GPF News Archive

Happy Holidays in general and Merry Christmas in specific, everyone! I debated on waiting until January 1st to post a new News item, but I found enough things that needed more immediate attention that I decided to move things up a bit. I intended this to be a Quick Update, but there's enough stuff below to warrant a full one. So let's quit beating around the bush and jump right in, shall we?

GPF to remain weekly in January: You can check out a recent blog post for the full analysis, but the gist of it is that GPF will remain on a weekly update schedule at least through the end of January. I actually performed a series of statistical calculations to determine how many comics I've been able to produce lately (which should tell you how much I'm looking forward to increasing my update schedule since I totally despise statistics) and found that I cannot feasibly increase the schedule in the immediate future. I'm producing more comics than what is being consumed (via posting), which means my buffer is slowly rebuilding, but increasing to two or more updates per week will consume those strips more quickly than they're being produced. I'm aiming for trying to increase the updates by February, by which time the holidays will be behind us and I'll (hopefully) have a little more job security at work. As always, I will try and keep you informed as much as possible. Also as always, if you want more rapid updates that are less lean (more fatty?) than you'll get here, you should occasionally check in on the blog.

New and Updated PREMIUM Content: Meanwhile, in the time when it has been impossible or impractical for me to be working on actual comics, I've been working hard to get the rest of the GPF site back in order. This is especially evident in our Keenspot PREMIUM exclusive content, since our subscribers are loyal, paying customers. For one thing, our weekly Jeff's Sketchbook feature will resume regular updates on January 1st. (Like the main comic, it was forced to go on hiatus in the months since my son's birth.) I've converted all of the pre-existing GPFConCam footage into Flash Video format (which sites like YouTube use) to cut down on confusing multiple large files in various formats and to make it more cross-platform compatible. And speaking of video, I've added an entirely new (to you) item under the PREMIUM Special Articles section entitled How to Draw GPF Characters which, as the name implies, provides a nifty multimedia look at how I draw some of your favorite GPF cast members. (This feature has actually been online for quite some time, but I forgot to link to it from the rest of the Premium site, making it inaccessible. It too has been recently converted to Flash Video.) Lastly, I'm also working on a rather top secret PREMIUM-exclusive project that I'm hoping to debut in the next few months; more information will be leaked as it develops.

Our Holiday Tradition: How Trudy Stole Christmas! I also want to remind everyone of our little holiday tradition here at GPF. Six years ago, we produced a deliciously evil little parody of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! starring everyone's favorite evil marketing chick, Trudy, for Plan Nine's 2000 Christmas annual. Last year, we made that little number available online in its entirety as a PREMIUM-exclusive, complete with my "dramatic reading" of the poem as a downloadable MP3. That poem is still available for our loyal subscribers. If you are not a subscriber and wouldn't mind taking PREMIUM for a test drive, you can always sign up for a one-month subscription at only $4.95 USD. Not only will you get access to the Trudy poem and MP3, but ad-free surfing across all of Keenspot and all the PREMIUM-exclusive content mentioned above (as well as much, much more). (If you only want to try it out for one month, however, please note that the subscription is set up as an automatic recurring payment through PayPal and you may need to manually go in and discontinue the subscription after one month to avoid additional payments.)

That about covers it for now, gang. I should have some more tidbits of newsiness within the next few weeks. Until then, here's some important things that bear repeating: While the overwhelming majority of the archive has now been transcribed, there's always the opportunity to improve some of our Oh No Robot transcriptions; just make sure to follow the rules set forth in the January 9th News post and the related Oh No Robot forum thread. Don't forget that if you find yourself scratching your head over the current events in the comic itself, make sure to check out the News post from November 6, 2005, which includes a bunch of notes and back references that should help clear up some of the confusion. Also, additional notes for the Official Unofficial GPF Wiki can be fond in this forum thread.