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.

Just like the title says, the Slightly Damned store is open again! Well, the Zazzle portion of the store was always open and it remains unchanged for now, but as for the section that I personally control...
There are new pins!

And new magnets!

And new charms!

And durable stickers suitable for indoor and outdoor use!

... And more!

[Please, come on down!]

(As for commissions, I'll make an announcement soon; possibly tomorrow. Promise!)

Here's a little preview of some of the new Slightly Damned merchandise I've been working on:

Note: items pictured are not to scale.

And there's more than that coming your way in just a few weeks!

You have no excuse.

[End Piracy, Not Liberty]
[SOPA STRIKE]

I wrote up a journal entry about my recent trip to Anime Los Angeles 2012. It was too long to post here, but you can read about it either on my deviantArt account or my FurAffinity account.

So what is the big announcement I've been keeping secret these past few... man I don't even remember without looking at my previous post. Whatever, then, here it is:

From now on, Slightly Damned will be updating twice a week! This isn't like the donation drives or "drawing this is really easy and I want to get this super fast so let's do this" events in the past. I intend for this to be a permanent change. So now you can look forward to new Slightly Damned pages every Wednesday and Saturday. I chose those days because: 1) everyone is already used to the Saturday updates, and 2) I originally considered Tuesday and Thursday, but the wait between Thursday and the following Tuesday is too long. The wait from Wednesday to Saturday to Wednesday is a little more even, I think.

You got that? Slightly Damned will now update regularly every Wednesday and Saturday instead of its old once-a-week schedule. I think this addresses the most common complaint about the comic I've gotten these past 7+ years. (From the people who actually like the comic, anyway.)

I'm also going to take the time to address some of guesses I saw for what the announcement was going to be:

You're going to make a book!
Yes, that's true. I AM going to make a book. My previous goal was to get one done before the end of the year, but I admit I'm not going to meet that right now. I haven't worked on the book very much lately, which is my bad. I've mainly been doing brainstorming. I pretty much know what printing company I'm going to use, what format the book should be in, how many comics the first book will include, and what bonus content I'm going to make for it. However, there's a lot of work that needs to be done in terms of resizing, cutting up, and retyping dialogue (NOT rewriting. I just want to fix typos and make it legible). I'm not giving up, I promise! It's just slow going.

The Buwaro and Kieri figures are done!
Not quite. I think we have enough votes on Patch Together by now, so I think the next step is to let them know we're serious about wanting those figurines made. I sent them an e-mail about a week ago asking if there's some sort of requirement we've failed to fill, but I haven't gotten a response yet. Buwaro and Kieri have WAY more votes than any other design on the site, but if you still haven't voted for them, [please] [do]! If you already have voted for them and are impatient like me for progress, then please e-mail Patch Together to let them know. I don't want you guys to be malicious or spam them or anything. Just tell them that you want these figures!

You're going to make plushies!
Sorry, I really don't have the money to make those plushies right now. If Slightly Damned became more popular and I had more readers to sell merchandise to, then maybe I could justify it. That's part of the reason why I decided I needed to work harder and update more now that I have more time to do so (time was the main reason I couldn't do it before). Short of a very generous plushie company giving me a business deal out of pity, these guys are going to have to wait.
However! I have made steps in negotiating getting hats made! They'll be a little different than how they were in the past, but we'll still all have to wait a few weeks to see how things turn out.

And I think that about covers it. Remember, Wednesday and Saturday updates!

I'm going to have a special surprise for you guys on December 3rd! I'm making this date well-known because I want to be held to it. I've been pretty lazy these last few weeks, so it's time for me to get my ass in gear. Save the date!

Also... I'm not going to be taking any commissions starting Black Friday (that's Friday, November 25th for you readers not in the United States). I'm already pretty busy and I'm only going to be more busy from now on. I may re-open for orders in a couple weeks or months, though, depending on how things go.

I don't update this space very often, as you may have noticed, so I encourage you all to follow me on Twitter at @sdamned! I'm a fairly active Tweeter and I'm always sharing cool stuff, site and comic updates, and Zazzle store discounts. I also promise not to spam you with inane updates about how hungry I am or what my cats are doing... much.

Finally, the [Slightly Damned store] has been updated!

In addition to the updated system for buying the new charms and stickers, you can now buy shirts, drinkware, bags, and mousepads from the [Zazzle store]!

Let's capitalism! I appreciate your support to help keep the comic going!

P.S. Don't forget to vote for the [Buwaro] and [Kieri] figurines on Patch Together! It'll take at least 200 votes on each design to get them approved for pre-orders.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention:

BanditFly and Nexus, you two are in danger of losing your roles!
Go to the forums ASAP!