These are the archived notes for my webcomic The Mansion of E,
reverse chronological order, 2005-2003.
If Google or some other search engine brought you directly to this page,
and you wish to see the actual comic, please click
here.
DECEMBER 30, 2005
You may notice a change in drawing style over the next few days; I'm working with a new computer monitor which shows colors far more accurately than the slowly-dying model I was previously saddled with. Nicer for me, and possibly you as well.
DECEMBER 25, 2005
Ho ho ho. Thanks again to Ian for the Secret Santa art. Also in honor of the day, a bunch of us ComicGenners got together and did ornaments for an online Christmas tree. You can see the thrilling final result here.
DECEMBER 23, 2005
After a conversation with a site-visitor, I've come to the opinion I really do need to improve the art on display here. As a first small step, here's a voting reward: a portrait of a somewhat new and hopefully improved version of an Ichyoid. (And to any fish experts in the audience, yes, the misspelling is deliberate.)
DECEMBER 21, 2005
I signed up for a couple of "Secret Santa" art-swaps this Christmas. One of my assigned strips was "Arrowflight", by Monique McNaughton, who lives amongst the ice flows and polar bears in Canada. Arrowflight details the near-future adventures of a sentient fighter-jet and the young woman literally born to fly it/him. There's some great art-work on display; check it out here. (Although non-Canadians might want to read this first.) My gift is on the fan-art page.
DECEMBER 20, 2005
What with the holidays and everything, the offerings around here are going to be skimpy for a few days, so as compensation, here's another voting reward, this one celebrating the recent return to life of one of my favorites in the catagory of "webcomics I don't draw".
DECEMBER 17, 2005
Voting Reward: It's been mentioned a time or two in the strip that Rosemary was raised not by her parents, but by her aunt Eva. It's very likely that someday (way) down the line AE will appear in the strip; here's a sketch of my intial conception of her. This will probably change as time marches on, but it gives you a rough idea..
DECEMBER 13, 2005
Voting Reward: Either a random picture of a reader, or possibly a glimpse of the far-distant future. I worked on this one until I ran out of time; I may post a more refined version later.
DECEMBER 9, 2005
Voting Reward: Yet another sneak preview of a character who will appear sooner or later. (More likely sooner...) I haven't given his name, because I'm only about 80% sure what I want his name to be.
DECEMBER 6, 2005
I've been busy lately fulfilling my upcoming Secret Santa art-swap obligations, so there haven't been many voting rewards of late. Since my totals are plunging, I took the time to toss off a quick picture honoring my source for the species-name "Gnoll": Comshaw meeting one of his Dungeons & Dragons counterparts. You'll perhaps note I made some fairly heavy racial modifications when I started using Gnolls here.
DECEMBER 1, 2005
After some experimenting, I've replaced the character links in the latest plot arc with sortof "pop-ups" that, assuming your browser can use Cascading Style Sheets, give a brief character sketch when you hover your mouse over a character's name. Hopefully this will be easier and quicker than paging back through the archives. Let me know what you think. And thanks to Dudley's Dungeon, from whom I swiped the basic programming code I used.
NOVEMBER 27, 2005
For those who've lost track of who all these characters are, I've gone back and added some names and 'previous-appearence' links to the current plot-arc, starting here.
NOVEMBER 23, 2005
Voting Reward: Something which was requested in honor of this strip's newest fan. Also, you may have noted I've added a new "dropdown" in the links section below. It's a collection of fantasy webcomics; check it out, and add your own if you produce something that qualifies..
NOVEMBER 21, 2005
Voting Reward: Another sneak preview of an upcoming character. (Actually, this one previously made a very brief appearence in-strip...) Also, I added the gnolls Sina and Shona to the cast page. If you think anyone deserves a spot there, let me know.
NOVEMBER 11, 2005
Voting Reward: Remember The Vets
NOVEMBER 7, 2005
I'm having on-going Internet-connection problems, so if the strip goes dark for a couple of days, that's what happened...
NOVEMBER 3, 2005
Voting Reward: random mousage
OCTOBER 31, 2005
Halloween related notes: If you're reading this after today, I did a character-costume cross-over with Tim Volpe of Alternate Delusions. It's a excellent comic; check it out. And there's also an extra Halloween voting reward with Mr. Tree.
Non-Halloween related note: Since Tagboard found a way to sneak highly annoying pop-up ads past Firefox's blockers, I'm trying out a new service, Saybox. Dunno if it'll be any better, but it is nicely customizable. Thanx to Legostar Galactica for bringing it to my attention.
OCTOBER 20, 2005
Voting Reward: A new and possibly improved version of the "future MoE girl" I posted a couple rewards back, along with another lady who has already made a brief cameo appearence, and will also return someday. (As noted on the Tagboard, they are definitely not the same person, and I've made an effort to better distinguish them..)
OCTOBER 19, 2005
Voting Reward: A drawing of a couple of MoE characters who will eventually re-appear...
OCTOBER 12, 2005
Voting Reward: As you can probably tell, we've moved onto another plot-thread, but for those who need one last Camora and/or Rosemary fix, click here to see, depicted in color, a small gag that either got discarded because I couldn't find a good place to wedge it into the plot, OR a sneak-preview of an upcoming gag! You'll know which it is when I do. Also, keep the faith; when we eventually get back Rosemary/Camora/Whathisface, I will finally make an effort to present something resembling an overview of current basement society. Even as, perhaps, it changes forever..
And if anyone cares, I've officially declared that after two+ years, "Part One" of this strip is finally over, and it's time to move on to Part Two. (Which will probably be quite a bit shorter..) But honestly, unless you regularly use the storyline dropdown, located above, you probably won't notice much difference.
OCTOBER 5, 2005
Voting Reward: See another MoE character super-advance sneak-preview, OR get a link to a page that shows all of the Early Hour strips, OR see a girl who, unlike Rosemary, is willing to show a little skin.
OCTOBER 3, 2005
Voting Reward: Happy Autumn.
SEPTEMBER 28, 2005
Voting Reward: For those who want a clearer picture of the geographical situation which Rosemary and Sylvester were recently discussing, vote here to see an 85% official and completed map of the region in question. As an added incentive, there are also few extra details that haven't yet been mentioned in the comic proper. The Mansion of E is not on the map, but is a long ways to the east, or off the right edge. You'll perhaps also note that part of the unfinished 15% is that I didn't label every single little town on the map. I figured that at this stage most people wouldn't care. If you do care, now is your chance to offer some suggestions..
SEPTEMBER 27, 2005
Voting Reward: The Mansion of E: The Early Hours The Final Chapter.
Also, my fellow ComicGenesiser NoemZ is celebrating the fourth birthday of her great webcomic Zeera the Space Pirate, which chronicles the ongoing adventures of this youngish Amazon who.. well, she dearly wants to call herself a space pirate, and who am I to argue? In celebration of the happy event, I sent over some fan-art. Check it out!
SEPTEMBER 19, 2005
Voting Reward: We revisit three notorious scallywags with even more Talk Like A Pirate Day!!
SEPTEMBER 18, 2005
Voting Reward: The Mansion of E: The Early Hours Part Nine.
SEPTEMBER 14, 2005
As noted down below in the temporarily-reactivated newsbox, a webcomic "telethon" is being held today for victims of Hurricane Katrina, with an all-new comic posted every twenty minutes or so. I didn't contribute anything, but I still urge you to visit and if possible make a donation.
SEPTEMBER 9, 2005
Voting Reward: The Mansion of E: The Early Hours Part Eight. Part Seven.
SEPTEMBER 5, 2005
Voting Reward: HAPPY LABOR DAY.
SEPTEMBER 3, 2005
Since this will be fairly lengthy, I'll post my comments about The Tree here instead of over on the Tagboard. First of all, I freely admit, I am a scientific and mathematical ignoramus. So.. if at the end of the day, I create something that is just physically impossible... (ie, how can Gobules possibly survive when they are just a mouth and a pair of legs!?) I can only fall back on the deep wisdom of Lucy Lawless: "A wizard did it."
That said, I do try and apply what few facts I know to the strip. In regards to The Tree: It is immobile and has a trunk-like structure capped with bunches of things which look an awful lot like leaves. It produces oxygen and moderately eatable "fruit". So the Mansion inhabitants quite naturally started calling it "The Tree". None of this means that it literally is a tree. It also doesn't mean that its only power-source is the sun. And remember, this thing is a deliberately-constructed artifact, brought into being by an expert botanist and plant-breeder at the very height of his power and skill. You might even say he was a wizard when it came to plants.
And I actually do have a tentative explanation for how Gobules survive, that I might get around to detailing some year..
SEPTEMBER 2, 2005
Voting Reward: Part Seven of MoE:TEH. Part Six.
Also, it's been brought to my attention on the Forum that I may have a slight site-design problem, so I ask everyone else; can you see a faint pattern in the background of this page, or is it just solid blue? And what browser are you using?
AUGUST 31, 2005
As noted above, the real-world news is grim. Here in cyberspace, the terrific Lego-based Comic Genesis strip Legostar Galactica is celebrating a birthday this week, so I sent him some fan-art, which has been posted today. Check it out.
AUGUST 25, 2005
Voting Reward: A brief break from The Early Hours to mark the end of SUMMER.
AUGUST 22, 2005
Voting Reward: Assuming that Comic Genesis is back online.. Part Six of MoE:TEH. Note that this is also about as close to a Rosemary 'fan-service' pic as we're ever likely to get, so enjoy it while you can. Part Five. Part Four.
AUGUST 20, 2005
Those Destined is an enjoyable webcomic about the fantasy adventures of a young.. um.. woman.. whose life and general outlook bear certain resemblances to Rosemary's. The strip's creator Hayley Price put out a call on the Comicgen forum for fan-art, so I sent her a piece, which you can view today.
AUGUST 17, 2005
As noted on the Forum, the Comics Genesis people have enabled a user-powered "Wiki" enclopedia-type system for their many offerings. If you want to contribute some information about the MoE, it now has an entry located here. Here's your chance to defame my work in public! Thanks to Tom for setting up the "stub".
AUGUST 12, 2005
Voting Reward: Part five of MoE: The Early Hours. Part Four. Part Three.
As you may have noticed, in the last couple of these, I've tried out a new font for the human characters. I may start using it out in the "main" strip. If you have a violent objection, now is the time to express it.
AUGUST 11, 2005
As you can hopefully tell, I've started uploading the new version of the website. Please bear with me, as there are bound to be a few glitches along the way. If an old title crops up in a strange place, try reloading the page.
AUGUST 4, 2005
Voting reward: Part four of MoE: The Early Hours.
Part Three. Part Two. Part One is not currently available. You had your chance to see it!!
Also, I'm preparing to debut a new look for the website. If all goes well, it will use a feature called Cascading Style Sheets, which allow me much greater control over the appearance of the site; if you've got an up-to-date webbrowser, it should all work automagically. If you don't.. the site will still work, but it won't look very purty. Now's the time to update.
AUGUST 1, 2005
The Buzzcomix webcomic-voting-and-ranking list has revived after months of technical problems. I don't know if I really want to have three voting lists running, but since the creator of Buzzcomix went to so much trouble to bring it back, I'll post it at least for a little while. If you missed Part One of Moe: TEH, you can now see it at Buzzcomix.
JULY 31, 2005
Voting reward: Part three of MoE: The Early Hours.
Since the tagboard has been non-functional for a few days, I've deactivated it for a while. If you really need to tell me something, there's the Forum.
JULY 26, 2005
Voting reward: Part two of MoE: The Early Hours
Also, the storyline dropdown is broken. It's a system-wide problem, and will get fixed.. when it gets fixed.
JULY 23, 2005
As threatened a while back, the name of my hosting service has changed. It is now Comic Genesis. Bleh. I liked Keenspace better, but this decision is not subject to appeal, and the decor in the Mansion's many rooms has thus been updated to reflect the new reality. If you're still coming via mansionofe.keenspace.com, the address will continue to work.. for now. I strongly advise switching to either http://www.mansionofe.com or http://mansionofe.comicgen.com. (And yes, while "comicgenesis" will also work, "comicgen" is now the official sitename.)
I think I fixed everything, but if you find any broken images or links, please let me know.
JULY 21, 2005
Voting Reward: There are countless minor plot tweaks I would make if I ever had to start over with the MoE. Most can't be fixed now, but here's one which I can correct. I didn't make it clear enough that an entire night passes between the action of this comic and the next. So the next couple/three voting rewards will show what maybe I could or should have put in there. Vote now, and learn the Big Important Secrets of MoE: The Early Hours! Really! Would I lie to you?
JULY 16, 2005
Voting reward: Hooray for me!
JULY 12, 2005
Voting reward: For those who have been following the "Threnody" discussion on the Tagboard, here's a peek at how I currently envision the MoE character with that name. This image may change, a lot, before she actually appears in the strip, and it will probably be quite a while before she does turn up. I won't offer any more spoilers about her or her companion in the picture, but I imagine you can make some informed guesses..
And for any who are curious, I first came across the name because it is also a "real" word, meaning "a lament for the dead". It was featured on the Word-A-Day e-mail list, a place from which I have swiped a whole bunch of my character names, and which comes highly recommended.
JULY 9, 2005
Voting reward: A funny gag cartoon. You'll laff!
JULY 4, 2005
HAPPY (American) INDEPENDENCE DAY.
Assuming all goes well, this strip will reach its second birthday a little later this month. Thanks muchly to everyone who has stuck with me this long. If there are any artists out there who'd like to help celebrate, now would be a good time to send guest art and such. If you want.
JULY 2, 2005
Voting reward: My drawing program, Paint Shop Pro, has a "kaleidoscope" function which you can apply to pictures. I enjoy messing around with it, and here's a sample of some of the results.
JUNE 29, 2005
I didn't get around to posting it at the time, but if anyone really needs to see it..
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY.
JUNE 22, 2005
Voting reward: The latest challenge on the Keenspace Forums was to draw one of my characters "being cool". This was a bit of a challange, because most of my characters are biologically incapable of this. (Even Rosemary.) So I finally settled on the only one who even remotely qualified.
JUNE 18, 2005
Voting reward: Another character sketch, although I don't know exactly when this individual will officially resurface in the strip.
Also.. School Spirit is a Keenspace comic which celebrated a birthday this week. It's a gentle and peaceful strip about the day-to-day adventures of some schoolkids in rural Australia (along with their new friend, the titular spirit), and thus may not have much crossover appeal with my bloody and chaotic work. Nevertheless, I enjoy reading it, so I sent the authors some fan-art. Congrats, mates!
JUNE 14, 2005
JUNE 13, 2005
The Noob is a great webcomic about the misadventures of a terminal "newbie" who is attempting to play an online fantasy game called ClicheQuest. (It's funny even if you have no idea what I'm talking about!) It recently celebrated a birthday, so I contributed some fanart, which can be found on The Noob's guest art page.
JUNE 12, 2005
Voting reward: A reminder/spoiler about a couple of characters whom have been out of the picture for quite some time now, but just might be resurfacing before too long. It's also an example of my new efforts at shading my work. (Coming to the main comic on Monday..) Tell me if you think it's an improvement!
JUNE 8, 2005
Voting reward: there was a challenge issued on the Keenspace forums to draw your female character in a sexy pose. I personally had no moral objections, but Rosemary threatened to beat me up if I used her, so I had to enlist a substitute.
JUNE 7, 2005
Some time in the next few weeks/months Keenspace is officially changing its name to.. something else. I'm not going into the whys and wherefores, cuz it's long and sordid. What matters is, I have decided to take advantage of this time of upheaval, and have sprung for an internet domain name for the MoE. After a shaky start, it now appears to be operating correctly. So, you can come here via this address:
..And use it for links. I'm still being hosted by The Website Formally Known As Keenspace, and if you want to use mansionofe.whateverthenewnameturnsouttobe.com, it will work; all that www.mansionofe.com does is automagically transfer any user of it to here. But if I ever do depart TWFKAK, the new address will be redirected to the strip's new location. So I suggest that you switch now and be prepared!
JUNE 5, 2005
Got my computer problems sorted out faster than anticipated; turns out most of the damage was self-inflicted and easily repaired. Still, I'm taking one more 'day off', and will resume real strips on Monday. To help tide you over, here's some Emergency Backup Voting Art!
(Boy, is it good to have my copy of Paint Shop Pro 8 back..)
MAY 30, 2005
MAY 28, 2005
OK.. I think everything is up and running once again, and the archives are back. The Unfortunate Event, whatever it was, wiped a whole bunch of files, which had to be re-loaded.
And to answer Ascended1's comment on the tagboard.. while here I am ruler of all I survey, and Rosemary is indeed a queen, over on the Keenspace Forums I am sadly but a lowly peon, and must accept whatever scraps are tossed my way. (Well.. no. I take that back. I've moved beyond peon status. "Minion", perhaps.)
Lastly, in a shamelessly pandering attempt to get more votes, here's a voting reward featuring full frontal nudity!
MAY 27, 2005
It appears that Keenspace has suffered some sort of technical meltdown, and my archives are currently unavailable, beyond the last month or so of strips. Whatever the problem is, it's effected at least one other Keenspace strip. Hopefully by the time you read this, it's already been fixed, but if not.. Please be patient.
Over on the Keenspace Forums, some crazy fools organized a project whereby 54 Keenspace artists each contributed a drawing to be used on a playing card, leading to 54 drawings. (52 cards + 2 Jokers.) Getting a bunch of slacker webcartoonists to do something like this is much like herding cats, but amazingly enough, it worked out. The deck was finished, and assembled into a very snazzy .pdf file. (One person, now the envy of all his fellows, even printed everything out and made an actual physical deck of cards..) I'm not going to post the .pdf file here, because it's massive, but as a voting reward, here's my contribution to the project. See if you can figure out which card I was assigned, a puzzle which will stretch your intellect to the breaking point!
MAY 23, 2005
Vote to see a salesfleeb!
MAY 20, 2005
For today's voting reward, I posted a genuine bonus strip. I was going to post it out here on the main site, but then I made the decision to stick much closer to the main plotlines from now on. And I could never get it looking exactly the way I wanted. So enjoy it in bonus form.
On an entirely unrelated note.. I make an effort to avoid overt political commentary on this site, but this one's really kind of important, and the US press has pretty much ignored it. If you're an American citizen, go read this article. If you don't believe it, or don't care, fine. At least now you know about it.
MAY 17, 2005
To replace Buzzcomics, I signed up with a new webcomics voting page, Webcomics List. Vote to see a seascape of my very own design.
MAY 15, 2005
Topwebcomics had some kind of technical meltdown/makeover, and it took me a while to break back into the system. Everything seems to be working now, and I've posted a new voting reward: another character preview. Vote early, vote often. (The other voting list, Buzzcomics, is completely offline at the moment.)
Also, thanks for the kind words on the tagboard about napkins, but I feel I should point out that they were previously mentioned way back here, so it wasn't supposed to be a total surprise revelation. (Although maybe Mr. Spatchcock's reputation is just a tad overblown..) I've added the same link back a couple of days in the archive as well.
MAY 9, 2005
Some more birthday guest-art by me today, this time over at Legostar Galactica, a great scifi-themed Keenspace strip done entirely with Legos(!). My Lego collection is pretty skimpy, so I had to draw my contribution, which, as it happens, features another Giant Space Blob. If you have some irrational prejudice towards GSBs, deal with it.
MAY 8, 2005
My fellow Keenspace strip Station V3 is an excellent webcomic which has long been a source of both laughs and visitors to my own comic. He's celebrating a birthday this week, so I sent him some fan-art which gets posted today. Enjoy!
MAY 5, 2005
It appears that the report about Tom Irony's health was a hoax, and that he'll be back drawing Sandwich World soon. Hopefully this is accurate on both points.
Also, since the gauntlet was hurled in my face..
My angles are many,
My sides are not few
I'm the Rhombidodecahedron
Who are you?
MAY 4, 2005
Keenspace lets a comic-creator see a set of "logs" which collect all sorts of statistics about the number of visitor to a person's site, and where they linked in from. Looking at the Mansion's data, I see that there's a new webcomic index out there called The Belfry. Someone added the MoE to the list, and I've been getting some hits. So thanks to whoever did it, and welcome any Belfy-goers. For those who came from elsewhere and are looking for more web-comics to read, check it out.
Anything anyone'd like to see as a voting reward? I haven't felt very inspired lately.
MAY 1, 2005
APRIL 30, 2005
Jason Siebels draws the fine Keenspace comic entitled Anywhere But Here, which details the ongoing romantic travails of a luckless fellow living.. existing.. in North Dakota. As a sort of side project, every weekend the as-yet-nameless protaganist has been dating.. meeting.. various female characters from other Keenspace comics. This week it's Rosemary's turn. Check it out, but watch out for the weresnail slime.
APRIL 29, 2005
On a much sadder note, it's been reported that Tom Irony, the creator of the Keenspace comic Sandwich World, is having serious medical problems. (This is unverified, but his updates cut off so suddenly and completely it's obvious that something dramatic has happened..) If it's truly as bad as described on the SW forum, he won't be reading this, but my best wishes go out to him anyway. Get well soon, Tom, and thanks again for letting Zay visit the Mansion.
APRIL 27, 2005
It was pointed out to me that the link to the "big calendar" page in the archives didn't work. I think I've fixed the problem, for anyone who wants to use it. Also, I see that back in the archives the e-mail link has been leading to an old semi-abandoned address. If you ever want to contact me, please use geoduck42ATgmail.com.
APRIL 22, 2005
As you may or may not recall, I've previously posted some "South Park" versions of various Mansion of E characters. I just found out that the talented German lady who created the official Character Generator has posted a new and improved version on her own website. I used it to create a new voting reward: not MoE characters, but a portrait of Yours Truly. (Click! Click! You know you're curious!) Cuz I like playing with it so much, I'll probably post some more MoEers as well in a few days.
APRIL 18, 2005
Vote to see some random sea-serpentage!
APRIL 15, 2005
A couple of fine Keenspace comics are having birthdays this month, so I sent them some fanart. Check out Mindmistress, which is an excellent superheroine comic, and Angry D. Monkey, which is about.. well.. this angry monkey...
APRIL 9, 2005
Today's voting reward is another sneak peek at an upcoming character.
APRIL 2, 2005
Since I also posted it on the Keenspace Forums, here's another of my old gag cartoons as a voting reward.
APRIL 1, 2005
Click and then click again to see April Fools.
MARCH 29, 2005
Also, as I said over on the Tagboard, starting today, I hope and plan to stop with the endless digressions and follow the main characters of this strip more closely. (Although we definitely haven't seen the last of the Woman of Mystery; eventually we'll even learn her name!) Thanks to all of you who have stuck with me the past few months; your patience is appreciated.
MARCH 24, 2005
If you vote for me, you can see one of the images from the E family portrait gallery. On a completely unrelated note, for anyone who cares, the current 'hero' of the strip is called a trundlebug.
MARCH 17, 2005
MARCH 10, 2005
Since the Tagboard appears to be down for the count, I've added a section on the Forum where anyone who wishes to speak up may do so. A while back, I also posted a question there about t-shirts, if anyone has any input.
MARCH 4, 2005
I've had enough trouble keeping the comic updated lately without spending time on voting rewards, but here's another character revamp I'm working on. This may not be the exact final design, but it will be something similar to this; currently, the species in question looks too much like gnolls...
FEBRUARY 21, 2005
Also, here's one more collection of real old-time MoE strips as another voting reward. Yes, this is the order in which I originally "published" them; it made more sense after the re-boot to push back the first appearence of the Gnolls. (When I did these three strips, the gnolls were never intended to be anything more than a one-off joke...)
FEBRUARY 14, 2005
FEBRUARY 10, 2005
Wanted to take a moment to say goodbye to another Keenspace comic which is shutting down production. Hard Underbelly is/was a nicely-done Vampire Saga which I had featured on my links page. The creator decided that doing the strip is now simply a chore, and he is moving on to other things. I thank him for the excellent work he did put in on it.
Nevertheless, I am now far more ruthless about weeding out defunct comics from my links, so.. please welcome Zombie High. It's not about flesh-eating zombies rampaging through a high school; that would be far too frivolous and light-hearted. If you can stand a bit of wallowing the blackest pit of dispair, go take a look.
FEBRUARY 8, 2005
Since I posted the revised opening, I thought you all might be interested in a bit of history: The current voting reward is now the first three strips of the ORIGINAL original MoE, which I hosted on my personal website before upgrading and rebooting here on Keenspace. If you think my drawing style is crude and amateurish now...
Additionally, I wanted to plug another Keenspace comic, Legostar Galactica. Maybe "comic" isn't the right word, cuz it's all done with Legos. Really. An impressive technical achievement, along with being a very funny parody of various sci-fi franchises. Go check it out! (Now that I've fixed the link...)
FEBRUARY 4, 2005
After much thought, I have taken it upon myself to do some editing of the time-space continuum, and I have replaced two of the strips in my Archives. The first is the very first comic in the archive, where we are introduced to our semi-fearless human heroes. The orginal strip was an overt and cliched "breach the fourth wall/talk directly to the audience" gag, which I have long come to regard as a horrible mistake. I have replaced it with a set of six all-new strips, which cover the same territory and arrive at the same place in the end, but hopefully do these things with more subtlety and originally. If not, oh well. I still like them better.
The second strip to be replaced was this one, the original of which made overt reference to the aforementioned first strip, and was my first faltering attempt to paper over the self-inflicted damage. But now, finally, no more half-measures! Onward and upward! Bigger and better Tasks lie ahead!
FEBRUARY 3, 2005
JANUARY 30, 2005
I signed up with another webcomic voting service, buzzComix. If you vote, you can see my latest "Mr. Tree" drawing. In this case, it's a very belated tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.
Also, I note with sadness that J.P. Sloan has hung up his brush and stopped drawing Sawdust. It will be missed, and hope it wasn't my fanart that drove him over the edge..
JANUARY 28, 2005
The Keenspace "crossover" End-Of-The-Year Event has finally been posted. You can find it here. The Mansion folks and Orion and Laura are at Table 2, if you want to see them again...
JANUARY 27, 2005
Another voting reward which is a re-worked piece of art from my archives. At the moment, this is officially just a bit of whimsy, but it's not entirely impossible that it's a far-distant glimpse of Things To Come...
JANUARY 26, 2005
I've finally ditched the "big calendar" setup, and bashed together something resembling a real archive. Or at least a hyperlinked synopsis of the plot to date. Hopefully it will make things a little clearer if you're a newcomer, and don't want to plow through 500+ strips. If you want to see it, it's the link labelled ARCHIVE above.
JANUARY 21, 2005
As has been noted up above, the Mansion currently has a new visitor. Zay comes to us from the Keenspace comic Sandwich World. It's one of my regular reads, and details the ongoing adventures of the various workers at the titular business establishment. (They sell sandwiches. Some of the time. Sort of. When they aren't fighting mutant onions, power-mad Overlords, or each other.) When SW creator Tom Irony sent Zay off dimension-hopping, he was kind enough to offer the rest of us Keenspacers a chance to use the character, and I took him up on it. For the record, I am the sole writer of this storyline, but Tom was given a rough outline of what's going to happen, and he approved it. Any other SW readers stopping by, I hope you'll recognize the Zay you've grown to know and... um.. know.
One of Zay's previous stops was here, in yet another Keenspace comic, J-Walkin'.
JANUARY 15, 2005
Thanks to everyone for the feedback; despite all the "no problems here" comments, Firefox does sometimes do odd things with the HTML "Object" command, so I tweaked the code a bit. We'll see if that makes things better or worse.
In other news, I scrounged around in my archives again and came up with a new voting reward which is an overhead view of a vast and mysterious Complex. Or maybe it's just an interesting abstract pattern; you'll just have to look at it and decide for yourself.
JANUARY 14, 2005
A site-visitor who uses Firefox as his webbrowser says that the coding I use to post these notes is causes his system to spit out error messages. Is anyone else having problems?
JANUARY 6, 2005
Here's another voting reward which is a preview of a soon-to-appear character. This individual's name has been mentioned a time or two, but he hasn't appeared on-screen until now. Can you figure out who he is? (It shouldn't be that hard...)
JANUARY 5, 2005
I joined a "Secret Santa" comic-swap this Christmas just past. Sadly, my assigned Santa turned out to be Grinchly McScrooge, but here's a belated link to my target, the wonderfully-drawn Keenspace comic 8:1. I felt like I was committing sacrilege trying to draw Duffy's characters, but my specific contribution is here. Another Secret Santa participent who didn't get any art was AlexBeaZoe, a fun strip about three female friends/roommates and their slightly skewed world of elderly cookie thieves, mullets and turkeys. I felt Ms. Neuharth's pain, so I drew something for her as well, and it can be found on her fanart page.
And one that got posted without my noticing was my contribution to the birthday celebration for Keenspace's It's The End Of The World. The title is pretty much self-descriptive, if a bit understated.
Last of all, thanxs to Tropylium for the recent flood of Forum posts. If you don't visit the Forum, stop by sometime! I tell things there sometimes! Secret things!
JANUARY 1, 2005
Happy New Year, and thanks again to Will for the great guest art.
OK, this voting reward will take a little explanation. A few years back, I created a Christmas card featuring a picture I drew of a rather funky-looking "Christmas tree". As the year progressed, on a Usenet group I visit, I started changing and reposting the picture to the group every time a new holiday rolled around. Finally, a new year came and I moved on to other things. However, the drawings evidently struck a chord with some folks, because to this day I occasionally get comments along the lines of "whatever happened to Mister Tree?" So. Fine. Here he is, Son of Mister Tree. Maybe I'll even find a way to work him into the comic at some point..
DECEMBER 31, 2004
500 strips. Woo hoo!
DECEMBER 29, 2004
J. P. Sloan is the Keenspacer who draws the strip Sawdust. He hasn't been able to update recently, so I did some Christmas fanart to tide him over. He does a good strip; go read it. Do it now!!DECEMBER 27, 2004
The new voting reward is another character revamp, this time featuring an individual who will appear, along with a Special Guest Star, in a short plot-arc that will begin as soon as I can get this whole Nome War business wrapped up. (Not sure how much longer that will take, but I'll try and move it along; my visitor hit totals have plunged this month, so I'm guessing it hasn't been too popular.)DECEMBER 26, 2004
Happy Boxing Day. Hope you got everything you wanted yesterday, and ate too much good food.Deus Ex Magica is a fine Keenspace strip about the adventures of an as-yet-nameless hero who seeks to become a mage. The author asked for guest strips on the Keenspace Forums, so I did one for him.
DECEMBER 23, 2004
Keenspacer Corgane Dane, creator of the skeletoncentric Many Tidings Grim, has put together this spiffy Christmas tree, where each of the ornaments and presents was supplied by a different Keenspace artist. My ornament is up there somewhere; see if you can find it!DECEMBER 22, 2004
I've been on a fanart kick this holiday season; the first to see the light of day is now on display over at Thatguy, a Keenspace comic about the odd adventures of the titular character (yes, that's really his name), his comic-crazed girlfriend, a proudly undead Egyptian pharoah, and now, an animated plastic statue of a certain not-so-renowned comic book hero. Check it out!DECEMBER 20, 2004
Season's GreetingsDECEMBER 18, 2004
Thanks to my fellow Keenspacer Warren, I now have a Google "Gmail" account to experiment with. Hotmail's been having server overloads on a regular basis this last month or so, and I'll be glad to try something new; we'll see if this works. Drop me a line here if you've got anything to say. Don't forget to change the AT to a you-know-what.DECEMBER 12, 2004
I've put up a new voting reward, which might be a tropical relative of a Jibjib bird. Or maybe just a random Dr. Suess homage. Click here to see a list of all past voting rewards.DECEMBER 11, 2004
My fellow Keenspacer Bob Oosterwijk is the creator of a funny and well drawn SciFi parody entitled Star Bored. While his strip is between "acts", he went and drew pictures of 99, count 'em, 99 Keenspace Forums denizens, or at least drawings of the "avatar" that each of the 99 uses on the Forums. As a result, a lot of the comments are Forum in-jokes, but each picture is a link to a fine Keenspace comic. (Well, most of them; not all Forumites actually draw comics...) If you see someone who sounds interesting, check out their work! And thanks muchly to Bob for doing this!
Oh. Right. You need the link. Go here. Do it now!
DECEMBER 8, 2004
We've reached a point in the story where I have to make some decisions about just how much violence I'm going to openly display, both in the "story" that's about to be told, and back underground. So I'll ask; any readers have strong opinions one way or the other about it? While I liked Ymmot's guest comic, for example, it was quite gorey, and I've done a beheading and some deaths by fire. I'm all for artistic freedom, but I don't want to send my audience screaming for the exits, either. More people are going be dying in the Mansion of E, and it's a decision that has to be made. There's a topic in the Forum, or you can post on the Tagboard, if you have anything to say.DECEMBER 6, 2004
BUSTED2 I recieved a request to see a list of all the old voting rewards, so I decided to be sadistic. If you vote, you can get the address where they are now on display. Eventually I'll post an open link, but here's your chance to be ahead of the curve.NOVEMBER 30, 2004
I think I need to do some character redesigns, so for a voting reward, here's a new version of one character who has put in a brief appearence in the strip.NOVEMBER 29, 2004
I decided to give the Tagboard one more try; we'll see how long it goes before crashing this time. Also removed the Keendom Dungeons link. They never added my comic to the list, and the graphic was broken.NOVEMBER 28, 2004
While paging through my Keenspace-generated list of link-sources for the past month, I discovered that I had reached another small milestone with the MoE: someone liked my comic enough to not only link to it, but to write a (mostly) positive review as well. Doesn't get any better than that, so check it out here. Also, the author, RHJunior, has his own Keenspace comic, Tales of the Questor, an inventive fantasy about the adventures of a young anthropomorphic racoon.NOVEMBER 25, 2004
Happy stuff-your-face day, and welcome to holiday season! If you'd like a larger (and cleaner-looking) wallpaper-version of today's drawing for your computer, I've posted a couple of .bmps at the bottom of the art page. (The link is above with the rest of them.)NOVEMBER 23, 2004
Over on the forums, Axonite requested a voting reward showing Mortimer's favorite TV show, so here it is. Sort of. Most people in the world of the MoE don't have televisions, much less favorite television shows, so I made do with the next best thing. And this is a plot point that I was going to bring up eventually in the strip proper, so if you vote you get to see a sort of sneak preview!
NOVEMBER 20, 2004
I signed up MoE with OnlineComics.Net, which is a massive listing of... well, you can probably figure it out. If you're looking for more comic goodness, check them out. And while you're there, tell everyone how much you love me!
NOVEMBER 18, 2004
Today's voting reward is a celebration of the season. Also, if you have a burning need to communicate with me in public, I've added a new thread to the Forum.
NOVEMBER 17, 2004
Since the tagboard is having continual technical problems, and hardly anyone was using it anyway, I've taken it off-line. I may bring it back at some point.
NOVEMBER 13, 2004
If you vote for the MoE, you can see the Contemplative Skeleton. Whatta deal!!NOVEMBER 6, 2004
For a voting reward, a little random spriteage. For those interested in the artistic process, I actually created the wings while experimenting with Paint Shop Pro, then decided that they should be attached to something.
Also, Rosemary's sword fight continues over at Swords Are Cool. Looks like she's going down for the count, (that's generally what happens to you when you're foolish enough to go fight characters in their own comic) but at least she earned a high-profile cameo on the new SAC ad banner...
NOVEMBER 5, 2004
Forgot to mention, that I contributed a drawing to the Halloween edition of The Losers, a Keenspace comic about some losers. (But it's "Geoduck", not "Goeduck".)
NOVEMBER 2, 2004
To all my fellow Americans: Why are you reading this, when you should be out voting?
OCTOBER 31, 2004
Yes, it is indeed Halloween. Booray! In honor of the day (or is that night?), several of us Keenspace guys and ghouls pulled ourselves together and conjured up a trip through a horrifically haunted mansion-not-of-E, with each artist depicting one of the morbid or macabre rooms in the house. If you think you've got enough guts to take the tour, start HERE, where you will meet your charming and defrightful Guide. Where the tour ends... well, I guess we'll see, won't we? Particular thanks go to Jorge Hernandez, the creator of Teo And Sara, for all his spooktacular work on the project! (MUAHAHA! BAD HALLOWEEN PUNS! MAYBE THE MOST SCARY THING OF ALL!!!)
OCTOBER 29, 2004
For a new voting reward, a little seasonal reminder..
OCTOBER 26, 2004
Duk vs. Chiken is a Keenspace comic about an epic ongoing battle between.. um... a duck and a chicken. The creator asked people to draw a guest strip for him, so I did. (If you don't know what nanobots are, well, you're just not geeky enough to hang out with me. Sorry.)
OCTOBER 21, 2004
As Brockway says on the Tagboard, over at the Keenspace comic Swords Are Cool, the "hometown" characters are currently competing in a big sword-fighting tournament. Characters from other Keenspace comics were invited to hop over and join in on the fun, and Rosemary was the obvious choice from MoE. Her cameo is this week, so go cheer her on!
Also, the final days of the baseball season inspired me to pull this sports-related voting reward from my archives. If you're interested in the creative process, I drew this one in pen and ink before scanning it in for processing, unlike the main strip which is entirely computer-generated.
OCTOBER 16, 2004
As you may or may not remember, a while back the Mansion had a guest appearence by the Amorphous Ball of Light from Ryan Kolter's Keenspace strip Reasoned Cognition. (OK, OK, it wasn't the same ABOL; the one in Ryan's strip is much smarter..) This visit was partially inspired by a request from Ryan on the Keenspace Forums for a depiction from other artists of said ABOL. I contributed such a sketch; if you want to see the complete gallery, go here. And check out the rest of Reasoned Cognition as well; it's fun and informative!
OCTOBER 11, 2004
Here's another male-sexist-pig voting reward. And no, despite the headgear she is wearing, the depicted individual is definitely not Rosemary. Additionally, she has not appeared in the actual strip, and I have no current plans to add her. (Utterly gratuitous male-sexist-pig art! The best kind!)
OCTOBER 9, 2004
The situation I referred to in my last post appears to be improving. (Short story: Close relative. Medical problems.) So hopefully the tooning here will continue unabated.
In happier news, I've joined a new "dropdown": Keendom Dungeons. The link should appear below. If you're looking for more fantasy webcomics, it's one place to definitely check out.
OCTOBER 7, 2004
Some personal problems have come up, and there may or may not be interruptions in the strip for a while. If I miss a day or two, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth.
OCTOBER 2, 2004
Keeping with the theme of the last rant, a new voting reward
SEPTEMBER 30, 2004
This Keenspacer put out a general request for fan art. So I drew him some.
On a completely unrelated subject.. I try to refrain from overt politiking on this site, but I wanted to take this opportunity to get up on my little soapbox and send a message to my fellow Americans of voting age. As you have hopefully noticed, there's presidential election coming up shortly, and it's the most important one we've had in at least 30 years. We've got to make some very fundamental decisions about the direction this country is going to take, and if Florida 2000 taught us anything, it's that sometimes every last stinking vote does indeed count. So. If you're not registered to vote, you're running out of time. Do it. Register, and on election day, get out and vote for the candidate of your choice. Or if your nose is chained too throughly to the grindstone, send in an absentee ballot.
And while I have very definite opinions on the election, I'm not going to turn this into a flame-war by saying who I'm voting for. If you've got time to read this webcomic, you've got time to do a little political research, and make up your own mind. Here are high-profile Republican and Democratic websites for you to visit.
SEPTEMBER 29, 2004
To my shame, I've previously neglected to plug The Webcomic List, a wonderful service that no only lists lots of webcomics, but tells you when they last updated. Check it out, and be sure to cast your votes in their current contest. Of course you're going to vote for me in every last catagory, but to be all technical and nitpicky, you can choose any comic on the list.
SEPTEMBER 24, 2004
A couple of days late for the actual strip #400, but here's a voting reward that depicts how it sometimes feels churning this stuff out on a daily basis...
SEPTEMBER 21, 2004
As noted on the Tagboard, I have some third-birthday guest art up this week at NoemZ's Zeera The Space Pirate. The excellent comic follows the life and adventures of.. well.. a young space pirate. Really. She'll get around to that pirating any day now, you'll see!!
Also, I forgot to mention that it turns out Comshaw is still waiting for his bones and cobwebs over at Decypher. (It appears that Camora's crabbiness is finally rubbing off on him..)
And as you may or may not have noticed, I've added a new link up above. I've bashed together a collection of art links: art other Keenspacers have sent me or done using MoE characters, and art I've given in return. Now you can see the Complete Collection! Disclaimer: Collection may or may not be complete.
SEPTEMBER 19, 2004
Yes, today is Talk Like A Pirate Day. In the interest of fairness and balance, here's a new voting reward which honors the pirate's most ancient and intractable enemy...
SEPTEMBER 16, 2004
Yes, today's comic really only has two panels. I could have padded it out to four, but the dialogue didn't need it.
SEPTEMBER 14, 2004
Thanks to those three Keenspacers who let me use their characters this week.
Also, J.P. Sloan draws the fine Keenspace comic Sawdust, which details the lives of the various employees of a rather disfunctional Lousiana sawmill. He put out a general request for some fan-art, and said that he wanted porn. So I drew him some porn. So if whoever is paying for your computer doesn't like porn, then for goshsakes' don't go look at the porn.
SEPTEMBER 7, 2004
Over on the Keenspace Forums, another Keenspacer came up with the idea of depicting what it might look like if a person were to put out an "Official Soundtrack" CD for their webcomic. As a voting reward, here's my effort. A collection of songs I enjoy which are appropriate for the Mansion, or maybe even inspired it a little..
I'm closing in on 400 cartoons. As I say over on my own forum, I need to come up with something for the occasion.
AUGUST 31, 2004
Latest voting reward: an attempt at actual art which I dug out of my archives. Maybe this scene takes place somewhere in the Mansionverse, and maybe it doesn't..
And thanks again to NJ for the guest art.
AUGUST 24, 2004
I contributed a guest strip this week to fellow Keenspacer Philosophy Bites, an amusing strip about three kids trying to survive their high-school years. (Well... maybe in the case of Ress, the school's trying to survive her...) My strip was posted on Monday, and is an in-joke about the sadly long-defunct computer game company Infocom. If you've never played one of their "text adventure" games, you're missing out! (And read PB, too!)
AUGUST 19, 2004
A new voting reward: something really really scary..
AUGUST 15, 2004
I don't know how many female readers this strip has, but after the last voting reward, it seems only fair to give them equal time. So, this one's for the ladies!
AUGUST 9, 2004
Posted a new voting reward today. It hopefully appeals to certain base instincts among heterosexual males! check it out!
AUGUST 6, 2004
To round out our unofficial "crossover week" here at MoE, I contributed the art (but not the plot or dialogue) for today's installment of Emergency Exit. It's a Keenspace comic for which I feel a certain kinship, being about a bunch of weirdos who live in a very strange apartment building. :-) I am particularly happy with my work on this guest strip, so check it out. And the rest of Emergency Exit, too.
Also, if you page back a couple of days on Loxie & Zoot (link below, with the DISCLAIMER), you can see the "big three" of the Gnolls attending the pool party. And no, Gnolls aren't normally blue. Only when they get sunburned...
AUGUST 4, 2004
The Mansion's humans cameoed in Loxie & Zoot yesterday, if you want to see them in all their glory. I was quite happy with Stephen's take on the characters, but for anyone out there considering a future MoE crossover, please note that Mortimer has blonde hair. Of course, those trips through dimentional portals can really mess you up...
Another Keenspace strip celebrating a birthday this week, another guest comic from me. This time it's Digital War. The strip is always good stuff, and War will just have to hurt you if you don't look at it, so go now! Despite what it says at the top of the screen over there, there's no nudity this time. Just a few bloodstains.
Annnd... I re-did a couple of my MoE link-banners, after it was tastefully hinted that the originals were possibly lacking pizzazz. If you want to use them or update your links, they can be found at the bottom of the Links page.
AUGUST 2, 2004
The Keenspace strip Loxie & Zoot is celebrating a birthday this week, and I contributed a picture of Camora the Gnoll for the fan-art section. Also, lots of other Keenspace folks are stopping by the "main strip" for a celebratory visit, including (possibly) some familiar faces from the Mansion. Before joining the festivities, please be aware that L&Z is a cheerful light-hearted romp set at an Australian
NUDIST COLONY
and thus the strip features
FULL FRONTAL NUDITY.
If this bothers you, turn back now. If not, check it out
here.
JULY 29, 2004
Uploaded a new voting reward which is my little tribute to the big events in Boston and New York this year...
JULY 27, 2004
As noted on the Tagboard, the creator of the Keenspace strip A.L. asked over on the Keenspace Forums for guest characters/creatures from other strips to appear in a flashback sequence, and I offered the use of any of my various Mansion species. The result is a brief appearence by the science fiction version of a Ghast. Check it out; it's always fascinating to see how other people interpret and draw your creations..
JULY 23, 2004
Alternate Delusions is an enjoyable Keenspace comic which is worth checking out. Additionally, the author of the strip had the amusing idea of using this little online toy to show on his cast page what his characters would look like if they were to appear on the animated TV program South Park. So I blatently swiped the idea for the latest voting reward here on my own page. Vote, and you can see what the South Park versions of Rosemary, Sylvester and Mortimer might conceivably look like. Or as close as I could get, at least. For some strange reason they didn't include Valkyrie mining helmets among the possible options, a truly unforgivable oversight. (And oddly, Rosemary looked far more like Rosemary when I used the "straight" option instead of "curly" when it came to choosing her hair...)
All South Park stuff is copyright Comedy Central.
JULY 21, 2004
Adrian Ramos, creator of the Keenspot comic Count Your Sheep says that he (I assume "he") is having severe financial difficulties. I don't have any spare money myself to give away, but since CYS has been "Spotted" as opposed to "Spaced" it does bring in a little money to its creator if enough people visit and eyeball the ads. So, please take a second and check it out if you haven't already done so. It's for a good cause, and it's another very good strip that's worth reading.
JULY 20, 2004
Grace Smith, creator of the Keenspace comic Because Of Math Class, has set up a superfuntime event where various Keenspacers send in a snapshot of their character(s) enjoying summertime activities. I've contributed a shot of my human characters at the beach; see it and all the other cool (or hot..) pics here. And check out Grace's comic as well; it's a good read.
JULY 16, 2004
This is my one-year anniversary here on Keenspace. Yay. In honor of that, there's a new voting reward up.
JULY 15, 2004
Fellow Keenspacer "Phact0rri" does a fine weekly comic called Decypher. The strip is centered around a coffee shop which features rather atypical individuals on both sides of the counter; this week's visitor happens to be Comshaw the gnoll. Check it out! Just for the record, I contributed nothing to the strip exccept offering Comshaw as a possible guest, so please direct all praise and adulation towards Phact0rri.
Well... OK... I'll skim off 10%.
JULY 13, 2004
Before the Mansion chewed up all my drawing time, I used to do one-shot gag cartoons and post them on my site. Vote for me, and you can see one of them!!
JULY 8, 2004
Another long-winded answer to a Tagboard comment. The font that the little critters are using in this week's strips is "their" font, not one that every character is going to start using. However, I am about to change the fonts used by several of the species in the strip; one font which I will stop using is "Agatha". This is what Comshaw and the other Gnolls, along with too many other species, have been using. I really like Agatha's moderately-old-time ambience, but it is hard to read at small sizes, and that's after I've been tediously cleaning it up. (If I was rolling in cash, I'd have hired a font-maker to come up with a simplified version for me...) Picking most of the new fonts wasn't too hard, but I had a terrible time finding a "Gnoll-font" that was 1) free, 2) more readable and 3) seemed appropriate. Fortunately, I think I've finally found one that will do. (Maybe. Possibly..) I also believe I now have a separate and unique font assigned to all the major species who talk or who are at least sentient. I threatened to change the humans' font a while back, but it is not one of the ones that is changing.
JUNE 30, 2004
I'm sorry to see that the creator of the Keenspace comic Squaresville has hung up his pen and moved on to new pursuits. The strip will be missed.
In happier news, I posted a new voting-reward drawing. I don't know how universally understood the joke might be, but it's one of Sylvester's few interesting talents...
JUNE 22, 2004
While I can't keep up with Axonite's blistering pace, I did post a new reward pic for you voters.
JUNE 16, 2004
I've added a TWC voting button down below the Tagboard; if you've enjoyed your visit to the Mansion, please consider giving it a click. (And check out all the other cool comics that TWC lists!) I probably don't have all the kinks worked out yet, so forgive any irregularities. If all works as it is supposed to, you'll get to see a small pic as a reward for voting for me. You can vote every day; I'll try to update the reward once in a while...
JUNE 15, 2004
I contributed a guest comic today to Roland Lowery's Role of the Die, a fun strip about the ongoing Wacky Hijinks of a group of RPGers. His massive popularity is such that he is able to post a guest strip every single day this week, so by the time you read this, you may have to page back a day or two (or three or four) to see mine...
JUNE 14, 2004
Well, here we are at #300. Yay. The rest of this week is semi-slacking, as the report is given. (I suppose any visitor who has been around a while can tell who one of the speakers is, but there is a reason besides Atmosphere and Artistic Laziness why they aren't turning on the lights...) Thanks to Axonite, who made a Forum suggestion which I used in doing this.
JUNE 7, 2004
"Zwit" asked over on the Tagboard if there's some way to vote for getting this strip moved onto Keenspot, where I'd actually get paid a little money for doing it. Rather than clutter things up there with my long-winded answer, I'll post it here instead. The short answer is, no. The way to get onto Keenspot is to become popular enough, get enough visitor eyeballs looking at that banner ad at the top of the screen, that they invite you to join the elite. I gather even then it's not a sure thing, since at least one very popular Keenspace strip, Ghastly's Ghastly Comic, has been kept off the Spot because some of the established Spotters objected to its (admittedly very adult) content. At least, that's Ghastly's side of the story. GGC can be found here, but remember, you were warned...
That problem aside... While I've been steadily gaining more new visitors every month, The Mansion of E is still not nearly popular enough to even be considered for a Keenspot promotion. So, if you want to see me Spotted, the best way to do it is to get your friends, neighbors and relations to visit the strip. Tell them how wonderful it is. Tell them it will put hair on their chest. Threaten them with- well, no. Let's stick with the hairy chests.
There are various "top webcomic 100" sites out there where you can vote for this or any other strip that strikes your fancy, giving them more publicity and hopefully bringing in those aforementioned eyeballs. I've held off posting links to them until now, because it's generally considered to be in bad taste to make such demands until you've got a regular viewership built up. If no one objects too loudly, I'll look into adding something during my "300 break week". One place where people have already been voting for me (yay!) is the Keenspace All-Stars.
JUNE 5, 2004
As you may or may not have noticed, I'm inching up on the "300 strips" milestone. After spending far too much time lately teetering on the brink of the catastrophy curve, I'm going to use the moment to try and gain a little breathing space in my buffer of unposted strips. I'm not going on complete hiatus, but one way or the other, after 300, I'm going to simplify my posting schedule for a week or so. (More details as the time arrives.)
Also, if you want to send fan-art, now's the time to do it!
MAY 25, 2004
I just wanted to note that of all the times that I've now drawn Rosemary, the last panel for today's strip is the closest I've yet come to getting her "right", the way she appears in my mind. Maybe there is something to this whole concept of "practice".
Also, before I forget, a note of thanks to Rodrigo Pin of Alex and Ilia, for creating the Newsbox graphic which I swiped and used below. Rodrigo also created the new look for the Keenspace front page, and it looks pretty spiffy. He draws a good comic as well. Check it out.
MAY 15, 2004
I contributed some fan-art to the super-keen strip Station V3. Check it out..
MAY 5, 2004
As my note for the 5/5/04 comic says, some of my fellow internet artists have gotten all organized and declared that day to be Online Comics Day, a chance for us web-cartoonists to promote ourselves and our craft. It's a good cause, so even if it's no longer May 5 when you read this, go check 'em out!
MAY 3, 2004
I've reached a point in the strip where I'm willing and able make some production changes, particularly in the area of the fonts I use for character dialogue. The human characters currently use one called Comics Sans MS, which many netizens hate with a fiery burning passion. Unless I get a huge uproar, in a couple of weeks I'll switch to one named SF Cartoonist Hand. I've posted samples of both in the Forum; check 'em out, and if you have a strong opinion one way or the other, please let me know there, or over on the Tag Board. And if you don't like/can't read any of the species' assigned fonts, now's your chance to speak up; I'm probably going to change one or two of them as well.
APRIL 17, 2004
As noted above, today you get some spiffy guest art. "The Loser Hero" did a good job; check out his strip!
And the newsbox appears to be working; I found my link on another site. Welcome to anyone who has followed it here.APRIL 14, 2004
I'm changing my page layout yet again, so expect some oddities in that department. In particular, I'm trying to add the "newsbox" feature, which if functioning correctly displays promos for various other Keenspace cartoons. In exchange, my own promo gets flashed up on other sites. It may take a day or two for everything to start working.
APRIL 8, 2004
As you may have noted above, I've joined a new dropdown promoting female heroines. At the time I did this update, there were technical problems somewhere and the official "link button" was non-existent, but hopefully that's been sorted out. If not, and you want more information, go here. (Yeah, yeah, a bit PCish, but Rosemary qualified, so what the zark...)
Also, don't forget to stop by the forum, where there are one or two audience-participation events going on. (Thanks again, Axonite!)
APRIL 1, 2004
I know that I said it would be a while before Izchak officially turned up in the Mansion, but after doing the fan-art for Beyond Reality (which ran on Wednesday) I decided to bash out today's toon and have him make a brief appearence. Even though you may recognize the sword he was peddling, his guest shot on BR should not be considered 'canon'. No joke.
MARCH 30, 2004
Well, since some of you have been asking for it, I now have a forum for the strip. Stop by and say hello here, or click on the shiny new button up above. Thanks to the Talkaboutcomics people for supplying it!
MARCH 29, 2004
This week on the Keenspace-hosted strip Beyond Reality, the.. um.. "hero" Orion is shopping for a magical sword. The strip's creator issued a general request for guest comics detailing this search, and so I contributed one. I don't know exactly what day it will run. The strip features a character of mine who will eventually turn up here on MoE, but at the rate I'm churning through the plot, it will be a while yet. Be sure to check out the rest of Beyond Reality while you're there; it's a fun strip.
MARCH 17, 2004
Keenspace didn't automatically update the strip yesterday; it worked fine when I forced the issue. We'll see if it was one time thing.
MARCH 6, 2004
200 strips. Woo hoo. Thanks to all of you who have stuck around this long. You can look forward to a fan comic on Monday.
FEBRUARY 27, 2004
I'm closing in on the 200-published-strips mark, and when that day arrives, I want to be in a particular place. So.. for a couple of weeks here, it's going to be pretty much The Rosemary N' Sylvester Show. I haven't forgotten about the other plotlines, and I will get back to them.
FEBRUARY 24, 2004
Over on the Keenspace Forums, Rodrigo Pin of the comic Alex and Ilia hosted a crossover event whereby interested parties contributed a portrait of a character from their comic which was then made into a collectable-type game card. The idea was based on a Japanese TV show called, I believe, Sakura Card Captor; Americans may be more familiar with the Yu-Gi-Oh! cartoon franchise, which uses the same basic idea. If you want to see my contribution, look for The Heroine here, and be sure to check out the other fine artists on display as well. A word of warning- the site doesn't appear to work with my copy of Mozilla. You may have to use Internet Explorer. Thanks to RPin for all his hard work on the project.
FEBRUARY 15, 2004
Once again, thanks to all those who voted to get me onto the Keenspace All-Stars list this month. (I imagine it doesn't take all that many votes to make the list, but the thought is appreciated, nonetheless.) If you want to vote for this or any other Keenspace strip, you can go here.
FEBRUARY 2, 2004
I've decided to give a "tagboard" service a try. Look to the right of this message; it's a Quick N' Easy way for all of my adoring fans out there to leave comments/flames/praise. Also, it should give me a place to post messages to you all when Keenspace crashes. You may start getting pop-up ads due to it, for which I can only apologize, and suggest that you start using Mozilla as your web-browser. We'll see how and if it works...
JANUARY 31, 2004
I see that Keenspace finally got their latest technical meltdown (at least partially) sorted out, and we are back to updating. Thanks to anyone still out there.
JANUARY 18, 2004
Spent a couple of frustrating hours today trying to figure out why my storyline dropdown box up above insisted on defaulting to a line in the middle of the list. I finally realized that somehow an extra "0" got inserted into the coding in the next line down. Should be working properly now. Stupid zarking computers, why can't they do what I want instead of what I tell them.
Also, I've been enjoying a new Keenspace comic I came across, P. Chuu's Et-Cetera. Check it out.
JANUARY 11, 2004
Yes, that's right, I finally Broke The Mold and added a couple of extra panels to a strip. I'll do the same for the next couple of Sundays at least. When I finally finish plowing through my backlog in another month or two, I may start experimenting a little more radically with layout.
JANUARY 9, 2004
I see that I managed to squeak onto the Keenspace All-Stars list again. If you'd like to vote for me and/or any other Keenspace comics you enjoy, go here and check it out.
JANUARY 1, 2004
Happy New Year, and all that. I've finally gotten fed up with the continuing technical problem at my old e-mail provider, so I'm going into the belly of the beast and using Hotmail. At least they'll be the last ones to go bankrupt. If the old folks ever get their act together, I may switch back. For now, you can reach me at geoduck42AThotmail.com.
DECEMBER 27, 2003
Did a little site housekeeping today; added an archive page and a link or three. In particular I recommend Mixed Myth, a comic with some thematic similarities to my own. Except that Robin's an actual artist, and she's been doing it a lot longer than me.
DECEMBER 25, 2003
Merry Christmas! As noted, today's strip is by Roland Lowery. Thanks again, Roland.
Keenspace has been having technical problems lately, which is why the strips are sometimes late. I actually have a few days stored in the "buffer" right now! (Although as a warning, sooner or later I'm gonna have to cut back my posting schedule; I just can't maintain daily production indefinitely. How the professionals do it I'll never know.)
My "Secret Santa" recipient is/was a comic called Forever Fallen, but he hasn't posted my work yet. If he does, I'll be sure and let you all know.
DECEMBER 21, 2003
Today is "Secret Santa" day for us web-cartoonists! I got a really great guest strip from Role of the Die's Roland Lowery. I'll have it up as a replacement-strip one day this week (Probably on Christmas itself...) Thanks to Roland for his wonderful work, and be sure to check out his comic!
I sent off my fan-art to my selected victim as well, but I won't say who it is here until/if I hear back from him. If it all works out, I'll post a link.
DECEMBER 15, 2003
If you're thinking about starting your own web-comic, be sure and check out this first.
(Hopefully the link works now...)
DECEMBER 11, 2003
The "Secret Santa" project has issued its assignments, and I now have a strip to draw fan-art for. I'll let y'awl know when it's been sent off...
DECEMBER 4, 2003
This week, I've contributed a guest comic to Ryan Kolter's Reasoned Cognition. It's a fun and painless place to get answers to all of your questions about Science. Check it out.
Also, I'm still on the Keenspace All-Stars List, so go visit them, too.
And lastly, I hope you will all forgive me as I conduct a small experiment in generating hits from sites such as Google.com...
Sasquatch. Kim Possible. Spongebob Squarepants. Ninja monkey death squads. Dragonball Z. Monsters with Tentacles. And of course, porn. Cartoon porn! Free evil perverted naked cartoon anime porn!!
Thank you. And if you're reading this because I tricked you into doing so, well, neener neener.
NOVEMBER 22, 2003
As you can hopefully see to the right, I've ditched the whole voting thing for now, and replaced it with a plug for Liz Walsh's "Web Comic Secret Santa" site. If you've got a comic on Keenspace, check it out!
NOVEMBER 8, 2003
Tom T. over at Station V3 tells me that he got me (and himself) into the Keenspace All-Stars. Evidently you just go suggest your comic to them. So thanks again to Tom, for both the recommendation and the continuing flow of link visitors. And to any other Keenspacers out there, here's your chance for fame and fortune...
NOVEMBER 4, 2003
According to these guys, I'm popular. Or something. I find that hard to believe; maybe they just picked this strip's name out of a hat. However it works, thanks for the publicity.
As you may have noticed, I've also joined the Keenspace Super 100. Vote early and vote often.
NOVEMBER 1, 2003
Keenspace had another technical meltdown, which is why the update was late on Halloween. If anyone noticed that it was late.
OCTOBER 26, 2003
Up until now, everything I've posted here on Keenspace has been a redo of or an expansion on a cartoon I drew months or years ago. After my Keenspace start back in August, I've finally reached the point in my archives where the old work, while still crude, becomes good enough (in my opinion) to be publically reposted with only minor tweaking and cleanup instead of undergoing a complete overhaul. Since this is much easier on me artistically, The Mansion of E will switch to 7 day-a-week posting for the next couple of months.
Oh yeah. Since I've added a couple of new plot-threads this time around there will be a few new toons tossed in as well. Eventually, everything will be all-new and totally improved. Really. Would I lie?
OCTOBER 10, 2003
This week, I've got my promo on display at (in?) the Keenspace Spotlight. It's a place to promote your Keenspace comic, if you've got one, and to see what various Keenspacers are doing. Check it out...
OCTOBER 4, 2003
Duh. I think I fixed the problem here in the notes about linking to other sites. Time to test it and see.
OCTOBER 3, 2003
Check out John Disko's How To comic. Not just because he used the idea I suggested, but because it's a funny strip.
SEPTEMBER 30, 2003
Another system crash. I should emphasize I'm not complaining too loudly here; it's not like I'm paying for this.
SEPTEMBER 24, 2003
It wasn't my fault the comic was offline yesterday; Keenspace suffered some kind of system-wide meltdown. Maybe it's still going on, and no one can see this...
SEPTEMBER 19, 2003
On the off chance that anyone tries to send me any e-mail, be warned that my address is currently getting hammered with virus attacks and the bounce-back error messages that result from virus attacks. So.. I may or may not receive any messages that are sent my way.
SEPTEMBER 14, 2003
Today I scraped dead pine needles off my roof. True, this is not terribly exciting or relevant, but it's less depressing than leaving that 9/11 message up at the top of the notes box forever.
On a completely unrelated note, I read over in the Keenspace Forums that I can possibly expect a bump in readership this month as the all the bored college students (re)gain access to their various schools' internet feeds. To all of you, get back to work. What do you think your hard-working parents are paying for, anyway?
SEPTEMBER 11, 2003
A gang of religious fanatics committed a horrible crime. Lots of people died who shouldn't have. And now, two years have come and gone, and things haven't got a whole lot better in the world. I either write an essay, or leave it at that, and I think I can guess which you all would prefer. Hope that you're enjoying the comic.
AUGUST 27, 2003
Thanks to Tom Truszkowski over at Station V3 for adding a link to here. He does a good comic, and you should go check it out.
AUGUST 26, 2003
This week, the Powers-That-Be at Keenspace were finally able to grant me access to the visitor reports for the Mansion. Nice to see that there have been some visitors to report about, and that I'm not talking to myself here...
AUGUST 19, 2003
I don't really have anything to say today, but I'm testing this box to see if the thing actually works. Carry on.
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