Guest Weeks, Ahoy!

Many comics have off days, weeks, or months where the authors/artists are just too busy, sick, or distracted to get up their own content. But, thanks to wonderful friends and connections like this group, we are able to fill in the gap with some amazing guest strips!

As those of you who read our strips regularly already know, Ego & the Squid is currently having a guest week, because Chris has been under the weather and overworked as of late. The guys over at Happy Hour have already had one strip posted, Mark (from B4B and GN) has one coming later this week, Chris’ friends will probably have several strips posted to look forward to, and I’ve heard rumors that a few others in the group have been working on some stuff as well. It’ll be a good chance to see a few of our talented artists/writers tackle someone elses comic universe. You can catch the start of the week right here, and just click forward to browse through it.

And speaking of guest strips, one of our other comics, Ravilob, had a guest week of his own towards the start of 2009, which was rocked by several of our very own talented members, as well. Andy, from Liquid Medication, kicked it off and Chris, from Ego & the Squid, provided a strip as well. You can catch the start of it by clicking here, and if you’re wondering why this is so late, you can blame Mark for being busy as hell during the first half of 2009 and never pushing “publish” on the article he started about it.

As usual, we thank you for your viewership and hope you enjoy our comics. Keep checking in for more news, new members, and other awesome updates from all of us at Off The Wall Comics.

RIP, Hooray For Pandas

As of July 27, John has decided it is time to take a break from Hooray For Pandas. There is a pretty good sized archive over at his site, though, and if you never checked it out while alive and kicking, you should most definitely drop in and cruise through the archive.

They were one of the early comics that joined the group and have made me laugh a lot over the past year. Thanks for the laughs, John, and I hope to see something else from you with time. It would be ashame for the internet not to have your strange humor on it in some new way.

Happy Hour

We not only have a new comic in our midst, but they have been around long enough to have their own Wikipedia page! That’s right, Happy Hour has joined the Off The Wall Comics collective, and we’re proud as hell to have them here. If you haven’t stumbled across their comic before, you should definitely check it out.

It was created in 2004 by Jim Kohl and first appeared in the Rutgers University Newspaper “The Daily Targum” (November 30, 2004, Volume 136, No. 60) and in the 5 years since, Happy Hour has gone on to amass over 800 strips, along with several shoot offs involving the comics side characters. Happy Hour is unique because of it’s one panel format with a continuous storyline. But don’t let that fool you, because each strip can be read alone… its just that when read in conjunction with the strips prior or following, you will have a much greater appreciation of the humor and character interaction.

Currently the strip is drawn and written by Jim Kohl with the help of Phil Kriser, who  colors strips and maintains the website. Right now, Happy Hour is mostly focused around two main characters, Jim and Phil, who are the catalysts for most of the strips, however there is a rich secondary cast that often appears alongside the main cast (and are the stars of The Brewery, Shiver Me Burgers, and The Barb Exam).

Definitely drop by to welcome them to the group, and make them feel welcome as the newest members of Off The Wall Comics.

Happy Birthday, Ravilob!

The webcomic Ravilob, the little town that awesome built, turns 1 yr old today.  In the past year,Ravilob.com, has grown from a four panel black and white humor comic to a full page, color comic. And these days, Ravilob isn’t just a humor comic, but works topics ranging from comedy and adventure, to sci-fi and fantasy.

Currently, Ravilob.com is looking back on the origins of it’s most popular character, Mort, the Alien Slacker. This prequel shows how Mort came to Ravilob and how he met his friends, Hugo and Whitney. You can also see fan art, guest strips, and pictures from conventions by navigating through the sites extra pages.

This was Casey William’s first attempt at drawing and writing an ongoing comic and he is not only looking forward to what advances and changes come during this second year, but would like to invite everybody to join him in the wonderful town of Ravilob.

Some Slight Changes

We’ve been getting a steady stream of submissions over the past few months, and we definitely appreciate all the interest. But, for those of you looking at applying, reapplying, wondering about the first application’s progress, or for those of you who haven’t yet applied, I wanted to draw your attention to the new Joining page. We’ve put up some more specific requirements which we’re asking all of our members (current and new) to abide to for everyone’s sake.

We also moved the “on hiatus” comics to the new R.I.P. section of the site since none of them seemed to be making a comeback, and we’ve pulled their links from the dropdown so the mainpage and dropdown only have comics that are active and holding a regular schedule.

And finally, we’re asking the members for new ideas on the logo. The new header/logo is just something quick Mark whipped up in some spare time… so, be on the lookout for a change on that front in the future.

Thanks for sticking with us throughout the past year… this month does actually mark the 1 year anniversary of the groups creation. Hopefully we’ll be celebrating many, many more of these.