I bet you thought you’d never see this day, didn’t you?

I haven’t forgotten you, my loyal readers. I surely haven’t.

My daughter will be ten weeks old tomorrow. This parenting thing has been a strange, wonderful, terrifying, and exhausting ride—and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. Unfortunately, nearly everything else in my life has also had to take a back seat to her in the meantime (as well they should). Ten weeks into this, and we’re finally starting to hit our stride, and I find I now have a skosh more time (and energy) for creative endeavors. Hence, a new comic today.

Rejoice, citizens of the Reclaimer nation! It’s your lucky day! And with any luck, there will continue to be new installments next week. Ferial and the Reclaimer are finally going to have it out.

Those of you who hated the system, rejoice! I’ve disabled IntenseDebate on this site—temporarily or for good remains to be seen. Interested parties can read the longer post on my personal site about why, but the short version is that I’ve gotten tired of dealing with the bugs in the system, especially since IntenseDebate seems to no longer be actively under development. It’s kind of a shame, especially considering how much I liked most of the features of the system. The upside is that I don’t have to deal with the glitchiness that has so beleaguered the system lately. The downside is that comments are truly closed on anything older than 14 days (in order to prevent spam), and I can no longer allow registered users to bypass that in order to still comment. I’m not terribly happy about that, but it’s better than dealing with a broken system.

And on a completely different note, thanks to those of you who responded to my call from the last blog post. I realize I haven’t emailed any of you yet with the specifics of what I’m looking for in terms of screenshots (life is still insanely busy right now), but I’ll try to get something back to you relatively soon. Thanks for your continued patience.

I just posted this as a comment, but I thought I would also make put it into its own post, just to keep everyone updated.

Unfortunately, I’m going to be offline for at least another four weeks, my daughter’s impending birth aside. I’ve fallen into the unfortunate position that my Xbox Live account got hacked yesterday, and the hacker went on a little spending spree at my expense. Fortunately, Microsoft I’ve been in touch with Microsoft and they have located and locked the account now, so the hacker can no longer use my account or spend any more of my money. I’m in the process of recovering the $270 the hacker stole from me (a total of 20,000 Microsoft Points), but Microsoft also has to do their investigation, which takes time, and I’m told it’s going to take them at least 22 business days to complete. So, until then, I’m in Xbox Live limbo.

I’ve put it out there before and received no interest, but I’ll put it out there again—if anyone wants to help me get back to making Reclaimer comics quickly, get in touch with me, either via the contact form on this website or by emailing me directly at reclaimercomic@gmail.com. All I need are specific screenshots. I’ll take it from there.

Well, thanks…

...and well, that’s an interesting question, isn’t it? I was really on a roll there with Reclaimer updates, and then a trip to Boston interrupted the cycle, and now here we are in the middle of another small dry spell.

The short answer to that question is that I’ve been rather busy.

The longer answer has two main parts. Long-time readers of Reclaimer know that, along with working a full-time job, my wife and I also own a small farm that takes up a rather significant chunk of what free time we have outside of our respective jobs. Farm life takes up rather more of our free time during the warm months than it does during the cold ones, as you might imagine. And hey, would you lookit that? We’re coming back around to the warm months again. You do the math.

The other part is that my wife and I are expecting the arrival of our daughter in September, and so there are just a few things I have to get done in the intervening months to assure that she has a safe place to live. I’ve been busily painting room in our old farmhouse to encapsulate lead paint and remodeling a small corner of our home to make a nursery for our little girl. And since my wife is doing the far more difficult work of growing a little person, I have the lion’s share of work around the farm to make sure that she can rest.

I certainly intend to get back to Reclaimer as soon as I can, but naturally I can’t make any promises as to just when exactly that will be. Hopefully, it will be sooner than you expect.

Ask me anything

Bad news, Reclaimer fans. Our story may have to take a brief hiatus. You see, even as I write this, the pavement of I-70 is rolling away beneath me as I make my way up to Boston, MA, for the next several days. Unfortunately, taking my Xbox along so I can continue to bring you episodes of drama, action, and comedy is just not happening. What this means is that you, dear Reader, could be without your thrice-daily fix until April 18.

There is a possible sunny spot, though. I will still have high-speed Internet access once I reach my destination, and I do have my laptop with me. How does this help, you may ask? If some intrepid reader were to capture some screenshots and email them to me, then I could still bring you what you crave.

So here’s the deal—I need 24 screenshots of the Reclaimer beating down hordes of Viper soldiers in most epic fashion. You know his armor permutations, so queue up a custom game on the Spire, get a bunch of your friends together to play Viper, and engage in mortal combat. Then, string together the best series of shots you can that tell the story of the Reclaimer’s final battle with Viper. Email those shots to reclaimercomic@gmail.com. I’ll choose my favorite set of shots with which to tell the next four pages of story, and the winner will earn fame and admiration and one of my spiffy Reclaimer t-shirts.

Sound good? Then get crackin’. And if you have trouble determining the Reclaimer’s exact armor permutations, just make your best guess. I promise I won’t hold it against you.