Hi fellas, just sitting here in my "studio" on a Saturday afternoon, drinking coffee and spying on my neighbors like a bored old woman. So before I reach the point where I start knitting sweaters and procuring a purse for the sole purpose of filling it with hard candy, I figured I'd try to postpone the inevitable and write a few words about my inspirational and motivational sources. And list the webcomics that I follow, which you may find enjoyable to check out also. Two Guys and Guy is still an infant in the webcomics world, but I've wanted to start a webcomic for almost a decade. It started way back when I discovered the two giants that hardly need mentioning, but I will anyway. Player vs Player and Penny-Arcade. During the years since, I've made some half assed, awkward attempts at starting a webcomic of my own. Of course I didn't know what I was doing (even less than I do now) so nothing ever came of them. After High School (or the Swedish equivalent) I started studying Game Design and Graphics, and the comic making interest had to take a hiatus. What finally re-sparked the interest was the simple realization that Wordpress and Comicpress had made it very easy to create and maintain a website without the need of any substantial knowledge in webeneering. A lot of things nowadays infuse me with inspiration, I'll try to list the top ones. Something that I really like is Penny-Arcades 3 panel layout, it works well and I've seen others handling it very well too, such as Chainsawsuit, This is where 2gag's layout came from, and I've found it's also a maintainable format for frequent updating. I go through artistic influences like politicians go through lies. But recently my style has been pretty consistent. And one of my big artistic inspirations is the one of Tyson Hesse, and his comics Diesel and Boxerhockey, I really like his drawings, but it's far from his only strength. I don't think it's any secret that I like to draw the ladies, so two of my other visual inspirations, though not purely comic related, are Chris Sanders, as well as, I don't know his real name but here's his DevArt. I could blabber on about this topic for ages but I'll cut this part short, maybe I'll pick the subject up again in another blog post. Another thing that keeps me motivated, and is probably subjectively the most important one, is having other goal oriented artist friends. Though on short supply on the local front since my move, through the power of the webernet I still get my fix of artist interaction. It really drives me when I hear about what other people are working on, keeps me from slacking behind! OK, to the promised list. I love finding new good webcomics, and I almost always learn something new from each one I read. So bellow is a list of webcomics I read frequently, in no particular order. Happle Tea - About earth, myth, and everything in-between. Nerd Rage - Nerdy guys doing nerdy things, and raging about nerdy stuff. PvPonline - They work at a gaming magazine, not much gaming going on though, yet an awesome comic. Chainsawsuit - Anything goes! Super Redundant - About a gang of misfit superheroes, an artistically collaborative webcomic (one of the collaborators being yours truly) Girls With Slingshots - Relationships and cats, lot's of cats, and a cactus. Penny-Arcade - You know that game you like? they made a strip about it. Supernormal Step - Fiona is trapped in an odd mirrored world, with magic 'n stuff. Manly Guys Doing Manly Things - The title pretty efficiently explains it all. Nedroid - I don't know, a bird, sort of. And a Bear-Potato or something, you tell me. Evil Inc. - Evil made tax deductible. Go Get A Roomie - Lesbians (don't judge me) NSFW Trenches - About game testers I think, it's new. So far so good! My Twitter - Not a webcomic, but you should totally follow that one ;)

Traffic is great, feedback is great and you guys are great! One month in and twogag.com has reached a level I though would take me a year or so to reach, there are no words! Here are some words: 2gag (at the time of me writing this) is above rank 50 over at Top Webcomics, thank you to those who voted, and please continue to do so. I will try and give you guys new incentives at a regular basis. I still need to get better at the buffer thing, usually when you guys see a newly uploaded strip it's been finished for 5 minutes. It gets stressful at times but I'm glad I've made it so far without any mayor delays. However having no buffer leaves me paranoid about real life stuff getting in my way of drawing, luckily I don't have much of a life these days. But I still plan to remedy the situation. What else is new... Well it's only been a month so there isn't much going on besides the strip itself. However I have played around with the idea of starting up a shop of sorts. Trying something small, like a t-shirt or two through an on demand service, like spreadshirt to test the waters wouldn't be much of a risk. But I'm just not sure yet, I have a track record of getting ahead of myself and I don't like that to happen with 2gag, I need to pace myself. I think that's all, yeah... OK, so that's this month's status report. Now back to our regular 2gaging.

This year I had the pleasure of attending SDCC through the Deviant Art Comic-Con Scholarship contest. It was my first time attending any comic convention, so I have to say that to get straight to one of the huge ones was grand indeed. Not only was it my first comic convention but it  was also my first visit to the US, as well as my first time winning anything substantial. A lot of first time experiences in one neat package, it was a bit overwhelming to tell the truth. My first impression of America, not counting the excessive amount of Hollywood movies I've watched, got me a bit worried. I landed at the JFK airport in New York and every employee I talked to had a pretty hostile and rude attitude towards the travellers. An attitude that if in Sweden (where I'm from) would've earned them a ticket to the land of unemployment. My worries weren't warranted however, once I landed in San Diego the attitude changed to very polite and nice. So I don't know If it was a New York cultural thing or if I was just unlucky. Maybe some of you guys can shed some light on that for me. OK, on to the actual convention. I've attended European game conventions before and I was half expecting the same atmosphere of "free-stuff-frenzy" amongst the visitors at SDCC. I was pretty surprised to find that generally everything was very calm and relaxed. Though, packed to the brim! At times it took me 30 minutes to walk from one end of the exhibition hall to the other. Luckily there are a lot of neat stuff to look at as you try to reach your destinations. I  likely would've bought a ton of stuff If I hadn't been so concerned about travelling the 30 hours back home with a heavy pack. But I did find out about a bunch of cool comics, books, games, authors and artists that I previously didn't know about, And I intend to check them out and buy stuff from now when I am back home again. One of them being Walter Ostlie and his graphic novel "Cubicles" which my last blog post was about. The Deviant Art staff made me feel very welcome at SDCC, they where fun to talk with and were genuinely nice people. They provided me with a table in their section of Artist Alley, where I showed of a few 2gag strips. Though, having no permit to sell I didn't spend very much time at the table. Didn't matter though, It was just way too much to see on the convention floor anyway. With a convention filled with cool stuff and awesome people, for me the best experience was to meet Kris Straub, Scott Kurtz, Brad Guigar and David Kellett, and I got them to sign my copy of "How To Do Webcomics". Living as geographically challenged as I do, I never thought I'd get to see that day! These were only a few of the names I got to meet or see at the convention however. For instance it was fun to see Dean Yeagle there, the man behind some of my favourite pin-up art. Danielle Corsetto with the webcomic Girls With Slignshots. And of course Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, the men behind Penny-Arcade. Those are the things I was the most interested in, but in the Hollywood side of affairs, I got to see the main cast of True Blood as well. I could write extensively about the huge parts, like DC and Marvel, but I think it's a bit redundant. Traversing the floor, I did however come across another smaller publisher called Red5 Comics that you may or may not have heard of. Red5 has a relatively small but nice looking collection of graphic novels under it's name, the most famous of which is Atomic Robo. Definitely worth checking out if you haven't already. I haven't read all their comics, but I plan to check most of them out. All of their titles can be found at Comixology. The whole comic-con experience left me very inspired and humbled, something not even the nightmarish trip back home could ruin. If you want to know about my trip back home, just keep reading. Like the heavy turbulence back to Sweden, leaving me with no sleep wasn't bad enough, once I got back after two eight hour long flights, all the trains from Stockholm to my town where cancelled, the only option was to grab a bus that would depart five hours later. But the fun didn't end there. When finally moving again, the bus breaks down and we had to spend 3 hours on the highway until a replacement bus would pick us up, all with the continued promise that it would only be "10 more minutes". At this point I hadn't slept for almost 30 hours, so in my defense, the happy fantasies about me initiating a murder spree didn't truly testify to the general state of my mental health. Technically It took less time crossing the Atlantic ocean than to travel the 55 miles from Stockholm to my apartment. Summed up, I spent 60 hours travelling compared to the 48 hours spent in San Diego. And I still consider it a worth while experience and can't wait to do it again. Even if I have to pay for it myself next time!

I recently picked up a digital copy of the Graphic Novel "Cubicles - The Movie The Graphic Novel" by Walter Ostlie on Comixology. Even though I was in a position where I could've scored the book for free I paid for my copy after reading the free preview chapter. For only $3.99 the comic is totally worth it. Cubicles is, to me, best described as a "Humours Epic". The book has its roots in the webcomic with the same name. The novel strives to achieve that "grandness" that movies based on TV shows usually go for, and it shines through wonderfully, assuming you've read the webcomic, though not necessary, the novel stands well on its own feet. I'm a sucker for interesting art styles and the art style in Cubicles is fun, dynamic and unique, it fits the silliness of the story quite well, and is easily my favourite thing about the book. So if you're looking to kill some time or want to read a light hearted comedy adventure filled with aliens, zombies, space pirates and killer monster squids give Cubicles a look over, read the first chapter of cubicles for free here Walter is an imaginative guy, and I got the pleasure of getting to know him a little at San Diego Comic-Con this year. Even though I don't know much of the details I do know that he is currently planning another Graphic Novel, and after reading Cubicles I'm definitely going to pick up a copy once it's available.

The first week since I launched twogag.com has gone by smoothly, the traffic is above what my expectations were this early on, and the website seems to be working as it should. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback on these horrible people that I've created. Even though I suffer from 2gag related nightmares at times I really enjoy drawing and writing these strips for you guys, now I just need to get better at this "buffer" thing. Shockingly enough, already a few of you guys have asked me if there will be a 2gag book, the answer to this is that "I'm taking it one step at a time" which means I don't know, first off I don't nearly have enough comic strips to fill a book worth printing yet, also I live in Sweden (Born and raised) and I have no clue on how the self publishing scene around here looks like. I haven't made a poll or anything but I have a feeling most of you guys are Yanks, which means a possible book would probably and unfortunately be fairly expensive to ship to you guys. But all this is future headaches, for now I'm just trying to keep my head in the game, and deliver strips in a timely manner. However I do appreciate the interest. You guys are great.

So Two Guys and Guy has a website now, how very ambitious, popular demand from DeviantArt has prompted me to try my luck at at it, I've set up my domain and trying out a different provider then I what I usually go with. Now hopefully all that remains is that most of you who read 2gag on Deviant Art will switch to this site, it would be very much appreciated if you did, although I will keep posting the strips over there for a while longer. As you can see I've tried to make the transition from DevArt to twogag.com as painless as possible for you by incorporating lots of green. So if you like Two Guys and Guy be sure to bookmark this page or subscribe to the RSS feed, give a like, plus one, or both, Spread the word, nag your friends, cast a vote on Top Web Comics and become a regular! Thank you. :)