GPF News Archive

Quick Update: For anyone who's interested, there's an interesting (albeit slightly old, as it actually occurred back in January) interview of myself and Illiad from User Friendly over at NewsForge. Entitled "'User Friendly' and 'GPF' creators on comics and operating systems," it focuses primary on how Illiad and I use our comics to both entertain as well as make comments on happenings in the technology sector, with specific emphasis on our views on Linux and Open Source. I think it's got a nice mix of information there; Illiad and I seem to have both different yet complimentary answers for many of the questions. Pop on over and give it a read when you get the chance.

Hey, gang! I'm sure that the attentive ones out probably noticed the little anniversary message at the bottom of Wednesday's strip and put two and two together. Yep, GPF is now seven years old (which seems like an eternity for an online comic), and it's time to start a whole new year or "season" of the strip. Of course, taking a look at the main page might be a little confusing in that regard, so let me lay down some details of how the next few weeks are going to work:

Guest Weeks: Interpretations II: Yes, you read that right. This week and the next, we'll be running guest comics from some of my (and hopefully your) favorite cartoonists from across the Web. Just like the guest weeks at the start of Year Five, I do not consider this a hiatus; a "hiatus" in webcomicdom implies that I'm taking a break, or going on vacation, or otherwise doing something other than working on the comic. It's rather the opposite, if you want to get technical. After several shows & cons, an illness or two, and a week's vacation all crammed into the span of a few months, my legendary eight-week buffer has been drastically reduced to a scant three. While I'm hard at work pulling double duty to get two weeks worth of new strips done in the time it normally takes to do one, these guest artists have graciously stepped in to help me pick up some of the slack. Also like the last guest sequence, these strips are officially non-canon, but I highly encourage all Faulties not to skip them. I'll tell you, these strips are probably some of the funniest things you'll probably read on this site... and I'll admit, that's making a little bit jealous! ;)

However, for the purposes of the archives, I am officially delaying the start of Year Eight and counting these two weeks as Weeks 53 and 54 of Year Seven. And that's where we get to the next topic....

Year Eight: "To Thine Own Self..." The start of Year Eight marks the beginning of the next mammoth year-long story arc in GPF, much in the spirit of Year Four's "Surreptitious Machinations." Entitled "To Thine Own Self...," it encompasses most (if not all) of the various plot threads initiated since Year Four, as well as several dangling threads that "SM" left unresolved. Although still packed with action, drama, and adventure, this mega-tale has a slightly lighter tone than "SM" and hopefully will not suffer from some of that previous yarns failings. To keep all of "TTOS" under one heading, the guest weeks will be counted as Year Seven in the archives, so Year Eight (now 50 weeks long) will be one contiguous piece.

Because of the summary nature of this story and the culmination of so many unresolved plot lines, I'll go ahead and issue the following warning: This story draws very heavily from previous stories, especially from the past three years (Years Five through Seven), but keep in mind that those years build upon the four before them. There will be a lot of back references, so many in fact that I can't possibly take time to go back and link to every single one of them. Like most GPF tales, a working knowledge of past events will be needed to really "get" all the layers of this story; it's just the sheer number of references makes this one a doozy.

However, I do feel bad telling everyone they have to re-read seven years worth of comics (somewhere in the realm of 2400+ individual strips) just to understand what's going on. Not that I couldn't use the ad revenue from all those page views, but I know you guys have better things to do with your time. So here's a few important highlights from the archive (and yes, I did limit it to just the essentials) that you should hit from the past three years. (And if you've got the first four books handy, skimming those wouldn't be a bad idea either.)

• The "Evil Trish" Plot Thread: her introduction; "Schizophrenia"; "Homecoming"; "Fifth Wheel"; the last part of "Crisis in Infinite MUTEXes"; could this be what happened to "Good Trish?"
• Nick and Ki's Wedding: Ki meets Nick's parents; their engagement at the end of "Gochisosama Deshita"; some "Pre-marital Perturbation"; Ki tells Nick about her engagement to Sam
• The Adventures of James Baud: Fooker goes spying full time; introducing Justin; the capture of Dr. Nefarious and Dr. Not; Fooker's swap with Justin; Fooker returns home and eventually to GPF Software
• Trudy's Post-"SM" Antics: you can never go home again...; Trudy seeks entry to the Concordat; "Strange Bedfellows"; corrupting today's youth; a broken heart; "Providence"
• Yoshi and "s1r3n": Yoshi gets into hacking by DDoSing GPF; "s1r3n" sends Yoshi a package; together, they hack the MUTEX; they finally meet; an inopportune visit
• The MUTEX: its introduction; Nick hooks it up to Velociraptor; It's not virtual reality, it's an interdimensional transport!
• Trudy's Sister: Trudy learns her sister was put up for adoption; the prime candidates: Agent #12, Sharon, Patty and Trish (mostly based on reader speculation)

Don't say I didn't try to prepare you. ;)

New PREMIUM Content: I feel a little sheepish about this, but I've added a new colored comics section to the Expanded Behind-the-Scenes article under GPF Premium. I feel sheepish because I've had this finished for a while now, and I only just recently realized that I never uploaded the files so you guys can see them. Most likely, I didn't upload it right away because the example strips hadn't premiered on the site at the time, so I put it off until after the comics went online. After that, I probably just forgot. For well over a year. Because I thought I had already uploaded them. Ahem. Anyway, for those of you who don't have Keenspot PREMIUM, you can still access the old abbreviated Behind-the-Scenes article that's publicly available, but I'll mention that the expanded PREMIUM articles are much further in depth and much more up-to-date. If you'd like to find out more about our PREMIUM content, check out this page for details.

The State of Colored Comics: Way back in May, I announced that daily strips were going from full color seven days a week to just color on Sundays with dailies in gray scale. It was a reluctant decision, but a necessary one considering the constraints on time with my current job. While there's a good chance I'll be back on the job market by January and I may technically have time to bring the strip back to full color all week, I have decided to leave it at its current status—gray scale dailies and color Sundays—for the duration of Year Eight. This is more of a consistency thing than anything else; once this story is collected in print, I'd rather it be the same throughout than mysteriously jumping from grays to color depending on the week. The added bonus is that the gray scale comics are so much quicker to produce than the color strips, so I may finally have time to get some other things worked on and out the door in addition to the comic for a change.

Reminder: The Forums are Back: And, in case you missed the previous announcement, the DDoS attack on the Keenspot forums ended a while back, so the GPF forum is back to its old location. If you're still using the newer "keenforums" domain you'll likely encounter problems posting or even logging in, so make sure to clear the "keenforums" cookie(s) (if you have any set) and start using the "forums" domain again. In the vast majority of cases, this fixes any problem most folks have had getting back in.