I’m going to assume most of you already heard the big news that was posted by Ananth. We are indeed going to back to a once a week schedule. Now, this only applies to the big comic. The AG Lites will still be updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The big comic will only be updated every Monday. Due to the update change, I moved the AG Lite above the big comic since it will be updated more frequently.

Now to answer the question…why?

Well, after drawing, inking, and coloring the comics for about 6 years, I realized I haven’t done a lot for myself. As you know, I work full time at a design studio. I’m learning a lot from my job and I love it. We are picking up work that challenges me to learn something new or push my skills even further. So when I come home, I am pumped with creativity. However I have very little time to accomplish anything for myself. It is a constant battle between creating something for myself and trying to get the comic updated on time.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t find doing AG comics a burden, not at all. The problem is, I find myself swimming in a pool of creativity. I like to mess with digital art, photography, video, and programming. By doing the AG comic once a week, I believe I can accomplish what I would like to do on my spare time.

Now here is the best part, you guys win as well. If you like my art, you’re going to see a lot more. I recently finished a matte painting for a client at work, now I want to do more matte paintings. If you like my photography, you’re going to see a lot more of that as well. I’m also learning AfterEffects, so it will be interesting to see what videos I produce. All of this will be posted on my personal site and I will tweet about it.

Lastly, I would also like to be able to just come home and relax. Where I can just sit back, watch a movie or play some games without worry about comic deadlines.

I think that covers most of it and I hope you understand. If you do…

Thanks.

Hey guys & gals,

Things have gotten really busy for us over here at Applegeeks – Hawk especially is getting a lot of new work in, and it’s keeping him up late. We’ve always done our best to keep up with our update schedule, but it is getting to the point that Hawk has zero free time. With that in mind, we’re dropping the updates back to every Monday for the big color comics for the time being. Applegeeks Lite will update as normal, 3 times a week. Sorry guys! We gotta breathe a little. ;)

Hey guys! AGV2: Weird Science is in stores today! It is weird seeing our books out in the wild. Here’s the official Dark Horse listing. Thank you everyone who has helped make this happen — including you, guys and girls!

Wow, this totally slipped my mind. Bad Hawk.

AG Vol 2 is out today.

If you’re planning to get one, I would like to hear your thoughts about it.

You can take a look at my previous Snapture post here – as of this post, in the Apple app store Snapture is #8 in Top Paid Apps (previously #6), #1 in Photography, and #1 in What’s Hot. Pretty exciting!

In Applegeeks news, Volume 2 hits shelves October 7th (the day after my birthday!). So excited to see it finally out, a lot of love went into this one – there’s also a special dedication just for YOU! Our editor over at Dark Horse, Sam, sent us advance copies that we shared with you a little while ago – they look slick, and I can’t wait to hear what you guys think of them!

Also, I’m finally free to talk about another project – I’m working on a book with Oni Press! The book itself will be around 180 pages (I think), illustrated and co-plotted by the lovely Yuko Ota. The script is just about done, it’s topping out at around 108 pages of text. More details on that as they come. I’ve been writing it in Scrivener, a writing app that Hawk recommended to me a while ago – it’s now an indispensable tool that I use on a daily basis. It costs $40 – I think it is worth much more than that.

I have in fact been keeping pretty busy, so I apologize for the radio silence! George recently got me Volumes 1-29 of Vagabond for a combined birthdays-for-the-rest-of-my-life because he is insane, and I just got through volume 1 – pretty fun, lots of feudal samurai action. I see where Blade of the Immortal’s Hiroaki Samura gets some of his influence! Have any of you read it? Thoughts?

If you ever wonder what I’m working on when I’m not creating AG comics. Then check out hawkstudios, or more specifically check out the hawkstudios blog. There you will find out what I’m doing at work or what artwork I’m currently working on. For example…

Photography

Animation from work

Jess and I entered a comic strip contest from Amazon, called Amazon Comic Strip Superstars. Out of 5k entries, we’ve made the top 250.

The Universal Press Syndicate will narrow the entries down to 50 comics. Then the popular comic strip creators G.B. Trudeau (Doonesbury), Lynn Johnston (For Better or For Worse), Scott Hilburn (The Argyle Sweater), and Mark Tatulli (Lió andHeart of the City) will choose 10 finalists. At the end, a voting will be held to decide on the winner.

The comic we submitted is called Turnip Greens. It is a fictional story based on mixed faith couples all over the world. This comic is just a slice of that, based in rural Alabama, Dorothy and Sahmir face challenges that any normal newlywed would. The comic also explores the regions that they visit and the different forms of support and dissent they will encounter.

Here is a sneak peek.