Soup the Comic Strip by Alun Clewe
About
Archive
Forum
About
Archive
Forum
Comic strip for February 12 2024.
PANEL ONE:\r\nThe champion and Maiz ride on Nezhoni as Xaga walks alongside.\r\nXAGA: So he said Maiz sometimes turns into a monster following a cycle of the stars?\r\nCHAMPION: Yeah.\r\n\r\nPANEL TWO:\r\nCloser on Xaga and the champion.\r\nXAGA: How often does this happen?\r\nCHAMPION: I don\'t know.\r\n\r\nPANEL THREE:\r\nSlightly lower angle on Xaga and the champion.\r\nXAGA: What kind of monster does he turn into? \r\nCHAMPION: Well, it sounded kind of like a rabbit...\r\n\r\nPANEL FOUR:\r\nSlightly wider angle; Nezhoni\'s eye just visible at bottom of panel.\r\nXAGA: So it hasn\'t happened while he\'s been with you. \r\nCHAMPION: No.\r\n\r\nPANEL FIVE:\r\nSlightly wider view of Xaga and champion.\r\nXAGA: So how do you know the guy was telling you the truth?\r\nCHAMPION: Well...Trevalien seemed like an honest man...\r\n\r\nPANEL SIX:\r\nAngle on the chamnpion and Nezhoni.\r\nNEZHONI: Except that he tricked you into meeting with him so he could manipulate you into taking Maiz off his hands.\r\nCHAMPION: Well, yeah, but as far as I know he did that without actually LYING...
February 12 2024

Well heck heck heck heck heck. I didn't get today's strip up until the afternoon. I'd really hoped that wouldn't happen again. Granted, at this point I probably still don't have any readers—I kind of made the first steps toward getting the comic listed at Topwebcomics and the Webcomics List, but I haven't put any images up there yet, and haven't done any advertising. But those are things I do want to do in the somewhat near future, and once there are actually people reading this comic then obviously the strip going up late will be a much bigger deal.

Granted, it's not like there's no reason it was up so late. I had an early workday yesterday, and was so exhausted when I went home that I just went straight to bed, figuring that if I woke up before midnight I would get today's strip up, but I guess being too tired to actually do anything like set an alarm to make sure I would wake up before midnight. In fact, notwithstanding a brief period of wakefulness around 2 a.m. (during which I did consider getting out of bed and getting the day's strip up, but was still too tired to make myself do so), I basically slept in until about 9 a.m. (I had attributed my exhaustion just to not getting enough sleep earlier this weekend, but it's also possible my fatigue was a side effect from the updated COVID vaccine I'd just received on Friday. Either way, whatever the cause, I was really tired.

Still, the strip wouldn't have gone up quite so late were it not for the fact that I belatedly found out I was supposed to be working today as well, and had to hurry to set as soon as I got the message, so I didn't have time to get the new strip up first. I did try to get it up while I was on set; I did have Illustrator installed on one of the laptops I bring with me to set; but there was an issue with the fonts; I could get Illustrator to recognize the regular Soup font or the bold font, but not both. It didn't help that I had various revisions of both fonts in different directories, and wasn't entirely sure which was the working version. After various struggles to get the fonts working by rebooting, installing different versions of the fonts, and clearing the font cache, I finally went ahead and uploaded the strip without any bold lettering, figuring it was better to upload this not-quite-what-I-wanted version of the strip than to not have the strip uploaded at all and that I'd put the last word in bold and reupload it when I got home. And as I type this, that's where things are; I'm still on set, the strip has been uploaded, ''sans'' bolding, and... well, that's it. Of course, if you're reading this in the evening or (more likely) on a later day, then presumably the initial version of the strip has been replaced by the version with bolding.

Anyway, though, even if there was a reason this strip was up so late, that's not to say it was a good reason. This wouldn't have happened if I were getting the strips relettered or uploaded further in advance, and not waiting till the night before. I have gotten a week or more ahead on the strips several times in the past; I just haven't stayed ahead. But it's something I do really need to do. Tonight, when I get home, aside from uploading the revised version of today's strip with the last word in bold, I'm going to get at least the next week's worth of strips relettered and uploaded. And this time, I'm going to stay at least a week ahead, if not more (and hopefully more). Granted, I've had a lot to deal with lately, but that's not to say I couldn't have—and shouldn't have—made some time get ahead on the strip.

One more thing I really do need to get done soon is revisiong the top links to work correctly on mobile, instead of having the right half cut off as they are now. That's something I'd been meaning to do, but hadn't gotten to, but my uncle just pointed it out to me and that reminded me... yeah, I really ought to do that soon, too. I may not get that done tonight... but I'll try to do it soon.