Excuses, Excuses...

...or "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."

Anyone want to take a guess why no strips since last Wednesday? You got it: my undead freelance projects pulled the stakes out of their hearts and are running around in the night, terrorizing innocent victims.

I'm working on a batch of 5-6 strips and will start posting -- uninterrupted, I hope -- again late this week or early next week.

I'm sorry about this. I was really intending my return to 3-day/week status to go more smoothly, with less drama. Hopefully, by this time in a week or two, everything will be kosher.

In the meantime, someone go see Wall-E for me.

Comics Return Late Monday, June 23

Ugh. Finally.

Finally cleared the decks to the point where I felt comfortable getting the comics going again. However, it has been quite a few long, busy weekends and I'm running out of gas as I type this. The latest comic is penciled and written, so look for a live stream/podcast Monday night as I wrap it up and talk about everything that's been going on.

Thanks again for hanging in there with me. I'm getting this train back on the rails ASAP.

Work Hiatus Update, Incredible Hulk

UPDATE: Was too busy to catch The Hulk this weekend, but the good news is comics might be returning late this week or early next week. More to come...

I seem to be making decent progress on my work (over)load, but I will know more after this weekend. Thanks for your patience.

In the meantime, Incredible Hulk has a solid 72% on the good old Tomatometer and I'm going to try and play the Father's Day card to squeeze in a screening this weekend. Message to the CGI-haters and man-baby besserwissers: Eat me. I liked the first Hulk movie, I expect to like this one and I'm gonna go watch the shit out of it. I hope the thought of me buying a ticket for less than the price of two gallons of gas keeps you up all night.

I was a wee lad of 5 or 6 when the Hulk TV show was in its prime, and I've manged to catch a few of the early episodes on Hulu. I think that it still holds up. It may have been the first TV show to take a comic book superhero concept and treat it as a serious drama, a precursor to shows like Buffy and Smallville.

Best thing about the Hulk TV show? They had to keep coming up with new ways to piss Banner off week after week for four years, and nothing was off limits. Show Runner/Creator Kenneth Johnson has actually compiled a complete list of Hulk-out inducing traumas here. (My personal favorite: Number 52: Locked in a drunk tank with a crazy person who insists he is Ernest Hemingway and then beats the stuffing out of [Banner].)

Here are some YouTube clips illustrating two of these instances. You may think that they are intensely dumb reasons to "Hulk out," but I find both of them completely relatable, and a little ingenious. I even have vague recollections of watching the pay phone scene with my parents & grandparents as a kid and everyone was cheering the Hulk on as he trashed that phone booth.

See you at the movies! Next up: The Dark Knight!

Hiatus-itis

"Hey, it's Friday! There hasn't been a new Suburban Tribe comic since Monday. What's going on?"

Let's make this as quick and painless as possible.

About 4 weeks ago, I got a job. Working for someone else. There were lots of reasons, no point in going over them here. The steady pay is great and it seems like a cool place to work. However, this has left me with a handful of freelance jobs that I'm contractually obliged to complete, while I work 40 hours a week for another company.

Aside from hardware failures a couple of weeks ago, this is why comic updates have been sporadic. I thought that I could juggle all of these things, but that isn't happening.

Rather than sputter out one or two comics a week over the next month and a half, I'm going to try and plow through these projects over the next week or two and then get back to what passes for a normal schedule for me: working 8 hours a day and making 3 comics/week at night and on weekends.

I'm glad that "It's Okay to Drink Alone" is a big hit. I have video projects, new print comics and other merchandise plans for this site, along with a long-running advertising blitz. I'm not going anywhere, I just need you guys to sit tight while I slay a few dragons.

I'll keep you posted.