Con Report: No Such Con 2017

on February 22, 2017

100_0586This past weekend I attended No Such Con for my third year. NSCon is a little student-run convention on the campus of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, and it’s always a fun time. While attendance seemed to be way down this year, the energy was still present and everyone seemed to be having a pretty good weekend. And I must say that the talent of the artists and guests that they brought in this year was nigh-overwhelming.

I did several panels – two of them will be made available to listen to online (I’ll post about them when they are), and the third was my annual webcomics panel. The first two were an artist and a writer Q&A, each moderated by author extraordinaire Thomm Quackenbush.  My own panel was quite special this year because of the assistance of Kez of What it Takes, who was also kind enough to provide me with transportation to the con this year, as well as our newfound friends Kaiser and Richard of Eagle Ordinary.  The combined experiences and enthusiasm of all of us webcomic folks made for a deeper well to pull from and I hope the people present in the panel got something out of it.

There were a few other artists that had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with over the weekend.  There’s J.M. DeSantis, an amazingly talented artist who does the comic Chadhiyana as well as Gentleman Cthulhu.  Sitting next to him was Matt Farley, a very prolific and funny musician, and sometimes actor.  On the other side of the room was Emily of the webcomic Anarchy Dreamers, and her friend whose name is escaping me at the moment Danielle (but with whom I bonded over our enjoyment of Blue Oyster Cult after I noticed her BOC/Godzilla t-shirt), both lovely and talented young women.  There was also Dezi Sienty, who I unfortunately didn’t talk to much in the artist alley, but with whom we had some good discussions in the artist panel.

My two favorite highlights came from the folks sitting to my left, though, at Adam Tilford’s table (Adam was at the writers panel with me the year previously, but I didn’t get to talk much with him this year because he was so busy with panels).  One was meeting Natalie Van Sistine, a voice actress and podcastress who approached my table with a surprised look on her face, and she proceeded to tell me that she used to read Bardsworth when she was in high school.  Hearing that and seeing the nostalgic look in her eyes would have been enough to make my weekend.  And then I met the other voice actress at the table, Amber Lee Conners, who has done a number of voices I don’t know, but then mentioned being the voice of Android 18 in Dragon Ball Z Abridged, which I just recently finished rewatching all the way through.  After also learning that we shared a love for fairies and the underappreciated Final Fantasy 8, I had to get a picture with her.

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So while the weekend was not great for me financially, I did have some amazing moments meeting some great people. I hope I can head back there again next year and see what adventures await me.

Other NSCon Write-ups:
J.M.’s – http://jmdesantis.com/2017/02/no-such-con-2017-write-up/
Kez’s – http://acityinaplace.com/
Natalie’s – http://nvansistine.weebly.com/updates/no-such-con-2017

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We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Program…

on February 20, 2017

These are always the posts I dread putting out there, but the universe is working against me at the moment. This past weekend my laptop charger bit the dust and my battery ran dry, leaving me with a rather large paperweight that contains Bardsworth files that I can’t access. I’ve ordered a new charger (and battery), but in order to get 2-3 day shipping I would have had to sell one of my children. I do rather like my children, so I opted for standard shipping.

Long story short, this week’s page will not happen. I will immediately begin work on it as soon as my laptop is up and running again, and then I have to find time to get this month’s bonus update done as well. I guess I will just have the coffee pot wired into me via IV drip or something.

Anyway, I plan on having a more fun post for you to read in the next day or two. I attended No Such Con at Vassar College this past weekend for the third year, and I want to share my experiences and give shout-outs to the cool people I met. So stay tuned for that at least.

In the meantime, uh… I dunno, reread the archives? I’m sure there’s something you missed in there. I know I always find something.

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An Apology and a Gift

on December 24, 2016

First of all, I apologize for the late update this week. I honestly meant to get the line art up for EVERYONE to see on Thursday night when it was obvious to me that I wasn’t going to finish the colors, but my brain has been so broken by this past week that I completely forgot before passing out for the night. I’ll try to be better about that in the future.

In other news, since I wasn’t able to get the bonus update for this month (for staying over $100 on Patreon) done, I decided to throw together a wallpaper for everyone to download, since it’s been forever since I made a wallpaper available to ALL my readers. Consider it a holiday gift. 🙂

Download it by clicking on the preview picture below.

Happy holidays to all of you!

cbxmas_preview

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What I Want For Christmas…

on December 6, 2016

Christmas to me has always been more of a time of giving to other people as opposed to wanting anything, so I don’t tend to ask for things. However, if there’s one surprising thing I’ve learned about webcomic readers, it’s that many of you enjoy giving to the creators that you like and supporting the comics that you read. So I’m hoping that this one time you’ll forgive me for actually asking and that you’ll want to rise to the occasion to help out.

The short story is that Katie is no longer employed, and since she was the one with the full-time job for the past four years, I’m stepping up to the plate with a job search. In the meantime, however, we could use some financial support. So I wanted to outline several ways that you could help us out, if you so choose, in the coming months.

1.) Patreon. I have almost thirty patrons supporting me at varying levels per month. If you’re not sure what Patreon is, the quick description is that it’s a way for you to support me for a dollar amount of your choosing per month, starting as low as $1. You get rewards that depend on the level of money you’re contributing, and you are not locked in – you can cancel your patronage at any time. This is the best way to support me and to get exclusive stuff at the same time. And if you have any questions about the process, you can always come to me for help.

2.) Merchandise. I have a huge inventory of things that are left over from my years of doing conventions, both Bardsworth and non-Bardsworth. Purchasing this stuff not only helps me out financially, but it frees up more space in my house! And right now I’m running a special where you can get 15% off of your purchase if you use the coupon code “holiday16” at checkout.

3.) PayPal. I recently took my link for PayPal donations since nobody really uses it anymore, but if you’d like to make a donation via PayPal, you can use this link. (EDIT: I’m restoring the link on the right sidebar because I forgot that PayPal buttons don’t work properly in WordPress posts.)

4.) Spread the Word. I know money can be tight, but you might still want to help somehow. This is the cheapest way to do it! Please get other people to read Bardsworth! The more readers I can gather, the better chance I have at gaining people to support it. And contact any local conventions you go to and suggest me as a guest. If I’m able to get to a convention as a paid guest, I have a chance to make some extra money through merchandise sales (and gain new readers). You can direct their attention to my convention appearances page for information.

So that’s how you can help. Whether or not you do, I still value you as a reader, and I will still continue to crank this eleven year old comic out regularly!

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What’s Up With Collection #3?

on December 2, 2016

This is more or less a public service announcement to always, ALWAYS back up your computer, preferably in multiple places.

It’s also just me whining a little bit.

I had high hopes of getting the next Bardsworth collection out in early 2017 (even higher hopes of getting it done in time for No Such Convention in February). This is the batch of strips that moves into the era where I was saving things at a proper resolution for eventual printing. So theoretically, the book wouldn’t have taken me as long to do as the previous ones.

And then I went to look for said properly done files and… they’re gone. A chunk of about 50 strips is lost in the ether due to one of the handful of hard drive crashes I’ve suffered over the years.

So, as with the previous collections, I have to color this one in whole. Actually, it’s worse, because I have to RE-color a large portion of them. That’s just psychological torture. But, such is life, and the show must go on.

Long story short – new book will be out closer to late spring/early summer of 2017, and back your computers up frequently and in more than one place.

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