6-29-08, posted by Brian. It's update week again, huzzah! And I now have to get off of my butt and change writing gears to script the next several strips of 2DD so that I can draw them. I'm 80% finished with this week's SWRPG session and I'm only working 3.5 days this week (thanks to a short day and a holiday), so I will probably write them this week and start drawing next week.

6-15-08, posted by Brian. I'm running again the next two weeks but after that I get a two week break from GMing Star Wars RPG and get to play. I'll probably be running a Togruta Jedi NPC which I introduced in last week's session. I really miss the human bonus skill and feat but I like the idea of running a very predatory character with limited communication skills.

6-01-08, posted by Brian. Comic today. Not much to say, GMing Star Wars RPG eats up a crap-ton of my time but it also gives me something to look forward to ever week. I've had al sorts of wonderfully wicked ideas to inflict on the heroes this week. I'll oblige the hero who has been clamoring for pit fighting, and make all the rest of them join in the fun. Given that everybody else is custom designed for shooting, some gladitorial combat with environmental hazards will blow their minds and kick their asses. I love the idea of murdering them with lower level, themed enemies who use all abilities they haev shunned. Yes, I am evil but it is a requirement to be the Gamemaster and it's not much fun to play with a GM who isn't.

5-25-08, posted by Brian. No comic this week (we're still on a bi-weekly schedule for comics), but I wanted to chime in to wish a say thanks to all our Veterans on Memorial Day. As they say, "Freedom isn't Free," and for many it cost a helluva lot more than a "buck oh-five" (it's from a movie). In other news I saw the Prince Caspian movie and Indiana Jones last week. Caspian is a better made movie than the last one but vastly farther from the book as well so fanboys beware. Indy's fairly mediocre with some ridiculous stunts and accents but if you watch it expecting a typical check your brain at the door action movie you will probably enjoy it. So take a tip from me, watch movies with low expectations and you will have a lot more fun this summer.

5-11-08, posted by Brian. I think I will enjoy this arc. There is a lot about Gen and Mich which I have been wanting to put into the story but never really had a good opportunity to do. This arc will explore these matters further. For example, this week we learn that while Gen hits her parents up for money a lot it's not on frivolous expenditures, she's developing a secret portfolio. Since we rarely have much time for character development this is a great time to show some of what the girls do in their spare time. Wait till you see a typical Friday night for Gen and Mich, it will not be what you expect.

5-11-08, posted by Brian. OK, here is the deal. I have decided to continue updating the comic and not stop it in the immediate future, but for the time being I will only update once every other week. So you still get 2DD, just not as often. That will take the pressure off of me (which made me consider dropping the comic) and get you a continuation of 2DD. I hope this compromise works out for everybody. This week I would have had a comic but I spend the weekend helping my brother move out and looking for an apartment myself so no dice there.

5-04-08, posted by Brian. First off, Iron Man rocks. It was possibly the best Marvel Film I've seen. I'd say I enjoyed it at least as much as when I saw X-Men or Spider Man (the first ones) in the theater. The movie didn't drag on despite it's somewhat longer length. It had a lot of action and some really funny stuff in it too. I think most of the time was invested in developing Stark as a character and showing you the change he makes as a result of his nearly dying and then re-examining his life. Robert Downey Jr. was a really good actor for Tony Stark, Gweneth Paltrow also did a really good job. You kinda have to wonder how Iron Man's armor (and more importantly his body) survives all the punishment it takes in the film but other than that there's really not much to complain about.

4-27-08, posted by Brian. Sorry, no comic this week. I was busy this weekend. I'll be experimenting with a way to get some of the drawing done at work. Either way there will be a new strip for next week. I've decided to greenlight the next story arc and just cross my fingers. I think for now that I may allow myself to not update some weeks rather than forcing myself to do the comic when I don't want to at all. Hopefully this will be a satisfactory compromise between the fans wanting more 2DD and me wanting to end my commitment to the comic. On a positive note, the next arc will feature Mich and Gen. It may even have a little fanservice in it (I haven't really written the arc yet but that's a possibility. Thanks for your understanding. Hopefully I will be able to find a way to make the comic feasible timewise and rekindle my enjoyment of doing it.

4-20-08, posted by Brian. Lately I find myself with less and less motivation to do this strip. For the time being I will continue to do it but I won't make any future promises. I've been doing this strip since 2004 when I was in college. I've enjoyed working on it and have gone through a lot of changes since I started. When I began this was a penciled comic. It transitioned through several different styles of inking and different artistic styles and ended up first greyscale and finally color. While I like to be able to introduce myself as a webcomic creator I have not really enjoyed making the strip for several months now and am beginning to ask if I really want to continue. In my last job I had an hour lunch which I used to draw the strip. After I quit that job I went on vacation mode and really did not want to draw 2DD. Now that I have a job with only a 30min lunch there is no time to draw at work and I do the vast majority of my drawing while out of the house. Now also I have the responsibility of writing campaigns for SWRPG. This takes hours a week and tends to lay claim to most of my creative energies now. I could just be going through a funk but in case this develops into the end of the comic consider this your advance warning.

4-13-08, posted by Brian. Apparently the whole drawing the strip at work thing ain't gonna happen. This means that I will probably continue to draw them the weekend they are due. The week after this one I will be playing SWRPG (as opposed to running it). I've written up a combat monster Mandalorian Soldier who does enough damage to kill any member of the party outright with the exception of the other soldier whom she is one point of damage away from being able to one hit kill. I've been doing personality archetyping, history, etc for this character in addition to writing up half a dozen different builds to find the right balance of craploads of damage and... other stuff. Oh, and FYI, it's not doc who does what is mentioned in this strip (even though I've used his likeness) I'm the perpetrator of that crime. I started it in college while writing papers, road trips, and video game sprees. It's one of the things which makes me happy to be a man. Sure it's sick but an extra hour a day to play _ is an extra hour. And this is yet another reason why I will not allow myself to own WoW.

4-06-08, posted by Brian. My new job starts Monday. It's Materials Handling which is not terribly exciting but it's casual dress and I don't have to deal with the general public, plus the pay's better. If I'm doing boring work I like to be alone with my thoughts rather than endure the ignominy of sales. It will probably take a couple of weeks to see how this new job will effect my comic productivity. I may be stuck doing it on my free time again and if so I am tempted to further simplify my artistic strategy (i.e. continuing to use and refine templates for the characters), though if this works well and I have plenty of time to write it could lead to deeper story arcs with more updates per week. To be honest, my original concept involved heavy use of templates, I was just too lazy to sit down and draw them so I ended up sketching out new strips during classes. The template format is a limiting factor in the writing but it also provides an interesting challenge for the writing which I rather like. After all, the very 3 panel page format of the comic is a big challenge for writing. It's pretty good for jokes (though two panel would probably be better in many instances) but for stories it requires unconventional thinking to make it work. Anyhow, I see 2DD as an evolving comic. And I'm not afraid to try new things which may not work out well (so long as it is not a major commitment of time).

3-30-08, posted by Brian. Now this is what I was talking about with Templates. This comic was WAY faster to do and I think that more original images are a fair trade for faster strips and a more uniform character appearance. What do you think?

This week we introduced "the lifer" as I promised. I also finally got a job offer this week and my Star Wars RPG sessions are getting a lot better. I've figured out much better what the party can handle and I've learned a number of new GMing tricks. I've decided to change from a Narshaddaa criminal campaign to a rebel campaign. Going rebel I can plot sessions like TV show episodes and that makes it easier for other people to take turns GMing so I can play a character again for the first time in like 7 years (whenever I can get a group I end up running the game).

3-23-08, posted by Brian. Happy Easter all! What pagan fertility symbols have to do with the Christian Messiah I will never know but they made some weird decisions in the Middle Ages.

NEW PRODUCTS AT THE 2DD STORE! Also I updated the URL and fixed the problems we had with contrast in the first batch of products. I forgot that printed material uses a CYMK profile rather than RGB and that makes a HUGE difference in overall color so I had to lighten up images so they would look right. For a free account there are limits to what I can do but if anybody has 2DD merch they would like to see in the store (and preferably buy) let me know.

Yes, I'm being lazy again this week but it's not exactly fun to draw essentially the same three panels for 3 weeks in a row and in order to advance the story arc with jokes and decent pacing I had to do 3 pages of Kat and Mike talking. Next week will involve a new character and Ulternity Online so there will be new images. I must admit though, that if I could copy/paste (with a little editing) for most of my strips (negating the need to draw and ink them every week) it would make it feasible to do more than one strip a week. I may experiment with this to see if I like that idea.

3-16-08, posted by Brian. Lazy again sucka! I have considered in the past setting up templates to speed up comic creation though the front loaded aspect of the work never appealed to me. Maybe in the future with a large enough body of work I can achieve this but for now such strips exist when I am doing artistically boring stuff and wish to devote little time to drawing it. This week I will be hearing back on whether or not I got a job as a Media Handler. It's mostly mailers, printing, and warehouse work but I know how to do that it beats sales. Also it would allow me to work with my ipod on in jeans and a t-shirt. If I'm getting paid meager wages I may as well get the benefits of working an ignoble job.

3-09-08, posted by Brian. Yes, I lazed out this week but I did it Friday knowing my Saturday would be busy and I wanted to make sure I got a strip out for this week. BTW, how did you like the comic book title styled last line?

So last week I had one job interview, and was contacted to get another two on the same day I started working as an "independent contractor" getting signatures for petitions. That last one sucks. In addition, I not only got a group who wanted to play Star Wars RPG but changed rules editions after rereading the last one (which precipitated reading another Core Rule Book from cover to cover) and running a game session. The whole process was very time consuming and I hardly had any time to work on 2DD this week, fortunately I already wrote out the story arc last week.

3-02-08, posted by Brian. This is the start of a new story arc which should run till May. I'm less than happy with the art but 2DD is hardly a sterling example of my work anyhow. I've been finding it harder to do the strip lately. It's probably the unstructured life of being inbetween jobs but I also haven't really had a story arc which really excites me lately either. I need to think up a good one to take us into summer. One idea I had was for Mich to give us "a day in the life of" with herself and her roommate, Gen. If nothing else it would probably be amusing to do.

On a personal note, I'll be interviewing for a seasonal position getting people to sign petitions. A bunch of my friends are doing it to raise extra money for the Hooka bar they are trying to launch. It would be fun to work with friends and not only do we set our own hours but the pay is roughly twice what you can make in retail. Some of my buddies have gotten opportunistic enough to not only troll for signatures but to also pass out literature which tells people NOT to sign petitions. They get commissions based on signatures and flat pay to distribute pamphlets against signing. What a great country we live in.

2-25-08, posted by Brian. Nuts. I forgot to update yesterday. Anyhow, in case you couldn't figure it out this week's strip is meant to make you all feel like b@stards for loving to hate the freak. I did actually have one person tell me that he was a bit upset with the way d-wizzle was being treated but then he was a quasi friend to the person upon which the freak was based. Also, because I clearly can't caricature for crap, the characters in his fantasy are from left to right: Sonic the Hedgehog, P-Diddy, Eminem, and Uchiha Sasuke, and yes they are there only in his head.

2-17-08, posted by Brian. The last strip of this story arc is a real pain in the neck to draw so I figured that rather than not post an update I would do an easy joke which I had been sitting on while I was chilling in Winter Park Colorado over the weekend. And yes, over the week I did undercoat the floor of my car and it does make a difference in the road noise level. I even found a way to cut the time it takes to remove my seats in half while I was at it.

2-10-08, posted by Brian. I am currently enjoying beginning my 3rd week of blissful unemployment. I spent the first one violently ill and without my voice, and the second one playing Resident Evil 0, 1, 2, 3, & 4. This week I start actually sending in job apps and maybe doing more soundproofing in my car. I sprayed rubberized undercoating in my doors yesterday and I think I may use my gobbs of free time to take out my seats so I can remove the carpet and undercoat the last large piece of metal frame in my car without the stuff. Right now my road noise is much lower than it was though I think I should do the firewall because no I'm getting a lot more engine noise (perhaps do to the new intake) at least proportionally. Eventually I will have to replace those awful Sony 6x9s I have in the back with something that sounds decent. Oh it's nice to have the time to do this kind of thing.

2-3-08, posted by Brian. I love pages where I can recycle images. Anyhow, today is that great American event which makes or breaks careers in front of the whole nation. An event a year in the making with millions of dollars riding on it. That event is Superbowl Commercials. It is the one time of year when you want to watch commercials and not just because they are more entertaining than the show they are attached to. That being said I will probably play Resident Evil games instead of watching the bowl. You just have to wait through too much football to see the commercials for my taste. I'd only watch football games if they had 30 second quarters like when my friends play Madden. If I were a Halo playing pseudo gamer nerd I would have to turn in my Man Card for such an attitude towards the Superbowl but being a true blue gamer I can tell you that since I can't play football for crap in real life I have no interest in seeing other people play it. Why would I want to watch a bunch of sweaty guys run around on a field when shoot zombies while staring at a shapely chick's hindquarters.

1-27-08, posted by Brian. Over the last week I replaced my air cleaner box with a cold air intake. That intake is the shizzle. My current car is now accelerating the way my last car with the Monte Carlo engine did (of course since she is a much smaller lighter car that does not take nearly as much). Here are some pics Link 1 Link 2 Link 3 . Now that she is driving more like my beloved Alice and due to some recent influence I have finally decided upon a name I can live with for my new car (I know I've been through like 3 of them but none of them was I ever completely happy with). I have decided to name her in honor of another gutsy little gal in blue (Jill Valentine from the Resident Evil series). So my car will now be called Jill. It is already a monosyllabic name and it eliminates my itch to drop $500-1000 to have her painted black.

1-20-08, posted by Brian. Well, effective this past Friday I put in my two weeks notice at work. I've hated it for years and wanted to quit but I finally decided to just bite the bullet and do it. I don't have another job lined up but I think I will take some time off from work since I have not had time off since 2006.

I had some fun this weekend. For a friend's birthday I went up with a group of people to Denver. We visited a Hooka Bar, saw some movies, Played Shuffleboard at Dave and Buster's, ate at an Ethiopian restaurant, and generally made lots of obsene jokes (in mixed company). It was a gas. Unfortunately I had to leave before they went to a shooting range because I am 12 hours of sleep in the hole from the past week and have to work early Monday morning.

1-13-08, posted by Brian. I must admit that one thing I really like about my new style is how quickly I can throw together new images. I've done a couple of Resident Evil Wallpapers [Link] [Link]. Both are of Jill Valentine though I'm particularly proud of the second one (the RE1 outfit one). It tells me that I am working my way into a whole new level in that style.

Also, I would like to introduce you all to Krrobar and in particular his comic Mike Bookseller I've been reading it and laughing my @ss off on his DA account for months and it just ocurred to me that I ought to share his work with you all via banner exchange. His stuff is really funny and he does actually update (unlike some of my affiliates).

1-06-08, posted by Brian. Happy Birthday to me (OK, it was the 3rd). I got to spend my firt birthday off of work in years laid up sick. Now, I'm out of 2DD strips and have to start drawing them again. I'm still trying to decide what direction I want to take the comic in. BTW, I forgot to mention this earlier but I FIXED THE IMAGES IN THE CAFEPRESS STORE. I had wrong URLs on the images and until I got one of my own shirts I had forgotten that they would be CYMK profiled as printed materials rather than the RGB profiles they appear as on the screen. CYMK tends to darken images so I had to change the contrast and colors to make them brighter and thus print better. It was a huge pain in the butt to do but if you had been holding off on buying some 2DD gear like a new 2DD book bag for back to school or maybe a new t-shirt for spring, now is a great time to buy. Yes, I realise that's cheap self promotion but come on, it's not like I get paid to do this site. Speaking of which, I've also added Paypal donate buttons on the site so I can more effectively beg for money. Seriously though, if you want to donate now you can. Heck, I sure appreciate it (since I work for free).

12-30-07, posted by Brian. Happy New Years. Here's hoping 2008 ain't as bad as 2007. Don't mind me I'm just bitching because the Christmas season working in retail again has made me a sour angry little man who has to hear Santa Baby from October to February.

As to the strip, I decided to use actual film posters, which is a sharp departure from the norm for me but I had absolutely no intention of drawing them and the joke required the background to tell the audience what movies were involved. This strip (shockingly... yeah I know, it's a shock) reflects my own views. First off, I tried not to "Potter" myself and keep an open mind to Daywatch since the prequel Nightwatch convinced me to buy the novel series (which I loved). But the second movie not only diverged greatly from the books but as a movie and a sequel is sucked ass. So I was watching it bitchin' like a Harry Potter fan at the film. Secondly, I know that you can't judge an entire country's film making by three films which were released in the US but I've seen 3 Korean films and they all were terrible (even the one with an almost entirely American cast). Come on, all three of them sucked. Heck, I watch French films (and aside from my uncle Marc and Jean Reno I dislike the French. No offense to any French readers but being American it kinda comes with the culture. I'm sure I'd feel differently if I ever went to France or knew any French people who still have warm fuzzy feelings towards the motherland, but I digress.). So now I will probably never give another Korean film the time of day. Lastly, some fool gave Uwe Boll even more money to violate another beloved game title with his film abominations (or adaptations). Ok, I know game movies are pretty lame in general but I enjoyed DOOM, Silent Hill, the Resident Evil series (apocalypse in particular), Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter (to a degree), and even DOA (because it was bad enough to be fun) but every Uwe Boll movie I've ever seen has been mindnumbingly awful and unlike many of the other game movies I mentioned they all have the gall to take their awfulness seriously. If Boll invited me to box him because I diss his movies I'd take a gun and shoot him instead.

12-23-07, posted by Brian. I'm sorry if the text is a little hard to read. I don't generally play with different fonts but I had hoped that it would help to set the tone, at least I know the last one has impact (though it may be the hardest to read). Next time I will make the text bigger or go with easier to read fonts. In case you can't tell they answers go from a tentative stock answer, to a cynical answer, to an insane answer. And yes she did just say "Krampus will EAR you SOUL!" Merry Christmas or whatever you celebrate this week (I wish I could celebrate freedom from crappy music day but that won't come till February). Working in retail is cruel and unusual punishment. I would not wish it on anybody. Maybe when I have kids I won't be a grinch any more (or at least hide it till they are older).

12-16-07, posted by Brian. Now, I dislike "Christmas Music" (i.e. the stuff they play in all the stores and on the radio), fortunately this does not include the old hymns which can be quite beautiful (and made for non-sopranos to sing). I hate the stuff, but there is one song which above all others has earned my ire. This song is "Santa Baby". I swear it's like the Anna Nicole Smith Chrismas song. The whole idea is trying to seduce a fat old married saint who works with children to take his resources away from the world's children and take it for her greedy self. It seriously almost sounds more like an Austin Powers plot than just gold-digging (especially since Father Christmas ain't gonna croak any time soon). The only thing I hate more than that song is that song sung by a man. It then becomes the homosexual Christmas song. It's not that I have anything in particular against gays, mind you, but the Yule Tide is ghey enough without that version of an already deplorable song. I could go on and on about how much I hate that song but I think you all get the idea.

12-09-07, posted by Brian. Hey, I'm updating on time today! I tend to forget to update when I'm off on Sundays. I love the middle panel. This week's strip is more like a Dilbert strip in that the joke is in the middle and the last panel is an anticlimax. It's been worked out so that I will have Christmas and New Years seasonal strips this year. They will be a break from the normal continuity. From now on I think most of the holiday strips I do will be out of continuity so that time can flow in 2DD like it does in Family Circus (i.e. not at all).

12-03-07, posted by Brian. Technically it's Monday but since it's only 1am and the night is still young I consider it an on time update. This page starts a saga which roughly corresponds to two semersters of my own life in which I had to deal with "Kame no gomi" or "The freak" as he was known. A person whose social skills were so underdeveloped that only one mutual aquaintance of ours could stand him (and that was because my friend saw the freak as a project rather than a freak). I tried everything short of smacking him around and telling him to "eff off and die" to get him to leave me alone. Some of the funnier examples will be included in this story arc. From what I hear he has (at the direction of aforementioned friend) become a decent human being and all but I will always know him as the last person on earth I would choose to be trapped in an elevator with (and that includes Sailor Bubba).

11-28-07, posted by Brian. Doh! I spaced again Sunday. I was out celebrating the completion of my community service untill the wee morning hours and spend the last few days finishing up my Christmas Shopping (the little stuff mostly). I tried some new stuff to help keep the bubbles from being confusing, dunno if it worked. Anyhow, in case you were wondering, I'm the grenadewhore. I've killed more skilled Halo players with darn well thrown grenades than killed em in straight out battles. I lose every gunfight I get into in Halo even if I'm a rifle against a pistol, so Gre-nads are the key to my victories (i.e. when I come in second to last place in rankings).

11-18-07, posted by Brian. An early Happy Thanksgiving to you (depending on when you're reading this is may be belated). For the first time I'm not working both opening (at 4am) and closing at my work on Black Friday. It almost makes me happy (it's a huge relief anyhow). It occurs to me that today is the first time that some of you will have seen my new designs for Mich and Gen. Gen's look was getting very inconsistent and I was rarely happy with it so I revamped her appearance while keeping her basic look. And my playing around lead to a new look for Mich also. At first I was loath to get rid of her librarian look but looking at her new design I realized she had gone from attractive in a geeky way to straight up "hot momma". Expect things to change in the story for her because of this. Oh, and for those who have forgotten after all these weeks. Mich and Gen were at the Whitesnake concert which Mich had gotten backstage tickets to in exchange for Gen agreeing to do college weekend with her and for administration giving her (Mich) a fat scholarship. It was left up to you to make the connection that Gen did a less ambitious make-over on her roommate before the concert.

11-11-07, posted by Brian. Holy Crap, Batman! I just noticed that I forgot to update Sunday, Doh! I think I completely spaced watching Bleach with my little sister. I've been a bit busy with community service work lately and I'll sure be glad when that's over in another week or two. Anyhow, this week's strip is the end of the story arc and it marks the beginning of a new one, one which draws (partially) from my own life experiences.

11-04-07, posted by Brian. While I may have missed Trick-or-Treating this year getting bags of candy at 75% off ain't bad either. The local Target stores have more candy in clearance than any 3 Walmarts in town had a week ago. And I don't have to tell you that I had to get in on that action. I like Halloween. I like scary movies though I am so hard to scare that I usualyl end up disappointed. And candy rocks, but what I really love about Halloween is costumes. I like to draw attention to myself by the way I dress. This is why I own a Kilt. But next year, assuming I have to shave my beard for something (like a better job) I'm planning on getting a bald cap and robes and going as Madarame Ikkaku from Bleach. Baldy-locks is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters in the series and I'm not entirely sure why.

10-28-07, posted by Brian. Well, today I made an important discovery. 3D glasses + prescription glasses + 3D movie = migrane headache. Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D was fun but I now feel sick. Sadly, because I will be working and there are no Halloween parties I know of in my area I will not be donning a "pirate-ninja" costume this year either. It really bums me out because I love costumes and normal people can only wear them one day a year. I guess I'll have to make it up by wearing my kilt more come spring.

10-21-07, posted by Brian. I really enjoyed doing this strip. It was a blast for me to design the aging KRAZ 103 Morning Crew DJs. I got to use some unusual shapes (though I did tone it down from my original ideas). You can see I have been playing around a lot with the "sound effects" lately too. One of the things I like best about this one is that it's classic Linus. I think his fans out there will appreciate this one (especially after what I did to him las time). I must admit I like Linus. I like him much better than Sir Fergal (from my old comic Fallas) whom his design was taken almost directly from. Fergal was just an ignorant clutz but Linus is a much deeper character.

10-14-07, posted by Brian. First off, credit where credit is due. The line "I'm sorry. I don't speak stupid." I got from Jonathan, my old roommate. We used to get such a kick out of it that I had to put it in 2DD. Ok, I really hate when people say "numb-chucks" and "izuzu" the letters "n" and "s" are in the English language people! There are times I feel like the only way to have an intelligent conversation is to talk to myself. Good thing cell phones and bluetooth have taken the stigma away from talking to yourself. For years I would get people staring at me like I'm Jeffrey Dahmer just because my only friends were in my head. But now I just put something in one ear and I can talk to myself all I want and even insult people to their faces. Best of all, when they react motion to my ear implying I'm talking to somebody else and it is rude of them to interrupt my insulting them to the recipient of my call.

10-07-07, posted by Brian. 3 Years, Woot! I've said it before and I'll say it again, "I never thought 2DD would make it to 30 strips much less over 150. To celebrate I've got a new wallpaper and another wallpaper now with 80% more fanservice, FREE! I've also got a new logo for the homepage and for kicks and giggles I registered a new domain for 2DD. If you can't remember all the mumbo jumbo which makes up the URL for this site you can just go to http://2dormsdown.netfirms.com and you will be redirected here to comic genesis. Will it help? Who knows. But now there are three sites which take you here (including this one). I also updated a number of the images in the bios section while I was at it. Last but certainly not least there is new merch in the cafepress store. There is too much new stuff for me to even tell you all about so you just have to check it out yourself. Remember 2DD gear makes the perfect Christmas gift for friends and family or maybe it doesn't get wrapped up and ends up mysteriously with your own stuff ;-).

I know I say this a lot, but I never expected to actually manage to do a webcomic consistently. If you visit my comicspace account you will get to see the tip of the iceberg of all the failed comics I've started (which does not even begin to cover all the ones which never got that far... it's like the EVA dumping ground from the director's cut of Evangelion). Looking back on all the stuff I've done with 2DD since I began working on it in spring of 2004, I'm amazed at all the changes which have taken place. Pencil sketches made way for ink, which hooked up with greyscale, and then later broke up with grey for color. Characters have come and gone. Styles have been experimented with. The whole thing has been a great learning experience for me. I just like this comic and I think that the 2007-2008 run will have more positive changes in store. Thanks to all of you who have made this possible.

09-30-07, posted by Brian. Next week, 2 Dorms Down will have been hosted on Keenspace (now comicgenesis) for 3 years. While I started designs and did a few pages in the spring of 04, 2DD didn't become a webcomic till that fall. In celebration I will have a new 2DD wallpaper linked from here as well as a new banner for the homepage with an updated image of the cast, and to top it off I've decided to try giving 2DD a new domain. 2DD will still be hosted on comicgenesis but now http://2dormsdown.netfirms.com will automatically redirect you to this site (much like typing in my old keenspace URL will take you here) it costs me a little money but this gives you an easier address to remember and with the new meta tags I've added you should be able to find us easier with search engines. I did the last one already as I have also changed my avatar over to my Halloween one. This year if I can find a Halloween Party I will go as a Pirate Ninja (like Mike did in last year's anniversary wallpaper.).

In personal news, I did my transmission fluid today. It was the single most messy thing I've ever done with a car. There's over 7 quarts of fluid in mine and when you start opening the very wide transmission pan you end up with a heck of a lot of fluid dripping from an awful lot of places. I was pretty much soaked to the bone with petroleum based products. My car has a sealed transmission system which the dealerships say is "lifetime fluid" (about the stupidest thing I've ever heard) but the owner's manual says to change it every 50k. Now I know why I has having hard shifting, there was a centimeter think layer of black sludge at the bottom of the pan. I wonder if they even changed it at 50k (I know they didn't at 100k). Doing it myself with synthetic fluid I only paid about 100 simoleons rather than the 250 bones it woulda cost to have them do it for me (flush, fill, filter, upgraded fluid, etc) so that savings more than pays for the subwoofer and box I'm planning to put in my car. I was happy when I installed the amp I had sitting in my garage for my rear speakers. The Bravery rocks out with plenty of lower mid-range and upper range bass but my Nightwish needs lower range bass like Mike needs to get a life. So I found a .97 cubic ft 10" sub box which is a tall wedge and will fit in the back of my trunk with only a minimal use of floor space and got a decent Pioneer sub to fit it (I like Pioneer, my 4x6 Pioneers sound better than my 6x9 Sonys, and have better bass). So I'll probably install the bass and put bass blockers on my front speakers this week.

09-23-07, posted by Brian. There were soo many things I coulda done with this one: Star Trek v Star Wars V Babylon 5, Harry Potter v Harry Dresden, Marvel v DC v Image, the possibilities were endless and way more than I could fit into one strip. Well, I went back through my records and last year I chose to celebrate 2DD's birthday the first week of November so I will do so again this year. If you look down past the rant you will see a teaser image from my gallery for the 3rd anniversary wallpaper which I'm working on this week. On an unrelated note, if you're mechanically disinclined and have no experience doing so, installing an amplifier in your car is a reall pain in the @ss.

09-16-07, posted by Brian. I want to start off by appologizing to anybody who's been offended by this week's strip (no pun intended, you know I always use that term for each new page). I have been toying with the idea of having some less PG rated materal. I still intend to censor out parts of any swear words (not that any of my characters really use foul language... though I do personally), and I'm not going to have x-rated scenes or full frontal (without strategically placed cropping or foreground objects), but I may leave myself the option of more PG 13 rated material. Well, I did have the Joe boobie grab incident, the sweater kittens strip, and the toilet bowl incident in the past. My primary audience is American male college students so I can probably do more of that kind of stuff but I'm not about to do like other comics and "pimp out" my crew for viewership. I may be a sellout, but not THAT big of one. Besides, I generally try to keep my comic as accessable as possible (i.e. minimal racial, political, religious, etc based jokes and conflicts). I've got opinions on most of everything but the 2DD crew mostly don't care and they only borrow occasional elements from myself rather than being my mouthpieces. I don't like getting preached at by comics adn I don't imagine you do either. OK, I had to mention this, Wookie Porn came out of a conversation I had late one night about the Star Wars Holiday Special which I actually have a copy of on disc (don't tell George Lucas). But the concept is so funny to me that when this arc came up I absolutely had to slip it in. I'm sorry if you are one of the people who just imagined it but I think it's funny. Lastly, go check out my DA gallery (link above and thumbnails below), I have new character designs posted. You get to see the new and (hopefully) sexier Gen (whom I know none of you like but I do so I keep slipping her into the story) and a preview of the new more feminine look for Mich. Librarian hair is out and Batgirl hair is in.

09-09-07, posted by Brian. We're now into week two of color and so far so good. Also, I think I'm starting to agree with you all that the new word bubbles functionality outweighs the the aestetic loss. As to the story line I have decided to do minimal character development in this next story arc to do more jokes. The joke to story ratio will be closer to the first story arc here. But I must admit that as I write it and feel the constraints of the format that I have a new appreciation for the regular character driven arcs. All this time I have been kicking myself for not doing more and better jokes but I think that maybe you all have been appreciating the the way the story has unfolded and the characters have been developed. Maybe I'll poll you all again about that later. BTW, I'd appreciate some kudos for giving you all color. We artists have infamously low self-esteem and we like to know that extra effort is appreciated.

This time I put the news you all don't care about last. I am now almost officially a bottom level car guy. I did my own oil change for the first time ever last week. I've already done the battery, air cleaner system, sound system, soundproofing, and various replacement body parts. Once I do my own spark plugs I'm in. The next level involves the brakes but that means more expensive tools and I'm wary of that. Well, I switched to synthetic oil and the difference is quite noticeable so I think I'll have the transmission fluid replaced with synthetic too when I change it next. And to think, I only got my driver's license about 3 years ago (before I moved to Colorado I had no interest in cars whatsoever, not to mention getting my license).

09-02-07, posted by Brian. *Long Rant Warning* Closed Saturday, Opened Sunday, Closed Sunday, Will Open Monday, Will Close Monday, Will Open Tuesday, Will HANG Self Tuesday. GOD I hate retail and because of it holidays. Everybody else is going up to Denver, dining at fancy restaurants, etc. I'm standing at a register strengthening my misanthropy. Ugh!

Ok, now to something you all actually care about. It seems that the overall consensus is that the new word bubbles are a good thing. If they let me either slip in more text per page (I've had to truncate some good lines to fit the page before) or if it lets me have (potential) backgrounds in more dialogue heavy strips then it is worth the unusual shape. You will probably notice a lot of changes in the near future as I am experimenting again with the strip.

I've been putting this off till the end. No, your eyes are not deceiving you, this week's strip IS in color. For no explicable reason (actually it's probably because of the new style) decided to give color a whack. I'll probably do most or all of the current story arc in color and decide from there if I want to do it regularly. I still have no intentions of doing shading but I may be able to compromise with color, which I know you all have been begging me for for years. So enjoy it while you can and if you really want it to stay you could always message me on one of the MANY sites I have set up for 2DD from Deviant Art to Myspace, Comicspace, Bravenet, etc. Fan input is a big motivator to me. You see the strings, now go out and pull them.