You may have noticed the tinkering I’ve been doing with the background elements. The art is from the new sticker/Tshirt/poster/skatedeck art I’ve been tinkering with. I had it up like this first:
That didn’t work. It was eye-popping, so I swapped it out for this:
That was still messing with folk’s ability to read the comment section, so for those of us who aren’t as computer-savvy as AllanVS, I’ve now swapped it again to this nice monochrome blue. We’ll test-phase it for a day or two, and then either leave it for a while, or maybe dim it down a bit if it’s still causing legibility issues. [Edit. There were, in fact, still legibility issues. I’ve dimmed it. Let me know what you think.]
And here is the tiny cute sticker I just ordered a pile of:
They’ll be the same vinyl as the original round stickers, so they’re pretty much weatherproof.
If you’ve read this far in what has seemed to be a pretty pointless blog post, I’ll reward you with this- I’m talking to an agent who I will hopefully be engaging in some capacity soon, and who will hopefully get me to a position where I’m running ’round the country to a few comics conventions next year (some of you might remember that I had hoped to pull that off for this past year, but it turns out that it takes a LOT more planning than I can often put into things) So we’re looking at what sorts of things tend to go well at conventions, that you guys might like to have. Stickers, obviously, and the so-called ‘lapel pins’ which have become ‘lanyard pins’ at conventions. I’m partway through with the cover for the next Hubris book, which will feature the Great Stanky Creek/Snake Oil Outdoorfest, and will (this is the time-consuming part) have some of the stuff that you guys had hoped to see in the website, but that I cut out for various reasons. If you’d like to make sure that I remember to include your favorite games or characters in the book version, click the ‘contact’ or ’email’ button now and remind me.
‘Poster’ has already come up as a possibility for the new design (Here’s an extra trivia game for you- who knows what company I’m parodying with the new design?) and of course, I’ll have to do shirts. Maybe hats, but I have two other designs I want to do on hats. I have a neat idea about the shirts, and I don’t know if it’ll pan out, but I’m checking into it.
There you go- all the news that fit to speculate about. You guys tell me what you’d like to see me doing- what products, what conventions, whatever… and I’ll tell my (hopefully) new agent, and we’ll see where it goes.
Also, if you’d like some stickers, as always, send me a photo or product review or something. Or if you’ve already sent me something I’ve used to pad out my Tuesdays or Thursdays (sporadically, lately) then remind me of your address, and I’ll send stickers- even if I’ve already sent some before. I probably owe you more than stickers, so speak up, I’ll send ’em. I still have some of the round ones, and some of the larger paper ones, and soon, the new design.
The new background is definitely more readable. I like it. Don’t change it unless you want to yourself. But, this picture makes me wonder if Hubris might start skating on a board that looks like one big band-aid.
Can’t make any suggestions for new products or cons to visit.
Yes the blue is easier to read against for the background!
kewl on new book soon and new art and even more stuff!
You Rock, Greg!
Also, I think you should give the same Dia de Muertos treatment to the rest of the cast, including Durnell-in-a-tux.
I like the image, and the color does work well with the comments section. Good job!
He mentioned me being “Tek-Savvy” … I heard the anger dripping from his voice and the voice in his head screeching “how daaaaaaare he remove the phooooooto I put uppppppp! Grooooooooowl!” hehehe
THIS one is much easier to read text on, Greg, thank you, I still love ya man! (Check Bucket’s out, BTW).
I am surprised over the apparent change in mood setting for Hubris that has taken me by a bit of surprise. Why the “dark” and “evil” style to a series about a whimsical group of friends more or less reminding you of Laurel and Hardy or the Marx Brothers?
Hmm. The current mood in the writing comes, I guess, from moving away from the Outdoorfest and settling all the fiddly little things associated with it. There were a couple of things I wanted to tinker with before I get back into more outdoorsy stuff. Now that I know you’re feeling it as darker, or MarxBro-ish, I might steer it toward the lighter end. That’s pretty easily done. For a bit there, I was worried you were thinking of the new background as ‘dark’ and ‘evil’. Just in case anyone hasn’t worked it out- the background is a parody of some of Tony Hawk’s Birdhouse skateboard art.
Greg, this is probably where you’re going to need to pick your audience. There are always going to be people that need their Marmaduke and Garfield fixes, and there will be the rest of us looking for Too Much Coffee Man and Red Meat. You won’t be able to keep both camps happy all the time, and you’ll probably have to consciously decide which one you want to keep. As for me, I like the way the strip is going now.
Heck I call it good if I need a garden hose to be able to get house privileges back… great if I don’t need more than bandaids, and Awesome and (deleted) combined if it took an ER visit, stitches, cast, and/or some ‘good’ meds and a doctor ordered hold my bed down session afterwards (scar crop is either awesome or Quasimodo worthy)
Hubris and a good stint in my greenhouse come close to the latter and I usually don’t have to spend several months in PT afterwards. Keep it up Greg, we need ya, we love ya, I like the background!
Love the background!
… it was a dark and dreary day at Outdoor Galore, when Hubris beat the paste out of Paste.
Hey, how’s the Mo grow’n goin’ ? Bet most of you dudes have more fur on your leg than I do on my lip, but my lip’s worth $20 in 21 more days. (seems like 21 years…) Grow’n the Mo for Movember! [Dang proud of my XX rated Mo-growing abilities; if my better XY totin’ half could wear a pink ribbon for me, I can cultivate my sickly fu-manchu for him] Yeah shamelessly plugging the good cause!!!!!!