The delay in getting today’s strip (Issue 255) up was not due to illness or the like. It was actually because Jim and I decided to do a different comic at the last minute. We are going back to Cosmic Dungeon, but we felt we wanted to lay some groundwork for other things to come, and this was a good way to do it. I had quite a time doing the art on this one, and if you want to read about that you can visit my pixel blog.

March is right around the corner and that means that Bitmap World is approaching another birthday. We’re going to be 2 years old! Wow. A lot has happened in that 2 years, in our real life and in the comic. We haven’t done a Booyah in a while, and that’s because aside from being busy, we figured we’d save the good stuff for our anniversary. We are planning to do another contest, so be sure to check back. We want to do some different prizes this time, so if you entered before, you won’t risk getting a duplicate.

See you on Tuesday!

You know, talking about the birds and the bees with your kids is probably one of the things that strikes the most terror into the hearts of parents. I am pretty comfortable about that kind of thing, and still I find myself stammering through any discussion with my kids. That’s why I love this comic (Issue 253) , because I think it really conveys that feeling well.

I do have to admit, this actually wasn’t my idea or joke. This actually happened to a friend of mine. Her child asked her, and true to her cool cucumber nature, she just did the “we’ll talk about it later” thing–to then learn where the word had been picked up. I thought this was so funny, I had to use the joke, embellishing it a bit with Harry’s reaction. Of course, thinking about this, I have to go back to the old Art Linkletter show, “Kids Say The Darndest Things.” Anyhow, a big thanks to “El” for sharing that story with me and being the inspiration for this strip.

On another note, the comic is up on time today! How did that happen? Maybe it’s because I don’t feel quite on death’s door being sick and all. Let’s just hope the “wellness” streak continues in our house. The particular bug that’s hit us has already gone around twice to everyone in our home! That’s more than enough for me.

Oh, and for any kids reading this who don’t know what that means, in the context of this comic, the word simply means “pure”–not having anything added to it.

I have wanted to give the Pixel kids a swingset/playfort since the beginning of the strip. My original plans were to have Harry build them one shortly after they moved in. But the story just took another direction and we never were able to fit it in. With things wrapping up with Rasterman, I wanted to go back to something ordinary and family-related, so the timing was good now. (Issue 251)

Our kids have a playfort and I have to admit they live on/in it during the warm weather months. It provides them with so many opportunities for imaginative play and just plain fun. The whole story about setting up the swingset is loosely based on how we built ours. Much like the Pixels, we just didn’t have the money to pay a company to build one for us. So, we went and got the plans, bought the wood, and then decided how we would do it over a series of weekends. As it turned out, my sister suggested that maybe my family would offer to come over and pitch in. Thus, we turned it into a small party. Now, in our case, we did not have 200 people show up. My family came, and a few neighborhood kids dropped by to watch the activities–and grab a burger or two (we actually grilled, not doing the pizza thing). It was hardly an hour and a bit of work. Everyone put in a good 8 hour, and during that time we managed to get the main frame up. Jim and I finished the project up an hour here, an hour there in the evenings and weekends over the next couple weeks. Anyhow, that is how fiction is often written, taking a bit of your own life and exaggerating it a bit. I am looking forward to all the fun the Pixel kids will have on that swingset, and the potential for storylines it will give us.

Now I guess it would be good to note, however, that if we did do something like this we could totally see it turning out like it did for the Pixels. Harry’s line about how these things always turn out that way for them is pretty much something we say regularly. We can plan and plan, but things never quite turn out the way we expect, and usually involve some sort of disaster!

That also said, I am truly yearning for Spring. We got teased with some 60 degree weather this past week. Now that it’s back to a more seasonal 30, I am longing for warmth and greenery. *sigh* That and the fact we are STILL sick. Yes, over a month of it bouncing back and forth between family members, and I once again have a horrible head cold. The doctor says it is simply bad in this area and everyone seems to be getting it. Either way, I can’t wait for some nicer weather and for everyone to feel better so we can get back to doing stuff rather than sniffling and sneezing.

Working on today’s strip (Issue 249) took far longer than I expected. The very unexpected reason was that it was quite the challenge doing Mr. Smiley’s armchair. When we wrote the script, I kept thinking about where Mr. Smiley would make the call to the cops. I didn’t want to do it in his living. We’ve already seen the foyer, bedroom, living room, and kitchen. I realized there had to be another room in the house. Perhaps a study or office. I just imagine a place where he would sit to read his paper, make his calls, etc., I got this image of this Archie Bunker chair (and, yes, I realize I’m old enough that many of our young readers will have no idea who Archie Bunker is). I managed to find a few models of chairs that were close to work off of, but ended up having to do quite a bit of pixelling to get what I wanted. Anyhow, I know it’s such a small thing, but I really am nutty about details like that.

Everyone is on the mend on the home front. This weekend is the big push to get several projects done. After that, hoping we have some breathing room to get back on schedule with the strip…and get a Booyah done!

I hate being sick. Ugh. And I should know not to push it when I’m sick, because I make mistakes. Case in point, I tried to update the comics last night and ended up messing something up and the database crashed. Granted, it was probably a program error, but I didn’t really check everything when I did it and just went to bed.

Of course, the sickies worked against me as I ended up deleting the scripts for these strips, and then re-did them only to leave them at my work. Migraines are inconducive to the creative process.

That said, we are pretty busy with a couple of other projects we’re working. One being the re-launch of Family Webcomics, which is going to be worlds better and easier-to-use than its predecessor. We have also been busy being interviewed for different media outlets, including the New York Times. One of our other sites is one for large families, and with the octuplet news, big families are in the spotlight again. This isn’t the first time we’ve been featured in a paper. I’ve been interviewed by the Chicago Sun-Times and our family was featured on CNN.com last year. And, as glamourous as that sounds, it really isn’t. 15 minutes…or more like 8 minutes. Plus, you don’t get anything out of it other than some appreciation. Oh well. Not to mention, they never mention Bitmap World, which would be way cool, but…oh well.

That said, the kids are on the mend, though I’m in the middle of that “feel better one day, feel worse the next” stage. Hoping this bug is beat soon. Still hoping to get the comic up on Friday, but you all know how that may go.

Oh, I am updating this entry to note that in Issue 248 that Char calls the Gigs DINKS. That is an acronym for “Double Income No Kids.” It’s basically used for couples who are both working and making good money and don’t have any kids. Thus, they are usually well off financially.

I have a couple of posts over at my pixel blog, if anyone is interested. Also, be sure to check out our Lehmann Family Picks. Our yearly collection of our favorite online shorts.

On other fronts, we have 2 upcoming “things” that we are really excited about. One Bitmap World related, the other more webcomic related. Just a teaser, but stay tuned.

I probably date myself, and that’s funny to say since Y2K was only 9 years ago. Well, “only” in the real world. In computers, 9 years is an eternity.

On New Year’s Eve 1999, I was working as a programmer at a major newspaper. The months before that point were nothing but sheer chaos as people ran around, predicting the doom of the world as all of the computer clocks rolled over into 2000. There were predictions of power outages, mass hysteria and the like. My company wanted to prepare us and that came in the form of a survival kit containing a flashlight and a candy bar, nothing else. At the time I joked that if the power went out, we could shine our flashlights at the computers and continue working.

So, my family was at home and I was at work. Thankfully, Our work had been successful and the computer systems rolled over without any (major) problems.

Months later, the company gave everyone a $100 bonus for all of the hours of unpaid overtime and extra work they had done to avoid the end of the world. Of course, the managers who simply pointed and barked orders got considerably much more. Gotta love big companies.

Of course, as I look back on Y2K, I now have to look ahead to 2009. On September 9, 2009 there is a risk of another fallout, and by “risk” I mean, well, absolutely nothing. 999 is the number some programs use to mean “end of data”, but as anybody other than a manager can see, “999″ and “09-09-09″ are completely different. Still, you can be sure that in large companies all over the world — including the one I used to work at — managers are barking orders and programmers are running around like monkeys making sure that the “threat” of the 999 bug doesn’t wreak havok.

Happy New Year, everyone! Hope that 2009 is great for everyone.

I have to admit, we’re having a great time with this current storyline. We are finally getting to do things that we have been planning, literally, for years! Another thing that I am personally enjoying is how much I’m starting to like certain characters. There is a lot of talking in writing that when you develop a character they take a life of their own, and in essence the story writes itself. Well, at least as far as the characters are concerned. Based on their personality, they will do things a certain way, and of course that will affect what is going on around them. For me, I am growing very fond of Verde. When Jim and I first started the comic, we actually had more plans for Char, the mother of the K kids, rather than their father. We knew he worked for the city and that was pretty much it. As time has gone on, he has taken a prominent role in the strip, and his character has not only evolved, but has become a crucial element to the strip. I know it sounds kinda odd that as the creator I could be disconnected enough to see the character in this way–but that really is what writing is about. It’s about creating something that can stand alone and apart from you, even if without you it would not have been here. I suppose that can be said about parenting too.

This storyline also breaks another milestone for us, being our longest connected run of strips. We’ve done other arcs which were covered through a series of strips peppered over a longer run. This arc is now 15 strips long, and has a few more to go before the end. We’re moving into new territory. Granted, we will still have the short mini-arcs, and we like to pace out the strip going between the different storylines and areas (meaning the workplace, home, CD, etc.), but this is setting a precedence, where we will now almost have to be doing more extensive runs, and dare I say a bit more of the serious stuff, in the future.

Another milestone to note is that this month we saw our biggest readership since January of 2008. I will very honestly admit that our erratic updating and other issue caused our hits to dip through the middle of this past year. However, we’re happy that not only are the numbers back, but they are stronger than ever! Over 500 new readers bookmarked the site in December! This readership has been a nice climb over the past few months, but it really is encouraging for us to see those nice high numbers again. We are uber excited and hope to do you proud as we continue this strip into it’s third year! (We’ll officially be 2 years old in March.)

All I can say is this. When we were toying around and throwing out computer phrases to work into the script, the name Cold Fusion (Issue 236) just sounded like the most awesome supervillian name. We came up with this quite some time ago and it’s really neat to finally introduce this character. Of course, getting back to our superhero roots, we’re really excited to have a story with a bit of suspense in it.

Wanted to post that comment graphic here because I know not everyone saw it on the splash page on Christmas. Love Mr. Smiley as Scrooge. Hope everyone had a happy holiday season, and here’s to a better (and more stable) 2009 ahead.

Yes, wonders never do cease. A new strip, up ON TIME! See, we told you we had it in us. Now, to see if we can get this winning streak to TWO strips.

I have to admit that when I was considering doing a Monkey Day strip this year, I almost was tempted to do a strip that was tied-in to last year’s strip. However, on the forum, we have been chatting about Monkey Island. I have to totally admit being a fanboy of that series. A very awesome game with great playability and good humor. For all of the great games that have come and gone over the years, I have to say by far my favorite PC games are the Monkey Island series and “Day of the Tentacle”–all by Lucasart. Ah, those were the days when they made games other than Star Wars and shooters… *sigh* Yes, I know that’s an exaggeration, but it feels like that. Anyhow, getting all nostalgic about Guybrush Threepwood and his adventures, I decided I wanted to do something along those lines for Monkey Day, since we obviously parody him in this strip as the Monkey Mustafa’s assistant. After a bit of thought, I came up with this strip. While this comic (Issue 227) is kinda randomly placed in the continuity to tie-in to Monkey Day, it’s not a random strip. It may or may not have huge significance, but rarely is something done arbitrarily in this strip. Jim and I are pretty serious writers, and we do plot a lot of stuff way out. I, for one, love to leave little threads all over the place, and then tie them up at a later day–in some obvious and some not-so-obvious ways.

I will note that much of the background art in this strip is from the first Monkey Island game. I really wanted to pay a little homage to “Threepbrush’s” desire to be a pirate–which of course was a major plot element in the Monkey Island games. I have to admit to thinking the pirate monkeys look pretty cool. As for our little monkey ninja, I would be remiss to merely mention those words without giving a nod to my all-time favorite monkey ninjas, Carl & Phil, who can be found over HERE (the site is going through a revamp, but check back soon–all 6 episodes are hilarious and must-see).