Whooops!
Got in to work today and realized that although I had uploaded the strip to the server last night, I forgot to actually make a blog post about it so the strip never appeared after 12 midnight last night.

Well, here’s the blog post. Sorry ’bout that.

On a HUGE side note, I should mention that Danielle would never, EVER do something like this but Roy can sometimes be such a pain that you really DO want to hit him with a slingshot. And if you all don’t know who Danielle is (yeah, riiiiiight!), you all should, first, be ashamed of yourself and then, second, go to Girls with Slingshots and then, third, and the strip to your bookmarks.

Hopefully, the next time I see Danielle, I won’t have a slingshot aimed at my head.

-Chris

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Or… IT’S NOT MY FAULT! IT’S… NOT… MY FAULT!!!
And what I mean by that is, the strip was done and ready to be posted online at 11:30pm last night but thanks to our lovely Northern Virginia mid-summer thunder showers, my Comcast internet cable connection was off-line.

So, I had to wait until I got into work this morning to post the strip.

On a somewhat bitter-sweet note, today also marks the one year anniversary of my mother-in-law passing away. I always felt very fortunate that I got along tremendously with my in-laws. I still enjoy spending lots of time and joking around with my father-in-law but it was my mother-in-law who got my very first marker set for Christmas. And I was extremely honored when my father-in-law asked me to be a pallbearer for her. Mom (I always called her “Mom”), we all miss you very much but we also know you’re in a better place. Peace and love. Always.

-Chris

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Let me start off this post by saying that I actually do have a lot of love for Philly. I liked the Phillies when they were a big baseball powerhouse during the very early 80’s with Pete Rose and crew… I love the Philly Phanatic… was a fan of Dr. J… but I was never quite an Eagle fan (although I did enjoy the movie “Invincible”). That being said, I’m just having some more light-hearted inter-city Washington DC vs. Philly fun. Hope you Philly fans aren’t TOO upset.

Now, with that out of the way, this strip is way too late (at least for my tastes). As a rule, I prefer to have the strip done by midnight (or just a little after midnight) before a Monday, Wednesday or Friday. But my daughter has been away for 19 days during her People-to-People Student Ambassador trek to Australia and New Zealand. She got back at midnight on Saturday and we had friends over on Sunday to help celebrate her return. So, instead of working on getting a buffer for the strips, I immersed myself in welcoming her back. As much as I enjoy doing this strip, if there’s ever a choice between my kids or the strip, there really won’t ever be “a choice”.

Also, please check out the new donation art box in my header. I have some new donation incentives on my Donations Page. One thing that I will soon be implementing is something that Danielle Corsetto inspired me to do… if you have been enjoying Capes & Babes (and from my stat numbers, it seems more and more of you are finding out about Capes & Babes and passing the word around - so I thank you for that) but if you have been enjoying the Monday, Wednesday and Friday schedule but would like to see MORE super hero/comic book/ comic book shop humor, please make a donation to the site. If enough people make a donation, I’ll do a full week of strips.

If that sounds appealing to you, please drop me a line or add a comment to this blog and tell me so. And remember, if you make a donation to this site - FOR ANY AMOUNT - you will get something for FREE! If you want to know more information about that, please drop me an e-mail at: capesnbabes (at) gmail.com. The full e-mail address is always located directly under the strips.

Thanks everyone!

-Chris

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***A little edit here: Just wanted to mention that I got a nice little plug from Tommie over at Road Crew Comic. Go check it out (and Tommie’s comic too) by clicking the link.***

Some more fun at “Randy Lugar’s” expense. I mean, seriously, what’s up with that guy and portfolio critiques at conventions?

If you are a fan of Web Comics Weekly, you’ll know that Brad, Kris, Dave and Scott have been discussing this subject in-depth. Me? I’m just having a little bit of fun with the subject as I really do see a lot of different sides to convention critiques.

The thing is, if you’re going to ask a “pro” to look at your stuff, you should be prepared for something you don’t want to hear. The absolute worst you can do is to try and defend your work - I think that’s really want puts pros off at looking at people’s portfolios during a convention. If you’re defending your work, then you really weren’t looking for a critique. You were looking for validation and praise.

The best way to deal with a critique is to be completely open to anything and everything a pro is telling you. You can certainly tell or try to explain to them what you were trying to do in a certain panel or page - that’s a lot different then “defending” your work. So, for example, I believe it’s perfectly okay to say “I was attempting to do X-Y-and-Z. What would have been a better way to do this panel, strip or page?”. That’s completely different then saying “I was following one of Wood’s ‘21 panel that always work’ so it’s gotta be right”. That’s defending your work and not be open to getting a critique.

Know what you want (in terms of advice) before you approach a pro at a convention. I think you’ll get much better results.

Unless they have a huge sign behind them that say “I don’t do portfolio critiques”.

Then you’re pretty much screwed.

Listening to “You can call me Al”…

-Chris

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Boy, lots to say today. First kids, here’s the important reason why you should always build up a buffer of strips if you want to do this cartooning thing “professionally”: Monday evening, while playing my normal game of volleyball at the gym, I dislocated my left pinky. Fortunately, I draw with my right hand so if I had dislocated any finger on my right hand, I would have been royally screwed. Now, even though I’m out of commission from playing volleyball or baseball for a few weeks, I can still draw.

Second, for all of you Philly people out there that might take a bit offense to today’s strip, please bare in mind that I live 20 minutes outside of “the murder capital of the world” known as Washington DC, so it’s only poking a little bit of inter-city rivalry/fun at Philly. It’s all supposed to be in good natured fun. And if Brad Guigar himself thinks today’s strip was funny, well hey… maybe you can too! Don’t shoot the messenger and all that, you know?

And lastly… man-o-man, what a friggin’ all star game! I got home from my own baseball game tonight thinking that I got home just in time to see who might have won the MVP. That was at 11:00pm. Little did I know that I actually got home in enough time to see the REAL game! It was actually kind of refreshing to see “secondary” all-stars make such a huge contribution to the game! Yeah, I’m disappointed that the National League lost yet again but secretly, I was so hoping for a 16th inning - just to see what kind of craziness would have happened. I tell you, unless the expand the all-star rosters to include more pitchers, AND if they keep this silly rule of World Series home field advantage, one of these days you will see a position player have to come in a pitch an inning or two. THAT will be GREAT!

Anyway, hope you all get a big kick out of today’s strip!

I’m going to bed!

-Chris

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The saga of Roy and Marc at Heroes Con 2008 continues…
Now, for those of you that have attended previous Heroe Cons, you know that there is no actual “Web Comics Nation”. Instead, Heroes Con has a section of their convention floor called “Indie Island” and that’s a cool name and concept. Still though, I think “Web Comics Nations” has a nice ring to it as well and would be a cool section for any major comic book convention.

What do you all think?

Currently listening to “Good Two Shoes” by Adam Ant…

-Chris

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Boy, this is really difficult. I DID want to title this particular blog 100 STRIPS!!! since I reached that web comic milestone today - but I also didn’t want to take away the fact that this strip today was the culmination of something completely inspired by Danielle Corsetto and a real brief Twitter feed response. So, I also wanted to give proper credit to her - ESPECIALLY since she was so kind enough to mention me on her home page and send a load of traffic my way.

For all of you Girls with Slingshot fans, I thank you and I hope you appreciate Capes & Babes and find it worthy enough of your attention every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

With that being said, today DOES mark my 100TH STRIP!
When Capes & Babes went online November 12th, 2007, the initial goal was always to get to 100 strips. Now the secondary goal is to get to 200 and put a book together. I’ve already crunched the dates and the numbers so it won’t be possible to have 200 strips (and a book) done by Baltimore Comic Con in September. So, instead, I’m shooting for the Pittsburgh Comic Con next year as a place setter for the first Capes & babes book.

Many of you might know that even though Capes & babes debuted in November, I have been doing a weekly comic strip for a web site called Community MX for the last five years. Well, I thought those past five years would have provided enough experience in order to do Capes three times a week, but let me tell you, it’s a world of difference doing one strip a week to doing four strips a week (as I am still doing “CMX Suite”). But in the past year, I really think Capes has pushed my cartooning, story and joke telling to all new levels. I hope everyone out there that has discovered Capes & Babes agrees.

So, next year, besides trying to get a book together, the secondary-secondary goal is to make Capes & Babes weekly daily.

That is, if I can EVER get back to having a buffer again.

Thanks again everyone who has made or discovered the first 100 strips of Capes & Babes. Marc, Joey, Roy and I all thank you.

Sincerely,

Chris Flick

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This is just a quick post as I’m about ready to head to my men’s baseball game tonight. I’m not going to say one way or another if I actually saw a bearded dude dressed as Sailor Moon while at Heroes Con. You’ll have to visit the Con next year to see if something like that actually exists.

Listening to Mika’s “Grace Kelly” from his Life in Cartoon Motion album…

-Chris

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A little bit of background on this particular strip (and the next two upcoming ones as well)…
Originally - thanks to Twitter - a bunch of web comic artists are doing a “crotch star Monday” thing in honor of Danielle Corsetto who started the whole darn thing in her great strip, Girls with Slingshots.

Well, I wanted to join the party too but I just couldn’t make anything fit in three or four panels AND STILL have it fit my current storyline. So, as is typical for a cartoonist, I came up with a way to still participate (albeit a little late) and STILL get two extra strips out of the deal.

So, if you want to see crotch stars in Capes & Babes, you’ll have to follow this week’s series of strips to see where the crotch stars might show up. Yeah… I’m a real stinker, aren’t I???

Currently listening to O.A.R.’s “Turn the car around”…

-Chris

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Some of you may know that I do another weekly web comic strip called “CMX Suite” for Community MX every Tuesday. Two years ago, Fourth of July fell on a Tuesday so I did this strip: Forth of July, 2006. I was debating for a while whether to run that strip for today but opted instead to show Roy’s butt for the nation’s birthday.

If you go back to the start of this story arch, you will see that Roy was TRYING to tell Marc he really needed to do something else then pee. So don’t blame me. Blame Marc!

Listening to “Little Red Corvette” by Prince…

For those that are celebrating the fourth of July tomorrow, please have a safe one!

-Chris

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