GPF News Archive

Hey, Faulties. Well, I'm averaging around one news post per month now, which isn't as good as it could be, but it's definitely been worse. So I won't waste time apologizing this time and just jump right in.

Jeff's E-mail Drought: As I'm sure some of you have noticed, I'm obscenely behind on my e-mail. I still owe many of you responses from your messages about "Providence", and I've gotten a lot of messages since then that I didn't want to respond to until I answered those "Providence" mails first. Unfortunately, I've been extremely busy with non-GPF related things (more on that in a bit), to the point that I've let that mail slide for far too long. So I look at my inbox now with a sense of hopelessness, like I'm drowning in quicksand from which it's impossible to escape. But I solemnly promise that I am trying to catch up, and I'm going to try and get to them in chronological order. All I ask is that you keep hanging in there, and take consolation in the fact that I do read every single e-mail I receive (that doesn't get filtered out as spam). I just take forever to get a response back. [weak grin]

Jeff's Work Situation: Back on January 31 I gave a "state of the comic address" to let you know how things were going on behind the scenes here at GPF. One of the things I mentioned was that GPF wasn't bringing in enough revenue to qualify as a full-time job, and that I probably needed to find ways to either squeeze more money out of the comic, find another day job, or seriously look into other creative endeavors that may be more lucrative and self-supportive. Well, since then I've one busy puppy, trying to investigate as many possibilities as I can. Many of you have sent me supportive e-mails with lots of suggestions, all of which I've been looking into.

Most of my concentration of late has been finding another IT job. I've been doing a lot of job hunting, including a long-distance interview in the Washington, D.C., area and several phone interviews. I've hit a lot of dead ends, but at least the job market has been picking up and my résumé has been getting a lot of hits. However, at least temporarily, the situation has gotten better. Starting this week (perhaps even today), I should be working another part time contract job for my old employer, IBM. I've also been negotiating with a new business in Charlotte to do some heavy-duty Web development. Both of these jobs should keep me pretty busy and alleviate some of the financial stress. At this point, I don't expect these to interfere with the comic; however, as mentioned back in January, if I have to cut back anywhere, it will probably be in the color strips before anything else. Nothing will change without ample prior warning, however.

The Current Story: As you might have guessed, we're in for another MUTEX story arc, so if you don't remember them it wouldn't hurt to review the previous MUTEX stories, "The MUTEX ReBooted" and "A Tail of Two Species". I'll also ask that you bear with me on this story, as I'll be getting a little experimental. This story has a lot more complex and detailed art that the typical GPF story, so much so that we'll have a special guest colorist filling in for the next several weeks. (You'll find out who that is next week. ;) It also wouldn't hurt for those of you who purchased a copy of our first book, "Mating Call of the North American Computer Geek", to review the bonus story at the end of that book. While knowledge of that story isn't required for understanding this one, it will give you a few interesting insights. (And I don't want any of you spoiling the surprise for anyone who hasn't bought the book, ya hear?) In my opinion, this is one of the zaniest stories we've had in a while, so I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed working on it.