Writing Excuses

If you'd like to listen to me prattle on about comics and serialized long-form storytelling with Brandon Sanderson, Howard Tayler, and Mary Robinette Kowal, I am on this week's Writing Excuses podcast. You'll also get to hear Brandon geek-out about Sam and Fuzzy, which is as surreal and adorable as it sounds. Thanks for having me on, guys!

Today, I'm putting the finishing touches on our next (double-sized) Book Club Bonus Pack, which I'm happy to announce will be e-mailing out on December 19th! As usual, this bundle of freebies will be going out to anyone and everyone who has bought a copy of Sam and Fuzzy Under the Influence (either alone or in a book bundle) by the deadline. There's some fun stuff in this one... can't wait to show you!

And if you are ordering stuff online, it's time to avail yourself of Topatoco's Holiday Ordering Deadlines! They do have a way of sneaking up on you.

-Sam Logan

Custom Character Pin-Up Art Sale

So apparently it's some sort of major national retail holiday this weekend? Black Fry Day or something? Anyhow, to do my part, I am offering made-to-order Sketch-Off styled custom character pin-ups. This Weekend Only! (Or until I get the max number of orders than I can handle and have to cut 'em off.)

Just head here if you'd like to order one. You pick the character, you pick the theme/costume, and I draw it for you. These are the last commissions I'm going to have time to do pre-Christmas, so plan accordingly.



Proceeds from this sale, incidentally, are going 100% towards covering our dog Macbeth's recent foot surgery. (He has already had the surgery, and is doing very well. He's a good boy.)

Sam and Fuzzy Q & A: Blushing Edition
Got a question you want answered? Just drop me an email with "Q & A" in the subject line!

"Was there once a time in the comic's history when all the different intelligent species in Sam and Fuzzy's world lived on the surface, or at least when the general population of humans knew that there was an underground? Was there some kind of event that forced all the non-humans underground?" -Tommy

According to Rexford, the underground was created by non-humans voluntarily long ago, as a refuge from the world of judgmental humans. At some point, this early informal underground grew large enough, and the surface hostile enough, that the committee emerged as a governing force, and began actively policing the division of the two worlds.

This is the extent to which the subject has been discussed within the comic! It's unknown which (if any) of the current committee members know more than that. Without spoiling anything, It'd depend on how much historical information was passed down from the original committee, and how much was, like the location of the pit, deliberately hidden even from its own members.

"How did none of the vampires notice and warn the incoming blood tankers about the huge press conference outside their front door? From the scale of it, it must have taken a while to set up." -Richard

I'm sure they noticed it! And perhaps they should have been more suspicious, but I imagine they just didn't think a packing-pellet factory opening posed a great danger to receiving an innocuous looking tanker shipment. The main issue was that thee crowd and their vans wound up actually blocking the roadway... a situation I imagine Sam deliberately delayed until shortly before the tankers arrived.

"In the last panels of "Four-Finger Discount, Pt. 39", the interviewed
vampire is increasingly blushing. How?" -David

Blushing, obviously, is the function of one of the Vampire's 17 appendixes. Duh!

That's a wrap for this week, team. See you on Monday!

-Sam Logan

Erase, erase, erase

Commander Chambers, of the Erasers! First seen here, last seen here. (I mean, until we saw her right now.)

Question: if I had an online marketplace where I could sell inexpensive digital download goodies, what kind of goodies would you like to see me put in it? Old, no-longer-available book club wallpapers? Short original side-comics? Digital sketchbooks or art books of my doodles, pin-ups, illustrations or other art? Sound off, either on twitter or by email!

-Sam Logan