I also want to apologize for a week with no update. I got fairly sick right after the SOPA blackout, and didn't feel up to doing anything until Sunday.

OOTS Kickstarter

Well, they've already met the goal about 2 days in, but check out Giant in the Playground's Kickstarter fundraiser, if you haven't. That's pretty encouraging for our hopes and goals for our own Kickstarter, coming soon!

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

But before we can do that, we need to make the video for the Kickstarter, including a demo of what the motion comic will look like. We have chosen to do Page 34 for that. (Just be warned: I think I will probably read for Vinny myself.)

So here's what I need. If you have a decent home recording setup and would like to submit a reading for Prince Ansom and/or Vinny Doombats for that page, please record it and send to: midnytestarr+erfworld@gmail.com no later than this Sunday, January 8.

Additionally, I want to start podcasting Book 0, Inner Peace (Through Superior Firepower) as we go. So we're looking for someone who can commit to reading all the episodes in audio book form. We haven't decided what this pays yet, but we're going to start taking auditions now, and we do want one voice for the entire book. If you're interested, please submit a reading of all of Episode 002 to the same address by January 10.

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

Toolbox member doran is starting an effort to fund a convention or other appearance for me, somewhere in the UK next year. Any UK fans who'd like to get me to hop the pond, please contact him via this thread in the Forums. I would love to go.

Signal Boost: Devo Spice Wants an iPhone Game

My good friend Devo Spice has a Kickstarter going to fund his development of a side-scroller game for iPhone. Won't you please have a look?

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

Also, all colors of dwagon plushies are now back in stock! Buy a set of 6 regular colors for $60. (Decrypted red dwagon plushies are in, but are excluded from this deal.)

About Pre-Orders

Because of the situation with Xin's family, Issue 2 of Book 2 has not yet gone to press, and will not be arriving here until early next year sometime. However, for those US and Canadian readers who ordered the double deal or just the decrypted plush, we will be shipping out the plushies in time for Christmas. We will then send out It's Raining Men separately, when it arrives, and absorb that shipping cost. We can't afford to do this for orders outside of North America, however. Very sorry about that. Your orders will be shipped together in the new year. That wasn't the original plan, but I hope everyone can understand that we're playing things by ear until we can get back to normal with illustration (cover and layout work we are still finishing up).

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

Thank you for all of your well wishes. It's been a great help to have
them during the last few months, which were excruciating.

My mother began feeling unwell in June. Originally we thought it had
to do with recurring ulcers. Just before I left for GenCon, we
determined that the problem was actually in her liver, and immediately
after my return I took her for the necessary exams.

The first scans showed a large tumor in her liver and a small one in
her pancreas. High resolution CT scans showed that her lymph nodes
were clear. After many deliberations and meetings with doctors, she
decided to remove the tumors then undergo chemo.

Biopsies during the surgery showed one of her lymph nodes had
cancerous cells. All hope of a complete cure was gone, but we still
hoped that after she regained enough strength chemo could prolong her
life. She never recovered fully. Complications from the surgery kept
her weak and soon MRI showed multiple tumors in almost all of her
major organs.

She died on October 24th, in her home, surrounded by her loved ones.
Her funeral was completed last Saturday, a day my father picked for
luck reasons according to the lunar calendar. It was a beautifully
conducted Buddhist ceremony, one I think my mother would have
appreciated. Almost twice as many people as we had expected showed to
say their goodbyes. It showed how many lives she touched that I didn't
even know about over the years.

The past few months I spent all the time that I could by her side and
after her death I spent all of my time helping my father take care of
the necessities. I'm sorry that I've been so silent about what was
going on. I kept hoping that she would recover and before I knew it I
was too busy or too emotionally exhausted to communicate.

Thank you all for the patience and love you've shown towards Erfworld
during this period. As soon as I finish dealing with a few more things
my father needs from me, I will once again devote my time full time to
Erfworld.

--
-xin-

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

Second item: this, um, elephant that seems to be in the, uh, room.

Anyone who has been following Erfworld for the last few months can probably see that something is wrong. I have been trying to avoid talking about it, because it's a very difficult and deeply personal matter.

What's happening is that Xin's mother is gravely ill. Since this summer, we have been hoping that various tests, treatments and surgeries would improve her outlook and she could begin recovery. But that's an emotional roller coaster which is still at full speed. All during this crisis, Xin has taken on round-the-clock care for her mom and new duties for the rest of her family and their business, all while trying her best to continue to illustrate the comic.

In short, she's pretty much going through Hell.

Well, we're at a stopping point at the end of Issue 2, and it's not fair to ask her to continue like this. So I'm saying a word worse than "boop" here, which is "hiatus." Book 2, Issue 3 will not begin until Xin is ready.

That's the bad news. The consolation prize here is that Book 0 will begin on Halloween.

I've always intended to write an illustrated prequel novel for Erfworld, dealing mostly with the fall of King Banhammer's Faq. So why not now? NaNoWriMo is coming, right? Let's pound that sucker out.

So I will be posting updates of the new novel, "Inner Peace Through Superior Firepower," three times a week on a M-W-F schedule, starting Monday October 31. It will be a rough draft, meaning that what goes up on the site may be subject to revision, editing, and retconjuration even as the story unfolds. (If I make any major changes, I will note them so you can go back and re-read them.) It will be like getting 60 or so text updates in a row. I'm looking forward to fleshing out some character origin stories, and there will be a lot of meaty background on Wanda, Jillian, Jack, Marie, Stanley, and others.

Xin will continue to illustrate as she can. She'll at least be doing pencil sketches for the novel updates, when she has the time. But this leads to the other thing we're trying.

We are adding an inker and a colorist to the illustration process.

I will continue to write the script for Book 2, Issue 3 even as Inner Peace is posting. And Xin will continue to draw it as she has time. But she'll be doing pencils, then handing the page to our new inker, Mike Valle. Once she touches up Mike's inks, the page will go to morikahn from the Erfworld IRC channel for colors. This will be a permanent change to the production process.

Once the novel has finished running, we will have a buffer and a new process worked out, so that in the future, Erfworld can run on a much smoother update schedule.

So that's the plan. I have quit my comedy music career, and I am about to put my head down and write harder than I ever have, in order to get Erfworld through this period. Thanks as always for your support of Erfworld.

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

For example. I've had many thousands of dollars tied up since spring in a new run of dwagon plushies, including new decrypted red plushies. It's probably worth it, because they look completely adorable:

But they took all summer because apparently they forgot the pattern from the older versions, and lost the materials, and other things went wrong. So we had weeks and weeks of going back and forth on designs and materials, to get them right again. But we did, and now they're made and ready to ship.

Only it's more thousands and thousands of dollars to ransom them and get them put on a boat to me. I have most of that, but not all of it. So until I can cut them a check, there they will sit on the other side of the world. People who ordered plushies before we sold out are also still waiting for these new ones to arrive. They're trapped without move, which is canonically accurate but annoying.

Meanwhile, this is the last page of Erfworld Book 2, Issue 1 - It's Raining Men. And we have to print a run of that as well. So we need some pre-order sales like right now to get these things made for Christmas. Please help keep the Good Ship Erfworld afloat, and take advantage of the following ridiculous deal.

Retail on both items will still be $12. But if you pre-order the book or the plushie now, and you can get them for $10. Order them both together, and you can get them for $18.

Please do order the book. Remember that Xin is paid in royalties on book sales, and we're putting extras into this book that won't appear anywhere else. Namely, we're doing character profiles of the Great Minds that Think Alike (Thinkamancers in the Magic Kingdom). This 80-page full color 8 1/2 by 11" book is worth your $10, I promise.

As with all pre-orders, we will hold everything you order to ship in one shipment. We absolutely expect both items to be shipping in time to arrive for Christmas, but given how things have gone in the past, I can't guarantee it.

As soon as these items are paid for, we'll go to full retail price, so this offer will not last long. Thanks for your ongoing support.

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

First, there's an older one that I had been meaning to link for some time. Stephen Conway from The Spiel, a really top notch podcast about tabletop gaming, interviewed me at the Erfworld booth at Origins Game Fair. That is in episode 132, at the 137 minute mark, if you care to skip ahead to it.

Next, there is this very funny video review by Erfworld forumite Danetrix, which is well worth your 24 minutes, plus whatever time you spend pausing and rewinding to catch his text quips.

And this is very nice. Erfworld Book 1 is featured this month at the Comic Book of the Month Podcast. These two guys Dylan and Swan clearly got into the story with a passion, and it was a lot of fun for me to listen to the way they go from one "oh and also in Erfworld...!" to the next. I grinned all the way through it. Thanks, guys.

And finally, CNN.com's Geek Out blog has a lengthy interview with me that I did by phone right after Wizard World Chicago in August. This will be linked all weekend from the Living section, so if you're discovering Erfworld from there, welcome!

(Oh and please forgive me if I tell some of the same anecdotes in both interviews. It helps to have a standard spiel when somebody puts a mic in my face, because otherwise you're like, "Nurrrrrhh um, COMIC!")

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!