Zwol.org

What? How can the Super Jar-Jar Explosion Episode I DVD not have any Jar-Jar in the packaging art? He's not on the case, not on either of the disks and not on the little paper insert with the chapter listings. This is outrageous! How can I experience the Super Jar-Jar Explosion without Jar-Jar?? This must be a miscalculation. Maybe there'll be a Special Total-Gungan Edition later on...

Fitting that on the day of the Super Jar-Jar Explosion (read as: "release of Episode I on DVD") that this would turn up:

"Thousands of wannabe Luke Skywalkers in Britain have apparently converted to the Force, listing 'Jedi Knight' as their faith on the country's 2001 national census form, Britain's Web-based news service Ananova reports.

"Spurred reportedly by a fan's jokey email campaign, more than 10,000 Britons put down George Lucas' mythical Star Wars religion as their own, forcing the government's Office for National Statistics to classify 'Jedi Knight' as a separate category in compiling the statistics."

Chris Baldwin shows you how he does it. I always find it fascinating to see how other artists work. It's also gratifying to learn that his workspace is almost as messy as mine.

Better late than never? Better rushed than not at all? Not sure. Don't like doing comics at 1am. See what I do you for? Truth be told, I don't do it for you, I do it for me, which is why someday I want to go back and redraw yesterday's and today's comics. I like the concept, but trying to rush a drawing when I should be fast asleep just doesn't pay. Let's hope I get it together for tomorrow's.

For the record, I was working on the site this evening, and left joined SQL statements just kill me. Glad I'm not a programmer.

I'm pleased with this one, unlike yesterday's. As mentioned in Monday's news post, there won't be a comic tomorrow, but I'll see if there's any time to redraw Tuesday's so that it's presentable. If I do, I'll let you know. Otherwise, expect the next new comic on Friday. I don't have any No Contest or Reiterating Comics strips for Saturday, so if you've got anything, feel free to send it my way.

The online versions are pretty hip, though I don't think anything will ever replace a portable copy you can stuff in your pocket, and they're no substitute for the good 'ol A-Z London. Online, I'm partial to Streetmap.co.uk

are amazingly unsophisticated. I cannot believe that these are the flyers that the US military is "distributing" to the Afghan people. Get this:

Attention Taliban! You are condemned. Did you know that? The instant the terrorists you support took over our planes, you sentenced yourselves to death. The Armed Forces of the United States are here to seek justice for our dead. Highly trained soldiers are coming to shut down once and for all Usama bin Laden's ring of terrorism, and the Taliban that supports them and their actions.

My word. It's not that I'm pro-terrorist or pro-Taliban, but it just seems to me that the issues are a whole lot more complex than this.

For more of this madness, read the full story:

As he passed through the metal detector, an airport security guard furrowed his brow at Godfrey?s reading selections as they disappeared through the conveyor belt.

On the cover of the book, Hayduke Lives! by Edward Abbey, is an illustration of a man?s hand holding several sticks of dynamite. The 1991 novel is about a radical environmentalist, George Washington Hayduke III, who blows up bridges, burns tractors and sabotages other projects he believes are destroying the beautiful Southwest landscape.

He proceeded through the security checkpoint and sat down to read near his boarding gate. About 10 minutes had passed when a National Guardsman approached Godfrey.

"He told me to step aside," Godfrey says. "Then he took my book and asked me why I was reading it."

As it turns out, it's good to know that Harry Potter's still considered safe to read in an airport.

No comic today; Comic tomorrow. Too tired last night to properly get anything done and with two sub-par comics starting out the week, I really didn't feel like slapping another one up there. This is why I need to get ahead again.

While researching digital cameras at the DPReview.com site (an excellent resource for anybody looking to buy a digital camera), I came across some sample photographs which looked very familiar. I was able to verify quickly that I was indeed looking at photos of Shad Thames, London, the street on which I lived for the entire year of 2000 by visiting their photo galleries, which are packed with tons of photos of the Butler's Warf and Tower Bridge area. It was like coming home again and made me wish (not for the first time) that I'd taken more photos when I was there myself. Somehow, you never seem to take pictures of places and things that are most familiar to you.

You know how it is when you have something to do and you tell yourself that you won't to anything until you've done that thing that you really really need/want to get done? And then because of that, you wind up doing practically nothing? That's how it was with me since Friday. I wanted to get several comics done. Heck- I wanted to get one done, but what happened instead? Nothing. A thoroughly wasted weekend comic-wise. On the plus side, I took a trip to Wendy's and documented it photographically. I had intended to put up a page showing the photos I took but, you know, I had told myself not to do anything before doing a comic so that didn't get done either. *sigh*

Anyhow, tomorrow's Zwol's official first anniversary as an ongoing webcomic site and all that jazz and I hope to good gosh to have something to show to you then. I had really wanted to have the 200th comic to show you, but it looks like I'll have to settle for the- I don't know, 192nd? 193rd? Yeah, that might be it- the 193rd comic instead. I know- there's nobody to blame but myself.

Limping across the finish line and about to start lap two...