Do you love manatees? I mean, do you really really LOVE MANATEES? So much that you would be willing to read a webcomic every week, even though it is incredibly depressing, because it is the only manatee comic strip in town? OK, so maybe you don’t love manatees but you are just a fan of misery. That’s fair. It makes sense that the only readers I hear from are those who love manatees because the folks who just loooooove misery are probably not moved to email strangers or talk to them at conventions. For the record, I love all of you, wherever your allegience lies.

For the manatee lovers, I thought I’d to point you to an organization that makes a much stronger effort than I do trying to save manatees from extinction. The Save the Manatee Club was founded by fellow manatee lovers Bob Graham and Jimmy Buffett and you can read about their efforts on their website, in addition to following manatee news, buying manatee merch, volunteering, and donating. If you donate $25 you can adopt a manatee. At first I thought you are adopting the idea of a manatee but no, they have a list of real manatees you can sponsor (including the one who swam to Rhode Island last year). So check it out:

Herman the Manatee is now on Facebook! OK, so Herman has been on Facebook for a while now, but only in the form of a Group. And who really joins Groups anymore? Now there is a shiny Facebook Page that is desperate for your fandom. Become a fan! On their newsfeeds, all of your friends and those people you knew in high school but don’t really talk to anymore will see you are a fan of HERMAN THE MANATEE! It will be so cool.

Speaking of social networking, I am on Twitter. That is kind of old news, but there it is. I try to update the blog on this site with just news related to my comics, so if you want to read about other goings-on or what movie I saw or dinner I burned or whatever, Twitter is where all of this happens.

I recently finished a minicomic called Sunward, which is now available for $4 in my newly localized and retooled store! Sunward is about a guy named Rhino Dave who finds himself in an unfortunate gravitational position. It’s drawn in a similar style to Herman and the story captures the same claustrophobia and anxiety, but the characters are less out of a children’s cartoon and more from a strange adolescent dream. You can read the first four pages on my LiveJournal.

I think I had fun at MoCCA but the heat made me DELIRIOUS so I can’t remember. People assure me I met some wonderful people and sold a lot of books and I will take their word for it. I do remember buying/trading everything available at Corrine Mucha’s table because she draws my new favorite comics. And I remember several people throughout the weekend asking for Herman the Manatee books, not because they had seen the webcomic but because Dylan Meconis was referring them. I tried sending folks back to her table but it was difficult because I did not know exactly where it was or what she looked like (I did find her eventually). If you stopped by the table and took a card or took my picture, thank you! If you told me manatee stories and bought some books, thank you too! If you are Dylan Meconis, thank you as well! If you are the unfortunate smell or the suffocating heat of the Armory, I express no appreciation for you. In fact I believe you are responsible for some soggy sketches. 

Oh and while I was away, a kind review of Herman the Manatee was posted at Midnight Fiction!

I’m one of the folks lucky enough to be an exhibitor at MoCCA next weekend - apparently even though there’s more space this year it was also more difficult to get a table. So I hope to see you there! In addition to a Herman the Manatee collection and Shrinky-Dinks (both available in the store), I hope to debut a new 40-page minicomic called Sunward. It is about a dude who is getting sucked up by the sun and I know that’s right up your alley! This will be the best sun-sucking book you will ever read. I’ve been spending all of my free time trying to get it finished, so if you see me with the book there you will know that I will be in a state of blissful relief.

Here is an adorable Herman the Manatee “yarn golem” hand-made by Roxxy Goetz.

The Profiteer, a minicomic I made with Neal Stoddard about a middle management superhero, was just reviewed by Richard Krauss at Midnight Fiction.

The Estonian edition of FHM is clearly more hip than the American one. In March, they featured an article on 20 webcomics! And Herman the Manatee was one of them - how classy is that? Huge thanks to Gurukitty for the scan. 
 

Thanks to everyone we met at Stumptown! We had a great time and I absolutely loved Portland. I drew a sketchbook comic about the trip and just posted it to my LiveJournal.

In two weeks I will be at the Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, Oregon with fellow Manatee Power Engineer Neal Stoddard. We’ll have books, CDs and Shrinky Dinks for sale at table 133 - if you are going, keep an eye out for us! I’m really looking forward to the trip; I’ve never been to Portland but my brother-in-law lives there and he has promised to show me how cool it is.