I'm back!

Well, I'm back. The first broadcast(s) of Suburban Tribe Live went pretty well, in spite of some audio issues toward the end of the Sunday afternoon ep.

I recorded both the Sunday afternoon and evening broadcasts. You can click over to my Ustream page here to see them both, or you can get the gist of the whole thing by viewing the afternoon episode below (the evening ep was 2 1/2 hours long, so beware)

Much more soon to come, including announcements, new features and another STL broadcast, so stay tuned to the RSS and Twitter feeds to stay in the loop!

Regular updates return Monday, STL official launch this weekend!

Well, this time Monday morning, you'll be sucking down some coffee in your cubicle and avoiding your boss while reading the first regular installment of Suburban Tribe since last August (wow.)

With my job situation and the new wee one around, I will be writing and creating strips in weekly batches in order to keep things flowing more smoothly. This leads me to announce the official launch of Suburban Tribe Live.

I admit openly that I am taking my cue from other comic artists by broadcasting the creation of my comic strip. However, the site needs all of the reader interaction that I can encourage and the broadcast/podcast method is too good to pass up. I'll be broadcasting my desktop, as well as a webcam stream of myself along with live audio of me and my friend Bill (Skip) and possibly Jeremy (Dave) as cohost(s). I'm still working on a way to accept Skype calls on the program, so stay tuned on that front.

With a 4-month old in the house, I can't begin to fathom setting up a regular schedule for the STL stream, but I will announce when I go on the air in my RSS and Twitter feeds. Look for the first official show(s) this weekend.

See you all back here on Monday!

Suburban Tribe Live Preview

UPDATE, 8:30 AM, Thursday, April 17 - Still coloring! Tune in and watch.

Borrowing a page from other comics creators, I've set up a channel on Ustream that will let you see me ink, color and letter ST strips in real time. I'm still working out the kinks, so there won't be an official announcement or regular broadcast schedule until next week sometime, complete with audio and viewer call-in capabilities.

But, if you'd like to see a test run, I'm inking all of the new character portraits right now! (8:45 AM, EST) Click on over to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/suburban-tribe-live for a preview.

Cleaning up some sloppy code

I started out the weekend intending to update the character art in the site, but I stumbled on my Story Index pages, where I found that the page formatting was shot to hell when I implemented the new site design. On top of that, I never created a page with all of the story arcs from 2007! These pages are all formatted properly and should display nicely in all browsers, and you can even take a look at the stories from 07, complete with their titles.

I also found an awesome software tool called FeedForAll, which is a kind of WYSIWIG editor and creator for RSS feeds. After downloading it and running the Suburban Tribe RSS feed through it, FeedForAll discovered a whopping 32 errors! So I spent the better part of Sunday afternoon cleaning that up. If you've ever had a problem with the RSS feed over the last 6 months, you shouldn't anymore.

Phew. Hopefully, I'll get around to that character art Monday night. Right now, time for bed. Look for an announcement in the next day or two about the Suburban Tribe channel I'll be launching on Ustream.

Pour the brandy and put the Tuna Helper in the oven. I'm comin' home!

Sorry that things have been so quiet, but to say that the last couple of weeks have been stressful and event-laden would be like saying the ocean has water in it.

But it's over now, all is well, and the last three pages of the current story have been written, penciled and are in the computer, awaiting inks, grays and letters. Sorry these took so long, but there's a lot of slapstick and not much room for cloning panels in these final pages.

The last three pages will all publish next week April 7 -11 and Suburban Tribe will resume the 4-panel, MWF format on April 28. Look for more site features, improvements and media to follow in the days before and after.

I think that we'll kick things off with a new, short Legend of Suburban Tribe story. I need to get my D&D on. Then, back to the ad agency shenanigans.