On Monday, September 28, 2009 the creator of the strip received notification that Love Sick had advanced into the quarterfinals. It was selected from among a possible 5,000 entries as one of the top 250.

With any luck, the comic will advance into the top 50.

For more information about the contest.
http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=2128878011

Update:
Alan Gardner of The Daily Cartoonist, is compiling a comprehensive list as cartoonists are identified with links (when available) to the competition.

For more information about the contest. http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=2128878011
Also a bit fun, The Daily Cartoonist, is compiling a comprehensive list as cartoonists advance through the competition.

If you follow, you’ll be among the first to know when a new strip is added!

Starting Tuesday November 3rd Lovesickcomic.com will feature a new strip every Tuesday and Friday. So hang tight! The strip is coming.

See that menu at the top? Hit the subscribe button. You will be taken to a page where you can enter your email address so that you can automagically receive email updates whenever a new comic is posted. And don’t worry your super secret email address will be safe thanks to a top of the line email encoder thingamagigy.

Big thanks to those of you who have already subscribed!

If you are not embarrassed by your first strip then you waited too long to show it. This is the first strip I drew for Love Sick. Don’t let it get you down. I think I started this way to remind myself of the overall tone of the strip I wanted to create – a stoic melancholy happiness of sorts. Anyway, I promise most of what you will see in future strips is not quite this dark. This strip was not included in the Comic Strip Superstar Contest. The next upcoming strip was however…

An extra big thanks to all those that have stopped by to see the new Love Sick webcomic.

In addition to the comic there are other things to look forward to here at lovesickcomic.com. But more about that later…

What mysterious chains of events are they that bring us together? It is unknown. But there are those that we are undeniably driven towards. Looks like that is just the case with these two – or with Birdie anyway. Let’s see where this goes…

In addition to the two comic strip posts each week I’ll be posting items from my sketchbook and finished art as well. This week, I present to you one weird Christmas ornament. It is not the best drawing by any means. It was just one of those, “well, here is a piece of trash and here are some pens” moments. The particular  moment came during the holidays some years ago and it ended up in the Christmas tree. Ever since, this little piece of cardboard has been packed and unpacked with all the other ornaments and displayed just like any other. And yes, my tree is already up… first one on the block!

When I was young, my grandfather seemed to know everything. I would ask him, “How do you know that?” Apparently, he had a little birdie with whom he was a close friend. I never saw this old friend of his but I imagine he looked quite a bit like Birdie here. Oh, and that girl, that’s Jenni…

One of the goals I have each time I sit down to draw a Love Sick strip is to do something interesting with the frames. You’ll notice that characters are often braking the frames and I tend to think of the frames as an active character in each strip. Here, the frames serve as the voice of the narrator telling us that there is obviously something between these two. Next comic – a scooter!

A 4 Stroke Stella Scooter on the Horizion?

For a few years now, rumors have run rampant that one day the two-stroke Stella would be converted into a four-stroke. The assumed reason for the conversion was that Genuine Scooter, the distributor of Stella, wanted a share of the coveted California market. With California’s strict emissions law, the sale of two-stroke Stellas in California was impossible. But a change now seems closer than ever.

Recently, LML Italia presented the new Star 4 Tempi scooter powered by a four-stroke engine with a manual transmission. The LML 4 Star is available in two engines sizes, 125 and 150 cc. As for color, there is the The Linea Classic in white, silver and gun metal; the chic Linea Prestige in red, graphite and ocean blue, and the Linea Vintage in ivory, green, orange and taxi yellow. Additionally, in 2010 there will also be a Star Lifestyle line that allows custom finishes, while a long series of original accessories is already available.

Is the US the next market to see a four-stroke Stella? I’m not sure. What I am sure about, is that I love my two-stroke smoke. I’m stickin’ with it.

Quick head designs from the sketchbook.

I currently have about 8 weeks buffer on finished strips. I have been using this buffer to wrestle this site into something that I think will work for me. I’m in the home stretch regarding the website and that’s exciting. It’s exciting because that means it’s time to head back to the drawing board. The real one.

When I started this strip I just wanted to get something down. I wanted to see if I could make it work. I was not overly concerned that everything was perfect – and it shows. Honestly, Love Sick could be drawn better and today I pledge to take this to the next level by changing that. I don’t think everything will be perfect – but it is going to be better. Expect to see some characters evolve graphically starting early next year. That sounds like a long time away uh? It’ll be here quicker than you think.

Additionally, I’ll be changing the format. I’ll be moving from a traditional strip format into something that I think will work better both for the strip and it’s potential. What I mean by that is that the new format will allow for better story telling, interesting layouts, better design and should translate into a variety of formats, including mobile devices better. This comic this is on the web – why not embrace this freedom?

So between now and the end of the year you can expect to get a few previews of the progress of these evolutions. I hope you are enjoying it so far. Let me know!

Well, you’ve met all the major players in this comic thing – now the action really starts. (If not start here.) Don’t forget you can subscribe to comic posts. And to those that are already are on the list, THANK YOU! If you like it, please continue to spread the word by using that nifty “Share” tab just above this text to the right. It helps a lot. And oh, if you like scooters check this out too. Till next time…

Sometimes words are not enough…

So in honor of his birthday, here is a poem by the genius himself.

Genius by Mark Twain

Genius, like gold and precious stones,
is chiefly prized because of its rarity

Geniuses are people who dash of weird, wild,
incomprehensible poems with astonishing facility,
and get booming drunk and sleep in the gutter.

Genius elevates its possessor to ineffable spheres
far above the vulgar world and fills his soul
with regal contempt for the gross and sordid things of earth.

It is probably on account of this
that people who have genius
do not pay their board, as a general thing.

Geniuses are very singular.

If you see a young man who has frowsy hair
and distraught look, and affects eccentricity in dress,
you may set him down for a genius.

If he sings about the degeneracy of a world
which courts vulgar opulence
and neglects brains,
he is undoubtedly a genius.

If he is too proud to accept assistance,
and spurns it with a lordly air
at the very same time
that he knows he can’t make a living to save his life,
he is most certainly a genius.

If he hangs on and sticks to poetry,
notwithstanding sawing wood comes handier to him,
he is a true genius.

If he throws away every opportunity in life
and crushes the affection and the patience of his friends
and then protests in sickly rhymes of his hard lot,
and finally persists,
in spite of the sound advice of persons who have got sense
but not any genius,
persists in going up some infamous back alley
dying in rags and dirt,
he is beyond all question a genius.

But above all things,
to deftly throw the incoherent ravings of insanity into verse
and then rush off and get booming drunk,
is the surest of all the different signs
of genius.

Is it ironic that I’m a little late with this post? Along with the holiday season our day to day lives are filled to the brim. I’m sure I am not the only one feeling the pressure right now. I hope your day goes a bit better than Birdie’s does today. And if it doesn’t, I hope you have the courage to sing about it anyway – I’m going to.

Banzai was a term applied during World War II by the Allied forces to human wave attacks mounted by infantry forces of the Imperial Japanese Army. The term literally means “jade shards”. On the other hand Bonsai, as we can see in this fine, fine comic literally means “tree in pot”. No matter the size, big or small, a tree in a pot is a bonsai and patience is always involved. There is your bit of etymology for today.

Earlier today,

And so comes in a handy little app called StoryPages that allows for more than just note taking. It allows you not only to draw your idea out, but to script it too.

Just released, the app by SpinThought® is an iPhone app for those that need to create illustrated story pages on the go. StoryPages lets you draw in the top portion of a page and then add text descriptions below your drawing, like a storyboard. You can add a background image from the Photo Gallery or take a picture to use as a semi-transparent background to set the scene if you’d like.

I’ve used it a few times and it is one of those things that if you don’t have, you are constantly thinking “if only…”  Or, you can just lose your idea – it is up to you.

This is the first strip in a new story arc. It should get us through to the next year – 2010. In it, we can look forward to some great fun and learn about another side to our buddy Sam. Oh, and we’ll get our first glance at Samuel Clemens. If you would like to go back and read the first arc go here. In the meanwhile, thanks for reading Love Sick and if you know anyone else who might like the strip please let them know. I really, really appreciate it.

And absolutely make sure you read the Google Chrome Comic by Scott McCloud – just so you know how it works of course.

Google also released Chrome for Linux and Extensions for Windows and Linux (in beta). More details on the Google Blog.

Sometimes we just make the best use of what is available to us. Honestly though, thats when we are at our most creative.

Be sure to come back to the website tomorrow. Check the blog to see a guest strip I have drawn for another webcomic. Details to come in the morning!

Ever hauled a two ton stack of your favorite books to sell only to have the buyer turn down all your best reads? This is insulting! What is wrong with these people? Don’t they read? Don’t they know Sam needs a Guitar?!!

Ever do things just to test yourself? Just to see how far you’ll take it? It is like a little game we play with ourselves and we win the moment we come back you our senses.

For you scooter types, notice the name plate on that scooter. This is the first time you can clearly identify the type of scooter Sam rides. It is a Wasp. Not a Vespa – a Wasp. Keep an eye out for this logo. You are going to see it again...