Well, it's been over a year now; I'm calling it.

Bristled is no longer being updated. Thank you, dear readers, for being so supportive over the years. I know I haven't been the best webcomic artist, writer, or publisher, but it's knowing how many of you liked reading the comic and offered your support, and now with naught but this archive to show for it, that makes me the saddest. I wish I could do more for you, but all I can say is thank you.

If you have any questions regarding the comic, please feel free to ask on either the appropriate DeviantArt or FurAffinity journal.

I'll just leave this here.

Welcome to the new home of Bristled! I know, things look pretty much the same as before, with the exception of the forum. Sadly, that didn't survive the transfer from the old host. Ah well, I'm thinking of going with something different anyway.

I'm currently working an officially part-time retail job at a board game store. The good news here is that I'm making money, and the surroundings are fun. Who doesn't love a good board game, card game, dice game, or what-have-you? On the bad news side, the job is paying minimum wage, so bills are tight. Also, even though I'm officially part-time (so I can't earn benefits), the next two weeks I'm still working 40-hour shifts. Without breaks. And it's the holiday season. UGH.

I'm thinking the comic will continue some time after Christmas, when things have died down a little and I'm not completely stressed and worn out every night. I promise I'm going to make a better effort to keep this comic updating at least once a week, because I have so many more stories to tell. As a further sign of my increasing delusional state, I've even been considering doing another comic on the side, since there are some stories that just can't be told with anthro characters.

*Insert maniacal laughter here*

What does a vegetarian zombie ask for?











Graaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiinssssss.....

Okay folks, I'm flat broke and standing to fall behind on my rent and car payment while I wait patiently for hiring managers and interviewers at several prospective places to pull their thumbs out of their asses and call me back.

The bad news: Bristled is on indefinite hold once again. I hate doing this in the middle of a story arc. And I hate doing it anyway because it ends up happening all the damn time.

The good news: commissions are therefore open. I need a way to pull in some cash, and I feel asking for donations on a comic that's not updating is a cheap and tasteless thing to do (though I won't stop anyone from being generous). So I want to give back to the community somehow for helping me get through a tough spot.

The ugly-I mean details:

Black-n-white line art only: $10 for one character, +$5 for each additional
Full color: $30 for one character, +$10 for each additional

Please give me reference materials if you want it looking anything like your existing characters - model sheets are great, but any image will work, really.

I do not provide prints of my commissions. I will however provide you with a full-size image of print quality and size so you can print it off if you want. The image is up to you with which to do what you will (I think that's grammatically correct). If you want to upload it, just make sure to give me credit for the artwork.

Please contact me at steph@bristled-comic.com with information. And remember that it could take a while for your commission to be completed.

If you simply want to donate for whatever reason, you can do that by clicking on the Paypal donation link over there on the right.

You know what they say about no news.

I'll give you a hint: it's not bad news.

Next comic's going to be late. *SHOCK!*

The reason this time is truly original and unique: I've been doing yard work the last few days and my hands are covered in blisters. It hurts to hold a pencil in my hand. I know that I suffer a lot for my craft, but pain is right out.

Ironically, it was a shovel that did this to me. I feel doubly-cursed.

And in completely unrelated news, the fine folks at All Fur Radio have put together this quick survey. Feel free to take a few minutes and fill it out. It won't hurt and it doesn't lead to one of those "free iPod" scams or anything, although there will be some prizes randomly given out to some of the lucky participants.

Wow. I had two weeks, and somehow managed to not get anything done. This is terrible. Sure I had a temp job that took most of my time, even demanding over time and thus taking my weekends away from me and almost running out of money while waiting for a paycheck, but still - you'd think I'd be able to squeeze in a drawing or two. Between rounds of Audiosurf, that is.

I really need to work on that.

There's a few things regarding the comic that I'm seriously considering. But I don't want to mention anything until I'm absolutely sure it's what I want to do. So just go about your normal routine and pretend this last paragraph doesn't exist.

Yoooouuuu saaaawww notheeeeeng.

So I see by the ol' archive calendar (which sucks, I know) that today's comic is suffering from an extreme case of tardiness. I apologize for that; I really hate when I let things like this happen, especially since it seems to happen all the freaking time.

But never fear - this work schedule may be getting the better of me now, but I am not going to just sit around and let it take its shots at me! Not for much longer anyway. The fact that I only have a week left on this temporary assignment has almost nothing to do with that.

Today's update will be posted tomorrow. Ran out of energy far too quickly today to get anything meaningful done, and I need to reset my internal clock for the temp job I start tomorrow.

A huge thank you to everyone who's donated so far - the current tally is at 190 dollars! That's going to really help to take care of some of these bills. I still don't know how to properly repay y'all for your generosity. Someone suggested commissions. Ha ha, no.

See ya tomorrow.

EDIT: And of course by "tomorrow" I meant "Tuesday." Sorry, just too wiped out tonight to keep my eyes open. Tomorrow I should have my clock reset and functioning properly again.

After the last two weeks residing on the breezy side of hell, here's what's going on.

We're finally in a new place, a lot nicer than the old apartment and this time we know the landlord personally and he's a cool guy. That doesn't however excuse us from paying rent. Also, last week the brakes on my car went out (have been fixed since then), my cellphone service has been shut off, we found out that our eviction from the apartment was done so illegally, AND for reasons completely unrelated to anything else, I lost my job.

I'm trying not to let all this send me into one of my trademark downward spirals (you know how I get, and how easily I get there), but since we've mostly landed on our feet, it's not as bad as it seems. However, I say "mostly" because what it all boils down to is - without a job, I won't be able to afford rent, car payment, insurance, or FOOD.

Now I'm hardly slacking off here, I've been looking for a new job like mad, but until I can secure one, my finances are very fragile. You know how much I hate doing this, but I'm asking that anyone out there who'd be willing to donate some money through the link over there, it would be greatly appreciated. Not really sure just how much I need right now, but it's definitely more than I have available.

I'd like to give something back for reaching whatever goal I can come up with, but I don't know what to offer. Any suggestions would be cool as well, and I'd be more than happy to provide something reasonable. So just name it! Head to the forums, or send me an email.

Thank you everyone!

I just can't seem to catch a break here.

Sorry again for the delay in posting new comicness, but real life has offered up a new flavor of suck. The management of our apartment complex has served us with court papers stating that we are to vacate the premesis post-haste. We've appealed and so far delayed the eviction date (might even overturn it), but they are adamant about us getting the f*** out.

And why? Twice our rent was late. Not terribly late, either, and always paid in full, including late fees. Seems these people are simply assholes by historical nature.

So therefore all effort outside of work has been spent lately in looking for new accomodations. The good news here at least is that we've found quite a few houses nearby (as in, not apartments) that are being offered to rent for the same or less than what we're paying now, and they're on-par or better than where we currently are.

Another blow is that my car's brake pads are worn out, and I need to get those fixed. The problem here is that since I have a high-frequency hearing impairment (those who have met me in person may have noticed that I say "what?" a lot and cup my ear), I haven't noticed the squealing noise that is evidence of impending failure. Now all I hear is the coarse grinding of metal on metal, which is not good at all. Brake pads may be relatively inexpensive to replace, but rotors, the metal parts, are not.

Sadly this leaves me with little time and a lot of stress because I don't exactly have the money to cover everything right now. If things can wait until the next paycheck then I should be fine, but things like the brakes are kind of important. Waiting and prolonging that only makes things worse and more expensive to fix.

I'll try to get the next comic out as soon as I can, but it may be some time before that happens. I feel terrible about this, especially because delays have become the rule rather than the exception, but also because it's completely beyond my control.

I'll admit, I'm not 100% happy with this strip, but it's better than waiting around any more trying to come up with something better. One of the reasons I've been having such a hard time with my updates lately is the fact that I just couldn't get past this particular strip! So finally I just bit down and accepted the fact that it's not gonna be funny, and it's not gonna be a big dramatic reveal, and it's not gonna be a cliffhanger. It's just needed to move the damn story along. So sorry. But we can get things rolling now that this obstacle is at least out of the way.

Anthrocon was a big happy vacation for me, something that I very much needed. I was reminded of how much I really do seem to have an influence in this fandom (albeit a small one), and it gave me a chance to reconnect with my artistic skills. I wasn't able to get into the Artists' Alley for any of the three days it was open, but I did hole up in the Zoo for a good portion of the time and just relaxed with people and had fun. Also hung out with the crew from All Fur Radio over at Fernando's restaurant and had fun there. I must say as well, the rave dance at AC is much better than the one I attended at FC, though I'm not knocking it at all.

I think we all realize that I cannot guarantee a twice-a-week update schedule right now, but I will strive to do my best to update as often as I can. I've seen firsthand what self-imposed stress can do to a person, so I'm just not going to do that to myself. I'd highly recommend that people subscribe to the RSS feed if they really want to know when the next update will come; though I will try to keep it as close to a Wednesday-Sunday schedule as possible.

Thank you everyone for your great support!

It's official. I'm heading to Anthrocon 2008. While I won't have a table in the Dealer's Den, I'm going to try to get into the Artist's Alley, which I believe is a "first-come, first-served" basis. If I'm not there, then I'll probably be hanging around somewhere, admiring all the other stuff that's displayed and for sale to people who actually have money.

Afterwards, if I'm not getting hammered in the AFR party room, I'll most likely be found in the Zoo, being my usual shy self. Please feel free to come up and say hi. I'm shy, not anti-social. I'll have sketchy stuff and I'd be happy to art at people. Yes, "art" is now a verb.

Also, as per my convention tradition, I'll be putting a secret sketch somewhere on convention / Westin grounds. For anyone who doesn't know what this is: I will take a sketch that I've drawn and put it somewhere noticeable (but not in-your-face) in a trafficked area. In other words, I don't put it out of sight, you won't have to search outside of regular convention areas to find it, I won't hide it in a restroom or behind a ceiling panel or in a box under the stairs in the corner of the basement of the house half a block from Jerry's Bait Shop (you know the place). If there's lots of people around, and it's part of the convention areas, and it's reasonably eye-level, then it's fair game. If you see it and recognize it, you'll know that it's the secret sketch.

Now, it probably won't be in place on the first day of the convention. Maybe not even by the second day. But at some point by the end of convention, it will be out there, just begging to be found. And when I do place it, if I can be arsed to remember, I'll also come on here somehow and post that it is in place, and possibly give a clue or something as to its location.

Now, what do you do with the secret sketch? That's right, you KEEP IT. You can take it and it's yours. All I ask is that if you do take it, send me an email or post on the forum saying that you found it. If you want to scan it and upload it to Myspace or FurAffinity or wherever, feel free to do so but make sure to give proper credit to me, as the artist. Also if you do, let me know so I can see it and feel good.

And finally - This is an all-too-familiar feeling this past week. Let's just say, hooray for people who don't know how to secure their networks.
>.>
<.<
>.>
Sneak sneak sneak ...

Here's what I'm going to do.

Since updating this comic is sort of like taking a cross-country drive in a car that stalls every block or two, I'm just going to go ahead and do what everyone probably thinks I've done anyway. No, I'm not stopping the comic, because new stories and ideas keep flooding my head. What I am going to do is take another extended break to let the batteries recharge and get some of these other art projects out of the way. Yes, I STILL owe two people commissioned artwork from the break I took a few months ago, and I will get those turned out soon. But I also have other images that just won't loosen their grasp on my imagination, so I need to let them run their course. Be sure to keep an eye on my DeviantART and FurAffinity accounts for those, if you're curious.

I'm thinking after Anthrocon, I should be excited and pumped enough from the inevitable throng of fans that will no doubt trample me and shower me with praise. Yep, that just about oughta do it.

Speaking of which, I am going to be attending AC again this year, but once again I didn't get a table in time. What I'm going to try doing is getting into the Artists' Alley this time around and see if anyone wants to buy a few sketches from the comic. I'm going to have a big red binder full of all the paper sketches I've accumulated over the course of doing this comic, and will have them for sale for very reasonable prices. Don't worry, I still have all my digital scans backed up if I ever need to do anything with them. However not every single comic panel started as a sketch on paper unfortunately, especially the earlier ones. So if you're looking for a very specific episode, you might not be able to find it. Sorry.

And who knows - I just might have another binder for other stuff. Oh and my sketchbook, in case anyone wants to scribble something in there (PG works only; if you really wanna draw me porn, I'll give you a loose sheet of printer paper). I might also be on hand to just do some random sketches on the spot or something. No badges though, because I don't have money to spare for all the little clippy things. Also, I don't color by hand.

I guess I'll wrap this up by saying keep an eye out here (and on DA and FA) for a sneak peek at this year's AC con badge, so you'll know what to look for. Trust me, you probably won't recognize me otherwise!