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THE HAPS UNITED
MEDIA PICKS UP SHELDON In other fun news, Chris made a cameo in MAN-MAN COMICS on December 10. Fun! ONE
THOUSAND I thought I'd be amazed when I reached my 1,000th strip, but drawing SUPEROSITY has become so much a part of my daily life it's like breathing, or watching STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION marathons on TNN. I feel like I've been doing it forever (in a good way), and I should be on my 1,000,000th strip by now! Still, 1,000 is pretty darn nice. For those of you who have arrived here thanks to the Newsbox, welcome! Yes, I know this is a weird strip, and you probably won't like it at first, but I ask you to give it a fair shot. It takes some time to totally "get". Believe it or not, some of my biggest fans are people who literally hated SUPEROSITY at first, but were bored one day and read a chunk of the archives, or were or forced by a friend to read the archives, and now consider it one of their favorite comic strips of all time. Wouldn't you like to be one of those people? I know I would! Reading the entire archives takes something like 10 hours, so you might want to start with a specific storyline like Marlene's Story (an insane parody of "She's All That" and "Can't Buy Me Love"), Stealing From O.J. (Chris steals money from O.J. Simpson to pay his friend's rent), Inspector Drugged-Out (Chris feeds his job inspector drug-filled cookies so he'll pass inspection), or SW2 (Chris and Bobby get cast in "Star Wars: Episode II"). Thanks to all of you who have followed me on this 1,000 strip journey, and will be reading the next 1,000. If it's not too much trouble, force a good friend to give SUPEROSITY a try. Though every single reader is a special beautiful jewel to me, it's not too keen when the number of strips I've drawn is starting to near the number of readers the strip has. So tell a friend! Rough them up a little if you have to! Happy holidays! NEMESIS I DREW FRIDAY'S ALICE!
COMIC SUPEROSITY FAVORABLY
REVIEWED BY CBG HAPPY NOVEMBER! Speaking of enterprise, the jolly folks at Keenspot have introduced a special limited-time SUPEROSITY holiday package sale thingy. For only eight bucks ($3.80 off the combined cover prices), we'll send you the first four SUPEROSITY comic books (issues #1-4 all autographed with love by yours truly), and a customized character sketch also by yours truly. Just tell me what you want drawn on the sketch and I shall draw it to the best of my limited ability. If that's not the perfect holiday gift, I don't know what is. It's all printed and ready to ship immediately, assuring pre-Christmas delivery. Click your location to order: U.S./Canada or International. For those who don't want all four issues but only want #1 or #2 or #3 or #4, individual issues are also available to order seperately right here (though there's no neato discount on single issues).
SUPEROSITY COMIC BOOK
REVIEWED ON CBR SUPEROSITY #2 AVAILABLE
NOW THE BIG TWO-FOUR If you want to buy me a gift, donate some dough to the American Red Cross or another worthy charity. They need it right now more than anything else. And if you happen to feel like buying some of my comic books at the same time, Keenspot's selling a 3-pack of books (which includes the first two issues of SUPEROSITY and the excellent first issue of BLACK PLAGUE) and we're giving 100% of the profits from that to the Red Cross. Buy that here. SOME THOUGHTS ON YESTERDAY'S
STRIP AND THE TRAGEDY I thought about just ignoring the event entirely, to go on with One-Shot Week as if nothing had happened. But what I decided to do was take advantage of the immediacy of the web, much like I did in my Election 2000 storyline (for better or for worse, not everyone was fond of that). I wanted to be as tasteful and respectful and honest as possible in actually commenting on the events of the day with some humor. It seems I'm one of the few cartoonists on the web who decided to take on the event in a comic strip context (Eight's Bush strip is the only other one that comes to mind at the moment, but I've only read about 50 comics today). Maybe I succeeded in my goal, and maybe I didn't. It's ultimately up to you. I will admit that the strip might come off as kind of flippant or uncaring to some in the wake of such a disaster. But keep in mind that it's expressing the point of view of a non-human character watching these events unfold. A non-human with emotions, but a non-human nevertheless, one who's travelled to the far future and seen billions of people killed in war. Not that I don't agree with Boardy's view, I do (though those who disagree have made fine points). It's been a pet peeve of mine, and it's pretty much irrelevant in the larger scheme of things. But the way Boardy presents his viewpoint may be off-putting to some. Which I understand. Whatever the case, it got some people talking. I received quite a few E-Mails about it (all of them positive, happily), traffic to the homepage rose by about 35% on Wednesday, and it sparked a lot of interesting, intelligent discussion on the Message Board. It's even prompted the real-life Bobby to jump into the debate, surprisingly. I hope all of you are well and are doing what you can to help your fellow man in this time of crisis and uncertainty. If you have some blood or money to spare, give it to the Red Cross (I made them the default banner ad on all Keenspot sites this week). Read Michael Moore's latest message. Don't give into the evils of revenge and senseless hate. Try not to be too depressed. Thanks for reading. BABIES IN TIRES AND PENGUINS
IN CAPES
I'm so glad you asked!
Keenspot is now offering 12-issue subscriptions to the SUPEROSITY
comic book, and for a limited time, those who subscribe
to 12 issues will receive the following extra-special extras: 1.)
An original, hand-drawn sketch by yours truly (like the two
samples shown above). 2.) A set of 11 trading cards (see
samples below) produced all the way back in 1994 for the San Diego
Comic-Con that includes SUPEROSITY characters that have yet to appear
in the strip! 3.) An additional autographed 40-page
comic book from 1994 called SNAP THE PUNK TURTLE #0 1/2
(see cover above). It was my first professional comic book work
(at the age of 17) and it has an original story that actually begins
with Snap dying of old age! It also introduces Snap's nephew, Victor,
and his future kingdom of Snapalla. You may be thinking "Hey, I ordered the 6-issue subscription months ago, but I want all that cool extra stuff!" No problem. You can order a 6-Issue Subscription Extension right now, and we'll send you all the extras. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE! And so ends the sales pitch!
*whew* Whether you've subscribed to the comic
book or not, I just want to say thank you. Entertaining
you extremely intelligent, witty folks for 900 days has truly been
an honor, and the fact that so many of you have been supportive
of my offline projects is just icing on the cake. Thanks, everybody.
Enjoy the next 900... THE WORLD ADORES ME Have you read the SUPEROSITY comic book yet? If so, you can add your adoring review to the pile on our Board! BANG! POW! KAZOOM! SALON.COM
TALKS WEBCOMICS! If you've come here from the article, please do yourself a favor and stick around awhile. I know this strip can be strange and frightening at first, but the brave few who read enough of the archives tend to actually grow to love it! Seriously! Thank you for your time. MSN E-MAIL IS KILLING
MY BRAIN!
How can you miss this book? Don't answer that, just order it now! Get a subscription and save 45 cents an issue! (For those of you who've ordered the book already, your copies will be shipping out this week.)
THE COMIC-CON IS OVER... Depressingly, I had to skip the first day. My mom (Keenspot CFO Teri Crosby) and dad (Keenspot co-owner Frank Crosby) left without me, as the Keenspot booth needed setting up and someone running it whether I was there or not. Thursday was the day I most wanted to be there. Comic-Con actually gave Keenspot our own 90-minute panel discussion on Thursday at 4pm, and as Co-CEO of Keenspot I was scheduled to be one of the seven panelists. This would've been the first Comic-Con panel I've ever been on, and I was very excited about it. As you could've probably guessed by my use of the words "would've been," I missed it. My back was just as bad on Thursday as it was Wednesday, making it nigh-impossible for me to attend. It was the same story on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I missed the entire convention. The convention that was the largest gathering of webcomic cartoonists in history, a gathering that I helped to launch. The convention that saw the debut of my first Keenspot comic book (SUPEROSITY #1) and of Keenspot's comic book line. The convention that, apparently, had the highest attendance of any U.S. comic convention in history. I missed the WHOLE THING. *sigh* But I should look on the bright side... By all accounts, Keenspot's Comic-Con debut went excellently. Despite my not being there to sign and sketch, we sold a surprisingly large number of SUPEROSITY #1s to Con attendees. It seems that everybody at the Keenspot booth did really well with sales. Plus, we learned a lot from the experience and I'm sure we'll do twice as better next year with our booth and organization. Our Keenspot panel on Thursday was apparently the most well-attended in it's highly-competitive timeslot. I saw the videotape my dad made of it, and it was GREAT. Bizarre, but very keen to see a giant audience of fans and fellow cartoonists responding so well to the Keenspot group, applauding and hooting and laughing in all the right spots and asking some really good questions. All seven panelists did Keenspot proud, including SCHLOCK MERCENARY's Howard Tayler, who filled in for me expertly (thanks, Howard!). It went so well that I'm pretty sure they'll give us another panel in 2002. I didn't get to meet anybody in person, but I did get to see and hear most of them in cool video messages they taped for me, and tons of cartoonists filled up a special sketchbook for me with funny, cool Get Well drawings. I even got a nice video message and sketch from someone that hadn't been getting along with me very well online (to say the least) and they somehow made me feel a lot better about that situation. What may be the brightest side of all, for me at least, is that this experience has drilled even further into my head that I finally have to get into shape. My back didn't go out just because the box was heavy. It was because I'm extremely overweight and I'm not used to moving around at all, let alone carrying heavy boxes. Being overweight is a problem I've had all my life, and something I've been trying to fix all my life. After missing such a truly keen event, it's something I'm more determined than ever to fix. If it's humanly possible to be more determined than I was before, that is. On August 1-4, 2002, I hope to see you in San Diego.
For those of you staying on the home front, new comics will keep running daily (as always!) while I'm gone, thanks to the magic of Keenspot's AutoKeen updating system (and me actually getting almost a week ahead on drawing). Have fun while I'm away! MATT FREWER IS MAX HEADROOM REST IN PEACE IDIOT IN A BANDIT'S WORLD SOME REASONS TO SUBSCRIBE
TO MY COMIC BOOK SUPEROSITY #1 is being prepared for the printer as we speak, and it should be in stores on Wednesday, July 11. Direct orders (i.e. comics ordered by a fan and sent directly to Keenspot), which we make the most money on, have been promising but not great. If you haven't subscribed to the SUPEROSITY comic book yet, I'm offering these reasons why I think you should. * Some cartoonists charge $20 or more for a character sketch alone. If you subscribe to 6-issues of the SUPEROSITY comic book for just $15, not only will you save 45 cents an issue off the cover price, I will draw a personalized character sketch for you! Think about this... for 15 measly bucks, not only do you get 6 big comic books (autographed if you request it) packed with tons of fun stuff, you also get a personalized character sketch. For $15. That's not too bad, is it? * Haven't taken the time to sit down and read the archives, but you want to? Maybe you've just discovered this strip today from the Keenspot Newsbox. This could be a very cool way to experience the archives, what with the commentary and all, and the fact that you don't have to stare at a monitor for hours and hours until your eyes bleed. * Do you ever try to tell your friends about how great SUPEROSITY is, but they look at you stone-faced or try to call the police on you? Some people just can't understand things that aren't printed on paper, or they don't want to take the time to read more than a strip or two (which they probably get confused by so they run away). If you buy the comic book, read it yourself, then pass it on to a friend or two so they become Superositites themselves, you would be doing the world a public sevice. * If you
happen to be one of the rare, special people that believe that I'm
a talented cartoonist and that my star will rise in time (maybe I'll
get an animated cartoon on TV eventually!), then you should also believe
that the first SUPEROSITY comic books will be a very valuable commodity
in the future, because there ain't gonna be a whole lot of copies
available. Jeff Smith, the self-published creator of the epic and
brilliant independent comic book BONE,
printed about 3,000 copies of his #1 issue when he first published
it about 10 years ago. The first printing of BONE #1 (it was later
reprinted numerous times) is worth nearly a hundred dollars today,
or about 30 times the cover price. We are only printing about 1,000
copies of SUPEROSITY #1. Could you actually MAKE money by buying my
comic book? Who knows? But if you think so, that's an extra perk. * Instead of buying the comic book, are you waiting for the big 128-page book collection that Plan 9 Publishing is putting out later this year? Well, that's a good reason (because it's gonna be a very cool book), but I think the extra added features of the comic book should give you more than enough reason to buy both. You could always buy the comic book to read and then give as gifts to friends (or even SELL to friends!), and you could buy the book collection to keep for yourself in your home library on a shelf. That way, everybody's happy! * If you're expecting to walk into any comic store and buy this, you will probably be out of luck. Only a tiny tiny tiny percentage of comic book stores ordered issue #1, and those who did probably didn't order more than one or two copies. By subscribing, you ensure that you won't miss an issue. * The comic book itself! For example, Issue #1 is a 48-page giant with 30 pages of strips (11 weeks), with commentary by yours truly on each page. It features some of the most classic storylines (Bobby trying to make Marlene popular, Chris getting a job at Cool-Ass, Snap becoming a star on "W6," Bobby trying to murder but then joining pop group Hanson), all run in linear order. To fill out the book there's 18 pages of new and never-before-seen comics, including a disturbing new SUPEROSITY story written by THE REAL Bobby (my little brother, on whom Bobby is based, Bobby Crosby), a comic story written and drawn by Jeff Rowland (cartoonist of WHEN I GROW UP), a look at the online strip I did before SUPEROSITY called SNAP THE PUNK TURTLE, and tons of other stuff. This is not just old strips printed on dead trees, there is literally new stuff on every single page. If you're at all a fan of SUPEROSITY, or even if you're just interested in cartooning, you should love this comic. Hopefully. Okay, that's all I can think of this late at night. If it's convinced you, hooray! If not, no problem, I love you anyway. Those convinced can subscribe to the comic book here (now including those wonderful people in foriegn lands!). SUBSCRIBE TODAY! BOBBY NOT EVIL ENOUGH?
THE PEARL HARBOR BOMBING DIDN'T HAPPEN IN 1912? YES AND YES! Also, there's a thought-provoking and extremely hilarious debate raging on the Message Board over my latest controversial Sunday strip, where I shat on the grave of the people that died in Hitler's tragic bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1912. I likes to be controversial! It makes me feel like one of the writers of "Murphy Brown" in 1992. In other words, it makes me feel like I'm making lots of money, I know Faith Ford and the guy who plays "Miles" on a first-name basis, and Dan Quayle yells at me for making Candace Burgen pregnant with Scott Backula's baby. Hooray for controversy! By the way, for those of you too young to remember 1992, that really happened! The Vice President of the United States got mad because a fictional character on a TV show got pregnant! Seriously! I can't wait until VP Cheney goes bonkers over something mundane he sees on network TV. CONFUSED BY THE KAELIN? TODAY IS STRIP NUMBER
800, AND BOBBY IS... A MURDERER?
I just noticed that someone on eBay is selling two comic book parodies of SOUTH PARK that I wrote (with little brother Bobby) and drew for Blatant Comics in the late 1990s. If you're interested in that sort of thing, go bid on them before they're gone. I think they're really very funny, especially the second one, SLOTH PARK: SUMOBALL (which was a parody of "The Mighty Ducks" and "BASEketball" as well as SOUTH PARK). In other news, SUPEROSITY comic strip #800 is in two days! Yowsa, that is one big round number. Per the usual, I will do little to nothing special to commemorate the event. Maybe when #1,000 rolls around... GOT NO SEX ORGANS? THIS
IS YOUR STRIP! Polls bring up more questions than they do answers. Those crazy polls! FUN CAMEO AND FUN WALLPAPER! Also, we're still working
out how international Superositites can order the comic
book. I'll let you know more soon, thanks for your patience! If you can't convince your local comic shop retailer to order it, or if you're someone who would never dare think of ever stepping foot into a comic book shop, you can pre-order SUPEROSITY #1 or a 6-issue subscription to the comic book (save 45 cents an issue!) using good ol' PAYPAL. If you pre-order through PayPal, I'll include a free original character sketch with your order. How can you beat that? For more information on the comic book, click here.
As you could've guessed from the subject line of this thing, a monthly SUPEROSITY comic book series launches this July! You can see the cover of issue #1 to the right of this text. (Click on it for a much larger version.) Yes, Keenspot is launching a print comic book division, and just as SUPEROSITY was the first official Keenspot comic strip, SUPEROSITY: THE COMIC BOOK is the first monthly series from Keenspot Comics. Which makes quite a bit of sense, considering I'm one of the founders of Keenspot. :) I'll have much more information about the comic book and how to order it on Wednesday, when Keenspot formally announces the Keenspot Comics line and the PREVIEWS catalog featuring the first two titles arrives in comic book stores. I hope you were excited by this exciting, important announcement! If not, I apologize. See you this Wednesday! I especially hope to see you Keenspot Newsbox folks again then... IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT! WE'VE GOT COMICS SIGN! WEIRDNESS AND SUCH PNGs ARE THE FUTURE,
AND THE FUTURE IS NOW HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM! MARCH CAMEO ALERT! I've fancified the website to commemorate the occasion. Hooray for fancification! As you can see, it's a beautiful shade of Boardy Blue. I've still got a lot of stuff to do on this crazy re-design, but I've had my hands full lately, so this will be just a start. It'll get better. As will the strip, hopefully! Year Three will be keen supreme to the extreme, and so on. Hoy hoy hoy! THE SUPERSTORE CLOSES
ON MARCH 1 By the way, thank you to everyone who's donated money to my Amazon Honor System thingy. That was very nice of you. Maybe we will get to our crazy million dollar goal! But even if we don't, we're still radical and tubular. Rock on, Superositites!
THAT AMAZON HONOR SYSTEM
THINGY AND A PANDA WHO IS A PIG Also, I've added a link to PigPanda.com (link art courtesy of the amazingly talented Mike Leffel). A week or so I stopped linking to BigPanda.net because I'm just not into Bryan McNett's frontpage preaching about how web advertising sucks ass and is dead and so on (it make me want to go sleep sleep), but I can't resist linking to PigPanda. Below the link graphic, you'll find a list of my very favorite webcomics. Visit them, and you'll help their ranking on PigPanda. Also, you'll be made very happy by how good the comics are. And that makes everybody happy. SOME FAN MAIL FROM A
FINANCIAL ANALYST "okay, this storyline rocks (as I am amazed by the reference to Chris and Co., something I forgot about long. It was quite an enjoyment to go back and read about its beginnings, but it was so funny, it has destroyed my logical thought,speech,writing centers of my brain, as they repeat over and over again, "and that's when i ran in one direction for an hour", but i digress), keep it up dude!" Phil Ross A Financial Analyst reads my strip! Neat. Whether or not you yourself are a Financial Analyst, you can send me your fan mail (or non-fan mail) at crosbycomics@email.msn.com. I'M IN THE RALEIGH NEWS
& OBSERVER! I'M IN THE DETROIT FREE
PRESS! Also, Chris and Boardy recently appeared in BURNT DOG RADIO, where they were contracted to create this website for the fictional business.
CROSBY GOIN' KRAZY NEW MILLENIUM II: BACK
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