In the midst of all this Webcomic Idol craziness I’ve been really struggling with some of the writing of Marooned. I’m painfully aware that on the balance it has been a hit or miss thing on a strip-by-strip basis. I’ve had some good ones, but I’ve probably had more mediocre and even bad ones. (Pickle jokes come to mind.)

It’s not enough to just move the plot along, there needs to be some kind of payoff for you readers each time you come here, and that’s not always been the case. So at least know that I’m working on improving in that regard (hopefully tomorrow’s strip is a step in the right direction.)

But to help things along, I’m getting together (via telephonic technology) with my buddy Steve Ogden to have some story meetings. He’s going to talk me off the ledge of Marooned and help me make some sense out of this mess called Marooned. We’re also going to spend some time talking about his Moon Town project (check it out on his web site).

I was interested in Moon Town before I even met Steve, so that should be really fun. If you take a look, the character designs and story ideas are wonderful. As always, there’s never enough time to do all the projects we want. But I’m encouraged that he wants to kick the story around, because I know he wants to see it to fruition.

Also a little birdie told me that Croaker’s Gorge may start updating again soon. That would also be great.

But I do wonder what YOU FOLKS think of the story. I’m grateful people have stuck around through the ups and downs. I’d be really interested to hear your opinions, especially from those people who have never commented or don’t normally comment - I promise I won’t bite!

My webcomic friend Chris Hallbeck was kind enough to send me the latest strip collection of his funny one-panel series The Book of Biff entitled Fresh Toast. The one panel strip is a surreal take on the main character, Biff, who makes some pretty unique observations about the world in which he lives.

Biff himself is an interesting looking fellow, he holds the world’s record for the longest eyebrows - his trademark feature. I’ve really enjoyed the book and the strip is fun read, I suggest you check it out. Chris is a good guy and he’s another local Chicago cartoonist to boot. Biff was also another top 10 finalist in Webcomic Idol this year.