And To Be Loved

Fantastic Tapastic

Marisa — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 05:30:12 +0000

Hello, lovelies! Would you like to see us defrost temporarily and provide you with a bonus page? If so, we ask that you please support ATBL, My Girlfriend’s Dog, and Praesidium on Tapastic. Here’s the deal – Tapastic is a comic hosting site that we’re mirroring our comics on. They have a super duper publisher incentive going for the next couple of months, so the more page views the better!

We think that, with the help of our hipsters-in-denial fans (you), we can reach our goal of 10,000 Tapastic page views before February 28th! And we have an incentive of our own – if we hit that glorious number, we will give you a glimpse into the still-in-hibernation world of our anti-heroes R and Thomas. Aka – a real update! So, without further ado, here are some links. Please click to your heart’s desire. You’ll find freshly re-lettered ATBL pages, to boot.

And To Be Loved
My Girlfriend’s Dog
Praesidium

As always, thank you for your support!

Hibernating

Marisa — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 02:53:21 +0000

We promised ourselves that we would never use the dreaded “H” word. Yep, you know the one…hiatus. However, we have a mountain of freelance work piling up and are finding it difficult to manage all of our projects, as well as update on a consistent basis. Rather than toss some hastily-drawn pages up each week at the cost of much stress, we’d rather provide you with more polished art and story.

But wait – silver lining! While we’re recouping, we’ll be working on the PRINTED VERSION of ATBL. It will feature bonus pages, interviews, and more! We’re very excited about it, and hope you are too. We’re also going to be uploading digitally-relettered versions of the first six and a half chapters, to boot. Also, we’re not ruling out random guest strips and pinups during our hibernation period. And be sure to keep on eye on My Girlfriend’s Dog, Praesidium, and Black & Shite for weekly updates! We’ll keep you posted as things progress.

We very much appreciate you, our readers, and all of the encouragement that you bring. Come spring, we will emerge like a phoenix out of the ashes. Like a bud out of the frost. Like a banana out of the peel.

-Marisa and Michael

“Groovy, Kinda” Guest Strip pt. 2

Marisa — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 07:55:43 +0000

We are honored to once again present a wonderful guest strip from our friend, Charlie, creator of the hilarious series Groovy, Kinda. Charlie is probably the best cartoonist on the web and if you haven’t checked out his comic, now is the time! This is not the first time he’s done a guest strip for us, the first one can be seen here. His strips always makes us lol, and just look at his amazing use of texture on that barn! And chickens! Thanks Charlie!

-Michael

Chapter Eight Page 185

Marisa — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 21:24:35 +0000

And this concludes Chapter 8! R and Thomas are in quite the sh*t sandwich, no? But…I guess that’s kind of their thing.

As I was considering the events of 2012, I realized that ATBL has made a whole bunch of changes throughout the year. We’ve reached 100 pages (and very nearly reached 200!), switched from handwritten letters to digital, made the switch from black and white to color, and completely revamped the website! For this next year, our goals are to launch/regularly updating the rest of the comics on the site, upload digitally-relettered pages to replace the old ones, and get our first volume printed! There’s lots to come, so we hope you enjoy the ride. Thanks so much for sticking by.

Stay tuned next week for an extra special guest strip!

Chapter Eight Page 184

Marisa — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 01:39:27 +0000

It’s happening…Claire is reaching the end of her tether. It’s about damn time. Ooh, I can’t wait to delve into her consciousness in the next chapter!

In other news, Michael and I used Christmas as an excuse to go to the movies. We’re huge movie fans, but rarely find the time to go out. Plus…being huge movie fans, we haven’t been very impressed with the current releases. We were leaning towards seeing Django Unchained (Tarantino!), but decided on This is 40, despite its lackluster reviews. I wanted something…light. It’s the holidays, after all! I was actually very impressed by the movie. The critics who rake it over the coals seem to have expected more slapstick – not sure, but I was glad for the chance to get out of the house, eat some unhealthy popcorn (hey…it’s only twice a year MAX), and take a mini vacation from the (furry) babies.

I hope you all have been enjoying good food, good conversations, and good health. Merry Christmas from Marisa, Michael, Thomas, Claire, R, and Tulane!

-Marisa

Chapter Eight Page 183

Marisa — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:38:47 +0000

Don’t mess with comic reviewers…learned that the hard way.

Chapter Eight Page 182

Marisa — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 07:13:55 +0000

Somebody, quick! Grab her a pancho!

Check out the two girls in the last panel who are staring daggers at poor Claire – these happen to be a couple of girls who tried out to be muses for Claire! As you know, we ended up going with Quinn for Claire’s fashion needs, but these two ladies were game enough to let us use them as background characters! Take a peek at the inspirations behind the outfits:

Savvy Sabrina
Fierce Fashionista Mihaela

Chapter Eight Page 181

Marisa — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 00:17:49 +0000

Well…to Claire’s defense, it’s hard to say no to someone when they’re promising you eternal love and commitment. That being said, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING, CLAIRE??!?

As a frequent comic convention patron, over the years I’ve noticed how the bigger cons are becoming less and less about comics, and more about movies and general pop culture stuff. I’ve never been to the big ol’ Comic-Con in San Diego, but each year I hear about it I feel less and less inclined to want to attend (not to mention that I live about 1,500 miles away). Thankfully the Emerald City Comic Con is still pretty true to comics, and then there’s APE in San Fran which is great for indie publishers.

For those of you who are regular readers, you’ll probably recognize some of the booths in the background. We took this opportunity to give shout outs to some of our favorite webcomics and/or supporters: Groovy, Kinda, Rasputin Barxotka, Supermassive Black Hole, and Le Mime. Take a moment to check them out! You won’t be disappointed.

Pot and Pride!

Marisa — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 02:53:14 +0000

We apologize for cutting into the story, but we’ve been planning on doing this pin up for a while. Better late than never! Anyways…

Congratulations, Washington State! Although we may gripe about the gloomy weather, the lack of snow-preparedness, and our plummeting vitamin D levels, we’ve never been more proud to live where we live. All we can hope is that more states will follow suit and allow couples to marry regardless of gender, as well as legalize something that never should have been illegal in the first place. Adam should be able to marry Steve, Alice should be able to marry Eve, and everyone should be able to get their smoke on without fear of being arrested.

*steps off soapbox*

Tune in next week to find out what happens to our poor damsel in distress. She may or may not be slipping into a “House of R” creation as we speak…

Chapter Eight Page 180

Marisa — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 03:50:24 +0000

Is Claire going to stick to her guns regarding feminism, or will she cave? As a side note, I bet if there were no dialogue on this page you would assume that Thomas was proposing. Hahaha. Not bloody likely. This is as close as he’ll get, probably.