So, I mentioned it last night when I posted the final Mah Teef page, I'm taking some time off from drawing. It may be a month or so, but given my track record... well... you know how it goes.

I do still want to do some more with Backstage! and dumb shit never seems to stop happening to and or around me, so I'm sure it will be back. But at just over 100 strips I felt like I wasn't doing something right. Like I'm missing a piece of the puzzle... and I don't even have the box to tell me what it should look like.

So I took some time out last week and really took a look at all the projects I've had on the back burner. Some were started, some weren't, some were resurrections of older projects that I never allowed to die completely... I'm sure anyone who's even remotely creative (which I know includes %90 of my audience) can relate to this.

I've decided to rebuild the old lab (my very first website) from scratch with a new design I'm still working on the layout and figuring out the logistics, and all of the content was backed up zip disks that I'm sure have failed at this point. But I enjoyed making that site, and I had alot of good information on it.

I'm also going to finally get off my ass and build the new Empty Theater Studio site. Which will host both the Empty Theater archives as well as the Backstage! archives and also have better integration with my store and will host some photoshop and comic making tutorials I've been working on.

At this point you're probably thinking "Why the fuck would he need to take time off from drawing to make two websites?" And you should... it's not brain surgery or anything, but the fact is that drawing, inking, scanning, lettering and tweaking a daily strip is an hour and a half to two hours of work a day usually. I don't start working until after the kids are in bed (around 8-9) and if I tried to do two sites and keep my update schedule I'd be posting comics every few days and I'd be kicking myself mercilessly for not keeping my deadlines. The comics would (even worse) crap and the new sites would take at least 3 times as long to build.

I'll still be hanging around the interwebs though and commenting on blogs, and letting you know how things are going. I just wanted to set your comic expectation appropriately.

So if you'd like to see some of the test buttons and banner designs I've been working on I've posted some in my profle under a fairly obvious album. ;) Feel free to let me know what you think of them. :)
They mostly look like this:


Hasta Whenever Amigos!

I'll try this again...
For better or worse this is pretty close to the truth... except the part about Sloth... not sure what happened there. I seriously can't remember the joke I was going to write when I decided to draw that.
Anyway. I did regain my speech pretty quick according to the dentist. They were amazed at my progress. I told them I didn't have a choice, I talk on the phone for a living. ;)

I'm taking a break from drawing for a bit. I'll talk about it tomorrow. I'm just too damn tired tonight and I think the subject deserves it's own post.
That's it for now. have a good night everyone!

Sorry this took so long... I'll give a lame ass excuse after I finish the last page of this series later this week. :)

Now the last panel... I have this theory (or belief if you will) that when people have a bad reaction to medication it's because of some trauma they endured as a child. Which of course means that they were abducted by aliens (duh!). One of the only things that kept me out of a full blown depression relapse at the thought of having to "intall" my teeth every morning for the next 50 or 60 years was that during the surgery the anesthetic would cause previously buried memories of an alien abduction to surface and I would have something awesome to write about... but alas, 'twas not to be. For it seems that I wasn't abducted by aliens after all... I'm just naturally weird. :(

That's it for tonight folks.
Hasta whenever.

***update*** I originally posted this as page 4 but it's really page 5! Whoops!

Yay! Backstage is 100 comics old officially! The archives will be updated when I'm done with the Mah Teef story. Only a few more pages guys, thanks for bearing with me. tomorrow should be funnier at least... it will start dealing with the recovery process. Which is always hilarious... right? right? uh... ok maybe not so much, but I'll try to make it entertaining. :)

At any rate, It's good for me to tell this story... even if it the wounds are still healing (literally!)... It's very cathartic to talk about something that has been such an emotional drain on me these past few months. I wanted to go into it while it was happening but I couldn't bring myself to see the lighter side of it yet. :) now, almost two weeks later... It's funnier some how. :)

Ok, now it's time for me to get some sleep.
Have a good night everyone!

Yeah, you can see where it's going from here... I may gloss over the truely boring bits, the castings and the visit to the periodontist... and get to the operation and recovery pages... so it may end up being 6 pages like this and not five as I thought...

Anyway, it's father's day weekend, so all the dad's have a good time eating your steak (you bastards) and drinking your beer... I celebrated last weekend since Lisa's dad is in the hospital this week (hip replacement, went well and he's doing really good from what I've been told in case you were wondering). It was nice...
I won't bore you with those details either.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Rather than try to stick to any schedule these pages are going up as I finish them. so if I don't get too bogged down tomorrow I may have page three up tomorrow night... keep your fingers crossed. ;)

Thanks for all your comments and welcome to my new subscribers. Which reminds me that I havn't pimped my shop, or begged for subscribers in a while... Though I was wearing a Baa Means No shirt in the last page (Yeah I do wear one at home pretty often)

So if you'd like to help pay for the dental work you're reading about visit my store, where you will have the opportunity to purchase all sorts of stuff that I've slapped my designs on... and yes, I can do custom designs if you would like them... hit me up here at myspace and let me know what you're looking for and we'll talk...

And if you'd like to be updated every damn time I post something here, subscribe to my blog and tell all of your friends to do the same! ;)

Ok so I'm finally done.
I'm not incredibly happy with the ink work I've done here but I've posted it and it stands as it is.

As you probably guessed by now I'm going to relate my recent true drama dental journey over the next few pages. Many of you have heard bits and peices of this story already and I've been talking about it off an on here, but I figured I should put it down in an "official" manner.

I should have time tomorrow morning to do more drawing, but the update schedule is going to be choppy until it's done.
Hope you all enjoy it. :)

I was doing so well at updates and then poof!

I'm working on a bunch of full pages for you, the first one is done and ready to ink, I'll probably have five in all but it will probably mess with the update schedule.

However after trying to think of how to break out the story I want to tell it just didn't work in strip format. This is of course one of the wonderful benefits of having a webcomic, I don't actually have to adhere to any set strip length or even keep the sizes of the pages consistant...
I do it because that's how I like them, but I could go all infinite canvas and do one really really long page...
but that would require me making everyone wait until I actually finished the story before posting it. :) and that just wouldn't do at all.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to the next five (or so) pages but I still need to do other things like work, and play with the kids, try (in vain) to trick my wife into having sex with me (love you sweetie!)... that sort of thing. ;)

So thanks for your patience, I hope the next few pages make up for the lost time!

I owe this comic entirely to Jax. She sent the details of what she heard to me (via Dara) and I felt I should share it. :)
So everyone, when you comment... Thank Jax. ;)

In other news. All went ok at the dentist. I'll be going quite a bit over the next twelve months, but nothing as large as this hopefully.
But beside that Today is Lisa and my 10th wedding anniversary. Ten years ago we sprinted down the aisle to wedded bliss and haven't looked back... much. ;)
I should say that Lisa is very understanding and supportive, and without her I wouldn't be half the person I am today (and no, that's not a joke about my wieght). I don't believe that people complete each other, but that they augment each other, she is my buffer, my buttress, she's the glue and mortar that holds my family and life together. She is the best mother for my children, and the only person that I feel comfortable enough around to let my gaurd down and be my true dorky self.
So, happy anniversary Lisa, I love you as much now as I did the day we met. but I told you that already didn't I. ;)

Nothing else today.
Have a good weekend everyone!

Yes, we were all seriously creeped out by these worms.
And I refused to kill them because they scared me that much. They were like bizzarre tree spirits or something.
I flung them towards another stump and wished them well.
I have two more comics done, but not inked. So depending on how high I am on percocet tomorrow after the dentist... I may finish them or they may wait for the weekend.
I fully realise that I haven't really talked about the dentist stuff properly here. I'll assume that you're not that interested in my stupid dental problems for now, and when it's safely part of my past I'll probably write some comics about it... suffice to say that I need some extractions and I'm sure that no matter what it will not be a normal experience. that's just my sort of luck. ;)
Anyway, if you don't see anything or hear anything for a few days, don't worry. :)