Hey Grovers! Some of you may know already that (those of you who follow me over on the Facebook thing) I’ve been working on a novel. The book is about a guy (and in the title choices you can tell his name) who gets stranded on Earth in the middle of a hurricane and has to find his way home without being exposed as an alien. I did my final edit and only have a working title so far so, I thought I’d post a poll to see which of the titles I have in mind work better…better off the tongue, better branding, etc. I look forward to your thoughts. And, as always, you can leave a suggested title in the comments.

[polldaddy poll=7215560]

While talking to my son today and his mentioning how difficult it was to find a particular strip to show his roommate, I’ve decided to undertake something I should have done from the get-go, when I started using WordPress & ComicPress to display Willow’s Grove…over 1084 comics ago…using tags. This would have allowed my son to type in a tag or keyword and search for the comic he wanted to show off.

Now comes the fun part: Going through all 1084 published comics, plus the ones from the very early days, and create tags for them that best describe what is going on in each individual comic. The good news is I have all of the published strips in a folder on the hard drive so I can do it offline, create a spreadsheet to organize, etc., and then cut & paste the tags back in to each post. The bad news is, I have to do this for 1084 comics and try to make them unique to what is going on in the comic. I’m quite sure there’ll be overlaps and tags that fit multiple comics, but at least, once it is completed, readers can search by tags to find a strip they want to read again.

Serves me right for not doing this in the first place to have such a large backlog to tend to.

Those of you who follow me on Facebook may have noticed my recent profile picture change to this:

The reason behind it is simple, during the Oscars this past Sunday, Ang Lee won best director for the film “Life Of Pi.” During his acceptance speech, he thanked all the 3000 people behind the making of the film, but failed to mention that the VFX company behind all the magic, Rhythm & Hues had to file for bankruptcy and fired 250 people last week. During the acceptance speech for Best Visual Effects, the VFX Supervisor Bill Westenhofer was cut off by the orchestra before he could mention the travesty that befell Rhythm & Hues. Mainstream media outlets have also turned a blind eye towards it and aren’t reporting on this injustice. This is an outrage! How can Hollywood ignore the way the VFX houses they use to create their films are treated? They barely get 5% of the profits from the movies they help bring to life!

What would the Hollywood movies look like without these VFX houses doing their spectacular jobs to make things look so real? Do a Google search on what movies would look like without VFX and tell me if they would be as good. I didn’t think so.

I may not be in the industry, but as a struggling artist bringing my craft to you, my readers, Monday through Friday, without fail, without missing an update, I cannot stand to watch my brothers and sisters in art get screwed day after day, month after month, year after year. That is why my Facebook profile picture has been changed, to show I stand behind them in solidarity.

If you feel the same, find a green screen photo square and join in the protest against Hollywood’s screwing of the VFX industry. The more people who join in and spread the word, the more this outrageous injustice may be brought to light and corrected.

*steps off soapbox*