Once I do make that decision though, I’m devoted. Take Plant. Oh sure, everyone has to like at least some Zepplin. But it took some personal stuff to really latch on to their electrified blues. and then as I explored their later work, and then Page and Plant did the unplugged album No Quarter I was suddenly completely hooked. I will now follow whatever Plant does next. I like that he’s continued, and I like that he’s evolving. If I look at the other musicians that fall into that category, McCartney, RUSH, David Bowie, (he’s a real one for trying all sorts of new things, and I’m in for whatever he comes up with) and of course my beloved Genesis, they are all marked by long careers that show them reaching and exploring and experimenting. These are the artists that fill my shelves with every thing they touch.

Same for other art forms. In film I’m a Woody Allen fan. Now there’s a guy who’s not stuck in a rut. Absurdism, farce, drama, expressionism, and even a musical. Terry Gilliam is another favourite.

Now sometimes, I can give up on someone. They start out great, but somewhere along the way, they stagnate, or take a path that just doesn’t work for me. I really liked Tim Burton. I still really like some of his early work. But I haven’t seen anything he’s done in years. It’s all become so samey. And I’ll just leave George Lucas to your imagination.

In comics, I like John Romita Jr. A career Marvel man, he’s worked on lots of different projects and his work has changed an evolved over the years. He’s even recently dabbled with work that’s not for Marvel. Dave Sim I’ll buy his napkin scrawlings.

It’s not always that I’ll buy anything and everything, but I’ll always keep tabs, flip through, listen to a clip what have you. Some of it is likely the comfortable familiarity, but that would only hold if they were to keep doing what they’ve always done. It’s more that they’ve struck a nerve, made a connection. And now i’ll follow wherever they lead.

What do you like?

Wanna know who I chose?

It’s a little early to put up entries for some of the other figures seen in MJATLSOTO, (whoa, is that an acronym!) but would there be interest in entries for characters from the older small press print stories?

Full details can be found by clicking on the Fan Appreciation image to the right.

Visit TDOT Comics and find out the super not so secret origins of Alex and Walter.

Okay, in actual fact, I asked if I could leave some promotional postcards at Big B Comics in Hamilton, (winner of the prestigious Harry Kremer Award For Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Retailer and a great store) and later that day they wrote us to ask if we would like to have DFS added to their Comic Book Daily website. As we always do, we thought hard, did lots of research and then made a snap decision. They will be running pages Tuesdays and Thursdays starting today until they catch up to our current page, and then Thursday thereafter.

One of the tings that makes us really happy about being part of Comic Book Daily is the company we will be keeping. One of the biggest influences on Jeff and I early on, showing us how you could make and share comics with the help of a simple photocopier, was Lethargic Comics. The driving force behind LC and it’s signature character Lethargic Lad is Greg Hyland. Greg’s history is a bit like ours, moving from mini-comics to eventually setting up shop on the web. In fact, LethargicLad.com is celebrating 10 years online this April. Knowing we’d be listed alongside Greg helped seal the deal for us.

So do yourself a favour, hop on over to Comic Book Daily, add it to your bookmarks/RSS or like me, just leave it open in a tab in your browser, (that’ll be 47 for me I think…) and not only will you get weekly comics, but some great insight and info about comics in general.

- Chris

Next surprise was the name on the table beside ours. Leonard Kirk! We had done a lot of shows over the years and it always seemed we were sitting next to or across from Leonard. So 12 years later and once again, he’s right beside us. Not that that’s bad. It was great. He, and many others as the weekend went on, made it feel like no time had passed at all. Plus he was good company, put up with our shenanigans, was great to chat with and ended up doing an awesome sketch for me. Thanks Leonard. Should we be asking to be next to you at every con from now on, just to safe?

So we set up our table. And man, I’m glad we had the whole thing. Once we try and cram 12 issues of the mini run, the trades, postcards, magnets and a folder with the first dozen pages of the new web based story, there was little space left for us to draw on. Poor Jeff was trying to crank out a bunch of little giveaway sketches and had very little room to work. Having that much material is both a blessing and a curse. We’re looking forward to having all the old stories collected so we only have the two trades to display.

Another item on the table was the analogue Guargum updater. (A ceramic tile version of the random sillyness of our Twitter feed.) As the day went on, we would update both online and right there at our table. Fun when we’d post a random comment someone said and then they’d wander over and see it. We’ll likely continue to bring this to cons. And we might even do custom ones if people are interested.

So then we settled in to our quite comfy chairs and waited for the hoards. Okay, a Friday, of a newish show, in the afternoon, admittedly, there were no hoards. But as the day went on, more people arrived and we began to chat with folks, make jokes, explain what DFS was all about and generally have a good time.

I should give a shout out here to the Volunteers at the show. If there’s one thing they did very well, it was the volunteers. They were easy to spot, if a bit blinding in their neon shirts. The circled regularly and checked in to see if you need anything like water, a pee break, a pizza retrieved from a delivery person, someone killed, it was really nice. (Never did get my ribs…) Special mention to our favourite Volunteer Alex. I was also impressed when the con organizer made a point of stopping to check in with every person. It’s a small thing, but again, a nice touch. Hello to assistant Heather (Droopy).

The other noteable person of Friday was Alice of TDot Comics. She was very friendly and chatted with us for quite a while. She even ended up capturing us on film, but that was on Saturday and is a whole crazy thing of it’s own.

Eventually eight o’clock rolled around and we packed it up for the night. It hadn’t been a busy day, but fun at least. And the next day was the longest and likely to be the busiest, so we headed out and only stayed up to watch half of the New Moon Rifftrax.

Everything old is new again.

There’s a full look back at the past three days to come, but first we need a day to recover. Simply stated, we had a fun time and it was both all new and like we’d never left. Thanks to everybody who stopped by to visit with us.

So over the holidays I suffered a catastrophic sudden death of my flash drive that took all the original colour files for the first 20 pages as well as a bunch of supporting files, the teaser pictures and assorted random images. The dead key has gone off to a Data Recovery house in the hopes of saving the files, but in the event that it is either impossible or cost prohibitive, that work will have to be re-done.

To re-do all that work, I’ve been looking into getting some help. The first applicant is my son. His try out sample is above. While he does work faster than I do, his focus is off and I’m not sure DFS is ready for such an avant garde approach. Maybe if we get Ralph Steadman to draw a few pages…

So while I wait for news, and my kid works on his technique, you can begin making donations to the data recovery fund at dummyoughtaknowbetter@egestacomics.com.

The good news is the web files were saved separately and we’ll have the next page for you on Wednesday as normal.

-Chris

The end of 2009 saw us begin the first new DFS story in over 15 years. Wow. We’re back telling the crazy tales of Alex and Walter and the odd people and places they encounter. And it’s already been great. We’re starting to re-connect with people we haven’t seen or heard from in years. And we no longer have to think of ourselves as those guys who used to do this comic way back when.

And we’ve been at it less than a month.

2010 is full of potential. A return to doing conventions, meeting old and all new fans. Becoming a part of the new comic wave, we were there for the black and white, self publishing movement in the 90′s and now the webcomic world, where anybody can find and read your work without leaving their toilet chair. And we haven’t even started on some of the fun and silly stuff we’ve talked about doing.

Oh yeah, and did I mention the new DFS story?

-Chris

So here we are at the end of another year, one that saw us finally get back to telling comic book stories with our characters Alex and Walter.  We’ve attempted on numerous occasions to pick up our series Dressed for Success but 2009 was the year that the ball started rolling again.

It has been fun getting to flex those familiar creative muscles once more and set our characters on a new path of silly adventures.  It has also been enlightening to be presenting it in an entirely new format, that of the online webcomic.

While 2009 was a time for us to get our feet wet with publishing a weekly online comic series, 2010 will be a full year of possibilities and I look forward to seeing where it leads us as well as Alex and Walter.

-Jeff