My hometown comic con is fast approaching! With 2 weeks to go I'm in overdrive coordinating with the guys at New Haven Comics, not to mention getting all my signage squared away. I hope to see some of you down at Bartle Hall March 14-16th! It'll be your first chance to get your very own HWSS@W Work Survival Kit, as well as the Server's Friend Pilfer Prevention Pen, and the Zero's Heroes Annual, which contains my first full-size solo comic: A Week in the Life of Wreck-Lass! We'll also be raffling off a delicious cookie bouquet generously provided by my day job at Cookies by Design! Not to mention all the other comic book and media guests... It's going to be insane.

So don't forget booth number 843! See you there!

All the swag came back from the printer for the official HWSS@W Work Survival Kit! Check out the pictures on my Tumblr! These kits will contain stuff to hopefully make your work day a little better, no matter your job. As of now I'll be at Planet Comicon in March, Kantcon in July, and Freestate Comicon in September(ish). There very well may be others, we'll see!

Hope you all enjoyed your Christmas holiday. We're almost to 2014! There seems to be optimism going around that this next year is gonna be great. We just have to trust our writers.

Hey guys! I've decided to go for it all the way to #50! Somehow I made a miscalculation though; it will go up on the 17th. After that will be a month-long hiatus. During the hiatus you can still see comic WIP shots over on my Tumblr. Make sure to come back on January 14th for the 2nd half of this grand comics experiment!

I'll also be working on merch! With a little help from a friend I realized I should sell a Work Survival Kit. What do you guys say to stuff like snarky post-its, candy, stress ball, Customer Service Bingo, and a Server's Friend Pilfer-Prevention Pen? Anything else you'd like to see? I want to keep these around $10-15, including packaging.

I also wanted to talk a little about the season of giving. There are so many good charities to donate to this holiday, I can't possibly list them all. Personally, I've been watching the Yogscast Dwarven Dairy Drive Livestream. They have 5 charities to donate to(Oxfam, SpecialEffect, Little People UK, GamesAid, and War Child), they will let you pick and choose where your money goes between the 5, and you also get awesome incentives from Humble Bundle for donating! The Yogscast guys are streaming every night this month so you even get awesome free entertainment.

It's November now and winter has finally started creeping in. My mother, interestingly, vascillates between loudly proclaiming that Christmas ads on TV need to die, and musing about decorating. My cookie job continues to also vascillate between varieties of interesting designs and WE NEED 150 OF THE SAME TINY COOKIE BY TOMORROW. How are you all doing, gentle readers?

As the holiday season will undoubtedly be bat-shit crazy I'm thinking that a holiday break is in order. Now I'm still keeping up with my buffer, so there's no problem there, but it would be nice present to myself. Also I'm thinking people will be travelling a lot and won't be able/will forget to check their webcomics. I'd keep working through the break, but perhaps at a slower pace, and posting will resume after a month, sometime in January. But at the same time it feels like I should end on a milestone, and comic #50 (which I've planned as a special super-big comic) isn't too far away. In fact, continuing at my current pace I'd finish drawing through #50 by the first week of December. Only thing is it would upload on the 19th, dangerously close to Christmas. So what option sounds best to you guys? Would you rather I not take a break at all? Let me know!

So this week I did 3 conventions. The first: a college fair for my alma mater. The 2nd, a merchant convention for my cookie job in which you could say I was a booth babe. I wore a costume (Chrismas apron), handed out samples, and shilled our products. That's the definition of a booth babe, right? The 3rd was a comic convention I did with New Haven Comics. It seems people are really on board with this HWSS@W thing. One kid handed the "You're My Best Friend, Coffee Machine!" sticker to her mom gleefully proclaiming, "That's you!" I need to start thinking up merchandise designs though. If anyone has any ideas please shoot me an email at ProjectShiroStudios@gmail.com. It's getting annoying that people can't comment on these blogs.

JAWN BAWND also has a new episode this week with another hilarious work story. Go check it out!

My new job is going well! I decorate cookies now for a boquet company. Squeezing bags of icing has so far been very hard on my hands, but I've also noticed a marked improvement in my pressure control when inking HWSS@W. Plus I get to take home cookies that we don't sell at the end of the week! So I'm excited to see where this goes. Mmmmm, cookies. (You'll see a story from this job in about 2 weeks!)

I also wanted to let you all know about this video from one of the regulars from my waitressing days. Mixed in with all the absurd jokes is a piece of retail karmic GOLD. Don't mind the peanut butter shave, that's just how John is. We don't bring it up.

Wait, did I accidentally wait a month in between news updates? <.<; Woops.

We're coming up on the comic's 3rd month, and I'm feeling good. Another mini-milestone is coming up too: comic #30 will be posted on October 10th. I do have a bigger comic planned, but I figured I'd wait until #50. 50 feels like a more official number. Until then I'm just counting silly things for my own excitement. ^_^

I did not get out to Project Comic Con, but then again I don't think anyone went looking for me so that's fine. Preparations are being made for Free State Comicon on October 19th. Aaron and I will be there with Zero's Heroes books, posters, and T-shirts! Maybe I should make a HWSS@W print..... hmmm.....

And lastly, here's a video for all of us in the biz, and all of you who have had the fortune not to apply yet. RUN. RUN WHILE YOU CAN.

I did some guest art for The Muse Mentor that went up yesterday! The comic has amazing character design and colors, which I always go gaga for being a colorist by trade. You should definitely check it out.

Things are going ok in Kansasland. I'm still looking for a job, but at least I have some temp gigs and loads of time to make comics. Zero's Heroes is into chapter 11 now and I'm finishing up the Wreck-Lass side story slowly but surely. I'm going to try and make it to Project Comic Con in Saint Louis on September 21-22, we'll see how the money situation is. But I'll definitely be at Free State Comicon in Lawrence, KS October 19th! The small local cons are so much more intimate and gratifying than those big ones, even though they aren't as glitzy. If you're in the Lawrence area definitely come on up.

Lastly: I dedicate this blog to plymayer, who has been commenting on all my comics. Shut up, it's encouraging!