This is pretty much cross posted everywhere, but it can’t hurt, can it? I mean, not all of you visit my website regularly or even know of my comic’s dA mirror, so…

Frumph over at Webcomicplanet is once again running WAR!, a battle of webcomics. It was a blast last year even though I got creamed by a snarky German. (Curse you, Union of Heroes!)
Uh, anyways…

Basically, I’m looking for help fro you guys. There’s only so much I can do on my own. If it’s not too much trouble, I’m basically looking for reviews of the comic. What’s in it for you? A free piece of art of the character of your choice (OC, Cannon, whatever), hand drawn and coloured. No, I’m not above using bribery. Be harsh, be nice, I don’t really mind. Say it sucks, say it’s good, just be honest. What you say in your review will not affect my art giving in the slightest.

So today we start with the Tuesday and Thursday updates. That’s so awesome isn’t it? In addition to getting more pages drawn and coloured, I’ve been updating old ones. Adding shading, fixing panels and speech balloons. Most importantly, I’ve found a new font. It’s fairly similar to the one I’ve already been using, but the font’s creator says its free for use, even if you get published, which is a huge advantage over the one I was already using (which is free for personal use but not for publishing).

If you’re interested, the font is here.

I’ve spent my day updating fonts on comic pages and stuff. It’s hard work, but it’s worth it in the end I think.

I thought it would be fun to run a contest this year. I’m posting this up a little early so that there’s plenty of time to do this.

This is inspired by Liliy’s Annual WAM Pair-a-thon. The objective is to draw your favorite pairing whether real or imaginary. Given that there’s only one established pairing (Nalshen and Mienna) this could be interesting I think. you can use any character that shown up in the comic to date (though I think using Kenjariyo or Toef would be awkward and hard).

Art can be in any medium: digital, pixel, traditional, finger paint…As long as the characters are recognizable.

Deadline for entries: February 10

Rules
1. Entries need to be sent in via comment to this journal or through a Note.
2. Entires can be any rating, but mature entries must be labeled as such.
3. you can enter as many times as you like, but only one image will be chosen.

Prizes
First prize:
1 month dA subscription OR 1 custom plushie

2nd prize:
Fully CGed full bodyimage of a character of your choice

3rd prize:
Full color image of a character of your choice

So the year is over. It’s been a pretty terrible one for me all things said and done. I’ve had to deal with a massive amount of hate and nastiness regarding this comic and my art. I’ve gotten so sick of defending myself. No more.

On to the happy stuff. I’m very pleased to see that I ended this month with 1107 unique reader. I was briefly number one on the Taversia webcomic list and made it all the way up to 435 on the TWC list. Good job! You guys rock my socks. Thank you for showing your support. I’m pretty sure most of those 1107 visitors were one time only visitors, but we’ll see how those numbers stick around in the new year. I’m hoping most of you come back and I hope to keep growing as we continue on into the comic’s second year of life.

As always, please continue to comment on things. If you see obvious mistakes in the art or spelling errors, please don’t hesitate to say something. I’m making it a personal goal this next year to be more open to readers, to advertise more and to generally be a better artist/person. I’m going to do my best to reply to all comments.

Tomorrow the comic will update again with a special new year image, so keep your eye out for that.

Hope you guys all have a great new year!

Below this will be a bit of a rant (of sorts). If you don’t want to read it, this is a good place for you to stop.

I’d post a screencap, but for some reason that’s not working right now. Very annoying. Anyways, there’s a small matter I noticed while checking my year end stats like I always do.

Links from an external page (other web sites except search engines)

http://ukabadwlmr.beautiful-words.net/viewtopic.php 91 2.3 % 147 0.3 %
See that? UKAB, as much a I appreciate the hits and such, I really wish you’d go away. I know who you are. Sure, some of you are nice people, but for the most part you lot are just… *sigh* I could swear right now. I would love to swear, curse, chew you elitist bitches out but I’m not going to. Please note that I check my stats quite often. In the last month alone you were responsible for 28 hits on my site. As much as I like traffic, I don’t need you.
There’s a chance that you’re not saying bad things about my comic, but frankly given our history I have to assume that what you have to say about it isn’t good. I hate thinking the worst of people but there you have it. If you had good things to say, you’d comment here or on one of the other mirrors (dA, DrunkDuck). You can say you don’t care about my comic all you want. You know what? Not buying it. If you don’t care, stop coming around. If you do care, leave a comment or something. Heck, you ladies (and in a lot of cases I use the term loosely) know how I can be reached beyond that. Notes, PMs, IM. You have something to say? Say it to my face (well….you know what I mean).

Given that no webcomic awards thing I’ve ever seen actually touches on character design, I thought I’d do something about that. Designs are important. What kind you need really depends on the type of comic and story you’re trying to do/tell. I find I pay more attention to fantasy comic designs than to slice of life/modern world ones (though a few have some interesting designs).

I have a few ideas of my own for good designs to add to my list, but I’m opening the floor to you guys to suggest things. Feel free to suggest things from your own comic if you like especially if you think I don’t read yours.

I’m hoping to generate a fair amount of interest in this. Cross posted on the Tomgeeks forum.

Up for consideration:
Rice Boy
Heliothaumic
Gunner Doe
Beauty and the Beast
The Chronicles of Avernyght
Juathuur

On a slightly related note, over on deviantArt I’m also doing a best/sexiest sci-fi costume list as ones I’ve found are sadly lacking in good stuff. If you don’t have a dA account, you cam make suggestions for that here as well.