Hello internetland. I’ve been mulling and postulating and other big words for thunk and have come to the conclusion that based on current performance including late and absent comics I’m putting the strip on indefinite hiatus for at least the rest of the summer. I hope this doesn’t bother anyone too badly. It may be back with the new school year, or if i suddenly feel inspired for some reason, but I don’t like keeping people hanging. So thanks to everyone who’s read along so far, and i hope i see you again if this crazy enterprise winds back up at some point. But until then i bid you adieu and an overwrought metaphor.

I’m on the way home for spring break today so you guys will get your comic later today or possibly tonight. In the meantime I will regale you with tales of how I met THE ENTIRE INTERNET as well as some other folks at the fabulous and verdant Emerald City Comicon!

I got to meet Aaron Diaz,David Malki, Keith Knight, Pete Abrams, the fantastic Erika Moen, Brad Guigar, Dave Kellet, Scott Kurtz, and Kris Straub, of the interminable and inspirational halfpixel, Jeph Jacques, Danielle Corsetto had a line all day but I took a picture to prove we were in the same place, and Meridith Gran. Not pictured also fantastic cartoonists I met include Ryan Ottley (artist for the image comic Invincible), Andy Runton, KC Green. The show was an absolute dream. Meeting all these people whose work you admire and follow was such a great feeling. Everyone was so nice. I don’t really know what else to say about that. Also pictured is the huge pile of awesome swag I acquired from aforementioned awesome people and the halfpixel boys perpetrating an absolutely hilarious and yet very informative webcomics panel. I hope everyone else had as awesome a weekend as I did, but I doubt it. So TWO comics tomorrow. But it’s ok, I can do it, I’m on vacation.

i imagine somehow all nearly 20 of you will manage. I get better numbers now that i installed my analytics code right.

no comic today either. Big paper due. I have a guest comic lined up for thursday. Sorry, thanks for bearing with me.

Sorry squad I totally forgot the comic last night. I’ll try and crank one out today. Maybe stream for you. Watch this space. Or twitter.

Helloooo readers. It is now officially the future. In 2000 maybe “well it’s only been a few months since the future started, and it takes time to get flying car assembly lines running” was alright but now, now there is no excuse. Come on people, where are our impractical sparkly devices? In any event, I wished to apologize for and attempt to explain away my sudden absence for the better part of a month. Basically I went back to Alaska and didn’t have a scanner, although really I could have worked around that and mostly I just wanted a break from the work. Not to say that this isn’t fun, but it is a lot of work. Anyway I thought about the future of the comic and what I wanted it to do and become and mostly just took a break. I’m sorry for not telling you sooner but hey, I was taking a break. Anyway, I don’t expect any gaps quite that long to occur again and I hope it didn’t turn you off of this site at all. Also, I never made an official announcement although some of you may have noticed but this comic is now (has been) on a tuesday/thursday post schedule. I know this seems kind of weird but hey, there you have it. It works for the slick and professional authorship at Good In Theory so it’s good enough for you. Anyway so you can expect a comic here every tuesday and thursday morning (usually) for your mild chuckles. If your doctor has prescribed a heartier or more prolonged dose of chuckles feel free to check out any of the links in the right hand (bizarre I know) sidebar, these are the webcomics I frequent and tend to enjoy, your mileage may vary. In light of all this you may glance at your calender and suddenly be springing up, sending your rolly chair skittering across the plastic floor mat, declaring “But wait! Today is thursday, it is well past morning and there is no new comic to be found! What manner of treachery is this?” you would be correct in your observation and the simple answer is that i was at a rockin’ concert last night. I’ll do a comic today. Additionally, as a balm to your seared soul I will be broadcasting the inking process LIVE via the power of the INTERNET! at a REASONABLE HOUR instead of something like TWO IN THE MORNING when I usually do it. That trove of content and interactivity can be found at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ncovell. You don’t have to create a login but you do if you want to participate in chat. It only takes a couple seconds and they don’t send you any crap I promise. Then you can pester me! What fun we shall have, romping through the meadows of cyberspace. In any event I hope that this assuaged some of your questions as to the ongoing status of this comic and I hope you continue to visit and enjoy and thank you for following thus far. If you’ve had a good time, tell your friends!

//UPDATE Sun 9:42 am DONE! putting the comic up for all the world to see. This counts as monday’s post BTW.

//UPDATE Sat 12:20 pm So I’m streaming whether or not you guys show up, here it is http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ncovell

Hello, yes you three who read this. So there’s this thing called “24 hour comic day” which is a day usually in october (in this instance tomorrow) wherein cartoonists around the country all go somewhere where there are other cartoonists and try and write, thumbnail, sketch, ink, letter and create in its entirety, a 24 page long form comic in 24 hours. So last year i missed out on it and told myself that this year I would do it. Then i realized on monday that it was this weekend. I haven’t been able to find any 24 hour comic day events in portland which strikes me as super odd but ohwell so it looks like i’m going to be doing 24 hour comics day from right here in my dorm room all by myself!!! wooooo par freaking tay. Anyway we’ll see if i crash and burn (likely) or just get distracted but hopefully I’ll be able to pull through and get some kind of finished product out of this. The smart thing to do would be of course to use this period of extreme stress etc to get some buffer strips done. but nuuuu I decided that I’m going to do a long form comic. So not only that but I’m also going to have to draw a strip for monday because you bet your sweet potatoes that i’m not going to be doing one sunday night. So the event goes from noon saturday october 3rd to noon sunday october 4th. If anyone want’s to skype me to talk while i draw or whatever that would be super cool just call my phone or hit me up on IM. I’m thinking about trying to do a video stream of this except that i’m pretty sure no one would show up. Hey if you would show up to a video stream throw a “PANCAKES!” into the comments but you better show up cause there’s only like three of you. So anyway, that’s the event, there’s me, I’m doing it I think. See you all tomorrow. AAAAALLLLL Of tomorrow.

So I moved into my dorm room today. Look it’s all my crap on the floor! anyhooser that’s why there’s no comic up today I hope you can excuse me. I should have some amount of excess time this week before classes start so I’ll try and get you guys a comic up before thursday. Thanks for playing!

I’m not a go to the doctor type person but my scientific intuitions tell me that based on the fact that e v e r y o n e who went to pax got sick somehow (with flu’s and colds swine or otherwise) and the fact that i have a fever of 103, mean’s I’m probably sick in some capacity. As such I probably won’t have a comic up tomorrow, certainly not tonight. If I somehow make a miraculous recovery perhaps by tomorrow night but I doubt it. Sorry for the conspicuious lack of content but hey there’s only 4-6 people who read this anyway with my luck I’ll get linked from somewhere tomorrow or something. Anyway. Hope everyone had a great weekend, mine was awesome except for the sickdeath. Also, happy birthday to Rachel! You’re on the internet now. The real internet.

Wow. Just wow. For those of you who don’t know I spent friday saturday and sunday not sleeping because I was at the biggest videogame convention in North America. Being both a sometimes gamer and more increasingly a devotee and participant in the webcomics community I have wanted to attend this convention when it was at or around 3,000 people at the Bellvue convention center. It has now moved to the largest convention center in Washington and this year sold out a week before opening to over 70,000 people. This was probably one of the more incredible experiences I have ever had. Even though I don’t play a lot of videogames all the demos and free beta keys floating around the huge (and incredibly loud) exhibition hall was an awesome experience in the sensory overload department. There were raffles and free t-shirts everywhere, I personally am leaving with about 6 more shirts than I came with and one of my associates who hit the swag circuit a little harder was up about 15 garments total. Both he and I also won some computer cases from the nvidia booth for filling out a survey so it was a pretty good convention on the free swag front. I made several hundred dollars worth of purchases from artists and persons whose work I admire greatly including but not limited to Kris Straub, MC Frontalot, and newly discovered artists performing like Anamanaguchi and Metroid Metal. Additionally I bought an awesome Maw plushie, and some sweet PAX branded razor earbuds (I had no working headphones at the time) as well as all of the currently extant Scott Pilgrim books. So that was consumerism and the convention floor but like I said I only play videogames sometimes so really the most exciting part about this entire weekend was getting to meet the people from the internet who have inspired me to do the things that I do. It sounds strange but it’s really amazing to see these people you’ve heard so much about through their blogs and ustreams and twitters and whatnot and see them in person and shake their hand. It was an incredible experince to be able to shake hands with all of the major cartoonists who inspired me to draw cartoons and make webcomics all in the same place. By some insane fortuitous circumstance Bill Amend of Foxtrot, Kris Straub, Scott Kurtz, and of course both Mike and Jerry of the eponymous Penny Arcade. To meet all these inspirational people in one weekend at one event was simply indescribable. Additonally to be able to meet Johnathan Coulton who is responsible for me wanting to learn the guitar and MC Frontalot who at one point inspired me to write several nerdcore raps in my spare time. Additionally there were panels with all of these individuals which were really interesting and intriguing looks into their origins and processes which were incredibly helpful to me as a creator. Then there were the concerts. We only ended up going to the friday night one and I had to miss JoCo saturday night because I rocked out so hard on friday. But oh was it worth it, Anamaniguchi and Metroid Metal played some absolutely insane and awesome music and me and my buddies took full advantage of the opportunity to rock our socks off. Sadly enough hardly anyone else there did but we rocked so hard I’m pretty sure we’re going to be all over the PAX09 dvd, At least we got up on the big screen a lot. However unfortunately due to said energetic appreciation of the prevalent tunes, and being at the convention for at that point over 20 hours ended up having to leave partway through the frontalot set and also not go to the saturday night concert for fear of serious and permanent physical damage. I am not joking, it was scary there for a few moments, but only because there was so much fun it hurt. The one thing i didn’t get to do much of was participate in any of the freeplay areas, either console, handheld, pc, or board games which is something i would really like to do more of next year. It’s really difficult to sum up PAX in even a huge wall of text like this but It was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done, and getting to meet and talk to the creators I admire and look up to was an incredibly rewarding experience. I totally look forward to doing it next year, I’ll leave you free to talk or ask questions in the comments. I’m super beat so there’s a filler comic which I think those of you with an appreciation for fine toilet humor will understand. Which, based on our recent run of jokes, I hope is most of you. Thanks again for reading, and I hope everyone had half as awesome a labor day weekend as I did.

-nic