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NEWS:
10.22.03 - Terrence Marks:
New to Spare Parts?

Try the quick version, right here. If the full archive is a leisurely walk through the streets of Greenville, then the quick version is a guided tour, taking you to the major sites in a bit less time.

 

10.27.03 - Terrence Marks:
We didn't actually start automating and saving the news until around December, so there's not much commentary for a month and a half. But enjoy the comics.

 

12.10.03 - Terrence Marks:
Isabel's been spending most of her online puttering-around time on Gaia Online anime roleplaying community. It's an anime-themed community that some of you might enjoy. And if you sign up from that link, she gets gold which she can use to buy herself fairy wings or chobit ears or something pretty like that. So click on that link, because Isabel deserves more cute stuff!

 

01.07.04 - Isabel Marks:
Hey everyone. sorry about being so quite as of late... as some of you might have heard, Terrence and myself are preparing for a cross-country move- and as I'm sure some of you know, there's a lot more to moving than just packing up boxes. Terrence is extremely busy trying to find new work as well as trying to squeeze one more MCSA Certification under his belt before the move- which means that his time is very limited.

So... for this week and next week we're going to have a small side story as well as a few illustration updates so Terrence can get a bit more writing time (as well as some time for those luxurious things in life- y'know, eating... sleeping. That sort of fun stuff).

Ok... so tune in all this week and next for something different. Till then, good night and take care.

 

01.14.04 - Isabel Marks:
Hi everyone... here's a comic from the story arc (written by myself, with help from Terrence of course). Not sure what's going to happen with Friday's update... Terrence has been working very hard and hasn't had much writing time. So, we're asking for guest comics (to make things easier, there is even a theme we'd like on the guest comics: video game parody).

If you have one, please e-mail it to Terrence, it would be greatly appreciated!

 

01.16.04 - Isabel Marks:
A one-shot based on an idea Terrence had... special thanks to FrostDemn with help with the Kanji in today's comic!

We still need guest strips, so please send some in!

 

01.19.04 - Terrence Marks:
And back to Final Fantasy: Double Dash. Sorry about the extended break. The story line needed a bit of reworking. We're moving in February and we're looking for guest strips to run, beginning February 2nd. Thank you and have a happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

 

01.28.04 - Isabel Marks:
First off, a huge thank you goes out to Bill Holbrook for mentioning that Spare Parts needs guest strips on his site (which we still do). The guest strips will start next week and will go on for as long as we get them. After that... not sure what's going to go down; Terrence is hitting those books hard (I'm so proud of him!) and might take that test sometime next month. I might have to take over the reins full time for a couple of weeks, and the updating schedule might change after the move.

Let's hope for the best, take care everyone.

 

01.30.04 - Terrence Marks:
Since my last update....Isabel's been packing like crazy. We mailed out about six boxes worth of stuff. We have 16 more boxes to go, for now. And there's probably another 10 boxes or so yet to be packed. I'll be changing the format of the news section real soon now. Plan on adding a bit more about what I've been up to lately. Reinstalled Baldur's Gate II (with The Big Picture megamod), but I haven't been playing it - I'm borrowing a book for the 70-214 test. I need to pass that test (and return the book) before we move, so I've been doing a lot of studying. I dream in Kerberos, man. My other Game of Choice is Super Smash Bros: Melee, in All Star mode.

 

02.02.04 - Isabel Marks:
With the start of the month comes the start of the guest strip extravaganza! Here's the line-up for the first week:

Monday's Guest Strip is by RavenWorks

Wednesday's Guest Strip is by Ronald MacKinnon

Friday's Guest Strip is by Jason Bryant

Want to have your name on this list next week? All you need to do is draw a comic featuring the cast of Spare Parts (you can do a anime/video game parody, an original idea, or anything you want as long as it's PG). Please keep the width for the comics around 450 pixels and e-mail them to Terrence, we both really appreciate it!

 

02.09.04 - Terrence Marks:
Everything's coming up Spare Parts!

We spent the weekend selling my car. Got three times as much as I expected, which is quite nice. We shipped my guitars out, which was so expensive that I pretty much have to join a band when I get out to California. I've got a Danelectro baritone guitar - I need to learn how to play it well; my goal is to learn to play rhythm well. I learned the first time listening to Syd Barrett and (early) They Might Be Giants - don't do that. It's all very straightforward. Need to listen to bands; learn to play with bands.
Curent Certification Status - Final pass-through. Plan is to test on Thursday for 70-214.

 

02.09.04 - Terrence Marks:
Monday - FrostDemn
Wednesday - Paul Stevens
Friday - Sonictail

Thank you all!
We have another week of guest strips coming up after this. Then onto the next story!

 

02.13.04 - Terrence Marks:
Isabel made me heart-shaped cookies and heart-shaped french toast today...I got her Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. Well, she thinks it's romantic and I'm not going to tell her any different.

I took (and passed) Microsoft's 70-214 exam - Implementing and Administering Security in a Microsoft Windows 2000 Network. This means that I'm a Microsoft Certified System Administrator, which hopefully means something to the HR people out in California. My next cert of choice is Security+, which lets me accessorize my Microsoft letters to MCSA: Security. So that's where I'm headed.

And my game of choice for the moment? Unfortunately, our PS2 is boxed up; I'm in the mood for FF7 or FF10. So I've been collecting trophies in Super Smash Bros: Melee, playing Mario & Luigi (when I can wrestle the GBA away from Isabel), and rapidly losing interest in Baldur's Gate II - I played through the original Baldur's Gate (with both Tales of the Sword Coast and Dark Side of the Sword Coast) and enjoyed it, but the BG2 mods are all too hardcore for me. I mean, I like a game with multiple endings, but there's a lot of wandering around and fighting random things and you'd have to beat about 3,000 orcs to see all the endings and do all the things. But they give all the orcs fear spells so during each fight I get to sit around for a few minutes while my party memers all run around like chickens with their heads cut off. I really don't like the whole "make the game harder" mods. I don't like time challenges or difficulty challenges or anything like that. I don't want to go through Super Mario Bros 3 without jumping or try to beat Civ 3 in under eleven minutes. It's not my thing. I want to play games because they're fun, not because they're extreme. So I want to keep playing BG2, but I want to be sure I enjoy it.

 

02.16.04 - Terrence Marks:
And we've got two more! By
Brian Daniel on Monday
Celeste Smith on Wednesday!

If you'll notice, I'm doing most of the news-writing lately. Reason for that is Isabel is very hard at work on a variety of other projects. And since I took the last few weeks off, now it's her turn.

And Valentine's Day. This is our last weekend in Florida, so we spent the day with my family. Our real Valentine's Day things were yesterday. We got family pictures taken; hopefully they'll come out well. Isabel and I were apprehensive, but things went nicely.

My main plan for the day, being as this was the last day I'd have to hang out with my father and brother, was to sit around and watch Mystery Science Theatre 3000. I spent a few weeks letting my spare computer suck up all our bandwidth while downloading episodes. I tried to burn them to VCDs - so I could play them on a TV instead of having everybody watch them in my room on my computer - and discovered that the average CD had enough space to hold 90% of an episode. Fortunately, one of my co-workers had a DVD burner. So I picked five episodes (Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, The Day The Earth Froze, The Crawling Eye, Gamera vs Baguron, and Robot Holocaust) and had them converted. He gave the DVDs to me in a nice 5-CD holder. So I burned him 10 more discs of MST3k and returned the holder to him - may as well share the entertainment. Anyhow, I put the DVDs in one of my many CD cases. Which all got packed and shipped to California five days ago.

So none of the local rental chains have MST3k on DVD - they've got it on videotape, but that'd be more useful if we had a working VCR.

We went out to Royal India with my extended family and had a very nice dinner.

And after the dinner, within minutes of us coming home, my dad went to sleep. My brother left to go hang out with friends. So it all worked out in the end, kind-of.

 

02.18.04 - Terrence Marks:
I'm going through a full reinstall of Windows XP. When I last reloaded, I repartitioned my primary master drive and it wound up as F: (with my primary slave as C: and CD-ROM drives as D: and E:). Then I installed Windows 2000 Server on the slave drive (which it calls D:, while it says the master drive [known in WXP as F:] is really C:). It's just more trouble than it's worth. And since this is the last time I'll have a spare HDD to use as a data sump, I may as well get it taken care of. If it were just the drive it'd be one thing, but since I've got a variety of folders and such left over from W2k Server, it's just easier to clean everything off. So I've been burning things to CD. Music is easy to burn - it comes in nice discrete chunks called albums that run about 60-160MB each and those can be easily divided into genres. Anime is less so; I'm anal enough to try to get CDs that are just one series in order. So because I'm missing a few episodes of Tenshi no Shippo Chu, f'rex, I've been letting it sit on my drive for months. Manga is even worse, because the divisions are too small. I can put a hundred chapters of various things, but since I don't always collect them in order, I'll never be able to figure out which of my five discs has chapter 4 of Rough or volume 2 of Kero Kero Chime. And I have chapter 3 of Addicted to Curry, but did I burn the first two chapters to disc or delete them in a fit of boredom? So yeah, that's all why I'm going to reload my computer.

 

02.20.04 - Terrence Marks:
Well, we're getting on the plane today. By now, our computers are probably disconnected and packed. We've got a stopover in the Los Vegas airport and we're just hoping they have a few slot machines so we can pass the time. At this point, the next story arc should be starting. Yes, it is a Syd Barrett quote. And I decided not to reinstall Windows anyhow. Just wiped W2k from the machine. It's easier that way. I'll need to edit the boot.ini file soon - adding Isabel's hard drive to my computer today (because we're leaving the computer she was using here).

And I'm working on restoring portions of the UM archive. And on Mario & Luigi (I beat Ma Piranha! Go me.). We're pretty much packed. I said my goodbyes to everybody - my family, my friends, my co-workers. And Tate and Tony. *sigh*. It's hard to leave Florida behind...or, well...it's easy to leave Florida itself behind. It's just the people there that I'm going to miss. I spent the last few months knowing I should spend more time with people but realizing that it wouldn't do much good since I'd be leaving soon. But I'm off to California and the better opportunities that it presents me. I think I'm going to like it there.

We got the last of our large boxes mailed out on Wednesday. The post office probably hates me now.

And I cut it back to 3 news articles on the front page because it was getting a bit much. I'll be adding all this (and more) to the archives real soon now.

 

02.23.04 - Terrence Marks:
Sorry I can't stop and talk now.
I'm in kind of a hurry, anyhow. But I'll
send you a tape from California

- Phil Ochs.

So be aware the next few comments are pre-written and hopefully will remain accurate in the meantime. And I plan on adding these comments to the archive in the near future. And check out You Say It First.

I keep telling people I want to show them my next comic before it comes out, well...sorry (again). The development time on my comics tends to be fairly short. Or rather, I kick around an idea for a few weeks. Then Isabel and I sit down and talk about things. She starts working furiously and within a day or two, we have a comic. So if I told you I'd give you a sneak preview of things, well, try to understand.

Thanks.

 

02.25.04 - Terrence Marks:
We're in California. I'm not really sure what's going on. Chances are in the meantime, I've probably reorganized all the folders on my computer so things make sense. I'm really bad about having two or three music folders, having half of my website folders in one place and the rest free-floating. As is, Spare Parts works a bit differently than ND or UM or YSIF. I should write myself some documentation on things. I *hopefully* have these news things added to the archive by now. Maybe add a "skip news" button or something. I've got a tendency to code things up for one site and not put it on the others; this one especially since it's the most mine of the comics. Maybe add a weekly view to this. The Unlike Minerva archive should be rehabilitated by now - there were a lot of comics I didn't like much and didn't feel represented me. So I've got a better view of things in there now.

 

02.27.04 - Terrence Marks:
Yes, I'm back to playing Baldur's Gate II. No, my wife doesn't like it too much. My main goal is to go through as much of the Tortured Souls mod as I can, so I'm playing with Minsc, Aeire, Yoshimo, Kachiko, and Sime. I've got everything all tricked out and it's 95% legit. I've cheated myself up a few mind-control prevention items and tweaked the saving throws. It's just easier that way. I don't mind running low on potions. I don't mind sitting back for ten minutes while my guys regenerate. It's when I've got everybody decked in +4 equipment all around, AC -8, and some orc mage casts a confusion spell and my guys get cut down by zombies. Or I'm fighting a half-dozen spiders and get webbed. And poisoned. Repeatedly. So I just sit around taking damage.

And what bugs me is that I was cutting through the same enemies in BG1 like a scythe through wheat. And I've got much cooler stuff now. I mean there I was at level 6 with a longsword +2 and maybe a magic shield if I was lucky and they were falling like flies. Now I'm level 14. I'm dual-wielding +4 axes with extra cold and electricity damage. And I'm getting beat by Shadows and Ogre Magi because some guy didn't think they were using their spells "efficiently enough". Or because he thought all the larger enemies needed ranged attack that knock your character unconscious for three rounds and send them across the screen. Or that stone golems need ranged attacks that do 3D10+5 damage twice a round.

So I think I need to get into pencil & paper D&D or something. It's just that I want to beat BG2 before I start Neverwinter Nights. I've got a copy of WarCraft III that needs playing. And I want to beat Grim Fandango and Curse of Monkey Island...No, I'm not really new game people. Part of it is that there's so many games to catch up on.

This was written before we left and turned out to be entirely inaccurate - TM

 

03.01.04 - Terrence Marks:
When it rains it pours. I've got so much written out now that if anything actually does happen to me in the first week of March. I'll have to wait until mid-April to actually write about it here. It's been the most dynamic and busiest part of my life in a long time; I'm barely keeping up with everything, newswise. I'm surprised that I have this much to write (and time to write it). There's all kinds of South Florida stuff I never wrote down, so I may go retro-news on you-all sometimes.

No. Today's comic is not based on a true story.

By now...hmm....hope you're enjoying You Say It First, which is conveniently located at http://www.soapylemon.com.

This was written before we left and turned out to be entirely inaccurate - TM

 

03.03.04 - Terrence Marks:
So, you read the pre-recorded ramblings. Here's what really happened. We just got back online a few days ago. If we haven't e-mailed you back yet, well, we're working on it. We've got a week or two of backlog right now.

Day 0
We spent most of Friday running around like crazy mice. Isabel was finally done with her computer so I could move it over - she had been borrowing a computer from my dad for the past two years. So I moved her hard drive into my computer and moved a spare hard drive (from a third computer) to my dad's. It took a bit of doing. Spent most of my day trying to install Windows XP on it. We're still getting 0x7B errors when we try to boot from Isabel's copy of Windows, but that has to wait until we have time to fix it from LA.

But we were able to pack the computer finally. We had ten bags total, two of which could arguably be classed as "carry-on" and two more of which could even more arguably be considered our "bonus personal bag each". And six bags total of "I can't believe we still have this much stuff". We've mailed at least three dozen large boxes over and thrown out a good amount of our possessions. You don't realize how much you really have until you have to pay a dollar a pound to keep it.

We went out to one final farewell dinner with my parents and Chuck and Dorothy (my aunt and uncle). This was the second or third farewell dinner we'd had. We took separate vehicles because they couldn't fit us and our luggage in the same car. We get to the airport and the skycap tells us "You know, America West only allows two pieces of checked luggage per person". And he tells us they charge between $50 and $80 for each piece over. So my dad gives me money to take care of this. The skycap lets us through if we don't tell anybody that it was him who did it. I quietly resolve to be nicer to the people around me from now on. So thank you, anonymous helpful skycap.

 

03.05.04 - Terrence Marks:
Day 0.5
I could go on about airplane boarding procedures. Or the three loud Israelis behind us who spent two hours arguing. Not arguing to prove they were right or to explain their viewpoint, but all three of them were arguing to prove the other two were wrong. It wasn't fun. But there's been too much else happening to me.

We got to our stopover in Las Vegas. The flight was delayed an extra hour so we got to wait. Every other flight by America West that night seemed to be delayed also. I mean, we had to wait an hour but that's still better than the folks going to Chicago or Atlanta had. I was shopping for airlines based on price, not on-time percentages. I figured an extra hour would give us time to look around, shop, and such. That made sense except everything (except Taco Bell) closed within five minutes of us getting off the plane and that we had those four large bags to carry around. So we could only buy things if the other was willing to sit and watch the bags. And Isabel didn't want me out of her sight for any longer than I had to be.

Yes, they do have slot machines in the airport. No, they have the lousiest payoff rates in the city. Y'see, every other casino has to compete for your attention and dollars. They want to keep you hanging on as long as they can and soak you for as much money as possible. The airport slots, well, you're going to be there until your plane arrives and nothing they do will change that. So I put in about $2.00 and get back fifty cents. Didn't even get the near wins that most slot machines give, you know, so you think you almost won and it makes you more likely to win next time. I got the "No, we're not even trying to make you think you're a winner. You're a loser. Your plane's a loser. Give me your quarters and maybe I'll let you pretend you like it." machines. There was one machine that kept winning throughout the night, perhaps as a siren singing its song to lure other fools to its waters. It would ding and you'd hear quarters rattling through it for a minute or two. My theory is that inside those things are a variety of chutes, flaps, and echo compartments designed to make the quarters rattle against each other as many times as they can so that when you win five dollars, you get forty dollars worth of clang out of it.

I installed an SNES emulator on the laptop. I was playing ActRaiser. Isabel was playing the make-Terrence-look-at-me-every-three-minutes game. I lost. She won. Considering it was 4 AM in our native time zone and we had been awake and moving for the last 19 hours, I'm not holding it against her.

We got to Los Angeles at about 3 AM and were greeted by her sister and brother-in-law. They had an Expedition. It fit all our luggage. Barely.

 

03.08.04 - Terrence Marks:
Day 1
We left our monitor in South Florida. It was bulky, heavy, and fragile enough to not be worth shipping. We left our keyboard because it didn't fit anywhere and because we do enough typing to justify getting a fancy keyboard. So we've got our computer but don't have anywhere to put it or a monitor or keyboard. Good thing my dad let us take his laptop (that's how I'm writing all this, mind you). Hopefully he'll get a better one for himself soon.

Eventually - when I get a job - we'll get a second full-size computer so Isabel and I have separate ones again. But not yet.

I need to get my computer up and running soon; I've just arrived. I have no job. My possessions are all in boxes. I still feel like I'm visiting. I need to get my nest set back up again so I can settle into it. And when I have a computer back operational, that's half the work right there.

My goal is to either get things that are inexpensive enough so that I don't feel bad about throwing them away after a year or high quality enough so that I don't feel bad about keeping them. I know if I get mid-quality things I'll wind up keeping them and feeling bad about it.

So we went to IKEA. They don't have IKEA in South Florida. But they really should. It's a warehouse/factory showroom full of modular furniture. And it's got style. Like Target, only bigger and with more furniture. We picked up a bed frame, a drawer, and a table. Me and Rolando spent the night putting the bed frame together. Isabel and I slept on an air mattress again, but this time it was a foot off the ground. It helps. Really.
Day 2
We pick up a mattress. We go out to a Simmons factory outlet. Turns out mattresses usually run about $600-$1500. You never know that kind of thing until you have to buy a mattress. I had naively assumed that bedding would just kind of be there when we needed it. We go to a discount store and find the same mattress for about $300. Nothing makes a mattress seem like a bargain like finding it for sale at four times the price.

We discover our NIC died in transit. First it's not detected. I reseat it and the machine doesn't turn on. I unplug it and the machine doesn't POST.

Stopped at In & Out - I know it's a fast food chain, but they've got all these chains out here that I've never heard of - Jack-in-the-Box, Pollo Loco, King Taco, Taconazo, Vons, ...it's an adventure out here. Even eating fast food is an adventure out here.

We find that Oktagone, Namir Deiter's host, is down. Or rather, their nameservers that point to ND are down, so nobody can resolve the name to its IP address. Oktagone says they'll get it taken care of real soon now. Their webpage reports no outages.

 

03.10.04 - Terrence Marks:
Day 3
Got the cellphone working again, on the third try. Now we're a little less out-of-touch.

Our wild spending spree continues.

We picked up a monitor, keyboard and network card. We're going to return the keyboard when we get our own car. It keeps falling out and it feels cheap. But the NIC works. We've got our machine set up downstairs in the living room with my sister-in-law's computer. Not enough room for us to set up two monitors, so we have to swap their monitor between them. It's enough to get us online but not for any reasonable length of time. Hopefully, our room will be networked in the near future.

Oktagone, Namir Deiter's host, is still down. Their webpage still reports no outages.

Day 4
My guitars arrive. All four of them. I'm going to have to start learning to play them real soon now. Need to get new strings and a tuner first. I'm probably going to hold off on that until I get a job. Decided to take the acoustic guitar home; it's easier to manage. Not enough room to bring home the electric guitars too. We've got all our furniture assembled. We went through our boxes to get the bedding that we were given as wedding presents (Thanks, Bunnie!) and got to use it, finally.

Oktagone, Namir Deiter's host, has closed their forums because they have received too many complaints there. They ask that all complaints are filed through their ticket system instead of allowing people to air their grievances in a public forum. Their webpage still reports no outages.

At that point, we purchase service with Fuitadnet.com and upload ND's site there.

 

03.12.04 - Terrence Marks:
Day 5
We woke up early to go down to the DMV to get our Florida licenses changed to California ones. Having our original licenses wasn't enough; we had to bring our birth certificates. So we have to go back there tomorrow.

We did, however, pick up the car Isabel's father gave us. Got insurance on it. Now all we need is to get it smog-tested and registered. I never knew getting a car was so complicated (and expensive). But when we finally get it going (which should be tomorrow, I hope) we'll finally be able to get our shopping done on our own schedule. I really do appreciate everything Isabel's family has been doing for us, but it's stressful having to choose a major appliance within 20 minutes because that's all the time we have until someone has to go to class. I'm not good at making major decisions quickly. I need to be reassured about things. I need to believe that I'm getting the best deal and hear it from three complete strangers. It drives my wife crazy.

And my game of choice? Well, our gamecube doesn't have a TV to plug into. Our computer is in a kind-of-public place and we have to keep swapping cables. Our PS2 is still in the mail (and will hopefully arrive real soon now). So I've got a SNES emulator and I'm playing ActRaiser. We've got Mario & Luigi: Super Star Saga as well. Addicting, it is. I beat ActRaiser so I'll probably just emulate the Super Mario RPG now.

 

03.15.04 - Terrence Marks:
Day 6
We wake up really early and spend a few hours waiting for a ride to the DMV. Isabel's mom takes us. Three hours later, I emerge with an IOU for a California Driver's License and an IOU for vehicle registration (once the car passes a smog test). We drop the car back off at my father-in-law's shop so he can get things taken care of on it.

Day 7
The car fails the smog test. We drop by the local dollar store and pick up some knickknacks, including two cans of "Hello Boss" brand coffee. Pre-made cans of coffee beverage. Not just cans of instant or ground beans. They taste about as good as you'd expect from two-for-$.99 canned coffee.

Day 8-9
The California Smog Board deems our car to be street legal. We cleaned it up so the inside at least looks decent. It's got a dull grey to it that makes you think that maybe - just maybe - the car used to be another color. The inside is solid black. Isabel got a little hula dancer doll for the dashboard. This thing is in desperate need of color anyhow.

We head out to Fry's - yet another chain that's avoided Florida - and pick up a new keyboard, a wireless NIC and wireless router (slightly dented. 30 bucks. Not bad. I think we'll be going back there eventually), and a Fruits Basket DVD. The DVD is the first really frivolous purchase we've had since we got out here. No, the coffee doesn't count. If you come across dirt cheap coffee with strange (Vietnamese?) writing on it, I mean, wouldn't you drink it?

And this takes us back to about the beginning of March, which is when we left off, I think.

 

03.17.04 - Terrence Marks:
I'm looking for IT work in the Los Angeles area. If you can help me get a job, we'll send you a lot of cool stuff. Read about it here.

The Unlike Minerva archives have been rehabilitated; over 200 comics have been added to the archives. Enjoy. And also enjoy You Say It First, the sequel.

 

04.02.04 - Terrence Marks:
We've got some Unlike Minerva books available at a discount - $10 (which includes shipping). They're on 60-lb paper which is a bit too thick (we live right next to a Kelly Paper store. We had to try it). They're a bit less pliable than usual, but still a damn quality product. Includes UM from Peter's House to the end, two bonus stories from the Unlike Minerva Play Bill, and the first chapter of You Say It First. E-mail us if you want a copy. Supplies are limited.

Things have been busy around here, hence the lack of updating. Operation Learn How To Play Guitar Again is going moderately well. I've lost any ability I previously had to pick out a tune. Mind you, my Monochrome Set records probably aren't a good place to start. And my High Llamas CDs or late-60s Beach Boys albums are out of the question entirely. I should probably just find some garage rock, maybe put on a disc of the Pebbles Trash Box and try to play through it. I'm not sure if I like the Trash Box at all. But you gotta start somewhere and I've vowed that this time it shall not be Syd Barrett or They Might Be Giants.

I'm still looking for work, which is a bummer. There's a whole lot more going on, but that's all I'm going to report for now.

 

04.12.04 - Terrence Marks:
Happy Easter, everybody. We went out to see Holopaw tonight. I used to hang out with them back when we were in college. Now they're touring with Iron & Wine. We drove out to Hollywood to see them and they were sold out. I hung around for a bit trying to find a way in. I didn't. We went back home and considered going to Arizona to see them tomorrow night. Decided against it. If they sold out on Easter Sunday, they'll probably be back touring in California eventually. So Mike, Jeff, Tobi and everyone else, I hope you had a good time tonight.

Between being out of work, moving expenses, and Comic-Con, well, I need to get a job real soon now. So if you enjoy Spare Parts and want to help me afford food, please donate (we've added a button below. Special button coming soon). If you want to buy something, we've got the Unlike Minerva book, still only $10 (which includes shipping).

I've got a promising interview in the morning, though. Got an offer to be a scab if the folk at SBC go on strike. Turned it down. We spent most of the last week (and this weekend) relocating. At the moment, the only internet access we have is through Earthlink or AOL and the "Internet plus" providers always seem to run at half the speed of real ISPs. But we have room to work now, which is good. If we're slow to respond to everything, though, understand why.

 

04.18.04 - Terrence Marks:
Had an interview in Camarillo on Monday; it's about two hours away. For a graveyard shift position. My tire blew out the first time I tried to go there. I didn't get the job; I figure after all that, it wasn't meant to be.

 

04.23.04 - Terrence Marks:
No, Miami Guns hasn't been released yet. And yes, Astro Boy seems to be on hiatus. That's what I get for writing ahead. But as an ex-Floridian, I'm going to have to check out Miami Guns once it comes out. Todd must have gotten an "advance copy" somewhere. But I won't tell if you won't.

 

04.26.04 - Terrence Marks:
Thanks to Aaron for donating! And Iron Chef America was a bit underwhelming. Their chairman looks so...normal. Coolest point: Sakai using grapeseed oil that had his picture on the bottle.

 

04.28.04 - Terrence Marks:
I only saw the first episode of One Piece; it never really clicked with me. Because of Coby. Pink-headed kid that cowers and gets beat up a lot. I don't like my entertainment with hitting. I don't mind fighting. I don't mind violence. Inu Yasha slicing off bits of the demon-of-the-week is fine by me. Black Jack's disturbingly accurate surgery just adds to the story. But seeing some dude just cringe and get smacked, that disturbs me. I mean the guy is about as high as the other characters' kneecaps and his only role in the episode is to get beat up by as many different people as possible and run around in abject fear of everybody. But anyhow, my brother really likes the series and assures me that Coby goes away after a few episodes.

 

05.03.04 - Terrence Marks:
New arc beginning. So I'm trying to keep the news section updated. It seems like all the other dudes who have these frequently updated news sections have better news to report. Maybe if I write more about what's going on, our luck will change.

I'm not going to make a big list of things that aren't working. I'll merely say that the Picturebox and our printer are the latest additions to the list. One is just timing out with no error messages. The other is randomly missing lines from the nozzle check. I'll let you guess which is which. Mind you, we also have a HP LaserJet III. It doesn't work either.

My guess is we wore the printhead out with all the books we've been printing. We're calling Canon in the morning to see what they can do for us.

 

05.05.04 - Terrence Marks:
All of our comics (this one, Namir Deiter, and You Say It First) have special updates for Online Comic Day. If you don't already, then please read our other comics. If you already read all three, check out Kevin & Kell, Pixelated, VG Cats or anything from our page of links!

The picturebox works just fine on Spare Parts' server. Or at least it did for a little while. Now it doesn't. Updates just fine but doesn't modify the files. Maintaining PHP over three or four different servers with different versions can be a pain sometimes. I was going to say that posting things in this news section seems to make them better, but it seems to have been a quick fix on that. The printer situation is improving in many ways. Thank you, everybody who offered to send us a printer.

 

05.07.04 - Terrence Marks:
I've been seeing those Yahoo ads lately. I don't like them. They don't sell Yahoo to me. But they've got one with Chali 2na of the Jurassic 5. So I dig it. I still don't have much use for Yahoo. But I dig the J5.

 

05.09.04 - Terrence Marks:
Had an interview with IKEA on Friday. Ten people there. I was the only one who wasn't a high school senior. But it was the most interesting interview. They gave us an object from the store and made us do a short presentation on it. That was so high school. But it was cool. IKEA has style. Some other dudes, Survival Insurance, made me take a spelling test, a math test and an "IQ test". It was like a bad fourth grade substitute teacher. We don't have a lesson plan. We don't have a hiring process. But we have these worksheets instead. But I've got another interview or two. I need to follow up with a few people on Monday.

Now Playing: Beat StarFox Adventures. Just because I was close to the end. It wasn't an enjoyable game. "Fox, you need to run over here and collect things! Then we'll give you the item you need to save our planet so you can go to the next area and collect more things". And it's minigames all involved running from point to point. You get one cutscene showing you where the next point is. So if you look away at the wrong moment, or put the game down for a month, you'd better hope that Mysterious Shell #4 (out of 7) glows or something. Cause if it doesn't, you're not gonna find it. I like good minigames. Sly Cooper rocked. But, I mean, I beat this game because I was more than halfway through and I wanted to get it over with. So now I'm back to Rayman, Final Fantasy VII, and Magic: The Gathering. Mainly Rayman, because I need games that I can play for 15 minutes at a time. MtG has battles that can really drag out and dungeons that you can't save in. But since this laptop doesn't have CD drive, I can't install too many other games on it. I've got another laptop I can use. I just haven't actually transferred my things over yet. I need to do that soon. Makes me wish I had a W2k network with a distributed file system, but that's for another day.

 

05.12.04 - Terrence Marks:
In order to raise funds, we've got some Neopets for auction on eBay. Please bid! We'd greatly appreciate it. We'll have some Kingdom Hearts and Bone action figs up shortly.

We're going to be at Califur, in Irvine, CA. May 28-30. Got a four-page story written for a You Say It First 'zine that'll be premiering there. It's the most writing I've done in one sitting for YSitF in a while. And if you're in the area, I'd suggest coming buy to pick it up in person.

I've been doing version control on my scripts today. I've been working on two or three different machines so I've got several versions of things and I can never keep track of which is the most recent. And I've got various half-used ideas floating around. Things left over from Unlike Minerva that I need to look over. I had a lot of ideas that didn't fit that comic. I may be able to use them for something else. Maybe.

 

05.13.04 - Terrence Marks:
And here, entirely unrelated to Spare Parts, is a journal comic of my own, patterned after Dealing With It, my wife's. No title yet, but we're considering "Being Dealt With". We'll get it it's own space real soon now.

 

05.14.04 - Terrence Marks:
Sorry that I haven't really been commenting on the strips too much. But just in case you need even more insight into our lives, check out Isabel's journal comic Dealing With It.

I've also been trying to keep my Big List of Comics updated. All the ideas that I haven't had a chance to use yet, all the series I have scripts for somewhere, like Manxish Boy, Headphone Story, Page Turner, RPS, Soapy Lemon (yes, it's different than YSitF). I wonder if other cartoonists have all these ideas floating around like this. I need to keep better notes because I'm afraid of losing my ideas. While I was driving to an interview this morning, I thought it'd be neat to take a bunch of Tomorrow/Keith West songs (No link. BorderlineBooks.com is down) and try to work a story around it. I'd call it "Real Life Permanent Dream", but it might get confusing. Timothy Chase would fit halfway between Spare Parts and Manxish Boy. Question is which half those character traits get nudged towards. If the things Todd plants just don't seem to grow, well, don't be surprised.

And there's another journal comic of mine here. And it's called Keep Moving

 

05.17.04 - Terrence Marks:
Studio Ironcat officially announced that they'll be publishing Namir Deiter! ND Year One: It's More Fun When You're Not Allowed will be out this summer. If we mentioned a secret project once or twice, well, that was the secret project. This is really exciting for us.

And I got the Bone and Kingdom Hearts action figures up for auction and would appreciate if you bid on them.

And why a sleepover? Well, I wanted to do more with Minerva. Some people thought the last storyline showed her in a bit of a bad light. Not intentional. Much. So I've got something shows off her positive traits a bit more. And no, "not inviting Todd" isn't one of them. And I've got plans for one of these girls. You'll see.

 

05.19.04 - Terrence Marks:
And more Keep Moving. Thanks to everybody who e-mailed me noticing the Madness reference. We're working on the book and preparing for Califur. Not much else to report. Laundry, grocery shopping. It's been a very domestic week.

 

05.21.04 - Terrence Marks:
Back when it came out, I played SoulCalibur II for days at a time. Great game. Gorgeous. And yes, I prefer the GameCube version. Because it's got Link, mainly. Great game, though. I usually play as Link; I was used to Siegfried's controls in SoulCalibur for the DreamCast, but I think they added a stance or two so he moves differently. I never really got the hang of him. Maxi is cool but his moves are far too complex for me to use properly. If you hit three buttons, you've got a decent chance of going into a nine-hit combo. It's great if you happen to connect with those nine hits, otherwise, you're just dancing around with nunchucks. Isabel plays as Talim, mainly because of her speed.

 

05.24.04 - Terrence Marks:
Me neither.

 

05.27.04 - Terrence Marks:
ND is having some DNS issues right now. If it works for you, good. If it doesn't, use the mirror site. Apparently our nameserver (000domains) has some kind of Heisenberg issues where if you look at the settings the wrong way, they stop working. Go to start, click on run and type in "ipconfig /flushdns" and it may work better for you....

Of all the ways for Isabel's birthday to start, too.

 

05.28.04 - Terrence Marks:
ND's nameserver should be resolving right for most of you by now. We spent the day running around getting merchandise ready and such. You'll get a con report Monday or Wednesday or so.

 

05.31.04 - Terrence Marks:
Hope you had a good Memorial Day weekend. As promised, we have a con report. I wanted to do another Keep Moving comic but I don't have any drawings to accompany it.

 

06.02.04 - Terrence Marks:
The ND Unlimited Store is open for business once more! No Spare Parts merchandise yet, but there's plenty of other stuff to check out, like our newest comic book, The View from Grover Hills. I'm really proud of it. It's an original series. And it comes with a free book of your choice. And you should pre-order the next Kevin & Kell book. Pre-ordering helps keep the Kevin & Kell books in color, and that's a good thing.

I've been reading lately: Yakitate!! Japan, translated by Snoopycool. It's a cooking series. I don't cook but I really like cooking manga - Addicted to Curry, Cooking Master Boy, Iron Wok Jan. I'm all there. Yakitate is the coolest one I've seen - it's got the energy of a Shounen Jump series but it's all about making Japanese Bread (because there's French Bread and German Bread and such, but Japan doesn't have it's own bread...). I'm thoroughly entertained by it. It's like if Alton Brown did manga, it'd be Yakitate.

I've been writing lately: Notes to myself about Sonia, the new girl in Spare Parts. Just trying to make sure things are together. She's moving in previously unforseen directions and things need to be adjusted.

 

06.04.04 - Terrence Marks:
We've got a free eight-page promo booklet. Eight pages of original content - ND, Spare Parts, and You Say It First. Not available anywhere online. It's free and the only way you can get it is to order something before (or on) Free Comic Book Day (July 3).

 

06.17.04 - Terrence Marks:
Sorry, folks. Not too much to report. Car's in the shop with brake problems. Should be back tomorrow. Planning for Comic-Con. I've been thinking a lot about Azumanga Daioh and Cromartie - they've got a real loose continuity, four to nine page stories. I've been thinking about that. Not sure where those thoughts will lead just yet. But I've been thinking.

 

06.21.04 - Terrence Marks:
I'm interested in understanding genres as relates to comics. To that point, I've been writing about it. It'll be a regular weekly feature for a while. I'd appreciate any comments you have. I'd like your opinions on our newest character, Sonia and good comics between six months and two years of age.

YSiF is having some minor nameserver issues and should be back soon.

 

06.28.04 - Terrence Marks:
Article 2 on genre and comics is up.

And why are the news updates so sparse? Work, mainly. I work an hour or so away, so I've been spending half my day at work or in transit. I'm not complaining, mind you. Work is better than no work. But it's a big chunk of my schedule and I had to cut time out of somewhere. If I'm not writing news updates more than once a week, well, please understand. I owe reviews of a decent amount of music and comics.

 

07.05.04 - Terrence Marks:
I've changed the archives around - now there's a cookie-based version that saves your settings (hide/show news, weekly/daily). Check it out here. And please let me know if you have any problems. My laptop's copy of IE has been erratic lately so I can't be entirely sure. I'm practicing my PHP skills and hopefully it'll work. After a week, if everything works, I'll make this the main archive. I don't have an article on genre just yet because I was programming instead. I've got a few things planned...

This arc was written (and mostly drawn) on July 4th. Yes, it would've been more topical a week ago. That's how it goes sometimes. I like it. And Jeff's calendar is a bit off anyhow.

And I hope you guys had a nice Free Comic Book Day. We did. Picked up the Sore Thumbs book. Couldn't find the Keenspot or Keenspace books anywhere, unfortunately. That sucked a bit.

Tokyopop's book was so-so at best, really. I like manga. But they did a very bad job of choosing segments. I mean, you've got a one-paragraph explanation of the series. Then you've got about twelve pages of material from the middle of the stories that make very little sense on their own. I know they can't just redraw things, but if they had maybe a two page character bio spread at the beginning of things. Maybe an "as we join the story" paragraph afterwards and end it on a cliffhanger or something. As it was, they end on a theme of "we're out of pages, folks". It didn't catch my interest. And I'm a guy who reads random manga just because I can. I mean, if you can't sell to a guy who reads Togari, Gokusen, Grooming Up!, and a bunch of other things that 99.99% of America has never heard of. If you can't sell to me, you're gonna have trouble selling to everyone else.

Gemstone/Disney put out some SWEET material - a Mickey Mouse/Uncle Scrooge twofer and a Donald Duck story by Carl Barks. Cover by Walt Kelly. Now, you don't get any better combination than that. I mean, dude. It doesn't get any better than that. The Donald Duck story was their 2003 FCBD offering, but I saw a lot of them around. Now, personally, I think that if Disney really put their weight into it, these things would be getting all the attention they deserve. But as it is, they're a speciality title that I don't see around much. I mean, they're some of the best comics starring the most recognizable characters in the western hemisphere. By any rights, they'd be the hottest non-superhero comics out there. I know that a lot of the Disney comics kept going in Europe for decades when they were unavailable here, and that's just not right. I'm just glad Gemstone is bringing things over. I know I'm a big Uncle Scrooge fanboy, but am I being unrealistic here? I seriously intend to start collecting them when I get a chance. And maybe Jeff should go treasure hunting or something.

More opinions on things later on. I picked up a dozen or two FCBD comics and I can't get them all done in one night.

 

07.11.04 - Terrence Marks:
Article 3 on Genre is up. The comic will be up Wednesday - there were a lot of comics I had to cut/adjust because they weren't working. No FCBD reviews right now because I'm tired and need to sleep.

 

07.26.04 - Terrence Marks:
Here's my Comic-Con report. Organized loosely by subject. I don't care much for chronology; you get a better impression from a continuous narrative on each subject than from a list of what happened each day. It's in no particular order, which is why I haven't mentioned my boothmates or neighbors yet.

Stan Sakai
An older Asian man came by our booth, late Sunday. He pointed at the Grootlore books and said "I used to have these back when they came out."
Then we all looked at his badge. Leonard, Thomas and I said - in unison - "Stan Sakai!". I was taken aback. Part of my brain was saying "Get him to draw something. Or give him a comic. He's Stan Sakai". and another part was going "What can you hope to give Stan Sakai? He's been doing this since before you were born. Why do you think you have anything he'd need?". But while those two were fighting it out, I was marvelling at the fact that Leonard, Thomas and I said his name at the same moment, with the same intonation, same pitch. I mean, if we had actually practiced it we couldn't have got it better. It genuinely surprised me. I looked at Leonard for a moment. By that time, Stan had taken a look at a few of our comics and walked away.

Modern Tales
I remember the Modern Tales booth....They were about three booths away from us in the same row.
I remember trying to talk to Glych at the Modern Tales Booth and not being able to get a word in edgewise.
I remember trying to talk to Charlie Trotman at the Modern Tales Booth and not being able to get a word in edgewise - but I didn't have much to say other than I really liked her work six years ago and hadn't any idea that she kept it up until I saw her at the Modern Tales booth.
I remember trying to talk to Shaenon Garrity at the Modern Tales Booth and not being able to get a word in edgewise - but I didn't have much to say to other webcartoonists while I was there. I mean, I should've been able to talk comics or something but it just wasn't the weekend for it. But nobody really came up to talk comics with me so I guess it's even.
I remember trying to talk to Scott McCloud at the Modern Tales Booth and not being able to get a word in edgewise - which wasn't so bad. Leonard told me I should go introduce myself. I waited politely for the conversation to pause and tried to come up with something better than "I'm Terrence Marks. I'm with The Nice. Leonard sent me. I'm going back to my booth now".
Individually, the Modern Tales artists, I'm sure, were great people. I was on booth duty for most of the con and didn't get to go over there. And they didn't come by to hang out; their booth seemed like a more happening place anyhow. There was one guy who kept singing and hollering about his comics for the whole weekend; that got tiresome after a few hours. If they were right next to us, I think that the con would've gone better for us. Because if somebody only had fifteen minutes to spend in our row, they'd probably spend five minutes looking at the Bolt Gallery (more on them later) and ten minutes crowded around the Modern Tales table, trying to talk to somebody but not being able to.

Greg Dean
I've been reading Real Life since before it was cool to read Real Life and it's one of my favorite comics. I never saw Greg Dean, even though I'd've liked to. He's always struck me as the kind of person I'd get along with. And he probably knows who I am, or at least he used to. But anyhow, his booth was on the opposite side of the floor. I never had enough time to walk there and back, so Isabel went over there to get a Greg Dean sketch for my book and got one. So thanks, Greg.

 

07.28.04 - Terrence Marks:
So I've said a bit about what it was like being a congoer. But what was it like being a dealer with The Nice?

It was pretty cool, actually. I got to meet a lot of fans. Most of the people who bought our books were familiar with our comics, which was neat. So thank you to everybody who stopped by to say hi. We had a big "Namir Deiter" banner hung over our table, because we were the only ones in our group who had a banner (and we'd look kinda blank without anything there - we're definitely going to have to do more decorating next year). I didn't get to spend much time at all hanging out with my boothmates, Mark, Leonard, and Thomas. We were too busy selling things to talk much. I worked my sales skillz as I had never worked them before. Perhaps a more low-key sales approach would've worked equally well, or at least let us hang out more. I was too busy and too tired (after the first day, at least) to think of anything really clever to say to anybody. At the end of each day, we went home and went straight to bed. As a result, my con stories might be less exciting than some of the other folk. We should've all got together and gone bowling or drinking or something - we'd have more stories at least - but after ten hours of working the con I wasn't up to it. Thomas had some really neat ideas for a CCG, which we only managed to get to as the con was closing down on Sunday.
There were about three or four people who had heard of Unlike Minerva but had no idea that I was doing anything since then.
Captain Packrat came by and it wasn't until about three days later that I realized he was the webmaster of Twilight Agency - sorry, Captain. D.A. Graf, their writer, also came by, but we weren't around. There were rumors that Maritza Campos was there, but those proved to be false. A certain other webcartoonist (who values his privacy) stopped by and I really appreciate that he did. And there was the Tall Tails booth which will have its own entry, probably Friday.

Gremlin Trouble was diagonal from us, same as they were at Califur. I went over and said hi, which I didn't get a chance to do at that other con. It's rare that one can make up for the regrets of the past, even the small ones. But I got a sketch and Gremlin Trouble TPB #1, which was on my list of things to pick up for the longest time. It's neat seeing other comics by married couples (and they thought the same thing about Isabel and me). Gremlin Trouble itself is over so I'm waiting on whatever they put out next.

Haibane
Someone came by dressed as a Haibane. I've read some of the manga, so I'm a bit embarassed that he had to tell me what he was dressed as. I never saw the Haibane Renmei anime, though. He had a MegaTokyo lanyard. We talked HR for a bit. I didn't get his name though. But "Haibane who never learned how to sew" was a damn good costume. I'm thinking of doing an omake called Brisbane Renmei at some point, just so people can figure out how to pronounce it.

Someone else came by on Friday, said they'd be back wearing a sandwichboard for us to draw on. And he did (yes, yes, chronological style would've made that anecdote a bit more compelling...). Isabel drew Tipper on the back, right between the Cardboard Tube Samurai and the Shirt Ninja. If I were clever (and knew how to draw) I would've drawn Carl as the "Karateka with Oven Mitts" or something like that. And since the sign was on his back, he wouldn't've been able to stop me until I was done drawing. But no, I didn't think of it. And watch, next year I'll wind up drawing on the signboard between two other comics and not be able to think of anything good until a week later. But them's the breaks.

Friday- more random con stuff!

 

07.30.04 - Terrence Marks:
There was a giant Pikachu. Costume was about 6 feet tall and had a similar diameter. He was led through the halls by a businessman who was wearing a badge that said "Pikachu Escort". Isabel and I were making "Pikachu Escort Service" jokes for the rest of the con.

Unrelatedly, we had a number of Zortic frisbees. They started out at $2 and prices went down from there. The guys from Unshelved were across from us. And whenever things got a little slow, we'd start tossing a frisbee across the aisles. Usually got people's attention after a few throws. But I never even considered a comic strip about libraries before (No, Kokoro Library doesn't even count). But I strongly recommend it. I'll scan my "Frisbee O' Doom" sketch real soon now.

We were also next to Cartoon Militia who were damn cool. Being that we were right next to them (if they wanted to get out, they had to go through our booth), we got a chance to talk during the con. They also sold CDs and if I liked punk music at all, I would've picked them up. I should've, actually. They had a Pain albums and I remember hearing them back when I was in Gainesville. Cartoon Militia is affiliated with Springman Records in a way I do not understand. But I picked up all their comics and haven't been disappointed by any of them yet. Cool people. I'd sit next to these people again. I'd buy them drinks. I'd go hang out over at their house. Cool people.

Anyhow, around Saturday afternoon, we had a chance to go to the Keenspot table. It was sparser than I had expected. I went up to it and someone recognized me. After a moment, I asked who he was and he - well, my wife was behind me making frantic "Don't ask who he is. He's Josh Lesnick. You should recognize him" hand signals. And yeah, in retrospect, I should've recognized him. But I got to say hi to him and get a really cool sketch. Meant to say hi to Gav, but never got the chance to. Dropped by later on, got to talk to Troutman for a while. He insisted I draw him something, so I did. I intend to learn how to draw eventually.

Dollar Manga had a booth there. We picked up Kazan and Sarai. I like Kazan. It has a darker shounen feel to it, like Togari. And unlike most shounen manga, it's not painfully stupid. Sarai was painfully stupid, but we'll probably get more because it's only a dollar and I'm hoping they'll explain things. It won't explain anything, but it's still only a dollar. And no, we didn't go back to get more. Didn't have any money left over by that point.

On Monday - even more!

 

08.09.04 - Terrence Marks:
Now, before I get back into the Con report (The three previous parts have been backdated for you convenience)....

I first envisioned this sequence back when I was working for TAG, doing tech support for...certain computer companies. The arc was originally harsher. But now I'm doing tech support in a much nicer, more stable environment so the venom is gone. And I'm glad; I'd hate for a two-year gig to make me bitter for life. Anyone can be sarcastic when they're on the end of the phone. But that's not Jeff, you know. And it's not me either.

I've also decided not to start reading new manga series until I finish more of the ones I've started. I mean, I start reading Hot Blooded Woman (violent gangster girl switches bodies with studious girl, misinterprets everything school related as gang battles) and then I start reading Change Guy (studious guy switches bodies with violent gangster guy, interprets all the gang battles as school-related) and I keep meaning to find volume 2 of some other body-switching series....and I can't keep it all straight. That's why I've switched to reading boys' series - they're easier to keep track of. In shoujo manga, I need to keep track of why this girl is angry at the other girl and who Kitano is...in boys' series, I need to know who the title character is (he's usually on the cover) and who he's punching. If a guy isn't being punched, I don't have to worry about keeping track of him. So no new series for me until I finish more of the old ones up. Need to get them finished up and shipped out of my headspace. Why don't I read more webcomics instead? Well, I think I will read more webcomics instead! (The answer "because webcomics are generally ongoing, thus exacerbating the original problem" will receive partial credit.

And the con report.

I never did mention our hotel. We stayed at Good Nite Inn - Sea World. We were right by some warehouses. Friday night, I heard some guy playing guitar. He was doing a decent Hendrix impression so I figured that it was a band practicing in the warehouses. Next night, we come home and the whole band is there. Turns out there's a bar about twenty yards from our room and they've left the (back?) door open so we can hear the blooze. Because the band thinks they rawk. There's also a 24-hour sex emporium about twenty yards in the other direction. But at least they were quiet. But we're not staying there again next year.

And a big hello to Tall Tails, Young American Comics, John Troutman, Kris Straub, who I enjoyed seeing but don't have any very specific stories about.

 

08.16.04 - Terrence Marks:
Firstly, we're going to Ani-Magic, which is in Valencia, on October 1-3. We'll have a couple of our books for sale there.

Let's see...not much comic news that I care to disclose right now. Plenty of things happening, but you'll find out about them when you see them. You Say It First got a site redesign. A lot of plans made, but you'll find out about those when the time comes. I've got ideas for two new comics. I think there's a minicomic and a one-shot. I really ought to make an Idea Tracker so I can keep up with everything. Would you guys want to see that? (Because there's about a half-dozen other ideas I'm also puttering around with.)

We had a really nice weekend. Went out to the Getty Museum, which I believe we'll have to go back to. Had a nice cheese-and-wine brunch. Found a really nice local tea/juice place - they had watermelon juice there. I mean, I'm going to have to go back there on a regular basis - they serve actual juice. Not "energy juice" where they put in some wheatgrass extract and an "energy booster complex shot" and charge you $7.50 for it. We also picked up ten issues of the original Reality Check comic books - we're only one issue shy of having the complete run now. And I'm currently in the middle of a big backup/reorganization of all of our files, which is a bit more time consuming. We've got a machine with three hard drives and various states of all of our series and books there. But it was a real cool time.

Sorry about the relatively low amount of news updates. I've just been tired lately.

 

09.15.04 - Terrence Marks:
My car is making a lot of noise and smoking a bit. I have my father-in-law, a mechanic, take a look at it. His conclusion: I don't have a muffler any more. I don't know where it went. There's a pipe under the car that used to connect to it. I'm not sure what happened to it; I hope that it fell off on a parking lot speedbump or some really, really desperate guy stole it - I mean, it'd be the most valuable thing you could get from the car. Better than it falling off on the freeway. I'd rather that some guy is carrying it around in a shopping cart. Hope nobody got hurt. But I mean, damn. I don't have a muffler any more and I don't know what happened to the old one. I think this is a sign that I need to get a new car soon.

And we went to the LA County Fair last week - I had Wednesday off. We had a great time at the petting zoo with the cute baby animals. Isabel wanted me to win something for her so I wound up, well, there was a carney who kept handing me darts and making up new rules for whatever game I was playing. I think it's called "Separate Terrence from his money". I got a prize so I think it was a draw.

And I really like this storyline. Sorry I haven't been updating the news too much, though.

 

09.17.04 - Terrence Marks:
We drove out to Vegas. Wasn't too bad. Journey seemed a bit long, because we didn't get any good radio stations out in the mountains. And our tape deck doesn't work, so we just kinda drove in silence.

We got to the hotel. They didn't have a king size bed so we got two doubles. We only used one of them (this will be significant in a few paragraphs). And the door was unlocked when we got there.

We got to the con at about 9 AM and began setting up. We got the table layout finalized right before the con opened. Got our banner put up - binder clips are really useful. The crowd was pretty cool. They seemed interested in our stuff. Undoubtedly Kawaii #1 sold out and a decent number of people bought the one-of-everything pack (7 of our comic books for $21 - until UK1 sold out, then it was 6 for $18). We weren't doing as much business as the guys selling wall scrolls of popular anime characters, but a lot of people came by to check us out (which is why I fully advocate having separate "dealer" and "small press" table pricing). And most of them were willing to come by and flip through our comics.

Rich, the guy who ran the con, gave us free muffins. We really dug that - thanks, Rich. I spent a while playing Star Control 2, but someone took a copy of Headphone Story. We told people, free flyers, free stickers. Apparently, a 24-page comic counts as either a flyer or a sticker to some people. So I started paying attention to people and welcoming them to our booth. We had a few people ask if things were free. And a few people ask if they were colouring books. (Answer: If you have the crayons, yes)

There was a dude there with a trenchcoat with an 12" Alternative Tentacles patch and several dozen buttons for The Dead Kennedys, Lard, and the other bands on that label. Coat was signed by Jello Biafra. I took a picture but it didn't come out. My friend Joe would've dug it.

Anyhow, we got back from the con about 7 PM and there were mysterious red stains between the beds. Mysterious wet red stains. They sent up housekeeping and security. Within ten minutes, there were three security guys there. We got sent to another room. Left our toothbrushes and razor behind - might've been blood. If there was some kind of guy going around bleeding in our room we wouldn't want to keep them. So we moved all our stuff and filed a report. And about an hour later, *then* we finally got dinner, our second meal of the day. Isabel wanted to leave Las Vegas right then. But I wasn't ready to drive for four hours and we had a lot of stuff at the convention hall. We called Rich a couple times that night. That morning, we got our stuff, got gas, and left town.

The first part of the ride home wasn't bad. Death Valley (home of the world's largest thermometer) was 86 degrees (Farenheit). Making it about 20 degrees cooler than our place usually is. The drive was mostly uneventful. Until our car stopped accelerating and started emitting black smoke. So we pulled into a gas station and called AAA. They told us it'd be half an hour until they could send a truck out. So we wait. In the car. And then they call us and say it'll be three hours. So we spent our day outside a gas station in the Mojave Desert. So our con experience was great until we left on Saturday. So if you're going to Anime Vegas, you'll have a great time there. It's just the rest of Las Vegas that we're not too sure about.

What was the substance? We found another sock, the next day, with the same bright red stains on it. So it probably wasn't blood; blood doesn't stay bright red for long. Might've been some kind of dye that was left there by the previous occupant. But we didn't know that at the time.

 

10.01.04 - Terrence Marks:
So what else have I been up to lately?

A decent amount of reading. Read through bits of HP Lovecraft, and through Robert Chambers' "The King in Yellow". Lovecraft doesn't spook me as much as I thought it would. The idea of strange, shapeless horrors and Shoggoths...I mean, you talk about otherworldly cylindrical monsters like the Old Ones and I think "My 12th level ranger could beat those guys up". The idea of there being something else out there, even if it's something else that I'm constantly told is "indescribably alien and horrible", doesn't really get me. I don't know. "The Mountains of Madness" struck me more as an exploration story than horror. Maybe it's categorized as horror because there's not really an "exploration" category in most bookstores.

The King in Yellow is more what I was expecting; a familiar yet twisted version of the world where the facts we're presented almost but don't quite fit the explanation. The first half, at least. "Repairer of Reputations" is my favorite of the bunch - I believe it was set in the future when it was written, but time has made it into an interesting piece of counterfactual history, which gives it a vaguely disquieting feel.

Also beat The Ur-Quan Masters (which many of you know as Star Control 2). StarCon rocks. Open Source StarCon is just amazing. I remember there being more of the Yehat and Spathi - I really like the way their ships handle. But this is one of the best games of the 90s. And it's free.

 

10.06.04 - Terrence Marks:
We got a muffler this weekend. The story isn't that cool, really, but our car is street legal again. I had a goatee on Monday. There's a story behind that, actually. I'd been growing my hair out. And when I got sick a week or two back I stopped shaving. The look I was going for was kind of a Let It Be-era Paul. If I were in a band, it'd be a really cool look. Maybe alt-country or psychedelic pop. But I'm not. So I've got this long hair, though, but it keeps blowing around. If I were in an anime, it'd be really cool. But I'm driving around and it's getting in my eyes. So I get a haircut. Then I've got a businessman's haircut and an artist's beard. And it itches. It didn't look right together, you know. So I started shaving it off but I didn't have time to finish - takes a lot longer to shave when you let it grow out for a week or two. Fortunately, I shave from the outside and work inwards so it almost looks like I meant to have it like that. If I started on one side and worked to the other, I'd have a third-of-a-beard which is just strange. I could've started in the center and ended up with mutton chops, but that's just *so* 1870s. I mean, like "Hello. William Howard Taft is calling and he wants his style back".

But I shaved the goatee off first chance I got. I'm not into goatees. I mean, they're cool if you're a beatnik or a Dutch master painter. But that's not me, you know. I'm hip but not weird.

And what does this have to do with Spare Parts? Well, I mean, I'm not much for facial hair on my characters. I don't think Jeff could grow a beard even if he tried. Todd might, one day. Definitely sideburns or mutton chops. Carl, I can't see with facial hair.

 

10.18.04 - Terrence Marks:
Sorry about not updating my news more. And in my last news item, I'd like to point out that I'm not trying to bring anybody down. If you have a goatee, but aren't a beatnik, then that's cool. If it looks good on you, then go for it. But at least pick up some Kerouac and try to read it. I'm not saying you have to start reading Allen Ginsberg and wearing a beret all at once. But read On the Road.

Personally, I've been reading Mark Twain. I strongly suggest that everybody read Mark Twain. Even if you're a beatnik. I'm reading through Roughing It. I got about five chapters in before I realized it was autobiographical. It's about his travels to and in Nevada during the 1860s. I realize I don't get half the jokes, but the remaining half are funny enough to make up for it.

 

10.22.04 - Terrence Marks:
Happy one-year anniversary to Spare Parts! Thank you, everyone for your support. I can't believe I've been doing this for a whole year.

In honor of this, the site has a new look. And Isabel is coloring the strips a bit differently. We're moving in directions, you know. We're moving in directions. The cast page will be updated really soon, hopefully tomorrow. And there should be a Spare Parts book out in the future, hopefully by the end of the year.

 

10.22.04 - Isabel Marks:
I'll start with the big stuff, on Friday my husband Terrence lost his job and we don't have a lot of savings. We have enough for about a month... but with the horrible Californian economy, I have no idea when he'll have a real job again (or even a temp job somewhere...).

Depending on how things go next month, things might change with all my comics... I might need to cut down on comics and get more work myself as well- especially since sales at the store were not what they were before we moved over to the more efficient (although intimidating to some patrons- it's just like the old PayPal store, only with more accurate shipping charges!) OScommerce program and donations for the month of October have not been too well despite adding more incentive than the huge Sunday comics and the Saturday comics.

If I made *at least* $600 a month (total, not per comic) on donations, we'd be ok for a few more months... things would be even better if we made more sales and I started taking commissions again (they start at around $20, e-mail me if you're interested), but right now where things stand I'm really scared about the future of my comics.

I really don't know what else to say... neither Terrence or myself were expecting this... only recently could we afford to actually start putting money into savings... all I can ask is to consider donating to the comic since the stakes have now gotten a lot higher unfortunately and please consider purchasing some of the professionally made books in the ND Unlimited Store (for every two graphic novels purchased- I will send you a pencil sketch of a character of your choice!)

 

10.29.04 - Terrence Marks:
I had an interview on Tuesday, which is pretty neat. Mind you, my tire started disintegrating while I was on the way there. So now I'm driving on the spare. I'll get a real tire tomorrow.

So I get home and my hard drive started clanking a bit louder than usual. I restart and chkdsk detects a few hundred errors. Right now, Windows doesn't even see the drive and the diagnostics I have keep running and running...

Fortunately, it's the most expendable drive I have. No comics were lost. But I'm a bit short on disk space right now.

 

11.08.04 - Terrence Marks:
So, anime or manga? Radioactive Fanboys asks the same question in a reference/tribute/blatant rip. Check it out; it's pretty cool.

And what's my preference? Manga, because you get to choose how much you read in a sitting. With anime, you're signing up in advance for a 26-minute chunk at a time. With manga, if you want to stop 18 minutes in, you can do that.

So, what's been up lately? Well, Isabel and I were pollworkers on election day. I was planning on making some relevant yet apolitical comments, but working a 15-hour day as a clerk made me kinda, well, it took me another day or two to recover. It went smoothly, but man that was a long day. At the end of everything, we had to count everything and every person there had a slightly different way of counting the various types of votes. After an hour and a half, we finally settled on a method that had us only one off. And I've been interviewing a lot.

 

11.15.04 - Terrence Marks:
Isabel is taking commissions. If you want your very own piece of Isabel Marks artwork, now's the perfect time to get it.

Or do you want to order a book but don't have a Paypal account? Now we have an order form! You can print it out and send it in with a check or money order. And we still have the ND Unlimited Store if you want to order online.

Not sure what to order? We've got a lot of great things. Personally, I'm really, really proud of Headphone Story. It's a 24-page short story featuring all new characters. The art is beautiful. It's a great story. It's got plenty of style and it's cute. If you don't already have it, buy a copy!

 

11.24.04 - Terrence Marks:
So, what prompted all this? I've been on a major Neverwinter Nights kick for the last week or two.

My character is currently an elf Rogue 3/Wizard 10. My original plan was to split things evenly between rogue and wizard. Then I realized that I hadn't run into a single lock or trap that was beyond my capabilities. But there's nothing in the rogue advancement tree that's worth giving up extra levels of wizard.

I also realized that I hadn't cast a single spell in the first two weeks of playing the game. So at the moment my character has three levels of rogue and ten levels of "just hanging around". Probably should've gone with rogue/fighter or something like that. I think I picked wizard on the basis of, well, I wasn't going to wear much armor anyhow.

Now, this is my first large-scale experience with third-edition D&D and D20 as a whole. I used to play first edition, and I really like the change. Skills and feats work a lot better for me than the tacked-on proficiency system and the old concept of "I'll put all my skill points into climbing walls and hope that the DM gives me some walls to climb". I have some versatility in developing my character instead of picking everything when I start the game and hoping it all works. And fighter and rogue classes have been improved to the point that they're worthwhile by themselves.

So what's my biggest complaint? Inventory management. So far every game Black Isle/Bioware D&D game I played, inventory management has been moderately painful. Figuring out who's carrying what and where they're carrying it, and getting things moved around. I've only had to do that once or twice so far and it's only taken half an hour. There were times in Baldur's Gate II where I'd go into a shop and it'd be two hours of real time getting everything sold, moved around, and balanced, and adjusted. It's an improvement. But I want to be able to press a button and show all the wands I have. Or all the rings. Or all the level 4 priest spells. But I'm happy with the game.

 

11.29.04 - Terrence Marks:
I got Metroid Prime the other day. They overcharged me and didn't give me the bonus demo disk (Metroid Prime: Echoes). I was thinking about going back and returning it, but Isabel made me sit down and play the game first. And I really enjoyed it. Considering I was ready to pay $35 for it when it came out, I think paying $10 for it isn't so bad. But I still want to be angry about it. I'm still not going back to that store again, though.

I figure I don't need the bonus disk; Metroid Prime, itself, is the best demo for Metroid Prime: Echoes

Anyhow, we were watching VH1's Greatest One Hit Wonders. They were talking about Falco (the musician, not the one from StarFox) and briefly showed a newspaper article about his death. The one line from that article that I could clearly make out read "...was not a one-hit wonder", which I found amusing.

 

12.02.04 - Terrence Marks:
Foreshadowing? Of course it is.

 

12.10.04 - Terrence Marks:
Today (Friday, Dec 10) is the last day to get your ND Unlimited orders in. We'll be closing the store for a bit, and re-opening it after Christmas. We want to be sure all orders arrive in a timely fashion.

And mind you, this arc is a reference to Spare Parts presents a Horror Flick, in case you're wondering why they're watching a really, really bad movie. This arc is dedicated to every bad movie they ever made and to having friends that make them worth watching together.

 

12.13.04 - Terrence Marks:
Lately, I've been listening to a lot of classical. My folks wanted a certain set of classical songs so I went and found them. Mostly turn-of-the-century French music. In the process, I got nearly every piano piece that Saint-Saens ever composed. You probably never heard of him before, but keep reading, I'm going somewhere with this.

The short answer was that I didn't like them. I'm sure the pianist was talented. I know Saint-Saens was a good composer. And it's my favorite genre of classical music. It just didn't impress me. And after you listen to six pieces of mediocre classical music in a row, any others that you listen to after that aren't going to seem any better; it reaches the point where it all sounds the same.

You probably don't like classical music, yourself. Thing is, there's a lot more mediocre classical music out there than any other genre. If you start listening to mediocre albums, you won't be able to tell what's good and what isn't.

If you want to get into classical music - and you should at least try - the trick is finding the right place to start. The performers are as important as the composers are. I can't tell the difference between an uninspired rendition of a good song, versus a good rendition of an uninspired song.

* Do not start with any kind of "Classical Library" collection. Nobody who actually likes classical music listens to those "25 composers on 25 albums" compilations. Yes, you can get them cheap, but they're not meant to be listened to. They're meant to be prominently displayed so that people who come to visit you see them and are impressed by your exhaustive classical music collection. Their main selling point is that you don't have to make any decisions concerning what kind of music you want. Those four-CD-for-ten-bucks sets aren't much better. Do not start with budget classical.

* Don't start with etudes either; I'm not really sure what an etude is. I know it's French for "study". They're usually about as fun as studying.

* No "relaxing classical" or anything like that. You want music you can pay attention to and maybe hum a little when it's over. You want music that you can remember.

My advice is to pick up a themed compilation, preferably something that costs at least $15. Start with a famous composer; there's a reason why they're famous. My personal favorites are Saint-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals" and Isao Tomita's electronic renditions of Debussy on "The Snowflakes are Dancing". I even didn't like classical until I got "The Snowflakes are Dancing"; now it's one of my favorite albums. If you don't like classical, that's cool. But if you haven't, you should give it a chance. I mean, it's a couple centuries of music and some of it is pretty cool.

And discuss it in the forum

 

12.17.04 - Terrence Marks:
Boy, today's comic sure is existential. I'm sure that's what the director was going for.

Anyhow, I was going to go on a long ramble about music, but it's not quite ready. Instead, Isabel and I watched four episodes of the Yakitate!! Japan anime. I like it even better than the manga. I owe fanmail to Anime-Empire for subbing it. And to Takashi Hashiguchi, the mangaka.

But that anime inspired us. Isabel wants to work on comics. I want to make bread, but it's 2 AM out here and I don't know how to bake. So instead I have
My Christmas Wishlist: (Sorry about not getting this out to you guys a few weeks ago, but hey. Late presents are cool.)

* A job, first and foremost. I've done tech support for Gateway, IBM, and the VHA. If it's computer-related and needs fixing or configuring, I can do it. Preferably something around Pasadena, Glendale, or Los Angeles.

*A copy of The Moles' Instinct, to replace the copy that I lost while moving to California; dealer's choice of formats.

*A copy of any of Mort Garson's zodiac albums; dealer's choice of format. I seriously doubt that they've been released on CD, however.

*A copy of "Museum", by Donovan, preferably the demo version off Troubador. Yes, I'm too cheap to buy a two-CD Greatest Hits anthology for a couple of alternate versions. The Herman's Hermits version is acceptable, as well.

*Any tropicalia CDs, preferably Gilberto Gil or Os Mutantes.

*Tablature to any songs by The Incredible String Band (pre-U). Or "War in Peace" by Skip Spence.

*Bass tabs for any song(s) by The Monochrome set. Or "S-E-X-X-Y" by TMBG. Or "Happy Family" or "Indoor Games" by King Crimson.

*A copy of the Rumic World compilations that Viz cannot seem to keep in print.

*Donations are, of course, cheerfully accepted. I realize my taste in things runs extremely obscure.

*Fanmail. You don't have obscure music, an open tech support position, or spare cash? Send fanmail. Not necessarily to me, that's not what this is about. Send fanmail out to three people. Your favorite cartoonist, writer, manga scanlation group...the guy who runs that useful website for your favorite TV show, or hosts that game you play...anybody online who made the Internet a little better for you. Somebody who you think doesn't get enough fanmail. Let them know you're out there and that you like what they're doing.

 

12.20.04 - Terrence Marks:
My nephew was born this weekend! He's a cute baby.

We watched Parappa the Rapper, the anime. It was disappointing. The characters weren't two-dimensional. If they were in that same paper-thin style as the game, that would've been cool. But they were kinda almost 3D. Not that they had much depth. There was PJ (self-absorbed, depressed), Katy (oversensitive, violent), Paula (manipulative, bitchy), and Matt (PJ's new friend from Club Fun - yes, that was his only line. He said it about three times. That was all the personality he had).

It was about Parappa going trying to please these unpleasant and unpleasable people; there was a robbery too. Everyone (except Parappa) was quick to accuse everyone (including Parappa) else. And there was no rapping. None. That's what made the games worthwhile. It wasn't the plot or the setup. It was a rhythm game with a decent soundtrack. If they had Chop Chop Master Onion or Prince Fleaswallow, it would've been cool. But no. No rapping. Man, that was disappointing.

Edit: It turns out I forgot Sunny from the Parappa character list. How could I forget Sunny. Man, was she forgettable.

 

12.22.04 - Terrence Marks:
We've been married for two years today! Woohoo!

 

12.27.04 - Terrence Marks:
Hope you had a nice Christmas. The Spare Parts archive once again shows news properly, so if you missed news you can go back and read it. Under some conditions, it'll show you two weeks of comics on weekly view. Just consider it bonus material. I'll fix it in the nearish future.

Unrelatedly, we also watched an anime called Azusa Will Help. We live about three blocks from a city called Azusa, so that's why. That's the nice thing about California; I mean, back when we were in Florida, the cities all around us were named things like Margate, Tamarac, and Plantation. There will never be an anime called Lauderhill Will Help. Anyhow, it was about a baseball team who can't win, so they go out to get a baseball robot. It's in the future and baseball robots are, apparently, commonplace because baseball isn't popular - no, that doesn't make sense to me either. If you can't find eight other friends to form a team, you have a baseball robot complete the ranks.

Anyhow, they buy a maid robot. They go to baseball training. One montage sequence later, the maid turns out to be better at baseball than the professional baseball robots are. Thing is, she didn't need to be a maid. It just seemed more like they took the "Maid robot plays baseball" concept and forced it. They didn't let it progress naturally like a good robot baseball maid series should.

Azusa, the maid, didn't have much personality. The team members did. There was an amazing set of twins - they weren't comically mistaken for one another (Mint na Bokura). Neither of them was evil (Shaman King, and thousands of others). Nobody said that they wished one twin could be more like the other (Touch - which is a lot better as far as baseball/romance goes). They weren't exact opposites of each other (dozens of nameless shoujo manga). That made them cool. The rest of the team was pretty cool too. They got characterization for the first 15 minutes. Then Azusa showed up and every single one of them was relegated to supporting cast, which is too bad. If they didn't have Azusa there, I would've liked it a lot more, but, you know. Could've developed the team's personality, and not had to spend five minutes explaining why baseball robots exist. "Robot in big puffy maid uniform = big sales money". Or something like that. Funny, though, apart from Azusa and the baseball robots, there weren't any other robots around.

And yes, within a few minutes of me posting this, I expect somebody to name a dozen better examples of manga/anime with twins.

 

12.31.04 - Terrence Marks:
Somebody was nice enough to send us Mario Kart: Double Dash, and we spent the afternoon playing it. We'll have the comics up in an hour or so (by 3 AM, Pacific time, at the latest).

 

01.05.05 - Terrence Marks:
Yes, I have been planning that for a while...There's a lot we don't know about the cast of Spare Parts.

 

01.07.05 - Terrence Marks:
I like to read a lot of comics, but it's daunting to try to read through large archives, and there's a lot of good comics that are past 500 strips. Namir Deiter just had its 900th strip this week, which is damn cool. But I'm a bit intimidated when I come across a comic with a large archive; I may have to spend several days catching up before I understand the recent comics. It's kind of a barrier to entry. That's why I have the new quick start section. It cuts about 45 comics from the beginning, mainly because they were inessential. Those comics are still available in the regular archive. I just feel that if you're new to the comic and want to get up to date, it's a good option. If you know somebody who might like to read Spare Parts, send them here.

Resolutions: (It's in the first week of the new year. It counts.)

* Read at least half of what Mark Twain wrote.
* Read 3 other books.
* Learn to draw.
* Send three pieces of fanmail each week.
* Add one webcomic per week to my read-list (which had grown severely underpopulated due to real life events).
*Finish six major php projects.

I added a quick start section for new readers. That's a very minor project. I'm a bit behind on fanmail, but I finally caught up on The Adventures of Fifine. Great comic. I compare it to Tintin. If I were good at reviewing comics, I would tell you about it without that comparison. I'm not that good a reviewer, though. For the moment, let us merely say that it's a really fun comic to read, and shows a strong Tintin influence.

 

01.10.05 - Terrence Marks:
As you may have noticed, the ND Unlimited forums are closed. Basically, they caused a fair amount of stress. This made Isabel enjoy doing comics less and threatened to cause health problems. Now, none of us want that, so we're closing the forums down.

I understand that some of you enjoyed the forum and are sorry to see it go. We're not bringing them back under any circumstances, however. Not worth it.

 

01.19.05 - Terrence Marks:
This week's comic-of-the-week is Misfile, who we recently traded links with. It's one of the few comics I'd describe as manga-style; I know enough manga to use the term sparingly. Some papers got misfiled at the Celestial Filing Depository. Giant library contains all the information about the world. When something in the library changes, the world changes with it, and vice versa; that's how all this started, mind you. As a result, the last two years of Emily's life got undone and Ash changed genders. I like the cosmology, I mean, it's really hip. I don't see much in the way of cosmology these days, and I can really dig it. It explains how the magic works, which is the biggest draw for me; the situation and the story.

Last week's (which I didn't get to mention until now; see below) was Dan & Mab's Furry Adventures, which is one of the best ensemble-cast comics I've seen since The Class Menagerie. No, that doesn't describe adequately, but it's the best category I have for it. It's not set in an RPG with ironically self-aware characters. They're not on a grand quest. They're adventurers, but most of the time, they're just hanging out and doing their thing. I mean that as a sincere compliment. They're just there. And they do that really, really well. It doesn't need to have them out saving the world. Great art. Some of the best third-wall gags I've seen in a while.

Sorry about not updating the news much last week. I was going to update Friday night, but I wound up working from midnight to 4 AM, then heading out at 9 AM for an interview. And over the weekend, I found my old copy of X-Com and was unable to get anything useful done until about two days later when I deleted it. Then I did a bit of programming and now ND has a news archive - you can read all our old news!

Working on a reader survey (with prize). Been doing some thinking about Spare Parts, too. That's all I'm going to say for now.

We found a copy of the Reality Check graphic novel - the original, unretouched, color version. It's a really cute series about a cat and virtual reality, and, well...you should pick it up if you get a chance.

 

01.24.05 - Terrence Marks:
The server that hosts Namir Deiter and You Say it First has been hit by a denial of service attack. It should be back up later on today. Hopefully.

 

01.31.05 - Terrence Marks:
It's been a busy week - that's all I'm saying about it right now. Right now, we're watching Yakitate!! Japan, which is extremely cool. And Isabel redesigned the site, as I'm sure you noticed. I really like the new look.

As you know, I'm trying to read through a new comic each week. Most of the comics I read are by folks who've been around for a while; it's hard to read a new 500-1000 strip comic each week. That's why I'm a week behind. But I tell you this - any cartoonist who e-mails me gets put at the top of my to-read list; if you read the Spare Parts news, I'll read your comic. I'm serious; don't be afraid to e-mail me.

This week's comic is Schlock Mercenary. It's military humor in a sci-fi setting. The science and the humor are both strong. Originally, I didn't want to read the comic because of Schlock. Let's face it, he isn't pretty. I'm sure Mr. Tayler gets that a lot.

I read a month or two and was hooked. I realized I was reading it because of Schlock. Not because he's the main character or the most interesting. Kevyn, Elf, Captain Tagon, Ennesby, Admiral Branwen...there are characters who are more interesting than Schlock. He's the mascot. Unlike a lot of other mascots, he's not cute, or attractive, or ironic, or anything. Because the series isn't concerned with being hip or cute or marketable. It's got science and sometime science isn't pretty. You're saying "So I should read this comic because it has science in it?". No; you should read it because it explores some really interesting concepts; science is just a tool used to explore them. And having an amorphous blob in mascot/title role signifies that the comic is interested in creative applications of science.

 

02.02.05 - Terrence Marks:
I've been mentioning secret projects for a while now. NamirDeiter.net is that project. It's a members-only site; if you donate more than $10, you get a membership. It has a commentary section, where you can read all three of our strips - with exclusive commentary - on one page. We've got commentary on all the comics from February 1st onwards (which will be considerably more impressive in a few weeks time). It has a bonus comic each week. And we're going to be adding more stuff to it. I've got a whole bunch more programming to do for it.

I may not be able to read a new comic this week; there are a few comics I'm going through but I don't think I'll be able to finish them just yet. I'll try to do one next week and two the week after that. But basically, due to the enthusiasm that everybody is showing for NamirDeiter.net, I'm adding some content and automating some things.

 

02.07.05 - Terrence Marks:
Firstly, I have a job. I'm basically a tech gofer at a local bank. This makes my life significantly better (and more busy).

Secondly, we've re-opened the Namir Deiter store.

Thirdly, we've added Tales from Grover Hills to the bonus section of our donor-only site, NamirDeiter.net. And there's been a decent amount of behind-the-scenes programming, none of which should be noticeable anyone but us.

Fourthly, Isabel's renting Star Fox: Assault. I'm playing through X-Com and spending more time on that than I probably should. But I have plasma weapons now.

 

02.14.05 - Terrence Marks:
Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Firstly, ND Book 1 will be available at Steve Bennett's table at Katsucon, February 18-20, in Arlington, Virginia. If it wasn't on the wrong side of the country, we'd be there too. If the East Coast is more convenient to you, then please go check it out.

And Zortic is five years old today! It's a great comic and you should go read all five years of it today!

We got a whole bunch of fan art today and we'll have up on Wednesday.

We made our goal for February, so everyone who donates $10 or more during this month gets a free 16-page minicomic (Tipporomatic, to be exact, the robot maid story "drawn" by Cedric and his friends).

Had an unproductive weekend. One of those weekends where I didn't want to do anything but play video games (X-Com, of course), until 10 PM on Sunday.

 

02.16.05 - Terrence Marks:
The Fan Center is up! You can see the damn cool fan-art that people sent me. Because there's some awesome stuff there that deserves to get looked at.

And I spent most of my free time yesterday working on a Kimberly Taylor dress-up doll for the members-only site. I think it's really cool. If you're a member, you should log in to namirdeiter.net and check it out. If you're not a member, a $10 donation will buy you a month's admission.

 

02.25.05 - Terrence Marks:
I've been working on a longer, more music-related news update. Honest. But to summarize my recent life: X-Com went from tedious to fun about three weeks ago. I deleted it last week as it's the only effective way to stop playing.

My comic of the week for, well, whenever I left off, is Sandwich World. I've been back on my "Reading Mark Twain" kick instead of reading comics. Mainly because if you read an e-book, you look like you're doing something instead of goofing off. But I digress.

Sandwich World originally caught my eye because this comic has a restaurant by that name. He was using the name first, but I hadn't heard of his comic until long afterwards. But it's a cool coincidence. Anyhow, the strip itself is great. It's straight-up comedy, with very little regard for drama or realism. It's about this sandwich shop. They've got a demon who bakes the bread. Their archnemeses are Ninja Burger and the ex-mobster Health Inspector. That is not a sufficient description, but gives you an idea what to expect. It's been on an unsteady schedule of late, but will hopefully return to regularity. I say it's hilarious. It reminds me of Cromartie, one of my favorite mangas. I realize that most of you have not read Cromartie as it won't be officially released for a month or two. Go read Sandwich World, please.

Also, I got Pikmin recently and it's a great game. I enjoy playing Pikmin much more than I enjoy writing about it, so that's all I'm going to say about it.

 

03.04.05 - Terrence Marks:
The ND Unlimited Store is open again! We've got two new titles, You Say it First vol 2 and the Namir Deiter Yearbook! And all our old titles are available again! If you've been waiting for a chance to buy something, this is it!

We went to a 3rd grade singing recital today. My nephew was in it; we didn't just crash it. It was a patriotic program. They sang a whole bunch of songs about America, but they skipped "America" by Simon & Garfunkel, "America" by Robyn Hitchcock, and "America" from West Side Story. Because, you know, Lee Greenwood is much better at writing songs that mention the USA without actually saying much anything about it.

But anyhow, it reminds me of when I was in third-grade chorus. I remember being bored with the music at hand. Bored enough so that every note seemed like an eternity, so I substituted for the original three different notes of my own value. I believe I may have independantly discovered bebop. If I had stayed in chorus through high school I believe I would have mastered free jazz.

We watched even more Yakitate!! Japan this week and enjoyed it thoroughly. It's so funny because it takes itself so seriously. The battle between Azuma and Azusagawa Yukino was so suspenseful we could barely watch it. Not much else going on; Isabel has been very busy working on Tipporomatic and I've been busy working on other features for the site.

 

03.06.05 - Terrence Marks:
Spare Parts updates four times a week this month! Bonus update every Sunday!

 

03.10.05 - Terrence Marks:
The nominations for the Ursa Major awards are open right now. If you want to nominate ND, we're flattered. We encourage everybody to participate so the awards can be the best they can. So go nominate, please.

 

03.17.05 - Terrence Marks:
The Daily Grind Ironman Challenge (and why we didn't enter it):

Firstly, Isabel draws more comics in a day than most people do in a week. No, really. Every Monday, she delivers one each of Namir Deiter, You Say it First, Spare Parts, Fur Will Fly, and the NamirDeiter.Net bonus comic. I think that's a record. She draws 21 comics per week this month, which puts her one up on Bill Holbrook (who is the only other cartoonist I know of who works in this kind of volume). If we only had one comic strip, updating by midnight would be easy. As such, we usually update at about 12:10.
Secondly, there are a couple ringers in this. This contest is likely to last several months. It's going to be really stressful, too. If we go out on a weekday (which we do, occasionally), we'll be constantly watching the clock. We'll be worried about making sure we can get the comic done by 12:00 exactly. Not 12:10. Not 12:01. And can we get dessert tonight, or will we have to spend that time getting the comic shaded? This means that every minute in your evening and night has an opportunity cost of $1150, or whatever the prize is up to. That's not worth it. It really isn't.

 

03.21.05 - Terrence Marks:
The Spare Parts book is coming out early in April - be sure to watch for it!

 

04.04.05 - Terrence Marks:
We're going to be at APE, April 9-10 (this weekend) in San Francisco. If you're in the area, please come by and see us! Booth 306B.

 

04.18.05 - Terrence Marks:
Boy, it's been busy lately.
APE left us both drained. It inspired this current arc, which should surprise nobody. If you're new, you should read Spare Parts Presents a Horror Flick and Deadly Symbol, both of which deal with the movie they'll be promoting. I'm working on a con essay. Hopefully, I'll get it finished next week. As a preview, well, here's a preview

On the way to APE, we stopped at a Burger King. They had a display there for dulce de leche cheesecake, with the tagline "Easy to Eat. Hard to Say", and a pronunciation key for dulce de leche. This was southern California. Spanish was the language of preference for everybody in the restaurant except us, including the cashiers. I'm not sure how effective that campaign was here. It probably played better in areas that Spanish isn't spoken. Or areas where Spanish-speakers have bad pronunciation.

I suggested that on the flipside, they run the same display in Spanish, but have the pronunciation key under the second line of
"DULCE DE LECHE
CHEESECAKE"
instead of the first. Isabel didn't think other people would find the humor in it.

I point this incident out not because it's particularly significant, but because it was the high point of our convention experience.

 

04.20.05 - Terrence Marks:

Girl Genius - by the immensely talented husband-and-wife team of Phil and Kaja Foglio - is now on-line. You really, really should read it. It's a great comic. I'm really excited that it's a webcomic now.

Also, the cast page and banner are updated to include Shandra, thanks to Isabel!

 

04.25.05 - Terrence Marks:
Isabel and I participated in 24-hour comic book day. We had a great time doing it, but we're exhausted. Yes, I wrote - and drew - 24 pages of comics. It was pretty fun. If you did a 24-hour comic and want to trade, just e-mail me.

I've been working on the full APE report; it's a long thing, as much to do with convention theory - and there's very little "how to be a dealer" material out there - as it is to do with our specific experiences at that convention. But I left my copy of it at work, so I don't have much. Not much time to write it this weekend, anyhow, on account of the above.

 

05.16.05 - Terrence Marks:
Sorry about not updating the news lately. Most of my writing time has been going into the bonus site's commentary, the APE rant you've been seeing lately. And, um...Baldur's Gate II, which I've picked up again. Not sure where all the time goes, you know. Meant to get a lot of writing done this weekend, but I wound up fixing a computer for relatives and, well, I'm not sure what else wound up happening - I multitask poorly. If I try to do two one-hour tasks at the same time, it takes me about four hours. And you know that week I took off to work on things....well, it didn't happen much. I seem to only be able to get two hours of non-job-related tasks done each day and eight hours of NJRT - total - on a weekend. I was supposed to get the code cleaned up on all these sites today...maybe some time this week

Studio Foglio is having a clearance sale on Buck Godot and Girl Genius, which I heartily recommend (and yes, that's been taking up a lot of my time this weekend, too - entirely worth it)

I have a bad habit of writing segments of news and not finishing them. If I don't post these, they'll be put into The File. And a lot more things go into The File than ever come out of it. I've got a whole bunch of music reviews, but they're low priority - most of what I listen to is too out-there for most of you. And it's generally not in print; definitely not available in any mainstream music store. So they're low priority, written more to entertain than to give you any ideas about what the music actually sounds like. I'm, personally, more likely to read movie reviews than actually see movies. And Roger Ebert and Mark Twain write very similarly - different subjects, but the types of humor they use, and the way they describe an object by telling you about a minor but representative point. Especially Mark Twain's early sketches (and his travelogues, which are really a collection of sketches).

 

05.25.05 - Terrence Marks:
I've got a whole bunch of things to work on, including some lit-crit of Mark Twain, and a basic introduction to psychadelic music, on the assumption that I'll have time to do them in the near future and that the world is in some kind of need for them.

I need to actually sit down and edit together those and more opinions. But I've been working on updates for NamirDeiter.net today and yesterday. But let me tell you about some good things I've found recently:

* Project Xenocide - an open source tactical strategy game in the style of the original X-Com. Currently in development.
* Hey Suburbia - A semi-autobiographical comic that's pretty damn cool.
* Honey & Clover- A nice, slow, slice-of-life anime. First good new series I've seen in a while (why? because I pick things out based on their Japanese titles, with no regard to what they may actually be like. Which is apparently why I got three series before it that were targeted at six-year-olds). It reminds me a bit of Here Is Greenwood, which I also recommend. I've only seen the first one so far, but I look forward to the rest.
* It's a Long Way Down by Fallen Angels - a chamber-psych record, very reminiscent in places of Jeremy Enigk's solo work. The lead singer has a very nice breezy voice, that reminds me much of Donovan. He's got that same kind of sincerity. The best song on there, A Horn Playing On My Thin Wall does not feature any kind of horn instruments, which gives it several dozen bonus points in my book. I'd say more, but it's out of print and nearly impossible to find. But I enjoy it very much, regardless.

If you've found something good and want to tell me about it, please do.

 

06.28.05 - Isabel Marks:
Next month we will not be upping the final total to $1500, but not because Terrence found a job... after much talk and consideration we decided that, quite frankly, every month the donation total is met a little uncomfortably close to the end of the month, and adding more to the total might discourage people from donating even before we get to the $800 or $1000 total instead of the $1500 mark if the total is a bit small and we're near the end of the month.

So... what does that mean for all of you? Well, nothing will change, except next month's bonus book will be only 16 pages (it was going to be 20 if we added the extra $500- but at least it wasn't going to be 12 like this month's book was originally planned to be).

Speaking of this month's book... the four page bonus story is written, but due to being sick for most of the weekend, even writing was a chore.

I will continue doing the whole Sketch image days (when there are no comic updates on that day) for next month in the hopes of it brinhing new members in.

Hopefully I'll have more news (and better news) next week. Till then, take care!

 

08.16.05 - Terrence Marks:
Basically...last week, I took a short-term job that was supposed to last three weeks. Between the 9-hour days and 3-hour commute, I didn't have any time to actually write. Then this Monday, they called me to say they ordered too many temps and had to put one back (selected via the moe method, three guesses who lost). Now I'm back to looking for work. Anyhow, it's been a long week and I need a break.

 

09.22.05 - Isabel Marks:
After re-reading the donation page...

The way we've had our donation bar/ thank you gifts wording was a bit unclear, so we're clarifying a few things...

First off, the thank you book will not be sent out to anyone until the $600 mark is met. If we do not reach that total by the end of the month, none of the thank-you books will be sent out. People who donate $50+ will receive at the least the specified $50 thank you gift (in this month's case, the original artwork).

Also, even if the $600 is met, only people who donate at least $10 will receive the book, (i.e. people who donated $1 through $9 would not receive the book). The original wording was a bit misleading due to trying to limit the amount of text on the donation bar image.

If you donated this month and do not agree with the above terms, please e-mail us with your username and the Paypal transaction ID number. Your account will be suspended and your money will be returned to you.

Truth be told, we will more than likely not reach our goal this month... it's completely understandable and truthfully there are many other people who need that money more than I do right now... Terrence and myself donated through his employer (who were doing a "we'll double any money you donate") and we greatly encourage you to help in any way you can.

 

09.26.05 - Terrence Marks:
So why has Spare Parts taken a break for the last few weeks? I do owe you all an explanation. The short answer is that I got a job. It's a great job, but it takes a lot of my time and mental energy (and has spawned a number of errands that have taken up several days out of each week).

Basically, I haven't had a chance to sit down and really think about what Spare Parts is going to do next. I saw that I could either let the comic meander, write each comic as it goes, and hope that it all comes together cohesively or I could wait until I had time to do it right. I believe that Spare Parts is worth doing right, and worth waiting for. In the mean time, I'm still co-writing YSIF.

On the plus side, my schedule is starting to regularize, so I should be able to resume writing it in the near future. There's a lot of writing I need to sit down and do, to catch up. And yes, I should've written this news article a few weeks ago when we went on hiatus. Sorry, folks.

 

04.03.06 - Terrence Marks:
So, how was I-Con?

Quite simply, it was the best con we've been to. And here it is, categorized by anecdote, because chronological order is for suckers.

The Table

We shared a table with Peter Prellwitz, who published ND Year One and is an accomplished science fiction author in his own right. He brought along two of his sons to help us man the table, and Dressari, a fan of ours who came all the way from England (and also helped run the table when we weren't there).

We wound up getting Mark Goddard's table (He played Major West in Lost in Space, and cancelled at the last minute). We were next to a company selling what appeared to be independent horror B movies. On our other side was a company called Anime Clash. They had, they told us, just sold entirely out of anime and were selling their other products, also independent horror B movies. Was this a good thing? Well, we stood out from our immediate surroundings, at least.

We were, more importantly, across from Bill Holbrook and Stan Sakai. I often wished we brought a beachball so we could hit it back and forth when things got slow. We dropped by Bill's table a couple times and he came by ours.

The Sketchbook

I've been toting around this sketchbook to conventions since DragonCon 2000. Back when I first got it, I'd get a sketch from anybody who'd give me one, but I've become a lot more selective over the years, in part because it's running out of space. They all mean something to me.

I got three new sketches this con. Mookie, R.K. Milholland, and Stan Sakai. I already had Greg Dean and Bill Holbrook. I went up by the Goats table once, but Jon wasn't there and I decided not to hang around, partly because I was afraid they wouldn't know who I was and partly because I was afraid they would.

I started reading Dominic Deegan because I figured we'd meet at I-Con and it'd be polite. It's an amazing strip. I got a drawing of Dominic; I was thinking of asking for Celesto or Gregory Deegan but didn't. Always better to let the artist decide.

I caught Randy Milholland at his table. There was a sign, "free sketches". An eight-year-old boy was in front of me. Randy asked his mom, "He doesn't read the comic, does he?". "No". "Ok, good. Don't let him". So he drew the kid a ninja. He was selling original art from the strips for about $5 each. I bought one.

We gave Stan Sakai one of our books and he drew an amazing sketch of Tomoe Ame for me. He spent, I believe, a total of ninety minutes at his table over the three days and we managed to catch him. He works with great speed. I'm married to somebody who can sleep in and still draw seven comics a day; his speed still impressed me. He looked through my sketchbook. He's the first artist in a long time to do that. He took the time to look through all the other sketches I had, and he recognized a number of them.

 

04.03.06 - Isabel Marks:
I'm going to be short and sweet with this: Terrence got a new job. Terrence + new job + consistently writing a comic= no can do. As it was Terrence was helping me over at namirdeiter.net, sometimes even helping me write- but like with You Say it First, the other comic Terrence helps write, we shared writing duties. The other part of the matter was this: Terrence was getting burnt out, like big time. So I told him to take a break- I didn't want Spare Parts to end up like some of the other projects he worked on and lost steam on.

So... six months later... Terrence has some new ideas for the comic, granted they may not be 100% Spare Parts, but they are still along the same lines and I'm sure you all will like them (Yes, I had to dangle "Spare Pirates" over Terrence to get him out of SP-retirement... you'll find out in a few weeks).

So the problem was this story arc... Terrence long forgot what he wanted to do. Fortunately I remembered more or less how I wanted to end it... it just needed a few punches- which I gave it so now this story arc will have an ending. Hooray!

Now the other issue that has to do with the first part of my short and sweet explanation- now, Spare Parts used to be three days a week- but in order to help keep Terrence from getting burnt out(don't forget, Terrence actually has a day job), we're going to be shortening the schedule, we might (and we mean MIGHT) make the third day an incentive for namirdeiter.net donators... but we have a while before that). So yeah, we'll be at two days a week now- but that's two more comics a week than you all were getting before, so yay.

So what else were we up to? We went to I-Con, which was just a lot of cool. I'm sure Terry will have a con report for you all soon.

 

04.10.06 - Terrence Marks:
I-Con Report, part 2
Badges
The names on the con badges were printed very small, in about 8-point font. We hadn't brought the badges Isabel made for previous cons. We should've, just so people could tell who we were. I couldn't read them without my glasses, and even then I'd have to lean in and there's that awkward "Have I heard of this person before?" moment that took a second too long because of the small print on the names.

If you're a cartoonist, it really helps to make yourself a namebadge that's easily identifiable. It should have a recognizeable piece of your art and your name printed large. The first con I went to, I wore an ascot. I don't any more for a number of reasons. Firstly, I know this is a borderline case, but I think dressing as your own character is too gimmicky and comes across as a little desparate. Secondly, Brisbane doesn't wear them consistantly so the relevance is kind of lost. Thirdly, I lost them.

The Panels
We had four panels, all on Sunday. This was our first time doing panels. To prepare, we saw Stan Sakai's "How Usagi Yojimbo Came to Be". I felt mildly intimidated when I realized that he had been doing this since I was nine and Isabel was more likely to eat her crayons than color with them, and I couldn't possibly become as good as that. At least not in one afternoon. It did, however, make me wish we had gone to all of his other panels.

Our first panel was "Getting Started in Online Comics" or something like that. It featured us, Bill Holbrook, and Mookie. It was at 10 AM on Sunday, when the con first opened. It was in a different room than was listed on the schedule. A marathon closed down the road most people used to get to the con. There was only one person in the audience, Dressari, and that was because he came over with us. He'd had dinner with us and Bill the night before and didn't have any questions left over. About 45 minutes in, we went back to the dealers room because nobody else had shown up and they had to relocate the belly dancers' panel to that room because the anime dance had caught fire the night before. I'm not making any of that up, honest. The only thing that would've improved it was more audience, and I'm not even sure that would've helped. They drew Kevin, Tipper, and Dominic on the chalkboard. I considered writing a two-panel exchange between Kimberly and Brisbane up there, but couldn't think of anything that'd stand on it's own especially well.

We headed back to our table for a little while and waited for for our next panels, which were a three-hour block, one right after the other.

What I feared most was that there would be a large audience who were more familiar with our comic than we were, who would ask us detailed questions and embarass us about apparent contradictions in the characters' personalities or the timeline. Ask us things like "Do you really expect us to take the comic seriously with the lounge guys in it?".

I was entirely wrong. What I should have feared most was an audience that we outnumbered, half of whom had heard of our comics once or twice but hadn't read any of it.

The first panel was "Why anthropomorphic characters?". Bill, Isabel, and I each had about five minute answers for that. Mine was the simplest - because there were a lot of other good comics out there that did it and it made the characters seem more iconic. The fact that it was the only way to tell them apart, back when I had a new artist each week, was just a coincidence. There were two people in the audience. They were both very nice and helped us by asking questions to fill the time. Sam "Uncle Kage" Conway was in the next room over. He's famous in the anthropomorphic con scene for his panels. He also had a three hour block that we were scheduled against. It sounded like his reputation was deserved. There were a few times I felt like we should call it off early and head over to see what was going on his side of the wall; it seemed like he was having a better time of it.

Then we had "Three comics at a time" panel, which featured a few aspiring cartoonists who said they'd email me if their comics ever go on-line. We were also scheduled for "The Daily Grind of Updating Webcomics" at the same time. I had hoped they'd combine the panels. They seemed similar enough. There were hints that they might, but it didn't happen. We went with Three Comics; it was in the same room as our panels immediately before and after. During the panel, all I hoped was that somebody told the people at the other panel why we weren't there.

For those of you who missed it, the secrets include: use blue pens or tracing paper so you don't have to erase pencil lines, simplify character designs, use pre-made backgrounds and, the big one - don't do anything else. Three people were in the audience. We seemed to have an upward trend that way.

Our final panel was "Writing with Furry Characters", which featured Isabel, myself, and Amadeus. It seemed like a bit of an awkward fit, especially without Bill there - he had to leave to catch a ride to the airport. He would've been perfect for that panel, as his characters live in a much more anthropomorphic world than ours do.

I'm informed that Amadeus was to do with a film they showed at the con the night before. He would've been perfect for the panel excepting the small fact that he didn't show up. Word on the street was that he was last seen having dinner.

If you were to replace our characters with humans, there would be very few points requiring explanation or changes. You can count the number of species-related character traits on one hand. Species has, purposely, not been mentioned in You Say it First or Unlike Minerva. (That got a bit awkward when people talked about Brent, their pet whose species only remains nameless because we can't think of anything good to call it). There's nothing especially "with furry characters" about our writing. About twenty minutes in, I kind of had to admit it to the crowd - which had swelled to ten people - we must be doing something right! Half of them left a couple minutes after that. I think a few of those people were aspiring novelists. We have no real advice for novelists. Neither of us has written fiction prose in the last six years, and the prose we had written back then isn't a thing we generally choose to show off.

Neither of us, in fact, view "anthropomorphic" as a genre. It isn't. There are a number of specialized anthropomorphic subgenres with their own styles and rules, but it's no more a genre than "movies featuring bald actors" or "songs about weather" is. I haven't read any anthropomorphic fiction - actual prose fiction - since Wind in the Willows. I'd wager money, though that there's less stylization and that readers of said fiction are less "trained" than readers of other conventional fiction. A lot of fiction out there is attenuated to the fact that the average person who buys a romance book, this is the twentieth romance book they bought. If anthropomorphic fiction has that kind of fine-tuning on it, we're unaware. So not only do we not have anything useful to say on the subject. We don't believe that anything really useful can be said.

After I came clean - and I felt much better afterwards - the topic changed as people started asking us again about how to start comics. This was territory we were familiar with. We've started an awful lot of comics.

 

04.17.06 - Terrence Marks:
Now, I've spoken before on con salesmanship. Two years ago at Comic-Con we aggressively handed out flyers. People would walk past our table double-speed, trying not to make eye contact with any of us because they knew we'd make them take one if they slowed down at all. That was unpleasant after about the fourth day.

We took it easy here. It was a lot more pleasant. Peter brought a bowl with little chocolates. That was our "hard sell". If anyone came by and looked interested, we'd offer them one. It worked fairly well. It broke the ice and gave people a chance to start talking to us about our work if they wanted to.

Peter would ask "Do you like comics?" while gesturing to our books.If they said no, I'd ask "Well, do you like science fiction?" while gesturing to his. Some people said "no" to that also; I wondered what they were doing there.

After a while, word was getting around. Someone came up and asked "Is this the table with the free chocolate?".

A few fans came by (Hi, Geoff). A few more sent their friends to pick them up something (Hi, Brendan). A few random walkups. We signed some of the Kevin & Kell books dedicated to us when Bill sent people our way. It was fun.

David Kyle
Peter introduced us to David Kyle. David Kyle was organizing science fiction cons back when they called it "scientifiction". He published the first hardcover books by Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert Howard. He wrote three Lensman books. He's easy to spot at a science-fiction convention because he wears a red jacket and is in his late 80s.

He's cool. Not "cool for such an old guy". He's cool. He asked how long we were married. Three years, we said.

"How many months? How many days?"

"Today's the twenty-fifth?"

"Yeah"

"Three years, three months, and three days".

"You're putting me on".

"Nope. Jackpot."

The Dinner
There was an awards banquet Saturday night. We didn't get tickets. We weren't aware of it until Peter asked us how many tickets we had. So us, Bill Holbrook, Dressari, and the Prellwitz family headed off to dinner at a local Chinese buffet. I felt bad about taking them away from the banquet for a while until I realized that Peter's children didn't have tickets either and he couldn't've just left them there.

I learned something important about Kevin & Kell from Bill. Kell Dewclaw? In her last name, the stress is on the second syllable as if it were DuClaw. I had always pronounced it with the stress on the first syllable, like "dewdrop".

Bill asked what Lemon Technology actually does. They resell fragrances, generally for industrial use. I wanted it to be a company that did something that would never affect most people. Something that was unglamorous and had a fairly limited market. A company that didn't sell direct to the public. But when your company orders a gallon of pine-scented disinfectant to mop the floors with, the pine scent has to come from somewhere.

Since this was the largest number of You Say it First readers I had assembled to date, I asked if they thought they could tell when Isabel wrote the comic and when I wrote it. I had always wondered about that, how similar our writing styles really are. I think they're fairly different, but since we edit each others' work it probably gets blurry. They said they never thought about it, which means there probably aren't any great differences. One day I may publish a scorecard. The Lounge Guys give you +5 to "Written by Terrence". Or maybe not. I'm never sure about how much of the process to reveal.

George Takei
I was walking through the hotel lobby. A man was looking for his wife. She came into the room and said, "Georgie! There you are!". As I walked away, there was an Asian man in a Planet Hollywood jacket around the corner. He said "I thought I heard somebody calling me".

I said "No, I think it was a different George".

I realized, then, that he was George Takei. We were heading the same direction - I was staying a few doors down from him, I later found out. That meant that I had a whole minute to try to think of something better to say than "George Takei! You are so cool!". Because, well, he's just come back from several hours of that. I couldn't so we walked quietly back to our rooms.

The End. Hope you had as much fun reading it as I did living it.

 

04.28.06 - Terrence Marks:
So why is the comic late? Well, the script needed a bit of polishing. The plan was to put it up Saturday evening. Then, our cat, Buttons, ate a piece of thread. This can be deadly, because the thread can...well, it's unpleasant. That's all most of you need to know about it. We spent most of tonight in the kitty emergency room. She seems to be doing fine, but it cuts into our comic-making time and I have to wake up in five hours to go to work. Sorry, folks.

 

04.30.06 - Isabel Marks:
Hi gang...it's time for another funday Monday news update! With actual important news!

First off... we made the goal for the month of May- which means Namir Deiter will update seven days a week, You Say it First updates six and Spare Parts two. Thanks to everyone who donated (especially to one person in particular... I owe you, my friend... I owe you. If I could bake, I'd send you cookies). Bonus content (such as wallpapers and bonus story info) will be up in the next coming days... sorry, the Buttons the kitten issue (which was paid by your loving support- thank you all!! ;__;) threw me for a loop. As for Buttons... she's still not feeling well from all the hydrogen peroxide they gave her. If she's not better by tomorrow night we get to take her to the vet and pray there is a way out of this that won't cost thousands.

We're having a 24-hour sale on May 1st. Discounts on Spare Parts, The Shokora Diaries, Undoubtedly Kawaii, and the Namir Deiter 2005 Yearbook.

Ok, I JUST found out Free Comic Book Day is May 6th. My ever-loving hubby told me it was around October... yeah, we didn't know. After last year I wanted to do something really special and fun for the 2006 version, but it looks like once again I will have to do something really quick and cheesy! Hooray!

Want to know how to get the free comic book day book sent to your home? Unfortunately I don't have the power of free distribution in comic book shops... so you all will have to pay for shipping (boo me if you like).
There are several ways to get the book...

If you donate at least $1.20 (and live in the US or Canada)- you will get one of these books sent to you plus the wallpaper as usual. No fuss, no muss. E-mail me if you live outside of the US for the price... I don't have them on-hand. This is to offset shipping and just a little bit of the production.

If you donate the $10 to get the bonus book for the month- the Free Comic Book day book will be sent free of charge along with it (plus of course your one month account to NamirDeiter.net, home to daily comic commentary, sketch days five days a week, comics two days a week plus oodles of wallpapers!).

If purchase at least one of the books from the ND Unlimited Story in the month of May you will receive the free comic book day book free of charge.

I hope to have the book ready to be shipped no later than the end of May... no earlier than the 6th (sorry... still got to write, draw and make the things). The book will only be available for the month, but will more than likely become web content in a few months from now (but as a bonus incentive to donate and/or pay for your shipping... it'll be a story from an all new series. Ooooohh!). Of course page count is still undecided.

Also, all of April's donation books have been sent! We will work on buttons for donators soon!

Also... an update on Namir Deiter Book 2!

...ok, we have now heard back from all the books editors (yes, my grammar is so horrid that I need more than one) and Terrence is making the changes as I type this. We are also working on getting our ISBN numbers to work for us (which means we might be able to sell the books through Amazon... if we ever get the chance to look into it). I hope to have the book to the printers by the end of the week... which means we are now one week behind schedule. Nuts.

How will this affect pre-orders? I really hope it doesn't... I'm especially worried now because Terrence and myself will be out of town near the end of the month, which may throw a few more wrenches (or monkeys) into the works. I will try my best to leave things in such a way where my relative monkey minions can gets the books shipped to pre-order people while I am away.

 

05.07.06 - Isabel Marks:
Last Monday while doing laundry my back went out... I could not move... it took many tears and ten minutes to get my phone off the floor to call Terrence. It was horrible. I was crying, afraid that I would need months of rehabilitation... I remembered the time I had to learn to walk again after having my hips straightened as a young girl. I was genuinely afraid. Terrence came home and helped me to the Emergency Room, which took forever. They gave some a Motrin shot and after an X-Ray it was determined that my two lower bones in my spine were too close together. They gave me some really strong pain killers and Ibuprofen to take. Unfortunately the Ibuprofen did absolutely nothing so I had to take the stronger pain killers that week, causing me to be quite woozy most of the time. It's a good thing I had scripts for ND- otherwise it would not have updated because I could not think straight with the meds (as it was, I could barely sit up in my chair for most of the week without being in extreme pain). I tried to keep the comics going, but for the most part I was bed-ridden (If I was on my back, I had to stay there till Terrence got home to help me up) until my doctor's appointment on Thursday.

When Thursday came I got doubly bad news- turns out I have arthritis in my back AND I have diabetes... which means I now have to turn my entire life upside down... I have to learn how to deal with the pain AND eat three meals a day (I have never been the kind of person who can eat a full meal... I eat small meals throughout the day, something that so far my stomach has rejected.

It's a lot to deal with... I ended up in tears at the doctor's office.

Yesterday was my first day off of the pills and off of bed rest. My back still hurts like crazy but I can clean the house again and work on comics.

And that, my friends, is why the updating schedule was so bad last week. Those of you who have been around the site for a while know I HATE not updating on time and it takes something really big (and unplanned) to cause me not to update. Unfortunately my life since I-CON has been running like some cheesy Spanish Novela (the short of it is I have a lot of dying relatives right now and everyone in my family is one tether from snapping more than they are now... it's not pretty and this is only the half of it).

I'm trying my best, people. But I have a lot on my plate, not counting my comics. If I didn't have the comics, I'd still be losing my mind with stress. Add 15 comics a week plus coloring work... and all I can say is, I'm doing the best I can- cut me some slack... don't donate if you don't like it... just please don't e-mail bitching to me about how you don't like it, because I don't like the comic not updating properly either.

And I want to say thank you to everyone who did donate, especially those who donated this month for showing your faith in me, because I need it right now. We're still a little behind schedule with the daily commentary and wallpapers, but I'm trying to make sure that you get extra special things. As I'm sure you noticed, I put a lot of detail into the wallpapers this month, at least for ND and Spare Parts. The intricate YSIF one is coming up.

 

05.15.06 - Terrence Marks:
Hope you had a nice Mother's Day. Isabel's mother pulled a muscle in her back yesterday. Isabel spent all afternoon and most of the night in the hospital with her mom. There are two dozen pharmacies within a five mile radius. We spent the last three hours trying to find the only one that's open late. It's midnight. Isabel's been on her feet all day. The comics are going to be late. We're sorry that the comic is late, but things like this keep happening to us - I'm going to make a big status update chart for those of you keeping score at home. Isabel's mother is back home, at least. I hope you had a good Mother's Day, and I mean that sincerely.

 

05.30.06 - Isabel Marks:
Hi all!

First off, we'll be out till the end of the week, so all store orders/ donations will not be processed until next week and neither will my e-mail (which I'm still horribly behind on). Also, we still have a few buttons left to do from last month's donation gift (Terrence is having trouble with the button maker). Also, June's wallpapers will be a little late since I'll be out of town and ran out of time (sorry!).

Please be sure to check out my MySpace page, sometimes my blog contains ND and NDU related items!

 

Spare Parts  is © Terrence Marks and Isabel Marks, 2003. Do not distribute any images on this site without the artist's permission or without giving credit to the comic's creators (including a link back to https://www.sparepartscomics.com/). Spare Parts has been on the web since October 2003 and updates every Monday, Wednesday  Friday at 12 AM Pacific time.