Happy Birthday, Lepus Studios

(Originally posted Dec. 31, 2010)

It’s New Year's Day, which means that Lepus Studios is now one year old! While the soon-to-be vast Lepus Empire is still small and scrappy, it has accomplished a surprising amount of things in its first year.

Lepus Studios Accomplishments in 2010:

• 53 comic strips, one each week without ever missing a deadline.
• Four different desktop wallpapers.
• Bonus work for Easter, Halloween, and Christmas.
  
• Guest Art for Sandra and Woo, Legend of Bill, and Zorphbert and Fred. (Plus guest art for The Superfogeys, which will run in early January.)
  
• Pin-Up art for Axe Cop.
  
• Animated sequence for Evenings in Quarantine: The Zombie Opera.
  
• A growing fan base on Facebook.

(That’s something to hang my hat on, isn’t it?)

My thanks go out to all of you who have followed my work this year. I hope you’ll keep following in 2011.

Happy New Year.

-Marj

Technical Know-How

(Originally posted Sept. 3, 2010)

This blog discusses:

Technology

Education

Noko Noko

Root Beer

So now that I've finished my schooling, I'm qualified to teach technology in most schools and businesses.

The trouble with specializing in technology is that there is so much of it that any specialist's knowledge will inevitably be a little spotty. I can't learn about everything so, of course, I have developed both strengths and weaknesses within the various realms of technology.

As far as web design goes, I would give myself a 6 out of 10. I built this website from the ground up. I like it, but someone with more experience could probably put together a site with more features. If I was the subject of a technology interview, here is how I think it would go:

Q. Your site looks pretty good on most computers. Was that by design?

A. Yes, I looked up standard monitor sizes in a book and worked out a format that looks good on most standard screens.

Q. Do you plan on giving pages a liquid layout so they will work better on mobile devices?

A. No, liquid layouts are tools of the devil.

Q. Why doesn't your page include a message board?

A. Access tools were the only part of web design class that I failed. Even if I could write a proper message board, I wouldn't want it to go live unless I could block swearing, slurs, and people who think online video games should replace console games.

Q. What measures do you take to make sure that your site is still visible by outdated browsers?

A. I place an offering of corn and root beer on my altar to the computer gods and pray that they make everything work out some how.

Q. Do you plan on adding an RSS feed?

A. I have wallpaper with trees and stars.

Q. Do you use any security measures to ensure that your site is protected?

A. Yes, security systems are employed.

Q. What security measures are you taking?

A. Why are you asking about that? Are you a spy? Are you with those seedy adult sites who tried to hijack my server?

Q. No... No, it's not like that... you got it all wrong...

A. Aha! you've come to hack my site and steal my eight faithful readers! Noko, attack!

Noko Noko: PHPFTTHHHH! (attacks)

...And so forth.

-Marj

Odds and Ends

(Originally posted Aug. 13, 2010)

As you can see, I have not finished the new site design just yet. I didn't want to switch to the new site until I fixed all the little glitches. The new design looks pretty good, but some of the links are broken and the tables need to be resized and the backgrounds are inconsistent and there are big pieces of useless code left over and some of the Div sections are being held together by a paper clip. How did a paper clip get into my source code, which was completely authored on the computer and does not exist in any physical form? I don't know, but I'll be up all night fixing it. I'll be working bit by bit on the new design. In the meantime, pardon my dust.

This week, I finished one of my more exciting extra projects, an animated segment for the up-and-coming new opera "Evenings in Quarantine: The Zombie Opera" (Visit them). My piece is an animated instructional video on how survivors can protect themselves from infection. I don't want to give to much away, but I'll tell you that it ain't pretty. (Well, the animation is kind of pretty. It's probably the finest animated zombie I ever drew.) If you are in Pittsburgh this October, I strongly suggest that you make some time to go see that opera.

So I got a lot of things done and there's still a lot left to do. All in all, it's not a bad place to be.

-Marj

The Near Future

(Originally posted July 23, 2010)

Here we are at comic number 30. That's one comic a week for 30 weeks without ever missing an update. Yeah, it's not the most challenging schedule on the web, but I'm still pretty pleased with how it's turning out.

Back in January, I built this site from the ground up. But it hasn't changed much since. Sure, I've made a few small improvements over the last seven months, but nothing too dramatic. I want to add more content and features, but work and school are about all I can handle for now.

Usually, when people say "I'm too busy to do this now, I'll do it later" no one knows if they really mean it. Sometimes people genuinely are too busy to take on extra projects, other times they're waiting for some perfect moment in their lives that will probably never come. Sometimes they are lying to appear productive. I think the trick to getting things done is to plan for real, concrete moments instead of just waiting for your schedule to free up (schedules never free up) or for the time to feel right (geez, I sound like I'm giving dating advice - scary thought).

For example, I had been drafting this website for ages before I actually launched it. People would ask me if I was ever going to get it started. I told them that I would launch as soon as I had enough HTML background to build and maintain a proper site. I think several people believed that I was never going to finish it (you know you you are), but, two weeks after finished my first web design class, I went live as promised.

Now, I am setting some new concrete goals for myself: to make revisions before the end of August. Right now, the summer art class I am teaching is coming to a close. Then, I should finish graduate school at the end of the month. After that, I'm set to do a little freelance project for The Zombie Opera. That will still leave me with a good chunk of August set aside for building more website.

I can't tell you about everything I've planned, but here are some of the improvements I have in mind:

• New character desktops
• Standard icons and images to break up those large text areas
• An animation section
• Additions to the Art Gallery
• More behind-the-scenes comic notes
• More Noko Noko pictures (everyone loves Noko)

And...(saving the best for last)...news on the Draconis Wicked project.

All that and more, coming soon to an internet near you. Stay tuned.

-Marj

P.S. Hey, have you noticed how many web comics are taking a short hiatus for San Diego Comic Con? With so many of the good cartoonists gone, people will have no choice but to read my comic! I'm reaping all the benefits!

Progress

(originally posted Jan. 29, 2010)
Well, I've been running this site for almost a month and it is slowly starting to catch on. The titles "Lepus Studios," "Urban Underbrush" and "Draconis Wicked" are showing up in Google searches. Plus, just the other day, someone I never met before asked me if I was the same Marjorie Rishel who draws these cartoons. This was the second time I've ever been recognized through my work and the first time I've been recognized for this site. Give me a moment to gloat self-importantly over my small victories. (Bwa ha ha ha ha! Okay, I'm all finished.)

Stick around. There are more good things to come.

Welcome

(originally posted Jan. 1, 2010)
Welcome to the Lepus Studios website. This site and its and comics have grown from years of studying, planning and dreaming. I am very proud that I am able to launch this site and to share my work in some small measure. I am also pleased that I was able to learn enough HTML and Dreamweaver to make this stuff look half-way decent.

So, you've read the first comic. You've met Dynamite and Detonator and have seen their love of making things explode. So who are these Jack Rabbits? What are they doing here? How did they manage to build an elaborate and (almost) working fireworks display? All of these questions and more will be answered in the weeks ahead.

By the way, the Urban Underbrush characters won't often speak to the audience but, for the first appearance, I decided that they should do something special.