It's been a while since the last site news update. That's because I have busy working and drawing strips. Specifically, I'm trying to build up a strip buffer again. It's hard to believe but I once was five weeks of strips ahead. Now the buffer has shrunk to barely one.
A few reader e-mails have come in. Note the "few". If you haven't written me yet – please do! This strip is powered by feedback. Well-argued negative feedback is welcome as well. My e-mail continues to be <me AT thisisme-comic DOT com>.
So far, I have replied to every single e-mail I've got. That's not always easy to do. One reader complained about the RSS feed not including either the comic itself or the commentary. He went on to explain that "a strip has to be world class to get me to read it outside Google Reader".
I ran his e-mail through an online translation service. The result: 'I will only eat your free chicken if it seasons and fries itself, then flies straight into my open mouth.' Apparently, THIS IS ME isn't interesting enough for him to make the effort to click on a bookmark. Now of course that will motivate me to modify the RSS feed.
German readers don't seem to like Andrew much: "He might be an interesting person in real life, as a comic character I personally find him a bit extreme". But that's exactly what makes him so fascinating in real life...
Hopefully most readers will find enough to enjoy in THIS IS ME to allow me to indulge in my occasional misstep. And by all means: Let me know if you think I've misstepped!
Feedback to the "I've found an ending for the strip" announcement was... well, actually, encouraging. Better than I'd expected, anyway. Only one e-mail went the 'How am I supposed to get through life without your strip' route, everybody else was supportive and understanding. For some reason, THIS IS ME has a high ratio of active female readers. I greatly appreciate that. For presumably an entirely different reason, two male readers have told me my wife looks cute. When I told my real-life wife about her virtual fans, she blushed and laughed. Outside, rain clouds dispersed and the temperature went up by six degrees.
Readers are gradually getting other people hooked to the comic: Sisters, good friends, less good friends. Well, this is the perfect time to spread the word a bit further as the strip is approaching the triple digits. Unless my schedule is utterly wrong, Strip 100 should go online on February 8, 2008. How does that make me feel? I'll let you know once I get there.