– I’m back from Seattle with a new strip. Sorry for such a long wait and thanks so much for being patient. Emerald City Comic Con was a lot of fun. I got to meet several of you for the first time and see a bunch of you for the 4th or 5th time. I’m glad I went, but I’ve been absolutely exhausted for the last few days since I got home. Anyway, here’s a few pics from the con.
– The 2nd Modest Medusa book is now officially sold out. I thought I had sold my last copies at Sakuracon, but I found half a box tucked away in storage, and now those are gone too. Reprinting the hardcover is unfortunately impossible, and while a softcover might be available eventually for now the book is out of print.
– The rest of Spring should be pretty quiet. I’ll have a new Ghost Kiss story out soon, and I’ll be in Salem for Cherry City Comic Con in late April.
She’s just giving support to someone who needs it!
One thing about best friends: having more does not diminish the value of the first.
Technically, by definition, you can only have one “best” friend. 😉
roll up those sleeves i know what comes next
“Why can’t we all just get along?”
When a mermaid comes out of somebody’s garden toilet and provokes a fight with their adopted (fill in blank with whatever relation Jake and Modest are to each other) then the proper thing to do is to let them stay the night in a protected place. Just because the situation doesn’t come up that often doesn’t make it any less a rule.
And Modest has the same hair as Meg’s dad. How could she not miss the opportunity to get the two together?
Modest is inherently wary of royalty, and for good reason.
Ah, the friendship jealousy.
Another proof why children spend their whole youth in school. So they have no clue on how to efficiently handle conversations.
Gina feels totally insignificant because Ekans kinda ditched her and Ekans carefully defuses the situation by calling her “a drama queen”. Whenever somebody’s angry, they probably feel insignificant. Telling them stuff that makes them feel even less significant is fighting the fire with oil.
Translating is a good technique to do it better.
Just say what the other person feels in your own words and they start to feel understood. Also, if you don’t react in the predicted way, chances are you’ll fry their brain a little bit which can be very powerful.
yes because 6 year olds definitely know how to defuse situations properly.
Most of them are just as competent 13 years later. And even 6 year olds can do amazing things. It’s apparent in music and sports. It’s mostly unknown in many other areas because people think they don’t have to train certain things. Things like emotional mastery get usually zero school time.
Royalty hasn’t been this great to Medusa till now.
she has a point. and she’s extremely peeved, which is always something to be encouraged. peevishness is the way to progress.
is it bad that my first thought was fight fight fight
Jeez, Gina. Don’t be such a boob-punch!
ha
How does she know all this, anyway? Did Megan tell her? Is Gina stalking her?
They’re probably neighbors, and they probably talk a lot.
Why has the artwork changed so much, modest looks very strange now as with the other characters they looked compressed….not sure im liking this.
Also why is the hard cover not printable anymore?
I’m not sure what to say. the art just changes as time goes on.
The hardcover book situation is problematic. I had a falling out with my previous printer over a few issues, notably overcharging and trying to force me to buy copies of my book that they accidentally over printed. Our relationship ended badly. The problem is that the 2nd book has two very large foldout pages, and I haven’t been able to find another printer who is willing to do those for a reasonable price. Beyond that, I printed my book with a Chinese printer that offers a good deal on bulk printing. Right now I have about 300 copies of my 1st book left, but none of my 3rd. If I were to print with a similar printer I’d have to print about 800 copies to get a similar quality book at similar price. The problem is that I’d then have 500 more copies of book 2 then I do of book 1. So I’d have to print more of book 1 eventually, so I could have copies in stock to sell to people so they’d be willing to also eventually buy book 2. I don’t want to do that. The hardcover books are expensive to keep in print. My hope is that after the 1st three books sell out I can do a softcover collection containing all three.
Hi Jake
Thanks for the reply.
As for the art…i guess this is a growing period where you are trying new things and seeing what works well for you. Guess its going to take me longer to get use to this newer style. I know you obviously notice the change….
As for the books printing….wow that is a very interesting story…who would of thunk it….who knew publishing was sooooo infuriating.
Thanks for the missive Jake
Be well
I’m curious which phase of teh comic was the one you enjoyed most, art wise (if anyone else wants to answer that, I’d be interested in hearing opinions). I feel like my style on this strip has gone through 4 or 5 major changes over the last five years.
The printing problem (both with my old printer and the new situation) is way more complicated then that short answer would suggest. It’s not an impossible problem though, but I need to figure some stuff out relatively soon. I’ll be talking about it a bit next week, just because I think it’s kind of interesting and I like to keep you all informed.
Gina can eat a bug 😛
I’m gonna use that.
Oh my gosh, Jake! I was giving Kendra a ride to an appointment, and she decided to read to me the latest update. When she got to that line I totally spazzed out! XD
Glad you liked it.