Back to business!  We continue the prequel-adventures of Chris and David as they find their way to their fateful collision.

Who’s that making a cameo in the comic, in the first frame?  Why, that’s HomestarRunnerTron from YouTube, the person responsible for Missing Number’s Official YouTube Video.  If you have not seen it, Watch it now.  If you do not, Captain T-Kachu, the Pirate Pikachu, will not be pleased.

On the website front, we’ve got a new, updated, spiffy vector-type logo in our title box at the top of the page.  It’s not much of a change… actually, come to think of it, it’s quite a leap in quality from our old logo (which is nearly a year old now!  As the logo existed before the comic…).

Also we have a new affiliate, The Lonely Soda Bottle. Click their link if you want to take a look.  It’s a new contender in the international webcomic market.  Yet another friend of Missing Number!  Speaking of which, if you would like to affiliate, contact Shawn at MissingNumberComics dot com, and we’ll see what we can do!

Hmm… anything else?  Oh, yes.  New sprites:

What’s with the size difference?  Jenny and Joy are Diamond/Pearl sprites, whereas HomeStarRunnerTron is a Ruby/Sapphire/FireRed/LeafGreen sprite.  Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be upgrading some sprites to Diamond/Pearl style.  We call them… Sprites:  The Next Generation.  Catchy, no?  We think so.  It takes a LONG time to do these sprites right… so superkudos to Chris for his efforts (He also made the “overworld” sprites for the second frame of this comic.)

Anything else?  No, not really.  Sign up for our RSS feed if you want up to date messages about our updates   (Especially since it’s not too regular…).  And… if you want to accomplish things in life, avoid Guitar Hero.  Really.  If you’re not planning on dedicating the rest of your life to playing that game, just stay away!  We’ve spent too much time on Guitar Hero…

This is Part 3 of a three issue series!

The startling conclusion to the Deus Ex Machina Miniarc!

Thanks go to Allan for providing this excellent diversion.

We haven’t sat on our hands over here.  We’ve been working setting up our next story arc, so tune in next week for more Missing Number!

In any case, I hope you’ve enjoyed the comic so far, and do come back next week!

Not much to say about this one.  Last issue of the Vulpix Come Home arc!  We will be starting a new arc next week.

Sorry for the delay on the update.  We had a wedding in the family yesterday, and it was only a 360 mile drive (one way)!  We underestimated travel/rest/matrimony time, and by the time we got back we had just enough energy to collapse into sleep.  And sleep in.

If you’ve liked our comics so far (including this arc), feel free to vote for us!  The links are in the graphical buttons in the Vote box to the right.

Also, say hello to our new affiliate, GlitchCity.info!

This one gave us trouble as well.  We had the first 3 rows of frames completed early, but we all thought the punchline was missing… something.  About Wednesday, Shawn had an inspiration and drew the final two frames, setting off the schedule for the entire weeks worth of production!

The background for the last two frames were fun to do.

EDIT:  My bad!  I said that this was the last issue in the Vulpix Come Home series… I was wrong!  We have the final one in production, and it will come up next week (Technically, this WAS the last week for Vulpix Come Home… for me, that is, as I’m sketching the next one as we speak… type… read.)

(Also, we were distracted by GameStop’s Pokemon tourney this Saturday.  Check out our (miserably failing) experience On our Blog.

Editors Note:  We currently don’t have a blog anymore!  But the tourney was fun.

This one took much longer than it should.  You would think by the time we hit issue 19 we’d have the process down pat?  Of course not!

We even had some issues with backgrounds.  The sketch artist didn’t make the layout of the land clear… so the backdrops were flipped around!  Made for some impossible situations (like Jessie and James seemingly walking through a solid wall!)

The other reason for the delay is this:  the new site for Missing Number!  We have officially rolled over to Version 2 (even though it’s still in beta).

Some of the new features of Comics Engine 2* can be found on the Comics Engine 2 page.  Look it up.  Leave comments!  Subscribe to our feed!

Enjoy this issue;  we’re already in production with the next issue of Missing Number, and target for our official post date of Saturday Evening.

* Editor’s Note:  We no longer use Comics Engine 2, so there is no Comics Engine 2 page.  Thank you come again!

Modern Day Note:  We’d like to apologize for the lack of updates last week;  it’s been a bit crazy around Missing Number HQ, and unfortuantly our Subersion Repository that we use for managing the comic went a little… caca.  (It ain’t Quantum Physics, so I don’t know why it’s being so difficult!)  In any case, to make up for it, this Saturday’s update is a Triple Update.  Click here to go back three comics.

We’re in the process of completing an update to The Comics Engine (the application this site runs on), and it’s causing delays all across the board. One of the things were going to be pushing is our RSS feed, which will allow you to keep Up To Date with our comics! Keep an eye out for Engine 2!  P.S… the next comic update is slightly delayed for the same reason…

Whew! This one was loads of fun!

The sketch artist has never, ever drawn Officer Jenny before. So, obviously, Missing Number HQ decided to put seven of them in one comic!

The inker had lots of fun as well. Even with this speedy inking technique, it still takes a lot of time to go through all the frames and ink the various pieces. And the colorist had lots of fun as well. He thinks that Panel 2 came out best of all!

There are two “references” in this comic. First off, the easy one: Naruto. The last two weeks hasn’t been an easy one for productivity, as a small chunk of time has been diverted to watching Naruto. The inker and colorist have seen the entire series as released (over the course of many months), but the sketch artist just “discovered” the series for himself. We enjoy it… maybe a bit too much.

The other reference is to the character from Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, an excellent read. It’s one of the sketch artist’s favorite books, and a great insight into the unconscious and conscious decisions involved in building a really good comic. I only hope that our comics reflect some of the insights from that book!

In any case, enjoy this issue. We will be doing more site maintenance over the next week, so don’t be too surprised if the next issue is late as well And, as always, if you like our comic, please give us a vote! It never hurts!

Well, that issue was fun as well. First time the sketch artist has attempted Officer Jenny and Nurse Joy (in a final draft, that is. The practice sketches have already been shredded like Enron paperwork).

The inker has discovered a speedup technique on the inking style, it saves him something like 10 hours an issue (there’s a reason we’re weekly!), but keeps the Game Boy Advance/Diamond-Pearl art style.

The colorist is happy that he’s back to being the only person working on the coloring and shading. It’s a bit difficult to coordinate color style between two different artists. The colorist has been put into deep-freeze awaiting his next issue.

In any case, we’ve had a lot of fun with this arc, and there are a few more issues to go! Can’t wait to see what’s coming along…

…in Missing Number: Adventures in Glitch City! (Or in this case, Iridescent City.)