© Copyright 2008 KilljoyComics.com and Todd Swanson May 30, 2008 The 1/2 Hour Comic Experiment Yeah, I'm not fooling anyone -- I didn't plan ahead -- but as many of ya know, I've not only been out of town, but I've also been wiped out with a nasty cold or flu bug thing! And yet, it is true, I've been wondering what I could do in 1/2 hour. Hm, maybe next time we'll see if a 1-hour comic yields better results. :-p May 1, 2008 Pittsburgh Comicon Hey, so I'm weeks short of sleep at this point, so I'm gonna show you a sneak preview of the comic that I tried to have done for you today -- as well as my very first convention sketch: Zombie Supergirl! April 30, 2008 NEW Dungeon Crawl T-shirts! Gamers rejoice! This is the shirt you've been waiting for: The Dungeon Crawl tee smugly proclaims, "If you have to ask, you wouldn't understand." So show your gamer solidarity by donning this emblem of our shared cultural heritage. If you tried to buy this shirt at the Pittsburgh Comicon this weekend, but found us out of stocks of Medium or Large, our profoundest apologies -- and look, we made the shirt available ASAP, just like we promised! :-) Welcome Comicon Visitors; Note on Today's Killjoy Once again, welcome to all our friends, old and new, who are visiting after chatting with us at the Pittsburgh Comicon! Today's Killjoy is an original strip, though never intended for Internet publication, thus the untimely topic. But a loved one is having some minor surgery tomorrow morning, so I was not able to do something new for you. We hope you enjoy this Killjoy -- enjoy a killjoy, hey, that's kinda funny -- and tune in all week for new KJC strips! April 13, 2008 Killjoy's Griffin Commute TEE SHIRTS! Here at KilljoyComics, we make dreams come true: Joy get's to ride a Griffin, Killjoy gets to complain about something epic, and you get to own a Griffon tee shirt (or mug, button, wall clock -- you name it!). Just click the link to the left to make your dream a reality -- and consequently, mine too. Shop and Compare: Finished vs. Half-finished Killjoy!!! So how do you like the final product? Check it out compared to the half-inked sketch. So have you noticed something a bit different about Killjoy? She's emoting. This is not unintentional: It's a statement about roleplaying, and more generally about gaming, about the kind of environment it fosters and the relationships it shapes. Ironic, I've always thought, how when someone is playing a role, wearing the mask of a fictional character, they often drop the mask that they wear at all other times. To act, to emote, to roleplay, you must remove that hard outer shell, like so much platemail, that we wear in a more public forum, to protect us from life's ever-present social dangers. That doppleganger that is the public you, that is not the real you. And for many of us, the gaming table is the first place where we felt comfortable enough to shed the public disguises and be ourselves. Now I'm no advocate of retreating from reality, and that's not what I'm talking about now. Instead, the gaming table is a social microcosm, an intimate setting of managable numbers, a place where trust is learned and experienced. After all, each time we roleplay, aren't we putting ourselves on the chopping block, risking mockery, as we fumble with medieval pronouns and clumsy Scottish accents? And having trusted enough to try, are we not like dragons, exposing amidst our inpenetrably armored hides the vulnerability of our soft underbellies? But unlike most dragons, our faith is rewarded, and we learn through social adventure that who we are, beneath, is likable, enjoyable, worthy, and valuable too. Roleplaying, responsible employed, can be a petri dish of self worth. April Fools: Half-finished Killjoy!!! Ya know how you've all been bugging me to show you some of my creative process? Well, lucky y'all! It just so happens I'm too freakin' tired to finish this ambitious, complex, wordy comic tonight. So what you get is the half-finished comic. AND I had the astounding foresight not to sketch the punchline in yet, so nothing will be ruined for you when you finally see the finished product. It's very peculiar, I think, that I always do the bits that I think will be most difficult; you'd think I'd wait 'til my hand loosened up, 'til the fingers warmed up, at least until I knew whether I was using a good pen or not. But no, I just dive into the the hardest parts first. Please note some special lettering; this is something an art teacher once told me I had no talent for, and to this day I am terrified of lettering -- perhaps rightly so! Late Post!!! Sorry for the late post. Gimme some credit for posting over a holiday, though, right? :-) Killjoy's First All-Nighters!!! To hell with the naysayers: D&D was good clean fun -- yes, a bloody good time. An Experimental Killjoy!!! I've been wanting to break the mould a little, do a strip on a paper bag or use crayons or something; but I never felt it was warranted. But a directional snafu after SPACE on Saturday gave me just the inspiration I needed. We got lost in the "sketchiest" neighborhood, or so it seemed, 'til we realized we were somewhere really cool. You know how you say you've been to such-and-such a city, and then someone asks you, oh, do you know so-and-so? -- like as if in the entire city, you're gonna strike up a conversation with a complete stranger and later turns out it's that exact person. But that we survived the weekend is proof that yes, it does happen. So next time someone asks you that truly stupid question, "oh, do you know _____?" remember, you might just have an equally stupid answer! Because who says there's never an estranged former best friend around when you need one. BLOG La Brea Swim Team Comic ... and Tees!!! Okay, so it's a digression, but it's funny, right? Get it? La Brea, like the tar pits. A swim team. I think it's hilarious, and I've been meaning to do this for a while. If you think it's funny too, and you just have to have a shirt or mug or something with this cool design on it, click here to go to the La Brea Swim Team shop! LAB RATS Turns 50!!! A BIG WEEK for KilljoyComics: LAB RATS turns 50 strips old on Wednesday!!! Congrats to creator Mark Anticole and his little rodent buddies for their excellent strip! 'Killjoy' cartoonist Todd Swanson and 'Slap of Reality Man' creator Rick Antolic will both contribute guest strips to help celebrate Mark's achievement! So check back to the Lab Rats site for triple the fuzzy goodness: Wednesday: Lab Rats 50th Thursday: Lab Rats guest strip from Todd Swanson Friday: Lab Rats guest strip from Rick Antolic! And Killjoy will be late tomorrow (Tuesday) because of a pen crisis, but look for two new Killjoys Tuesday night and Friday, as usual. Killjoy's "Strip Me" Contest Think you can write a Killjoy comic strip? Salivating over owning a free Killjoy Life is Beautiful: Enjoy It While It Lasts tee shirt? (See "New Tee" blog entry below.) Well, now you can do both! Click here to check out the three standard Killjoy panels of art, anxiously awaiting a witty tete-a-tete from an adoring and talented fan. All you have to do is write the dialog for Joy and Killjoy for the three panels above, and email us the text at KilljoyComics@yahoo.com. That's it! So if you think you've got the chops, I've got the shirt for you: THE prototype Life is Beautiful tee (size XL) will be mailed to your door. Millions will enter: Only one can win. KilljoyComics.com cartoonists and their immediate families are not eligible. Quality of humor is highly subjective and is at the discretion of the judges, namely the KJC cartoonist team. The winning comic and three runners-up will be posted to the Killjoy main page. Contest ends February 28, 2008. And PS - If you'd like your entry be considered, keep the language and topics rated PG -- okay, maybe PG-13. Thanks and good luck! Vote for Killjoy on These Web Comics Lists. Hey, do you see the spiffy new buttons to the left, below the "Guest Strips" button? Those are links to lists of web comics that rank comics according to their popularity on those sites. Well, in a constant effort to be more popular, I beseech you to click each button and vote for Killjoy! A million thanks, in advance. :-) And, uh, no, I don't know how to vote. If anyone would like to tell me, shoot me an email at KilljoyComics@yahoo.com. HAPPY HOLIDAYS, everyone! See y'all next week! New Tee: "Life is Beautiful: Enjoy it While it Lasts." For those of you who like to decorate yourselves with KilljoyComics regalia, here's a quintessential design for your collection: "Life is Beautiful: Enjoy it While it Lasts." Just click the image below, and then customize this shirt to suit your tastes! And to expand your ever-growing novelty coffee mug collection, the "Life is Beautiful: Enjoy it While it Lasts" mug is now for sale! Just click the image below: CHECK OUT THESE GREAT GUEST STRIPS: Jamie Hatton, In His Likeness; Mark Anticole, Lab Rats! Killjoy #100 Joe Dunn, Joe Loves Crappy Movies! Eric Raymont, pal Rick Antolic, Slap of Reality Man! Doc Holiday of Martin Molotov:Punk Engineer! Tamara Swanson my very own guardian angel ... Danielle Corsetto of Girls With Slingshots! Tony Schiffbauer of TonyRocks.com! Todd Swanson of RIP Simmons!

Killjoy Stuff!