There are two reasons for the lack of posting. One is that I've learned that
if I really want to get the word out about something, posting it here
doesn't work nearly as well as posting it as a postscript at the
bottom of a comic. The other reason is that I’ve been making more of an effort to
turn any funny ideas I have into comics, where in the past there were
some ideas where I just went "eh" and posted them here or to Twitter.

Now that my customary "apology from nowhere" is out of the way, I can
get on the real reason for this post. As you may be aware, some of
my comics are now running on Cracked.com. This has caused some
confusion as to which of my comics are new and which are reruns.  I
figured I'd just publicly state my posting schedule so everyone will
know what's going on.

I create two comics a week.

One goes to print papers. It can’t legally be posted online for thirty
days, so it gets scheduled for posting on a Sunday five weeks after I sent it to the papers.

Every Sunday and Wednesday I post to my site, but Cracked.com now gets
first shot at all the comics. They are not going to run all of them.
(In theory they could, but I really don't see that happening). Anyway,
I send Cracked.com a comic every Sunday and Wednesday. (on Sundays, it's
the comic that ran in the papers a month ago)

A week after I've sent a comic to Cracked.com, it becomes available for me
to post on my site, which I do.

Hopefully my posting schedule makes sense to you now. If it does,
please explain it to me, 'cause it confuses the he'll out of me every
time I post a comic.

Over the course of the last three hundred comics, pretty much everyone has been the butt of the joke except the reader. I figured it was time to do something about that.

Actually, I labored quite a bit over this comic. I tried to maintain the joke while making the tone as gentle and self-effacing as possible. Overall I seem to have succeeded in that, but a few of the readers do seem to have gotten their feelings hurt. I’d like to clarify my position.

I HATE the fact that I make these stupid spelling and grammar errors. I’ve written before about the steps I take to try to prevent them, and I swear it seems like the harder I try to make a comic error-free, the more likely there is to be an error.

I am grateful to those who catch my mistakes and politely point them out to me. The problem, and I’m not the only person who has noticed this, is that finding my blunders has turned into a game, similar to “Where’s Waldo” or trying to find the bunny logo hidden on the cover of Playboy (hint: It’s seldom if ever on the “boobs,” so you can stop looking there). Also, some of the corrections have taken an increasingly derisive tone. Perhaps I’m just playing the over-sensitive artiste, but when you post a strip you’re proud of, then check to see people’s reaction and get fifteen variations of “prophesy is spelled with an S in this case, moron” it starts to detract from the fun. Judging from the comments, it’s beginning to bother many of the readers as well.

Again, a lot of the dogpile-like nature of the comments does stem from the fact that I moderate comments, and cannot do it in real time, so most of the correctors don’t know that they aren’t the first to give me a heads-up. This is not the corrector’s fault, but even they would probably admit that the cumulative effect is not pleasant.

So here’s the problem I have. I want to encourage the majority of you who correct me in a polite manner, while preventing the finding of my flaws from turning into some kind of drinking game. Here’s what I’ve come up with.

From now on, if you spot an error in Basic Instructions, you are encouraged to leave a comment telling me. You are doing me a favor in doing this, I just ask that you remember that I’m a real person over here, not a drawing. I will correct it as soon as possible, but I will not post your comment to the site. This way the comic gets fixed (which is all most of us want anyway) but nobody gets the credit for catching the error first, or for making the wittiest comment about the error.

Thanks for your time.

In other news, the paid version of the Basic Instructions Android app is now available.

Scanning the QR code to the right of this post will lead you to both the free app and the paid app.  The paid app costs $2.99 and gives you ad-free access to every Basic Instructions I've published, the ability to mark comics as your favorites, the ability to share comics via several methods, and a collection of my personal top 10 comics. 

I'm really happy with how it came out, and I owe a huge debt of thanks to my developer Adam.

JoCo’s opening act, to my delight, was a duo called Paul and Storm, who were brilliant! Genuinely funny, entertaining and worth the price of admission all on their own. By blind luck I got to briefly meet Paul, Storm and Jonathan Coulton before the show.

It’s not what you’re thinking. None of them had ever heard of Basic Instructions.

Anyway, Paul commented on my shirt. I was wearing the original Infini-Tee. After the show I offered to make shirts for him and Storm. He mentioned that he had a couple of friends who he thought would really like Infini-Tees of their own, and that he’d like to buy them as gifts. A couple of days later he e-mailed me the names and photos.

Here’s a picture one of the recipients posted to his Twitter account.

Here’s a photo of the other recipient wearing his shirt at PAX East.

As a geek, I’m tremendously proud to have made these shirts, and that the recipients enjoyed them, and that someone as cool as Paul and Storm liked the shirts enough to buy them in the first place. I haven’t mentioned it before because I felt weird about jumping up to take credit for what was a gift Paul and Storm (I’ve mostly dealt with Paul, but I believe Storm was in on it) bought their friends. It felt like “bad form” somehow.

Wil Wheaton (who seems like a great guy) posted the story of his shirt to his blog today, so I feel like it’d be cool to tell the story now. So I have … just now.

I’ve started selling Infini-Tees again. They are now available.

My life is fascinating, is it not?

But the real news is that Basic Instructions is now able to offer our first Android App!

It's free, and gives the reader access to the ten most recent comics. It was developed by a reader and a great guy named Adam Boeglin. You might want to follow him on twitter.

I'm really excited about the app. I think it came out great! You can find it by searching the Android Marketplace for "Basic Instructions," or you can scan the QR code below. 

Don't you just love living in the future?

He's now working on a paid app that will download every Basic Instructions I have ever done onto your Android phone. I'll keep you posted.