Aftermath - Part 3

That wraps up the Technosyde story for now, although I'm sure that won't be the last we see of him.  It's been a lot of fun writing for him.

Jason posted a new SSS, and you can find it here.  He's had some serious writer's block of late, so be sure to show him some love.

And while you're doling out affection, show me some love, too, by sharing the comic with your unwitting friends on your preferred social media of choice.  If you'd be so kind.  As always, thank you for your support.  I literally can't do this without you.  No, literally.  Like, I'm near the point where I have to stop completely and get a third-shift job at Denny's.  I wish I was kidding.

Ejection

Rant incoming.  You have been warned.

So yesterday while drawing this strip, I had an... experience.  Often I will open up a Google Hangout when I'm drawing and screen-share.  I make the Hangout public, so as to attract new readers, and what's more I put the address of the Hangout on Twitter and hashtag it with stuff like #superheroes and #webcomics.  Well, shortly after doing so, someone came into the room.  I have my mic off so I can listen to music (because apparently playing music during a Hangout is considered an "illlegal broadcast") but I keep my ears peeled in case someone wants to chat (preferably someone I know).  After a while, this person began to play a terrible parody country song on his end.  It was annoying, because this gargled garbage interfered with the music I was listening to, but I figured I'd just let it go, because the person would probably lose interest and leave soon anyway.  Besides, I was on a roll.

Well, I think the song had replayed about five times before I couldn't take it anymore.  I brought up the Hangout window and saw some fat, scuzzy-looking dirtbag just staring at the screen, sitting on a bed.  He looked like a younger, dirtier, chunkier version of the character Benicio Del Toro played in Fear and Loathing.  Whatever, I closed the Hangout and made a new one.  This time I didn't make it public (because I could NOT hear that song again), hashtagged it with the usual stuff, and I put the new address up on Twitter and tagged a few of my friends to come and watch (which I figured they wouldn't, being people with jobs, but you never know).  Anyway, in comes dude again.  I can tell because there's that fucking song. 

I click over, and what should I see?  You've probably guessed by now.  Penis all up in the camera.  I killed the Hangout, and then went back to my Google + page to look at the first movie I'd done.  Lots and lots of tiny, dirty-guy penis.  

So, great.  My movie is ruined.  Obviously I had to delete it off my page.  It's especially shitty because people probably came into the room as well, thinking they were going to see illustration, and they got that instead.  I know at least one person did - a younger-looking girl.  Unsurprisingly, she didn't stick around.

There are several aspects of this story that I don't understand.  Foremost, what compels a person to do this?!  I mean, there was usually nobody else in the room, and therefore nobody else watching scuzzy guy masturbating.  I understand some people are exhibitionists, but where's, like, the thrill in that?  Secondly, how was this activity so appealing to Scuzzy that he was inclined to follow me back into a non-public Hangout to continue?  Thirdly, and this may be slightly beside the point, but I can't play music without risking my Hangout being closed on me, but Scuzzy can play one song on repeat and play with himself and that's okay?

After I deleted my videos I attempted to block this person from interacting with me on Google +, only to find out that this isn't an option.  Nice job, Google.  I remarked what happened on Twitter to the friends I'd mentioned, and Scuzzy actually responded.  At least on Twitter I could block him.  Twitter - 1, Google - 0.

Incidentally, this morning that Tweet of mine got retweeted by somebody else.  I looked into it, and it appears this person had gone into a Hangout with some of his friends and Scuzzy came in, doing what Scuzzy does best.

For future reference, Scuzzy's Google handle is "tim smith," and on Twitter he's "@hom_joseph," though I'm sure by now he's changed those.

For those of you who know me well, you know I have very little faith in humanity.  Faith of any sort, for that matter, and certainly no faith in the internet.  It's always been a struggle with me to produce digital art for a webcomic when I loathe both computers and the web.  Things like what happened yesterday make me question my direction in life (as if I needed any more of that happening).

Part of me just thinks: Scuzzy was just a troll.  Troll's troll.  Don't let it get to you.  But you know what?  What that sick fuck did was way beyond trolling.

The other part of me wants to hang it all up.  Cash out.  Be done with all of it.  Smash my computer into tiny pieces, and shield my daughter from even the chance of ever seeing a single disgusting person for the entirety of her life. 

As I've mentioned before, I've already set some plans in motion to withdraw myself and my family from this perverted, ignorant, hateful, materialistic, self-destructive society.  Yesterday's events have only strengthened my resolve.

Unbeknownst

The Technosyde story is nearing completion, as is, actually, the chapter.  I think there's only 9 strips left.  Like I said before, the hiatus between this chapter and the next is gonna be a really short one, but I wanted to go over what's gonna happen during that time (more for my benefit than anyone else's).

-Revisiting the merchandise.  Nobody's buying it.  It's time to lower some prices, axe some merch and create some new merch.  I may even need to look into different merchandisers entirely.  I'm still looking for feedback from you guys as to what kind of merch you'd like to see.  You don't need to buy anything, just tell me what you would buy, theoretically.

-New marketing campaign.  My current one gets me a lot of visits to the page, but that's as far as it goes; it hasn't seemed to attract a returning audience.  Maybe it's just because my comic sucks?  I have no idea.

-Looking into a new website entirely.  I think one of the major things my comic suffers from is site navigation.  As far as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be a way to make it any easier using Blogspot.  I know for a fact I can do it better through WordPress or the like, but the last time I tried that it was pretty unsuccessful.  It wasn't drawing an audience, and my regular readers were still coming here.  I plan on keeping this site going for some time, and playing with this whole Google + relationship, but behind-the-scenes I may start building a better site, and then one day I'll switch it up on you out of the blue.

Trepidation

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.  I won't be doing a strip for Thursday.  I'm still planning to do a Walter's File for Saturday, though.

I was lucky to have been able to finish this one as it is.  My daughter is home from school for the whole week.  Fortunately she was reasonably accommodating yesterday to her Dad sitting at the computer for the entire day, but I won't be pushing my luck on that one.

Now that Aiden knows of his curse, he's become as fearful of dying as any mortal.  After all, what good is it being immortal if you have to start from scratch each time you die?  It seems the brazen, misplaced-confidence Aiden has gone the way of the dodo...

Put a Hurtin'

This one took just about every waking moment I had available yesterday.  I'm happy with how it turned out, though.  

I'd love to stay and chat, but I got shit to do.  No Walters File this Saturday... I have family staying for a couple days.

I'll do my damndest to get strips out next week on time, but it ain't gonna be easy; my kid's got the entire week off of school for Fall Break (which, apparently, is a thing), so I'm not going to have the free time.  Really, my productivity depends on her temperament and level of ambition.  Plus Thanksgiving and everything.  I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for reading!  Bonus points for sharing!

Pleading

My wife made me aware that Super U. just had it's two-year anniversary.  And by "just" I mean 12 days ago.  Oops!  I had intended to make a big announcement and stuff, but it slipped my mind.

So, yeah.  Super U. is two years old this month!  104 strips isn't a staggering amount of material for two years worth of work, but I like to look at how far the strip has come since then.  

Observe:

In that time I've managed to do almost everything I've set out to do.  I've got the website looking sharper (I would still like to improve navigation, but I'm pretty restricted using Blogspot), I have merchandise for sale (including an actual book), I'm social media'ing, advertising, I have business cards, and I've gone bi-weekly (tri-weekly if you count the Walters Files).

There's still a lot more to be accomplished, but that's not entirely up to me; it's also up to you.  I need your help spreading the Super U. love.  Help me to make this thing successful.

As an addendum, people have asked my why I'm on Blogspot and not Wordpress or the like.  The fact of the matter is I was, and am still, technically, but nobody was going to that site.  Everyone was going here.  So I'm banking pretty heavily on this whole one-Google thing, more specifically the connectedness of Google, Google+, Blogspot, YouTube and so on.  I don't particularly like it, but I'm trying to reap any sort of benefit I can from it.  I'm attempting to work within the system Google put in place.

It's not out of the question that I may potentially one day move all of this material over to a more professional location, but for now, here's as good as anywhere.

If you have any suggestions, feedback, etc... I'd love to hear it.  

Technosyde Enters

(Make sure to read the comic before the blog.)

If this comic were never to get off the ground, at the minimum years from now I can say that I was able to draw a robot getting intimate with a weedwacker.

Things are going to get even uglier from here, but I promise you that's the last of the mechanophilia.  At least for a little while.

Believe it or not, this begins the chain of events that lead to the end of Chapter 3.  It's weird to think that I'm so close to that point already.  Posting comics bi-weekly instead of sporadically has been a major contributing factor to that, sure, but still...

For those of you interested in knowing, there are 39 strips per chapter.  I went with that number because it allows me, when making a book, to put three strips on a page (a book being two chapters).

I'm getting ahead of myself a bit, but I wanted to let you know that I plan on the "hiatus" between Chapters 3 and 4 being pretty short.  I won't be doing the YouTube movies anymore, so really I'll just need a short amount of time to get some ideas down on paper, and re-evaluate the merchandise and marketing and all that fun stuff.  After Chapter 4, the hiatus will be longer, because I plan on making a new book.  Once I have two of those under my belt, we'll just have to see how things go from there.  Conventions may be the next logical step.

Saboteur

Welcome to the 100th strip of Super U.!  Super U. has been going on for very nearly two years already.  Can you believe it?  It has been a road long and difficult, and yet thoroughly enjoyable and has gone by in a blur.  I know those things are opposites.  They're still true.

Also, Happy Halloween.  I thought I would do something a little different today, for the occasion(s).  I've stepped outside the plot for a moment to show off my new villain for this chapter, Technosyde.  I thank my friend Jason for doing most of the footwork on his creation (Technosyde has already been featured in a couple Saturday Super Stories).  I've been trying to piece together a quirky personality for him in my brain for some time now, and I like what I've come up with.  I'm anxious to show more of him to you.  You'll just have to wait to see what the hell's up with that purple toaster.

Also, man, them panels look pretty sharp, right?  Shading is fun.  It makes the strip take significantly longer, when I'm trying to shorten the length of time I spend on each comic, but it's so worth it.

For the last couple strips I haven't been drawing in a Hangout.  Sorry.  Hopefully next week I'll be doing that again.

There are lots of you who've been reading since the beginning 2 years ago, and I want to take a moment again to thank you.  This wouldn't be going on without your support.

But we still have lots of work to do.  Don't forget, just because I'm not on Facebook anymore doesn't mean you are prohibited from sharing the comic on Facebook, or anywhere else for that matter.

Also, in celebration of the 100th strip, why not buy a metric ton of merchandise?  I have provided you ample opportunities right here on the site to do so.  There people who have already purchased one or many items from the shop or bookstore, and it's an inarguable fact that those people are just really a lot cooler than other people.