RCAdvent News!

Thanks to a kind overseas friend, several copies of the 6299 Pirate Advent Calendar just arrived in Detroit. (From what I've read, it seems really doubtful there'll be a North American release of this set.)



This means the Reasonably Clever Traditions of Advent Madness and BrikWars will continue - and, yes, that third Calendar is destined to be a prize in an upcoming contest. Details on that very soon!

Whoops

Sorry about those weird posts earlier - I was trying to post from my phone. I got an "all is well" confirmation text back, but apparently the system was lying to me.

In general, just a quick post to say I just got back from closing ceremonies. It's been an amazing convention - I'm going to have to work up a page or two to go over all the amazing.

Some highlights:

• I brought a bunch of MST3k LEGO to the show.
• The MST3k guests (Trace, Joel, Frank, and Mary Jo) signed many of them. Trace and I even talked briefly about his childhood collection of LEGO. Yes, I have photos.
• Two items of non-MST3k art I entered into the art show sold.

Oh...

And I won the award for "BEST AMATEUR ARTIST."

Yes, this is a huge deal. Yes, there's a swanky trophy. No, I had no idea this was going to happen.

Anyway, more on this after I get back to Detroit on Tuesday sometime.

Updates and such

For those of you waiting for this week's updates...you might have a bit longer to wait than usual.

I'm in the last minute stages of prepping for CONvergence, and we leave for the convention tomorrow.

I'm working on a last-minute LEGO project that I hope to display, along with Tom, Crow, the Forrester Mural and some other things. I'm bringing several cameras, so there should be some interesting stuff showing up my Flikr Stream if you want to keep an eye on it.

I'm also finishing up sets for the next arc of Brick House - hence the delay there.

Anyway, I'll be back in town, and hopefully back on track, by next Tuesday.

In the meantime, check back occasionally - I'm bringing my laptop so I should be posting *something* over the next few days.

Finally, for those of you who are grumpy about all the recent interruptions to your free entertainment - after this con I'll be officially out of cash for a few months, so I'm more likely to be around and working on the site.

Brickworld: Day 2

I'm having a great time here at Brickworld. Haven't taken that many photos (yet) but you can watch for updates in my Flickr Stream by clicking the image above.

New Blog Functionality

As I keep mentioning, next week I'll be at BrickWorld. Since I'm not sure how much net access I'll have, I'm setting up some features to let me remote-post to the blog from my various mobile devices. If you see some test posts pop up and then disappear, that's what's going on.

I'll also be setting up as much content as I can to auto-publish. We'll see how that goes.

The downside will be comment moderation. I'm not comfortable turning things back to unmoderated, but there's going to be some serious lag-time on things unless I do. Oh well. I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.

Brick House earns a mention at Associated Content

This is quite nifty! There's a nice article over at Associated Content that talks about LEGO web comics - and Brick House and Reasonably Clever both get some cool coverage.

Go check it out: When LEGO and Web Comics Collide

Spring Cleaning

As you may have noticed I'm giving the site a bit of a design tweak. There are over 3,500 pages(!) of content on this site now, so this will take a bit of time to complete. Please pardon the dust while we remodel...

This and that

I've gotten some email asking what's up with the scheduling and projects around here. This post will address some of it - and hopefully give you guys an idea of what you can expect to see on Reasonably Clever in the coming months.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, things are in flux as I try and find a balance between my on-line, personal, and professional lives. Yes, I have a day job. Yes, I even have a bit of a life. And, no, I don't make any money off this site. The little cash that I generate from the Buy-Me-Mizer and the Google Ads go straight back into paying for the site and the LEGO needed to keep it going.

Why do I do it? Heck if I know. There are certainly days when the aggravation runs high and I'm tempted to just shut the site down and move on. But - for now - I still enjoy the projects that keep Reasonably Clever going.

Anyway, here's the news that's fit to print....


Comics:

Brick House is in flux at the moment. I nearly put it on hiatus, but decided I'd at least try and get one episode a week out. I'm not overly happy with the strip at the moment, so I've been working on a script to fix the issues as I see them without resorting to a complete "reboot" of the story.

My goal is to return to at least a 3-day a week schedule for the strip within the next month or two. We'll see if that happens or not. For now, look for episodes on Friday. The format of the strip will probably stay the 4-panel layout I've gotten comfortable with, but I might use more than one layout per day. It'll all depend on how much time I have free to devote to it.

I'm also in the design phase of a second comic project. This time I'll only be responsible for the illustrations - I've teamed up with an up and coming comic author to provide the visuals for her story. It should be a new and interesting challenge for me. Look for that late in the year.

Reviews:

I'm getting a kick out of doing the Daily Fail. I started out my Internet Life writing bootleg toy reviews, and it's nice to return to familiar ground. The new review format is still taking shape - I have some ideas to make them a bit more focused that I'll be trying out in the coming weeks. I still have weeks of LEGO knock-offs in the queue, and when they're done I may start covering non-LEGO bootlegs again.

I've also been toying around with what to do with the bootlegs once they've been reviewed. Several people have suggested destroying them or doing "death match" type contests. I'm looking into that as a possibility - it'd certainly make for some interesting video clips, anyway.

I've been asked if I'll be returning to reviewing LEGO sets as well. The answer is "probably." Once the review format for the Fail is established, I'll likely make a variation of it for legit products. Ideally, it'd be nice to have one "real" review a week, perhaps taking the place of a daily Fail. Again, we'll just have to see how things work out.

LEGO building:

With all that going on, I still have to find time to do some actual building. I'm currently working on some very large models to be shown at CONVergence - with a bit of luck I might even have them ready to preview at BrickWorld.

Serenity is on indefinite hold. I'm still interested in the project, I still have a ton of brick incorporated into various half-complete beta builds. But right now I've got too many other pressing issues to devote any real time to it.

Contests:

I'm hoping we'll see some action on the Micropolis contest soon. I've been answering some questions in email about the standards, but I haven't seen the expected batch of early entries I normally get. Maybe people are daunted by actually having a strict set of rules to follow - or, more likely, it just takes longer to build something to a standard than just making it up as you go.

That said, I'd appreciate it if people would help promote this contest a bit in other blogs - submit it as a news item over at Brothers Brick or your LEGO forum of choice, mention it in your own journal, etc. There are some cool prizes up for grabs, after all.

This will likely be the last contest for a bit, too. Unless I do something small in May it'll be late July before I have the time to devote to another contest.

In Conclusion....

...I'm still looking at spending way too much time doing crap for this site.

Oh, well. I'll figure something out.

Clone trooper variation?

Okay, I don't really follow all the Star Wars LEGO news, so maybe someone noticed this before. (I didn't spot any discussion after a quick Google search, though.)

I hate hate HATE the "Chrome Vader" promotion LEGO is doing. I spent a LOT of money on LEGO products. More than I should, really. And how does LEGO reward this loyalty? By making sure there's here's going to be a hole in my collection. All because:

1) I'm not lucky enough to pull a "randomly packed" figure at 300-1 odds

and

2) I'm unwilling to pay $70+ on the aftermarket for it

It pisses me off. I had resigned myself to having collection gaps when the Chrome 3PO came and went...but this is Vader. I like Vader. I covet the Chrome version.

So, like the addict I am, I've been buying some of the smaller battle packs in a vain hope to score one. I figure at the worst I can just put the parts into the Buy-Me-Mizer and eventually recoup a portion of my costs. Maybe.

Anyway, I was parting out a few sets last night when I noticed this:

See the variation? Although listed as the same part, these Clone Trooper faces are clearly looking in different directions.

It's probably due to variable alignment on the spray-op for the brown paint used for the iris, but the distribution of the faces was roughly equal for all three versions in the batch of heads I was looking at.

Weird, eh?

Friday Fail: Box-o-Badness

I was starting to worry - I was down to my last six bootleg LEGO sets. And then, without warning, I got a package in the mail...

Yes, that's another giant box of LEGO-like knockoffs from my good friend Joe (Be sure to check out his blog: The Undiscovered Playthings)

Amazingly, he'd managed to locate items that make the current batch of FAIL seem almost tame by comparison. LEGO crossed with Playmobil? Bootlegs OF bootlegs? They're in there. Just waiting for their Friday to arrive.

Oh, we're in for a bumpy ride.

Fan Art: Part Two

Another cool item in my mailbox this weekend:

Brian Wagner sent me a very Clever drawing....

What I like best about this one is that the cast looks very different from their LEGO incarnations, but are still clearly recognizable for who they are. Very cool!

A larger version is here.

Fan Art!

While I do get the occasional email from fans, no one had sent me any original art before. Until today, that is!

Check out this bit of cool sent in by The Boy Griffin:

Thanks, dude!

New contest under development!

For those of you chomping at the bit to get building on a new Reasonably Clever contest:

This weekend I'll be finalizing details of our next outing, with a hope to announce things late next week.

For those of you desperate for a hint, here you go.

Upcoming feature!

Hey guys. It was a busy holiday for me - I didn't get nearly as much work done for the site as I had hoped...on the other hand I'm not feeling nearly as burnt out on the whole concept as I was a week or two ago.

One of the new features I have planned for 2009 is thanks to an old friend of mine - a friend I made back in the days when I was running The Island of Bootleg Toys. Fellow Bootleg-Enthusiast Joe dropped me a line to let me know he was resurrecting Bootleg Action figures: The Undiscovered Playthings - updated into a new blog-format with all new reviews and content, as well as an archive of his past reviews. We got to talking, and of course I expressed interest in any LEGO-themed Bootlegs he could spot.

Well, Joe found some good ones. Not just "compatible" knock-offs, but blatant rip-offs that have stolen unique LEGO parts. Feeling my knowledge (read: obsession) with LEGO might make for a more in-depth review, Joe has agreed to send some of them my way.

This teaser picture Joe sent me shows just a few of the sets I'll be looking at in the coming weeks - but even this low-res shot shows some really tacky things like the "Brick" logo in the LEGO style and the "Star Wars" set with the Life on Mars aliens.

As always, these reviews will be written with the intent of making sure you don't buy these sets - trust me, the last thing you want to own are a bunch of knock-off LEGO bricks. (Did MegaBloks teach you nothing?) I'll risk the brittle plastic, lead paint, and mental anguish for you. Although I might just share a bit of that mental suffering.

Anyway, look for this new feature to start up in late January! In the meantime, be sure to stop by Joe's Blog for the latest in Bootleg News!

Scheduling Update

It was pointed out to me that by having the comic appear at midnight it was wrecking (at the very least) the reveal of the Castle Advent daily door.

To fix that, I've swapped the Comic and Brick House publish times.

Midnight: CASTLE Advent Publishes
Six AM - CITY Advent Publishes
Noon - Brick House Comic Publishes
Four PM - VS Advent Publishes

All that goes into effect tomorrow. Remember, while the Advent Calendars are in play, Reasonably Clever gets updates every single day.

Scheduling

Wow. I didn't realize until this morning now much content was going to hit at midnight.  It's a giant wall of text.

I think I'm going to schedule the publication times a bit different - to keep people coming back and to give them something to read throughout the day. Since Reasonably Clever enjoys a pretty international audience, I'll just time things like this:

(All times EST - Eastern Standard)

Midnight(or thereabouts): Brick House Comic Publishes
Six AM - CITY Advent Publishes
Noon - CASTLE Advent Publishes
Four PM - VS Advent Publishes

I'll try that for a week, then tweak if necessary.
Thoughts?

Comics Delayed

Hey gang - comics will be off by a couple of days this week - travel back from OmegaCon was a bit more prolonged than expected. You'll still get 5 this week so don't get overly worked up.

The Seagirl who saved Christmas

Thanks to a very helpful online friend, an international shipment arrived at my doorstep today.

Here's a picture of Whiskey with one of the transatlantic passengers:

LEGO die-hards will recognize the wizard from the non-US Castle impulse set.

And...if the UK Wizard has arrived...you can bet there were some other UK goodies in that parcel as well.

Perhaps it's a good thing that Whiskey and Co are already in the Castle theme as we approach the holidays...

Brick House Turns Two

I should have mentioned this back on Thursday, but it completely slipped my mind.

September 18th marked the two year mark on the Brick House comic strip.

I didn't make a big deal out of it for a few reasons. First, there was a big ol' hiatus in the middle there, so it hasn't been a solid two year run. (Although I've done enough "catch up" episodes to fill the gap) Second, well, like I said,I got busy and didn't even think about it.

You may be wondering about the fan art contest mentioned in the strip - well, I only received one entry, and it was of a bat-man universe character who's never appeared in the strip. So that was canceled quietly and without fanfare. (heh)

That didn't stop Ian from making a very nice Saturday-Special tribute, though. Go check it out. Thank you, Ian. I like it muchly.

On Thursday I also received my first real critique of the strip - not the daily abuse I put up with/encourage here in the blog, but a well reasoned letter from a fan who didn't realize there was a blog. (I guess I need to tweak the site design a bit, eh?)

The fan took issue with the lack of direction things have had since strip 371 or so. He missed the more "plot driven" story arcs of the past, and the characters who (apparently) were left behind.

I think most of the disappointment sprang from the "episodic" approach I was trying out. When Whiskey "walked off the set" back in the day, I wanted to see what sort of strange adventures the characters would get into without the "man and frog on the run" plot to keep pushing them around. That lead to last year's advent madness, the return of the Brick House, the death of Donut I...all good things, I think, but more random plot lines than any overarching "story".

Well, as I move into year three I think we'll see more of a return to a plot-driven storyline. I have things marked out through early 2009, and all through that span the characters have firm goals and work towards them at a fairly steady pace. Sure, there are the usual distractions and throwaway jokes, but overall it's a much more coherent storyline.

And, yes, you'll see the return of many "abandoned" characters, in some very unexpected ways. There are new friends on the horizon as well. Good thing the Brick House is bigger on the inside - they're going to need a lot of guest rooms.

Anyway, thanks to all of you for reading so far. I hope I can enourage many of you to stick around to see how year three unfolds.

-Chris

Guest Starring at S-Team...me! (Sort of)

Ian warned me about this, but I didn't want to wreck his reveal by acknowledging it too soon. The "Mysterious Guide" character appearing recently in S-team is indeed meant to be a quasi-cameo of yours truly.

Ian and I have a long history of sharing characters with each other, but this is certainly a first for me...

Now, why I'm apparently dead and dressed in tacky white, that's another question entirely. Something you're not telling me, Ian?
(Ian says I'm NOT dead, just Meta.)

Interview at LAMLRadio

A few days ago I joked in the blog about the old adage "Keep silent and be thought a fool, or open your mouth and remove all doubt."

When will I ever learn?

Yes, fast on the heels of that lovely interview with Jude, I was offered a chance to be a part of LAMLRadio's "A builder a day in August" event. I'm August 21st.

So, if you ever wondered how dorky I sound in real life (hint: a lot) you can now click on the image above and hear for yourself.

(LAML has been having a bit of site trouble lately, so just in case I've mirrored the podcast here.)

This is too cool.

I'm not (usually) one to brag, but this is just too awesome not to share.

I'm the subject of a very flattering interview by UK author Jude Calvert-Toulmin.
(Jude's site has some adult-oriented bits to it, so click with awareness. The interview itself is for all audiences.)

Answers on a postcard

A little while ago, I received an email from a reader. Yes, I know, a shockingly rare occurrence. Still, it did happen. Here’s what they had to say:

I was thinking about making a webcomic on ComicGenesis.com and because I know you have a webcomic, I was wondering:

"Is it worth all the time and money to make a webcomic? Does it get old after a while? Do you know of the safest webcomic site?"

I was tempted to fire off a quick and flippant email reply, mainly because I’m a jerk like that sometimes. But I’m quickly approaching my two-year anniversary of being a “webcomic author” and I thought these questions might deserve a bit more serious consideration. So instead of snark to one reader, you all must suffer through a rambling blog post. Neener.

Q: “Is it worth all the time and money to make a webcomic?”

A: No.

Sorry, still in that “flippant reply” mode. Let me try again.

Q: “Is it worth all the time and money to make a webcomic?”

A: Hell no.

Okay, okay, one more try.

Q: “Is it worth all the time and money to make a webcomic?”

A: It depends on what you’re hoping to get out of it. Are you looking for fame? Or fortune? Or just to share the world as you see it?

If you’re looking for fame, you need to realize that for every smash hit like XKCD or Irregular Web Comic there are tens of thousands of strips who never see any traffic at all. Sure, there’s always the chance you’ll become the next darling of the meme-scene. And you might also win the lottery. You do the math.

If, on the other hand, your definition of “fame” is scaled back a bit – if you can be happy with a couple of hundred readers…or even a couple dozen…then a comic might be “worth it” after all.

If you’re looking for fortune, I can only think of a half dozen web strips that have let their creators leave their other day jobs. Again, compare that to the tens of thousands of comics out there. If you have mad business skills (or a manager who does) then you might be able to make a go of it. I wish you luck. I've yet to see a dime.

If you’re just looking to tell your stories…to have a good time with creating something new…well, that’s the best reason I can think of to pick up a pen or camera and give things a try. This is why I make Brick House – I have stories that I want to tell, and this is a good way to get them out of my imagination and into “the real world.”

For me, it's worth it. But I'm a freakish mutant. You mileage may vary.

Q: Does it get old after a while?

A: Short answer: Of course it does.

When you look out at those tens of thousands of comics I mentioned earlier – you’ll notice that maybe one or two percent of them are actually updated on anything near a weekly basis. Most lasted a few months, tops, and then were abandoned. The creators lost interest, got busy, or found that they weren’t getting the return they wanted or needed from their effort.

But, unless you’re an overnight success, one of the few ways to develop a strong reader-base is to sign up for the long haul. You have to give readers time to find you, and then you have to still be around months later when they finally check their bookmarks and wander back again.

I remember reading an article that said you had wait until your comic has a year+ in archives before you could even begin to guess if it was a "success" or not.

If that sort of timeline scares you - you might want to reconsider starting a strip.

Q: Do you know of the safest webcomic site?

A: Well, that depends on what you mean by “safest”. The “safest” way to control your content is probably to host things yourself – you can get cheap webhosting for under $5 a month if you look around. However, that means you’re going to need to know website development in addition to making your comic. Not everyone’s cup of tea.

If you want another site to handle the web-side of things for you, I’ve heard decent things about http://www.comicgenesis.com/ . I’m sure there are other hosting options out there, but I haven’t felt the need to do any research.

Anyway. There you go. A long winded reply to some causal questions. Aren’t you glad it’s Friday?

LEGO: Fountain

Believe it or not, I actually found a few hours to build over the weekend.

The next chapter of Brick House will involve new locations, and I wanted to spend some time working up some backgrounds and sets. My first effort yielded this: A nice looking fountain/sculpture combo.

You can click the picture to go view some other shots of the set-in-progress.

There aren't any "unusual" or "advanced" building techniques here (other than the simple twist to the column of "tooth bricks") but it still looks pretty good to my eye. It'll certainly work as a background, anyway.

Oh yeah.

Some things are worth waiting for.