So, I did something dumb.

I’ve been working really, really hard on MC of late. I’ve always worked hard on it, but lately I’ve worked even harder.

I’ve been trying to make the story more interesting, I’ve been creating more new characters and new places in MONSTRU that we’ve never seen before, and I’ve been spending more and more time on the art.

With all of this work, I’ve been trying to find a larger audience for MC. It’s not that I don’t appreciate you early adopters (because I do) but having more readers = more opportunity and success for our business. Advertising revenue goes up, and more folks get turned onto what I’m doing here.

I’ve posted MC strips on some steampunk forums (who tend to read a LOT of pages) and daily on Facebook, on Twitter, on Stumbledupon, and Reddit.

But here’s where I got myself into greedy trouble: I’m a member of a private forum for webcomic creators, and we had a thread where we upvoted comics that we liked, and they could upvote our comics too.

In effect, we cheated. (Even though the number of upvotes that members gave each other was pretty minor. 1-3 votes per day, by my figures.) Our page views and visitation went up, and more people saw our work. Maybe even a few of you found us that way.

This isn’t exactly kosher in the Reddit community. Somebody posted this on Reddit, and it’s caused a shitestorm of hate over there. People are calling for our heads, and generally considering us douche-heads.

And I stand out as one of the larger assweeds.

Why?

Most folks in that thread that post comics 2-3 days a week. But I post a Monster Commute comic 5 days a week.

SO, if you’re looking at the reddit thread you’re seeing MonsterCommute.com listed over and over again. (Once per each day of the week.)

So, I’m kind of embarrassed. I really haven’t done anything like that before, but I was tempted to see if there were other ways for me to show off my work to more folks.

I got greedy. I got impatient. I was dumb.

I won’t be tempted to do it any more.

Instead, I need to focus on making a better comic; one worth talking about.

- Daniel

Sorry monster folks, but I’m running behind tonight. I should be asleep, but I’m not. I’ll fix that shortly. Instead, I’m bloggity-bloggy-blogging.

Do you realize that it’s almost our 2 year anniversary of Monster Commute?

When is it?

Comment and let everyone know…

- Daniel

All your generator power are belong to us!

- the lights

I’ve had the hankering for a steampunk (steamcrow) bicycle for a while now.

I may have found the solution, though it won’t be cheap.

I’m in research mode. I’ve been inspired by the Supernaut, to some degree, though our brand is less evil.

- Daniel

Hope you don’t mind the double-long comic for today.

I was just finding that I needed to combine 2 strips in order to get you to where I wanted for this week.

Sucks for me (in that it took many hours to simply draw the train and the train interior too – and I still need to build my buffer up), but it’s better for you!

Anyway, there you have it.

I haven’t really shown you the true scale of the Zephernaut, but you can tell it’s big because it’s made to haul CrowBots around, in style. (Those are well little CrowBots above on the blimps.)

A car is really, really small compared to this thing.

I’d like to take a trip on the Zerphernaut 7, myself.

- Daniel

Sorry guys, but I’m sick. Yeah, and I don’t feel good, either.

Har, har?

So, I’m keeping the blogging down so I can go veg out and relax a bit. I’ve just got a cold, but I’ve also been having a tough time sleeping of late… so it’s a compounding problem.

I managed to take a day off of the day job, and thankfully my boss is a really nice/great lady. No problems there.

However, I worked today, and my dual-screens are blasting into the back of my skull in a not-so-ungoth way.

Whatever that means.

Hope you’re doing well here in the end of Summer.

Leave me a comment and tell me that YOU’RE alive too!

- Daniel

I’m here interviewing Dawna Davis, my wife and Steam Crow partner.

She’s here taking photos of her monster bags, so I thought that I’d interview her, since you guys rarely hear from her.

Dawna has been teaching art for 13 years, and now she’s teaching art and photography at the High School level.

DD = Me.

Dawna = Dawna.

<>

DD: How was your summer:

Dawna: It was busy.

DD: Care to elaborate?

Dawna: I worked for you. (Packing orders, doing cons, casting resin, bagging prints, stamping, wrangling Goblin Boy.)

DD: Yes, yes you did… You worked for US.

Dawna: hee hee

DD: Any Steam Crow highlights from your POV?

Dawna: I have a way cool new apron.

DD: What color?

Dawna: Brown, of course.

DD: You’ve got a new red one too.

Dawna: And a black one.

DD: Anything else?

Dawna: Your art show at SideBar (in Phoenix) was awesome. I enjoyed that. It’s nice for the business to be busy. It makes me feel like one day it will be our full-time job.

Dawna: I’m looking forward to that day, actually.

DD: Yeah. I’m with you there.

DD: So what about this Fall?

Dawna: This fall? Um… I’m stressed out.

DD: Super.

Dawna: It’s not bad, and I’m not as stressed out as I could be… I’m just… trying to stay organized. (With school)

DD: Yeah, teaching is challenging.

Dawna: Yeah, no prep is challenging for the first time. 4 90 minute classes are a lot to prep for.

DD: Surely.

DD: Is there anything that you’d like to say to our supporters?

Dawna: THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU! We’ve had an awesome summer and year, and SDCC. I want to make more bags and paint more. I want to make more art; nobody knows that I do art too. Except for my students.

DD: Yeah, it’s tough to do everything all at once.

Dawna: I’ll do my art when Goblin Boy is 18.

DD: Well get it out there before then.

Dawna: I hope so.

Daniel: Well, thank you for this interview.

Dawna: Thank you. I love my new camera.

- Daniel

I like eating, but I can’t claim that I’m an excellent cook. (I’m not.)

I was raised by folks with depression era meets mid-west cuisine; lot’s of casseroles and oven-based foods. (Likely because I was raised in the North.

So, I know how to cook roasts, tater-tot casseroles, quiche, mash potatoes, waffles/pancakes, breakfast foods, homemade pizza and stuff like that. Basically, heavy food that my wife doesn’t want to eat.

It’s not that I disagree with her, but these dishes are the things that I know how to make, and actually enjoy cooking. Cooking from recipes is kinda like math; something that I don’t so so well.

I’m telling you this because I’m simply hungry, and I’m cooking some bean burritos tonight. I’m a little sick, and need some comfort food.

- Daniel

Hul are massive, hairy beasts, traditionally used as beasts of burden. They are most similar to Earth’s Ox, though they are 10 times larger, but smellier and more rotten tasting.

The flavor of Hul (pronounced “hool”) meat is the one thing that has prevented this creature from becoming extinct.

Hul are incredibly strong, and are sometimes used by trolla to tow long chains of wagons in a convoy of sorts. They naturally eat grass, nuts, and cardboard, though sawdust can be used to fill their bellies for a time.

Hul leather is used in upholstery in the most fancy of steamcars.

A Good Hul will set you back about $400 CrowBucks

- Daniel

Spent a busy weekend in Sedona here, last weekend.

Dawna’s brother Dirk just got married to Jenni, and Dawna and I were asked to photograph the event.

Dawna was the prime photographer, as she’s more experienced than I am. I acted as the secondary photographer, and shot with a wide-angle lens and tried to capture the overall atmosphere of the event, the big outdoor scenes, and side-shots of the main photography.

(What I mean by that is that while Dawna might be facing the couple straight on and photographing them, I might be on the backside in an alcove getting them in silhouette or from behind.)

In any case, we were in a mega-rush, and lost a good hour of our planned 2 hrs of photography due to a flower crisis. This doubling up of everything at least allowed for a few additional shots that Dawna just didn’t have time to get, or to offer some other angles of things. In short: choices.

The nice thing is that Dawna and I have worked together quite a bit over the years, and it felt just like old times to work on this. She might be in front of me, and I’d be hovering just over her shoulders taking a wide-angle view of the same thing. So that was good.

Anyway, you probably won’t see Steam Crow brand wedding photography in the near future; we had a great time, but still like making monsters the best.

- Daniel

Steampunk subgenres that I have little interest to see:

• Furrypunk – Nope, too ookie.
• Glitterpunk – Those vampires are too sad.
• Hobopunk – Can’t find jobs, can’t find good equipment
• Slasherpunk – Isn’t that the film “Time After Time”?
• Cavemanpunk – Just won’t work.
• Futurepunk – Oh wait, isn’t that just Cyberpunk?
• Punkpunk – Punk rock steampunkrs in a band
• Mimepunk – Shhhh!
• Stonerpunk – Saw enough of that in High School.
• Bonopunk – U2 frontman gone awry.
• Steam-punky Brewster – Okay, I’m just getting dumb here.
• Feastpunk / Chefpunk – It’s all about the food.
• Pornopunk – I’m sure that it’s being done somewhere.
• Monsterpunk – HEY, that’s what WE ARE!

Please don’t punish me. You made me do this.

- Daniel

Favorite soundtrack music to make Monster Commute to:

• Amelie
• Beats Antique (not a soundtrack, but could be)
• 300
• Alice in Wonderland (Danny Elfman)
• Sherlock Holmes
• King Kong
• District 9
• Dark Knight
• Inception Soundtrack (Intense x4, I can’t listen to it much.)
• 10,000 BC (Better than the movie)

Others that I don’t like so much:

• Avatar (Too goofy)
• The Road (Kind of intense… but good.) But for some reason, I can’t work to it.

Basically, I need music to get me awake and rolling early in the morning. However, it can’t have words/singing, since I’m also writing dialog, and that doesn’t work so well.

What are you listening to, when you work?

So, sometimes in my truly egomania mind, I imagining that I’m designing cars and buildings and settings not just for this comic, but also for the Monster Commute Theme Park. (MCTP)

(Or maybe we’d just call it “MONSTRU WORLD”?)

See, I told you I was a freak.

Now, I don’t think that this would ever really happen, but how cool would it be to go to a MCTP with all of these drive-thrus, mechanical CrowBots stomping around, while you’d get to tour in your own rig?!

Very cool, I say.

Everything would be rusty, with huge fiberglass heads, stained storefronts, and greasy streets. People would come in costume as a monster, and there would be costume rental places too.

Anyway, the highlight, aside from seeing it all myself, would be to eat at the various food courts. Ed’s House of Eggs. Clown Bite. Jack’s Fuel. And now, Lincoln Dogs!

Yeah, it would be kinda gross, but I think that it would be hell-arious!’ Especially the teenagers who would be working the stores, handing out the corndogs with their sarcastic smiles.

Okay, my egomania has been fueled for the day. It’s time to get back to work.

- Daniel

And now you know.

<>

Work continues on Monster Commute Book II.

I’m in the writing stage, now that the formatting of all of the comics is finished. So far, I have text for 16 pages; basically all-new information about the World of Monstru, it’s denizens and such.

Every day, I try to come up with some more new stuff.

I’m also creating some new graphical “content” too, though I’m not very far on that just yet. I do have some fun ideas though that should interest a few of you.

This book should be a really nice companion for Monster Commute Book I, as well as 2011′s (I hope) Monster Commute pen & paper RPG.

Nice thing, is that it all cross-polinates nicely. Each book should make the  others more interesting.

Monster Commute Book II Book Drive starts October 31st.

- Daniel

UnSun: Our Story So Far…

The Sun:

• The Sun is gone, and nobody really knows why.
• It just didn’t come back one morning.
• It’s been dark for several weeks already.
• It has been getting a little colder each “day”.

The Steam Crew:

• Beastio, Kip, and Chadworth have run out of fuel, and they ended up at Jack’s Fuel.
• Chadworth desperately attempts to get a refill on credit, but Jack’s refuses.
• Meanwhile Kip has filled up regardless.
• The Crew is now working to pay off their debt, as service station attendants.
• Kip has been sneaking expensive oil; Mr. Manager has been putting it on their tab, without Chad’s knowledge.

The folk of Monstru:

• Most folks are very concerned about the UnSun situation.
• Some are in a panic, and believe that it is the end of the world.
• Candles are in short supply; kerosene is going for $275 a pint. (A fortune.)

Rumors:

• There was a lamp-riot in Cindle.
• Creatu has stolen the sun.
• The moon is the next to go.
• Coal is becoming scarce.
• The Feratu are behind it all.

- Daniel