Vive la France! I am really happy to announce that Overcaffeinated, the comic, is now available in French!.

Some time ago, Eric Baulier contacted me and told me he liked the comic a lot, and he also loved translating stuff (some people have the weirdest hobbies), so he set out to translate every comic I’ve published. Even edited them in their image format, too. As you will see, he’s done a fantastic job of it. If you want to thank him or have translation jobs (paying jobs), contact him at eric_baulier@hotmail.com .

The link for seeing the comics in French is http://overcaffeinated.net/comic/fr/. Dates follow the same directory structure we specified before. Links have been added at each comic to its translation, back and forth (a couple are missing near the beginning, but I hope that will be resolved soon — Update: Missing comics uploaded. Everything’s dandy now.)

Thanks Eric!

— sergio at 10:22 PM  

Just where the hell is the comic? I wonder too. For the last month and a half, Overcaffeinated has gone from weekly but erratic to once every two weeks (and still erratic). Here’s the deal: Lately, Real World™ obligations have gotten the better of me. I know I have never been the most consistent author, but I used to be able to deliver weekly. Not anymore.

The comic won’t go on hiatus. What will happen, though (and this may be no surprise to anyone) is that the schedule now changes to whenever. I’ll keep updating the site and posting new comics, but I can no longer commit to having a weekly comic. I have big plans for this place but as you all know, I don’t make a red cent from this, so the stuff that puts food on the table comes first. I hope you’ll understand.

UPDATE: Damn. As luck would have it, I chose to post this just as Tom Brazelton, from Theater Hopper fame linked to me. To all newcomers: Well, you’ve seen the notice. Feel free to browse the archives and expect new comics at some point in the future. For the regulars: you should go visit Tom at Theater Hopper because it’s an amazingly witty, funny comic. Go on. You know you want to. Waiting for a button? Well, here’s a button:

— sergio at 11:24 PM  

Something diff’rent this time around. I think Ellie was a better fit for Persephone, but after the crappy single line they gave Monica Bellucci in Revolutions, I just didn’t have the heart.

Photoshop is quite nifty. Wish I was better at it. I’m slowly getting the Paint Shoppy-ness out of my system.

— sergio at 10:30 PM  

/*Drunk now. Fix later.*/ Yes. There is supposed to be a new comic up there right now. But I’m drunk.

So there isn’t.

I blame Peter. Yesss.

Here’s a teaser for you, though:

Tomorrow seems like a good day to draw.

— sergio at 01:15 AM  

Well, it’s finally happened. Last week’s comic was so late that it became this week’s comic. The reason is simple: I’ve been swamped with work. I didn’t want this kind of thing to happen, but sometimes you just have to wing it as it comes. For the record, I don’t intend to have planned skip weeks in the future, but hey, you never know. I’m sure you’ll understand.

In other news, I’m trying to turn this into a more focused ranting space, dealing mostly with Web Technologies (and the movie reviews, which I’ll keep on making from time to time). So, if you want to see tutorials on specific stuff here just email me to let me know. Anything you see on the page is up for grabs.

— sergio at 02:20 PM  

Yes. Low level programming is exactly like this.

— sergio at 01:05 AM  

Wow! I thought this wasn’t up until tomorrow, but as it turns out, a Guest Comic I made for the most excellent-est Brian Carroll from Instant Classic has gone up at his site and we’re getting a veritable barrage of new visitors from there. Thanks Bri! And welcome everybody. Hope you enjoy your stay =)

— sergio at 05:46 PM  

Since I lost last weekend and the week hasn’t been very forgiving work-wise, the comic is on hold. Most likely until Saturday. Then, next week’s comic should follow closely. I’m not planning on dropping this week’s comic altogether, but I’ll need some time to finish all this stuff up and get some decent sleep time. You understand, right? I knew you would!. Bye.

— sergio at 11:41 PM  

Today’s comic is shameless fan service.

That said, I was very surprised when DOA3: Extreme Beach Volleyball was announced. Finally, we have a game that openly caters to our lowest voyeuristic fantasies, as well as our unhealthy fascination with fictional characters! Given my ages-old, platonic and *secret* love for Wonder Woman, I welcome this new age of openness with glee!

Think about the implications: at last, we can sing the praises of pornography in public! We can admit that we don’t empty the cache of our browsers because of security! Tell the one you love how that Google search she saw on the auto-complete feature for “Anna Nicole’s humongous floaters” wasn’t really an investigation on safety devices! Come on! let’s start the revolution! I’ll get the ball rolling by confessing that I don’t floss, *don’t give a rat’s ass* about Playboy’s articles and used to torture cats by throwing them 12 feet in the air!! (it’s true: they always fall on their feet — unless you tie their legs together) Ok. Your turn. Confess. Shout it into the wind. Open yourself! Rock the place! Get freaking crazy!

…

… any time now…

… anyone?

… damn.

— sergio at 12:27 PM  

Behold! A new comic rears its head! Truly, a momentous event this is. In case you’re wondering, the movie they’re watching is The Boondock Saints (I never get tired of that one). Brownie points if you can name the original sources for the three references at the end.

— sergio at 02:54 AM  

Quick update: Fellow webcomic author / geek extraordinaire Litazia has featured the Overcaffeinated cast in her latest comic (and done a great job of it too) so go visit her comic, The Tao of Geek. It’s cool!

I’m still working on the new site design and it’s coming along quite nicely. Hopefully I’ll be able to roll it out today or, at worst case, before Wednesday. Due to the frantic battle I’ve been enduring against the evil that is Cascading Style Sheets, I haven’t actually worked on the new comic, but hopefully it won’t be very late. I’m optimist about that. Out now.

— sergio at 01:27 PM  

I know a great many of you don’t know what the hell that last quote is about. Maybe you haven’t seen Monty Python and The Holy Grail. To those who find themselves in this position, I can only say: Shame on you. If you want to know more about the actual source of the quote, go here or here. That said, I know this is a geeky reference that is unlikely to have mass appeal, but one of the nice things of having a self-published webcomic is that I have no editor to keep me from pulling this off. Then again, that may not be an advantage at all. Your mileage may vary.

By the way, the subject of this comic is exactly the sort of behavior I’m likely to exhibit from time to time in real life. And I wonder why I don’t have a girlfriend…

A bunch of webcomic people were recently at ConnectiCon and the San Diego Comic-Con. I wish I could have been there. Hope I get to meet some of the other authors eventually. We should make our own conventions. We could have secret decoder rings and everything. It would be swell…

— sergio at 08:41 AM  

Well, that certainly took long enough. Sorry for the delay. A fierce battle was fought between work and my thorough indecisiveness on what to do for this comic. Thanks for your patience and for all the messages you sent me for my Bday. I appreciate it muchly. Will work on some movie reviews and something a bit more witty to say tomorrow.

— sergio at 02:40 AM  

I think this one’s right up your alley, Brian! Let me know what you think.

Been watching a shitload of movies lately, some of which I plan on reviewing and posting about soon. The skinny: Hulk: BLEH. Le pacte des loups (Brotherhood of the wolf): Nice but looong (plus, it’s not everyday you see someone kick the shit out of Mark Dacascos). Office Space: You know I lurve this one. Some more I shall mention later.

I have started to do more frequent updates of the news box at this site’s home page. I’m mainly posting amusing links to things I find, some short news regarding myself or the site, etc. You may want to take a look from time to time to see if there’s anything you fancy.

I’m working on improving this site to provide the best possible content, and for that I need your input. Tell me what you like about what’s already here, what you dislike, what extras you think Overcaffeinated could benefit from, suggestions and whatever’s on your mind. So, any comments you may have, just let me know.

— sergio at 01:33 AM  

I’m not entirely happy with how this one turned out, but it’ll have to do.

The Top Web Comics List resets today, so this is a great time for a vote drive! I hardly ever ask of you people to click on this thing, but at the beginning of the month it means more exposure. To encourage this, I’ll show you the latest piece of fan art I’ve gotten. This one is from Peter. Thanks man!

So do it! click! =). It would be amazing if you could come back from time to time (once daily) and vote again. At least for a while. Enough to get a headstart. Thanks people!

Still working on some extras for the comic as well as some other projects I may mention soon.

— sergio at 02:48 AM  

That took a while to complete and was somewhat late due to work problems, but the comic is now up (and hey, I haven’t missed any weeks yet, so it’s not that bad, right?).

You’ll notice the amazing 3D graphics in today’s comic. These were taken from screenshots of GLTron, which is a fabulous and very entertaining Open Source game. Andreas Umbach, the programmer, was kind enough to allow me to do this stuff. I’d also like to recommend Armagetron (make sure you install the moviepack, because the default look is just plain ugly), another Open Souce Tron Light Cycle game. This one doesn’t look quite as nice as GLTron, but I love the gameplay in first person mode. Plus, it has networking!

I also want to welcome all the visitors coming from Crazykimchi.com / Kung Fool. Hyung Sun Kim was kind enough to link to us and that has brought a veritable avalanche of new visitors. Hope you enjoy your stay. For the ones who are new to the comic: we’re in the middle of a storyline. It doesn’ t always have this Tron look. You may want to check out the archives or go directly to this comic to see where this stuff started.

— sergio at 12:09 PM  

I just spent two straight days (by that I mean I slept under my desk) debugging Assembler code by going through it line by line. So, I’m now in Happyland. Coffee is my friend, my companion, my joy!

What this means: No comic foh you!. Not today at least. I think I’ll have time to do it tomorrow… Oh, look at the pwetty colors!

— sergio at 12:22 PM  

I usually try to keep the geekiness to an acceptable level, but I had to go all out on this one. Unix geeks will surely recognize Cron and the “fork” thing. As a cute extra detail, the number Cron is shouting is the actual UNIX time for when I have to be at work after uploading this comic. Bye now.

— sergio at 03:42 AM  

Everytime I look at the stats and see a surge in hits from people wanting to check out the new comic I feel this pang of guilt I can’t shake, but such is life, right?

If I have learned anything from drawing this Tron story arc, it’s that it is the most freaking time consuming thing I’ve done so far for the comic, and that my computer is becoming too outdated to handle this shit. I know a new comic should be up there by now, but I still haven’t finished it. It’s coming along nicely, though, most of what’s left is coloring. So check back tomorrow, it should be up by then.

— sergio at 10:51 AM  

I’ve felt less chatty than usual lately, hence the lack of rants. As I sat here, wondering what was wrong with me, I started browsing and going through my usual list of webcomics, when I had an epiphany: After taking a long, hard look at Tycho and Gabe’s posts at Penny Arcade I decided that what I need is a Nemesis. An enemy I can hate. Someone who will contradict everything I say with bad spelling and grammar. A mischievous foe, unparalleled in cunning and wit.

To obtain this mythical, hateful person would be a laudable objective. It would liven up the rants, give me an excuse to post more and create an entertaining atmosphere filled with witty banter and engaging posts. But alas!, it is not my destiny to have such a person. Since I pretty much do everything around here (and by that I mean that all of the slacking in the site coding, design and updates can ultimately be blamed on me), I lack a partner to exchange unpleasantries with. What a conundrum, huh?

The solution to this problem, then, might be to invent someone. This could be Evil me (bleh), Mini me (done), or maybe Whiny me (as if I don’t do enough of that already). I can picture it right now:

Me: Despite what this strip may suggest, I am quite fond of Apple hardware. I truly believe they have done a great job with the integration of their applications and OS X. I find it very commendable that they have put a pretty face on UNIX.

Evil Me: j00 are teh sux00rz and th4t eez bullsh1t!!1111!! LOL I am teh l33t h4x0rz and I’ma beat yo a$$ bitch!

Me: You raise very valid and thoughtful points. I shall address them one by one in…

Evil Me: n00b!!! n00b!! fuk yuose!!!

Me: Indeed. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

Evil Me: j00 haf NO ballz!!!

On the other hand, making Evil me an AOLer may not be a very good idea. I’ll have to work on this later..

About the strip content: I do like Apple machines. Except the ludicrously big and unwieldly 17” tiBook. You all know what I think about that one. I used to see them as toys but I must admit that they won me over with the whole OS X thing. I mean, lickable interfaces!!! and IN UNIX, NO LESS! Their marketing department, on the other hand, sometimes misses the point spectacularly. The “speed of lightning” quote actually came directly from the original description of the Quartz Extreme windowing system of OS X. This caused quite a few laughs over at Slashdot when it was brought up, since lightning is not very fast, really. They also choose the damnedest names for their technologies, (Velocity Engine?? — puh-leeze!!).

— sergio at 07:32 PM  

I’ve had quite a busy week. I’ve also spent inane amounts of time playing Armagetron and GLTron (I know, I’ve been a bad ‘toonist). So I’m sorry the comic’s not up yet. It is, however, already drawn and inked and should be up by Tuesday night. It features the next in the adventures of Joe and Dixon in the Program Universe (because Tron is so cool). I’ll also work on ranting some more. For the time being, I present you with a sample of the original sketches for the new comic:

EDIT: New comic’s up. Will work on the rants later. I’ll leave the sketch here so you can take a look at everything that happened to it.

— sergio at 02:34 AM  

I edited the comic because of repeated reports that it seemed Ellie was flipping the bird to the guys. I want to make it completely clear that that is not the case. Ellie is a classy girl who wouldn’t resort to such low tactics. Plus, she doesn’t know the guys enough to have reasons to do that yet.

Now that’s cleared, I’d just like to let you all know that I have tickets to the Matrix Premiere!!! Hah!! in your face!!!! Of course, since in México said premiere is on the 22nd instead of tomorrow, the vast majority of you will have seen it before I do. Which sucks. Due to this circumstance, my Matrix blackout shall begin today. I do not want to see the reviews, read the comments or know any more that I have to. It will be difficult, but I’m confident in my ignoring skills. And the first person to email me that Morpheus is actually Neo’s father gets my utmost hatred ‘til the end of time. Bye now.

— sergio at 09:28 PM  

This is Ellie’s debut. That’s short for Eleanor (like Jodie Foster in Contact). Hope you like her. I also took this chance to clear things up a bit about the relationships between the other characters.

There were many great suggestions for the girl’s name. In the end, it was a close call between Emily and Ellie. Elizabeth Arellano suggested this one, as you can see at the top of the comic. I’ll send you some sketches or something cool later liz =). Thanks to everyone who sent me their suggestions, and Amanda: worry not, for she’s bound to eventually change hair style and color.

On to the freaky stuff: People who know me are starting to point out that she’s almost, but not quite, entirely reminiscent of a mixture of some, but not all, of my past girlfriends. This, I assure you, is ludicrous and libelous and.. uhmm.. something really… not true! yeah!. My subconscious is rock solid baby! and nothing leaks out. Ever. It’s like that time I was dreaming I was back in the uterus, and these weird midgets were trying to kill me with a big stick, so I says to my mom… ehmmm… nevermind.

— sergio at 04:01 PM  

Not many news today. I spent the weekend at the movies so I’ll be posting new reviews soon. I also upgraded the update system for the news at the homepage (now handled via Blogger) which will make it easier for me to update that stuff.

The name for the new character is still being considered (see post below) so send me your suggestions. I have received a lot. There are some I particularly like, but I’m not telling.

Also, we’re doing particularly good on the Rocketbox Top 10 (Thanks muchly, everyone, we’re number 7!). If you keep voting we can get a better spot there (it’s a vote a day thing, although it doesn’t let you know, so vote once every day).

— sergio at 12:21 PM  

The actual dates are 8/28/2003 for the release of the DVD and 11/18/2003 for the special edition DVD with rumored 48 extra minutes of footage (more info here). I still haven’t seen the extra footage of Fellowship but I hope to catch up soon.

This comic was somewhat late, but still on a decent schedule I think. Hope next one goes down on Sunday.

— sergio at 02:21 AM  

This is a late rant update, but anyway, I hope you enjoy this strip. I know I had said this was going to be a three-part story arc, but after looking long and hard at the second part, I decided it was kind of pointless (although I liked the dialog) and ultimately decided to cut it short. I’m posting the script for what would have been the middle part of this stuff. This is how I write all my scripts. I like to have a clear idea about what I want to do with the characters before I touch a pencil.

FRAME 1

Dixon: We’ll have get out of here and face the little bastard sooner or later, you know?

Joe: you think so?

Dixon: flip a coin for it?

Joe: What? winner drops dead?

Dixon: Ok, ok. I get your point.

FRAME 2

Joe: We need some kind of… plan thing!… or something!

Dixon: Have you fought here before?

Joe: Couple times… I can think of at least 6 places he could be hiding over there. And with the range of that thing, we get out, we’re toast.

FRAME 3

Dixon: Damn. The only way will be to do this together. We run out shooting. The one that’s left standing blows his blonde head off, ok?

Joe (staring): YOU CALL THAT A PLAN??? It reminds me of the time I wanted to do a blitzkrieg attack on the sandbox in kindergarten!!!

FRAME 4

Dixon: So?

Joe: So what?

Dixon: Did you win?

Joe: Lost the whole squad. Little Jimmy’s mother hated me after that.

Dixon: Man, that sucks… Any better ideas?

Joe: We pretend we’re dead?

Dixon: Thought so. Well then, we go on three. ONE. TWO.

FRAME 5 (Spread)

Both run out the door shooting and screaming. Wide angle shot (covers two frames)

Dixon: THREE!

— sergio at 07:20 PM  

I’m having the week from hell at work. I guess it’s my punishment for playing Counter Strike the whole weekend instead of working on the comic. Anyway, the new strip is mostly done, and should be up late Tuesday night, so check back on Wednesday for it. Good night.

— sergio at 01:58 AM  

Plug Week Day 6 — A bit of history.

When I started posting in the TWC forum, I noticed that some people asked about a comic named “Weirdism”. They were, for some reason, expecting it. After a while, Liz (Odd1) popped by and announced the launch of the comic. It was good, and everyone cheered.

Intrigued by the hype surrounding it, I emailed Liz to ask her about it. The email she replied was quite interesting. She’s been doing this for a longer time than me, and I found her story to be very engaging. Hope you do too (edited only for emphasis and flow):

—

I started reading web comics in 2000. Mostly Keenspace and Keenspot comics. In late 2001 I decided to take the plunge myself and signed up for my first Keenspace account: “Paperbug”. My Keenspace account was created in February 2002 and I started running comics immediately. Paperbug was poorly written and drawn by a 14-year-old, but that didn’t matter. It was that type of serious manga-styled comics that was all the rage back then; thus it became a success anyway.

I lost interest rather quickly, because I had realized how cliche my concept was and I had started brooding a whole new idea - it would be a weird, full-color comedy… For a while I convinced myself to stick with Paperbug, which had a steady position in the top 10 of various top lists, not to mention more fan art than it did actual episodes. But, I couldn’t even take myself seriously anymore and what had started out as an story full of angst, has wandered far off track and was now incorporating aimless slapstick. In April I put Paperbug out of it’s misery, without warning.

I labeled my new project “Sweet Sanity” at the time. I knew I didn’t want it to be anime-influenced. My art style had to change completely and my skill was poor to start with. As months went by, my new project had become an out-of-hand ongoing joke in the Keen Forum, where I have always been a regular. Now titled Weirdism, but a.k.a. ‘the nonexistent yet incredibly popular web-comic’. The original deadline was January 1st, and when I missed it, Weirdism got hyped up to the point where I was afraid anything I could possibly release would not live up to people’s expectations. Then one day the hype leaked into TWC a little and I knew I had to deliver something.

At long last, February 28th; Weirdism goes public. Many people weren’t satisfied. Loyal Paperbug fans voiced their shock and disappointment. But you can’t please everyone. Weirdism will probably never get the recognition Paperbug did, but at least I can rest assured I’m doing something more original than before

— Liz Groenveld

Webcomics are, first and foremost, for their authors. It is easy to lose sight of this fact in the vote count, unique page views statistics and other, ultimately irrelevant things. Doing something that is true to oneself is the only way to achieve any kind of quality and happiness with the work. Kudos to Liz and to all the other webcomic authors out there. Keep up the great work!

In an Overcaffeinated exclusive, I present you with images from Liz’s old project, Paperbug, and an early cast shot of the guys from Weirdism

This marks the end of Plug Week. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, and maybe found a new comic to like. Out now.

— sergio at 01:09 PM  

Plug Week Day 5 — Comics Galore!

One of the main differences between syndicated comics and webcomics is the dough. Syndicated comics (those that appear in multiple magazines and newspapers) have it. Online comics, for the most part, don’t. There is another big difference: community. Webcomics create communities. People get to meet the author, talk to him/her (from now on referred to him, for simplicity and ‘cause I’m a chauvinist pig), perhaps even, time and place allowing, buy him a beer/dinner. You may be a fanboy and want to let the author know that he’s the stuff your wet dreams start with, or you may hate and be insulted by the inane drivel said author releases into the world. Any way, you have a voice. There are usually forums that allow you to leave your impressions, you can email and expect prompt reply, or get together with a bunch of other people and discuss the suckiness/brilliance of the latest strip and how past strips were so much better/worse.

Here are more of my linked comics for your entertainment. All of them are quality read. I’m saving Weirdism for tomorrow, since I have something special prepared with it. Enjoy!

It’s All Been Done - By Erik McCurdy and Will Lloyd This is one of the many webcomics out there that are the result of the collaboration between two people. While initially Erik (writer) worked with Jon (artist) on the strip, there came a moment when Jon had to move on and attend to other Real Life obligations, thereby placing IABD on a tight spot. This came as quite a shock to IABD’s readers. Erik posted a thread in the TWC forum and we all started commenting on the situation. Shortly thereafter, Will, from Dunnboyz fame, had offered to take on artist duties for IADB (how he manages to keep two webcomics afloat, and with the quality of art that he delivers is beyond me. Really).

IABD provides some insight into the comic development process. You can click on the little blue ball on top of most of the comics and it’ll show you an animated gif with different stages on that particular strip’s creation. A truly remarkable idea and one I may blatantly steal from them in the future.

Erik posts regularly in the TWC forum as Reflection Jimmy and Will does too, as Dunnboyz.

64 Demons - By Big_Evil

64 Demons is not so much a webcomic per se. It’s more of an online comic book. It’s got Demons, over-the-top violence, a lot of cursing and amazing art. The author goes by the name of Big_Evil at TWC and, contrary to Mack (the main character of 64 Demons), is an insightful, compassionate, thoughful person. A nice guy all around (he’ll be sooo pissed off to be described that way).

Briworld - By Brian Carroll

This comic is quite autobiographical. Starring Brian himself and his friends, it has amazing, clean art and very nice writing. Brian spends an inordinate amount of time at the movies, so quite a few of his comics are about movies recently released, and his take on them. Plus, Brian pulled off the best April fool’s joke of the TWC comics. Worth checking out, really.

Brian posts as classicbri at the TWC forum from time to time. He is quite level headed.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - by Zach This one is something of a rarity: One of the very few one-panel gag webcomics I have seen. Think Gary Larson on stimulants. Most of the jokes he posts make me laugh pretty hard.

Zach is known as Wiztoast over at the TWC forum, where he’s a regular.

— sergio at 01:21 AM  

Plug Week Day 4 — Enter the comics.

Underappreciated comics are scattered all over the Information Superhighway (just who the hell comes up with these idiotic metaphors?). These are the comics you take a look at and see that they are clearly a labor of love. You can’t help but wonder why they are not published in paper and getting the big bucks for their work. Usually, when you see the author’s comments, you find out he works in something entirely unrelated to the comic (I’ve found that working retail is a common trait between a lot of authors. which may go a long ways into explaining the amounts of - funny - frustration found in their comics).

Following, in no particular order, is a brief comment on each of the comics I’m linking to the left. The stuff I put there, I read myself. So I can tell you that it is all good. If the comment on a comic gets you interested, well, you should click on its name and go there, shouldn’t you?

Elf Only Inn - By Josh Sortelli

A few weeks ago I got together with some friends to drink beer and do nothing. We ended up browsing through most of Sortelli’s archives. We laughed our asses off. Tear jerking stuff. Best of all: after I sobered up I came back to the site and the jokes were still funny! He hardly needs any plugging, since he’s usually in the TWC top ten lately, but I just like it so much I had to put a link to it.

The characters are representations of people in a chat room, and Sortelli makes the most out of that situation. Recently he started drawing all panels (it used to be a cut and paste comic). While the old style certainly had a charm to it, the new one has apparently allowed him to explore new situations. The comic updates Monday Wednesday and Friday and Sortelli should lay off that ugly ass avatar he uses at the TWC forum and get himself some woot avatar, because Woot kicks ass (hope that’s not a drawing of himself or something to that effect).

Paste - By Allan Hatt

This one is utterly different from most stuff that is out there. Allan is an old school Illustrator who works with the traditional tools. The site is clean, nice, and the comic hits you in the face like a huge ear-biting steroid-pumping boxer’s uppercut. Featuring whatever is on Allan’s mind at the moment (well, actually, what was there 3 months ago, since that’s how long a buffer he has — isn’t that hardcore? I can’t get a freaking one-week buffer strip yet!). Sometimes it has a ongoing story. My favorite is about a psychic grain of rice (how the hell do people come up with this stuff?).

Allan is known as AlienHate in Rocketbox Comics, where he hangs out from time to time. He sometimes posts stuff here in the shoutbox too. His avatar in Rocketbox is just plain creepy.

It Never Rains - By Reggie Reno

Reggie spent much of his adolescence playing pranks and involving himself in suburban warfare. He had a crew of guys - The Mollusk - that trashed around a lot and used to cover cars/houses with food. He also had love interests. He was your run-of-the-mill weird suburban prankster kid. Now, we can see his story in comic format (he says the story is real and his). With charming art and amazing writing, It never Rains is a comic you won’t fully appreciate unless you read through the whole archive from the beginning, so this one is a whole-afternoon commitment kind of thing, but trust me, it’s worth it.

Reggie apparently spends most of his time in IRC. I don’t, so I have only interacted with him via email. He seems like an ok guy.

Updated every weekday. Reggie likes to say “fuck” and comes up with all sorts of word games, most of which end up in appropriately named sections at his site.

The Repository of Dangerous Things - by Amanda Hardy It’s hard to believe Amanda has never taken art lessons. The art on her webcomic is amazing (she colors it with markers) and the concept is pretty damn unique. RDT is the story of a place and the people related to it. The Repository is a warehouse of sorts that houses all kinds of monsters/ghosts and altogether weird stuff. The extremely hot and ill-tempered Miss Harper handles administrative tasks and doubles as Amanda’s avatar in the TWC forum where she’s known as skoolmunkee. Amanda can also be found posting in Rocketbox from time to time (where she’s known as rdtcomic). She’s one of the brightest people out there (and real hot too, from what I hear =) ).

— sergio at 12:20 AM  

Plug Week Day 3 — About Hosting.

The holy grail of hosting is the free host. The all-generous, user friendly (no pun intended) provider of space, bandwidth and functionality. There is one harsh reality, though: Good hosting comes at a price. Whether that is a hefty or reasonable price depends more on the income of the one paying it than anything else.

Interesting and fun facts:

- A big webcomic will burn through more than a terabyte in a month. That’s like a gazillion Libraries of Congress (who the hell came up with that stupid measure anyway?). Brian from 8 Bit Teather has said that he burns more than 600 Gb/month. His is not the biggest webcomic out there.

- The biggest one: Megatokyo. I mean big. He gets nearly 300 000 visitors a day.

- Hosting a successful webcomic can be very costly. You need a whole server devoted to it, ridiculous amounts of bandwidth and a lot of time dedicated to supporting the site technically (Database administration, Forum housekeeping, Site design improvement, etc.). So next time you see those pesky paypal buttons on your favorite webcomic you may want to give them a try. I know of no authors who are swimming in the bucks they make from their comic (I don’t think even Piro makes that much dough and he’s already publishing in dead tree format).

- The little blue Globe with purple lines going round it that you see on some webcomics’ site (and, as of yesterday, below the button links on this one) is an Extreme Tracker You can click on it and go to a page that displays the statistics for that site. It lists unique visitors, referrers and whatnot. I just found out about this a few days ago and I felt so stupid for not knowing. So don’t let it happen to you.

- Keenspace used to be the main provider of hosting for webcomics out there. They helped a lot of budding authors find a home, but they recently closed their doors and stopped accepting new entries. The service they provide has been on and off for some time now. There are other alternatives in free hosting, like Drunk Duck, which is a very fine service, ran by Ronson, who is a nice person to boot and hangs out at the TWC forum.

My hosting comes from the great guys over at Red Naranja (Orange Network)

— sergio at 10:21 AM  

Plug Week Day 2 — About Communities.

When I got started on this webcomic thing, it was mainly due to a casual suggestion from a friend in a conversation (“Hah! that’s funny! you could make a webcomic out of that”). That, along with my desire to start a personal site and my lack of creative direction at the moment, sealed the deal. The end result has been quite rewarding.

Of course, as always happens with this whole Interweb thing, whenever you strike a weird fancy, say… purple lettuce, you find out that there are already thousands of people out there who have started purple lettuce fanclubs, written articles on the optimum leaf width and color (along with its HTML code and RGB equivalent) and have huge greenhouses in their backyards entirely devoted to the further improvement of certain purple lettuce species. Suddently, the bar for your little “Purple Lettuce place of [insert your name here]” has been raised. You’re up against pros. Not just any vegan kid with a strange craving and a personal site, mind you. These are real pros. And suddenly, you’re scared shitless. This happened to me.

When I started Overcaffeinated, all I read webcomic-wise was Penny-Arcade, User Friendly, Dilbert, Sinfest and the Calvin and Hobbes strips at uComics. I (naively) thought to myself “Hey, this whole gamer/geek thing could work! I’m both, after all!”. Little did I know that currently, everyone and their goldfish (as a fellow forumer put it) has a webcomic, and that mine is one of the most clichéd, used-to-death genres out there. I’m sticking with it, though, since I truly like my characters and the situations they get themselves into. Maybe there is still room for this kind of stuff out there.

But I digress. What I found, once I knew where to look, was a thriving, pulsing, gigantic community of creative people bent on making people laugh/cry or just plain think. There are literally hundreds of talented guys and girls out there that have something to tell the world and devote time, effort and money to put it into a comic format and release it into the wild, anxiously refreshing their stats page and checking their Inboxes, waiting to see wether the world gives them a big thumbs up, or gives them the finger (yes, we all do, only the big ones bother to filter their incoming mail and even they read all fan mail).

The first webcomic community I found was Rocketbox. Founded by ten webcomic veterans, and with a solid body of articles, it offered me a wealth of information and most importantly, a peek into the general mindset of the webcomicking community.

The second community I joined was Top Web Comics. You may have seen the list (maybe you found out about this comic there?). But the most interesting stuff goes on at the forums (fora). Whereas the noise-to-signal ratio is higher in the TWC forum than at Rocketbox, the community has established authors that are level headed and usually provide very interesting opinions, moderators that are frequently called into action, controversial topics, attention seeking vote whores, stoners, kids, old farts (I count myself as one of the latter. I’m definitely not the oldest — that would be you, Dinglemunch! — but I certainly belong to the old crowd. Maybe to some of the others too). All of these make for a very entertaining place to hang out at.

There are numerous inside stories within these communities. Rocketbox had a period of very intense activity (I think there was a slashdotting involved) and then settled on a moderate growth pace. The Top Web Comics site had its fair share of infighting and instability recently too, when it changed ownership. All in all, they are incredibly entertaining places to hang out at (remember that many of these people make it a point of getting people to laugh on a regular basis). If you have time, check them out. It will prove to be entertaining, at the very least, and who knows? you may find the webcomic you’ve been looking for all along, or make friends with very interesting guys and gals.

— sergio at 02:32 PM  

Plug Week Day 1 — The Self Referential day.

This post marks the beginning of Plug Week. What in flying blazes is Plug Week you ask? Well, it’s where I spread the love and explain how most of the links you see to your left came to be there.

I’ve started to get a relatively significant number of hits (nothing to write home about, but let’s say if all the readers stood on a small cat they’d crush him to death… oh my god! did I just write that???), quite a few of those hits have come from the kindness of the people linked there, so I think it would be nice of me to return the favor and send a little traffic in their general direction.

How it works

This thing will consist of a series of rants explaining the what, who and why of those comics/communities/hosting services linked there. If you’re interested in gaining a little insight on the webcomicking scene you should find it at least mildly amusing, so come by and check the site everyday from now ‘til Sunday for the skinny on all that stuff.

Plug Week rants will be available after the deed on a new section I’m adding titled, interestingly enough, writings. In there, I’ll post some short stories and assorted rants (those that tickle my fancy).

— sergio at 09:56 AM  

If you don’t know what the hell is going on with the strip, you may not be a Counter Strike player. This is the first of a three-part installment, so in two weeks it will be clearer. Let me know if you like this style. It won’t be a new style for the whole comic. Just select strips.

A reminder: Tomorrow is the first day of Plug Week. There will be a new rant every day talking about the webcomic scene and some of the people involved (namely, those linked on the left), hosting and assorted related subjects. Thanks for visiting. See you later.

— sergio at 11:47 PM  

I have received a lot of comments about the update frequency of the strip (moreover, the lack of it). While it seems I’m finally stabilizing on a Sunday update schedule, the whole weekly thing seems to be just waaaay too slow. If it bothers you, let me tell you that it drives me mad. This stuff is supposed to have an actual story. I have several storylines I want to explore planned for the future, but it all seems to advance very slowly. Which is why I’m exploring new directions.

I thought for a while about making non-colored strips for the middle of the week and keeping the current Sunday colored strip. Don’t know how this would rub you. I could put a sample of how the strip would look without color somewhere to give you an idea. Let me know if this is something you would want to see. I’m somewhat obsessive about the art, so it would take a conscious effort from me to release those strips, but it would shave a few hours off the development process.

I have also thought about making a 1-panel gag strip in the middle of the week (the “Insanity” poster started that way but became a normal strip). I kind of like this idea, and I’ll at least follow up on that with a few more spoof posters. Problem with this is: The format for a 1-panel gag thing doesn’t provide much on the way of character development material.

I’d like to know your opinions on these subjects. Also, thanks to everyone who has written so far and to those who haven’t: Hope you do sometime in the future. I like to know who’s reading this thing and hear from you. I will answer every email I get.

Announcements

- Next week will be Plug Week. I’ll make a daily rant about the comic industry, introduce the comics and communities that I’m linking to and let you in on a bit of background history about this stuff. If this pikes your curiosity come by and check out the rants. There will be a new one every day.

- The next strip will go up on time this Sunday. It will be somewhat different to the usual stuff. Hope you like it.

- You may have noticed that we now have a forum courtesy of TWC (thanks Threeboy!). Apparently there is a bug on the registration system so new people can’t register and post, but it’s being worked on. I’ll let you know when it is available.

- The Top Web Comics list finally reset (for real) and we’re doing fine. Thanks everyone. Keep voting. I’ll keep on thinking up stuff so I can update more often.

— sergio at 12:17 PM  

Today’s comic, as you may have noticed, went out Sunday right at the start of the day. Hopefully this will mark the beginning of a new epoch. One with chirping birds, happy people, flowery crap and all that stuff. Most importantly: one in which I update on time.

This one is actually the beginning of a series I have planned. When I started it, it was meant to be a mid-week extra update. However, I spent so much time coloring the car that I decided to make it the Sunday comic. Plus, this might give me a chance to build up buffer strips. Next updates on this series will go down mid week to keep comic continuity going. I don’t know how you people will like it, but I think this screams Wallpaper all over the place, so I took the liberty and added it in the gallery. I’ve also added the other wallpaper I had made over there. Let me know what you think.

— sergio at 11:34 AM  

Yay! We’ve got a Monday (true Monday) update! A very very early one at that. Hopefully this will become the norm, and I’ll start updating on Sunday night. More healthy for me.

Went to see The pianist and About Schmidt this weekend. Both are excellent movies. The latter made me think a lot… More about that later on.

— sergio at 12:49 AM  

I’ve decided to actually start registering the strips on the day they come out, to keep from alienating new readers who may not be familiar with my creative definition of Monday. So there. This comic went out Tuesday. And very early at that. Worry not, for the updates will continue to have the same schedule, I’ll only accept the fact that it is already Tuesday. From time to time, I expect I’ll update on Sunday or Monday, but I’m starting to think that that’s just bullshit I tell myself.

As indicated beside the title, this one is based off an idea Peter had some time ago. Credit where credit is due. By the way, the thing Joe’s boss hands him on the last frame is a shoehorn. Damn thing has the weirdest shape, so in case you couldn’t tell what it was please let me know, so I can add a sign or something.

Now that that’s out of the way: I worked a good part of the week on making improvements to the html in the site. You may not notice most of the changes, but they make me feel all w3c compliant and warm and fuzzy inside. The floating frames on the front page should display ok for Opera users, so now we’re compatible with most browsers. Haven’t tested on Safari yet. Anyone care to tell me how this thing works there?

— sergio at 02:39 AM  

I finally got off my ass and finished work on the wallpaper I had promised a while ago. This is the first one I make so let me know how it works out for you. Maybe later I’ll make a less cluttered one, with only the theme of the last frame. I’ll make a section for posting this kind of stuff too. Click on the image to get the 1024 x 768 size.

The voting for the Top Web Comics list has been going strong and I can’t thank you all enough. There are new readers visiting the site everyday and I’m glad to see that a lot of them are staying. Welcome, and I hope you enjoy yourselves. Here’s a little token of appreciation:

800 by 600

1024 by 768

1280 by 1024

— sergio at 02:21 AM  

I don’t have anything personal against trekkies. But Dixon does, apparently. Maybe I’ll get some trekkie hate mail for this one. That would be cool. Too late now for a coherent rant, so I’ll end this now.

— sergio at 02:08 AM  

Ok. New comic’s up. I think this hour can hardly be called Monday. I don’t see the Sun rising yet though, so it will be marked Monday. This was a rather busy week, so I ended up doing all the work late this night, hence the… interesting hours at which I’m posting this. I may have had one too many cups of coffee yesterday too…

I want to thank all of you guys and girls dearly for all the support you’ve given me and the comic by voting on the Top Web Comics list. The voting started to pick up almost halfway through the month and we’ve already made it to place 74-ish. Here’s the really cool thing: That list resets itself each month, so at the start of next month everyone will be at zero and the odds of scoring a high place are higher, plus, the increased visibility helps the hits (did that make sense? Damn! it’s 5 o’clock!). Please come by whenever you can and vote. Everyone can vote once per day. In return, I’ll try to put up as many extras as I can. I’m talking wallpapers, pinups, bikini shots (you know you want them) and all sorts of goodies. Stay tuned, use the shoutbox, drop me an email, it’s all good.

— sergio at 05:09 AM  

I’m starting to see a pattern in the update times for the strip, so if you want to be sure you get the latest comic, your best bet would be Tuesday morning. At least until I pre-make some strips to have a buffer (hopefully soon). If you guys want to check this place out everyday for the occasional rants anyway it’s no problem to me =).

I plan on putting up a section with my short stories in here, and to finally start rotating the picture at the front page (start a gallery too). All that plus amazing acts by trained monkeys after I get some sleep. See you.

— sergio at 01:28 AM  

New comic’s up. Too tired now to think straight. I’m kinda proud of how this one ended up. Lots of new visitors today from Slashdot. I hope you guys stay for the long haul. Don’t forget to vote for me on the Top Web Comics button to the left. I crave the sweet sweet flavor of a two-digit place in that list. Out now.

— sergio at 01:18 AM  

Fuck it. As of today, I’m starting to call “Monday” whatever goes between the actual Monday night and Tuesday morning. So this comic went up Monday. ‘Cause I said so! and screw Greenwich!

The site had a one-day blackout last Thursday due to server problems. It won’t happen again, hopefully, so don’t be afraid to come by. This thing is still here and will be for a while. Remember to click on the Top Web Comics thingie to the left, I appreciate all of your support.

— sergio at 01:30 AM