Whew! Nineteen strips. Our longest storyline yet! (The two longest before that were “It’s Pinder” with 14 strips and “New Character Contest” with 11.)

Next we’ll start ramping up for the storyline hinted at last year in “Time Traveling Panda Bears,” featuring the return of a certain world-conquering groundhog…

Is it finally spring where you are or is it crazy weird cold weather like it is here in DC? We skipped ahead for one day of summer on Monday and then went right back to way cold.

I knew once this storyline started there was no way it was ending without a good mauling… for old times sake. The last time Ed was mauled by a bear was two and a half years ago back in the Adventurous Choices storyline!

Ah, poor Pinder. First lesson everyone learns selling at a con: they never come back. They might mean to, they might plan to, they might really, really want to… but they never do.

C2E2 was amazing. Met some amazing people and got to reconnect with fans and friends I met last year. Were you there? What was your favorite part?

(And for those who forgot about “It’s Pinder!”)

Finished the mini-comic! Off to Chicago! I’ve been to Chicago a few times now, would love to hear suggestions of places to go besides, you know, the hotel lobby.

See you at C2E2!

Oh, how I wish the magic bears versus space bears panel was real…

Next week is C2E2! I’ll be at tables WC 13 & 14, with some friends, including Brian Crowley from Hamster Rage and Chet Presley and Richard Basey from Pulp 21. Richard is drawing the first of three mini-comics featuring Edgar and Mackenzie in a solo adventure. This comic will be available for the first time ever at C2E2! You’d best stop by and check it out.

So, what’s the best panel you’ve ever been to? I’d have to say mine was the Dark Knight Returns panel at Wizard World Chicago back in 2007. Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, and Christopher Nolan were there. And we all got a free t-shirt. It was pretty sweet.

It’s been a while since we’ve done a text piece (that wasn’t a page from The Rules of Gentlemanly Discourse).

I suspect Pinder’s being a bit naive if he thinks he’s going to make it to any panels at all his first time selling at a convention. When I did C2E2 last year, I never left my booth the entire weekend. We’ll see how he does once the con opens, I suppose.

What panels do you think there’d be at a cartoon bear convention?

So the idea for bear stilts came from a conversation I had with some friends at SPX last year. (These were the same friends who came up with the idea that turned into Pinder losing his keys.) I had told them I was planning a strip that would explain how Pinder, a bear who can best be described as “non-tall,” could always be in frame with the other characters. My initial idea was he was always standing on some bit player’s back (maybe Hamilton Merlingperlot). But, as we talked, they suggested stilts and I thought “duh, of course, stilts!”

I let the idea percolate for a few months until this current storyline where I needed something for Pinder to sell. Originally he was going to an amateur board game creator or an amateur chef. But then I decided he should be an inventor of random, somewhat useless junk. And what better invention to begin with then bear stilts?