Merry Christmas, All! Have a tip-top-tet, Solid and dignified ramadan, craaazy kwanza and a happy Hannuka.



You can submit your picture anytime from now, until January 1st. Little bit of leeway on that for obvious reasons, but try your best to get it out around christmas. when you are done, PLEASE contact the person you drew for and show them the loooovee you made, then let me know so I can cross you off the naughty list for not finishing your picture.

115 people this round. Yowza.

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:Mallory:

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I'm doing this for meat. And using lame copy-pasta from 's journal.

"HEY FOLKS!!!

It's ZUDA time again, and I am in competition along with my buddy Josh Hechinger. Josh did me a favor and wrote out what we need from you:

So, the Zuda contest relies on votes. Not unlike American Idol, actually. And if we win, we get to do the comic as an ongoing series that we get paid for and everything. Which would be great, I tell you what.

So, here’s what we need from you:

1) Go to [link]

2) Either sign in, or make a new account at [link]

2a) If you’re signing up, just fill out all the required (red asterisk) fields.

3) Go back to [link] once you have an account, and sign in.

4) Go to: [link]

5) Click the button marked “Favorite” on the sidebar.

6) Click Five Stars on the “Rate this Comic” section, also on the sidebar.

7) Finally, click the big “Vote!” button; again, right column. That, Favorites, and the Rating all count towards our winning the contest.

8) Feel free to leave a comment as well. I don’t know if it counts for anything, we just like hearing from folks.

What wasn't mentioned in those instructions is the CONTEST that Josh and I are running parallel to the ZUDA competition.

FIRST PRIZE: Help us win this competition, and when the series continues on ZUDA we make you one of the victims of the ghost in the story [that's right, we kill you off in the comic]. Of course, on the off chance that we don't win the competition, we don't want the person that wins first prize to walk off with nothing. That being the case the person in first on December 24, 2009 will win a copy of the Eisner And Harvey Award winning COMIC BOOK TATTOO, signed by Josh and myself [not for the heck of it, we both worked on different stories in the book].

SECOND PRIZE: The ghost kills you off in the comic.

How do you win the contest? Well, first vote for us. Then tell your friends, get them to sign up and vote for us as well. So that we know they are doing it on your behalf we need them to leave a comment under our comic with your name listed. End of the month we're tallying up the names and announcing the winner.

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD ON THIS!!! "


There. Officially whored. All that aside, it is a fantastic comic and they're fantastic gents. And I get meat.

EDIT EDIT: Okay, with most of the people doing this via comment (which i oversaw as....agh, it's a pain in the ass, essentially, since I can't copy-paste requests, I have to go into the link, copy past that, there's more people and it's taking 10x as long. So, you'll either get a note with your exact request, or a link to where you can find that request. That'll make things easier. I'll be sending out a lot of notes the next few days, with the bulk of them on monday night/ tuesday.


Sign up's extended to December 3rd. Whhhyyyy? Well, because i pretty much just found out my final portfolio's due the fourth. So i'm rushing like a bat out of hell to get it done, and trying to organize the FFSS smack dab in the middle of my panicking time's gonna be hell for all of us. Since it's pushed back just a smidge, the deadline for getting them in is pushed back a little too. We'll see.


Got lots of people this year, proves to be a lot of fun! (also, my subscription's about to run out, so, if anyone wants to donate one, I'll draw you a nice picture. I mean. NICE PICTURE *nudge nudge hint hint*) - _{speaking of, FireKaiya, still gotta do that for you}

And now back to my scheduled panicking.


Sign up will end December 3rd, Midnight, Central time.


Join the Secret Santa, Now in it's fourth year!

How this works- You sign up. To sign up, reply here, or send me a note with what character you'd like drawn, and what you can and can't draw yourself.

Example: I wanna join, I'd like my character_______ drawn
Here's a reference: link
I can't draw cats or people.

The picture drawn has to be winter/christmas themed in some way. You are not allowed to say what your character is doing in this picture, we're leaving all creative ideas/ backgrounds up to your secret santa. Nothing over a PG rating.

Your name gets added to the list below. Sign-up's for the entire month of November. Come December 1st, i'll dole out names to who draws for who, you draw for your person, and send them the link to thier picture when you're done- and hopefully before christmas, you get your picture as well. Everyone happy, everyone benefits, everyone has fun.

The gist: You'll draw a nice picture (background, color) of someone elses character and get one in return of your character. Secretively, of course.


There are no limits on who can and can't sign up. Though if you don't feel you can get a drawing out by December 31st, don't enter.

I want to get as many, if not more people as we got last year, so spread the news, tell your friends, hug your dog! Let's get this party started!



SECRET SANTA PARTICIPANTS

:My roomie Mallory:

So, a few things- My critique with DGP, aka was today.... and he was a big hit! My one regular teacher and the Grad student that's been teaching us didn't say a single thing bad about it, even referenced it 4-5 times later when talking about other pieces. I was blown away, I'd been psyching myself up all day and Sunday night (I thought it was due Monday, not so) for the hellfire critique I was told to come. But yeah, they really liked it! *is still in awe of good accolades*


The more serious biz stems from something my pinata-making aunt said, about if I wanted to go out to somewhere, that just...doing it after college was the best time. Which for a while, I thought was crazy... who drives out to California/Oregon/Washington with no set plan? After really taking a look around me, and more poignantly, going to some poor old lady's estate sale really sealed it. After college, and after my brother's wedding in august, I'm going to make the trip out. I don't want to live in SoCal- I've been there, the times I've been there I've already witnessed a police shootout 5 minutes from LAX, and that may be the real crust of dreams and hopes and etc etc, but I'm looking to rent out a room north from that. How north? Anywhere along the western coast, from San Francisco to Seattle.

I figured on throwing the question out here first, in the incredibly unlikely chance that I manage to find a friend on here that's renting a room out, or whose family is, or knows someone nice and regular who's renting out a room. More then that, if you know someone who has, what they found as a good rate (so I know how much to expect). I don't have the money to rent an apartment with one roommate; maybe a house of roommates (really i'm not picky at this point), just so I can get my shit together, and be a lot closer to that whole mecca of gaming i'm trying to get into. Now for some awesome stats!:

- I don't smoke.
- I'm a social drinker at best, I don't drink often, but I do drink.
- The worst drugs I take are benadryl/tylenol. (i'm an artist, but i'm not a lazy hippy!-- i'm also allergic to pot, so that couldn't work anyways)
- My cat beezle is part of the equation; he's the most kickass cat you'll ever meet- gets along with all other cats to date,and probably fine with everything else, half Russian blue half DSH - he sheds very little.
- I shut up in my room on occasion, but i love to talk with people, love to meet new ones, that whole sort.
- I can cook!
- What I cook is quite delicious! (you can ask my friends, roommates, or family members- from ribeyes, to soups, to cakes, it goes on and on)
- I am very chicagoan. Yer fancy west coast mumbly-joo may scare me on occasion.
- I'm not looking to room with annoying, raucous douche bags. YOU know what I'm talking about.
- I can kick your ass in video games. BRING IT.


I'm nervous; I have no friends out there, my closest relative is my 2nd cousin in orange county, or my ...3rd...relative...cousin....we're probably not related because she used to hit on my brother. Hopefully. But I know it's the right move; so any suggestions or advice you may have is going to help immensely.

my bird ariel died- she was 7 years old, almost 8. I... I just can't even think of anything. It wasn't a natural death, it was a horrible, angonizing, terrible one; she was egg laden- aka, she tried to lay an egg and pretty much unraveled her internal organs in the process and internally hemoraged to death. I think this is the bad part of knowing as much biology as I do.

I knew she was going to lay another egg, my remaining fucker-bird, icarus, had been recently sexing her up bad lately. She laid one before, and did the polite thing of breaking it open herself and eating the juicy insides, and was going to do it again. When I left for work at 5, she was fine,though suffering from a cold, or something where she spat a lot of mucus up. This was the 3rd time she'd been doing it, and antibiotics cured it up the last two times, what she was on now. Anyways (I swear to god, I'm gonna twist icarus's neck if he doesn't shut the fuck up for god damn second.)

I came home from work to find everything at it's worst. Blood on the side of the cage, the egg half-laid, but mostly still inside her ass-tract, that was outside of her body. She had one foot stuck on the blanket covering the cage, too weak to pull her nail out of it, just hanging, head down at the bottom of the cage. I unhooked her nail, and she kinda fell to the bottom, though still alive, very much weak and on her way out. After gawking like a dumbass for 5 minutes, i pulled her from the cage carefully, cradeling her and trying to wipe some of the mucus and seeds off of her face. I took her to the bathroom and ran some water , trying to maybe work the egg out a little, but finding that pretty much solidified to the egg. When I was clearing the mucus away from her face, she started gagging for air, heaving, her breaths getting more and more farther apart, before she finally just...stopped. She held on until I came home and held her, and died then. That was 2 hours ago, and my hands are still shaking like mad.

It sounds tupid, she was a parakeet, they don't live that long, but I got that bird when I was 15 years old, it was my first. That thing got me through all the terrible parts of my highschool- she used to ride on my bike handels up and down the street, and actually loved that. She knew how to whistle certain tunes, she would always tap on my glasses, her and I used to take naps together, and she's stay. She knew how to pick up money and sorta kinda bring it to me. i mean, it's so hard to try and explain what this bird meant to me, but the tears streaming down my face are a pretty good indication. That bird was so unimaginably awesome that her death has had me bawling for hours now.


I don't know what to do with icarus; he's practically killed two of my birds now; Crumpet, from before, who had a broken wing that icarus would peck at and irritate until he died, and Ariel, who never laid an egg until that persistant little fucker wouldn't let up. I don't like him. He's the nastiest of allt he bird's i've had, won't stay on your finger, won't let you touch him without him flipping out. More then that, he never shuts the fuck up! 5 am, you get that shit-head, whisteling, 3 am he'll be screeching for no reason, just. every. fucking. second. I love animals, but part of me wants to smack his head against the wall in a very non-animal loving way.

I feel horrible. I feel...dead. Worst fucking day ever.