Coffee Time Comics News

07/30/07

Comic-Con or Bust? Bust!

Tobias & I missed Comic-Con this weekend and I can't say I'm 100% disappointed. It's only a two hour trip for us, but we're both pretty broke so it just didn't appear to be that important. I'm not sure I really want to return until we can afford a table and actually have something to sell. Last year we handed out about 1,000 Coffee Time flyers. I'm pretty sure about 5 of those people checked out the site. It seems like people are so overwhelmed while attending that the little stuff doesn't end up mattering so much. Maybe people just weren't interested.

I think we could have made it for at least a day if we really tried, but it's kind of a silly thing to bust your bank account over. Gas...tickets...lines...fat nerds in Spider-Man spandex...meh. It is cool to be able to meet so many creators out there doing their thing. Tons of tables with interesting content, but I'm sure you can find most of these guys at smaller, more accessible, and less headache-inducing conventions. There's lots of pros and concs to Comic-Con, but without the money to prmote, mostly cons I think. Tobi & I do have a trip planned soon, something a little more head clearing and fun. We plan to drive up the coast for a few days and see us some California. That sounds much more my speed right now.

Mean Gene in the WWE?

I thought this was funny. tobias was watching some Smackdown before we went out to eat Friday night, and who enters the squared-circle? Some wrestler named Eugene. Has vince McMahon been reading our site?

Updated!

Okay, so I finally got around to updating the Archives & Supporting Characters sections of the site. I'm not sure how big a deal this is because I don't think too many people check out those areas. I think most people who check out the back catalogue of comics just use the main page. So in case you were wondering, in the archives all the pages of the episode will come up at once and you just have to scroll down. If it is a big episode then I break it up into different parts. It's an easier way of reading older comics. At least I think it is. I probably won't update this again until a few months from now, if only because I'm lazy when it comes to website maintenance. If you do use these areas and want them updated more often, let me know in the Forums area.

As always, thanks for checking us out. We really hope you guys are digging where the story is going.

John Kratky

07/23/07

Steph Dies!

Just kidding! Thought I'd use some Harry Potter style hype. That's all I hear about the book that came out this past weekend. Who is going to die? I don't understand when authors hint at things to come in the story. It isn't like it was going to sell more books. It's freakin' Harry Potter! I don't know. I guess it's a different game when you're writing the biggest book in the world.

The Site

By next weekend the site should be fully up-to-date. I've been slacking in certain areas, mostly because I'm not big on this website stuff. I'd rather spend my spare time working on comics. There will be more info in the supporting cast section for both comics, and the archive sections will also be updated. It'll be nice to have everything where it's supposed to be at least for a month or so. New characters and episodes are always coming.

The Forums

Some of you may have noticed our messageboard is gone. I was trying to put better security against spam on it, but messed up. I know next to nothing about PHP. Whatever. I found a guestbook to use and it's already working out pretty good. We've got some readers posting on there that probably would have never posted on the forums. Feel free to do the same. Tobias & I like to hear your voices.

I apologize, the news is sort of half-ass today. I'm kind of beat and all computered out. Thanks for checking it out though. i saw Sonic Youth on Friday. It was awesome.

John Kratky

07/16/07

Coffee Time Links

Well, I wanted to have these ready last week, but they weren't. You know how that goes. Man, this webcomic thing feels busier and busier all the time. This is hard work and we aren't even a popular one. I guess that's why we need your help by using these banners to promote the comics. not that we only aim to be popular, but we do like having readers. So if you can, on your Myspace or links section of your website, throw one these up there and link back to us. we'd appreciate it.

I think I'm going to skip on the ads for the website as a whole. Once you're here, you're here. Ya know? I have other goals to meet. My main one is fixing up the Forums which I have completely neglected. I also have a lot of writing I want to complete by next Sunday. After the Forums and a couple of other little things I really want to start updating all of the areas of the site that I haven't even looked at in months. Characters bios, archives, and whatnot. It's endless!

Of course I also want to get "Coffee Time Comics Presents..." going. Nobody emailed me which I wasn't too surprised by, so it looks like it's time for me to reach out. I just hope it can get off the ground by September or so.

Right now it's time to stop looking at the computer screen. Thanks for your continued support.

John Kratky

07/02/07

Across the Way Links

There's not much of a news post this week. My wrist feels like it's on the verge of carpal tunnel. I will leave you with some of the links I've been working on this weekend. If you would like to add one to your website or your Myspace, please save the image to your desktop. I should have the Coffee Time & Coffee Time Comics images done by next week. of course you can also find these in the links section of our site. If you put one on your page...THANK YOU!

The rest of the news today is a repost form last week in hopes that it will catch somebody's eye.

Coffee Time Comics Presents...

I'm hoping that title looks interesting enough for people to check out the news. I should have probably wrote "boobies". Much bigger draw I'm sure. Anyway...

Tobias and I have always planned to make Coffee Time Comics bigger by branching out to other artists & writers and getting other comics going on the site. We'd like a partner who wants to do a full on comic within this world, but I have a feeling that we may need to gain a little more popularity to pull that off. For now, we would like to start "Coffee Time Comics Presents..." That's right, we aren't happy with 4 days a week, we want 6.

We need artists & writers, whether you have a webcomic or not, to come aboard our team and help us expand our world. What you will be doing is isolated stories and/or gag strips featuring characters from our comics. Now, these can be main characters or minor characters. It doesn't matter. They can be 1 page or 5 pages. If you have a good idea for something longer, we'll discuss it. If you want to really experiment, feel free. We're pretty open with this.

Now of course, Tobias and I will do these once in a while too, but four pages a week is already pretty tough. We'd really like to see another artist bring their own personality to our characters. If you don't feel comfortable writing, trust me, i have plenty of ideas knocking around my head that don't fit into the current stories at all. Just tell me you want to draw it and I'll get you a script.

Rules

Yup, I know, kind of lame to have rules. But I think it's important to have certain continuity within your world.

1. We don't break the 4th wall. The only characters that break the 4th wall are when Tobias and I parody ourselves, but you won't be using those characters.

2. No grandstanding with politics or opinions. That's not to say that you can't weave your ideas into the story. We've never really been a soapbox type comic.

3. No Pop-Culture stuff. The world is drowning in this type of humor and we really don't need more jokes about video games/transformers/sopranoes/paris.

4. Save the R-Rated stuff for Across the Way.

5. In addition to number 4, nothing gratuitous.

I'm sure other things may pop up. I was going to say that characters can't crossover comics unless they already have, but that might make for an interesting comic as long as it isn't done too much.

So that's that. I hope somebody reads this and responds. I'm going to be posting around to a lot of different forums and whatnot to find all the interested people. I really hope this works out because it could be fun.