The script for Dynagirl #8 that Harold has been patiently waiting on is done. It’s in edits now, and should be ready for his amazing pencils in the next couple of weeks, give or take. Now that might seem like an anti-climax of sorts, but I’ll follow it up by saying not just issue 8 is written, but also issue 9! That’s right folks, this arc is done! We’ve already got issues 10-12 in the can waiting on me to wrap this arc so once we start back with the art in earnest, you’re going to see yet another long string of updates giving you some Dynagirl action on a regular basis.

In addition, we’ll have some little extras here and there to tide you over. I’ll be starting to tease the new art a bit as pages come in, and we’ve got plans for some new fun things that we’ve never really dabbled in before, so you’re going to start seeing a lot more activity going on around here in the coming weeks.

To kick that off…here’s a promo piece Harold and Splash worked up for the Dynagirl extra content section of the trade.

Hang in there folks, we’re about to rock your world!

*sigh*

Well, here we are. As much as I hate to say it, it’s break time. This one falls directly on me, because quite frankly I’ve fallen WAY behind on a number of fronts and it finally caught up to me. I had a couple of routes I might have gone, from running a fill in issue, to all sorts of other radical measures, but in the end I figured it would be better for the team as a whole if we just take a break here, get refreshed, get back ahead of this thing, and come back strong. So that’s what we’re doing. Have no fear that this is the precursor to some disassembly of the whole thing, because that’s not the case at all. It’s just a matter of a guy having too much on his plate at one time and falling way behind.

For the faithful long time readers of Dynagirl, you have my most sincere apologies. You guys keep up going each and every week, and we appreciate each and every one of you. To the folks just coming on board, hang out, get all caught up, and get ready for issue 8, because it’s coming very shortly.

In the mean time, I’ll update here twice a week or so, show off some new art or sketch book stuff when it’s available, and generally keep folks up to date on our progress, both on the web comic and as a studio, because part of the reason this thing got behind was other projects tugging at me, and we think you guys will really dig those as well.

And don’t forget, we’re still updating twice a week as we put the entire Fallen Justice series up over at Comic Related! That’s right, for those that somehow missed it you can read the story that started it all, where Dynagirl first appeared, in its entirety. You can also order the trade paperback version here if you’re so inclined. Even if you’ve bought the trade you might want to check out the web edition because it comes with annotations that aren’t available anywhere else. I’m basically breaking things down, giving little behind the scenes stuff, all kinds of cool little things as something extra.

Thanks, to everyone who has hung with us for the last two years! It was a great run that we’re very proud of, and we’re looking forward to starting our next extended run very shortly. More updates as we get em folks! Till then, have a great Christmas and a happy New Year!

Ouch. Not only does she get completely hammered out of a tree by someone she seems to know from the past, but then this chick stands over her and gloats! Rough! This, by the way, is Glitch. And as you might have already deduced, she’s not very nice! More about her coming very shortly!

And that’s a wrap on issue 7 kids! Crazy how fast time has flown, huh? See you Thursday!

Issue 7 ends this week folks! I can’t believe we’re there already. Crazy. Stay tuned. We’ve got some stuff to talk about later this week.

This page was a lot of fun both to write and to see come to life through the whole process. It’s one of those pages where you get to build a bit of suspense, drive that home some, and then set it up for the big reveal in the next page. What was so funny about it was that’s really not how it all got started, but it ended up that way regardless by the end of the script. I had intended to do something completely different and simply ran straight out of pages. Rather than go back and rework the whole script I took it back to this point and changed course a bit. Some of that you’ll see later, some you won’t. Fun stuff though.

Looks like someone our girl knows, huh? I love the third panel. The look on her face…perfect.

Today, completely out of the blue, I got an email that really caused me to sit back and think seriously about things for the first time in a long time, and it was one of those lucid, sort of profound moments we experience from time to time that seem to stick with us long term.

I’d be completely lying if I didn’t admit right up front that lately, particularly since Logan was born, I’ve been thinking about my own mortality. It’s not really something I dwell on a lot, but still, I’ve thought about it far more recently than I ever have before. Is that some weird side effect of having a kid, you start realizing that you aren’t getting any younger all the sudden? I don’t know. Maybe it was also because I went through a complete heart workup earlier in the year when some concerns cropped up. I honestly don’t know. Fact is, we get a year older with every passing birthday, and that’s something to at least acknowledge, and reflect on I think. I’m not now and have never been one of those dreading getting older people. Hair greys and thins, bones ache, and we slow down. It happens, and fussing about it won’t do a bit of good. I figure screw it, embrace it. Besides, I’m one of those young at heart people anyway, so I’ll never truly be the crusty old dude running the neighborhood kids off my lawn or anything.

Anyway, the email I got today that really set me to thinking about life, the way I live and view it, and what I want to do with the time I have left, was from a woman named Heather. She’s my age, and we’re similar in many ways. She was 36 when she had her daughter Lily, and 3 months later she found out she had mesothelioma. Now think on that for a second. Three months into what should be the most exciting and happiest time ever, the burgeoning moments in your baby’s brand new life, you find out you’ve got less than a 2% chance of seeing her start the first grade. Wow.

What I found incredible and deeply inspiring about Heather and her story is that she met the disease and the challenge head on and kicked its ass. When she might have balled up into a heap of depression and self-pity, she instead turned her already optimistic outlook on life into a weapon and used that weapon to fight and win against all odds. That’s something I have a deep and abiding respect for, no doubt about it. Five years along from her diagnosis she’s cancer free, and enjoying every minute she can with her daughter.

For me, it’s not really that Heather’s story is any different than millions of other cancer survivors we encounter every day. She fought the odds and she beat them. What makes her different, in my opinion at least, is that she beat the odds the right way, for the right reasons, and she’s determined not to waste the time she fought so hard to regain. We spend so much time worried about this or that trivial thing in our lives it’s easy for us as a collective and as individuals to lose sight of the little things, the important things, in our lives. We put our heads down and our noses to the grindstone and the next thing we know we look up and our kids are graduating high school and we wonder where the time went, and why it had to go so fast. Where’s the good in that? It just doesn’t seem right somehow.

So consider this, even if only for a moment. Look around you, at the people who mean the most, and just enjoy them. We aren’t given any allotted time frame on this Earth, and no one knows what tomorrow holds. So make the most of what you’ve got right now. Make it count, every single day.

For more info on Heather and her story, check out her blog.

Uh oh. This can’t be good.

A bit of Dynagirl sketchwork by the incomparable Harold Edge. I can honestly say I’ll never get bored seeing what he does with her!

So anyway, I mentioned some exciting stuff coming down the pipeline when last we talked, yes? WOO! First off, the debut of our new, and still in the works venture called Bloomin’ Faeries was a huge success at the Austin Comic Con, with fans responding quite well to the two art prints we had available at the show. We’ll soon be putting out a few more in that series as well as fleshing out plans for the book to accompany them, so stay tuned for that.

Next up, I’m back to writing! These last few months have been…slow for me on a creative front. Sure, I’ve been lettering, both for Red Handed Studios and for other folks here and there, but beyond that my creative stuff has been largely sidelined with other things going on. Logistics, school, home life, work life, it all plots against you from time to time and the next thing you know you look up and it’s been half a year without so much as a paragraph on paper! That sucks, and I hate it. So I’m fixing it, one chapter and script at a time. Right now I’ve got no less than 8 scripts in my workflow that have to be completed, and it’s my personal goal to get them all done by mid January at the latest. Some sooner than others of course, but you get the picture. What this means is, we’ll have two more graphic novels coming out next year, minimum, in addition to the Dynagirl trade paperback, more content for the Dynagirl webcomic, and perhaps a children’s book and a novel as well. So yeah, I’m pounding the keys like there’s not tomorrow with some bad intentions!

In the next year we’re looking to be VERY busy as a studio. The aforementioned new stuff we want to put out, plus stepping up our show appearances as much as possible is going to keep us running amok like you’ve never seen before. We’re going to try to hit some shows we haven’t seen in a few years, and maybe a couple we’ve never seen at all! So stay tuned for those announcements both here on this site and on the sister site over at Dead Reckoning as well.

And even that’s really not all we have going. The problem is, I can’t spill it all in one whack, and some of it I can’t even talk about yet. More next Monday, I promise. Till then…keep enjoying issue 7!

Yeah, I completely screwed the pooch again today. Sorry about that. It’s not that the comic isn’t or wasn’t done, it’s just that for some reason or another I’m not communicating really well with the interface on this side of things and consequently it doesn’t work too well when I screw up the settings. Hopefully, and I’m crossing fingers here, we’re good again and won’t have another snafu.

This crazy page actually has a LOT going on! We’re seeing some really organized civilization action going on here, a sort of Mayan looking type thing, huh? Plus it looks like Amelia is in deep trouble with a mystery villain type chick. She’s nasty! It gets worse. See you next week, when we’ll have the updates on time!

Oh and Monday update shall return next week as well, with some HUGE updating! Don’t miss it, because we’ve been busy!

I like this page a lot, especially plot wise. It always blows my mind when you see people in movies and such that walk right by an unconscious villain without stripping their bodies of anything useful. I mean you never know when you’re gonna need a spare gun, or some ammo, right? Crazy! So yeah she’s taking advantage of the gear here no doubt. I guess it’s the years of Dungeons and Dragons that sticks with me all these years later. If you don’t search the bodies you don’t find much treasure!