But what does that mean for you, the reader? Well…

• When running a stretch of stand-alone comics (like most comics so far), they will still be posted on Wednesday.
• When running longer stories, you will get multiple pages (3 to 5) at once but several weeks apart (2 to 4).
• To compensate for a lack of posting during a storyline, I could maybe show progress sketches, do a screen cast, some illustrations … I’m still thinking about it. (I’m taking suggestions if you have any)

How can you keep up with the posts?

• Firstly, there’s this handly RSS feed,
• you can follow me on Twitter (@LordRembo for general stuff, @Beardfluff purely for the comics), Tumblr or on Facebook.
• There’s this new site called InkOutbreak that allows you to keep up with your favourite comics. Here’s Beardfluff.
• and lastly, you could add yourself to the mailinglist* below. I’ll start using in December

* No worries, I’m not going to spam you, it’s strictly for letting you know there’s been an update or big news concerning the comic (such as this schedule change).

Why am I doing this?
Since starting a longer storyline, I’ve heard the remark that it’s not easy to follow along at a ‘1 page per week’ pace. There’s a few reasons for that.
My construction of the story doesn’t follow a straight line, I jump around a bit, leaving bits unexplained for now. I’m also still trying to find my way in writing stories. I try to give every page something interesting (be it a joke or a question) but it’s a work in progress never the less. Not every page is as self-contained and entertaining as, say, the pages in Bad Machinery (yet).
I’ve talked about it with a few readers and friends and I’ve felt it in the number of visitors (the decline, to be precise). So from now on, if I have multiple page stories, I’m going to post them in chunks but for that I need the time to make them. If you know that it takes me a week to produce 2 full-color pages, when I don’t have any other projects on my plate (besides the full-time job), you can understand why I’m changing things up a bit.

Book 2 costs €1.5 (or about $2) and is available here:

Buy Now

Grouping the comics like this should make it easier to search and navigate but the navigation isn’t obvious enough at the moment.
- For 1 thing, I’ll bet very few people ever even noticed the collections before. So I’ll make that more obvious.
- Secondly, I need to make it clear that when you’re browsing the comics with the Previous/Next buttons, you’re not going through the whole archive but just the comics in 1 collection.
That’s why, if you start browsing from this week’s comic, you won’t come across the firebird comics. The latest comic belongs to Miscellaneous while the birds belong to Fire and Stone.
- or I might make it so you do browse every comic, regardless of collection.

So in short: check out the Collections in the left sidebar and look forward to some much-needed tweaks in the navigation.

As you can guess, I’m pretty happy with the result. However, there’s one thing about the hardcopy that you’ll notice is different then with other comics. The printer used a heavier (thicker) type of paper then normal, which means it’s very sturdy. You don’t have to worry about accidentally ripping a page but it won’t lay open on the table the way a floppy comic does. Not that big a deal but I thought I’d mention it anyway.

As far as binding and finishing is concerned, like most soft-cover graphic novels and collections out there, it’s perfect bound (which basically means ‘glued in place’). It’s pretty good quality too. I’ve been carrying it around and going through the pages for 2 days and all the pages are still perfect.

So that’s it for me, I hope you like the book and you can get it in the Beardfluff store.

The poll is closed! It’s been an interesting discussion and I’ll let you know the results (and the winner) when I post the new comic tomorrow. Thank you for helping me out!

When I came up with the name for this comic, I was aiming for something short, easy to write and just plain funny. A compound word like ‘Beardfluff’ fit that perfectly. When it came to deciding how to write it, I chose the most compact form (no spaces or hyphen) for practical reasons. If you use a hyphen (Beard-fluff) or open form (Beard Fluff), I figured people would wonder how to construct the url.

There’s some room for interpretation when it comes to rules in writing compound words. What I didn’t count on was that there’s a tendency for some compounds to be written in its open form. So I’m left wondering if it would have made more sense to write ‘Beard Fluff’ instead.

Now that’s where you, loyal readers, come in. I’m looking at the native English speakers especially. What seems the more natural way to write it? You can either vote on the Facebook poll or just leave a comment below. I will change the name accordingly. You’ll have my eternal gratitude and one of the voters will get a copy of the new book.

• Do I draw the 2 pages and post them uncolored
• or do I make sure I have 1 colored page on Wednesday and the other the week after

Check the poll or leave your option in the comments below.

1. A cleaner, simpler look
   I eliminated most of the images and went for a more css-centric approach. The site looks lighter and should render faster. Rounded corners, shadows, fonts, colors, … are all built by the browser. It also means that you get the full experience in more modern browsers like Firefox and Chrome, while Explorer 7 and 8 degrade into a more ‘flat’ design. Same with the interactions and animation. Everything still works but it looks a little less interesting.
   For example: check out the hover effects on the logo, navigation and links in Chrome or Safari. Looks fun, right?
2. Latest comic on the home page
   I got some reactions about that with the previous design so I changed it back.
3. Ads
   After some careful deliberation I brought back the Project Wonderful ads. I’ve tried them off and on the past but the fact is they help pay for hosting. My biggest issue with ads is they can be hard to integrate into a site but I think I found a good way to do it. I’m not completely sure about the banner in the header so that might change.
4. New pages
   I made a cast-page to introduce some of the regular and special characters and I’m planning on integrating the Goodies and the Shop into their own pages later on as well.
5. Archive
   Inspired by Rachel The Great’s articles. Most comic archives are seriously lacking in search options so I set up 4 differend kinds of methods for you to use. I’m not completely there yet but I’ll keep working on it. For starters, I need to add more tags and transcripts to the comics to make for better search results. Maybe change the search to Google custom search.
6. Sharing
   In the old design, I didn’t know where to put all these icons for Twitter, Facebook, Stumble, etc… so I just threw them into the comic post. It looked terrible so now I included small badges just below the comics. I think that feels more natural and you can easily share a comic after you’ve read it.
   The short url is easier to copy and there’s more sharing icons just below the footer of the post if you need them.
   The twitter balloon in the sidebar now includes links to 1. my personal twitter and 2. the official comic twitter because I want to offer you the option of not having to deal with my other ramblings.
7. Comic sizing
   You may have noticed by now that I’ve used different sizes for the comics in the past. The unfortunate side-effect is that they don’t all fit into the same fixed site design. So I just dynamically resized them to fit. This means that the comics that I made in landscape format are now a bit smaller but still readable. The oversized ones (like this one) get a scrollbar instead.
   One of my next projects for the site is going to be a flexible theme for mobile, tablets and other smaller screens so you don’t have to deal with scrolling too much.

That’s about it. More changes are on the way, most of them you won’t even notice but they’ll make for a smoother surfing experience I hope.

Part 1
Part 2

Earlier I blogged about quitting my job (it ended in October) and taking some time to think. I even made a list of things to do so I wouldn’t fall in a black hole or something. We’re 1 months further now and I’ve done a lot of the stuff on my list (went to APE, got a lot of reading done, talked with people, got creative, …). As it so happens, I’ve also found a new job and it starts in December. Honestly, redesigning my sites is the last thing on my mind right now. I just want to take the remaining time to finish some things I started, go to ThoughtBubble and make a few comics. Hope you don’t mind too much. Once I get settled in a bit, I’ll give the site my full attention.

What else? Let’s see … I’ve been active on Twitter (@lordrembo) and the blog (papersnips) an awful lot. So you should totally check those out. I post photos, sketches, illustrations, music and other creative things. I’d say it’s well worth a visit from time to time.
A few of the latest include:
- Recap of APE
- Moustaches
- Ukulele covers

That should bring you all up to date. All that’s left is for me to say I’ll be at ThoughtBubble in Leeds (UK), next week on Saturday. If you’re going, be sure to come by and say hello!
Thanks for reading!

TNP PRESS : BOOTHS 258 & 259
Beardfluff, Rob The Bot, My Cardboard Life
ChannelAte

Since Joenis (of L.A.W.L.S. fame of course) posted the map, I thought I’d share our places with you as well. You can find me along with Ali Showkati of Rob the Bot, and Philippa Rice of My Cardboard Life at TNP Press, booths 258 and 259.
Ryan Hudson of ChannelATE will be with us as well, and Joenis is exhibiting under the umbrella of Rampage Network at booth 260. I’ll be bringing pluchies, prints (including the much loved beards), comics and buttons.