Girlbot and I got a nice little mention in a recent Geek Dad column over on the Wired blog. It even has a relatively unembarrassing photo of me! Jonathan Liu was a really nice fella when I talked to him at Stumptown, so you should go see what he has to say.

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If you’ll look to the right part of the site, you’ll see that I’ve updated the sidebar with my planned appearances for this year. At the end of the month is Stumptown Comics Fest! And then, the next weekend, is TCAF. I will manage to do this somehow and not die, I’m sure of it. I’ll have lots of Girlbot books for sale, so if you didn’t get one through the Kickstarter, and you’re able to get to either one of those, I recommend you come buy one. (They won’t be for sale online until June, probably.) I’ll also have a few pieces of art and some prints, for however long those last.

As always, I’ll add or subtract shows when/if plans change.

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So Girlbot got nominated in three categories for this year’s Stumptown Awards! I’m up for Best Colorist, Best Small Press, and Best New Talent, and your support means a lot. So please go vote! Ballots are due by April 18th, and everyone is eligible to vote. Every single one counts.

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I guess Girlbot ended up going on a more extended hiatus than I originally meant it to. I’m sorry about this! I’ve been hard at work trying to get this Poorcraft dealie done, and I have every intention of getting Girlbot revved back up as soon as I can. It’s just taking longer than I thought it would, as it always does…

The new projected start-up of Girlbot updates is March 6th, which is right after Girlbot’s 3-year anniversary, funnily enough. Just stick with me, folks.

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A few items…

1. Girlbot is still on hiatus, and will be, I estimate, until around mid-December. I’m making plans.

2. Just because the comic is in hibernation, that doesn’t mean that I’m not still active online. I post on my Twitter and my Tumblr every day, so please feel free to check those out.

3. I’m making good progress on this work I’ve been doing. A good chunk of Poorcraft is being finished up right now, and I’m readying to send out a big wave of Kickstarter orders next week.

NOT DEAD!!!11!1!1

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As some of you may have noticed, the Girlbot Kickstarter reached its goal amount over the weekend! This is great news, of course, and there are still almost two weeks left to raise more funds on top of that. Every little bit helps.

So I hope that everyone who would like a book but has been hesitant to order one will feel free to hop on now. I won’t be putting the books up for sale after this until November, at the earliest, so pledging to the Kickstarter is the best way to ensure that you get one soon after they’re ready. Kickstarter supporters also get free shipping within the U.S., which isn’t something that will be offered once they’re in the store.

All extra money I raise on top of the original amount will go toward making the fulfillment process a little easier on me. Less will have to come out of my own pocket, and I’ll be able to invest more in the future of my business.

So help keep Girlbot alive! Support small business! Give me money!

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In what is hopefully good news for both my site and theirs, Girlbot will now be featured as a Sunday comic on the Nerdist blog, taking comic pages I run on this site and reformatting them for Nerdist readers. I’m going through my modest backlog at the moment, but soon I’ll catch up and keep both versions of Girlbot updated at the same pace. Anyway, here’s to a hopefully mutually beneficial arrangement with the possibility of future prosperity!

(I realize that the site may run slowly or unevenly while my server gets used to the new traffic, but I’ll get it worked out!)

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I got notice earlier this week that my proposal to the Xeric Foundation was rejected, which is sad-making for sure, but it’s got me thinking about how I’m going to fund the first Girlbot book. I really want to make it happen this year, but the problem is that a bare minimum run of 1,000 books will run me $7,000 American, according to my current calculations.

Now, this is really important to me, and the way I see it, I’m going to need to take a chance on pre-orders if I want to make this happen. So right now, I’m mentioning the idea so that you guys won’t be surprised in a month or so when I start yelling at you about my new Kickstarter project. I’m pretty nervous about the whole proposition, but I think it will be exciting to watch it happen. That is, assuming I don’t just fall on my face in the attempt, which is a definite possibility.

Nevertheless, I’m not discouraged, and I’m going to give it my best shot. You lovely readers have been so supportive of me in the past, and I hope that trend will continue. Check ya later.

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So this week, Girlbot will be starting up again after a nice break, but things will be different this time around. I think it will be a good thing!

For one, this is the start of volume two of the story, so the character set-up stage is finally done. I’ll be spending more time doing silly comedy, as well as getting on with exploring the ideas I have for Girlbot, story-wise and world-wise. Girlbot started out as more of an odd gag strip and then grew into something with a story and a continuity, which actually bring me to my second point…

Girlbot will no longer be a comic strip, per se. With the new updates, I’ll be switching to a page format. It will still preserve the same sort of sensibility as the original strips, but it will allow me to do what I want to do more naturally. As Girlbot grew more story-focused, I had more and more trouble fitting a complete idea into a single update. Instead, I settled a lot of the time for chopping an idea up into two or three updates, which caused issues with pacing, and I also think it made it harder for people new to the comic to get interested. With the new page format, the comic will have better story pacing, and I’ll feel less constrained. I also hope that it will cause newcomers to pick Girlbot up that much more easily. Oh, AND the new pages will be drawn at a bigger size than the original strips, which will translate to nicer art!

Now, due to the demands of a page versus a strip, Girlbot will no longer be updating Monday-Wednesday-Friday, as it always has. I’ll be scaling the update schedule back to Tuesdays and Fridays. However, despite the comic having fewer updates, you’ll still be getting almost twice as much material each week as you did before because each page is roughly the equivalent of three strips. I hope that will encourage readers to check back every update to see what’s up.

I’ve been doing my best this past year to keep the comic updated reliably with fresh story, putting a new strip up and sticking as closely to the three-a-week schedule as humanly possible, even to the detriment of my other projects. I kept my promise of a 6-month-long, unbroken update streak, and I’m quite proud of that fact. It wasn’t easy, but I think I proved that I can be trusted to stick with this thing through thick and thin. In light of that, I’m giving myself license to put up filler or miss an update if it becomes necessary. Two pages a week is a large order, and when it comes down to it, Girlbot just doesn’t make me a living. I have to do a lot of work on top of it to pay my bills, despite all the kind people who have helped me out through this comic with their donations and support. Spike and I are getting close to finishing Poorcraft, and there are other comics projects on the horizon for later this year, meaning I won’t always be able to devote as much time to Girlbot as it deserves.

I promise that I’ll do my very best to keep Girlbot up and running, but I may drop the ball every now and then due to there just not being enough hours in the day. Unlike Girlbot, I’m human, and I screw up. So please bear with me, y’all.

All-in-all, this will be a good thing for Girlbot. It means that the story will flow better and actually go faster. It means that it’ll be easier and, I think, more fun to read. And it also means I’ll be able to manage my work load without going bonkers.

I know this was a long-winded post, so thanks to you who actually read through to the end. You’re a peach. See you on Tuesday!

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This week, I’ll be moving to a new apartment — FINALLY — and I’ll be posting some very stupid and easy-to-draw comics so keep the site updated. The week after that, I’ll either begin updating the Girlbot story again or I’ll draw more stupid comics, depending on how long it takes me to settle into the new place and start producing new comics.

I’ll keep you guys posted.

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