'Tis the season for giving! Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, the Happy Holiday Hyena, or nothing at all, there's no time like the present to support charitable causes. Here's a handful of events I'm currently supporting and would like to share with you:

Comic Creators for Freedom!
Comic Creators for Freedom has once again teamed up with Love 146 for a week-long charity event to fund the fight against human trafficking. A donation of ANY amount will net you a neat wallpaper featuring the awkward school photos of characters from over 150 different webcomics-- including Rhea from Slightly Damned!

Help Stan and Sharon Sakai!
It's no exaggeration that Stan Sakai is my hero. I'm a huge fan of his master work, Usagi Yojimbo, and he's quite possibly the nicest person in comics. Possibly the world! Unfortunately, Mrs. Sakai is ill and her home care costs more than their insurance will cover. CAPS is organizing an original art auction with all proceeds going to the Sakais, and Garage Art Studios is working on collecting donations for them through PayPal.

Support the victims of Hurricane Haiyan!
Devastating catastrophes tend to leave the public conscious very quickly, especially if they happen in a distant country. People don't want to think of the dreadful and dreary when the holidays are upon us. But the victims of Hurricane Haiyan still need aid! Please consider donating to the Philippine Red Cross.
Also, a couple of folks are organizing a Pinoy Komiks Anthology. As someone of Filipino descent, I've definitely got my eye on this project and plan on participating.

...and even if, for whatever reason, you can't spare the money or time for any of these, please at least spread the word about them!

Bad news for me apparently means good news for some of you out there! It turns out one of my teeth has an infection and needs a root canal. And doubly unfortunately for me, my dental insurance won't help cover it because I've had my policy for less than 6 months! Even though the infection is pretty minor right now, an infection is an infection. I need to take care of it as soon as I can. FUUUUUU

So! I need to raise money. Lots of moneys. Which means it's almost time for me to take commissions! Here is my commissions page with pricing, available styles, and instructions on how to make an order: http://raizap.com/commissions/

Please e-mail me NO EARLIER than 12:00 AM EST and NO LATER 11:59 PM EST on Monday, November 11 to make your order!

(E-mail only, please. No notes since keeping track of orders in them is a bother. And if you don't have an e-mail address... how are you on this site, anyway??)

In the past, people have been left out of getting a commission because they didn't e-mail me fast enough. Instead of using a first-come, first-serve slot system, I'll acknowledge all commission orders within that 24-hour period and work through them in the order they're accepted.

I'll make another journal entry on Monday to remind people who are interested that commissions are open for the day. I just wanted to let you guys get a head's up in case anyone needed time to prepare.

Thank you!

Today's page is late and I apologize for that. I was busy with schoolwork and activities (some of them slightly irresponsible), so I didn't get around to working on page 619 much. But I have some good news! I've decided to use my old hub domain to host some of the mini-comics I've been doing for school, zines, etc. [You can check them out here at raizap.com!] Part of why I didn't work on page 619 is because I was busy making "Bandit Mountain". I just finished it, and it's currently the longest comic on there, so please check it out!

I know I have been very quiet lately, but that's because I've been busy. That's what I always say, isn't it?

But it's true! I don't remember where I've mentioned this before, but now I'm making sure it's known: I am attending cartooning school. I am thousands of miles away from my desert home (and pets) in order to study the art of making great comics. For all intents and purpose, it is grad school. If I successfully complete my thesis project at the end of my second year, I will be awarded with a Master of Fine Arts degree. Of course, more important than the degree is the networking opportunities and the experience of being at such an awesome school.

It's somewhat challenging to balance my personal projects with my schoolwork. I've uploaded some of my stuff to my art sites, but not everything. Examples of what's missing: 2+ hours of figure drawing from life every week, writing manuscripts, weekly sketchbook and lettering assignments, screenprinting, and a 20 copies of a 20-page comic narrative made with stick figures. And that doesn't take into account the lectures, presentations, and the constructive criticism workshops. But I'm not complaining! It's been a ton of fun. It just keeps me busy.

I know Soprano of Time hasn't updated in a while. To be honest, I'm thinking of withdrawing from the Top Webcomics ranking game. I guess I find it kind of depressing somehow, even though everyone has been amazingly supportive. But I can't ignore the fact that it brings in some traffic, so I haven't made up my mind yet. Either way, I'm determined to see Soprano of Time through to the end. Soprano of Time will return as Wednesday art updates in November. I don't know about December; I think I might like to do some winter/Christmas/Winter Solstice paintings.

When it comes to my priorities, school comes first followed by Slightly Damned. I could probably be a lot more diligent with my time management and get a lot more done. But I guess getting all stressed out wouldn't be good, either. These aren't excuses; I just wanted to explain what's been going on.

Thanks for putting up with me!

P.S. I just got word today that the Kieri plushies have finished production. Hopefully I'll hear about how the Rhea plushies are doing soon!

The internet is crazy for Animal Crossing: New Leaf these days, and I'm no exception! Here's a Buwaro face stand I made:






I would have just put this on Tumblr, but it wasn't loading properly.

I owe you guys a show after weeks of silence and the bleak future of slow SD page updates. For approximately the next 4 hours from my posting this, I'll be streaming my work on the next two Slightly Damned pages here on Livestream: http://www.livestream.com/slightlydamned

Goofy title intentional.

The Slightly Damned Plushification Project on Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1858050352/slightly-damneds-plushification-project) was a runaway success! Wow! Thanks to everyone's generosity, no fewer than 6 Slightly Damned plushies have been completely funded. I can't wait to get my mitts on all those Buwaro, Rhea, Kieri, Sakido, Iratu, and Crunky dolls! It will take a few more months for all of them to be completed, of course, but you can expect to see them all on sale by early 2014.

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Don't forget to vote to help Slightly Damned win Ursa Major Awards!



Voting continues through until THIS WEDNESDAY (the 15th).

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I'm going to Phoenix Comic Con!:http://www.phoenixcomicon.com/

I'll be there for all four days with my friends from Monster Hive (http://www.monsterhive.net/) at our tables in the Artist's Alley. Most of the most frequent contributors to the Hivecast will be there, such as Arby (creator of Grayling: http://graylingcomic.net/), Rurik, Pyro, and Acri. I'll also be selling charms, stickers, signed books, commissions, possibly signed prints, and buttons (both Slightly Damned-related and fanart-related, like Pokemon and MLP). Hope to see you there!

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Even though I'm done with the second Slightly Damned book, I'm too busy for twice-a-week updates. The Kickstarter is an ongoing project, since I need to oversee the plushie designs, prepare the bonus rewards and shipping materials, and make sure all the money gets used wisely. I also have to prepare for Phoenix Comic Con. I'm leaving for comics school in September. And partially because of the convention, our house will be full of partying guests until the end of the month!

...Okay, so maybe that last one doesn't sound very responsible, but let's say it's necessary for my mental health. :P

I think I'm going to have to officially give up on updating Slightly Damned with a full page twice a week. It's just too much work for me to handle right now, what with the Kickstarter to take care of, a huge convention at the end of this month, and school looming in the distance. When I'm at school, I expect I'll be too busy to update all my ongoing projects (Slightly Damned, Soprano of Time, and my art challeng on Tumblr: http://chunochousen.tumblr.com/) consistently every week. I need to take some time this summer to make a buffer so I can keep up with everything while I'm off at school, so I'm going to cut Slightly Damned back to its originally Saturdays-only update schedule-- effective immediately.

However! You guys will still have stuff to look at on Wednesdays. Thanks to the success of the Kickstarter, I'll be sure to post some sort of Slightly Damned-related art every Wednesday from July through December 2013. Stuff like that is much easier to provide than full pages, anyway. And like I've mentioned before: I will be drawing a LOT at school, so it's not like I'm going to stop making content or anything. It just can't all be Slightly Damned pages, Soprano of Time strips, or Pokemon paintings.

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Did you know that I've started hosting a podcast with my friends at MONSTER HIVE (http://www.monsterhive.net/)? It's called Hivecast, and there's a new episode out every other week. We talk about all sorts of storytelling themes, gripes, cliches, and we kind of get drunk and cuss a lot. It's a grand old time! You can listen to the show right on the MONSTER HIVE website (http://www.monsterhive.net/category/hivecast/) or catch it on iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/monsterhive/id599191402) if that's what you prefer.

I'll keep making Chrono Trigger-themed titles as long as I please! Oh, but the real reasons I'm writing this post are:

1) The Slightly Damned Plushification Kickstarter is now live!



Help make Buwaro (and perhaps more) plushies a reality and get some cool swag for yourself in the process! Notice how there's even a tier where you can design your own characters to appear in the story, or get me to redraw past Slightly Damned pages. You can even score original sketches of comics! Gasp!

2) Don't forget to vote to help Slightly Damned win Ursa Major Awards!



Voting continues through mid-May (approximately when the Kickstarter ends) but I didn't want to clutter up the top of the Slightly Damned site with two banners. If your moral compass guides you to believe that Slightly Damned should win an award or two, then please take a few minutes to vote for it! It only takes a short amount of time, I promise.

3) Converting Slightly Damned pages into book format takes forever when you're an idiot who doesn't save anything properly!

I want to get Book 2 completed by the end of April, so I really need to focus. I don't want to leave Slightly Damned without updates, but like I've said before, this hectic schedule means I can't churn out two quality pages every week all the time. So I think next week (April 14-20) and the week after (21-27) there will be a Soprano of Time strip on the main site on the Wednesdays and a SD comic page on the Saturdays. You can vote on TWC if you want, but I don't mind if you don't and SD's rank falls. I will put images there to remind people to either check out the Kickstarter or vote in the Ursa Major Awards.


Thank you for your continued support and understanding!

Just wanted to remind you folks that I did not draw the Chrono Trigger/Slightly Damned crossover. It was done by my good friend Cei, the co-creator of the webcomic Within a Mile of Home. Rx3, the writer for Within a Mile of Home, is a frequent contributor to The HiveCast podcast, which I often host.

So what I'm saying here is that you should be reading Within a Mile of Home.

The awesome filler art you see was graciously provided by my buddy Cei, the artist and co-creator of the fantastic comic Within a Mile of Home. Slightly Damned's update schedule is being scaled back, so if you need something else to read I can't recommend Within a Mile of Home enough!

But why are Slightly Damned's updates being slowed down even more? Lots of reasons. If you want to hear the whole story, [click here].

Here's the short version: I need time to focus on some important projects before Phoenix Cactus Comic Con at the end of May. Then, after the convention, I'm going to do my best to create buffers for Slightly Damned, The Legend of Buwaro: Soprano of Time, and my 151 Pokemon challenge. That's because in September I'm moving to the east coast to attend school to learn how to make awesome comics. Because my studies will be all about drawings, I'm not sure if I'll have any energy leftover to draw as a hobby as well. I'm not giving up on the comic; I just need to be realistic about balancing it and my studies.

I don't know if I can keep up two updates a week for much longer. I'll have to see how hard I can push myself when I get back home, as I am currently visiting family. I may have to accept the sacrifice of my weekend and evening leisure time, but I'll do my best!

Thank you for your continued patience.

I was kindly asked to spread the word about a fellow Arizonan comic artist's plight. Rayvn Crescent is a self-employed artist who has to undergo painful hip surgery and physiotherapy as a result of an unfortunate accident. Here is the link to her Indiegogo page: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/helping-ravyn-crescent/ I don't know Rayvn, but I wish her the best all the same.

Slightly Damned has been nominated for Ursa Major Awards in the categories of Best Anthropomorphic Graphic Story and Best Anthropomorphic Other Literary Work. Thanks so much, you guys! But the fight for recognition isn't over. SD needs votes in each category in order to WIN!

What are the Ursa Major Awards?
"It is intended as Anthropomorphic (a.k.a. Furry) Fandom's equivalent of the Hugo Award ® presented by the World Science Fiction Society, mystery fandom's Anthony Award, horror fandom's Bram Stoker Award, and so forth."

For those of you that want to know more about the UMA's, you can visit the official website here: http://www.ursamajorawards.org/index.htm

How can I help?
Go to the Voting 2012 page here: http://www.ursamajorawards.org/voting2012/ and follow the simple instructions to vote for Slightly Damned (in 2012, meaning pages #479-#563) in the categories of Best Anthropomorphic Graphic Story and/or "Slightly Damned Book One" in the category of Best Anthropomorphic Other Literary Work! Since SD was already nominated (thanks again!) it will already be listed; all you need to do is click a number (preferably a 1!) and submit your vote.

Wait, why do you care? I thought you didn't like the furry label?
I just don't like being limited. If I went around calling Slightly Damned a furry comic, then people would think it's only for furries because of the stigma attached to that label. Slightly Damned is for everyone! And it would be nice to get some recognition for once.
...Besides, if works like "Brave" and "Rise of the Guardians" qualify, I don't see why Slightly Damned wouldn't.

Voting ends on May 15! Thank you for your continued support!

I'm posting about another missed update. I know, right? Maybe I can tell you guys the specifics about what's been going on in a couple of weeks; maybe sooner. The vague version is that I've been busy worrying about a personal project for quite a while, and I'm flying out of town this weekend to see it through. What will be the result of this journey? Who knows! Maybe there's a strange new future in store for me, or maybe I've just been wasting my and everyone else's time. We'll see what happens.

Anyway, I thought my flight was closer to the weekend than it actually was. I squandered my time and failed to work on Slightly Damned fast enough to produce enough pages this week to update on Saturday. No excuses; that's the truth of my incompetence. Sorry, and thanks for all your patience. Depending on the circumstances of the trip, I may have time to work on Slightly Damned while I'm out of town, but I can't guarantee anything. However, internet permitting, I'll try to update Soprano of Time this weekend.

On the bright side: whether this trip produces positive results or not, as long as I make it back alive things should get back to normal fairly quickly, even if March continues to be crazy. Maybe I can get back to updating regularly again! Ha ha... ha...

Sorry, folks. There won't be any Slightly Damned updates today or Saturday because I'm working on some private matters. If things go well, maybe I can show you part of what I made and tell you some interesting news in a couple of weeks! But for now, I need some time off from worrying about time-consuming SD Pages in order to work on this stuff. Thank you for understanding.

In the meantime, did you know that my friends at MonsterHive and I made a podcast called The Hivecast? You can find it on the main MonsterHive website or on iTunes. I hope you have as much fun listening to it as we do making it!

The nomination period for the 2012 Ursa Major Awards has begun! If you love Slightly Damned and want to help the comic gain some recognition, please help out by voting for "Slightly Damned" (in 2012, meaning pages #479-#563) in the category of Best Anthropomorphic Graphic Story and voting for "Slightly Damned Book One" in the category of Best Anthropomorphic Other Literary Work!

What are the Ursa Major Awards?
"It is intended as Anthropomorphic (a.k.a. Furry) Fandom's equivalent of the Hugo Award ® presented by the World Science Fiction Society, mystery fandom's Anthony Award, horror fandom's Bram Stoker Award, and so forth."

For those of you that want to know more about the UMA's, you can visit the official website here: http://www.ursamajorawards.org/index.htm

How can I help?
Go to the Nominations page here: http://www.ursamajorawards.org/nominations.htm and follow the instructions to nominate Slightly Damned (in 2012, meaning pages #479-#563) in the category of Best Anthropomorphic Graphic Story and/or "Slightly Damned Book One" in the category of Best Anthropomorphic Other Literary Work!

Wait, why do you care? I thought you didn't like the furry label?
I just don't like being limited. If I went around calling Slightly Damned a furry comic, then people would think it's only for furries because of the stigma attached to that label. Slightly Damned is for everyone! And it would be nice to get some recognition for once.
...Besides, if works like "Brave" and "Rise of the Guardians" qualify, I don't see why Slightly Damned wouldn't.

Nominations close February 28th! Thank you for your continued support!