Amiright?! How perfect is it that Asimov says “dislike?!” TOO funny! Gotta love Lo’s style, too. And the colors are perfect. This is going to have to be printed out and hung up in my cubicle at work. It will keep me bright and cheery all day long!

Now that you’ve seen how cool this is, you must go and check out Lo’s AQUAPUNK, if you haven’t already. It’s a comic that is wrapped in great art and writing and has a squishy sweet filling of awesome sauce!

EDIT: Fixed Inglenar’s legs.

Well this one was a real bear, but I’m fairly happy with how it turned out. I was going to hang on to it and post it in the morning, but you folks have been very patient – might as well post it now! Many thanks to my Springwinder friends, especially Og (whom you all know by now) who pushed me to refine this until it was right. Steve in particular suggested the much more dynamic poses in panels 1 and 2. Note, I’ll be telling you more about Springwinder soon – it’s a pretty neat group of artists, we hope to do some neat things. Also, speaking of pushing oneself, Steve has rebooted Moon Town, in case you missed it, and he is just knocking the new stuff completely out of the park. You best go take a look.

A while ago, I got a piece of 3D fan art from Mark Largent of The Wannabe Pirates. He’s got a new project called “The Paunk! Show,” which features an alien tuning into old Earth broadcasts and filling in the blanks. A fun concept. The pilot is a spoof on Star Trek. You can check it out here.

So, again I apologize for the delays. Here’s the deal – these next few pages are tough for me for a variety of reasons. For #331, I am literally on my 4th version of the page layout. Part of it is that Lian can be difficult for me, but it’s also trying to tell the story right and get the action right. In addition, I have a home project taking up a lot of my spare time, too.

I’ve cracked the barrier on 331, which is good. I should be inking the page tomorrow. For the next couple weeks, just expect that the schedule will be wonky. Pages will drop when they are done, I don’t want to rush things and give you substandard pages. Eventually the schedule will get back to normal. Thanks for understanding!

I’ve got a Friday gift for you all – a wonderful new comic you should ALL be reading! Aquapunk by Lo Baker is:

The story follows Coron, a stone golem, who can feel, and regenerate, and think about his lot in life. There are many others like him… and many more who aren’t. That is because he’s a special kind of golem called a Faithful. Everyone knows they are capable of feeling, regenerating, and thinking about their lot in life, but it’s what they don’t know that scares them. After all, the strongest of hate is often rooted in fear.

We’re talking a story of EPIC proportions here. Lo has created a whole underwater world with its peoples, stories and languages. She’s a Tolkien gal after my own heart! I mean, we’re talking underwater golems here – you KNOW it’s going to be good! And it is. Lo knows how to tell a story. I read through the whole archive in two sittings. I found the story well paced and interesting, and now I am dying to know more.

And as you can see the art is wonderful. The Mignola-inspired blackspotting and graphic style is very appealing and really fits the idea of these animated golems and their underwater realm. And it’s great for the vistas and locations, as well as the other races, too. The coloring is spot on as well. All in all, it’s a really enjoyable read you don’t want to miss.

Once you’ve read the story (or before) Lo has provided a visual dictionary and mythologies to get your more into the world. Really cool stuff.

So do me a favor… do YOURSELF a favor, and head over to Aquapunk RIGHT NOW and begin reading. You will not be disappointed!

EDIT: To clarify, I do NOT mean prints of the strip. This would be new art drawn specifically for a print. It might be like a digital painting. As a very rough example, I did this “Pingo’s People” piece awhile ago:

http://pixelmech.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2q4tn7

Regarding the lateness of the strip, I’ve been struggling to kind of break out of some bad habits – things like too many talking heads, not showing action, etc. I’ve had to scrap some work I began, I’m trying to get this next part right. It means challenging myself a bit artistically and replanning some things. Hopefully it will be worth the wait.

I hope this one reads a little better than the last one. What will she do now?

Well, Lian isn’t quite as helpless as she seems, eh? I’m hoping this comes across as intended. My girls seemed to get it. I’ve been dreading doing this one because I knew it would be visually difficult to convey. We’ll see what you folks think.