I just wanted to give a quick hello and greetings to those of you who I met and chatted with at the Emerald City ComicCon this past weekend. It was a pleasure to meet so many people at a really fun convention — from big-name professionals to small-press and independent artists/writers. Feel free to check the place out, and catch up on a few of my webcomics or other artwork. I’d love to hear what you think.

For those that want a bit more info on Manga Studio (man, I did a lot of pimpage for that program this weekend), here are a few links to help you along:

Smith Micro’s website (the company distributing the program):
http://my.smithmicro.com/win/graphics.html (Windows)
http://my.smithmicro.com/mac/graphics.html (Mac)

My Manga Studio For Dummies blog:
http://ms4d.pnhcomics.com (there’s not much there at the moment, but if you have questions, e-mail me. I’ll post a an explanation there (and in e-mail)).

At the MS4D blog, there is also a link to where you can purchase the book from various online retailers.

Thanks again for making the ECCC a blast. I’ll definitely be coming back next year!

PS: A big thanks to the folks at the Wacom booth for letting me demonstrate Manga Studio on their Cintiq displays on Sunday! And of course, big props to my Ten Ton Studios cohorts who made it to the Con, and let me grab a chair at the Artist Alley table (I didn’t get one this year myself…something that I’ll be remedying next year).

So, I’m debating how I want to continue scheduling updates for Chibi Cheerleaders.

With the exception of this month, the pages have been coming out once a week. The thing is, I’m feeling pace of the story is dreadfully slow as a result. It’s probably boring you guys to tears.

Since I can’t increase the number of pages per week, I’m debating on going the other way, and only updating when I have completed a particular scene/section in the story. That’ll result in infrequent updates, but there will be a whole section to read at once, which will hopefully read better for you all.

So, which would you all prefer? Drop me an e-mail, and let me know. I’ll make my decision once I get some feedback (or, if I don’t hear from anyone, I’ll make my own mind up anyway. )

I just wanted to say thanks to two of my Ten Ton Studios buddies, Jason Baroody and Chris Chua, for their help this month on the Chibi pages. I’m working on a present for my daughter’s birthday, and needed a bit of help to make sure I still got the Chibi pages out on time. So they were cool enough to ink pages 143 and 145 for me.

Thanks for the assist!

Update: Yeesh. I was just told the recaptcha-like image/text verification thingy on the contact page isn’t working. So, I’m going to disable it for the time being.  Sorry if you’ve been trying to contact me.

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Well that would explain why I haven’t received any e-mails lately……

If anyone has recently tried to contact me through my contact page, you might have noticed that it redirects to yoursite.com as soon as you try to send the e-mail. That would be because I’m a moron — I forgot to update one of the settings on the Wordpress e-mail plugin I’m using.

In any case, it should be working now. So, if you haven’t received a reply to your e-mail, that’s why. Sorry about that.

One other note, in case you’re not using the RSS updates feed (via Twitter), there won’t be a new comic this week, as I’m taking it off for the holidays. Happy New Year!

It’s about two months later than planned, but my review of Manga Studio 4 is now up at the MS4D blog. The basic gist of is is if you’ve enjoyed working with Manga Studio 3, or are considering purchasing Manga Studio for the first time, you’ll find MS4 to be more than adequate.

Here’s the link.

Hey all,

Quick programming note. There won’t be a page on Tuesday, as I’m taking this week off to celebrate Thanksgiving and my Birthday.

See you all on December 2nd!

Update: Here’s the Review!

Just wanted everyone to know (if you don’t know already) that Manga Studio 4 has been released to the public. I’ve had the opportunity to beta-test the program the last couple of months, and now that I’m free to talk about it, I’ll post a detailed review of the program this week.

The short version is that if you have enjoyed Manga Studio 3, you’re going to absolutely love MS4. While keeping the same basic structure as version 3 (which means that the MS4D Book will still be useful to a degree), there are many, many improvements that will help you produce some great digital artwork.

So, keep your eyes peeled for a review later this week!

In the meantime, you can pick up a copy of the program for the PC (the Mac version should be out later this year) at Smith Micro’s website (http://my.smithmicro.com/win/graphics.html).

So, the more things change (the site renovations), the more they stay the same (I’m still a terrible blogger).

Anyway, I’d like to thank those of you who have been sticking around the PNHComics/Chibi Cheerleaders sites to see if the comic is ever going to be updated/finished. The answers are yes and (hopefully) yes.

Understandably, the readership has dwindled since the comic went into hiatus, and I’m planning on doing some advertising soon enough. What I’m going to ask, dear readers, is a bit of help in spreading the word. If you like the comic and are glad it’s back, let others know about it. They might be former readers, or new (potential) fans. But whatever the case, if you think others should know about this comic, please let them know!

Thanks again for your support all these years (especially when I’ve been a moody artist).

As you all can see, Chibi Cheerleaders is back up and running, with a new facelift, and (more importantly), new pages.

My plan going forward is to post pages every Tuesday. It might be just one pages (as the last two weeks have shown), or it might be multiple pages. It’s going to depend on a couple of factors:

• Pacing: i.e. would it make sense to post a couple of pages if it helps the storytelling out?
• How far ahead (or behind) I am: The good news is that I have a decent-sized buffer going into this re-launch. The pages are in various stages of completion, but they are there. So the number of pages posted each week will be in relation to how large or small that cushion is.
• Extra-curricular Activities: I’m still keeping myself busy with other projects in addition to Chibi Cheerleaders. As such, I want to make sure that they get their fair amount of time as well.

I realize that keeping updates to once per week may slow down the pace of the story to a crawl at times. But I’d rather guarantee that you’ll have one page per week (and that they’ll be posted on Tuesday), than go back to the erratic “well, you might get a page up on Thursday…or maybe Wednesday and two weeks from today” schedule that plagued the comic the last time.

I hope that you’ll enjoy this last act of the story.