Four Webcomics Worth Reading

For your online entertainment, here are four webcomics worth reading. All four are strong in writing, artwork, characterization, and timely uploading. I'm giving four links for each: an example strip that lets you see the "tone" of the comic without giving any plot away, the base of the archives, the main page, and the facebook fan group. Let me know what you think in the comments - if you are reading this through facebook, you will need to go to the main blog to leave comments.

1. Suburban Tribe by John Lee: example, archives, main, facebook. Based in an advertising agency in Louisville, KY, this strip is nominally about having a normal job. But it also has adventure and fantasy, from an intelligent cat who uses the internet to the Halloween horror stories. I happened upon the strip nearly by accident, while I was shopping on Cafe Press. It has been on hiatus recently, but is supposed to start up again in April. Mr. Lee could use some more readers, so check this one out first.

2. Scary Go Round by John Allison: example, archives, main, facebook.
Based in the United Kingdom, this strip is about hip young adults having scary and supernatural adventures. I originally found Mr. Allison's work on Keenspot, when he was doing Bobbins. Scary Go Round is a fun, relatively clean, smart, and VERY British, so be prepared to have to look up words sometimes.

3. Questionable Content by J. Jacques: example, archives, main, facebook.
Based in a downtown of an American city, this strip is about indie chicks who work in a coffee shop and their friends. I think I found QC through a link from another webcomic. Also fun, also clean, and VERY Indie, so be prepared to have to look up band names sometimes. (I bought my Dad the "Math is Delicious" shirt for father's day.)

4. something positive by R. K. Milholland: example, archives, main, facebook.
Based in Boston and Texas, this strip is about all the crap that happens to Davan and his friends and family. I can't remember how I found this one. Depressing, dark, shocking, offensive, smart, real, snarky, funny, and thoughtful, this will not be for everyone. (Mom, don't bother, you'll hate it.) Oh, and there is a pink, shape-shifting cat.

In other news, we found out that it is pretty easy to replace the the battery in the Mazda3. Just remove the plastic covers, take off two easy to reach nuts, and lift off the top clamp. The only strange thing was not being able to shift out of park when the old battery was down to 6.5 V, so we had to jump it in the garage.

DVD Release

They finished producing a DVD of that play I directed at work back in December. And guess what, I'm allowed to show it to family and friends! So I'll definitely be taking it home when I go back to NJ for the weekend of March 29th for my brother's senior recital.

My iPod has been very nice to have at work, to help keep me focused while churning out piles of drawings. But just putting it on shuffle was a little too, um, random. So I put together a smart playlist called "Unheard of" which has these criteria:
-Play Count < 1
-Rating is not 1 star (this is how I flag songs I never want to hear again and will eventually delete)
-Genre is not 9 Books/Spoken/Language (I've narrowed genres down to 9 broad categories. This one is the "not music" flag.)
-Limit to 500 most recently added

I then listen to this playlist on shuffle, and have fun hearing all the unfamiliar music.

Peer Pressure

Here is a pile of random items that have been banging around in my head:

1) Herb says "everyone is doing it" so I joined Facebook.

2) I think I want an Amazon Kindle, but I'm not sure if that is just because what I REALLY want is more time to read books.

3) The Mazda3 is now four years old, paid off, and has 40022 miles on it.

4) I'm more bothered by the sirens in GTA than any of the other offensive noises.

5) If you have to "do" your eyebrows, I recommend trying threading. The pain level varies, depending on who is wielding the thread. But it is cheap, $6 where I get it done, quick, and the results are very nice.

6) The stock market can stop going down now. Please.

7) I've resurrected my Palm IIIc from 1996. It works fine.

8) It can stop being winter now. Please.