COFFEE TIME COMICS NEWS

11/27/06

Gettin' Fat!

I don't think I'll ever learn to tone down my consumption around the holidays. I'm thankful for the fact that I'm going away this week and won't be around anymore of the leftovers. We had a pretty big feast over here on Thanksgiving. Not only did my roommate Diane make an old school turkey in the stove, but my friend Matt brought over his turkey fryer, and so we had a second bird. Two different mashed potatoes, some potato salad, my horrible green bean dish, squash and apples in the slow cooker. an awesome broccoli and cheese casserole, loads of stuffing, homemade cranberries, and rolls. Then there's dessert: Pumpkin jam, pumpkin pie, banana pudding, Tobi's giant reeces, and cheesecake. A little bit of all of that sits in my fridge leftover, and in my stomach waiting to be completely digested. I definitely have to join a gym by February.

February?

Why not January? Well, that is going to be a busy month. My friend Lou is going to visit, my girlfriend will be visiting while on winter break, and Tobi and I will be getting Coffee Time Volume 2 ready for its February 5th premier.

That's right, I said Februarys 5th. I know, for a while I've been pumping up January 1st as the debut, but like last weeks post says, sometimes you have got to change the game plan. It's not that the comics won't be good to go and put online, it's that the new website most likely won't be ready. I'm completely redoing the entire thing to make it way better looking. I think what we have now is nowhere near what it should be. Tobi and I have been working on images for the last two weeks and I really haven't gotten down with learning me some XHTML and CSS yet. I know the basic gist of it all, but I still have to start building the site. There's only so much time in a day.

I'm going to be in Florida all this week visiting my parents(It's about damn time. We haven't seen each other in 2&1/2 years. Crazy.) which will be a nice break from everything. I plan to spend a good deal of down time getting Across the Way to be a fuller story, and then when I come back, it's all about website building. Now, it's possible that I can have everything ready for January 1st, but even if I do, I want that extra month to get everything right. You see, it's time to get serious. Though I love the unprofessional D.I.Y. aspect of webcomics, I want to have that along with professionalism. I want our website to complete the Coffee Time Comics experience, rather than serve it as it does now. Our webpage layout should be considered just as important as our comic page layout. We are a WEBCOMIC. We are a part of a medium that obviously needs more standards in order to push for bigger things. There is no reason why webcomics shouldn't have some of the biggest pull on the web, and a good place to start is with quality. If we can make our comic better, then we can do the same for the site.

So yeah, we'll be on hiatus for a month, but that doesn't mean we won't be updating. Throughout the month of January there will be 15 update days that will need material. I'm not totally sure what we'll be putting up, but I have a feeling there'll be character profiles, random Tobi art, and possibly some one-off gag type comics. I don't know. i'd ask some people to do guest comics, but we don't really have any friends yet in the webcomics community.

Pops Kratky

Just in case anybody is wondering, two weeks ago I asked you to say a prayer for my old man. His surgery has been moved to another date and will not actually be this week when I visit. In a way it's good because I get to spend quality time with him, not just while he's doped up in a hospital bed. But it kind of sucks because I was going to Florida to help my folks out. That's just how it is I guess. I'm not sure when the new surgery date is, but I'm sure it's soon, so it won't hurt any to keep the guy in your thoughts. Thanks.

I really didn't plan to write so much this week. I think it's funny that in the first news post I promised to not make this a blog. Oh well.

Wish Tobi luck on updating. I'm sure he'll do fine.

John

11/20/06

A Lot Going On.

It's weird how things are going sort of smoothly for a bit, and then shit gets haywire. I feel that "life" kind of knows that things are good and it feels the need to change "this" a little and "that" a little more so that you yourself knows, "life" can never be simple. I'm not saying everything is a cakewalk for me all the time, but my problems usually come and go. I've sort of disciplined myself to avoid bullshit as much as possible. Sure, there's unavoidable things like car problems and money problems, but they can come and go. Not always, but they do. It's all that emotional stuff that I try to avoid. I never want my head too out of whack. Personally I feel I've spent enough time with it like that and now it is time to work. But "life" has it's ways around this. It knows you've worked yourself into a nice little shell, so it starts messing with the people around you enough to break you open.

Basically, a lot of crap has been going on in the last two weeks. I won't get into details because it is personal. I mentioned one thing in the news last week, but that one is different. As pissed off as I do get about it all, I know I should only take new understandings from it. Right now what I know most is that there is never a definite game plan. Now, there's nothing wrong with making a game plan. Knowing where you want to be in a few months, maybe a few years sometimes, isn't a bad idea. BUT, when that plan is foiled or redirected, you've got to just deal with it and redirect it yourself. There's always options. A lot of times those options are scary, mainly because they're new and different, but they are what you have to do. If you don't, twenty years may pass, and you'll find yourself in front of the TV(or in my case, the computer), doing the same crap, and wondering where it all went, and why nothing has come to you. Time left you alone.

Ya know, Tobias, me, and our friend Chase have been watching a Rocky movie every Friday night on our movie night, building up to the release of Rocky Balboa. I haven't seen those movies in years, and so far I'm realizing just how silly they are. I mean, the fights are so horribly choreographed. Rocky gets punched and punched, not even trying to block, until the last round when he whoops some ass. Besides that, for most of the movie it seems like the guy has absolutely no passion. It's stupid. But there is a theme to them: Going the distance. And really, I mean it sounds dumb, but that's what we have to do, isn't it? When life is smacking you around, are you going to let it? I'm not saying you can't have your emotions, or your down time, or your "I feel like shit so leave me alone" time, but why keep it up for too long?

It's important to know that you only have so much time in your life, and you've got to make the best of it. All of it. When you're at your lowest, you don't have to shut those feelings out, but don't let them shut everything else out.

So yeah, "life" has me and a few others angry right now. I feel personally I'm on the hustle with work. But it doesn't matter. Next year around this time it'll be something different, and we're all only going to be that much stronger if we pay attention to what is really going on.

Is it cliche to say that "What doesn't kill me only makes me stronger"? I dunno. One of my best friends just got that tattooed on the back of his hands, so it must mean something.

Enjoy this weeks pages.

John

11/12/06

This Week in Coffee Time...

There's really nothing to talk about pertaining to Coffee Time. Honestly. Just keep reading. We like you. And if you remember, which I haven't lately, give us a vote. Man, if I can't even vote for us, who will?

Paranoid

The other day I was stuck in traffic, as usually happens in Los Angeles. Honestly, no matter what time of the day it is, or what freeway you're on, LA County almost guarantees you some traffic. Honestly, I'd rather have a little bit of traffic than all taxes we'll probably be paying in a few years from all those propositions that were passed last week. It's kind of funny, instead of taxing tobacco products(I use to smoke cigarettes, and am currently a cigar smoker)and oil companies, Californians decided to borrow a shitload of money and get our state into more debt.

Okay, so the title of this wasn't really supposed to be about my own paranoia. It's about this Paranoid...

So, I was sitting in traffic, got bored, picked up this album, and started laughing at the cover art. What the hell is going on here? We're in the woods, and there's this man with a motorcycle helmet on, and he's got a cheap looking shield and sword in hand. He's wearing a long sleeved yellow shirt, a sash, blue shorts, red tights, and boots. What kind of knight is this? Is he on acid, or are we supposed to be on acid? I just don't get it Black Sabbath. I went to Wikipedia hoping they would have some info on this cover, but got nothing. Actually it said this album was supposed to be called "War Pigs", but was changed by the record label at the last minute in respect of the Vietnam war. The only other interesting thing I found was the photographer's name was Keef. That's funny because keef is associated with marijuana, it's the crystals on the plant I believe. Okay, okay, I have friends who smoke pot. I've learned a thing or two. If Mr. Keef was willing to name himself after keef, then I guess the cover isn't all that surprising.

I read the other day that Ozzy once took LSD every day for an entire year just to see what would happen....go Ozzy you friggin' nutcase.

Pray

I probably should have put this first. Hopefully you stuck around.

I'm going to ask a favor that's kind of weird coming from me, but it's for my folks, so whatever. My dad is going to have some major surgery done on November 26th, and he and my mom are all about the Jesus. So you religious folks out there should say a prayer for him. There's no doubt in my mind that he's going to come out of this okay, but my parents would really appreciate it if you kept him in your prayers at night when you're kneeling on the floor next to your bed. I'll be in Florida with them the week it's going down, so the fate of Coffee Time will once again be in Tobias' hands. But, just like my old man, HE CAN DO IT!

Anyway, thanks guys. Thanks for praying, thanks for reading.

John

11/6/06

Here's to the Future...

This Friday marks the beginning of the end for Coffee Time, not only meaning the comic, but the website as well. No, we aren't leaving you, but on Friday, Episode 26 begins, and it's the last episode in Volume 1of Coffee Time. It's pretty exciting for this episode to make it's premier, and I think both Tobias and I have been anticipating its arrival for quite some time. Not that we aren't proud of what we have done thus far, I just don't think we truly realized what we were doing. We knew we were making a comic, but what kind? What was Coffee Time all about?

It started as something we wanted to rant about our jobs with. I'm not sure how much thought we originally put into everything; we had some basic characters and some ideas. I don't even remember my goals in the beginning. Was it supposed to be anything bigger than a gag comic? A story did start forming within the separate vignettes, and it is that conflict that culminates in the last episode. If you're confused as to the story I'm talking about, then I would refer to Episodes 4, 11, 19, and the current Double Shot, Screwed, on our Myspace page.

Of course, besides this conflict, there is a bunch of character development (stemming from other episodes) going on that shapes the course of Coffee Time Volume II.

I mentioned above that the website is coming to an end. What I mean is, that the current look of the website will be going bye-bye. I think coffeetimecomics.com is an ugly mess. I don't find it very appealing to the eyes, and it's not really formatted at the right size. It's too wide. The next two months my head will be in the books working out the redesign. As much as I hate spending a load of my time doing this stuff, I love it too because it only expands my knowledge and experience. I'll be immersed in the worlds of XHTML, PHP, CSS, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver, and hopefully on January 1st you'll be seeing a much better website with a tighter layout. And That's not all.

January 1st will be a big day for us. Not only will you be getting a new Volume of Coffee Time, and a new website, but you'll be getting a brand new comic called Across the Way. I'm not going to get into what it's all about, but you'll be seeing a 4 page preview of it starting on December 22nd, the update after the final page of episode 26 is published.

There's a whole lot of ambition going on around these parts and I can't wait to see the results on January 1st. Whether they're good or bad, we'll keep working harder to bring you the goods. I hope you're all enjoying the comic as is, and if so, I think you'll be enjoying it even more pretty soon.

As always, thank you for reading.

John