From the Horse's Mouth

2008-04-13T21:30:00.002-04:00

Hey there!

Sorry for dropping off the face of the planet for the past couple of months. It's been... interesting of late. Let's just leave it at that.

Anyone who's a regular around here will notice a few changes, most notably the addition of a new comic series. I've also changed the name on the artist profile to reflect another big change.

I've got a new writer!

In the past, I've done my own writing and I'll continue to do so for my personal projects like Adagissimo. Recently, I got the opportunity to work with a close friend who is a fantastic writer. She sold me on the idea of a graphic-novel type story and we're going to give it a spin.

To reflect this change (and because Google is now a legitimate hiring tool) I'm going to rename this account as Quill and Dagger Studios. As you can guess, Quill is the writer and I'll be handling the art.

The Towers of Yrien started updating last week. As of right now, there won't be an official update schedule for the simple reason that the two of us are scheduled up to our eyebrows.

Quill is a graduate student in the last few stages of the dissertation process prior to her Defense. I'm in the process of finishing up my associates degree, so we're both pretty much swamped at the moment.

Luckily, Webcomicsnation has a great mailing list service so that you'll never have to miss another update.

Click here to join the mailing list for Quill and Dagger Studios.

That's it for now. See you next update!

-Dagger

2007-07-03T09:20:00.000-04:00

Good morning my lovelies!

New strip is up!

Now, those of you who've been with me a while know that I generally don't do cut and paste comics. This is for two reasons: 1. It's lazy and 2. I've never been able to figure out the mechanics involved.

Today's strip was done mostly for the hell of it. Having seen it on a screen with a different resolution than mine makes me cringe. I'll fix it later this evening. I'll just consider the gradients experiment a failure and leave it at that.

2007-06-28T10:30:00.000-04:00

Yeah, you know why I'm posting.

New strip is up!

Most of us know better than to ask questions like these because the Universe tends to feel the need to reply, thus proving that we are in fact a Cosmis Joke --literally, in Rachel's case.

For those of you who are wondering: yup. That's a porn site and judging by the expression on Rachel's face, she isn't gonna be able to sign that paper.

It just goes to show that everyone need customer service!

2007-06-26T11:03:00.000-04:00

Hi! Rachael here!

Just dropping y'all a note to let you know I've disable the WCN comment field. It seems silly to have two areas for comments so for now I'm going to stick with just the blog comments and save space on the page.

Thanks and enjoy today's strip!

2007-06-26T09:17:00.000-04:00

All hail the new strip!

'Col. Bob's Survival Emporium' is a ficticious business. I chose that name because the other option was 'Crazy Bob's Survival Emporium' and I though the 'Crazy' part was too cliched.

Unfortunately, one of my readers actually did a search on army supply stores in this area and found a dead ringer. There are a couple of other places in the area too that are similar, but they're not the people I'm talking about. The actual culprit went out of business (possibly due to the crazy), which is why they didn't hire me or anyone else for that matter.

Now, I'm not making fun of these businesses. Heck, I come from Texas. You might not be aware of it, but I was one of the evactuees for Hurricane Rita.

I was lucky, I had friends in Oklahoma who were willing to take me in. In the end, I had a home to go back to. Others weren't so lucky. When I drove through San Antonio on my way up north I passed by the temporary hurricane refugee housing: it was the AT&T Center. People were camping out in the stadium.

People like Captain Dave donated much needed non-perishables and equipment that saw those people through. So, yes: some of them have concrete bunkers under their houses stocked with ten years worth of food and toilet paper. A lot of them have questionable attitudes towards the government.

However, they do have their hearts in the right place.

So I want to make it clear that I'm not singling anyone out. That was something that happened to me and it was funny. I go to a lot of trouble to generalize the other people in the comic, including the character that I use to represent myself. When all is said and done: this is a comic and a work of fiction. It is based loosely on real events, but a lot of it has been dramatized for entertainment's sake.

That being said, I'm glad people are enjoying the story. I just want to make sure folks aren't taking it too seriously.

2007-06-21T10:09:00.001-04:00

New strip is up!

Now, you see there are some things that you just don't say out loud because the Universe tends to feel the need to reply.

One of the phenomena I encountered during my brief stint on the job market was a bunch of people who kept aking to me to look at their websites before I visited. Now, this is probably more common than I think it is, but so far it's turning into a warning sign.

When I lived in Texas, the only people who were really hiring were these two call centers in town and a grocery store. So that's where I worked. There's a better job market where I live now so this is really the first time I've interviewed with places that did not have a human resources department or a recruiter.

Frankly, I'm curious to see if anyone else has had similar experiences so the lines are open! Share your scary job hunting stories! Who knows, a few might find their way into a comic!

2007-06-19T10:49:00.000-04:00

New Strip is up!

Pardon the late update, but I just realized that the new strip hadn't gone up like it was supposed to. Problem fixed now!

2007-06-14T12:52:00.000-04:00

New strip is up!

2007-06-12T09:23:00.000-04:00

Happy Tuesday my little ‘Net denizens!

As a special surprise, I bring you an Actual Comic update!!

I’m pretty sure those of you out there who have worked in the Call Center enviroment know exactly how Rachel is feeling right now. First there’s that initial panic, the sinking feeling in your stomach as you contemplate bills coming due, the initial trickle of depression as you think about just how badly you’ve screwed up.

Then you hear a phone ring.

...and it hits you.

You don’t have to pick that up.

Oh yeah, that’s the stuff.

2007-06-06T12:33:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lack of entry yesterday!

Yesterday was the beginning of 'Filler Week' as you can see from the lack of actual comic. I am pleased to announce that Filler Week will last for ONLY one week. After that we'll be back on schedule.

I'd like to thank all of you for sticking with me these last couple of weeks. I know it was annoying for me at the very least.

Next week we'll see the Adagissimo girls get started on the next phase of being fired: job hunting.

Of course, you realize, where the girls are involved things never will run smoothly...

2007-05-31T11:37:00.000-04:00

1 new strippy strippy, ah ah ah!

This is what I get for channel-flipping. The only thing mildly amusing on television is 'Sesame Street'.

My readers will be glad to know that one of my room mates has procured a scanner. I plan on bribing the ever lovin' heck out her to let me use it to upload the comic strips.

Also! I finally got the gosh-danged code for the paypal donate button to work. Adagissimo will continue to be free to the public for the duration of its run. You have my solemn promise (in writing no less!). I don't deal with that 'subscription' business. It works for some (read: more talented) authors, but not for me.

Still, whoever wants to donate a dollar or so towards keeping the strip running would have my unending gratitude.

Anyone who donates five dollars or more gets an original CUSTOM Adagissimo sketch via email.
Anyone who donates over ten gets an original custom sketch sent to them in person.

If you would like a personalised sketch, please email me a description of what you'd like as well as an address for where you'd like it sent. I will draw anything you like, as long as it's appropriate (Read: I won't draw porn.)

That's it for now!

See you next strip!

Adagissimo Returns from Hiatus

2007-05-30T12:18:00.000-04:00

Ok, this is where I profoundly apologize to my readership for the unannounced hiatus of the last few weeks. I know there's really no way to justify it, so I won't. I accept all blame.

The reason for my blip off the face of humanity has been illustrated in the Adagissimo strip for May 29th. I was summarily 'let go' from my previous position and released back into the wild. I won't go into the reasons of why I was fired (anymore than the strip does) except to say that I'm sure my former employers felt justified in their actions. It goes without saying that I do not agree.

Normally, when a web artist is unemployed this means that they get more work done rather than less. In my case all my creative energies were going into updating my resume and spamming the poor unfortunate people who post on Craigslist with it. I've landed temporary work with a marketing agency, which pays the bills for now. Pretty soon I'll be back on the market, but at least this time I'll qualify for unemployment.

Needless to say, the hiatus ate up my buffer of finished comics. I've got a few put together and ready for post, but you should probably count on seeing a lot of filler until I've got a few storylines finished and ready to go up.

One thing I will say for my unexpected release back into the job market is that it's given me a ton and a half of comic material.

It's all about the little blessings, I guess.

That's all for now,

-Rachel