andrewfarago

On a hoppier note...

2009-12-18T00:40:02Z

Question about "Mail" program

2009-11-30T03:35:27Z

Does anyone use the Mac "Mail" program, the basic one that comes with the computer?

If so, does anyone know how to export your address book, or otherwise copy it? It seems like it's designed to automatically save the e-mail address of anyone that you ever write or respond to, but there's nothing in the basic drop-down menu that seems to let you save addresses or create an actual address book.

Fun stuff from the Couscous Collective Store

2009-11-20T00:25:33Z

I've got a new William Bazillion mini-comic, "Fatty Camp," that's now available in the Couscous Collective store! (Thanks to the lovely and talented Pancha Diaz for updating the shop!)

Please check out the store here and load up on "Fatty Camp" (which is not available online, and probably won't be) and other fine Couscous products today. These make great stocking stuffers for those special comic fans in your life, and you should pick up on some of these quality items for yourself while you're at it.

Orders will be extra, extra appreciated right now as our home computer is in the shop, and we're bracing ourselves for a steep repair bill.

Wireless router? More like functionless router.

2009-11-10T08:18:39Z

Yeah, that's not a very funny joke for the subject line, but I've got a boring, technical computer problem question.

For the tenth time, I've tried setting up a wireless router at home, and once again, the setup process leads us all the way through, then has no useful troubleshooting tips whatsoever to explain why our system doesn't work.

(Usually this involves us buying a router, trying to set it up, failing at that, exchanging the router for a different one, failing at that, then giving up for a few months until we decide to try again.)

And please skip ahead to someone else's photos or Twitter-stream if this stuff bores you. I'll try to be brief, though.

Anyway, we've got a little black box that provides us with a DSL connection for our "land" computer, and we're trying to set up a wireless router so that we can use that same DSL for our laptop. So far, so good, right?

Here's what happens every single time: We go through the setup process, bit by bit, connect all the cords properly, and when we're finished, we end up with a slow (possibly non-existent) connection to the land computer. Our wireless router/network appears as a network option on our laptop (and it claims that the connection is at full strength), but we end up with that "trying to connect/rainbow pinwheel" thing for about five minutes, and no connection ever happens.

The main thing that I notice when we go through all of the connections (as the setup disc instructs us to do) is that the green blinking "Activity" light on our DSL router/black box thing doesn't blink much at all once we've connected everything.

If anyone has any good troubleshooting advice for router installation, please let us know. We've tried just about everything, and it feels like we're close to getting this solved, but it also feels like we might never get this problem solved, too.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

For the three of you reading this who don't also read my wife's blog...

2009-11-03T02:36:26Z

I may be biased, but my favorite comic strip these days has got to be Skin Horse, written by Shaenon K. Garrity and Jeffrey Wells, with art by Shaenon. A brand-new storyline starts today, so if you haven't checked it out yet, please click on the link and bookmark it. You'll be glad you did.

For those of you who don't want to read through the entire archive (and haven't ordered your copy of Skin Horse, Volume One yet), here's a brief recap from the helpful cast page:

If you are already reading and enjoying Skin Horse, please tell one or 500 of your closest friends. Preferably friends who like webcomics, buying print collections of webcomics, original art from webcomics, crossdressing, zombies, werewolves, and swearing Jewish helicopters.

This was funnier a month ago...

2009-10-29T07:45:55Z

...but I haven't had time to draw it and scan it until now.

Click here for my attempt at topical humor.

Tokyo Drifter

2009-10-21T02:23:15Z

Here's the first batch of photos from our recent trip to Japan. Cheers to Facebook for changing their programming so that those of you who haven't joined the Facebook cult yet can still look at photos that are posted there.

Short explanation of our trip: In 2007, Shaenon and I curated an exhibition for the Cartoon Art Museum called The Art and Flair of Mary Blair. It was very well-received, prompting Studio Ghibli to plan their own much, much, much larger version.

Shaenon and I were hired on as consultants, assisting Mary's nieces with the process of gathering all of the art together and making arrangements for the art to travel to Tokyo back in April.

Earlier this month, we made a return trip to pack up the artwork and bring it back to the U.S. Fortunately for us, they held over the exhibition long enough for us to get a look at it. Even cooler, we got a private look at the exhibition on its final night with staff from Studio Ghibli, the Tokyo Contemporary Art Museum, Japanese broadcaster NHK, Disney, and the core crew behind Pixar's UP, which is already one of our all-time favorite movies. It was incredibly cool to be able to trade Mary Blair stories with Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Jonas Rivera and Ronnie Del Carmen as we walked through the galleries.

Anyway, please check out the photos. More should be on the way soon.

Sequential Tart interviews me & Shaenon!

2009-10-06T11:10:06Z

Patti Martinson of Sequential Tart has been interviewing all of the Couscous Collective members (minus the elusive Konstantin Pogorelov, who lives in a small cabin in the woods with Bill Watterson, Steve Ditko and J.D. Salinger), and she's kicking off October with me and Shaenon.

Enjoy these, then meet us in person at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco on October 17 & 18. Shaenon's moderating a panel, I'm moderating a panel, and I'm actually *on* two panels, which is a rarity. If all goes well, I'll have a new print-only William Bazillion mini-comic, entitled "Fatty Camp" on sale at the con.

We'll be loaded with stories from our (currently ongoing) trip to Japan (wrapping up a project for Studio Ghibli and Disney) and copious amounts of rum. Miss it at your peril!

So that's what he sounds like...

2009-09-16T00:55:09Z

I was interviewed by Tom Racine for his Tall Tale Radio program a while back, and forgot to post the link. Click here to find out everything you ever wanted to know about my job.

I also turn up again in a newer broadcast, at the tail end of the Nick Gurewitch/Monsters of Webcomics feature. Shaenon's on that one, too, so it's obviously worth a listen.

A hit! A palpable (press) hit!

2009-09-03T18:43:23Z

Gary Tyrrell of webcomics news site Fleen has read the entire archive of The Chronicles of William Bazillion, and apparently he liked it enough to write about it at length on his site. He does a pretty good job of summarizing the plot, too, so if you've been on the fence about checking it out, you can tell at a glance if you're likely to enjoy it or if it's something you really need to avoid at all costs.

I'm in the planning stages for a new comic, though, so it's hard to say when I'll get back to William Bazillion and his crew. I'm a bit tempted to go back and re-do the first story arc in a more easily-digestible (more printable/publishable) version, but I'll see how I'm feeling after I've gotten this new idea off the ground.

"You did it, kid!"

2009-08-26T08:22:37Z

At long last, the thrilling and probably not-all-that-shocking conclusion to The Race for Santa's Nazi Gold.

At least, I didn't think it was too shocking. Pretty much in character for everyone who's still alive at this point...

With the Alternative Press Expo coming up fast, gradually preparing to move from San Francisco to Berkeley, the need/desire to pursue some paying cartoon work, and the other webcomic idea I've been wanting to put down on paper for a while, this marks the end of the weekly William Bazillion updates for now. I've got the characters in a pretty interesting position when I'm ready to get back to them, hopefully something that will lend itself to stories that won't take nearly three years to unfold.

Thanks to those of you who've been reading, and for those of you who haven't, there's a whole archive with a (currently) definite ending, so please give it a look and tell your friends to do the same.

And if you want to support the comic financially, please visit The Couscous Collective Store and buy boatloads of mini-comics, plus all of Shaenon Garrity's books. I'll also do commissioned work for rates that are pretty much the same as Shaenon's, on the off-chance that your wall really needs some drawings of an evil Richie Rich knockoff knocking Hitler's block off.

Excelsior!

Experience the Couscous Collective on Facebook!

2009-08-19T06:32:35Z

The Couscous Collective now has an official Facebook Fan Page! If you're on there, please sign up!

"Welcome back, Santa."

2009-08-19T05:56:27Z

Another installment of William Bazillion is now online for your reading pleasure. I think I should be able to wrap up the current storyline within a few installments now, honest.

Phone update

2009-08-18T04:53:31Z

I went to the AT&T store to find out why my bill was so much higher than it should have been.

First of all, I'd apparently logged on to the Internet--or attempted to--even though my phone isn't set up for that, and apparently I get charged 50 cents or so every time that happens. Step one, then, was to block my phone from doing that.

Secondly, and this was the big one, I was getting charged $20 a month from a company called FlyCell for ringtones, downloads and stuff like that. This was news to me, so the store people had me call customer service and get that straightened out. Apparently FlyCell gets your number off of the Internet (probably through Facebook), then sends you a text message. Since that's the cell phone equivalent of junk mail, I dumped the message without reading it, but the gist of the message is "We're signing you up for this service unless you tell us not to, and we'll be charging you $20 a month whether you use this service or not."

So, fortunately, AT&T has dealt with this before, so they credited me $40 and blocked me and Shaenon from getting fraudulently signed up for anything like that again.

Given how this resolved itself, I wonder how many people just end up paying these fees every month without reading their bills, how much money companies like FlyCell get through sheer apathy, and how companies like that manage to not get sued out of existence for their shady business practices.

Anyway, we'll stick with our cell phone plan for now, and AT&T has won a few good-faith points by squaring all of that away for us.

Non-scam cell phone recommendations?

2009-08-16T07:23:25Z

I just got my second bill for our new AT&T cell phone package, which is for two cell phones (rarely used), no texting, rollover minutes (which we're never in danger of using up) and a handful of other features that we're probably never going to use. The package is $69.99 a month...but our monthly bill comes in at $110 after some "Government Fees" and "Usage Fees" and other things kick in.

Is that a normal amount to expect to pay for monthly cell phone use? I'm planning to visit the cell phone store tomorrow and ask about the bill, since I'm pretty annoyed about getting hit for an extra $40 every month for something I don't even use all that much. I'd rather stick with my previous pay-as-you-go phone and a landline, but I was curious about what plans everyone else uses and what you can recommend.

Monsters of Webcomics!

2009-08-12T05:28:05Z

Just an advertisement for The Cartoon Art Museum's newest exhibition,Monsters of Webcomics as this week's William Bazillion update.

I'm stuck at home with a very nasty cold, an even nastier bottle of codeine-infused prescription cough syrup, and a stack of DVDs and comic books. I could have headed this off by taking a sick day last week, but I worked myself too hard getting "Monsters of Webcomics" up and running. I'm not sure if that's ironic or not...it probably isn't, and I'm just high on codeine, but what are you gonna do?

"Think small."

2009-08-05T05:32:42Z

Further proof that William always plans ahead as we inch ever closer to the conclusion of "The Race for Santa's Nazi Gold" in this week's William Bazillion.

"As long as Christmas lives on in our hearts..."

2009-07-29T08:02:43Z

...there will always be a Chronicles of William Bazillion. The current storyline is drawing to a close soon, honest!

G-Force tops the box office!

2009-07-27T19:54:19Z

G-Force finished #1 at the box office this week:

Unfortunately, instead of the crew pictured above, it was some movie about farting hamsters. Not that my generation's "G-Force" was high art or anything, but were our live-action movies as lowbrow as the new G-Force and Beverly Hills Chihuahua? I don't *think* that they were, but I'm probably sitting on a big pile of repressed memories here...

The Last Will and Testament of Santa Claus

2009-07-22T04:46:38Z

Santa Claus's video will in this week's William Bazillion. Need I say more?

A treasure greater than Nazi Gold?

2009-07-15T06:03:00Z

The latest mystery unfolds at

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The latest mystery unfolds at <a http://www.williambazillion.com>The Chronicles of William Bazillion</a>. Read it at your peril!

Wow! Look at all that loot!

2009-07-08T05:49:26Z

Another thrilling chapter in the Race for Santa's Nazi Gold is yours for the beholding at WilliamBazillion.com! We're in the home stretch now, folks!

Question for Comics Folks about Diamond

2009-07-03T20:34:16Z

Shaenon is self-publishing the first volume of Skin Horse, and she's getting a submission packet together for Diamond Comics Distributors. This is a line from their submission guidelines:

"If you publish comics, Diamond generally receives a discount in the range of 60-70% off the US retail (cover) price."

If we offer a 70% discount, I'm sure that Diamond is more likely to consider listing Skin Horse in their catalog, but we'll only get $4.20 per copy sold (minus whatever shipping costs we incur getting the books to Diamond). If we offer a 60% discount, we'll make $5.60 per copy sold--still not great, since we're self-publishing this, but I always prefer making more money instead of less money when possible.

So, the question is: Is offering a 70% discount going to greatly improve our chances of getting listed in Diamond's catalog? Is only offering a 50% discount a guarantee that they won't even look at the book and will automatically reject it? Given Diamond's new standards, what can we do to improve our chances apart from putting Wolverine or Barack Obama on the cover? Are any self-publishers getting picked up by Diamond at all right now? Are there any other alternatives to Diamond if we want to get into comic shops (apart from the traditional method of hauling books from store-to-store and trying to convince the owners to carry it)?

Thanks for any advice.

Warning! Zombies are attacking Los Angeles!

2009-06-25T23:25:46Z

Too soon?

"Dale Warlock and I had some unfinished business back in America."

2009-06-24T08:34:33Z

The end of the Race for Santa's Nazi Gold is in sight in this week's Chronicles of William Bazillion.

Honest.