Hey there!
What’s up? How’ve you been?
We were supposed to get rain this week but nary a drop actually fell. I did see rain clouds off the the south of my town but apparently I have to water my own flowerbeds.
Oh well.
It’s not actually fall until next week, but I’m seeing a few hints of changing colors. Hopefully I’ll have some cool pics for this spot of the newsletter in a couple weeks.
Speaking of cool pics, I just happened to glance out my window and saw this:
This is a bloom on my Franklinia tree, which only seems to bloom every few years… it is still a baby, though, so it may be that as it gets bigger and more established it will have the resources to bloom each year. It blooms starting in the fall (last time a couple years back, not until October) and will keep going sporadically into November until it gets really too cold.
Meanwhile, a few feet away, one of my hardy hibiscuses is still going, although it’s a bit weary:
BRING ME THE ROYAL FLIP-FLOPS
Well, that second proof was perfect!
So, the paperback edition is ready to go. Which brought me to the ebook edition… now, the Google tells me that only 9% of graphic novels or comics are bought as ebooks, but I figure it’s a good idea to spend a bit of time to make an ebook version so anyone who wants an ebook version has the option.
That, of course, requires a much smaller file size than the paperback, so I’m having to tweak page by page in order to make it good while optimizing image sizes. I hope to have it done this week, and then I can finalize the release date for both (probably October 1).
READER MAGNET
I’ve been trying to think of a good freebie to give away for my newsletter subscribers. Some say to give away a whole book… which sounds good except ya gotta have multiple books done in order to give one away for free, so that’s something to consider a few years from now.
Also, I think it would be best if it incorporates characters from all 3 of my main projects: Noah’s Archipelago, Ricky B. The Rock N Roll Rat, and Zamo the Destroyer without leaning too much on any one of them.
The other day I had the idea to make an activity/puzzle book for my reader magnet. It will be a PDF for easy printing and will have a mix of coloring pages, word searches, crosswords, connect-the-dots, and more. Roughly 50 in all, plus an answer key at the back and intro material.
I have a few coloring pages already done that I can slot into it, but I’ve also started to work on creating the other puzzles and hope to get it done in the next couple weeks.
It’s been pretty fun so far, and it occurred to me that maybe I’ll do more puzzle books in the future that will be for sale while this one remains exclusive to newsletter subscribers.
RICKY’S WEEKEND WARRIORIN’
It’s the second Monday of the month and that means it’s Ricky from Ricky B. the Rock N Roll Rat’s turn to hog this space. Take it away, Ricky:
Hey y’all! Ricky here. I had a great weekend, did you?
Here in Ratsville it was time for the annual Ratsville County Fair, which we all go to every year, and the recording studio closed for the weekend so we could all go.
Well, OK, it was ‘cause Big Mike was in LA and Jeff was off on a meditation retreat in Arizona, and the other big timers were in LA or off on vacation, too. But still: we was shut down for the weekend and that meant I could go to the fair at the crack of noon on Friday.
Now, I love the fair, and I been going every year all my life. Mama Rat enters stuff in the knitting division inside the big hall, and usually she demands I help her stuff the people’s choice ballot box to make sure she wins an extra prize.
This year, though, I didn’t even get that far: as soon as I walked up to the admissions gate, the volunteers tried to shoo me away saying, “Beat it, Rateriff! You’re not allowed in the fair!”
Well, I argued and such but they wouldn’t listen to reason and I knew it was ‘cause of the ballot stuffing. But I also knew that if I walked down to the far end of the parking lot on the big hay field, I could hop a small hedge onto the neighboring hay field and sneak all along the hedge back towards the highway, which is the end where they have the midway and the rides anyway, then just hop back over the hedge so long as there wasn’t no fair cops hanging around, and then I could just go get my grub on and ride the Zipper and barf it all up and then get my grub on again from a different food truck and so on. Which is what I do all weekend every fair weekend.
Oh, and hang around the beer garden with my cousins.
So, I pretended I was gonna be the bigger rat-man and I said, “OK, fine, I’ll go home.” And I turned around from the gate and made like I was heading back to my car.
Except I turned around a few car lanes down and snuck behind some big livestock trailers and made my way to the edge with the hedge. Then I hopped that and crept along to the highway and hopped over right behind the bumper cars and I headed over to the Hank’s Hot Dogs food truck and ordered me a batch of 3 chili cheese corn dogs and an extra large Rat Cola. And I dropped a fiver in the tip jar, too.
And right as Hank was calling my number, I hear this voice yelling, “Get ‘im!” and I thought, well, yeah, that’s what I’m gonna do, I’m gonna get ‘em, and I reached out to Hank and he reached out to me and I got tackled by three of them cheap-ass fall fair rent-a-cop assholes.
“Get outta here, Rateriff! You know you’ve been banned from the fair!”
“What? Me? Naw, man, I ain’t done nothin’!”
Well, they kept yellin’ and I insisted I ain’t done nothin’ wrong and they recited all the times I been caught on security footage stuffing the ballot box for the People’s Choice prize for the knitting, and I pointed out that if they actually had all them cock cameras or whatever they’s called, they woulda seen I ain’t even been near the exhibition hall yet today but they said it didn’t matter and I said I got a right to be at the fall fair because all the TV commercials and billboards say the Ratsville County Fall Fair is for everyone and I’m an everyone.
Also I didn’t want my dogs to get cold so I kept trying to get up and get ‘em from the counter of Hank’s truck and the fair cops kept tackling me down to the gravel ground and trying to get me in cuffs.
And then I saw Hank run out the back of the food truck and he started punching the cops. And then Juan from the Burritomobile came and he was kicking the crap out of the cops, too. And a bunch of the other food truck operators came up and joined the brawl.
In the mess I managed to grab my dogs and my Rat Cola and scarfed those down as fast as I could. I was trying to figure out what to do, because Hank and Juan and the rest of the food truck folks had my back, so I figured I should have theirs, too, so I jumped back into the melee.
By this point the Ratsville Country Fall Fair chairlady had come down from the office and was trying to restore order by yellin’ and demanding I be removed from the fair, but the food truck gang all told her to get stuffed.
Hank in particular was all riled up. “Fuck you, Fiona! You’re not banning our best customer!”
Brock from the beer garden was just walking up at the time and he piped up saying, “Do you have any idea how much the Rateriff clan drinks? And Ricky in particular? Don’t you dare ban him!”
And the rest of the food truck folks were yelling in agreement. Some even said they’d boycott the fair if I wasn’t allowed to stay.
So the chairlady got all sulky but she said, “OK, he can stay. But he’s not allowed in the exhibition hall.”
And I said, “Sounds good to me, ma’am. I’m only here for the booze and the grub and the zipper anyway.”
The security douchebags were all mad but they took one look at Tokyo Noboru from the sushi truck as he stared them down, with that rising sun bandana headband over his brows and that ciggy hanging outta his sneering mouth and them two giant yanagiba knives glistening in the sun, and they all slowly backed away up to the perimeter of the exhibition hall.
The chairlady glared at me and muttered something under her breath, but she turned and stomped away back to her office on the side of the exhibition hall, too.
So I looked around and I thanked the food truck guys for standing up for me.
“You order extra sashimi today,” Noboru growled.
“Yes, sir! You know my routine: 5 o’clock when my girl gets here from cosmetology school, we’s gonna feast on your fish.”
He nodded, all solemn-like, and headed back to his truck, and the rest of the crew all went back to theirs, and by that point my cousins Darren and Billy also hopped over the hedge behind the bumper cars, so we went on a tear at the beer garden before hitting the Zipper so as to make room for a large pepperoni with extra cheese—each—from Frankie’s Pizza Nostra truck.
And that’s how the weekend went: from food truck to beer garden to Zipper and to the next food truck.
Mama Rat was pissed that she had to stuff the ballot box herself, but like I said: a deal’s a deal. And I wasn’t gonna abandon my duty to the local food truck economy by breaking it and getting banned.
Uh… thank you for that, Ricky… my stomach hurts just thinking about all that.
SONG OF THE WEEK
Woke up with Incubus' "Megalomaniac" in my head. I used to think it was about Bono, but apparently the writer insists it’s not about anyone in particular.
I don’t believe him, but there ya have it.
I've also read it was about Dubya and another claim was that it was a former bandmate of the singer, so who knows...
UPCOMING “HOLIDAYS”
It’s a running gag with Noah’s Archipelago that Noah loves any National (Fill In The Blank) Day or other observances and holidays. Here’s a couple fun ones happening this week:
- Tuesday is Make a Hat Day… no thanks, I’ll stick to buying vintage ones and then never having an occasion to actually wear one
- Wednesday is Collect Rocks Day
- Friday is National Cheeseburger Day, which both Noah and Ricky consider a high holy day
- Sunday is Pepperoni Pizza Day
A FEW FAVORITES FROM THE WEEK
Just a few of the fun things I watched this week… first up, since the theme of my first book involves royalty (or at least pretend royals) and the cover has Noah wearing a kingly get-up complete with coronation robes, here’s a video talking about the Royal School of Needlework’s work on Charles III’s coronation robes:
Next up, this funny skit involving the Wizards With Guns comedy team and LikeAFoxStudios, talking about comic villains’ secret weakenesses:
I’ve also been on a bit of a kick with watching marble runs, so here’s one from Jelle’s Marble Runs:
I love those sort of contraptions but realistically, I have no space to bother setting one up, so I’ll stick to watching YouTubers do it.
Well, that’s about it from me and my cartoon friends for this week. Be sure to have some pizza and burgers and enjoy your local fall fair!
If you know anyone who might find this newsletter fun, be sure to forward it to them.
Talk to you again next week.
Pyra
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