Don't forget to vote today. TWC is especially funny this time, because Cheyenne made the incentive. Buzzcomix is, as always, one of Phil's sketches. It looks like we're not doing reruns any more, now that we're playing with other things on TWC. You can bookmark the voting sites and vote every day! Also, it has been my experience that you can vote for as many comics as you like on any given day, which seems odd, but what the heck. I've tried it, and got to look at lots of people's vote incentives on the same day. Interesting.

And now, I will talk about the weather. Which is gorgeous. We're getting a sweet Spring breeze that smells like everything wonderful. The cherry blossoms have been lasting a ridiculously long time this year, but the last few days we had a lot of wind, so now my part of Seattle looks like we had a sweet pink snow. Also, I've been enjoying walking through the anime cliché of swirling pink petals. Mmmm. I love weather.

I've been on the phone with the pin company, trying to figure out how to design stamped pins that are a little more 3D. They were really helpful, so we should be getting those Jäger pins in the next month or so. It's killing me, the amount of designs I want to do, now that Phil has opened the floodgates. (That is, he finally decided that we have enough money to start making all the things I've been wanting to make, as long as I do about one a month.) Woohoo! Mountains of swag, here I come!

Gaaah. I can't sleep. I'm too tired to work, and I hate reading archives. (I like to buy booooooks....) Maybe if I hit myself over the head with a hammer? Yeah, I'll try that. Ow.

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080516

The Girl Genius comic for Friday, May 16, 2008 has been posted.

Phil is drawing an awesome page. Just sayin'.

I've listed more originals on eBay. No Girl Genius pages this time, I'll start with those again early next week. Well, there is one design sheet for Agatha's Othar-Rescuing Clank (and what a bad idea THAT turned out to be...I know, let's turn Othar loose!)

Speaking of Othar, right now, he's apparently loose in Paris. Searching for the dastardly fiend who has stolen the Louvre.

Holy Cow, the pins are doing well. We packed a whole bunch of them today. Thanks, everybody! So what I'm hearing is that, in addition to these pins, we need great big fancy ones, and little bitty subtle ones. Hmm...

Make sure to vote for us on TWC tomorrow, Cheyenne sent me something WAY funnier than anything I've done to date. Waaaah!

My kids have a friend over, and he brought Mario Kart for the Wii and little Wii remotes shaped like steering wheels. So cute!

The new trilobite pins are in, and I've listed them in the "Company Store" pages. They're a lovely brassy stamped metal, and I'm quite delighted with them.  Of course, we've also got the squeezy wrench stress balls, and the new backpacks, and are very excited about making new stuff very soon. Making new stuff is fun! The stamped metal for the pins was an experiment, and we are very happy with the results. Next up, the Jäger insignia! My new plan for the backpacks, until I can afford to make them all at once, is to wait until we run out of the trilobites, then print up Jäger packs, then Wulfenbach, then back to the trilobite. Unless I come up with another design to add to the cycle...Hmm...

Today I slept far longer than I should have, I suspect that all these nights with less than adequate sleep finally hit me. That, or I'm coming down with the same thing alicebentley has. I'm kind of sore and exhausted, for no reason. I'm drinking a lot of water, and I'll have a go on the treadmill, that sometimes helps, believe it or not! Especially since I'm currently watching The Great Race while I walk, and I'm almost to the awesome pie fight scene...

This has been the month of cool people coming to Seattle, no question. Last night we met Bill Willingham for dinner. He moved away from Seattle about a thousand years ago, and we only get to see him if we're all at the same con, which hardly ever happens. We've been applauding his success from afar, but it's nice to get together and talk in person. (I've been saying that a lot lately. I guess we HAVE been lucky this month!) Anyway, he's been doing Fables, which is very good and extremely well-loved by a heck of a lot of comics readers indeed. Hooray for success!

We've been invited to a Steampunk birthday party / picnic. It's the perfect excuse to dress the kids up. Heh heh heh. If I manage anything good, I'll post pictures.

Also, Payne has built a Flea Circus. It's...amazing.  It's full of all kinds of clever fiddly things that he's come up with, and little finds that he's altered to suit the piece. I believe the cannon started out as a book end. Now, it actually shoots streams of confetti.  Here's a better close-up of the whole thing.

Aaaand, other great stuff from the con:

An autographed copy of Jennie Breeden's The Devil's Panties!  The webcomic with the best name ever!

Because Phil knows I can't resist a gorgeously designed book: Passport : Forgotten Kingdom of Imaginary Friends by Andrew Wilson. Also signed, with a little sketch. Eeeeee!

The head of Cthulhu, stuffed and mounted. (The Kid bought this with his allowance.)

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080514

The Girl Genius comic for Wednesday, May 14, 2008 has been posted.

This last weekend brought us the Emerald City Comicon, which I was unable to attend. But Phil was there, and he took the Large-size Kid with him for one day. (The Fun-size Kid stayed home with me. She is unruly and not yet fit for human company.) Aaron and Cristi Williams came to Seattle for the con and stayed with us for the weekend, which was lovely. It's always fun to see your friends at a con, but it's also nice to have some time to talk in a more relaxed setting. As Aaron put it while we were sitting around the living room: "I keep thinking someone is going to interrupt us to ask how much something costs." Look at Aaron's comics here!

Cool stuff that came home from the con:

There's a new collection of Dave Kellet's  Sheldon out: A Blizzard of Lizards. Remember: Sheldon comics heal the sick! (Well, they certainly helped ME feel better.)

The Kid came home with a great Smash Bros. BRAWL poster by Bleedman. I recognized the art right away, because I really REALLY like his Grim Tales comic, and if the official PowerPuff Girls cartoons were anything like his PowerPuff Girls Doujinshi, I'd actually watch them. Yes, it's copyright violation city, and I'm well aware that if somebody did this with our stuff, it would be a huge headache, and yet... I'd love to have this stuff in a book. I am a conflicted monkey, and make no excuses. Heh.

There were lots of other nifty con things, but I'll have to write about them later. I have to go out tonight so I should wrap this up.

But of course, you're all dying to know what I got for Mother's Day, right? (What? You're not? I will tell you anyway!) I got a soft, cuddly Necronomicon. My kid is a Good Boy Who Is Kind To His Mother.

What we actually bought were two "Ben Ten" action figures. The receipt makes things sound so much more... interesting:




And a detail:

Squeezy Wrenches, they are here! Tra-la-la-la! (That's WRENCHES, you naughty people.) These cute little "stress balls" from Transylvania Polygnostic are a huge hit with my kids--they're great for bonking each other over the head.

The trilobite pins shipped today, so we expect to have them here and for sale by the end of the week.

I plan to spend the rest of the day re-designing the heart-shaped gear and Jager symbol so we can do patches and pins. There are 10,000 other things I should be doing, but... I'm tired. I didn't get much sleep this weekend, we had some friends staying with us, and we don't get to see them very often, so we ended up staying up late talking a lot.

To Work, and Beyond!

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080512

The Girl Genius comic for Monday, May 12, 2008 has been posted.

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080509

The Girl Genius comic for Friday, May 09, 2008 has been posted.

I guess if I go around calling Girl Genius "Gaslamp Fantasy," then I don't get to sulk when the NY Times prints an article like this and doesn't mention us at all, right? (If I used cute little smiley emoticons, there would be one here. But I'm too old for that stuff.) Anyway, you should read it, it's pretty good.

Had dinner with Steve Jackson last night, which was very nice. We don't get to see him enough. More on that front later.

I've scheduled more original art on eBay, it will start going live at 6:30 this evening, and continue listing until 7:10. I hope you'll have a look, and thank you, everyone who has been bidding this week!

Finally, at the risk of losing out when that one perfect piece I want comes along... look at the work this etsy seller is doing. Lovely stuff. (And, of course, we like the seller name...)

This month is Mental Health Awareness Month, so the LiveJournal team is offering users a chance to support the Depression and Bipolar Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping improve the lives of those suffering from mood disorders. Proceeds from purchases of the Emerging Sun v-gift during May will be donated to the DBSA, so feel free to buy one. Or, if you really want to rack up some good karma points, get a bunch!

And don't forget: Mother's Day is this Sunday. Be a dear and check out the v-gifts shop. Send something that'll make her smile.


L to R: Emerging Sun, #1 Mom, Gift Basket, Chocolates, A Dozen Red Roses


We know how you salivate over the prospect of new themes, especially when they're designed by users with a unique handle on both form and function.


L to R: Shiny, River at Night, Live and Learn, Vector Drips.

( Winners of the HP 'What Do You Have to Say?' Theme Design Contest )


We'd like to remind you that the nomination process for LiveJournal Advisory Board user-representatives has begun. If you think you're fit for the job, now's the time to nominate yourself! After all, you're the only who can do it. In two weeks, on the 22nd, the voting process will begin; we'll remind you about it again here.

If you're interested in keeping up with the nominations, watch lj_election_en. We'll post the results and announce the winner by the end of the day on May 30th. The new user-representatives will be seated on June 1st. Further details can also be found in lj_2008.

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080507

The Girl Genius comic for Wednesday, May 07, 2008 has been posted.

I've been getting the last of the stuff together for this show at the Helix Gallery, and I see from their site that I am the Most Horrible Mistress of the Last Minute. Gak!

One of my unfortunate addictions of late is ordering things from Etsy.com. Recently arrived is: The Irrelevant Redemption: A Steampunk Fairytale, a lovely, poetic book with some great art. There are also some wonderful shirt designs in the authors' store:  binarywinter.

I am also fond of the jewelery by Rivkasmom. I have a few of her smaller pieces. Pretty stuff!

Ack, I was going to write more, but it's time to sleep. More later.

Advisory Board Nominations Begin

This morning we are opening the nomination process for the user-representative positions on the LiveJournal Advisory Board. A full description of the process can be found here.

To get you started, here are the basic things you should know:

- You may only nominate yourself
- Each nominee will need 100 motions of support in order to be eligible to be a candidate
- We ask that you keep your comments on the nomination posts to "I support this nomination" or something to that effect; be kind to those who will need to count the "supports", please.
- Although the nominations and election poll will take place in lj_election_en, you do not need to watch the community in order to keep up with the election; we'll announce everything here as well.

Everyone here at LiveJournal is looking forward to this first-ever User-Representative election! We'd like to thank everyone who is participating. Some words from our current Advisory Board members:

danah boyd: “LiveJournal is filled with very passionate users. These users have helped shaped LJ's various communities over the last decade and it gives me great joy that LJ is recognizing and incorporating users' voices into the decision-making processes. Having user representatives from different parts of LJ on the Advisory Board will help make sure that the company is meeting the needs of its diverse constituents.”

Esther Dyson: "I'm sure we'll learn a lot from the process, and later on from the two users selected as well. Especially, I hope that the discussions before the voting will be more meaningful and more focused on policy than those in some offline campaigns."

Brad Fitzpatrick: "It's cool that SUP is getting users involved with the LiveJournal decision-making process. I look forward to seeing who the community elects and the results of our efforts working together."

Professor Lawrence Lessig: “The user elections will provide a critical check on LJ's process of maintaining a valuable and trustworthy environment for the LJ community. The mandate of the elections will give the user representatives pride of place among the members of the Advisory Board. Each of us will look to them to guide us in our judgment about how best to make LJ the community we all aspire that it will be. I look forward to welcoming the user representatives, and learning a great deal from them.”


chasethestars has also made some banners for you to use, if you'd like to show your support for the candidate of your choice!

( Banners + code for you to use! )

Aack. Long, boring day of trying to get work done, and everything moving sloooowly... I want to go to bed, and am waiting for Phil to finish sending the latest page to Cheyenne. I'm sitting here hitting "refresh" on my "friends" page, and grumbling: "Where IS everybody..."  It's really sad.

I guess I could work, but I'm way too tired. Even a turn on the treadmill didn't wake me up.

The signing at Comics Dungeon was fun, thank you to those of you who came to see us. At least our local comic store doesn't think we're TOTAL losers, now. Hee. We hope to see more of you at the Emerald City Comicon, as well. Maybe we won't be so zombified then.

I'm doing vote incentives every day, not just days that the comic goes up. Some of them are, of course, better than others...

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080505

The Girl Genius comic for Monday, May 05, 2008 has been posted.