Greetings, friends.

I’ve started moving mostly all of the comic related blog posts into the actual comic post itself, and due to an oppressive attack of lethargy, have not been updating the blog. I have no excuses for myself.

Though curiosity and excitement both prompted me to write a post now to inquire, who among us is involved with NaNoWriMo 2009?

‘Oh my stars and garters!’ you say, ‘I know not what that is!’ Fear not, it explains everything for you.

In short, Na(tional)No(vel)Wri(ting)Mo(nth) is every November, and it is 30 days to write 50,000 words, or a 175 page book. It is not as scary as it sounds! I will be participating again this year, along with Anne (who is doing NaNoArtMo), and Jennifer Hykes from The Adventures of Popsicle Man, and we hope you will be, too!

If you have ever considered writing a book and been too daunted by the time and effort needed to get into it, this is a great way to give yourself a start. It really pushes you to throw editing to then wind, as there is always time for that later. Instead, you have to push, and write, and of course you will write goofiness that is not good at all, but you are still left with plenty of meaty, fresh novelly goodness to shape and mold as you see fit during the cool winter months. And I can say from experience, that there is nothing quite like the feeling you get knowing that you are writing and struggling alongside a million other people around the world. It’s very heartening, and the community there is brilliant.

So join us, would be novellers! Pick up your pens and come forth! We will welcome you.

- Jen

*And of course if anyone is so inclined, email me or Anne and we will add you to our list of buddies to watch and commune with over the course of the month.

What’s that new button on our sidebar you ask? Why it’s our store!

Yes, that’s right folks, we have a store now. There’s not much there, but you can find prints (glossies, mattes, and lustres) of comic pages and original character art, magnets, and postcards - plus a mug featuring the ad for Perdition! Be the first on your block to get some of this premium swag! Impress your friends! And most importantly, help feed us and our cats, so we can keep making comics!

When something new gets plunked in there, I’ll post and let you know.

Also, with June coming to a close I’ll ask everyone again to get out there and vote via the button up top! We really want to be 200 or better! Remember that you can vote every day, because you’re all amazing fans, and you’ll do that for us.

See you next week!

- Jen

Good morning fair fellows. I would like to make my apologies for not updating sooner, but while I had every eager intention of reviewing a few movies and posting some comic related updates, real life had other ideas for me. But as they say, better late than never, and at least the pages are still on time!

Finally, my update for the Star Trek movie.

** SPOILERS AHEAD **

Overall, I loved the movie. Talk about character acting - the cast did an excellent job of studying the original actors and really pushing the envelopes of their team roles. I was quite impressed, especially by New Spock. (On a tangential note, people keep telling me they think New Spock is hot, and I can’t reconcile this in my mind. It’s Spock.)

The cinematography was great, it looked sleek and modern while at the same time maintaining that old air of 60’s sci-fi with all kinds of lights and dials that do nothing in specific. As Scott Kurtz delicately put it, it looks as though Apple Computers threw up all over the bridge of the new Enterprise, in the best possible way. And, they kept the original door opening noise. Can’t go wrong with that.

There were some well written and perfect homages to the old show, as well: Kirk makes it with a hot green chick, they detonate the charges to get out of a dire situation, the red shirt dies - and fantastically so. Immolation from a thurster is a good way to go, if you have to. They did everything short of reverse polarity of the neutron flow. It was glorious.

Now, on the side of criticisms, there were a few plotholes that you could drive a Mack truck through, most of them having to do with incredibly bad science. We all know that sci-fi isn’t supposed to have good science, but some of this was downright non-sensical and not just a suspension of disbelief. Concepts such as “going through a black hole” putting you fifty years back in time: look, black holes aren’t Stargates, but alright, we can deal with this. In theory there is a wormhole concept that might explain how this could happen, even though in the most likely reality, you cannot go through a blackhole, as there is nothing to go through, and all of your particles will become disassembled and crushed. However, this is a staple of sci-fi, it’s legitimate to use the stretch.

However, there are much less reasonable plot devices such as the main point of the entire movie: if the Romulan homeworld was going to be destroyed, because of a supernova, why did anyone think it was a good idea to replace it with a black hole? First of all, the problem here is that the sun is exploding.  Good luck getting near it. Second of all, a black hole and explosion do not cancel each other out. If you do somehow manage to create a singularity, you might contain the explosion but there still won’t be a sun and now there will be a black hole.

There are other indiscrepencies (such as how did Kirk exactly think that his beaming technology was going to work while Nemo’s ship was halfway through that black hole? “Hey guys, need help over there in your black hole? We can do that!” No you can’t. Or the fact that Nemo had 25 years to tool around in the past before Spock followed him through the time singularity and instead of, oh, I dont know, saving his planet or at least evacuating his people, he decided to WAIT for Spock for 25 years instead. Or the fact that there were no railings whatsoever on the bridge of his mining ship. I suppose he thought they weren’t the aesthetic he wanted.) But they are silly and laughable, and do not spoil the movie. They just make you pause and scratch your head. But then, it’s still not as bad as The Core.

Nothing is as bad as The Core.

- Jen

Hi all.

Just a quick update to say that I will be making an appearance tonight at the KA-BLAM! Convention in Pittsburgh. What is KA-BLAM you ask? It’s the annual benefit event for the Pittsburgh ToonSeum, it should be a lot of fun, and a few of the local celebrities of the comic world should be making their rounds there. Starts at 7pm and all other information can be found on the ToonSeum blog site.

It’s a great convention for those looking to learn about or support the comic community here. I am flattered to get the invitation from Ricochet Graphics, and I anticipate adventure and fun! Hope to see you there!

- Jen

It’s been a while, but we’re still here.

Good morning, fellows. Especially those from Russia and the Balkans, which we seem to become very popular with this month. Privyet, good to see you.

There are a few news bits today, first of which is that you should all check out our links tab: we have a few new friends over there, a few really kickin’ comics! Give them a skim, if you have time.

Also, two of my personal favorites have status changes - Dovecote Crest has finished its first story arc and it is simply too adorable. If you haven’t read it, now is a good time as they are on guest art hiatus. Second is that Lovecraft is Missing is coming back from it’s hiatus on May 27th, be there, or be an equilateral rectangle.

The next piece of news, following my penchant for geek culture movie reviews,  is that I went and saw the Wolverine movie (I have yet to see Star Trek, that is next, don’t worry).

What can I say about this movie? It was… pretty gosh darn terrible. It had halfway done cinematography, no story continuity with the comic, too many random cameos that did not make any sense, and a script so bad I could have knocked a can of alphabet soup off the table and had a better finished draft written on my floor. But you know what? It was definitely watchable. One does not approach this type of thing with high expectations: I went to see Hugh Jackmanangst about his past and blow up half the Canadian landscape, and that is what I got. So if you’re into that kind of thing, go to see it. Just don’t get angry over what they did to Deadpool.

Alright onto happier topics: What ho! Did Neil Gaiman and Craig Russell make a graphic novel out of Coraline? Why yes, they did. How fantastic! Let’s all go see what that’s about.

Oh, and the last bit, check out the credits on this week’s page - two of our designers made cameos, and they will pop up again. See if you can find them a couple of pages from now.

That’s all, see you next week.

- Jen

Good morning, everyone.

I have no honest news, so you will have to excuse me, and entertain this plug instead.

We’re doing a bit of online advertising, and I’m happy to say all of our numbers are up, and our readership is steadily growing. Hello and welcome to all the new faces out there, glad you could join us!

Now we need your help.

We do not do any paid advertising, we do everything here for free and we like to keep it that way. So we need your help in order to make our comic grow. See that little vote box up there? Every time you click that bad boy it puts us up another vote for the Web’s Top Webcomic. The highest we’ve ever been is #147, and we would like to beat that. Last month we wound up around #200. This month, let’s shoot for the top 100!

We cannot do this without your help.

Now you ask, why is this important? Well, aside from making us feel pretty good about ourselves, the higher our rank, the more free press we get from TWC. People will notice us, surf on over, vote to see the side sketchies, the cycle continues.

So vote early, vote often, pilgrims. You have our eternal gratitude.

- Jen

Good morning everyone. What a lovelyMonday we are having. For the first time in a long time, it is sunny and warm in Pittsburgh. I will not hold my breath that it will last.

I am, however, pleased to announce that we did complete our submission to the Webcomics Tarot Project, which you should all check out, because it is a pretty interesting concept. (I should note now that it has nothing to do with tarot, really, and has everything to do with artwork and webcomics. Then again if you are reading this particular comic, the chances are that you aren’t that spooked by the tarot anyways, yes?)

Anyhow, I was a little bummed that the major arcana were already taken but we still managed to snag the entirely appropriate 9 of Disks (or Coins as they are calling them), and the result was an astounding arrangement of art nouveau, and some Leo glory.

You can check out the full image on our DA page, and I’ll plug it into the gallery later this week.

The second thing is that Vienna Teng has just released her new album, Inland Territory, which I bought at the concert she held here a few weeks ago, and it is phenomenal. I suggest you all go buy it. It is best for everyone this way. Trust me.

- Jen

Alright, we’re back from California, and everything is copacetic. Hope all the readers are hangin’ in there too.

Number one, I have to say, is that stepping off the plane from sunny Palo Alto and into the wonderfully gray Pittsburgh weather was not the most pleasant return. Nor was having our bags lost somewhere in Dallas, nor coming home two hours after we expected to in the wee hours of Easter morning, but we survived, and now we are back in the saddle.

I have no thrilling news for anyone, no updates on anything community or public wise, but as promised, we do have some pictures of San Francisco.

^ At Pier 39 (down along Fisherman’s Wharf) there were some interesting things to see. Here was our buddy, a Sea Gully. We didn’t name him yet, but we are open to suggestions.

^ Anne found a crab topiary and decided to mimic it.

^ And then we found a completely random wooden seal that I made friends with.

So if you are asking: “Did you two really run all over San Francisco taking weird photos of yourself acting like spazoids?” The answer is “Oh definitely.”

- Jen

Good morning, readers.

I’d like to take a moment here and thank everyone who has been voting religiously, you’ve kept us hovering around slot 200, not bad for our first two months. We’re excited to see so many different countries up on our stats list, including Luxembourg which has siezed the #2 spot on the list behind the USA.

We have decided to officially start advertising now that we have enough of a start here, so look for ads popping up within the next few weeks on other comics. We’ll also be trying to draw in our home city’s crowd by doing some paper advertising here, so we hope to see some of our neighbors signing on to see us.

On April 3rd (unfortunately the same day as the start of Tekkoshocon, see previous blogpost), Anne and I will be boarding a plane to California, and we will be gone for a week and a half. Thus, no one will be here to monitor the site unless I gain internet access, but I don’t think I’m going to feel inclined on my vacation to site-manage. So what does this mean for The Tempest, some readers have asked?

> Will the comic still update for the 2 Mondays you are gone?

Yes. We have them already in the uploader.

> Will the vote incentives update?

Yes. They are also pre-uploaded. However, I have to update them on the left sidebar manually, so they will refresh in the blog instead, where you will see the little preview box like normal.

> Can we contact you?

You may, but I will not be picking up emails OR approving comments from April 3 - April 13. So if you leave a comment and it doesn’t show, don’t be alarmed, I do those manually, and I’ll get them when I come back. I’ll also check my email then, too.

> Will you take pictures of Cali?

Oh yes.

So we’ll see you guys in a few weeks!

Jen

Good morning!

There have been rumors floating about that Anne and I will be at the upcoming Tekkoshocon event in Pittsburgh, and more rumors yet that I will be helping run the LARP event.

Unfortunately, while my friend Brian is running the LARP event and I was scheduled to be assisting, and Anne and I were scheduled to be in attendence of the con as we normally are, this year we have a conflict of interest and will not be able to make it. I’m sad because this was the LARP kickoff year and I do love Tekko dearly, but I can’t be too sad since Anne and I will instead by lying on a beach in Monterey and visiting some family.

That being said, there WILL be updates for April 6th and April 13th even though I will not be in town. There might be blog posts, we’ll see.

Everyone going to Tekko, support Brian (because he has put a ton of work into a great plot!), have fun for me, and take lots of pictures and email us with all the fun we missed. We’re always interested to see people’s costumes.

- Jen