Well, we all like free art right? I know I do. And I want to try and put some in your hands. All I ask in return is to hear more from you guys, my readers! So what I have put together is a bi-weekly contest that’s entry is as simple as leaving a nice, thoughtful comment on that week’s newest page update. Each Sunday I upload the latest page in our ongoing saga of world salvation and every two weeks I will choose one person at random from the comments that have been left to receive a free drawing from me. The drawing will be completed on bristol board and will be sized 4×6inches. Pencil and ink. And to top it all off, I’ll let you choose the character I draw. Within one month of winning, I will ship out the drawing and that nice man who usually brings you bills and junk will have a nice shiny drawing from me! Sounds like good times to me! So, please, leave your thoughts on the book, the page, the site and get up on this!
So, here’s how it works. On the home page you’ll find the latest page posted and you’ll be able to post comments regarding that page. You will need to respond to that new page to be entered. The post doesn’t need to be about this contest, in fact it shouldn’t be. Just talk about the content of the comic with other readers. At the end of that week, everyone who posted a comment during the week will entered into the contest for the next drawing. This will go in two week increments and then I will randomly select one person from those who posted. That person will then we contacted to let me know what you would like for me to draw. Simple enough!
Comments will be subject to approval. So what that means is, no one word comments, spam, foul language (I like to run a clean place around here) or just plain old crude remarks. I want this to be a way to get to know you guys more, so say hello and win some art!
I wanted to be the first comment.
Lol, you have to comment on the latest comic page update! But noted and thrown into the pot.
Mr. R.,
I find your work unique and intriguing. You have solicited for comments & I will try to oblige by offering a perspective from the far side of the chronological bell curve. You have shared your efforts with me and you deserve a response.
One thing that has I have noticed is that you are a young man. Writing with your protagonists being septegenarians is very unusual. It also exhibits a minute flaw in your logic. Virgil & George do not act like the old men that they are. The Kraken’s attack would have surely killed George. He has endured five heart attacks, exhibits alcoholic tendencies, and by his own admission considers himself “weak”. The attack would have either caused a sixth heart attack, a stroke, or caused him to drown. It is also unlikely that Virgil could muster the physical acumen to save him. Their response to the act was also inconsistent with their age. A young man will either fight or flee. An old man will try to survive using guile or experience. Speed is not high on the attribute list of the geriatric set. An old man would have tried to hide from the attacker or to confuse him.
It is also inadvisable to ask an old person to save the world. They are very aware of mortality, their own as well as that of everything else. They are also knowledgeable of their own limitations. George would respond with “screw the world!”, and retreat to his flask. In his best quixotic zeal, Virgil knows that he is doomed to fail. A young person tries to “change the world.” An old person tries to survive the day perhaps improving a small part of it. Not even Hercules acted without aid from the gods & he was young when he endured his trials.
I look forward to see where you take this chronicle. Thank you for your patience. Feel free to delete this comment. I just wished to share my observations on your work. They are intended only in a supportive manner. Now please get back to work.
r.e. purr
Noted! Though I would encourage you to just enjoy the story! Lots of crazy things happen in stories and the point of their age and the situation is to delve into why people make these decisions. The point of it is that both George and Virgil are older men who have felt that their lives have had no point to them. It’s meant to be a coming of age story about two men in their early seventies. The idea from this came from watching my own grandfather pass away and thinking about his life and if he was happy with the legacy he was leaving. And while most try to change the world in small ways, I want to tell an epic story. I’m aware that the context of the characters and the extremes to which they are being pushed is a bit unrealistic. And that’s fine for me, because I’m using their age as the catalyst for why they make the decisions they do and to reflect on what a person must feel to have lived a life they aren’t very proud of and wish to change it by doing something noble. Also, you’ll come to find that they’re saving the world has little to do with a desire to do and more to do with it being a requirement. But that would be getting to too many things that have yet to come
Hope that helps! I appreciate the comment and the thought you put into it. I would just hope that it doesn’t keep you from enjoying what the story is at its heart. 
Dear Purr,
While I agree that both Virgil and George seem to be a little too active for their ages, I disagree with your assumption that “it is inadvisable to ask an old person to save the world”. In fact, I believe the complete opposite!
Virgil and George (George in particular) knows that they are alot closer to death than your avarage person. It is precisily because of this awareness, the strong death-drive/drive to use a Freudian/Lacanian term, that these two men are good choices as saviours. They know that life will, relativily, soon come to an end. However, deeds and legends may live on… and what deed could be greater than saving the world? Granted, nobody will probably know, but if you know in your heart that the world as we know it continues to exist because of something you did, I garantee you that that knowledge will make your passing into nothingness/the next world all that much easier. Saving the world, for these two men, then becomes a way of leaving their mark in history and making sure that they truly mattered.
However, I do believe that I am overanalyzing. Anyways, those are my two cents for now. Keep up the good work, Michael!
PS. Tentacles!!!!
DS.
Well, now you’ve scared me from commenting on the pages, because I’d feel pretty bad if you by some fluke decided to spend the small fortune that it costs to mail a piece of paper across the Atlantic.
I’m sure we could try and work something out to get something to you. one way or another. *shrugs*