First item of business: There's six new pieces of art in the 'Commission' section of the site. Chris Sprouse, David Finch and much more!

   Totally unrelated, infrequently-appearing ' tip of the week' !!!

   When shopping with your wife, if she asks you to hold her purse while she tries on clothes, cradle the purse in your arm like a football. If you hold it by the straps, it looks like you're too committed to holding that purse. Send a clear signal to any onlookers that you are holding the purse for your wife.

   Try and stay with me. I'm going to be all over the place this week...

   As a teenager, I was quite a walker and jogger. I joined the track team in tenth grade because I figured I was conditioned enough to hold my own- HA! I never won one event the whole season, mostly because I wasn't very competitive in those days. Over the years, I had to teach myself to be competitive if I was going to get noticed, let alone achieve anything in this short time we have on Earth.

   I certainly wouldn't still be inking after ten years if I didn't remain competitive. You're only as good as your last issue, as I've stated before. In this internet era, if you don't measure up, it's possible that legions of 'fans' will dogpile you. For some reason in the comics' message board community, there is a seemingly visceral hatred for Chuck Austen's writing, and I have no idea why. I've certainly read worse, in fact I've found his Avengers tenure a very fun read, not merely biding time for Brian Michael Bendis' debut. I've been toying with the idea of writing comics myself, but I'm almost afraid to subject myself to the tender mercies of the online jury of Monday morning quarterbacks, who's daily mantra is "I would've ended the story THIS way...").

   Thankfully, my enthusiasm for the medium keeps me pressing on, willing to win over new readers, a single comic at a time. I mean that literally, as there are readers who, in order to save money, look for an excuse to drop one of their monthly titles. I've been guilty of that myself. If I follow an artist or writer on a certain title, and said creator moves on, I follow suit with my purchases. But there's certain titles I will always pick up because it's more often than not, a consistently good read.

   There's no job security in comics, and there never was, if you look back on comics' history. You just do the best you can and hope enough people like your stuff so you can keep doing it.

   Although I've more confidence in my abilities these days, I still second-guess certain panels from any issue I've just finished. I think most comic artists do that, the mistakes that you're certain will glare at the reader will usually go unnoticed. Or the colorist saves you by directing the reader's eye away from the offending item. I've driven pencillers crazy by beating myself up while reviewing photocopies of my work with them. The penciller will more often than not, say, "I don't see what you're talking about". But you've invested so much time and, believe it or not, emotion into your work (unless you're a dispassionate hack), that you can succumb to tunnel-vision. If you step outside of your hangups, and take the entire product as a whole, you may realise that, hey, that's a fine looking comic! If you do monthly comics as I do, you have to surrender to the reality of the deadline. You get pencilled pages in the mail, you say, "wow, I can't wait to try some cool effects, or experiment with this panel". When you actually get to that panel, you ink it like the rest of the page because there's no time to play. Comics are like postage stamps-sometimes you just have to lick 'em and send 'em off!