It’s Friday the 13th!

New vote incentive is up!  An experiment in Painter, which I have never used before.

My Youmacon report is up, soon to be followed by my ISCA Con report.  If you’re not following my blog, then why not?  I post artwork up there about three times a week, so you should check it out. ^_^

Speaking of cons, my next con (and last con of the year) will be Steel City Con in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  I’ll be joined by Pete of Bardsworth and Kez of the War of Winds, which should make for a pretty awesome convention, so if you live in the area, make sure you come out! ^_^

Monday is the last page of Part 16!  :O  After that I’ll be taking a break of two weeks, and then Part 17 will start on November 30th.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

My counter is rapidly approaching 1,000,000 unique visitors!  To celebrate this momentous occasion, I’ve moved it up to the top-right column, and whoever is the millionth visitor will win a prize!  If you are the lucky millionth person, you can claim your prize as follows:

1. Take a screenshot of Garanos.com open in your browser, with the counter visible, to prove the counter said 1,000,000 when you visited.  (Click here if you don’t know how to make a screenshot.)  The screenshot should be of the whole website, not just a crop of the counter area.
2. Email it to me!

That’s it.  Really.  I know it’s not hard to fake the evidence when using the screenshot method, but I think my readers are awesome, so we’re going to use the honor system.

What’s the prize?  A free commission of anything you want!

And the winners: Peter and Blair!  They both sent in screencaps, and since my counter is “awesome” the way it shows multiple people the same number, I’ll do a picture for each of them.

Over at Earthsong, awhile back, Lady Yates started up a discussion on who would play her characters in a film adaptation of her comic, and that got me thinking about the same for Garanos.  Now, I don’t have any real solid ideas on casting (save for one) so I thought I’d open it up to the floor and see what ideas anyone else has.

There are basic guidelines for each of our leads as far as ethnicity is concerned:

• Naturally, Styx should be played by someone of Indian/Southern Asian ethnicity.
• Garanos can be a little more ambigious as far as race, but I often think of Greek/Mediterranean features when I picture a real-life version of her.  Either way, her skin is slightly darker than typical Caucasian coloring.  I suppose the actress could get around this by simply tanning.  Gara also shouldn’t be too pretty.  Her face should be striking, but not too conventionally pretty, if you get what I mean by that.
• The same goes for Senberan and Ethreden and all the rest of the Caywienites.
• Maryoku is pretty much Caucasian.  There’s no getting around that one.  The actress is allowed to be fairly pretty, preferably in a timeless way, given the immortality and all.
• Lucas, Jack, and the other Kaigan villagers are also Caucasian.
• Gharsena is a darker-skinned Asian.  Cambodian, Indonesian, or Laotian.
• Feel free to suggest actors for other characters if they occur to you.

And I’ve already cast Geilen.  It actually just occurred to me recently: Jenna Fischer.

If you follow my blog at all, it’s pretty easy to tell I’m a huge fan of the American adaption of The Office.  I think Jenna certainly has the chops to play Geilen very well, not to mention she’s the perfect stature.  (Read: short.)  She could probably gain a little weight for the role, since Geilen’s not an especially slender woman.

I found this picture of Jenna in a bustier, and with some slight Photoshopping to test the proper hair and eye colors, I’d say she’s pretty much perfect:

Throw out some ideas for other actors in the comments!  I’m interested to see what you come up with. ^_^

11/10/09 Edit: It occurred to me that back in 2006 when I was putting fresh coats of paint on character designs to start this comic, I referenced Sarah Chalke for some of Maryoku’s features.  Sealing the deal on Sarah, here she is with Maryoku’s coloring:

Now, she’s mostly a comedy actor, but if she ever feels like taking on a dramatic role, I’ll be waiting! ^_~

11/12/09 Edit:  I now present Greek actress Xristina Mantisi for the role of Garanos. :D

Keep ‘em coming! ^_^

This weekend I’ll be in the Artist Alley at Youmacon!  This is my first year at Youma, and I’ve heard so many good things about it over the years that I’m really excited to go!

I’m even premiering something new there:  BOOKMARKS!

These are fully laminated, and about 1.5″ x 5″.  (3.8 x 12.7 cm.)  It’s just these five designs for now, but I may add more if they sell well!  They will cost $1 each, or free if you buy a copy of Garanos Volume I or II!  (If I have leftovers, they will be in the store sometime after the convention.)

And next week, I’ll be spending the entire week at the ISCA Caricaturing Convention in Sandusky!  I’m really looking forward to that, you have no idea.  ^_^  I expect to see some big famous cartoonists I know again!

I’ve recently been on a couple podcasts and wanted to share the link with you, in case anyone would like to hear me talk about things like chili, conventions, and other subjects of great interest. ^_^

First one is the Webcomic Beacon’s 24 Hour Comics Day 24-Hour Broadcast Attempt.  In the middle of the night, while I was doing my Garanos binge, I called in to the show and talked to Fes, Melissa, and Mark, which was pretty fun.

The second one is Episode #2 of the Rampage Network Community Podcast! We discussed conventions, of which I have been to many!  The RN Member Pocast is a work in progress, and various Rampage members will be rotating in and out as we figure out what direction we’ll be taking.  I plan to be present at many future recordings.

One last thing: the Rampage Network is having a Jenny Everywhere caption contest this month, and entries are due before October 20th, which is tomorrow!