New Year, New Site Design!

Hey look! The site no longer looks like it was designed by a stupid person! There's more to click on and yet it's looks more organized...go figure! I figured out how to do an image map in html to get this to work (I'm so proud).

Anyways, what do you folks think? Having any problems with anything? Let me know!

Where's the Monday 15th comic? It's right here!

Unfortunately the Comicgenesis system seems to be backed up, which is why Friday's comic has been sitting up there forever. Hopefully things are working again soon, but until then, here's Monday's comic...

Could You Tell...

...that I was rushing out the door as I finished the December 12th comic? Forgot a speech balloon tail, the sound effects in the 2nd panel and a word in the 3rd panel. Christ.

Well everything should be fixed now at least.

NATE'S LAZY BIRTHDAY COMIX!

Yup, today's my birthday and I don't feel like spending it slaving over a hot drawing board, so you get...this.

The sad thing is that this probably isn't the laziest strip I've done, and I didn't have an excuse then.

The Shandy storyline continues Monday!

Hey, Why's the 11/17 Comic Look...Different?

You'll note the greys look a bit odd on today's comic. For no particularly good reason I decided to do actual ink-washes instead of doing the greys on the computer as usual. Hooray artistic experimentation! It actually turned out okay...at least it looked good on the page itself. Things didn't turn out quite as well once I scanned it though as my cruddy old scanner can handle black and white fine, but any sort of subtle greyscale it butchers. Sigh. That first picture of Shandy walking in particular got mangled...the original art is really cute.

Hopefully I can figure out some way to scan things properly because it was actually more fun doing the ink-wash stuff than it is doing it in Photoshop, and the results are a lot less sterile.

Odds, Ends and Cracked articles...

Got a new article up at Cracked (actually it's been up for a couple days, but I forgot to mention it here)...

http://www.cracked.com/article_16152_10-highly-anticipated-video-games-youll-never-get-play.html

If you liked that I'll be doing more videogame related writing soon over here...

www.diehardgamefan.com

It's a fun little independent games site. If you're tired of reading games sites where the content and opinions are obviously dictated by which companies pay the most to get the biggest ad on the front page, then try this place out. I'll be writing some reviews and doing my usual stupid articles.

Also as of about a week ago (April 15th) Zoology turned 3 years old! Wheeee! It was such an important date that I forgot all about it! Still, a part of me definitely didn't expect it to go this long, and I have no plans of stopping any time soon!

Who's That Girl? Plus a Talk About Time.

So who's that girl in the last panel of Wednesday's comic? Her look has changed a bit, plus the comic's picked up a lot of readers lately so many of you might not know why her showing up is significant. Here's the story where she was introduced...

http://thezoo.comicgenesis.com/d/20051207.html

Here's a later storyline with her.

http://thezoo.comicgenesis.com/d/20070615.html

She's pretty much a harbinger of bad times for Baker...well, at least annoying times. You may have also noticed that she's matured a bit since her first appearance, which begs the question...does time pass in Zoology?

I've been thinking about time as it relates to Zoology for a little while. Most comic strips are stuck in a sort of time paradox whereby seasonal and annual events are recognized each year...when it's winter it's winter in the comic, when Christmas comes around they do Christmas comics and so on...but with the exception of a couple strips (For Better or For Worse, Gasoline Alley) few progress in real time.

A lot of strips take the Simpsons approach whereby seasonal/annual events are recognized, but the characters themselves are forever in a state of suspended animation. Occasionally past adventures will be referenced, but for the most part they don't really change and each adventure is started fresh. Others jump forward in spurts...they'll stay in the same place for 10 years then suddenly, Marvin's a toddler or everyone's 10 years older!

I don't really like either approach. Neither seem like satisfying options for people who actually follow the characters...it's either no growth at all, or growth that just comes out of nowhere which you don't actually get to see develop. At the same time I don't think moving ahead in real time FBoFW style would be feasible either.

The approach I'd prefer to take is to have time always progressing in the comic, but at reduced speed. So in other words even though Zoology has been going for around 3 years, 3 years haven't passed in the Zoology universe.

I would say at this point around 1 year has passed in Zoology time since the strip began.

Of course this has had different effects on different characters. The girl character who returned in this strip would be around 14 now, so obviously she's matured over the past year. The young Guinea pig also has grown up significantly. Guinea pigs don't live too long, so they'll age at a rate faster than the other characters...thus the kid guinea pig has gone from being the equivalent of a 6 or 7 year old to more of a 10 or 11 year old. It's had less effect on other characters...Baker and Shandy would both be in their early 20s if they were human, so a year doesn't make a huge difference at that age. Angsty on the other hand would be in his late teens (18, 19) if he were human, so there has been some noticeable maturation on his part (although not as significant as what you see in the guinea pig).

I don't expect anybody reading to actually follow this, I guess I'm just making it known that this comic isn't quite a random as it might appear and that I actually do think of these things. Or at least I do when I decide to write a blog post about them...

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all you fine Zoology readers! And if you don't celebrate Christmas...Happy Tuesday! Hope it's one of the better Tuesdays you have this year.

Today's comic is a bit of a callback to last year's baby Baker Christmas storyline, and it'll make a bit more sense if you're read it. So if you haven't, go check it out. It starts here...

http://thezoo.comicgenesis.com/d/20061211.html

(What a difference a year has made in the quality of art in the strip).

Whoops, sorry for the lateness...with some Christmassy ramblings!

Sorry about Wednesday's comic being a bit late...totally my fault. I entered the wrong date for the comic so it wouldn't update (apparently there's no 13th month, who knew?)

Anyways, that Christmas spirit is in the air ain't it? Traditionally I've done a big storyline leading up to Christmas that climaxes somewhere around the day itself...didn't happen this year though. The holiday season just came up on us too fast and I didn't have anything formed in my ahead aside from the Rose storyline (and I thought that one was a bit too sad to use for the the big Christmas storyline). So instead it's short mini-storylines and one-off comics for a while...probably no extended storylines until the New Year.

Oh and hey, the zookeepers are back after not being around for a while. Sometimes it's nice to be able to draw some humans instead of all those darn animals.

Hey look, I changed the site layout slightly! Also, buy my junk!

Well, the title pretty much says it all, but I'll prattle on for a while anyways. This site has had the same basic layout for 2 1/2 years now with the only major change being me eventually getting rid of the ugly black background and adding an actual logo about a year back. Well gosh-darnit, I finally decided to open up my cutting edge HTML editing program (aka Notepad) and change things up.

The site's even more simple and compact than before...heck, if the resolution on your computer is high enough it probably all fits on a single screen. Ditched some of the useless links down at the bottom (no more 3 year old sketches or links to a non-functioning messageboard anymore) and added a link to the shop.

Speaking of which...got my first sale the other day! Don't know who was responsible, but thanks. If you're reading this, tell me what you think of your shirt when you get it! And the rest of you folks, buy something won't you? I'll totally be your best friend if you do...and remember, for a bit of extra money I'll design you whatever kinda shirt you want. How can you say no to an offer like that?

Finally, who knows how to get rid those ugly blue/purple borders around the Shop and Links buttons? Yeah, I'm really that hopeless with html...the fact that I got this exceedingly simple website working is in itself somewhat of a miracle.

Zoology Merchandise is Here! Nope, I didn't forget!

Okay, so I managed to put together a little Zoology store. Sorry, nothing fancy like plushies or anything yet...so far it's just shirts, hoodies and the like. I'll try to get other stuff done eventually! Right now there's 5 designs. In the next day or so I'm also going to put up colour versions of the Baker and Shandy w/Logo designs and the Angsty design. I tried to make everything as cheap as possible so a shirt won't put you in the poorhouse.

If there's a certain design/shirt style combination you don't see, just ask me via email or in the comments here and I'll make something up for you. You might even be able to convince me to draw you a custom shirt design if you want (although it will cost you more than a standard shirt).

The Zoology Giftshop!

Click Here to check out what products I can slap Zoology designs on. If you have any requests, just ask!

And hey, if you buy something send me feedback telling me what you though of your purchase once you get it. I'd love to get a picture of your modelling your shirt if you're the brave type.

Get Today's (Dec. 5th) Comic Here!

Yeah, Comicgenesis is throwing fits again and isn't updating right (guess you get what you pay for huh?). Hopefully today's comic is up by the end of the day, but if it's not you can check it out at the link below...

http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=cssdi&uc_full_date=20071205

You can pretty much always check out the latest comic over at the Comicsherpa site if I'm having trouble updating here at Comicgenesis, so keep that in mind.

Happy Birthday to Me (and Sorry for the Lateness).

Sorry about Wednesday's comic being a bit late, but it was my birthday and it's kind of hard to say "opening presents and eating cake is going to have to wait...cartoon sheep need shading!".

In case you're wondering I'm 26, which means I'm now closer to 30 and 20...in other words I'm an old man. On the upside at least being a senior citizen now means I get a discount at the movies.

In birthday related news that ties in with the comic, I got me a Wacom tablet as a gift. I've been wanting one of these for a while, if only so I can say I have one. You can't be a webcomic artist these days and not have a Wacom tablet. It's nothing too fancy, just a medium-sized Bamboo Fun (I realize that sounds like a toy you'd give a preschooler, but the Bamboo tablets are actually a replacement/continuation/improvement of the Graphire line).

^ I realize the above paragraph will make absolutely no sense to most of you with the exception of a small handful of my readers who also draw comics. To put it simply I got me a new toy that lets me draw on the computer without a mouse.

I've been playing around with the tablet quite a bit (and shaded today's comic with it). Maybe I'll post some sketches I did with it tomorrow or something, but for now I have to go to bed. Us old folks can't be staying up all night.

Seeking you Fine Reader's Input!

So, these days the comic has been averaging about 3000 page views a day. While obviously nothing astounding compared to some other sites that definitely adds up when you think about it, plus Zoology has reached that level without me ever paying for advertising or even really aggressively promoting it. The popularity of the strip is based pretty much entirely of the quality of the comic (whatever that may be) and my various writings around the web that link back to it, which I'm kind of proud of. I've also been pleased with how this blog has gone...past attempts to do messageboards and the like have pretty much been a flop, but this is working out pretty well and I'm getting more and more people commenting as they notice it exists.

Anywho, to get to the point...maybe it's finally time to try out making some Zoology merchanise. Of course a lot of people set up stores for their comic before they have 5 strips up, but I've avoided it until now because, well, that's pretty freakin' lame. But maybe now it's finally time to start squeezing some cash out of this operation.

Seriously though, I'm under no false-illusion that I'm going to be able to grow fat off Zoology merchandise profits anytime soon...really I'm just floating the idea for you readers more than anything. Is this something any of you out there would actually be interested in? I don't want to put the effort into putting a store together and have nobody ever buy anything.

So basically a) are you interested in Zoology merchandise and b) if you are what would you want? What characters do ya want and what do ya what 'em slapped on? Thanks for your input!

Random Zoological Musings

Hmmm, been a while since I updated this thing.

Anyways, today's comic was the 400th Zoology strip! Woooooo! Party on down! Well actually, it's not much of a milestone...I'll make a bigger deal when the strip hits 500 strips.

I realized as I was drawing this strip that every year Zoology has been in existence I've written a strip about the first snowflake of the season falling...it's sort of become an unintentional tradition. What can I say? Living where I do the first snowflake is a big deal. Speaking of which, where do you fine readers imagine the zoo in Zoology is exists? I've never made it clear (although it's obviously somewhere with long snowy winters) so I've wondered where the readers imagine it exits.

Oh, and I like the Shandy drawing in this strip...don't you? Very cute, but where exactly did she plug in that hair dryer? A mystery for you.