arrived easy-as-you-please!  The other box had been opened, books removed, placed in a new box, with the books exchanged with half a blender.  HALF A BLENDER.  So, yeah.  Post Office lost/stole/ate my books, and gave me an incomplete blender in exchange.  That was fun!  But a good story, I guess?

But the sad, sobering reality is that losing those books cost me a potential few hundred dollars in sales.  That blows!  So to share this story and to help recoup my losses, since there's no real legal recourse for me to retrieve these books or my lost potential sales, I've doodled a bunch of my characters on the surface of this blender with a Sharpie. And you can own it. Keep in mind, it is an INCOMPLETE blender.  You will only get what you see here.  Just the bottom, with a plug.  There's no top half.   The blender also has some scuff marks at some of the edges where its silvery finish was removed in transit.  But on the plus side, there's now all these Shortpacked! and Dumbing of Age characters on it.  Sweet, huh?

I've left a spot up next to Ultra Car where the winner of the blender can request anyone they feel is important that I've forgotten.  (Which, as it turns out, will probably be Mike.  Man, how'd I forget him?  Oh well, you can request him should you win.  Or somebody else!  There's also no Dorothy, no Reagan, no Sal...)

So, uh, yeah!  You can own this piece of dubious webcomics history.

Webcomic Rampage was friggin' awesome and one of the best times I've had.  Everyone was super nice and I got to hang out with some of my favorite people!  But the awesomeness isn't exactly why it will go down in infamy.  Here's something I posted on the Dumbing of Age site this past weekend that I meant to post here, too:

So here's a fun Webcomic Rampage story.  I'm pretty sure I'll be telling this one a lot.  It's a doozy.

I mailed two boxes of books to Austin.  One arrived perfectly!  The other arrived, too, but in an interesting condition.  It was, in fact, a completely new cardboard box, with the old, shredded cardboard box inside.  The mailing address, return address, and postage had been exacto-knifed off the old box and taped onto the new box.

Inside the old box inside the new box was half a blender.

Yeeeeaaaaaah.

Yeah.

I'm gettin' on a plane to Austin, Texas (after a layover in Tampa), to Webcomics Rampage that leaves at 7:30 tomorrow morning!  You Austin folks better come see me!  Or, at least, come see Randy Milholland and acknowledge my presence.

I've got comics queued up on both Dumbing of Age and Shortpacked! through Tuesday, so we should be set!  That includes a ToyNewsInternational strip.  I'm so prepared!  (Technically, Dumbing of Age is queued up through the second week of 2011, but who's counting.)

(I'm counting.  Me.)

See you in Austin!

Hey, troops!  (Hmmm, I like using the word "troops."  Can I start addressing you as troops?)  Next weekend I'm gonna be in Austin, Texas, at the Dragon's Lair Comics & Fantasy store for Webcomic Rampage, joined by all of your other favorite webcartoonists.  Part of the gearing up for this special event is the Dragon's Lair's podcast, which this past week interviewed both myself and Joel Watson.  You can listen to this podcast on their website!

If you're planning on attending the Webcomic Rampage panel that opens both days of the event, be sure to RSVP via Facebook or phone, as there's limited seating available!  After the panel there'll be some signing and some wares snagging.  You won't want to miss it!

Hey, dudes, there's one last  hurrah for me this convention season, and it's a doozy!  On December 11-12, Dragon's Lair Comics in Austin, Texas, is holding Webcomic Rampage!  It's Saturday and Sunday, each day beginning with a panel featuring all of us webcomics guests, and culminating in some Webcomics Christmas Shopping.  Who's coming?

David Willis of Shortpacked!/Dumbing of Age
Danielle Corsetto of Girls with Slingshots!
Joel Watson of Hijinks Ensue
Bill Williams of Side Chicks
Randy Milholland of Something Positive
Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content
Josh Lesnick of Girly

These are all awesome people and Webcomic Rampage is going to be awesome.  Be there!