Cooking Contest Prize Sketch, Buy my crap, blah, blah, blah...

As promised, here is the original sketch that is on it's way to John Wright's hot little hands. As the winner (and, uh... sole entrant) of the cooking contest, John requested a sketch of Carol as she appeared in Legend... of the Ruby Crystals. (Click on it for a larger version.)


ALSO: I have a handful of extra copies of Suburban Tribe #1 back in stock. Click here to purchase if you are so inclined.

Too Many Notes Available for Pre-Order!

The first Suburban Tribe trade paperback, Too Many Notes, is ready to go to press. This perfect-bound book contains all of the stories and comics from 2006, including the previously unpublished Christmas story arc, Humbuggered. It also includes the very first 24 Suburban Tribe strips with creator commentary. Click here for a PDF preview of the first 24 strips with commentary. At $12.95 (+ $4.25 for S&H), this 108-page book is a much better value than the individual issues.

If you pre-order a copy of Too Many Notes within then next two weeks, I'll shave $1.00 off the price. I'm doing this because it takes a lot longer to print a square-bound paperback than it does to print a staple-stitched comic, and if you pre-order, you'll guarantee yourself a copy when it hits the site store (Around the first of April, I'm estimating.)

Once the store sells out, it could be many weeks until I have more in stock. So if you have wanted to own Suburban Tribe in a print edition, take advantage of this offer! This trade paperback will give you more bang for the buck than the individual comics!

Click here to pre-order Too Many Notes for $11.95 and save!

And the Cooking Contest Winner is...

John Wright! John prepared the vegetarian version of Chicken Tikka Masala, called Chana Masala (recipe supplied by me at his request) and his review follows below. John wins an original sketch by me of any one of the Tribe cast as they appeared at the end of Legend of the Curse of the Legend of the Ruby Crystals. Send me your choice John, and I'll post the sketch for all to see here.

Alas, John was also the only entrant, so I'm scratching the cooking contest. I'll probably just build a section of the site that's dedicated to my favorite recipes.

Chana Masala
Review by John Wright

Upon adding the spices, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to stir them in well enough and they'd all clump in the corner and make an ugly spice-ball, leaving the rest of the dish without that delicious 'this is an Indian dish' flavor. This didn't happen. Preparing this was not frightening, did not start a fire, did not cost a lot, and did not cause any other kind of trouble. It sounds silly to list them, but I've tried dishes that have done all those things (well, usually
just a lot of smoke, not fire).

This was my first foray into preparing Indian-influenced food at home, and it's only fair to say that I thought I would be pretty wowed by the flavors, and I was. So was my girlfriend. In fact, the high nutritional content and 'tasty' quality make this a very good dish to prepare when you want to feed yourself something with some protein (rice AND beans) or impress someone, or both, without risking moderate to severe injury. On the visual side, it came out with a pleasant gold-green mix, a kind of "early fall lawn and leaves" look. On the health side, the only salt in this dish is in the canned chickpeas, and while my can had not too much sodium (about 100 mg), it came out great and not 'bleh, it needs salt.' So if you're watching your sodium intake, this is pretty low in sodium but high on edibility and non-hot spices. That is not intended as medical advice.

To sum up: if you're afraid to cook, want something 'delicious,' want someone to be impressed by you, want something pretty, or want something Indian, this is a good dish to try.

Celebrating Four Years of Roger's Bare Torso Ruining Your Morning Coffee.

I do it all for you, really.

All this drama and Too Many Notes.

In case you hadn't guessed, the new story began here. It took me more than a month to figure out how to handle the past week's worth of strips. I really struggled with how this confrontation would play out, and for a while I was kicking myself for burning down Yesman & Puckerup and outing Carol to Tiffany as an indirect result.

I tried hard to write several strips where the girls talk things out, throwing in a punchline every so often along the way, but it ran about 7 or 8 strips long and it all fell so flat. Then it finally occurred to me that Carol and Tiffany haven't gotten along for a while, and each girl would probably be really mad at the other -- Carol would be terrified that her secret could get back to Alan -- and we've never seen any two characters get into a really ugly fight. So here we are.

It was fun to write and draw something that was so different and full of energy. The only drawback is that the whole sequence seems to have this weird, negative vibe and after scripting this all week, I sort of feel like I walked in on my parents screaming and throwing dishes at each other.

I just want to assure everyone that I'm working to bring back the office/dating/spy/fantasy sitcom you've been reading for the past four years (!) as fast as I can. Please don't think I'm turning the strip into Mary Worth or Funky Winkerbean.

Too Many Notes
Work continues on the trade paperback Too Many Notes, which will contain all Suburban Tribe strips from the year 2006 (including the unpublished story Humbuggered) as well as the very first 25 strips with commentary. I have just finished writing the commentary and it is pretty darn extensive. I will take pre-orders on this trade as soon as I have the covers drawn and colored, hopefully within 3 weeks or so.

I have been watching the Google ads...

...and if any of you clicks on the links "Removed to prevent further ads of this nature" or "Removed, like the phrase before it" I will slap you the next time I see you.

EDIT 2/12: What was I thinking, listing the offending phrases, when I wanted to get rid of those asinine ads? Damn, I'm smooth.