My editor and I have decided that issue 104 of NHS is cursed. There have never been so many problems happening during the span of a single issue in history, and the closer to completing it we got, the worse the "coincidences" got. I have not been able to get to sleep before 5am for the past two weeks. Let me explain with this handy bulleted list in chronological order...

1. Incredibly cold weather leads to "routine furnace replacement", which took several working hours out of my day as I sat in the cold and listened to the dogs bark at the repair guys.
2. "Routine Furnace Replacement" causes a gas leak in my house. The repair guys deny any involvement, and assure me it's perfectly normal for the house to smell like gas after replacing a furnace.
3. The house continues to smell like gas for 5 days...
4. A trip to have my new tires mounted reveals that this lovely Maryland weather has rusted my bolts onto the wheels. I get to pay the tire guys to cut my bolts and attach new ones. More hours lost.
5. A fireball the size of my head erupts when I go to light a match in my house. Repair guys continue to deny there is gas in my home.
6. Later the same day, the other repair guys suddenly shut down my power (with no warning... "Oops, were you working on your computer?") and evacuate me from my house due to smelling gas outside of it.
7. Repair guys bash in walls to locate leak. It takes them three tries before they find it above the stove in my kitchen.
8. My kitchen is filled with plaster and is unusable for several weeks.
9. 24 hour flu with 103° fever causes me to lose a potentially productive day.
10. Several last-minute changes and decisions lead to Shoujo cover (version 2) being colored the night before leaving for Katsucon. (This night was already pretty busy to start with...)
11. Blizzard hits Katsucon in Virginia, trapping me for an extra day.
12. Blizzard hits Maryland, stranding me away from my house (I stayed at a friend's...) for two more days.
13. Robby's cat spills soda onto 5 pages of background art, ruining a week of work.
14. Storyboards trapped in car (which was trapped in a snowbank...). Have to work from memory.
15. Working from memory results in an incorrect page count, which we only notice after half the book has been drawn.
16. After two versions of the Shoujo cover were approved and colored, they are both "poo-poo'ed". This was more of a mental drain than anything, as I felt my time and stress was wasted because of lack of art direction.
17. Repair guys finally show up early in the morning to fix the holes in the wall the day before the deadline.
18. Antarctic Press server goes down for several key hours the day before the deadline.
19. Repair guys come paint the walls the morning of the deadline. (Resulting is my second straight night of 3 hours of sleep.)
20. On brief trip to get food, my BRAND NEW TIRE goes flat. My car is still filled with all the booth supplies from Katsucon, so I am forced to unload it into a wet parking lot to get to my "donut". This took a couple more hours out of my deadline day.
21. Halfway through toning the second to last page of issue 104, my mouse spontaneously dies. I'm forced to use my tablet to try to finish the last page. (I'm not very fast with it yet.)

I met lots of cool folks, and many people seemed to be geniunely surprised when they realized I'm the new artist for NHS. I'm not sure what they expected me to look like, but they all seemed quite shocked when they put the name with the face. I would be talking to someone about their art, and they'd ask if I had anything published, and I'd meekly reply, "Well, I'm the new artist for Ninja High School, but other than that my book won't be out for a couple months." Then there'd be an awkward pause as several mental wheels were visibly being re-alligned, and they'd say, "You're her?!"

I finally got to meet Amy Kim (and her quiet boyfriend) in person. Even though her story won't be in "Shoujo!" afterall, her art is still really pretty. ^_^ Also, artist Gabriel Lamberty was there, and apparently didn't get a table and had to set up with only a chair. I wish I would have known that coz we had two tables, and most of the weekend I was the only artist there. I could have easily hooked him up. o,0'

I also got to meet Dave Lister (and his cool friend Sarah!), the artist of Paradox Lost, and "Ukyo" from Mega Tokyo (who was really cute and shy; I've got a thing for geeks ^_^...), and many other great artists and writers who found themselves spending an extra day in Crystal City, VA.

Also, I've got 4 wigs to do this month, and I'll hopefully have time to add a customer gallery to the custom wig section of the site. If I've done a wig for you, please send me pictures of it with the rest of your costume. I'd really love to see how they hold up in action! ^_^

Of course, there's still those Katsucon commissions to do, so it looks like I've got another busy month ahead of me. Surprise, surprise.

Oh! I've been asked a couple times this month, if I'm so busy, what do I do for "fun"? Well, when I occassionally get a break, I usually hang out with friends, and do things like play DDR, eat very large steaks, and dye my hair random colors. Since I don't work in an office, I can get away with looking like a Rainbow Brite character, and it's more fun than just plain old brown.

Back to the slave pits!

-Katie