The Marvelous Patric

dear blog,

Just a quick note tonight. My beloved comic, Freaks N Squeeks, has been reviewed on the immensely popular website, Ain't It Cool News. A website so popular, it was briefly made fun of in an SNL sketch once. Not only have I been reviewed, but it was a positive review.

Okay... so it was a short review, but still, I'm really thrilled!

Current Mood: accomplished

dear blog,

It's the penultimate day of 2008. I'm starting to look ahead and thinking about some of the arbitrary changes I can make to celebrate the change of the year that occurs several weeks after the earth has passed its furthest point from the sun. One change is I'm shutting down marvelouspatric.com at the end of january. I never use it any more. I'll simply make it a redirect to freaksnsqueeks.com for now. I'm trying to figure out just what that website should do now, if anything. When I started it, it was where I put everything, all comics and whatnot that I did back in college. Now, i do a daily and a weekly, each with their own url, and there's no pretty way to display them both on one page. I'm thinking it may serve best as a blog, but I'm blogging here and at freaksnsqueeks.com anyway. If there was more of a community around my comics, I'd focus it there.

My puppies are doing well. They were at the daycare during xmas. dexter has a bit of the stomach/digestive issues. dixie is okay, tho.

xmas went well. now there's all this snow. and it keeps coming! and i'm supposed to take the nephews to see bolt tonight, but if this weather keeps up, that may not be a good idea. which would be very disappointing for them.

the red drum on my new guitar hero drum stopped working. i called them on friday and they're sending me replacement drums. but i just got the email with the shipping label to send them the old drums now, so i don't know if this means they _just_ sent it today or it's going to arrive today. man, that'd be sweet if it did. i really want to have the drums for new years. worst case scenario, i guess i could buy the new rockband, but i really didn't want two sets of drums and the new guitar hero drums work with the new rockband.

wow, i have very not-serious problems in my life. or at least, the ones i share.

dear blog,

the year of the patric is almost over. i'm not going to do a year-in-review post like everyone else. that is just soooooo 2007.

so what is new with patric? well, i finally got a diagnosis on my terrible head pain. i have atypical facial neuralgia. with a diagnosis with that many big words, you'd probably think i'm dying. but, i'm not. actually, it's quite treatable with medicine. for like the rest of my life. but, it could be worse.

i've been playing my bass at my new church. i haven't played very much, but it's been a lot of fun. i wish i was better, but considering i haven't really played my bass in years and never played in a group before, i think it's going fairly well.

band is also going fairly well. we're on break now until the 5th.

my first semester of grad school is also over. i assume i did fairly well. i really don't care much about grades. it seems fairly ridiculous that i could get an A in the class i learned the most in and also get an A in the class i learned the least in. fairly arbitrary, wouldn't you say?

I really liked my Rhetoric of Style class. I think the most creative work I've written in a long time came from that class. far more creative than my actual creative writing class. I learned so much there and had so much fun.

i'm thinking of collecting all my writings from this semester into a pdf and selling it. the work would include 4 short stories and a couple of essays. i'm not sure how many pages, but at least fifty, likely more.

i ended up canning my secret project. the project was a 6 minute animated FNS holiday special. i have the voices and the artwork, but i was having trouble getting the lip-sync to work out. i decided i would rather keep it until next year. maybe i can get someone good at animating to help out. i'd also like to find some music and stuff, so i think it if i wait, it'll work out much better.

FNS is going to return next week. i'm going to devote the time i would have spent animating to drawing it. which is like, tomorrow night. but still, it's the thought that counts. oh, who am i kidding? i'm gonna waste time playing guitar hero.

i have to finish my xmas shopping tonight. i have only a couple of things left to buy.

and i get to work over break. it's "extra" money not included in my usual GA package. woos and hoos.

Current Location: the office

dear blog,

Wow, look at that, only ten days between posts! Amazing!

I think 2008 is Year of the Patric. I've been saying this for a while now, but now that i've blogged it, it's official. Things seem to be going well for me. I'm feeling good about my chances of getting into grad school. I got lasiked. I got my Mustang. I'm feeling good.

And.... well, there are rumors circulating in the internets and tabloids that I may have been spotted around town in the company of a human female.

I can neither confirm nor deny these rumors at this point.

Dang paparazzi!

I don't want to say much about it because I don't want to jinx it. It's a little known fact that acknowledging good things before a certain grace period is over will destroy them. I see this blossoming relationship as a fragile and delicate thing, like a rare egg of an endangered species that is made out of a soap bubble. It is ever so precious and delicate. I must be careful not to shatter it.

My new computer has come. I got a Mac Pro 2.8 ghz 8-Core behemoth. I named it Zapp Brannigan. It is very powerful. I put a second monitor card in it and got another ADC to DVI converter and now have three monitors! One of the three, of course, is my Cintiq. I have drawn only one FNS comic with it so far, but I loved it! I feel the interest in hand lettering with it. I'm going to wait until the end of "Sad Little Life" before I do anything like that, though, because I want the finished story to have some kind of consistency to it when I put it into a book.

All in all, things are going well, and I think I'm about to make some big life changes for the better. 2008 is the Year of the Patric.

Current Location: work
Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: "One Chance" - Modest Mouse

dear blog,

it's raining. thundering. etcering. so i'm on my laptop, safely unplugged from any cords, at work using the wifi.

what's new with Patric...? well, let's see... I've been drawing like crazy lately. I'm actually ahead on FNS for the first time in ages. Not just like a little ahead either, but legitimately ahead. I hope to keep building on that. I've also been drawing Fun Factory again. Shocks! I'm gonna release the rest of the script we had finished once i get a good backlog of content. My plan is to post one panel every day, like mccloud did with his morning improv comics. i figure as long as it's a long form comic and there isn't much pay-off weekly with one page, why not give folks one panel a day and so when we reach a full page it feels like an accomplishment. it's kinda a scam.

this week, i've taken the plunge and i found a used cintiq on ebay. it'll be interesting to see how that works out.

this weekend is the DFL state convention. i don't think i'm going, which i feel bad about. I feel like i'm letting down the folks who elected me as delegate, but I just can't go. i have to work this saturday. And, if I took off this saturday, i think i'd have to work the saturday of kendrick's bachelor party. and i really need to be at that. no matter what i do here, i'm going to let someone down. i'd rather let down faceless voters than faced family. besides, even though i've been supporting franken the whole time, there's a part of me that kinda hopes Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer wins the endorsement. i wonder if i would have really voted for Franken when i got there.

saturday is also game day at paul and aleesha's. i have to work, but i'll go over after work. there had better be killer bunnies! i've really started geeking out on table-top gaming.

in a few months, it'll be time for SDCC. I'm going this year. I realized, days before pro-reg closed, that i would die if i didn't go. maybe my body would live on, but a good-sized chunk of my soul would have shriveled up and died. I'm going to do some more coloring samples and maybe see about doing some freelancing again. I won't have a table there, but it'll be nice to just walk amongst the people. Although, if anyone reading this happens to have a table they'd be willing to share or just take a few of the big FNS books, i would love to do that.

My entire application to grad school is in. I'm cautiously optimistic. I got it all in by deadline. I should have had it in sooner, but the whole politics thing got in my way and distracted me. still, i've applied and done all i can do.

all in all, i've been busy. i have also been playing with dexter and dixie quite a bit. the two dogs have quickly become very close friends and now my bed is quite crowded as both dogs sleep with me at night.

in other pet news, i was down to two mice. one of the mice got out and was found by dixie three days later. ginny, the escapee, appears to have suffered a leg/spine injury at some point. i'm not sure if dixie did it to her, or if it was the jump off the desk. so i put her back in the cage. somehow, she has managed to escape again, despite being crippled. i am less hopeful about recovering her a second time, because this time, i noticed she isn't eating the food i put out for her on the floor. meanwhile, janis, the other mouse, appears to be sick as of today. when i get home tonight, i fully expect to no longer have any pet mice.

Current Location: work
Current Mood: artistic
Current Music: thunder

dear blog,

as of tomorrow, i will be at least 20% better looking. That's right... I'm getting zapped. The "laser" will be shot directly into my "eye ball", correcting my "vision". between the eye surgery and the new car, i figure i am now 25%-30% more dateable.

in other news, mom was in the hospital again. it was really more to do with the original stuff, which they weren't quite sure what it was. they have now reached the conclusion that it was vascular, have taken steps to fix it, and she is recovering nicely.

i'm working on redesigning www.freaknsqueeks.com . i was informed, by many different people, that the site design was a huge roadblock to reading / worshipping my comic. the redesign has been going on for about a week, and at the moment, i'm just redirecting the .com to the webcomicsnation page. this is because there is all that nice code over there. i, knowing nothing about code, like the fact that they have a nice plug 'n' play system. but, there are things i wish i had control over that i don't. and, since i don't really understand the code, i really can't change a lot of stuff. my coding ability doesn't go beyond creating a link and embedding an image. and no, i'm not going to learn code. i've tried. i've failed. i'm not built that way.

i fear i may have to move fns off of wcn. which would mean moving 1200+ strips. and re-uploading / making pages for all of them. i have this fear because i'm starting to think that comicpress might be the best way to go. but, we'll see. i want to see what the new comicspace venture will offer in terms of features before i make any decisions.

i've also been drawing my new weekly comic, picture imperfect. PI is quickly becoming far more autobiographical than i thought it would be. i haven't officially announced anything, but there is a www.picture-imperfect.com now. i figure once i know what's what with wcn/comicspace, and i have more than a dozen strips up, i'll make some noise about it.

this weekend, i'm driving over to wisconsin for a one-day comic show on sunday. i really don't know what to expect, but the table is free, so i just have to pay for gas and a hotel. 10 million dollars later, we'll see what happens.

dear blog,

ow. ow. ow.

i know that this pain is a good thing, but still. ow.

let's see... what's going on in my life? well, tonight kelly is having a halloween party. i'm going to that. my costume is teh roxors, if i do say so myself. i don't want to give it away, though. hopefully there will be pictures at the party and i can post some.

since leaving fun factory, i've been feeling really good about my comics that i'm making. i think freaks n squeeks is going really well. the hits have been going up, so at least someone else thinks so too. i've also gotten back into writing more. i've been working on this huge story for a couple of years that i'd like to make into books. i want to outline all the big stuff first, though, so i know where i'm going with it. i don't want to robert jordan anything. anyway, i've actually worked on that stuff a bit. i've also been doing some stuff that may turn into a column for another website. i don't want to jinx it, but if it happens, i'll let all y'all know.

Apple OS X Leopard came out last night. This was the first time since Jaguar that I wasn't in line for the OS at an Apple Store. I don't even have mine ordered! I'm a bad Apple Fanboy! I'll probably do it this week, after i gets paid. Although, if any kind, generous, and really nice folks read this and are thinking, "man, i'd love to spend $129.00 (plus shipping) on Patric", i wouldn't mind.

Today, I'm at work. It's kinda slow. I'll prolly draw a bit. I've noticed that Freaks N Squeeks, which I used to be able to crap out in about an hour or less, is starting to take more and more time to draw.

Tomorrow, is my mom's 72nd birthday. that is so weird and hard to believe. is that old? i mean, my mom totally doesn't act like she's 72. still, sometimes, i realize that there is a ticking clock counting down. My mom has already lived way past the age my dad was. i think i fear my mother's death.

i've been reading the new Charles Schulz biography. I don't normally read a lot of biographies. Usually, I only read them if I have to for a class or if I feel there's something about the person I identify with. Obviously, Sparky was a cartoonist from Minnesota, so there's that. But, when I read his life story, I can't help but feel there are so many similarities. I wonder if that's good or bad. True, he was (arguably) the greatest cartoonist of all time, but he also seemed very introverted and almost agoraphobic. Obviously, I never knew him. And people I've known who did always say he was kind and nice, so I think that Sparky was just one of those people that seemed aloof and was shy. It took effort to know him. I wish I had. Growing up, in Minnesota, saying that I wanted to make comics when someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up usually got the response, "Oh? Like Charles Schulz?" If, as an adult, I get compared to Sparky, it will be the greatest compliment I can get.

Current Location: work
Current Mood: sore
Current Music: Dirty Boots - Sonic Youth

dear blog,

i just got my books! yay! they're beautiful! i'm going to be personalizing the pre-orders and work on sending them out over the next couple of days. so, if you ordered one, you should have it by next friday, i would hope.

yay!

Current Location: home
Current Mood: accomplished

dear blog,

first off, i'm not having a halloween party. i just don't know what kind of state of repair my house will be in that weekend. there may be holes in the walls, there may not be. i don't know. but, my friend kelly is having a halloween party that night instead. so, she said anyone who would have come to mine is welcomed at hers. she lives in minneapolis. i'll be going. email me if interested.

it's been one week since i quit fun factory. i'm actually doing pretty well. freaks n squeeks is going really well. i took all of last week off of FNS too, and right now i'm actually ahead! i haven't been more than a day ahead in years, so this feels good. i've also been putting more energy into advertising FNS, so i'm seeing an upswing in hits currently. i find it interesting that most of my big days come on weekends, which is typically slow for webcomics. of course, the majority of my audience is also apparently women and children, which is also very strange for comics.

i'm thinking of submitting to syndicates again. i like to get the official rejection at least once a year. it re-establishes my indy street cred.

the reason i'm ahead on fns, though, is because i've been working less at the day job. grrr. i went from working close to 40 hours a week to like 27 hours a week. if i had some freelance work to do, this wouldn't be an issue, but it is. and, let's face it, FNS don't pay. in theory, my work schedule may change again in a few weeks when my arch-nemesis is supposedly leaving, but i don't have a definite date on that. so, i called some temp agencies today and i'll go in and fill out some applications. however, they gave me the impression that finding temp positions to fit in around my normal work schedule will be very difficult. d'oh. still, i'm going to try and see what happens. i want the least amount of responsibility possible. my ideal job these days actually is picking fly shit out of pepper, but i don't think that's going to happen.

because i'm ahead on FNS and feeling really good about my cartooning, i'm looking ahead to Zuda. yes, Zuda. Yes, they get a lot of ownership rights and stuff, but they also pay. basically, i think a strip format is really best for Zuda at this point, and if i look at it that way, i figure i could put 2 strips on one of their "screen" formats. which means I basically would get paid $13,000 for drawing 104 strips. or, $125 per strip. assuming i can do two strips a day, i would make $250 a day with zuda. while not the best, it's a pretty good rate. of course, that one day would be for the week, so it'd be $250 a week in reality. still, it's better than i make with FNS, which is about $0 per day.

stylistically, i'm looking to do something similar to FNS for zuda. i'm at the point where drawing an FNS comic seems so natural and easy. I'm looking to adapt that feeling to other comics. a lot of how comics feel when i draw them informed my decision to quit fun factory. it felt so hard to draw. maybe it's because a "page" is psychologically bigger than a "strip". maybe it's the color. i don't know. a lot of what i'm doing right now is trying to find what works best for me as a cartoonist. this burnout thing is weird. still, i'm not going to just plow into anything. when i start my zuda comic, it will be because i'm ready and i feel confident i can keep it up.

charles schulz is my master now.

Current Location: home office
Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: That's What She Said Podcast

dear blog,

most of this post is reprinting part of an email to the graphicsmash community....


i'm leaving graphicsmash, [fun factory]. i wanted to say good-bye. i've been with this group since the beginning and it's been one of the best things i've ever been connected to.

now, to make it clear, i'm not leaving because of anything bad. i love gs and would love to come back some day. the thing is, i'm burning out. i was so excited to start fun factory a few months ago. anyone who knows me knows it was all i talked about doing for two years and when the chance to do it for gs came, i was so excited. to go from that level of excitement to a point where it feels like a herculean task to draw means that something is horribly wrong.

i've been doing at least 2 comics, plus freelance work, plus a day job pretty much since i got out of college 4 years ago. i think it's just too much to keep going, so i'm scaling back. i'm only going to work on freaks n squeeks full time as far as comics go. every other comic project i have is a "if i feel like it" priority. i'm going to just do my day job with FNS taking a hobby-like position. right now, i'd rather have comics be a hobby i love rather than become a job i dread. if i kept going like i am now, i'd end up putting out work that would make jim davis blush.



i'm going to take this week off of FNS as well, just to make sure I don't suck at that too. I'm going to draw fns this week, and try to create a backlog if possible. mostly, i just got to the point where any moment i was at home and I wasn't drawing, i felt guilty. i'm taking a year off from comics that aren't FNS unless something really enticing or financially viable comes my way.

Current Mood: sad

dear blog,

this weekend is fallcon! hooray! lots of fun always at Fallcon! i'll have my table and i'll be selling freaks n squeeks comics. i'll be taking preorders on the big book. speaking of which, that should ship from the publisher at the end of october. i'll take pre-orders until then. once they're in hand, the price goes up from $22.00 with free shipping to $27.95 plus shipping.

i'm still feeling a bit burned out on drawing. i am seriously considering taking massive break from comics. except for freaks n squeeks. i've noticed FNS has become very personal lately and i find it really enjoyable to do. if i do take a break, it'll be for at least 6 months to a year. i'm not sure yet. i kinda feel like hermes h. conrad in that episode of futurama, "how hermes requisitioned his groove back" only without the alcoholic robot.

Current Location: work
Current Mood: tired?

dear blog,

i'm not having very good luck with the mice. the second Janis died. I buried her next to the first Janis.


On second thought, the mice are having bad luck with me.

This Janis literally just dropped where she was. I suspect a heart attack.

So, I went out and got two more mice today, bringing us to four total: Ginny, Janis (III), Janie, and now Dixie. I think four is a better number. With three, two would always be together and one would be alone.

Tomorrow, family members start arriving for weddingaplooza. I have to work all week, so I'll miss out on most of the craziness. But, come saturday, it is so on! This past saturday was the bachelor party. i'd never been to a club before. girls shake... things. not bad.

patric

Current Location: home
Current Music: women and men - TMBG