Yesterday night, right outside my house, I was held at gunpoint by five to seven kids. KIDS. They looked like they were in middle and high school. They all had guns. They took my wallet (with my credit card, debit card, social security card, driver’s license, SCAD ID, and two bucks in cash and change) and my cell phone. The guy with the shot gun hit me in the back of the head two to three times with the handle of his gun.

But I’m alive. And that’s the important part. I’m trying to focus on that fact right now. Also they didn’t take the car.

I’m still shaken up, obviously. I’ve been the victim too many fucking times this quarter. The quarter began with my iMac getting stolen, and the quarter is ending with THIS shit. One week from graduation and this happens. I lived in Savannah for over four years without any incident. I lived in this house ALONE and nothing happened.

This fucking sucks. This quarter fucking sucked. And this is how I end my college career.

I’m taking a few days to maybe a week off from posting any comics. I don’t feel like drawing about what happened just yet. I need some time. I don’t know how long. It’ just too fresh for me. I’m sorry about this. I hope you understand.

And now because of this the rest of my schedule (artwork, school work, personal stuff, getting the iDonations done, etc) is getting pushed back and messed up because I have to be on the phone with people to protect my identity and credit, get new cards, new ID, talking with police AND deal with all the trauma that comes with being held up at gunpoint by five to seven kids with guns. My mind is in a horrible place right now.

I don’t know if I’m going to be ok. Not for a little while anyways. I’m sorry. This sucks.

I would like to catch a break someday…

So the issue with Comcast is still not resolved. This may take a while but I’m working on it. I am currently leeching off the internet connection of a neighbor. I feel a little guilty about that, but you know, desperate times…

Anyways, the, um, borrowed connection is very slow, but it does allow me to upload things onto my web server via FTP, so I can finally update again! Be warned though, this stolen connection doesn’t always work for me, so if it farts out on me, I may have to go another few days without posting. Sucks, I know. But as long as I can keep tapping in to this connection, I will keep posting.

Thank you and sorry about all this. Comcast can go eat it. Fucking cable monopolies getting away with doing whatever they want…grumble…

EDIT: There was a snafu when I uploaded the late comics up. Apparently I hit ’save’ instead of ‘publish’ for the November 4th comic so it didn’t upload. Problem fixed so go back and read it if you missed it. It’s an IMPORTANT one.

So, there are some problems.

Comcast is fucking shitty. Here is what’s up:

1) The internet is being slow as shit.

2) I can’t upload ANYTHING on any server via FTP. NOTHING! Not on this host, not on my SCAD student webspace. At first I thought it might be my computer or my web host, but we tried uploading something via FTP on Amy’s computer and on her site’s host and the same thing happened. So by process of elimination, it has to be our internet provider, Comcast. They are somehow blocking us from uploading things via FTP. I don’t know how or why.

I have tried calling them tonight multiple times, and each time I talk to their phone-robot, press the numbers, go through a maze until I get to an option to actually talk to a LIVE HUMAN BEING. Then the phone rings and ‘click’ hangs up on me. This happened three to four times.

So what this means for inkdick…

Irregular updates until this shit gets fixed (and I now plan on being a zit of Comcast’s ass until they fix this). Irregular updates because now I’ll have to go trek over to a SCAD building just to upload things onto my site, but I can’t do that every single day or every single time I need to update. So until this clusterfuck of a situation gets fixed, that’s the way it has to be.

Please don’t stop reading because of this. It’s not my fault. Really. And I’m really sorry about all this.

I’ll try to get some comics up later today or Saturday. I don’t know for sure when since I’ll be busy with Comix Art Forum all this weekend. But I’ll try.

I’m really sorry about all this. And again, fuck Comcast.

Sorry for the lack of comics. There has been something seriously wrong with my webhosting service and the site’s been up and down (don’t EVER use webhostingpad.com) and there is something wrong with my internet service (thanks a bunch, Comcast). It’s taking forever for anything to load on this connection and I won’t be able to upload anything at all onto my server until this all gets fixed. So there will be no new comics posted up until then, whenever when that will be. I’m really sorry. Once these problems all get fixed, I’ll post up all the comics from the past few days.

Sorry. I know this fucking sucks, trust me. I’m here pulling out my own hair over this.

Blerg.

Ok, time to get all political on everyone.

Here in America today is election day. I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I’m an Obama man. I already voted early for him and proudly stand by my vote. Many of the people in my life also chose to stand behind him. No, stand WITH him! I could go on and on why I know Obama is the right man for the job, but I’ll spare you. Needless to say, I love Obama and hope that he wins today and our country will be a much better place.

But, regardless of who you vote for, VOTE! Even if you like the other guy better for whatever reason, VOTE! Even if you support a third party that doesn’t have a chance in hell this election, VOTE! If you are eligible to vote, there is NO excuse not to vote. If you failed to register in time or didn’t apply for an absentee ballot in time, shame on you. If you are not going to the polls today, extra shame on you! If you don’t vote and you could have, you have no right what-so-ever to complain about the state of the country for the next four years because you didn’t have your say when you had your chance. Even if you don’t like any of the candidates, just do a write-in vote! Just VOTE!

To those who already voted early or voted by absentee ballot, thank you. You’ve done your duty and you are beyond awesome. To those who applied in time for an absentee ballot but it got lost in the mail, I’m sorry. You have every right to be pissed as your government failed you. I still thank you. To those going in today, thank you and remember: stay in line! Don’t let the 2 or more hour wait stop you from voting (bring your iPod or something to read). Don’t let any one at your polling station stop you from voting. Don’t let ANYONE lie to you and tell you that Democrats will vote on the 5th or that you have to go home because the polls will be closing. As long as you get in line before the polls close, stay there until your vote gets counted! It is your legal RIGHT and unless you are convicted felon no one can stop you from voting! This is important, the most important election of our lifetimes thus far. Make your voice heard no matter the cost! The few hours you spend waiting in line today will change the next four years of this country, of this world. They may very well also change the course of history FOREVER! Be a part of something HUGE!

Now get out there and vote, you crazy kids! And if you are still undecided at this point for whatever reason, do me a favor and vote Obama. He’s really good, trust me.

The comic for today will be up LATE tonight. Early yesterday I burned the fingers on my right hand, the one I draw with, by accidentally spilling boiling bean soup on them (fucking lame, I know). I obviously couldn’t physically make the comic with burnt fingers (even now it hurts a little bit to type). The fingers are almost back to normal at this point, so the comic IS coming. It’s just going to be up LATE, as long as the fingers keep healing at the rate that they are.

That’s the problem with doing a daily journal comic, you can’t work ahead in advance to create a buffer of comics so you don’t get too far off of posting when things like this happen. Oh well.

Ok, back from SPX safe and sound. Today I posted up five days and tomorrow I’ll post up the rest and be all caught up.

Also, apparently my old version of Photoshop, the original CS, transferred over to my new computer fine, but it not 100% compatible with my new computer. It is bizarre. It now takes forEVER to scan in a comic, because I have to do each one five times just to get it right/passable.

Anyways…does anyone out there know where I can acquire a, ahem, copy of the CS3 or CS4 versions of Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, and Illustrator for a Mac? You know, ahem, wink wink? Um, just e-mail me if you know where and how…wink wink.

For any authorities reading this, aka cyber-police, I am a law abiding citizen of the United States who sometimes pays his taxes on time and in no way am I implying that I wish to steal software, as that would be very wrong and immoral. And besides, you can’t prove anything, suckers.

Hello from Woodbridge, VA, home of my cruddy high school years.

SPX was a fucking BLAST (I’ll post a full write-up sometime later this week). But right now I’m still in Northern Virginia. The plan was to come home to Savannah Tuesday night, finish up all my comics from the weekend, and post them up on Wednesday.

Well, there now might be a slight change of plans. See, the plan was to stay up here an extra day and a half to tie up loose ends and take my brother’s car back down to Savannah while he’s in Iraq for a year and also to vote early in VA since I’ll be down in GA for election day. Well, apparently either my brother or father let the state inspection on the car expire back in June and the state inspector left the shop early in the afternoon. So now I have to wait for that to be done later this morning. I wanted to leave this morning, but it’s starting to look like I won’t get out of here until the afternoon at the earliest. Might even be early Wednesday morning if things go really bad.

So I won’t be getting back to Savannah until really late Tuesday at the earliest, so I’ll have not a lot of time to finish  all the comics. So I will either post half the comics up Wednesday and the rest up Thursday or post them all up on Thursday, depending when I get back.

Sorry about this, sometime life takes over fucks up all your plans.

But hey, at least now I have a car, right?

In other news: I am on my dad’s computer right now and am not able to get to sleep. What are YOU  up to at this late hour?

Ok, so obviously you have noticed that I didn’t get today’s (well, yesterday’s) strip up. The final prep for SPX took longer than expected. Much longer. And since I will be gone for the weekend and part of the week, no new inkdicks until Wednesday. After that, we’ll be back on our regular schedule.

Also, I’m behind on getting the iDonate original artwork done, so if you said you’d be at SPX and would pick up your art there in person, sorry, it’s not ready yet. Don’t worry, I’ll mail you your art when it’s done (with something extra thrown in maybe as a way of saying sorry for the delay). It’ll be mailed to you before Thanksgiving, I swear.

Now on to more SPX news. Here is what you can expect to see (and buy) from me this year at SPX:

Inkdick #1 and #2 ($2 each). Not only can you read the first two and a half months of inkdick off-line, but you can sport a pretty bitchin’ mustache with them.

Inkdick #3 ($2). Look how clever I am, combing the top half of my cartoon-self face with the bottom half of my real-life face. Actually, this is not clever at all. But the comic itself is good.

Inkdick #4 ($2) Hot of the presses. Literally. I just got done making them 30 minutes ago.

Omnology ($1) and Boxcar Joe ($4) Omnology is a dirty, dirty comic. Boxcar Joe comes in a neat little slipcase that takes forever to make, but the end result is worth it.

Zak & Sara ($3) Don’t tell Ben Folds, he’ll sue me. The comic is help shut by a flap in the back with VELCRO. I repeat: VELCRO. How cool is that?

8 Pages of Monsters Doing Everyday Things (either $0.50 or $0.75, still haven’t decided) A one-sided page no-staple color comic. Amy colored it and did an kick-ass job. This is an SPX 2008 exclusive, so once it’s sold out, it’s sold out forEVER.

Grunge Lobster #2 ($1) and Rocket Tonic Quarterly #3 ($0.75) AKA all the old shit. These two titles are soon to be retired and go out of print, so pick up the last copies while you still can if you’d like to remember Retro Pranas.

I am sharing a table with Falynn Koch and Kevin Singles at table B-16. Here is a map:

A very sweet location, no? We’ll be between Drew & Eleanor and Brian Fukushima. Not a bad place to be. Not a bad place to be at all.

So if you are in the Bethesda, Maryland area come out this weekend to SPX, and if you will be there already, stop by the table and say hello. I’m not THAT socially awkward, I swear.

The comic will be late today. I’ve been busting my balls putting together all my books for SPX, so inkdick has not been at the forefront of my mind recently. But it will be up later tonight, hopefully.

Also tomorrow will be the last new inkdick you get until next Tuesday or Wednesday. I obviously won’t be able to post up comics while up at SPX and I’ll be staying up there for a day or two tying up loose ends and giving a lecture to my old high school. But once I get back I’ll post up all the comics from the weekend and get back to the normal posting schedule. I’ll make an SPX post later tonight about all the awesome books to can buy from me if you happen to be in Bethesda this weekend.