Hi there, and welcome to a very special preview of an exciting new feature here -- which is, of course, thinly-veiled code for 'it aint ready yet,' but try to look beyond that.

Longtime readers will know that I've made attempts at producing an ongoing webcomic before, but to be honest, I never really managed to hit that cartoonist's groove where I said to myself, "You know, I am not going to get vomitously sick of doing this in a week or so."

This can represent a significant hurtle to webcomic production.

 It's true that my writing style is not well-tailored to the da-da-da-da-da-PUNCHLINE! style of your standard three or four-panel comic strip format (Sure, blame the comic strip format, Proust!). The humor in my comics have generally been more situation-and-character-derived, and that's hard to establish in three panels a day.

To that end, I've thrown my hands up in frustration, spilled my drink, kicked the dog, and said, 'To heck with it." What you see above is, in fact, a REAL comic strip. That is to say, just a plain ol' page of book-format comic, cut into strips. Much simpler for me to produce, and, if you already like my comics, not a bad read, at all (although if you don't, this probably isn't going to win you over). But be warned -- punchlines will not always appear in the last panel.  

So, now that the machinery's unpacked, are we ready to power on and start running with five updates a week? No, not yet. There's software to load, updates to install, and pieces to break, so put your pants back on. But the launch day'll be soon, mark my words, and I'll be sure to let you know when it happens. Till that time, there'll be token updates throughout December, so keep your eyes on this space, and also on the skies.

Norm