Suburban Tribe issue 2 Now On Sale!

Fresh off the UPS truck, issue #2 is now available! You can order a copy through the site store, or if you're here in town (Louisville), you can stop by my fave LCS The Zone, located at 4121 Shelbyville Rd. in St. Matthews.

I'm a little surprised to say that I like this more than issue one. It's leaner and the stories are a little breezier, plus all of the strips in this one were created using Corel Painter as my digital inking tool. Also, if your email was used for an "Ask a Cast Member" comic over the last few months, those strips are featured in issue #2 as well. This is your chance to see your name in print!

Issue 2 also features an all-new Permutation of Stupidity comic that has never been seen before.

Speaking of P.O.S., I'm running one of them from issue 1 today beacuse I've just been too busy with freelance deadlines, busted water heaters, self-destructing MacBooks and other personal and freelance business appointments and emergencies to cobble together a new Tribe strip for you today. I hope you'll forgive me, I'll get back on track on Friday. Gotta keep the story rolling so that issue #3 will be out for Thanksgiving, after all!

Search Engine Update
With over 200 strips transcripted into the OhNoRobot database, you can now search a hefty chunk of the Suburban Tribe archives using the search feature in the nav bar on the right, just under the email link.

3 or 4 readers have just been transcribing fools, digging through dozens of the oldest, wordiest and uglyist strips in the archive, god bless you all. OhNoRobot will not let me see formal names, but I'm pretty sure that transcriptor numero uno is Llewelyn Graeme. Regardless, anybody who transcripted even one strip gets a huge thanks from me. I have not had to make one correction-- even to those strips where Caesar's misspelled emails and IMs were meticulously recreated.

You guys rock.

Lastly...
While flipping through some old art books last week, I found this 4-year-old thumbnail of a long-forgotten Suburban Tribe strip (click on it for a readable version):


I'm pretty sure that this was an uxexplored direction of my very first story arc, Bachelor's Bounty. Apparently, Dave was looking through the classifieds and got the idea to subject himself to medical testing in order to pay off his debt before I decided that he would market cat food to lazy single men.

I dunno, I just thought that you might like to see something like this.

Today's strip is dedicated to my Dad

...who drove out to help me replace my busted hot water heater and slaved away until 1am this morning.

You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to make the leap that this is why the strip is late today. I'm not trying to make a habit of posting late on Wednesdays, I swear.

Not to mention that the strip database broke yesterday as well and it was well into this morning before the repairs were viewable across the globe. But all's well that ends well.

Also, several people have transcribed many strips for the new ohnorobot search engine. Thanks to everyone who has participated so far. If you see a strip in the archive that does NOT have the transcribe link under it, that means that the transcription for that strip is complete.

Okay, back to work!

Ohnorobot! - Suburban Tribe Search Engine

First of all, there are 5 total comments on the post below, I have no idea why they aren't showing up.

But anyway, if you hit the previous strip button or peruse the archive through the story arc link, you will see a button under each comic that reads "Transcribe This Comic." Clicking on this button will take you to the website ohnorobot.com where you will find a form that will allow you to fill out a transcription so that the comic strip can go into a searchable database.

With over 700 ST strips and counting, this is obviously an enormous undertaking that I cannot complete on my own. But when I saw how well this has worked out for John Allison and his excellent Scary-Go-Round, I thought I'd sign up and see how far we can get if some of you guys feel up to keying in 3 years worth of all my yakkity-yak.

2 strips have already been transcribed. Once I get about 100 strips in the engine, I'll activate the search field, which will be featured in the right navigation area. In the meantime, head over to SGR and see how this thing works. Don't be afraid to let me know what you think.

If you missed Wednesday's strip...

...that's because it went up at 11:58pm that day. No excuse other that the usual work deadlines and "life" stuff. Click the previous strip button to check it out, it has a spretty significant plot point.

The new story officially started on Monday, but I don't have a title for it yet, so the Story Arcs page is once again out of date. But be sure to take a look at the Cast page, with new entries for Haley and McWhiskey.

Issue #2 finally got off to the printer this past Tuesday. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I may end up liking it more than issue number one. Fingers crossed, it should be available by August 25. Have a good weekend, ya'll!

John Lee: Sellout.

Suburban Tribe #1 has sold out at The Zone (my LCS), much to my surprise. I am also nearing the end of my stock that I'm selling through this website. It will eventually go back to press (it's printed via print-on-demand), however, that won't happen until after issue #2 goes on sale August 23. So if you were thinking of ordering a copy of issue #1, do so now or you might have to wait until mid-September.

Speaking of all this print comic nonsense, look for the first Suburban Tribe trade paperback to go on sale in time for the Holidays. Suburban Tribe: Too Many Notes will feature the story arcs printed in issues 1-3 in addition to color versions of the first 25 strips that made up my submission packet to the newspaper syndicates. It will also likely have some sketches and maybe some creator commentary by yours truly.

This is also a good time to tell you that I've finally updated the Story Arcs 2006 page. I have a few things I want to say about the college flashback story that just wrapped, but I'll save that for my next post. The new story arc will start on Monday.

My wife and I spent all of last week vacationing in Amsterdam. I worked ahead on the strip the week before so that it would update while I was away. I thought that was better than taking a whole week off or running guest strips just after I had gotten all of that publicity. We had a great time and I think we must have walked that entire city 10 times, at least. I'll try to find the least incriminating photos and post them later.

And you know what? I'm still jet-lagged as hell. Nighty-night.