Metapost: News Roundup

So before I do that book review, I figured a news roundup was also in order. First up, we have an article from Editor and Publisher that discusses the current circulation of the comic. Highlights include that you can now read Liō in nearly 275 papers, that the pantomime format is ideal for selling the comic overseas, and that it has quite a foothold in Asia.

Also, the Hattiesburg American is currently giving several new strips a trial after the end of Kudzu. If you live in an area serviced by that paper, now is your chance to ensure a permanent place for our Dark Child! Hopefully in lieu of B.C. or the Wizard of Id. Which are far darker than Liō considering the dead writers and artists involved and all.

The Liō Sundays will be replacing the Kudzu Sundays in North Carolina's News and Observer. The dailies are not running, but it's always worth a few letters to the editor if you're in the area to beg for a daily dose.

Unpleasant dreams

8/14/07:You'd think Papa Liō would be well aware of the kinds of stories his son likes. He must be - there's a resigned glumness to his face as he alters the storyline. Perhaps he wished, in vain, that he might cultivate a sense of pleasantry and normality in his son? Yet at his son's clear dislike, he gives up and allows Liō to instead dream, nut of sugar plums, but of terror and destruction. In the end, Papa Liō knows that this is his child's fate as he looks up to Heaven and asks silently "Are you *sure* he's one yours?"

Metapost: Back from the depths

So in the time since my last post, several significant things happened.

1) I missed a great storyline about Liō at summer camp.
2) My personal life went topsy-turvy between my cousin's wedding and numerous other crazy things that are too boring and chaotic to be of interest
3) The first Liō collection came out.

So here's what I'm going to do. Much as I hate it, I have to let July go, sadly. Hope all two of you that read this out there at least got to read it. Hope you got to read August's material too, because I'm just going to start with today, fresh and clean.

So the first update will be today's comic. The second update, which will go up tonight, will be a review of the new collection, which arrived at my home yesterday. Before the review goes up, however, I definitely recommend it. Full color Sundays, amusing opening by Steve Pastis of the equally humorous Pearls Before Swine, and naturally, the earliest days of Liō.

Enjoy guys, and feel free to flog me in the future when I slack off like that again.

Predators for Fun and Profit

6/29/07You know, it's never said that's Liō's dragon. But he doesn't seem to upset when the man is kidnapped, and he's certainly quite happy that the guy's wallet has now become his by virtue of the man's being devoured. I'd wager that if that dragon doesn't belong to our Dark Child, then he's probably made a habit of stalking the area waiting for this sort of thing to happen. Those giant robots, plutonium jars, dinosaurs, and 8-legged-sweaters do not come cheap.

Pain and Suffering

For some reason I thought yesterday had an update. In supplication, double post!

6/27/07
I'm probably more amused than I should be by the chiding laughter of the birds at Liō's failure to fly. Did the Wright brothers, in their initial failures to achieve flight, ever receive such cruel reactions from the very species they were attempting to emulate?

6/28/07
And so Papa Liō quickly dies on the beach after giving his very last breath for the enjoyment of his only son. Liō, either unaware of his passing or unconcerned by it, joyously forges a path into the ocean using the result of his father's lethal actions.