Hey, Internet person(s)! Is GM. I hope you’ve enjoyed the film-centric comic adventures of the past few weeks, courtesy of our fourth guest artist, Axe Cop and Bearmageddon daddy Ethan Nicolle, the pop culture hurricane. For the record, that’s TWO “L’s” in the surname there; don’t make the same mistake I’ve been doing for the past several months. You know how dangerous hurricanes can be when you get their names wrong. Thank you, Ethan!

Speaking of adventures, I have some good news! My partner Yamzo has successfully finished the thumbnails for the entire big story! So now she, letter man Chris and color person Josh can finally get cracking on those pages proper! Terribly sorry it’s taken so long, but thumbing everything out in advance like this helps prevent nasty surprises from popping up due to weird script-ish bits not working like they should (ALWAYS my fault, by the way). Consequently, our first Dingus Rancher Adventure will begin a little later than expected.

But on the bright side, we have a solid date now! Dingus Rancher Adventures #1: “Dingus, Meet Wingus” will begin Sunday, June 30th!

Yes, I know, that’s not exactly in the spring. Luckily, we kind of went overboard with the bonus material, so we still have one final guest artist waiting to get his strip on, so to speak. And believe me, we’ve saved the most explosive for last. I’m hope you like!

So yes, a few weeks after that, DRA will begin! Yam and I are crazy excited for this thingus. We hate to leave you all hanging like this, but we promise we’ll do our best to make sure the wait is worth its weight in steak.

You know what? Steak sound pretty good. I think I’ll go get some.

Take it easy!

-GM

P.S. Keep your eyes peeled for Ethan Nicole’s wonderful Axe Cop animated TV series, also happening this summer! Also also, don’t forget to spread the word about DRA, and follow me and Yam on Twitter! My thingus is @dingusrancher, and Yam’s is @SnifitKing. Please throw words at us!

Hey, it’s that guy again. Now, if any of you guys and girls were around in the 90′s, our third guest artist probably needs no introduction. For our younger readers and Victorian time travelers who decided skip the 90′s due to a staggering aversion to backwards baseball caps and Howie Mandel, the man responsible for our latest trio of duck-centric sequential picture things was the mastermind behind big-time 90′s games The Neverhood and Earthworm Jim, the Meat Lover’s Fruit Cup Award-winning short film series Sockbaby, and of course, more graphic novels than you can shake a sardine at. Everyone, say hello to Doug TenNapel. Doug, this is everyone. They like exploding ducks, apparently. I’m sure you’ll get along fine.

Also, remember the one other secret thing I mentioned last week? Well, it’s ready! Have you ever thought to yourself “Pffft, you call this funny? I could out-funny this jerk so hard it’s not even funny! Only it IS!” Well, now you can! With our brand-spankin’-new Dingus Rancher Comic Creator! Not only can you add your own dialogue to ANY of our strips, you can save them to your computator to share with your friends! If you wanna give it a try, just click on the shiny new Comic Creator link right above this word pile, or simply click these words right here. Have fun!

Also also, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for Doug’s new game, Armikrog, which he’s metaphorically busting his bottom on right now, and the colorized re-release of one of his classic graphic novels, Tommysaurus Rex. And speaking of tyrannosaurs, yet another big thank you to our web mage, Muir Freeland, for making the comic creator happen! Incidentally, he’s working on an awesome thingus of his own; an excitement-ing iOS game called Blowfish meets Meteor. People like it, evidently. As well they should, for it is the good times. Give it a go when it happens!

Right, that my afternoon gone. I need a steak break. While I do that, how about you internet person(s) email me some of your weird comic creations? I got nothing else going on this weekend. Apart from steak.

I’d better get on that.

Take it easy!

-GM

Happy Egg, everybody! GM here. I hope you’re all enjoying the guest strips so far. The most recent trio of goodies comes courtesy of the talented Ellis Goodson. This guy’s been around the block whole bunches of times, having done enough storyboard and concept work to turn a swan inside-out. Heard of The Neverhood? He was totally on that ship. And other ships, too! Riding ships ’round the block all the time, that’s Ellis for you. If you’d like your own inverse swan, check out his portfolio site a-right-a-right here. Thank you, Ellis!

Be sure to check back next week for our third guest artist, and possibly another neat surprise. Whom will the next artist be? I’ll give you a hint: He has arms.

All the arms,

-GM

P.S. Arms.

Hey, everyone. GM again. I know what you’re thinking; “hey, that isn’t Yam’s art! Did she misplace her hands or something?” Rest assured, Yam’s hands are right where they should be (that is to say, still on her person). Thing is, she’s still metaphorically ripping through spring’s big story, and seeing as spring isn’t quite here yet, it’ll still be a little while before we can get this show on the metaphorical (again) road.

So! To keep the DR engine running in the meantime, we’ve arranged for some wonderful guest artists to help us out. Over the next few months, we’ll be treating you to some delightfully silly B&W strips starring Baxter’s bursting buddy, Duckbomb! This ducksplosion comes courtesy of some very talented picture makers. Some of these art persons you may have even heard of. Either way, I hope you enjoy these goodies while me and Yamzo press on with the big story business.

Our first artist is colorful toonmaker Andrew Dickman. If any of you are familiar with the video game series Mega Man or one of those oddball YouTube critic thinguses, you may have come across some of his goodies. This guy’s artistic breadth and fanciful character designs are something else. Check out his gallery thingus here! 

And now to chain myself back to my work desk. Take it easy, everyone!

-GM

Yam here. I’m the goober who draws the Dingus Rancher comic. Sometimes I help with the writing, but usually I’m just handling the art.  We just posted a special look at the strip creation process here:  Check it out!

If you’re curious, here’s some of what’s involved when it comes to making the strips:

I start by sketching out a rough drawing, usually in ballpoint pen on notebook paper. It may go through several changes before I move on to the next phase.

I follow that up with a more refined pencil drawing that’s based on the rough. Once that’s approved, I move on to the inks. Then I add color using prismacolor markers and color pencils. The last step is to re-ink the entire drawing, in order to enhance the black lines that get washed out by the markers.

Sometimes I’ll draw backgrounds in pure color, other times I’ll rough them out with the rest of the strip.

It’s a time consuming process, but I enjoy the results. I hope you get a kick of them, too. Since I’m drawing these by hand, you can also note the many mistakes and errors I make as I work.

-Yam

Well, that’s that! After nearly a year of weekly good times, the first series of Dingus Rancher has finally come to a close. I don’t know about you, but to me it feels like we only started last week. Heck, we probably did for all I know, and this past year was just an abnormally long New Year’s celebratory coma. But Yam tells me that’s pretty unlikely, so I’m taking her word for it. Either way, I hope you all enjoyed the silly combinations of words and pictures Yam and I worked so hard on, or at least took a look and them and were all like “Yup, those sure are pictures.” Making them was pots of fun!

But I’m not hammering out this wordsy bit to throw pots or sappy goodbyes in your general direction. I’m here to tell you about that thing I’ve been harping on about for the past few months: our very first big story! Ladies and also gentlemen sometimes, get your weapons ready for…

Equal parts epic and absurd, Dingus Rancher Adventures are big, graphic-novel-sized stories starring our cast of oddballs, told in full-sized comic pages. Not strips. Not wings. Pages. And we’re starting things off with a bang; our first adventure will be a 100+ page story about Tammy and Baxter meeting for the first time, and the transcontinental event they’re competing in. There will be battles. There will be nachos. And mark my sausages, there will be at least one powdered wig. Count on it!

Since DRA will be much more fast-paced than the self-contained strips of DR, we’ve decided to go nuts and switch to a twice-weekly update schedule. That’s right! From the big story onwards, we’ll be updating on Sunday AND Thursday! Unfortunately, this means Yam can’t color everything herself, but we’ve got that covered; this story will be colored by the wonderfully talented Josh Kenfield, who’s done masterful work on such lovely word/picture combinations as Scrooge and Santa and Sockbaby creator Doug TenNapel’s Bad Island and Ratfist. Also, he has the patience of a saint. Good luck, Josh!

When will the adventure begin? Mark you calendars for spring 2013! Now, I know that seems like a long way away, but don’t worry! The first series may be over, but we’ve still got lots more cool stuff to show you every Sunday until the story happens. We’re just gonna take a week’s vacation, then for the next couple months we’ll give you a peek at the creation process that goes into every strip, as well as some concept art from when we were developing DR way back in 2007-ish. We have a couple more surprises for you after that, but we’ll talk about that a little later. I think you will like this new weapon.

That’s all from me for now. This first year marks the end of the beginning of the good times. If you thought the strips were neat, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Prepare for The Endbeginningening.

-GM

Hey, everyone! GM again. I got some really neat words for you today.

First off, as of today we’re only six strips away from the end of the first series! But don’t worry, this isn’t the end of DR. Like I mentioned back in the summer, even after the first series ends, we have lots more cool DR stuff on the way. And speaking of more cool stuff, remember that special thing I talked about briefly last month? The thing I’ve been writing? Well, it’s finished! Done and dusted, tossed in the ready bucket, and all those other weird idioms that mean it’s 100% ready for working. I can’t talk about it just yet, but I can confirm that it isn’t about doors (as far as I can tell, anyway). More on this next month-ish!

It’s been quite an experience working on all these; you can easily see how much my partner Yam’s improved over the past year (not so much myself). In fact, if you’ve been checking out DR on certain Apple devices these past few days, you might’ve noticed that everything looks a fair bit sharper than usual.

You’re not imagining things; Dingus Rancher is now the world’s first webcomic with retina display support! From now on, if you view the site with your fancy new iPad or Macbook Pro with retina display or any similar future-ish device, you won’t be seeing any more blurry, blown-up images. Everything will instead be extra crispy! It’s like chicken, but for your eyeballs! They’ll thank you later.

Now, maybe you don’t have a retina display? That’s fine, too! In preparation for the retina upgrade, Yamzo went nuts and “remastered” every single strip, adding detail, crispifying inks, re-clouding, the whole nine yards plus four inches. We even had them all re-lettered by our newest team member, Chris! Give him a bear hug if you ever see him on the street; he’s the guy who looks like he hasn’t slept in days. You can’t miss him.

So yes, while you won’t see the crazy-crispy new site, everyone can see the remastered strips. Even people with regular displays!

That’s all for right now, peoples. The first series may be winding down, but things are really hotting up under the hood. I can’t wait to show you all the crazy stuff we’ve got on the way!

Until then, take it easy!

-GM

GM here. Time sure flies when you’re writing, huh? ’cause that’s what I’ve been up to all summer. Well, that and some family time. And checking out some cool restaurants. And making friends wi–okay so there was a bunch of things. No wonder this final draft isn’t done yet! But it won’t be long now.

What am I writing, exactly? Is it the second series? Is it a completely unrelated story? A video game about doors, perhaps? Well, that’s a secret! At least for now. But don’t worry, I’ll spill the beans before long. Maybe by the end of this first series. We’ll see how we get on.

Anyway, enjoy our new autumny site! Also, if you’re one of those technophilic jerkwads with an affinity for fruit-themed electronics (like myself), we’ve got another surprise for you this month-ish. Keep your retinas peeled!

Well, that’s it for me. I’m gonna see if I can’t make a beanbag chair out of orange leaves. What could possibly go wrong?

Take it easy!

-GM

Hi, Internet person(s), it’s GM. Notice anything different today?

Seeing how spring’s pretty much jumped out the proverbial 40-story window for the year, we decided to give the site a little once-over. Thanks to our resident Web Mage, Muir Freeland, our site is no longer exempt from experiencing the four seasons. And I’m not talking Vivaldi here; as the seasons change, the site will change. We’re still tweaking a few bits here and there, so if you’ve got any feedback, or just want to tell us how much you want to kill it with fire, let us know! It’s barbecue season, after all.

And who knows? Maybe in the future we can get it to complain about the weather, too! But Muir tells me that isn’t very user-friendly.

He’s dead now.

… or is he?

God, it’s hot today.

-Not Vivaldi

How’s everybody doing today? Punch any ocelots lately? ’cause they deserve it. Twice.

Anyway, lots of stuff to talk about. First of all, it’s my pleasure to report that as of right now, we have nearly 1,460 likes on Facebook! Yam and I are delighted that so many of you brave ocelot punchers are keen on reading a thing about hungry walking eyeballs, living stuffed kitties and beer-swilling weirdo farmers. You are good times!

Speaking of weirdos, I think it’s about time I told you about how we’re doing things around here.

Unlike most online comics, we won’t be updating continuously forever and ever. Instead, we’re doing DR in batches, or “series” as we’re calling them. Each series will consist of a certain number of strips. When we reach the end of a series, we’ll be taking a break for a few months to prepare the next one. We’re doing this mainly because of how long it takes to make them, since they’re all done the old-fashioned way, with real ink, paper, markers, sausages and whatnot. But don’t worry! We’ll have plenty of fun stuff to hold you over while we prepare the next series, including sketches, concept art and another secret dealie I can’t talk about just yet. Trust me, it’ll be a thing.

How will you know when we’re preparing for the next series? Easy. Let me introduce you to our ever-present activity indicator, Trafficolo!

You’ve probably noticed these little guys living in the top-right corner of the page. Not only do they look like traffic lights, they light up as well! Since we’re in the middle of our first series, the green one up top’s lit up. When we’re busy getting the next series ready, the red one on the bottom’ll light up, along with a message saying when we’ll be back. Red means stop, green means go. Simple, right?

This first series consists of 50 strips. Since we’re a little under the halfway point, there’s plenty more good times to be had. We hope you’ll stick around!

Finally, Yam recently set up a tumblr blog to display her wonderful art things. My partner’s not much on self-promotion, but fortunately, I don’t have that problem. You can check it out here!

That’s all for right now. Take it easy, and watch out for vengeful South American cats!

-GM