GPF News Archive

Another Quick Update: Well, gang, it looks like I need to brush up on my programming skills. It seems something is up with my site poll, and the results have been clobbered. When I checked the results Wednesday, it had an awesome 596 entries, and later that night it was well over 600. Then, I checked it yesterday morning, and there were only 66! Fortunately, I've been saving snapshots of the results every so often, and I might be able to take Thursday's results and add them to the old total, but I have no idea how long this problem has been going on, and how many times the results have been clobbered. : To wit, I'm closing the poll earlier than I had hoped so I can analyze the script and find out where the problem lies. I won't throw away the poll results (even if some were lost, I can see some valuable trends) and I will probably post them soon for all to see. (Several of you have expressed interest in the results of the PNG question, so I might just release all the information, since nothing is really private.) This will give me some time to fix the script... since we'll be needing it in the next month or so for something totally different.... MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Quick Update: Well, gang, I don't think there's enough news today for a full update, so here's a quick one. We have two major announcements. First, we're pleased to officially announce the title and cover of our second book, which you can take a look at here (I won't say it here, because the effect is much funnier when you see the cover as a whole. :) We've expanded the Book Subsite with all kinds of new info about the new book, including a Book 2 FAQ. Surf over there for more info.

Our second big news is really a reminder. Starting this Sunday(!), we'll begin showing full-color Sunday style strips once a month on the first Sunday of the month. This is, of course, in addition to our regular daily strips, which will continue without incidient. I even put an annoying little flashing GIF on the main page to grab your attention to it. :) Don't forget to log on this Sunday to catch the first GPF Sunday strip!

Howdy, gang! Yet again, the news page has been a little too quiet. That's because I've been one busy beaver behind the scenes, and here's a few tidbits to get you interested. :)

First up, we have set up yet another GPF site survey that we'd like as many people as possible to fill out for us. The last time we did a survey was during our Book #1 Trivia Contest, and you couldn't get to it until you answered all the trivia questions correctly. Well, this one is open to everyone, and I'd personally like to see as many Faulties as possible take the survey. It's a very simple, straightforward poll gathering simple demographics and general opinions about the site and the strip. It also lets you offer some suggestions about features we have available (through Keenspot) that we haven't taken advantage of yet. If you want to help make the site and the comic even better, please take a minute or two to fill out the survey and submit it. You'll make me a happy camper if you do! :) (Privacy nuts: Make sure to check out our new handy-dandy privacy policy if you have any questions.)

Second, I'm proud to announce that work is well underway for the second GPF book! That's right, I just finished the cover (which right now is a closely guarded secret <evil grin>) and I just completed scripting the special story (which is a semi-sequel to the current "Secret Agent Geek" story line, featuring Fooker and Fred). David Allen of Plan Nine Publishing is hoping to get the book out by October, and I'm definitely busting my hump to try and meet the deadline. I hope to release to the world the title and cover next week, but I'm still getting a few private opinions before I commit to it.

This would also be a good time to mention that volunteer spell checkers are definitely welcome. :) As many of you know, several "bugs" made their way into the first book, mostly because I had to rescan virtually the entire archive to a higher resolution. Well, this time every strip in the book is coming directly from the same master file as the strips on the site, so spelling errors will most likely show up both places. While I do my best to make up for my terrible spelling by running every strip through a spell checker before it's finished, sometimes errors still creep past me and make it to the site. If you'd like to help make the second book as error-free as possible, feel free to sweep through Year Two in the archives and let me know if you find any glaring mistakes. (And while this isn't necessarily a ploy to get more people crawling through the archives and increasing our ad revenue, I won't say I won't enjoy that as a fringe benefit. :)

Speaking of ad revenue, some of you may have seen this part of a thread on our message board, where I mentioned that our ads are the major source of income for both GPF and Keenspot as a whole. While I don't want to be a "whiny beggar" like I was there, I do want to mention that the occasional clicking on a banner ad does wonders for helping us recoup some of our operating costs. (I often right-click on banner ads and choose "Open in a New Window," then close the window later, so it doesn't clutter my main browsing window.) I also know some of you may use applications like Junkbuster to eliminate banner ads. As a web surfer I find banner ads as deplorable as you do, but as a webmaster I find them a necessary evil. If you can tolerate banner ads, please click a few and help boost our profitability. GPF is the #2 comic at Keenspot right now (second in traffic only to Sinfest), and helping us also helps spread the wealth to some of your other favorite comics too.

Man... now I feel dirty again. :P

Now here's a bit of news I know you've all been waiting for! After much laboring and hard work, I'm going to try and begin putting out Sunday-style strips once a month. YAY!!! I think I've worked far enough ahead to justify trying it, and I've picked up a few more ideas in the past few weeks to make it seem like it will work. Here's the skinny: The strip will continue to run daily, Monday through Saturday, with a "bonus" Sunday-style comic on the first Sunday of the month. That means our first Sunday comic will be on September 3rd, our second on October 1st, our third on November 5th, etc. The Sunday strips will have nothing to do with the current story line. We'll try this for a while, and if I feel comfortable with it, I'll keep it as a regular feature. With any luck, this will be a way to ease into doing it every week. (Hey, it worked for Kevin & Kell. :)

I mentioned this last update, but no one seemed to notice (sniffle)... My left wrist (my drawing hand) is doing much better after being in a brace for a couple weeks. I believe my computer setup at work is not very ergonomic, and it's been contributing to my wrist pains. This weekend, I hardly wore the brace at all, and I'm only really wearing it at work at the moment as a precaution. It appears I was merely having some repetitive stress pains and not carpal tunnel... although I'll be keeping an eye on it to make sure it doesn't get worse.

Here's a news repeat, since I got a few more submissions last week: I've received a number of submissions for Apocalypse Pete's Exciting Online Adventure!'s "Hall o' Fame" lately, and just to let you know, those submissions are not being ignored. To make a long story short, my current ISP, InfiNet, is getting out of the ISP business and has handed us off to Earthlink / Mindspring. Ever since the announcement, I've been locked out of my old website and can't update it. Since the APEOA! Hall o' Fame is still a manual process, I can't update that either. We're looking at our options (stay with the new ISP, ditch them for a cable modem, etc.), but we probably won't have a solution for a while. I've strongly considered moving APEOA! here to the GPF site long before this problem arose, and now I'm getting even closer to doing it....

There's still no news about selling the Fred T-shirt online yet. Again, this is me dragging my feet and no one else. I'll keep you posted if anything changes on this.

The last odds and ends: Summer is drawing to a close, so make sure to check out the nifty Keenspot Bikeeni Summer 2000 before it gets too cold out there. (Some of the girls already look like they've been in the water a little too long....) Also coming to a close is Curtis Berry's Keenonball Run, a hilarious crossover romp you don't want to miss. Check out the Dragon*Con Special Report for news and pictures from our Atlanta excursion (our first convention!). Make sure to sign up for the Plan Nine mailing list to pick up special discounts and exclusive deals on Plan Nine titles (including GPF books and (potentially) other merchandise). And as always, feel free to let me know what you think of the site and the strip either through the GPF Message Boards, or drop be a line

Catch you next update, gang!