So I just realized I haven't updated this blog in a while... so lots of news...

Tiff and I and her mom and the 3 kids (yes, 6 of us) moved out of the super-cramped 2-bed apartment (yes, 6 people, 2 bedrooms) into a house on the other side of town. This happened on the 1st of November. I had my birthday on the 5th and then on the 11th (yep, 11/11/11) the court awarded me sole custody of my kids (following 8 months in which my ex failed to appear in court 5 times consecutively). The judge ruled that my ex should not only pay child-support but also pay back attorney's fees with interest because of her not showing up to court. I don't expect to get any of that money in part because it turns out that my ex's condition is worse than we'd originally expected. She finally went to see a doctor last week, got admitted to the hospital and after a CT scan and some other tests the doctors said she has so much Alzheimer's-like damage in her brain that it's unlikely she'll ever recover enough to care for herself, much less hold a job. She's 41. D:

The doctors started the paperwork to get her on disability and into state care (since she has no insurance), but the judge ruled against the doctors' judgement that she's incompetent... which means that she'll be released and go back to stay with her father in the next couple days. I'm pretty concerned... it's kind of dangerous for her to be trying to take care of herself, but that's what the judge ruled. In order for us to get her into care now either we or her father have to petition the court with further evidence and probably get adult-protective services involved.

The small silver lining in all of this is that we were able to get custody of the kids in February and so they didn't have to stay with my ex until she went into the hospital. In that time we've managed to get them all caught up on school (from being 1-2 years behind and failing all their classes). Nick and Calli are now A-B students! Alex is a C-F student, but we're working on that. They're also clean, clothed and well fed, which wasn't true when they were staying with their mom.

So that's all the family news. I'm hoping I can get to at least one local convention this year. I've been getting a lot of exposure on DeviantArt lately where I created a new group for critiques. Check out Critoons at http://critoons.deviantart.com -- or come see me at http://smolderingremains.deviantart.com . Also I'm working on a series of interviews with other webcomic authors called Gutter Stars to pay forward some of the success I've had on DeviantART. :D

I'm having a lot of fun still making the comic.

Thank you all for reading! :D

A couple days ago my tablet notebook I draw my comics on suddenly died... HP tech support says it's just outside of warranty and it turns out the CPU / Motherboard failed, which I suspected when it didn't even post beep.

So to keep going, I've resurrected Tiff's previous desktop. It's not as fast. I don't think it has quite as much memory. But it works for now! :D Hopefully I'll get the notebook repaired soon.

In the meantime, I could use a few commissions to help pay for the repairs. Thanks!

Hi guys!

I'm sorry I haven't published any new comics in a while. We're going through a difficult adjustment period right now since CPS placed my 3 children with me at the end of February and we decided this was the best opportunity to file for custody. We had our first custody hearing on the 15th and their mother didn't show up to the hearing so we got a default judgement. So things are moving in a good direction, but we've still got 6 people in a 2-bedroom apartment and are trying to figure out how to get a bigger place, how to afford it and how to feed everybody. I've been taking commissions over at DeviantART to help fill the gap financially and all this extra work between commissions, dishes, cooking, etc. has kept me from publishing any new comics here. Hopefully things will settle down here soon and I'll be able to publish some more comics. :)

Thanks for reading!

Ike

Tiff and I moved into a new apartment this week. A whopping 250 feet from our previous apartment! Yay! :D

Actually it's a good thing. We needed the extra space and had been waiting for it for a while because Tiff's mom is staying with us and she needed her own room.

This is however the reason why I didn't post any new comics this past week, so I'll be back to regular updates soon. :D

It's taken me completely by surprise that this comic is suddenly so popular! :D I came back from the Dallas Webcomics Expo last week and suddenly realized that I was averaging over 100 views per day! So I realize that I haven't posted new content to this comic in a little while -- it's coming soon, I promise. Thank you all so much for reading! :D

In the meantime, I've uploaded a new version of the Sisiphus strip because a local celebrity, Taffeta Darling, asked me about a poster of it at the expo last week and I'd been meaning to revisit that strip for a while. ;) So this was a great opportunity to get off my duff and do that for her.

I've also updated the CSS for the comic and removed most of the dead-space at the top so you can see more of the comic when the page loads. And I've added a donation button on the right hand side so if you like what you see, you can help support more of it. :D I plan to set up an Etsy store soon for my t-shirts as well.

Thanks!

IKE