The kids are also now on Graphicly, so you can read Varmints on almost anything with a screen with just one account!

And what witchcraft is this? You can even embed it all over the dang internet?!

OUTRAGEOUS.

Man, oh man, I’ve been busy. The guts of #2 have been done for nearly two months, but a stint as a high school art teacher delayed getting the packaging finished and ready. It should be up on the tubes sometime this week. That’s at darnvarmints.com, at least. The goal is to get both issues up on Graphicly, Nook, Kobo, and hopefully Kindle as well in the near future.

I’ll be at Austin Comic Con once again November 11-13 with 4-6 new books on hand. That includes both Varmints, hopefully the Oz paperback, and two or three minis starring this little guy, whose name is a pun too wonderful to give away:

See you there?

Guys! Gals! DarnVarmints.com is the place to be! There’s a six page preview as well as $1 downloads of issue #1 in PDF, CBZ, and EPUB formats! Maybe you’d like to give it a look? Maybe tell a friend? Maybe tell a comics-reading enemy? Maybe…maybe tell your dog?

-is what I’ve been working on, and I just finished the guts of issue 1. Logo, cover, and website to come. For now, just look at those two! Who knows what they’ll be getting into? Hijinks and adventure, I’ll bet. Shenanigans and monkeyshines? Wait and see.

If I’m reading Batman RIP and Bruce is suddenly the Batman of Zur-en-Arrh, confusing the hell out of me because that guy last showed up three decades before I was born, why can’t I long-tap the panel and pull up his Pokédex entry? Include a bio, notable creators, and a list of other issues he’s appeared in, and here’s the kicker, link to them in the shop. Let me buy comics within my comics. By the time I finish reading that story, I’ve got another one lined up as part of a never-ending exploration of 70 years worth of books, all on a path set by me.

Take that infinite longbox you call a tablet and staple Wikipedia straight to it. Tag up every inch of the thing, characters, dialogue, items (where’d he get that robo-dinosaur?) Don’t be daunted be the thought of going through tens of thousands of back issues, your fans will take care of that for you. Crowdsource the thing, Wikipedia is proof that the community approach can come up with reliable material. And the hardcore comics fan is easily as nitpicky and obsessed with detail as wiki contributors. That’s…that’s kind of what they’re known for. Doubly so if you entice super taggers with subscriptions. Or t-shirts. We love shirts.

You’ve got decades of stories and characters, but people find them inaccessible. You can make them accessible without changing a thing about the stories themselves. People just need a path to follow when #1 comes after #900, a guide to where all these Batmen came from, and maybe a recommendation engine based on where other readers tend to go from what they’re reading right now. If you want to take someone that decides to check out the new Action Comics on their tablet in September and turn them into a fan for life, I can’t think of a better way.

When you buy this comic, you have bought a COMIC, not a license to read it via one application. You OWN it. Back it up. Read it with whatever software you want on whatever device you’ve got. Hell, PRINT the thing and pop it right next to your other issues.

Thanks to everyone that’s been going to their local store and supporting us this far. I, along with Tommy and the rest of SLG, make no mistake, wish you could have a complete run of RHO, nice and neat, bagged and boarded, but it just couldn’t quite happen.

When I hit the 75% mark, I think I’ll throw some character designs up here.