Gobo Gazette

I can’t believe that Gobo Gazette is having its three year anniversary today! And I can’t believe Bam wasn’t around for last year’s… I mean the spoof here would have been perfect!

It is a brand new year! Thank goodness. Not to jinx it or anything but how could 2021 be any worse? 2020 was rough for many. While it wasn’t as bad for me as it was for other, it still left its mark. You may have noticed that I did not post many holiday Instagram images. Sure, there was Inktober, but I haven’t done anything creative for it or the website, other than the update alerts there and on both Twitter and on the Facebook page. I’ll let you in on a little secret: those updates are what I imagine the new website design to look like. Just one of the little things besides Instagram posts that I wanted to have done last year and the year to come.

As mentioned in last week’s comic update, those changes will have to wait. There will be one other Instagram creative bit done for April, and Inktober is kind of up in the air. I stated that my buffer was greatly depleted, and it is. Not only am I behind in illustrating the strips, but my story-boarding has long been neglected. Don’t worry! I have plenty of story in my head. It’s just a matter of thinking out how to present it. Thankfully, this holiday break helped. I am trying to avoid this as much as possible, but there might come a time when Gobo Gazette doesn’t update on Friday. Or it updates without color. Whatever the case, my hope is that if something like this does happen, I will be able to make up the difference and get back on schedule as quickly as possible.

Now for some good news. We are getting to a part of the story that I have been looking forward to for a long time! Until now, the dirty dozen have been on the move, barely having enough time to settle down. The longest amount of time in one spot was just under a season! It has been relatively fast-paced, introducing elements that will have a larger impact in the future. The last of those elements is coming soon. From here out… well, I don’t want to give much away. I hope that you are looking forward to it as much as I am.

Have a happy new year and be careful out there.

Well, hasn’t 2020 been something? We are three-fourths through the year and it doesn’t look like it is going to get any better. Although one thing that is coming out of this is some long overdue awareness and recognition of discrimination, the price is quite steep. And it shouldn’t cost that much or take this long to make sure that everyone is provided an equal footing, no matter their background. To say that normal routines have been disrupted would be an understatement, and the same applies here at Gobo Gazette. I had plans to maintain Instagram posts (other than update alerts), updating the Cast page, implementing a Locations page, and changing the overall look of the website to better match the social media alerts. As you can see, all that went out the window around mid-April.

But good news, everyone! I’ll be updating the long neglected cast page! A new cast entry will be added to the Gobo Gazette Instagram account, today and the next three days! You can see the first entry in this post (talk about overdue)! On Friday, I will be adding these entries to the cast page as well as going through the archives and updating each with new tags. The plan is to get back on schedule. Along with the neglected cast, I am hoping to get those other changes in place by Christmas*! And on top of all of this, there is Inktober! For all of you artists new and old, I believe tomorrow is when they post this year’s prompts. If you have never checked it out before, do so!

So, despite everything going on out there, there is some good news out there. It’s just unfortunate that you have to dig for it under a heaping pile of hot mess.

Stay safe out there!

*emphasis on hope

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” I used to hear this a lot growing up, or the alternative “You can never tell a book by its cover”. I don’t hear it as often now, and that is unfortunate. It is some good advise. There is quite a bit of misconceptions out there. There are also a number of individuals who would try to pull a trick or scam on somebody else. Or they might not be as knowledgeable as people think they are. This is not quite the “Happy April Fools’ Day” opening I was going with but, here we are.

We should always do a little fact checking before we jump to any conclusion. And we should get that information from more than one source. We should be aware as we go about our business, less you get pranked or swindled. Would you be happy if you ordered an impressively thick print copy of Gobo Gazette, only to learn that Tik and Tok had just pasted on a cover? (The image today is larger so the cover text is a bit more readable).

Or worse, we could give into fear, snap-judgement, or stereotypes. A lot of the world’s issues wouldn’t exist if we just took a moment to un-cloud our eyes, unstop our ears and perceive things truthfully. So before you judge another, try something that seems too good to be true, or but a disguised copy of War & Peace from a pair of shady goblins, take a moment to be aware. At the very least, April Fools’ Day will be less eventful. And that is a good thing.