To those of you who’ve emailed/contacted me…

I wanted to apologize, in case any of you happen to see this. My grandmother passed away at the end of May, after two months of attempting to recover from a major stroke. I was driving to her rehab center in Ohio almost every weekend between late March and late May to help take care of her, and it’s taken me a while to recover physically and mentally/emotionally from this whole experience, and to get back on top of things.

This isn’t meant as a pity-party–I just want to apologize and explain, because I’m still very much behind on a lot of my emails, and as some of you know, I tend to let PoDW-related emails pile up for a couple of months before replying to them in bulk. I’m also facing more big events in the months ahead, so it’ll be a while yet (and I seriously doubt there’ll be any site updates for the remainder of the year, beyond these occasional blog posts, unfortunately)…but I’ll at least try to write back soon!

Hugs to you all. Hope life is treating you all well!

That recent screenshot redraw meme

Just sharing a couple of pieces of my own quick, intentionally sketchy art lately–these are redraws of screengrabs from The Game Players of Undaar (such awesome action poses in that episode!). The screenshot’s on top and my art’s on bottom.

Longtime visitors may remember that I used to draw a TON many years ago, all the way through my undergrad years, but somehow fell off the bandwagon (I guess photography while I lived abroad, followed by visual design while in grad school and working, had been my major visual outlets). But I really don’t want to let this slip. This meme was an awesome excuse for me to try my hand at this again, and to try painting the characters in a slightly darker and more detailed light than early-90s American animation allowed.

ARTISTS: you totally should try this yourself! And if you do, send me a link or a copy of your art and I’ll post it to the blog!

Ioz and Tula - The Game Players of Undaar (screengrab redraw)

Ren vs. the Korb - The Game Players of Undaar (screengrab redraw)

🙂 Thanks for humoring me.

Testing out RedBubble

Check it out! For the moment, there are stickers and smartphone/iPad cases available with the PoDW logo. (As much as I love that dark red background, it’s too bad it won’t let users choose various colors–I’ll upload different cases with different background colors soon. Also, no t-shirts because I’m boycotting American Apparel for their horrendously sexist/exploitative/prejudiced advertising and other questionable business practices. Unfortunately, RedBubble/Zazzle/Society6 all use AA shirts, so…crap. Any suggestions for alternate websites/vendors?)

A note: for some digital illustration practice (and to kill time at my last job), months ago I decided to re-create the PoDW logo in Adobe Illustrator. It’s taken a bit of tweaking every so often, but I’ve finally got it as close as I’m going to get it. In addition, I’ve made greyscale and b&w/outline versions as well, and hope to put up more stickers/merch/etc. with all the logo variations. (EDIT, 2:45PM ET – just put up the greyscale and B&W logos, too! Would love input/suggestions on/for background colors.)

(And shout-out to Brittany and Ian for their other PoDW Redbubble work! Totally not meant to step on Ian’s toes, but now you have both a regular and a pixel version of the logo to choose from.)

And my ultimate goal is to make these vector files of the logo public under a Creative Commons license, so anyone and everyone can use them to create their own wares! As I said on RedBubble, the more PoDW swag there is out there, the happier our generation of geeks will be. (And the more attention the show will get, which may have a positive ripple effect…)

– – – – –

In other news…nothing to report. My grandmother’s having some major health issues, so I’ve started spending my weekends helping her while she’s in a rehab facility (proximity to relatives is one of the numerous reasons I wanted to be in Pittsburgh again), so that’s kind of robbed me of most of my free time. The site redesign’s definitely in the back of my mind, and I’ve been exploring less onerous CMSes to work with as well (WordPress is great, but kind of a beast). Little by little, it’ll get there…!

Hope you’re all doing well. Peace and hugs. 🙂

A smattering of this and that

Quick lunch-break post…

Happy 100th(!) birthday to esteemed animator Don Lusk! He worked on PoDW during his tenure at Hanna-Barbera (as well as Captain Planet and others in the late 80s/early 90s), and has an amazing history, having also worked for Disney for nearly 30 years and animated some very memorable scenes for them. (More info at Cartoon Brew, which called PoDW out by name (woo!).)

Also, the PoDW opening made an appearance at the Alamo Drafthouse as part of a pirate-animation-themed montage that aired before viewings of Captain Phillips. (The opening of Peter Pan and the Pirates also aired.) Cheers, William/@whatevercove!

And to answer the questions that some people have left in the comments, I SWEAR that I want to get back to scanning the RPG module’s character pages, as well as my copies of storyboards from The Quest. Maybe I’ll commit to doing 10 pages a day or something…I give you all permission to nag me about this! (I’m also pretty behind on e-mails due to the move–will catch up soon.)

As usual, there’s probably a ton more that I’m forgetting. More soon, I hope! (Life is great. Leaving Boston and moving back to Pittsburgh was absolutely the right choice for me–I am so much happier here already. Currently starting week 4 of my new job–so far so good! Any local/regional PoDW fans, do drop me a line and let me know if you ever want to meet up if you’re in the area!)

Hope you all are doing wonderfully, and I do mean that truly. 🙂

Personal plug: anime/manga merch on eBay (and some other goodies)

Hi, everyone! Please forgive the non-PoDW content, but I’ve just posted some manga and anime books/animanga to eBay. I’m moving in a month and looking to offload stuff I’ve been meaning to sell for years. Anyway, do take a look and place a bid if you’re interested. 🙂 I really appreciate it!

So, yes, personal update: Boston has been a challenging experience these past 2 years, and a job opportunity has suddenly opened up in Pittsburgh that looks wonderful in every way. So I’m taking a chance (well, not really, as I’d lived there during grad school and love the city) and packing up my life here and moving on. I will definitely miss the people I’ve met here–including a couple of pretty wonderful PoDW fans!–but sometimes you just have to go with the flow to find your happiness.

Okay, here’s a little PoDW content for you, courtesy of Twitter…

Tomasz Rozejowski just tweeted this afternoon to share an impressive Tula figurine he’s created. It’s great to see her finally get some attention, since there was never an official action figure of her! He hopes to do similarly styled figures of Ren and Bloth as well.

Also, Shane has gotten the linework and initial colors for a sexy/sultry Tula tattoo! (If he sees this…I hope it’s not creepy to check out a stranger’s Instagram account–after finding one picture, I peeked to see if there were other WIP images. It looks great, though.)

I’ve also been messing around with re-creating the PoDW logo in Illustrator just to keep my own digital skills sharp. Maybe I’ll post the final product whenever it’s done–it’d be great to make a sticker for my laptop cover or something. 🙂

Okay, that’s it for now–so much to plan and do in the next 4 weeks. Hope you’re all having a great summer!

Looking back and looking ahead. (Also, merchandise on Etsy!)

Firstly, thank you.

I never say this sort of thing enough. And most of you are strangers–some of you have sent me very kind e-mails (and every single one has been deeply appreciated), some of you have gone on to become social media buddies, online friends, and even close offline friends–but it’s so heartening to see how a shared childhood/young-adult memory from 15-20 years ago has inspired and encouraged people’s imaginations, and I’m really honored and grateful that your comments and energy and support have continued to feed this website along.

This, on the other hand, is something I say repeatedly, and I do mean it–this website is a culmination of the efforts of a lot of friendly, nostalgic fans (as well as former Hanna-Barbera employees!). It isn’t just me–it never has been and it never will be. You guys send in the awesomeness (whether that’s actual info/media/merchandise/etc., or even cheerful reminiscing), or post it here and there online, and it all finds it way here. (Eventually, anyway.)

Why am I waxing nostalgic like this?

This is why.

Site visitors: country breakdown

(click to enlarge.)

This is the breakdown of visitors to Always The Quest over the last three years, when I installed Google Analytics. I just viewed it in full for the first time tonight.

Over 70,000 visits.
Over 150 countries and territories. There are PoDW fans on every continent!
And this is in just the last 3 years. (This site has been online since the summer of 1996–almost 17 years! I was 15 then, and I’m 31 now. Holy moly.)

(The color is the relative number of visitors from each country. The US was the source of over 40,000 of those visitors, hence how dark the shading is. BUT STILL!)

These days the site averages 40-50 visits a day. Not bad, considering the obscurity of the material. Definitely lower than its peak average of 100+ a day, during my undergrad days. I’m not desperate for thousands of views, but I would like to improve the searchability of the site. Nearly 40,000 of the visits were via searches. There were only a handful of searches that didn’t relate to the show, but I still see where I can improve from skimming people’s search terms. (Among the more interesting: “action poses” and “poop deck.” Ha! Also, there were 4 searches for “pirates of dark water tickling.” I don’t think I want to know what that’s about…)

ANYWAY.

This is still pretty tremendous. At least, it is to me. Though our community isn’t nearly as cohesive as those that have more content to talk about, I’m so glad it’s still around. And I’m especially excited to see where it goes next.

Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.

* * * * *

Holy fitting segues, Batman. 😉

Next up: I would love to make some big changes to the site this year. (Possibly by gutting it and then rebuilding it piece by piece. Tempting…) And this is where you all come in.

I want to give you a heads-up about this: would you be willing to take a survey for me? About the site, what you value and don’t value, what you’d like to see that isn’t here and what you’d like to have removed or modified/updated, that sort of thing. I still need to put it together. But this site is for you all–it’s a repository of info, but it can be so much more than that.

For example, people (not me, but others) have described this site’s function/purpose in a number of different ways:
– source of plentiful info
– campaigning to finish the show
– community for the fans
– a shrine/time capsule
– digging up the behind-the-scenes view of the show

And more. And some of these were actually quite a surprise to me. What do you all think? I don’t want to put stuff up that many of you really don’t care about.

Do start thinking about it. 🙂

* * * * *

And, last but not least!

Etsy seller DanielleMeetsWorld is selling two handmade PoDW wallets. They’re upcycled, using pages from PoDW comic #4, “Break-Up” (episode #3, yes, but comic #4, as episode #1 was spread out over 2 comics), and intentionally DIY. Even better: part of the price goes to benefit worthy charities. One, two.

If you’re interested in your own copy of the comics (or even the action figures), they are always, always available on eBay. 🙂

And that’s all for now! As always, thank you for reading, and for showing your support just through your visit. Much love to you all!

Dusting this off yet again…

Wow, this has to be some kind of record for me. Sorry for going so long without an update…but thank you very much to those of you who sent me kind messages in the interim! I will catch up on those correspondences eventually…

If you haven’t guessed, life has been really eventful over these last five (eek…) months. For those who care, this summer I have done the following:
– completed my master’s degree (WOOO!)
– spent a week in June hiking around the Santorini volcanic caldera (off the coast of Greece, with some lovely folks from South Africa and Germany, via VolcanoDiscovery–highly, highly recommended!)
– intentionally took the summer off, and spent most of it looking for a job and exploring Pittsburgh (probably the most underrated city in the US–it is truly a gem and I miss it dearly.)
– did a bunch of traveling, mostly for job interviews (Denver, Washington DC, New York, Boston…whew), but met friends and had fun in the process
– dated a pretty wonderful guy for a couple of months 🙂
– moved back to Atlanta (my hometown), upon my Pittsburgh lease ending
– turned 30 years old
– accepted a job in mid-September in the greater Boston area (yaaaay!), and, within the next 2 weeks, packed up all my things and relocated from Atlanta to Boston a couple of weeks ago
– started my new job last week!

I’m still in temporary housing for at least the next week or so, but hope to move into more permanent digs fairly soon (and have all my stuff delivered from Atlanta shortly after; I’m currently living with 2 suitcases, a backpack, and my violin). And work is going pretty well so far, too–I’m working as a user experience designer for an engineering software company. it’s always wonderful working with people who treat each other as people and not just cogs in the system, and this company has some great personal and professional practices.

Hopefully you all have had a good summer! I can’t believe it’s been this long since posting here–even if I don’t have much in the way of updates to post (though to be honest, I actually do have some great images and content to add, thanks to the efforts of some talented and dedicated folks), it’s just nice to reach out and say hello to you all. You’re a great, chill, friendly group, and it’s always a pleasure chatting with you all.

Anyway, in more PoDW-centric news…heh, really, not much to report, as usual. August 30th marked the 1-year anniversary of the DVD release, and sales seem to still be going strong as word continues to get out there that the show is out on DVD. I still am entertaining notions of re-architecting and redesigning the site from the ground up, but this design will probably persist for a while longer. Hopefully once the rest of my stuff arrives, I can get back to scanning in the rest of the RPG creature pages. I hereby am setting a goal of finishing them by year’s end–you all can hold me to that. 🙂

And with that, time to sign off for the night…it’s a work night! (Such a weird feeling. Getting used to contiguous 8-hour days has been surprisingly tough, after two years of a much more open-ended schedule.) Take care and have a good night, everyone!

E-mail hijacked by a spambot

If you have e-mailed me in the past and get any erroneous or spam e-mails from me, I do apologize. At some point in the last week, a spambot got access to my PoDW site’s e-mail address and started sending out junk mails (right now I have no clue how many have gone out). I’ve changed my mail password and will see what else I can do later this week.

Thanks for your understanding!

In case any prospective employers come by…

Firstly, hello!

Secondly, please don’t judge me too harshly. I think I designed this site back in 2006, and have not had any time to redesign it since then, despite trying to work on rearchitecting it from the ground up. I hope to finally update it this summer.

Thanks, and have a great day. 🙂

(As for PoDW fans, hello to you all, too! I’m three weeks away from completing my master’s degree (yaaaaay!). Hopefully an update will be on the horizon shortly after! And I hope you all have a great day as well.)

Checking in: PoDW back on the air + contest winner

Firstly, congratulations to Rachael Thomas for winning the RPG set! (Amazingly, I still have not mailed it to her, but totally will this week. :P) I apologize for taking so long to announce the winner.

Also, according to Twitter, PoDW is back on Boomerang as of last night (unsure of the time–check your listings!). This looks to be roughly at the same time it aired before: it seems like they’re rotating a few early-90s shows in that same time slot, which actually kind of makes sense, since nothing is stagnant this way and multiple shows get exposure a few times a year.

Also, hi! It’s been a while–I hope February was kind to you all! I am halfway through my final semester of grad school, and currently buried under thesis/school/final-semester/job-search hell right now, so updates will be scarce till I graduate in mid-May. (If you happen to actually be interested in my rather mundane life, I do post occasionally to my blog and am also on Twitter. Be warned: I geek out over stuff most people don’t care at all about. Like volcanoes.)