Today is shaping up to be a great morning. I’m almost a little worried–yesterday started a bit rough, and ended well, and today’s starting fabulous, so either it’ll be a fantastic day or I’ll end it in soul-crushing despair.

I realize that we Serious Artists are not supposed to have our heads turned by the dross of mere popularity among the masses, but I don’t care, damnit–“Wockwurm” was the top fav over at Deviantart this morning, easily doubling all the stats on any of my previous semi-popular pieces over there, and since you can go for days without seeing anything hit the top that isn’t anime fan art, I was pleased. Hell, I’m still pleased with the wockwurm. Sorry to be all self-congratulatory at y’all–I promise, no more rampant egotism for at least a month, lest I grow to despise the arrogant wombat myself!–but it’s rare that I get that warm glow from a piece two days running. (As an interesting sociological note, while there’s a few people saying that the bunny is about to be Purina Wockwurm Chow, people are voting on the bunny to win at at least a three to one ratio. Everybody loves an underdog.)

And, in other news–since I’ve gotten my contract, it’s probably safe to talk about it without jinxing now–“Digger”‘s getting picked up! (Woot!) Not a print forum yet, but at least I’m gonna get some money for drawing it. The site “Modern Tales,” which is evidentally a fairly well-known webcomic site, is starting a new spin-off for action/adventure wecomics, called “Graphic Smash” which will feature stuff by some fairly big comic names. And also, wildly enough, “Digger.” I retain all print rights, of course, but the comic will be moving there when the site debuts in September. It’s a six month run, after which I’ll decide whether or not to keep with ’em (and vice versa) but I’m excited about it, since I’ll actually be getting money to make comics, (probably not a LOT of money, but hey, y’never know) which means I can shove drawing them into my work schedule instead of just whenever I have a spare evening, which means much more frequent updates, which means my momentum will hopefully be rollin’ a lot better. As leery as I am of getting in over my head on such things, I think this is a pretty good way to get started, and of course, if it doesn’t work out, or my fan base starts clearing out, I can always return to the current system when the six month run is over. I’m kinda hoping that this will let “Digger” come to a wider audience beyond the furry fandom and Deviantart, since “Modern Tales” appears to have thousands of readers, and maybe the spin-off’ll get at least a chunk of that. Anyway, I’ll keep everyone posted about developments as they happen, and of course, I’ll announce it everywhere that I currently post the comic once it goes live, so that everyone who’s been so encouraging and kept me drawing knows what’s goin’ on.

Funny how it worked out–I was at TrinocCon, off at a panel, and my husband was manning the table, drugged to the gills from a broken tooth and all, (trading off with kalluna
who was a godsend) when T. Campbell, the guy who does “Fans”, and who’s running this project, swung by the table. James, who reads Fans religiously, practically bludgeoned the poor guy over the head to look at my art, and somehow convinced him to ask me to submit a proposal to Graphic Smash. (I knew I shouldn’t have bought James that axe…) I spent a gruelling morning writing the entire plot to Digger (inventing most of it as I went along!) forced the ever patient kalluna to proofread it (I mentioned the godsend thing, right?) sent it off expecting a polite rejection–it’s a story about a WOMBAT, for god’s sake, it’s almost a furry comic, and we know what kinda rap furry gets–and to my profound amazement, they picked it up. So I guess if there’s a moral, it’s “Even if you’re absolutely positive you have no hope in hell and are pretty sure you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s always worth a shot.”

Or possibly the moral is that hard work is good, inspiration is good, but sooner or later it all comes down to serendipity and having your husband not too far gone on Vicodin when the right guy walks by. Actually, that seems to be a much better moral, so let’s go with that one.