What happens when three roommates accidentally acquire otherworldly and powerful magic weapons destined for someone else?
Aquapunk
Lo
In an underwater world of unknown coordinates, inhabited by aliens, ghosts, and robots, a young member of a warrior underclass is framed for a crime and goes on the run. Little does he know he is part of a grand design that only gods and ancestors could choreograph.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Darkling Bright
Chris Hazelton
Kieran Bright is a college student home for the summer and roped into an online reunion with his old neighborhood friends in the most recent update of their favorite childhood MMORPG.
At least, he was, and that was the idea...
Join Kieran and his friends as they are pulled into another reality that may or may not be real and are forced to confront their own identities, the nature of simulated universes and reality itself.
Monsterkind
Taylor C
Wallace Foster, a young, bright-eyed human social worker, has his entire world view rocked when he's suddenly relocated into a city primarily inhabited by monsters.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Beeserker
TJ Cordes
This comic is about a robot powered by bees, but it's also about the kind of people who think filling a robot with bees is a good idea, and why they're wrong.
The Golden Boar
Magnolia Porter Siddell
A young woman joins a group of summoners who call forth Guardian Beasts to protect their isolated magical island. Unfortunately, her Guardian Beast is nothing like she'd imagined, and he's about to change her life, and everything she thought she knew about herself...
Star Impact
Jack McGee
A young, energetic woman fights her way up in the world of super-powered boxing after discovering the mighty gloves of her missing idol!
Trying Human
IntroducingEmy
Two women separated by over half a century are brought together by an alien-filled conspiracy involving murder, mystery and romance!
Quick$ilver
Crypto
The flirtatious, directionless, and ever disastrous Luci searches for excitement in a life of crime, and finds himself caught in a web of messy romance and bad blood.
Freakshow
Scotty
A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
Sakana
Mad Rupert
Our heroes must navigate a hazardous dating scene, overcome personal anxieties, and wrangle unruly seafood in order to find love, peace of mind, and a paycheck.
Edison Rex
Chris Roberson
The adventures of the world’s greatest villain who, after defeating his superheroic nemesis, decides that he’s the only one left to defend the world.
Missing Monday
Elle Skinner
Two girls fall in love through a magic door connecting their worlds. When Monday suddenly goes missing, it's up to Foyle to find her. How she's going to navigate an entirely unfamiliar world is another matter.
Alexander, The Servant & The Water of Life
Reimena Yee
The 21st century retelling of the life and legends of Alexander the Great.
Kochab
Sarah Webb
A YA F/F fantasy comic about Sonya, a lost skier trying to survive a snowy wilderness and find her way back to her village; and Kyra - a fire spirit trying to fix the home that she let fall apart around her.
Alice and the Nightmare
Misha Krivanek
Alice finally attends University to learn to collect the dreams of humans, meet new friends, and deal with a pesky reflection along the way.
Empowered
Adam Warren
A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Not Drunk Enough
Tess Stone
Logan Ibarra is possibly the unluckiest repairman in the world. A late night job should not have landed him in the middle of a mad scientist's squabble, but he soon finds himself surrounded by monsters and further madness with little tools to get out.
Scape
Lauren
Sula has always preferred to forge her own path, but before she knows it, she is pulled into the middle of a civil war between man and monster!
Lies Within
Lacey
Lysander's aimless and carefree life is turned upside down when he accidentally discovers that the cute boy next door, Simon, is a literal monster
Stand Still, Stay Silent
Minna Sundberg
A few generations after the end of the world, a small, poorly financed research crew is sent out to rediscover whatever is left of the forbidden old world in the south.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Little Tiny Things
Clover
What are the little things that move us? The simple joys that warm our bodies and hearts? The micro life of insects that influence our world more than we think? The tiny steps we make everyday to have a happier tomorrow?
Gzhel Guardian
Atla Hrafney, nushanchel
The Railway World is a complex, mysterious network of trains, towns and mechanical monsters. Leo is a Guardian of one of these towns, and although their burn-out and depression has taken hold of them, they have one last job to finish.
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
Augustine
Winter Jay Kiakas, Windy
August and her ragtag group are just like everyone else, simply surviving in the treacherous Crater... When they stumble into what may be an artifact of the ancient past, their lives are thrown into a much bigger loop as they trifle with bounty hunters, monsters and gods.
Barbarous
Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota
A crummy wizard and an anxious monster have to get over themselves and bring order to an apartment building full of misfits.
Ride or Die
Mars Heyward
Ride or Die is an LGBTQ webcomic about two street racers who team up with a demon-possessed muscle car in the search for a missing woman, while being hunted by a deadly religious cult.
Nigh Heaven & Hell
Scotty
Heather Vodihn is on a simple mission: find her father. However she becomes entangled with two strangers with mysterious powers being stalked by a group with bizarre demands. Heather must learn to trust her new traveling companions, even if she is untrustworthy herself.
Cassiopeia Quinn
Gunwild, Psudonym
A cute, pantsless thief is pursued across the stars by a buttoned-up military officer in the spacey, laser-filled future.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Sleepless Domain
Mary Cagle (Cube Watermelon)
In a world where magical girls and their battles are commonplace, loss has become all too common as well.
How to be a Werewolf
Shawn Lenore
Malaya Walters was bitten by a werewolf as a child. After being raised by her human family, she faces the chance to learn what being a werewolf is really like as an adult.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Astral Aves
Moon Cabal
A fantasy coming-of-age following the adventures of Astra The Black and friends, as they navigate the mysterious world around them. It's politics, adventure, and the supernatural; oh, and crazy hair.
Headless Bliss
Clover
A story about story-telling, and other metaphysical themes such as Nightmares! (Failed) Teamwork! Comedy! And more!
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
Brian Clevinger, Escher Cattle, Lee Black
A troupe of wandering "adventurers" down to their last silver "acquire" a map only to find the real treasure was the fiend they dug up along the way.
Within
Verena Loisel
A young hitman meanders between a reality that seems to happen without him, and his dreams where he is lost in an endless house. When he makes an accidental friend, his world is shaken up and he realizes there are things he can't remember about himself.
The Weave
Rennie Kingsley
A young woman pursued by bad luck is witness to the murder of the Fairy Queen of Summer. Can she get to the bottom of this mystery?
The Last Diplomat
Cat Farris
Samma and Tark didn't ask to be stuck together, but now they're partners on the adventure of a lifetime.
Love Not Found
Gina Biggs
Abeille is on a quest to find someone who wants to do it the old-fashioned way in a time when touching has become outdated.
The Forgotten Order
Christy
A young witch for whom every spell is a misfire finds solace and friendship in her new companion - a cursed doll.
Goodbye to Halos
Valerie Halla
Cuddles, gay flirting, weird feelings, and magic-fueled knife fights - it's an adventure across the queer multiverse!
Hopping on a plane to Austin in just a few hours! I'll be there, along with some of my best webcomic buddies. It's gonna be crazy awesome. Get more information on Dragon's Lair's website!
I will have a bunch of Shortpacked! Book 4s with me and... three Dumbing of Age Dina hats. Just three. Perhaps their owners will be determined by brutal gladiator sport.
Dragons Lair is hosting the 3rd AnnualWebcomic Rampage at their Austin, TX, location on December 10 and 11! If you want to get into the Q&A panels, yougotta RSVP, as theres limited room. There is unlimited room for the buyings and signings.
Who else besides me will be there?
Danielle Corsetto ofGirls with Slingshots Randy Milholland ofSomething Positive Joel Watson ofHijinks Ensue Bill Williams ofSide Chicks Jeph Jacques ofQuestionable Content Rob DenBleyker ofCyanide and Happiness Nicholas Gurewitch ofPerry Bible Fellowship Josh Lesnick ofGirly
It will be fantastic.
If you need fodder for questions, know that Joel and I will be sharing a hotel room.
Once again, you can find me this weekend at Mid-Ohio Con! I'm going to be somewhere in the Columbus Convention Center on Saturday and Sunday. It's weird having a convention that's just a few miles downtown. I swear, I'm gonna leave the convention hall late Saturday and be confused when I step outside and it's not Hartford or Seattle out there. I will approach the first local I see and ask what a good local joint is, and they will respond "Donatos Pizza." And there will be this great tumult in my brain.
Tomorrow morning Maggie and I are driving back to Indiana for my grandfather's funeral, and will be returning Thursday afternoon, hopefully in time for Maggie's mom to arrive, for she is visiting! It is a busy week for us, apparently. We may or may not still have one hamster left when we return. Gnngh.
Today I watched the new DC animated direct-to-video thing, Batman: Year One. Since I've read the comic itself enough times, and this cartoon adaptation was extremely faithful, I was actually pretty damn bored with it. That story needs a beginning, middle, and an end, am I right? Bryan Cranston was excellent as James Gordon, but I feel like he was starring in a calendar, not a movie. But, tell you what, if you like your Frank Millerspeak, this is the movie for you. And I know some of you do, so that's not intended to be an indictment. Plus it's very beautifully animated.
Thankfully, Arkham City is here to pick up any batslack.
This here is Fractyl! His only real toy was from BotCon 1997, the year before I started attending them, so I've never owned a Fractyl. Now I own a fake Fractyl! He's the last 3H Wreckers guy I intend to make. I'm technically missing the Alpha Trion repaint of Beast Machines Snarl, but if I'm gonna waste time and money painting something, I kind of want to direct that effort towards a character appearance that actually has a character appearance. No, the one blurry two-panel fly-by silhouette doesn't count.
I like Fractyl. He's a scientist. He's a nice scientist. The Botcon 1997 toy theme seemed to be "sympathetic bad guy and a jerky good guy." Y'know, to mix stuff up a little. And so he's this awkward antisocial creature who just wants to study some rocks, dammit. Stop shoving him into his locker, Inferno! Oh, what a geek.
And the Transmetal toy that they never made would have been beautiful. Too bad. My attempt at recreating it kind of sidestepped some of the beauty. I wasn't able to find the proper greens. My Fractyl is a reasonable approximation, but it falls short of the ideal.
I'm here to distract everyone from the specter of mortality!
First of all, yay! Mid-Ohio Con is this coming weekend. Saturday and Sunday, I believe? October 22-23rd! That is good news! The bad news is Book 4 won't be in the States quite yet. The big pile o' books isn't expected to reach Columbus until the first week of November... if customs doesn't flag it for being terrorism, that is. We'll see. But I will have Roomies! book 1 and Shortpacked! books 2 and 3, as always. I will have an extremely limited number of Dina hats. And finally more Dinobot "Honor" posters came in, so phew.
The bummer part is I have a big pile of deaths to announce! Two hamsters within the past week (mommy ham and "Pirate" ham), and on Friday my grandfather passed away after suffering from Alzheimer's for a very long while. His body finally caught up with his mind. You'd think, since he hasn't recognized me in about over a year, that this would be easier to handle, but it still stings surprisingly. So this Wednesday and Thursday I'll be off in Indiana for the visitation and funeral.
We have one remaining hamster from our current batch. She used to be the most skittish and wild one, but once mommy disappeared from her cage she just sits there, depressed. We can even pet her now, which was a near impossibility before. She just takes it, like she's given up. This is definitely not helping my mood.
Anyway, enjoy this image of two Nightbeats powerlinxing incestuously.
Eeeeeeearly tomorrow morning I'm out the door on my way to Wizard World Chicago! I have to admit here that this is probably the least prepared I've ever been for a convention. I have been living and breathing nothing more than moving, sorting, arranging, furnituring, and comic stripping for the past month or so. I am really out of it. (And I've been really crappy at getting store orders out the door. I apologize. I continue to apologize.)
Seriously, I am going to arrive without pants. I will forget my pants. That is my state of mind.
Regardless, please come see me. I packed books in the trunk already! I'll have those at least! And I found my posters, which I had to tear the entire new house apart to locate. And, hey, guess what, I have like half a day's worth of free bookmarks to pass out. Just Shortpacked!. No Dumbing of Age bookmarks at all. I was in serious need of a reorder following ConnectiCon, but that was just one of those many things that fell through the cracks.
So, I am totally slumming Wizard World Chicago. Which is too bad. I was really really excited for it, back when moving my everything wasn't my world. It's a pretty swank show. And they even put me on their frontpage! As if I were important!
So I'm not gonna have a table at BotCon. I sent in my California sales permit form weeks ago, and it never came in the mail. So after getting turned away at registration, I figger, okay, after putting together my customization class figure, I'll travel all the way across LA to Van Nuys to get the form in person. No big. Well, SORT of a big. The trip requires three trains and a bus and then half an hour of walking to get to the office. So of course after undertaking this FOUR HOUR TRIP, you get to the office and they laugh at you because the place is only open for a half hour more and they require ten more minutes than that to process your form!
I also asked about the form I faxed in weeks ago, wondering, hey, it might already be processed and I can just pick it up. Ha ha ha, no. It is not processed yet. Obviously, California does not want my sales tax money. I wonder why this state is friggin' broke.
So you go home, time wasted.
And I sure as hell ain't doing it again tomorrow morning. I got crap I gotta do!
So, I guess, I am not meant to have a table at BotCon. Things will apparently proceed as they have in years past. You find me, obvious luau-shirt-wearing self that I am (it's red this year, not orange), and then if you want a book or a poster, I'll have them on me. In my backpack. It is the Shortpacked! booth express! I will also be happy to just say hello.
I apologize for the last minute switcheroo. But unless Fun Pub says "ha ha just kidding you can have your table without the bullcrap form that the state doesn't want to give you ever ever," I'm not gonna be at a table. (And judging by the sheer number of artist alley folks who ALSO don't have the form, it's going to be a very friggin' empty artist alley indeed.)
I have a table for a limited portion of the convention, since there are things at BotCon that I want to do, but even when I'm not at my table I'm pretty easy to spot. I'll be the guy in the red and yellow luau shirt! (Not the old orange-and-blue, that's been retired.) I will even be able to process credit cards from my backpack. That is how much the future this is.
First off, I will not be attending San Diego Comic-Con this year. I apologize! But we're moving out of our house to a new apartment across town that same week, so also doing a convention on the other side of the country is kind of a non starter. Some time after we move into our new apartment at the beginning of August, Shortpacked! Book 4 will arrive. You don't want to have to move a ton of books twice, that's for sure! So they're arriving after our move and not before. Meaning, most importantly to us all, that they wouldn't have been there to buy at SDCC anyway.
Of course, my Blank Label Compatriots, Spike and Kel, will still be there, and will be happy to sell you their things.
(Anybody want to pick me up a 20-inch Stay Puft Marshmallow Man?)
Hastily-taken phone photos of merch!
Next, BotCon! They've just put their schedule up, so now I have a general idea of when I will be at my table:
Friday: 2-5pm
Saturday: 9-11am, 2-5pm
Sunday: 11am-1pm, 2-3:30pm
Basically, if there's a voice actor panel, IDW panel, or video game panel, I'm likely to be at my artist alley table. But I ain't missin' no script readings or Hasbro panels!
Just yesterday two new posters came in from the printer! Joining the Dinobot "HONOR" poster, now there's also a Waspinator "PLANS" poster! And now there's also a Recordicons group shot poster. Every Recordicon who's shown up so far, plus a few extras, are in this thing. Both are 11x17 inches and printed on glossy card stock, and are now available in the online store. At my BotCon table I'll also have an assortment of smaller prints, too.
Can't wait to see you there!
I also can't wait to be done moving. Argh. I hate moving.