by Brian Gott
News Archives
January-March, 2004
January 2, 2004
THERE, THAT WASN'T SO HARD NOW, WAS IT?
note: See the strip I'm talking about here.
This is the one that was originally scheduled to run Monday. Just heightening the suspense a bit!
Zoe will be going inside and actually MEETING Oswald any time now, you watch!
On an unrelated note: Now that it's 2004, I'm going to have to be careful when I'm creating these image files! If I slip up and name the image 2003mmdd.gif instead of 2004mmdd.gif, the comic won't show up properly!
But then, maybe that'll help me get into the habit of writing 2004 on my checks!
January 3, 2004
I'VE ALWAYS WANTED A CAST PAGE . . .
After a long delay, I have a basic Cast Page up! This lists only those characters who have already appeared in the comic. More will be added as they make their appearances.
(There's a News archive page too, but you noticed that, didn't you?)
I FORGOT TO TELL YOU: GO READ THE FRAY!
note: Some time after I wrote this, The Fray dropped off the face of the Earth. Which is too bad, it was fun.
All this time now I've been enjoying Rob Niedojadlo's new comic strip The Fray, and I didn't until now think of adding it to my Links Page! A little oversight which has been corrected.
Consider this a plug -- go read The Fray!
(I will admit, I wouldn't have had the guts to start a comic strip that way!)
January 5, 2004
BULL'S-EYE!
note: See the strip I'm talking about here.
I'm hesitant to delay this story arc yet again, but I couldn't let the Spirit probe's successful landing on Mars pass without comment! Being a space enthusiast, I was glad to hear first thing Sunday morning that the landing was such a success!
The regular story arc will resume (again) on Wednesday.
Sheesh, with all these interruptions you'd think I was working back at my former employer again!
January 9, 2004
POSSIBLE SCHEDULE CHANGE!
I've just started a part-time job which may (or may not; it's kind of early to tell) play havoc with my ability to draw comics.
I might have to switch from a Monday/Wednesday/Friday update schedule to a Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday update schedule.
Another possibility is to push the updates back a few hours. I might have to update at, say, 9 or 10 AM EST instead of the current 7 AM EST.
I'll be sure to let you know before anything changes, because we humans just love change so much!
January 16, 2004
JUST A QUICK LOOK BACK BEFORE WE MOVE FORWARD!
note: See the strip I'm talking about here.
Yeah, I know. The comic's a blatant cop-out. If you must know, this is one of those things that I draw as a backup for those times when there isn't the time to finish a comic.
I'm going to do a couple of weeks' worth of one-shot gags again before introducing the CEO. Most of that material is written, I'll just have to make/find time to sit down with Presentations.
But I've got About the Author and Frequently Unasked Questions pages for you!
January 20, 2004
NOW I'M NOT COMPLAINING, BUT . . . WOW!
According to my FastCounter below, I've been averaging thirty-something visits per day. Not high, but not too shabby for what is still a new and underpromoted comic strip!
So I checked the hit counter Monday afternoon. One Hundred And Sixty Freakin' One hits for today!
I'm in shock. Someone tell me what I did so I can keep doing it!
January 22, 2004
UPDATE ON THAT HIT COUNTER
The final hit count for Monday wound up being up over two hundred -- the hightest one-day count since I started the comic!
I guess Sisyphus is funnier than I thought!
Of course, now it's on its way downhill faster than Sisyphus' boulder! If you are enjoying the comic, please tell your friends, grab a link button and go nuts!
OH, AND I'M REMOVING THAT BUNCH OF LINKSHARE ADS.
Given my general hostility towards excessive, intrusive, inescapable advertising on the Internet, it was always kind of hypocritical to have that LinkShare box on there anyway.
The general idea with LinkShare is this: After you join, you sign up with a number of participating companies, and put their ads on your site. If someone clicks through their ad and buys something, you get a commission.
(Of course, I imagine that it works much better if you actually have people clicking on the ads and buying something once in a while!)
January 23, 2004
DOUBLE DODO
note: See the strip(s) I'm talking about here.
After nearly finishing today's comic, I couldn't decide which version to post. So I drew up both. (Of course, that's not gonna happen on a regular basis or anything!)
I thought Hanna's line in the last panel would create confusion. It might look like Zoe was counting down to that response, not to "the rocks all died."
But without the line, it seemed like something was missing. I didn't want to just have Hanna walking silently. True, now that I think of it, she could have been thinking something like, "I don't know these people!"
And today's my sister's birthday! Happy birthday, Della!
YOU'VE READ TODAY'S DODO --
NOW GO CHECK OUT CREATURES IN MY HEAD!
NOW GO CHECK OUT CREATURES IN MY HEAD!
Andrew Bell has hit upon a simple but hilarious formula. Every day, post a drawing of a bizarre creature, and then give your visitors a forum to comment on it. Suggestion: Don't read it while you're drinking coffee unless you want scalding hot java coming out of your nose! You have been warned.
What are you still doing here? Go read Creatures in my Head already!
January 30, 2004
"IS IT FIXED YET? IS IT FIXED YET? IS IT FIXED YET? IS IT FIXED YET?"
If you can read this, it means that Keenspace's servers should be up now. Comics should be resuming on the normal update schedule. You might want to step back through the archives to make sure you didn't miss anything!
This isn't the first time this type of trouble has happened. When the older server("Boardy") goes down, all the sites hosted on it go down. I mean, DOWN. Nothing but a "Server Not Found" error left.
For those hosted on the newer server("YDK"), it's different. The site's still there. I can still FTP to it, as I've demonstrated by repeatedly replacing the last strip. (That was the only way I could get a message to the two or three people who actually read this thing!)
It just doesn't run the normal nightly auto-update. If you had checked around during the outage, you would have found that none of the Keenspace sites that were still up were updated.
What stinks about this is that I finally managed to build up a buffer of a week's worth of strips. Instead of scrambling on Tuesday night to finish Wednesday's comic, I had all three done before Monday. (Such as they are.)
Friday's (January 30) is the last of that buffer. Now I'm right back where I always was, except that I've also got to start figuring out what the best approach is to creating a mirror or backup site of some sort.
In a perfect world, when Keenspace was down there would still be a place you could go to catch the latest installment of Dodo. But then, I suppose that in a perfect world, servers wouldn't go down, would they?
February 17, 2004
ANNOUNCING TWO TRIUMPHANT RETURNS
Chris Whetstone seemed to have dropped off the face of the Earth for a while there. No 4th Wall to Break stopped updating for about three weeks without warning or explanation. Since the last comic to update was labeled, "The End is the Beginning IV" or something like that, some of his readers concluded that his comic had ended. Not So.
Go welcome Chris back to active status! Maybe the feedback will encourage him to keep drawing!
Brian Carroll's Instant Classic, meanwhile, has actually been back for a while. I just forgot that I'd filed it under "Inactive/Sporadically Active." And by an amazing coincidence, I just found out that he's got a new address as well. I've updated my links accordingly. Have you?
Anyway, a belated welcome back to the Active list, Brian!
Update: Instant Classic seems to have disappeared. Whoops.
Update: It's back.
March 5, 2004
I have no idea what I was going to write here.
March 12, 2004
HIATUS, n.: A PROLONGED PERIOD OF INACTIVITY
After seven months (as of March 18) online, I'm falling into the "I HAVE NO TIME!" trap faced by so many other amateur cartoonists before me.
Circumstances no longer always allow me the luxury of sitting here for three hours the night before the comic is scheduled to update.
I've got to either build up a buffer or switch over to an irregular update schedule. Since consistency is important to me, this is what I'm going to do:
I'm going to continue to draw comics as time permits. But I'm going to date them consistently starting with March 29, so that they will show up on the regular MWF schedule. If this works out, I'll have a sizeable buffer of finished comics by the end of the hiatus.
I'm sorry you've got to go so long without your Dodo fix, but think of this: after the hiatus, you'll get to see comics that aren't last-minute rush jobs!
If you still don't like it, I'll be happy to refund your money ::)
March 29, 2004
WE'RE BACK!
The hiatus was good, but not quite as productive as I'd hoped. I did manage to build up a small buffer of finished comics, so we should be good for a while.
(In fairness, you should know that there are still a few gaps within that buffer. For example, the strip for Friday the 9th is finished, but the one for Wednesday the 7th is not. So don't be surprised if strips still appear late or out of sequence.)
I'm still trying to get into the one-comic-a-day habit. But since one strip can take upwards of three hours to draw (and that's
assuming I don't suddenly decide to go at it from a whole other angle!), that isn't always an option.
But it's all good 'coz we are back! Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Be like that guy in the commercial who goes around telling total strangers, "My cholesterol is down!"
Well, except you can tell them, "Way of the Dodo is back!"
Alright, then, if your cholesterol is down, you can tell them that too! (If you must.)