To make good on last week’s lapse, I’ll post two comics this week, one today, and one on Wednesday. Seriously, thanks for your patience.

Also, say hello to my sweet, gorgeous, wife Andrea. She agreed to guest-star in this story line and class the place up bit. Who’s got his caps lock on and married up? THIS GUY!

PS: I just got a good look at my meat-hook of a hand there in panel one. Anyone need a jar opened?

Hi gang, I’m planning to get a run of die-cut vinyl stickers printed up of the Biz Fairies. Initially I’m only going to do one of them and print the other as I sell enough to pay for the next run. The stickers will be about business card size, which makes them perfect for adorning your laptop, sketchbook , Trapper Keeper or automobile.

Not having the hard production numbers yet, I’ll not commit to a price, but I plan on offering something like a 3-pack of stickers for somewhere under $5. It will be fair for stickers.

I need your help. Since you guys will be the ones buying the stickers, I want to make sure the first Biz Fairy I print is your favorite one. So, if you could take the poll below, I would be grateful. Here’s a side-by-side shot as a reminder.

In other news, I created a Facebook Group for LOLZIES!!1@!. I’ll try to keep it fun. I’ll upload scans from my sketchbook and other little extras as well.

I don’t use traditional forums myself (They are kind of ugly!), even for things I’m really into, so it seemed like offering a group on Facebook, where many of you already have accounts, would be handier for you than asking you to sign up for yet another forum. And don’t worry, I’m not going to pout if there’s not a new post every week discussing the literary and artistic weight of my comics. I’ll keep it more about having fun with generally funny discussion, photoshop tennis, videos, scavenger hunts and stuff like that. I’ve got some ideas for how we can have fun with the stickers too.

Thanks for reading.

Charlie

This will be either a four or five part series, so that means a little break from the Biz Fairies for a few weeks. If you guys revolt or something, I might drop one in between somewhere.

Stay tuned for my asking you about your real feelings for the Biz Fairies in the next few days. I’m pricing some die-cut, vinyl stickers of one of them. They will be small enough to slap on your laptop, CPU tower, car and should be a real gas.

Thanks for reading.

The week’s hiatus has been due to our second daughter finally making her grand entrance. When I’ve not been squirreling away extra hours of sleep, I’ve been nibbling little cheeks. Good times.

If you’d like to learn something about the ideas in today’s comic, please enjoy the Wikipedia article on Self-Actualization.

UPDATE: 10-09-08
I forgot to include this link yesterday, but if you’d like to get a better look at, and/or buy, the “crass t-shirt” in this comic, enjoy Stabby McKnife over at Threadless. But take your sense of humor, or you might get mad at me.

Hopefully we will see at least one of Strawbs’ shows. Geraldo Rivera’s Mustache might drop in now and again as well.

As for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, I can’t stay mad at those guys.

Here I am, one year after having launched a webcomic.

At the crack of 2007, I declared a New Year’s Resolution to begin a “weekly internet cartoon”. It took me most of the year to get the details worked out (read: get off my butt and do it). I posted my first comic to this blog (unlaunched at the time while I worked up 5 initial comics) on September 10th, 2007.

Since then I’ve changed a few things up. I started using my own photos for the first couple comics, then switched to cheap, cheezy stock photography as a satire of it. I enjoyed it alot, but was running into some difficulties. I was spending way too much time searching for just the right stock photo to match the image in my head. Additionally, I knew I didn’t own the images and it was going to put me out of ever selling a book collection of my comics, or anything else with those images on it. So I switched back to using my own photography.

There was a brief period of good old fashion inked cartooning with Bean and Stachey, but I lacked the time to really put into that. Taking photos was faster and was really the concept I launched with in the first place, so I needed to get back to that. I’m still writing and drawing for Bean and Stachey, and they may show their face in their own strip one day, but you won’t see them here for a long time.

I’ve been reading a lot about other webcartoonists who are making a legit go of it and have been inspired by it. I don’t have plans to do anything rash (don’t worry, Matt.), but I’m interested in seeing if I can make a part-time income from the comics. So I’m trying to get more serious about committing to an update schedule as well as pushing myself more with the image quality and some products.

I really liked the way last week’s magnet comic turned out, with the little vector guys seeming to be actually standing in a real-life place. I want to experiment more with that, so I’m trying to develop other recuring characters.

I’ll also be experimenting with a more consistent format. I don’t know yet if I’ll go with the traditional daily newspaper style of three to four panels, but I need something more consistent if I’m going to try to collect these in a book one day.
To you few, dear, loyal readers, thank you. Sincerely, thank you. It’s been a lot of fun connecting with you through the comic, and I hope to keep doing it for a long time. I did this because I wanted a non-client creative outlet that would still allow me to connect with the people who would use it, and produce something that would resonate with people. It has been really fulfilling.

So, I’ll keep writing and drawing and making ridiculous faces if you’ll keep reading.

Thanks.

Charlie

I asked Derrick, a friend of mine nerdier than I (always a good policy when looking for info) about the validity of my comic. He said, “Repulsive magnetic force. Blah, blah, blah, science.” which didn’t really help me. So I went to Wikipedia.

You should go check out the entry for Magnet.

One more thing, let’s make today a delurking day. If you surfed by and read the comic, go ahead and leave a comment. It doesn’t have to be a long one, or a nice one. Here are some copy/pasteable, ready-to-use comments if you’re having trouble coming up with one.

“Hi.”

“Hi, I love your comic.”

“Hi, I hate your comic.”

“Hi, I don’t get your comic.”

“Hi, I don’t really have a strong opinion about your comic, but it sure beats working.”