Author: Rachel

Hi, everyone,

I’m afraid we’re gonna have another late comic this week. We’ve been struggling a lot with it lately, as you’ve probably noticed, so I just want to acknowledge it out loud. That way, you know that Michael and I know it too. We are going to keep working on this, and I expect we’ll pull out of this before too long. But yes.

Without going into boring details, I’ve been really sick lately, and Michael’s been crazy-busy with new (awesome) events in his life. We’ve been able to manage okay in the past when just one of us was overloaded, but with both of us out, it’s been much more difficult. It’s a good learning experience, though–hopefully next time life gets crazy we’ll have a better idea of how to deal with it!

Anyway. There should be at least a rough draft up by Saturday night, with the completed version as early next week as possible. Heaven willing, I’ll be feeling better soon and have more of a brain, and maybe Mike and I can do a few of our boot camp sessions where we hang out in person and get way more done. YES

Also, I never got around to posting the winners of the naming contest! I will do that halfway through next week. :) Stay tuned!

Thanks again a billion times for your patience and support and awesome comments! We love you guys!

~ Rachel

UPDATE: Due to further awesomeness in Michael’s life (more on which anon) and also a driving mishap, we won’t have lineart today, but expect the full page on Monday. Thanks for understanding! Aiieee!

All right! You’ve waited long enough! The comic I told you about ages ago is finally online!

So check it out right here.

…Oh my goodness. It is so boring and yet so incredibly silly. Also, as far as I know, it’s the very first comic Michael and I ever collaborated on. Three cheers for history, and thirty cheers for progress! I can now draw better than Michael could then. Haw~

Incidentally, does anyone want to hazard a guess about the true identity of the mutant pickle? :) I can’t decide if it’s totally obscure or totally obvious. The only way to find out is for you to tell me.

Speaking of using our dear readers as lab rats, there’s still time to enter the naming contest! Give it a shot for a chance to influence the comic and get an awesome sketch!

Thanks, everyone. See you Saturday. :)

~ Rachel

Hi, everyone!

I’m making a goal to update this space at least once a week, especially in the midweek while people are waiting for the new page to happen. So to start us off on the right foot, let’s have a contest!

Now that the Coben family has reappeared, it’s time for them to get some names. The teenage son’s name will be revealed soon, but the mother and daughters–to be honest, we don’t know! And, in the spirit of the beloved Narbonic, we’re curious to hear what our awesome readers can think up. Specifically, we need names for Mrs. Coben (whom we have mostly referred to in our own discussions as “Joddmom”); the older daughter with the pigtails (also known as “Jodddaughter,” “Joddling”, “Joddspawn”, etc.); and the younger, chubbier daughter (also known as “she looks like a kitten”).

So here’s the deal. Check out the entire family back on this page. Come up with some names–as many as you like–and post them in the comments here. The winner(s) will see their chosen names featured in the comic (eventually), and will receive a sketch of the people they named!

We’ll keep this contest running until Wednesday, September 1st. Good luck! Tell your friends! And thanks for reading! :D

~ Rachel

Hi! Just so’s you’re all prepared, this weekend’s comic will be another of the late-in-the-day updates. But finals are now finished, and both Michael and my husband will be getting their diplomas tomorrow. :) Huzzah!

Also, while going through old boxes, our mother found a short comic book that Michael and I collaborated on 14 years ago, for a fourth-grade project I had to do about fractions. It is amazing, and I will be scanning it as soon as I get it from her. So look forward to that, too. XD

~ Rachel

Hello everyone! Long time to no blog!

That’s mostly because, as indicated in the previous entry, there has been a babying! My son, and Michael’s nephew was born at the end of April, and things have been super awesome and also super time consuming ever since. <3

Meanwhile, today there is good news and bad news: the good news is that this was Michael’s last week of school ever. Woohoo!! The bad news is that he had an avalanche of work to do because of that, so today’s comic will be quite late, but we’re still planning to have it up before midnight. Next week it will be summer again, and there will be much more time on our hands, so hopefully we can get back to midnight-Friday updates–and, perhaps, start thinking about a more frequent posting schedule. Perhaps!

Tonight’s page will be #52–that’s a full year of comics. Holy cow. Thank you, everyone, for reading, and for writing back to us. This is all so much more fun with you all around. My mind is blown.

See you tonight!

~ Rachel

For anyone who’s seen this page going up and down and up and down as we’ve worked on the backend–we’re done for now, and everything should be stable. Woohoo! There will be more to do some time in the future, but it’s not crucial, so we’re leaving it alone for now. Meanwhile, let’s hear a round of applause for our brother Ben and our good friend J for helping us sort out the bugs! We couldn’t have done it without you!

Thanks again for your patience, and please let us know if anything on the site starts behaving weirdly! But also, expect responses to email to be slower than usual for a little while, because there’s a baby due any day now. :) Comics should keep going up pretty much as usual, though.

Hooray in general!

~ Rachel

Hiii all,

So Michael and I are at our parents’ house this weekend, and the big news this morning is a virus chewing on the computer Michael has been using to get the new page assembled. Luckily, it’s not his normal computer, but it’s still causing lame and unforeseen problems.

Sorry for the delay — we’ll get the page up as fast as we can. Wish us luck.

~ Rachel

Just to let everyone know, the new comic will be posted ’round noon tomorrow, instead of midnight.

On the plus side, finals week is over now. :3

~ Rachel

Hello again! So, okay, here are the three scoops we promised yesterday:

Maintenance: It’s becoming crucially important for me to some back-end updating to the website, so I’m going to do that this coming week. If at any time between now and next Saturday the site starts looking reeeeeally bizarre, don’t panic! I promise I’ll have it fixed by the time the next page is due. Most of the changes will be invisible and include things like an improved spam filter, but I hope to put in a few frequently-requested features as well. These will include a more obvious link to our RSS feed, a less terrible archive system (with maybe a dropdown system?), and next/previous buttons that appear above the comic pages in the archive. The back-end stuff will be first, though. Anything else you’d like to see? Please let us know in the comments!

Awesome link: Okay, so here’s the best part of this post. Runewood Abbey has gotten its first review! Check it out right over here. We’re just beside ourselves with tickledness. It’s always awesome to see evidence of what this story looks like as it makes its way outside of our heads, so any kind of feedback is a thrill. There’s lots of blush-worthily positive stuff here, as well as some hints about things Michael and I think we could be doing better, so, best of both worlds. :) Thank you so much to our reviewer!

Incentives: So, geez, Rachel, what happened with that incentive thing you promised? Gah, I know. I’m sorry. And I’m gonna let that be a lesson to me to never again publicly promise anything I’m not 100% sure I can follow up on. It’s a good lesson to learn sooner than later, eh? I do have a few ideas for such a thing, but between the various other pressures of life (the end of school, the last two months of pregnancy, other stuff), it turned out to be surprisingly difficult just to stay on top of the regular comic. Fortunately, we managed to do so, and now I am wiser about my limits. So! I’m afraid I’m going to have to back out of any scheduled incentive posting, for now, but as a compromise, I will continue to twiddle at making that happen, and when it does happen I will post about it here.

Meanwhile, if you have any questions you’d like to see Brind and Vireh answer from the mailbag, feel free to send ’em our way! I’m not sure that will continue to be the default format for incentives, but it couldn’t hurt. :)

Aaaanyway. Thank you again, all of you, for your support and your feedback and your awesome comments…and just for reading. :) This is a slightly scary but incredibly fun and rewarding hobby, and we love having you all along for the ride.

~ Rachel

Hi all!

Just a quick heads-up: tomorrow’s comic will not be posting in the middle of the night as usual, but rather in the mid- to late morning. We’re hoping to have it up by noon PST, so keep an eye on the RSS feed, and thanks for your patience.

Also, look for another more substantial journal post tomorrow! Topics of discussion will include website maintenance, an awesome and exciting link, and what the heck has been going on since our last entry!

See you then!

~ Rachel