There will be no updates this weekend because I will be attending Saboten Con and will have a booth in the Artist's Alley with my fellow MonsterHive members Arborwin and Rurik. If you see me at the con, just ask me what Rhea noticed and I'll tell you! The rest of you will just have to wait.

From the ashes a new phoenix fire bee is born. Slightly Damned's community has now been absorbed into a new consolidated community that includes of all Monster Hive comics. That means we have a new forum and a new IRC chat channel. Discover new comics and new comrades!

The new forums are located here: http://www.monsterhive.net/forums/
It's a new forum with a clean slate, so all the old topics are gone and you have to re-register. BUT we do have backup copies that my friend and fellow hive member bugbyte may be able to access to dig up old posts. If there's something you really need to see to continue your roleplaying or whatever, you have one week to request a salvage. More information is in the appropriate thread.
(Registration required to see the whole forum.)

The new chat channel can be accessed through this info page: http://www.monsterhive.net/irc.html

Note: because we have a completely clean slate, that means all bans from the past are gone. We're starting completely anew. We're also doing our best to keep the place as friendly as possible (...while keeping it PG-13, of course), so this is a great opportunity to use a second chance to make a fresh start.

The Hive is also planning to have a "Chat with Hive" event in about a week. It's like the "Chat with Chu" events in the past, except you'll get to talk to every creator of every hive comic. We still need to work out the details about when we'll meet, but I expect it could be as soon as next weekend and it will be at least 2-3 hours long. Although if you come into the chat today, you just may find some hive members!

The first Slightly Damned book is finally on sale at IndyPlanet!  I know the price is a bit steep and it takes a while, but that's what happen when you have a print-on-demand title that's as big and colorful as this book!  Believe me, the book looks great!

Here's the link to its IndyPlanet listing: http://indyplanet.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=7433 Yes, they ship internationally!
If you want to see a video of what it looks like on the inside, I have one here on Flickr (although it's a video of the flawed first book, they are practically the same thing): http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_chu/7491808324/in/photostream

I'm a complete idiot.

So here's the story: I finally got the book done, and I sent in the digital files to the printing company I'm using for a proof. Because of the way this printing company works, they do not provide free proofs-- I have to pay for each one out of pocket. So I get the first proof and I realize I can't sell it because it's missing a page (the first half of this comic: http://www.sdamned.com/2007/03/03182007/), there are some typos, and there are some minor things I felt I could rearrange. No big deal; I fixed the problems and sent away for a second proof.

Too bad I'm an idiot!

I got a message yesterday saying that the second proof was shipped to me. As I was gleefully punching in the information to sell the book on IndyPlanet like I said I was going to do WEEKS ago, I realized that I had accidentally included a duplicate page in my files. This mistake actually showed up the first time, but the printing company caught it, told me about it, and fixed it. In my negligence, I put the mistake back in. The printing company didn't ask me about it this time, so I assume they were like me and didn't catch it a second time.

So now I have another dud copy of the Slightly Damned book heading my way, and I have to delay the release of the book on IndyPlanet for another few weeks. It doesn't take me weeks to fix the errors, but it does take the printing company a while to check the files, send an invoice, receive payment, print the book, and ship it to me (at which point the book is safe to sell).

What can I say? I'm an idiot, and I should have been more careful. But there's no use crying over spilled milk. I'm just going to have to try again. I should receive the second proof by the end of the week, at which point I will check it over carefully and take note of all the mistakes I find. Hopefully it will only be the duplicate page, which is a simple fix. Then I will re-submit the correct files and start the process all over again and wait until I can finally sell a decent version of this stupid book on IndyPlanet.

In the meantime, I'm looking into selling the dud proofs. Not to make a profit, but in order to offset some of the cost of ordering them. I've already begun talking to one of my good friends (Shardith, who also happens to be working on page transcriptions) about selling her one of the crappy versions. If you're interested in buying one of the flawed proofs, drop me a line. I'll sell the book at a reduced price and sign it for you with a personal thanks. EDIT: Two crappy books, two good Samaritans willing to buy them already! I’m rescinding my offer for now, but will put it back out there if this falls through.

tl;dr I screwed up the book twice and now its sale date is being pushed back further. Maybe it'll show up on IndyPlanet in mid-August, I dunno. I'll announce it on my journals, the news box, on Twitter, etc. when it's ready so don't bother checking and re-checking IndyPlanet for it.

Commissions are open for July!
:iconcom-open:
I will only accept 10 orders this month, and orders are only considered accepted once I've told you.  It's first come, first serve!  Who knows-- I don't know if I'll actually get 10 orders, but don't hesitate if you've been wanting a commission for a while.

Also, check this puppy out:

Yup, that's right!  The new Slightly Damned book is almost ready!  You can also get a sneak peek at what it looks like inside in this video: http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_chu/7491808324/
I just have to make a couple of tweaks, but it should be up for sale on IndyPlanet by this weekend.  It's about time, eh?

This is gonna be a short post, but a good one! Last weekend I got interviewed by Kurt Sasso of TGT Media regarding Slightly Damned!

"We are joined today in Studio TGT by Chu from Slightly Damned comic. We talk about Kickstarting a Plushie, What is really going to happen to make Slightly Damned come to an end and of course characters, Big ass bugs in Japan and why you should always read a comic creators bio before interviewing."
You can download or listen to it here: http://tgtmedia.com/podcast/259-slightlydamned/

Hope you guys get a kick out of it!

So Slightly Damned and Soprano of Time are both back to normal. New Slightly Damned pages are uploaded on Wednesday and Saturday, and new Soprano of Time strips are uploaded on Saturday. The only thing left to get back to normal are commissions. I have a couple of loose ends I would like to tie up before I re-open, though. Perhaps I should take the time to make a comics buffer as well. Ha! Yeah, right. We all know how much I suck at that.

Anyway, I think I'll start accepting orders in the first week of July. I don't know if it'll be the 1st or the 4th or the 7th or what have you, but I'll make an announcement to let you guys know when I'm ready. I'll accept no more than 10 requests in the month of July, first-come, first serve.

...Maybe I'm being too optimistic about how many orders I'll receive, but it never hurts to be prepared.
So if you want a commission, get prepared!

I know there are a lot of you out there who have been wondering what's been going on with my life to make it so chaotic. Contrary to what some may believe, the reasons I haven't been able to keep up with Slightly Damned are not because I'm ending it or that the twice-a-week schedule is too hard for me. A lot of real-life crap has gone down in a past few months, which made it difficult to impossible for me to keep up with pages, commissions, and finishing off the damn book. I'm gonna take the time to explain what happened... and also give a report on Fanime! Because I like to write about what I've done when I go to conventions.

If that's too much reading for you, then here's the gist of it: a number of real-life problems and events came to a climax in May, but now they've been resolved. I still have a lot of loose ends to finish up, but things should be getting back to normal soon. My June 16 deadline for the return of normal updates is still valid.

For those of you who want to read all the juicy details of what's been going on for the past few months, just [click here]!

If you're reading this, you might be wondering, "Hey! Where's the new comic?" Well, it's time for me to face the facts: I just don't have the time to do the comic twice a week this month. Due to a stroke of good luck followed by a stroke of extremely, extremely bad luck, my friends and I are moving this month. If things go well we'll be moving again within the next few weeks/months. Sounds fun, huh?

Not only that, but I really need to divert some of my energy into preparing for Fanime. Yep, I wouldn't miss it for the world, so I'm hell-bent on going come hell or high water! I've already bought my table and everything, but I don't know what space I've been assigned yet. When I know, I'll make an announcement. I'll also be there with my friend/roommate Arborwin, the creator of Grayling, who'll have a table right next to mine.

If you can make it to Fanime, you totally should! I'll be selling Slightly Damned merchandise at discounted prices (and of course, you wouldn't have to pay for shipping), as well as accepting traditional commissions. I'm also going to be selling non-SD buttons and artwork. I usually don't sell those sorts of things online; only at conventions.

What this means for the comic: I'm temporarily going back to the old schedule of one page a week. I'll do my best to update every Saturday, and I won't be making up the missed Wednesday pages later. However, I'll try to upload a new drawing on Wednesdays instead. Why? Because I ant to show you guys I'm still alive and I'm not slacking off. It's just that single drawings take a lot less time to make than a Slightly Damned page.

Unfortunately, I'm also going to put "The Legend of Buwaro: Soprano of Time" on hiatus. I'm not giving up on it; I just don't have time for it right now. I don't mind if my TWC rank drops like a rock because of this, because after all, I won't be providing incentives.

tl;dr Drawings on Wednesday, comics on Saturday, no Soprano of Time until at least my birthday on June 16.
(Why my birthday? Because it's easy to remember. *3*)

I know this is super, super lame, but believe me-- life has given me a series of sucker punches and I'm not happy about this either.
Thank you for understanding!

[I've re-opened my commission services.] Probably only for a limited time; I'll close them again if I get too busy.