GPF News Archive

Another Quick Update: Yikes! These Quick Updates are getting out of hand! It turns out Comixpedia has moved up the release date of my community interview, so it's currently online. Make sure to go by and check it out.

Quick Update: ... on the same day, even. Since I've received so many comments about this, I'll go ahead and respond here. Quite of a few of you have nitpicked about Fooker's "amber on black" comment in Sunday's comic in reference to the TRS-80 Model III, pointing out that the Model III actually had a white on black screen, and that green-on-black and amber-on-black didn't start showing up until the Model IV. Personally, I can't prove whether or not this is true, so I'll have to take your word for it. I never owned a Model III or IV (or any other TRS-80 before the Co-Co), and I could have sworn that the one that I did use (which belonged to a church I used to attend) had an amber-on-black screen and I thought was a Model III. It could have just as easily been a Model IV, but it's impossible for me to be certain or verify. As to whether or not I'll change the comic... I'll think about it. I'll probably end up changing it to a Model IV, but not tonight. Just too tired. Instead, I'll just say the message has been received, I made a mistake, and you can stop e-mailing me now.

Greetings, everyone! Sorry about the rash of quick updates lately, but this one is a full one, I promise. Got a number of interesting things to mention this week, so let's jump right in and get things started.

You might be wondering why I'm doing a news update on Sunday instead of the usual Monday. (I usually go with Mondays because that's when the most people visit the site, so there's a greater chance the update will be seen.) Well, I wanted to cut off one potential rumor before it has a chance to get started. As you may have noticed, this week I'm starting a parody of Bravo's hit TV show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. "Why?" you may ask. Because I thought it was funny. I thought it would be a hoot to write a quick, silly little story where the GPF crew (complete with Fooker, as you may have noticed) takes the guise of the "Foo Five" and plays QEftSG with geeks instead of gay men. (And as such, I should probably point out that this story should kind of sit outside GPF's normal continuity, because it won't advance any of the various plot threads we've been working on for the past few years.)

However, knowing how many comics some of you read, I'm sure a number of you would be quick to point out that both Sluggy Freelance and User Friendly have parodied the show recently (not to mention whatever comics out there that I don't read that may have done one). I'm sure someone out there would be quick to point a finger and start shouting "Darlington's ripping off Pete Abrams and/or Illiad again!" However, I would like to remind those people that I do keep an eight-week buffer, so by the time Pete and Illiad's strips hit the Web my story had already been written the week before and was patiently waiting in the queue to update. In fact, Pete and I swapped a couple amusing e-mails, where I joking accused Pete of ripping me off since I know he tends to script by the seat of his pants, working on strips the night before they go up. (He subsequently responded by saying we were both slow on the draw, since QEftSG "had it's hay-day six months ago.") So chalk it all up to great minds thinking alike. I didn't steal Pete and Illiad's parodies any more than Illiad and Steve Troop stole my Team-Building Hike story. (And I apologize if nobody even comes to this conclusion, but I know how fanatical some fans get. I just wanted to clear up any confusion before it actually starts.)

That said, I'd like to point out an interesting new thing here on the site. Observant Faulties out there may have noticed a new link beneath the strips in the Comic Archive that reads "Vote for this strip as your favorite GPF strip!" What we're doing is launching a new voting poll to find out which strips are the most popular. We'd like to get as many of you as possible to participate, because this poll is going to be put to a very important use. (More on that in a bit.) All you need to do is find your favorite strip in the archive and click on that link to go to the voting page. (Alternatively, you can go to this date selection page and enter the date manually, assuming you know the date of your favorite strip.) Once there, you'll see the strip redisplayed and you'll be asked to confirm your vote. If you confirm it, your vote will be stored in our database and tallied with other votes. (As in line with out privacy policy, no data is collected from anyone except the vote itself, which is aggregated and cannot be traced to any individual voter.) You may then go about your business, or even spend time looking for other favorite strips and vote again. (Yes, you may vote multiple times, but please do not abuse this poll. Make sure to read the poll rules before you participate.)

So why are we doing this? Our plan is to start auctioning off some of the original line art to your favorite strips. That's right, we want to give you the opportunity to get your paws on the actual original artwork for the strips—not prints or photocopies or some other sketch or scribble I've done, but the actual line art that I drew, scanned in, and put on the Web. Not only is this a way for you to help financially support the strip, but it's also a rare opportunity to get original artwork that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to obtain. Soon we'll be setting up an account on eBay, and we plan to periodically offer the originals for the strips you voted for as your most favorite strips. The auction will start with the art for the June 18th strip, which a number of you have already expressed interest in. Then we'll branch out with strips from the poll results and keep going until I either run out of originals or you refuse to buy any more.

So as you can see, the poll is very important, at least to me. Even if you don't have any plans to bid in the auctions, please take the time to vote for a strip or two and let me know which ones you like the best. Meanwhile, I'll be setting stuff up to prepare the auctions. I'll make sure to announce it here when the first auction goes live. You can discuss the auctions (and get a little more info about them) by checking out this thread on the forums.

Last few things to catch up on: I've submitted my answers for the Comixpedia community interview, and those should be up around July 4th weekend. (I'll post a news item when it goes live.) Trinoc*coN is only a few short weeks away, so keep your eyes peeled for updates there. And, of course, the Fred plush dolls still available for those who want to adopt a slime mold or two.