Intervention: The PLAN!

As with all cons, especially NEW cons (and this one is BRANDY-NEW) changes can happen on the fly so I'll do what I did with Dragon*Con and tweet away if something changes. My plan is to be glued to the dealers room table when not as panels unless something awesome comes up! I should be at table 34 next to the center door.

All three panels I'm doing occur in the "Large Panels Room". (There's a map on the program schedule page!)

2pm Friday: Sluggy Freelance and the Dimension of Nuts
This is my only solo panel! It was supposed to be a panel about how crazy I am for doing a daily strip for over 13 years. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess the con won't be hoppin' until Friday evening, so I'm renaming this 2pm panel "An intimate Q&A with Pete Abrams" So if you are one of the two people to show up for this panel you will have my undivided Q&A attention! Maybe I'll draw ya sumptin'! ;)

3pm Friday: Telling the Microserialized Story
This should be an interesting panel, as I have been telling a Microserialized Story for over a decade. BUT I might have divided attention on this one as I may have to deal with Dealers Room Table Setup at the same time! Still, a great panel!

1pm Sunday: Creating Three Dimensional Characters
Boy do I ever! Nuff said!

The Vendor Room: I am bringing bunches of Megatomes, plushies, book 9, some slightly cover-damaged book 8 (7 still out of print (maybe not for much longer)) and Zombie Head on a Stick shirts and such! But there's also 4 new things! The first three were debuted at Dragon*Con last week: Black and white versions of books 1, 2, and 3! By breaking up the Megatome into its original 3 books and going B&W I can drop the price to a more con-friendly $10 each. There is nothing new in the B&W books (except a 3 page intro by Teddy Weddy in the first book) and the Megatome has more bonus stuff and stories. I was just tiring of seeing non-sluggite sticker-shock at a $50 book at conventions. But I figure I'd give you sluggites a head's up about em. Maybe buy 'em for a friend as a gift or something if you're at the con. *shrug*. These are con exclusive books BTW.

And the fourth thing: The Torg and Bun-bun 3"Maquette! These high quality maquettes were expensive to make and are expensive to own. I was supposed to have a painted display piece with finished sets, ready to go with painting instructions and details about the craft that went into making them. Heck, I was even going to have custom boxes printed, A true collectors item! But as it stands, I have 8 rough unpainted, unsanded sets that arrived while I was at Dragon*Con. So if you're interested in one of these and you have maquette experience, just ask at the table. These WON'T be con exclusives, I hope to have a more finished and friendly version ready by Christmas.

Sluggy hits its thirteenth year milestone! And it is a milestone to be sure! But strangely enough I have little to say beyond that. Between the upcoming conventions, my work on Book 10, my desire to fix the current storyline up, and my planning towards 4U City Red all kinda make it feel like I'm too much in the middle of things to sit back and raise a toast for this achievement. I shall just have to celebrate twice as much next time. Onward and upward! OK, there's time for a little toast. May your mini-lops never be bored. Cheers! ;)

Book 10 Update and Convention "Filler":

I've stretched myself too thin.  As I move slowly through the bonus story for the upcoming book 10 I can't help but feel that the current story (Minions are Forever) is suffering badly from it. And with two upcoming conventions on back-to-back weekends I wasn't sure what I was going to do... until it dawned on me yesterday. See, I kept thinking to myself "I wish I could show everyone what I'm working on now, they'd love it." But I can't because so much of the story is what I would consider spoiler-worthy. Then I thought of all the non-spoiler worthy bonus content I have from the Megatome and Defenders-content. THAT'S IT! I'm giving you all some sneak-peeks at some of the bonus stories and Defenders content for the next few weeks! In this way you all get quality content on the main page, and I get time for the conventions AND to finish Book 10 (finally) and get it off to the printers. Heck, it may even trigger some new Megatome sales! It's perfect-perfect-PERFECT! Well, at least it feels like a damn good solution, taking some load off my back and worry out of my heart.

What this means is I'll be taking a break from Minions are Forever starting on Monday (August 30th). And when I get back from Dragon*Con and Intervention hopefully book 10 will be in the DONE-done and I can focus on making Minions Are Forever Part 2 a worthwhile experience! And then on to 4U City Red.

As to why the bonus story is taking so long, I took the rough script I had for "The Queen of Diamonds" and fleshed it out into a labor intensive masterpiece. Its great writing for Torg and Riff back around the days of book 10, and every page is more art and color intensive than an old-school Sluggy Sunday strip. I've shown here one part of one panel so you get the idea of the effort involved. It's gunna be awesommmme!

Upcoming Convention Schedule:

Intervention
Sept 10-12 2010
Washington DC

(This is a brandy-new convention that needs our support and fully has mine!)

Ubercon
Nov 5th-7th 2010
Edison, NJ

I'm already down for next years Liberty Con 24 in 2011!
(Why am I plugging this so early? Because I want too!!!)

So here's some details about what I'm doing for the week of April 26th. I've got a whole week of artwork already in the queue, and I'm blowing the dust off some very old files and turning them into a book. Book 10, specifically. Oh yes, I have a title. Oh yes I do!

Book 10 provides some interesting challenges. It's loaded with strangely  formatted strips, MITDOP Saturdays, and guest and filler weeks alike. I'm trying to target around 128 pages per book, so some non-canon weeks and days may get dropped. Anything not created by me will be out unless I get written consent to have it put in. But the heart of the book will be true.

As far as brand new bonus content in book 10, I'm on the fence. I had a loose script for a bonus story called "the Queen of Diamonds," but I'm only giving myself a week and I know I need to create some new art, a cover, and a few other nibly-bits for the book as well as the layouts. I don't want to slow down or turn this into another "Sluggy Project That Never Goes Anywhere™". So we'll see how fast I can move.

The first thing I want to address is the Megatome question. "Why book 10 and not Megatome 4?" There are two reasons for this. First off, the price point on the Megatomes is high for most. If I can get into the rhythm of putting together the files for these books, I can catch up and hopefully produce a steady stream of smaller books that'll help supplement Defenders membership to keep the comic alive until the end of the last story without getting bogged down. Second off, we still have a lot of Book 9s left and have ran out of books 7 and 8. My new publishing system will allow me to reproduce books 7 and 8, instead of eating book 9 to produce Megatome 3.

What's my new publishing system? I'm going to hopefully go with Print-on-Demand, and I have a couple of options which service to use. This means when you order a book, it'll be created on the spot for you.

Is there better options for printing and publishing these books? Maybe a better publishing deal where I can create Megatomes cheaply enough? Definitely. And since I retain full publishing rights, when that perfect situation occurs, I'll have the files all ready to go to press. But in the meantime you don't have to wait to get your hands on the last seven-years-plus of Sluggy content, and I don't have to wait to give it to you. This makes me happy. And since I've been down since December, I can use the happy!

Defenders who can't Log In:
Luckily I've gotten very few notes from Defenders having trouble logging in (less than ten in fact, once we fixed the case-sensitive issue). Unfortunately until rit gets me administrative controls over Defenders accounts I can't fix the ones who do. And new Defenders are running into trouble too. So if you run into trouble email me at:
defendersfix@sluggy.com
and as soon as rit gets me administration, I am on your case (in a good way)!

Shiny New Sluggy:
We rolled out the new site a month ago (I know, it feels like yesterday) but we're still having occasional issues. If you spot a bug of some kind you can report a ticket to us. We've set up a bug / issue tracking system, go here: http://sluggy.lighthouseapp.com/projects/34258-emergency-pants/tickets/new
To report a ticket; it just requires a free account. Thanks to everyone who have already submitted tickets. And yes, we all want weekly mode back! ;)

Become a Defender! Help Support the Strip
This page has all the details but I also wanted to mention “The Sampire” Defenders-Only Comic Book is going fantastically, with a new page every weekend! I’m having a lot of fun with this story, and I hope it shows.

Being a Defender isn’t only about bonus content, it’s also about saying thanks for the years of entertainment this strip has provided you. And it gives me the gift of continuing to provide it for at least a few more years to come, for everyone! Just fill out the registration form, and you’ll be taken to a page where you can pay via Credit Card (link on the bottom left) or via Paypal. Your account should be activated almost immediately!* Checks and Money Orders can be sent to: Sluggy Freelance, LLC PO Box 453, Denville, NJ 07834 Please include a valid contact email with the check, and please allow 3 weeks* for account activation! (I can’t get out to my PO Box every day and personal checks take time to clear.)

Donate! When I started my last “New Defenders Drive” I was surprised how many people simply wanted to donate completely separate from Defenders Membership so I set one up! If you do go this route please donate at least $5 otherwise I' won't see much of the money due to processing fees.

*IMPORTANT: Once you’ve paid, (and waited the three weeks if paying by check or money order) if you can’t access Defenders content or log in for any reason contact me via our email-form and we’ll take care of you! We’ve noticed sometimes the Paypal payments and automatic membership activation don’t synch up, and I don’t want anybody left out!