Jet Packs and Time Machines – The Best Semi Sci Fi Comic Strip Out There.

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything.  It’s been a while since I’ve drawn a JPTM comic too.  I’m fixing the former now, and hopefully, the latter will eventually change. I’m not going to give any dramatic announcements or bold promises of content any time soon, but I will say that I have recently been thinking a lot about my comic, and I’ve been starting to draw the characters again, as well as working on a few new ones. I’m just posting now to let the few RSS subscribers and other random comic reading wanderers know that JPTM is not dead, and neither am I.

In the mean time though, let me give you all some updates regarding what I’ve been up to. First off, as some of my more dedicated readers and fellow cartoonists know, I work as a graphic and web designer.  It’s been a cause of some embarassment that the company that I work for, Smart Marketing, and advertising, marketing, and web and print design firm operating out of Chandler Arizona, has gone website-less for the majority of the 3+ years I’ve been working there. What can I say though… It’s like a mechanic who drives a broken car… We were building other websites and marketing other companies too much to have time for our own stuff.

As you might have guessed by the link about, we’ve finally changed that.  We also set up a website for a client of our who offers auto repair and maintenance out of Gilbert, Mesa, and Tempe, AZ, amongst a number of other sites I don’t feel like linking to right now.

Basically, I’ve been doing a lot of logo design, SEO, programming, and graphic design for quite a while now… and making a living doing it.  You know what all this work made me realize?  I really miss cartooning.  Not just drawing, not doing freelance illustrations or comics for corporate clients, but I miss doing my own work.  I miss weekly (if sometimes late) postings, I miss interacting with readers, and I even miss the mental effort of constantly combing through my life and experiences (sometimes desperately) for any material I can use.

I’m not giving a date, but I will say, I’m coming back.

Worth already blogged it, but I thought I might as well confirm it.  It’s now official, The Panel Mammals are no more.

What it really comes down to, is that I just don’t have the time to give the PM site the attention it needs and still produce comics.  From now on, my only concern is JP&TM, and anything outside of that will have to wait.

For those of you who might be at a loss and looking for a new comic conglomerate site to keep an eye on, you can always check out Tall Tale Features, where there will probably be some familiar faces.

I’m not dead… I’m just really busy right now.

Just so everyone knows, the basic plan is as follows:

1. Tweak a comicpress 2.1 setup and update wordpress to the latest version on the JP&TM site.
2. Get some writing done.
3. Return to comic production.
4. Set up the new mammal site.

That’s about it.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any solid ETAs on any of this yet.  I’ve got to talk it over with the other guys… but I’m guessing the panel mammals will wait to relaunch until Jarrett is totally ready to go and hopefully, I’ll be returning to production in early april some time.

I’m not really conquering the internet, but one thing I did just do is set up an account at comic sherpa for JP&TM… Not that anyone needs to go there to check out the comics in the smaller format (unless for some reason you have a problem with the larger JP&TM’s), but I’m just letting everyone know – I’m on sherpa now.

Of course, if anyone wanted to go there and submit feedback about how awesome JP&TM is… Feedback that the administrators over there end up getting a copy of… Well, I wouldn’t have a problem with gaming the system a bit. (Not that my plan is syndication or anything, but I might not be adverse to an eventual move up to gocomics – at least to check it out…)

Check out the new Cintiq monitor.

As many of you know, I myself work on a cintiq, although I work on a much larger and heavier model than this new one. I have to say, the idea of having a cintiq that I could easily and comfortably hold in my lap is very appealing. In an ideal world, I’d be purchasing this new cintiq and another computer that I could have both cintiqs hooked up to in a multiple monitor configuration so that I could switch between them depending on which is more convenient. I’m not going to do this of course (meaning “yet”), but I am going to check the reviews on this product and dream. (for now)

Sorry, but it looks like I won’t have a comic for friday (nov. 23rd). Just giving everybody the heads up, there will be no post on friday since I will be out of town and not near my computer until later in the day. JP&TM will continue as normal on monday. Thanks for reading and have a happy thanksgiving.

Alright… I’ve got a question.  As many of you have undoubtedly noticed, my production lagged for a little while there.  In a struggle to keep the content coming, I ended up posting some sketches, a couple old comics, and things like that. Now, looking back through my work, I realize it sort of throws my archives into dissarray.

My question is, should I go back and clean up these wayward posts, either by deleting them, or perhaps just moving them to a different part of the archives? Or should I not worry about it? My primary concern is that new readers looking through the archives might be thrown off by the unrelated posts.  Anyone have any thoughts on this?