The Kameoka Diaries: Volume Two is now available for just $1!
iBookstore Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]
DRM-free PDF (For Android/PC/Mac/Whatever) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

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Weighing in at 312 panels, The Kameoka Diaries: Volume Two is 28% longer than Volume One! Here’s a breakdown of the eight main chapters that make up the book, as well as a sample panel from each:

Sickness: A comic about being sick in Japan, including an explanation as to why you often see Japanese people wearing surgical masks.

Closure.: A comic about why it’s easier to end phone calls in English than in Japanese, and why the word “sayonara”, ironically, doesn’t provide closure.

Popee the Performer: Actually, this is the one comic in the collection that’s already available online; you can read it over at BoingBoing.net. So… yeah.
Um… but the e-book version is in HD and includes a new title panel, so there’s that! *Cough*

E-mail from Home: Based on an e-mail from my father about his vile attempt to discard an old mattress, and the brave toddlers who thwarted his plans.

Matsui-san: A comic about perhaps the shyest person I’ve ever met, and his adorable, stalkerish texts. Guest staring everyone’s favorite Wisconsinite Matilda.

Forms of Address: A comic about Japanese forms of address. This comic includes what is certainly the crudest panel in the book (a censored version of which shown below).
Just in case you’re imagining the worst, it’s not THAT bad (it’s on par with “South Park”-style humor). That said, if I could do it over again, I might have gone a different direction. So… yay, I guess? (I wonder if I’m helping or hurting sales by mentioning all this…)

Bars: I prefer Japanese bars to American bars because of one critical difference. What could it be??? Read this comic to find out.

Re-contracting: My fellow English teachers and I have the option to renew our teaching contracts once a year. Which members of the Kameoka crew chose to stay, and which chose to go home?

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So those are the main chapters that make up the book. And they can all be yours, in HD, in a smart-phone-friendly format, for just a dollar!

Thanks for the consideration, and if you enjoy them, please tell your friends. Cheers all! (^^)/

The Kameoka Diaries: Volume Two:
iBookstore Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]
DRM-free PDF (For Android/PC/Mac/Whatever) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

Other digital comics by me:
The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One
 iBookstore Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]
DRM-free PDF (For Android/PC/Mac/Whatever) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

Young Men of a Certain Mind
 iBookstore Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

(This comic is available on the iBookstore. Click here to buy.)

In case you missed them, here are the first three installments:
Young Men of a Certain Mind Preview 1/4
Young Men of a Certain Mind Preview 2/4
Young Men of a Certain Mind Preview 3/4

Introduction
To introduce this final installment of the preview of Young Men of a Certain Mind, I want to briefly write about the way I formatted the iBooks version of the comic, cuz I’m pretty proud of it.

For the most part, the original print version of Young Men of a Certain Mind was comprised of uniform panels, four to a page:

So transferring it to a smartphone-sized screen was pretty easy, since (coincidentally) each panel happened to be the right size for that.

However, on a handful of pages, I used double-wide panels like the one at the bottom of this image:

That doesn’t work well on a smartphone-sized screen. So what I did was I altered those double-wide panels so they appear as two separate panels. Here are the two separated images when viewed on an iPhone screen:

(Also added in a little walking dude on the panel on the left, and altered the thought balloons. Yup, I’m the George Lucas of alternative comics.)

So that’s all fine and good for the small iPhone screen, but what about when you view it on a larger iPad, which has the screen real estate to show the double wide panels? Let’s take a look:

As you can see, it shows up as the original image.  I set up the file so that if you view it on an iPad, you get the wide original images, and if you view it on an iPhone, you get the optimized, smartphone screen sized images. Cool huh? I mean, okay, it’s not rocket science or anything, but it took me a long time to figure out how to get that to work, and I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.

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And with that, here’s the last part of the Young Men of a Certain Mind preview:

Continue reading “Young Men of a Certain Mind” Preview (4/4)→

In my e-comics sales report a couple weeks ago, I wrote that I intend to keep at my little digital comics experiment and see where it takes me. I eluded to four things I intend to do. In order of what you’re most likely to care about to least, here they are:

1) The Kameoka Diaries: Volume Two

Sample panel from the forthcoming book

May as well officially announce it: I’m working on a second volume of Kameoka Diaries comics! As with the first volume, it’ll be in the neighborhood of eight chapters, I’ll be selling it for 99-cents, and I’ll be putting some (most?) of it online for free.
But I thought I’d try one thing different this time. I’m going to release the e-book first, and then start putting them online in the weeks that follow. I thought this might provide that extra bit of incentive for people to fork over the 99-cents. It’s worth a shot, anyway!
I’ve already finished about half of the book, and expect to finish and release it later this summer (or maybe early autumn at the latest). I’ll keep you posted!

2) The Kameoka Diaries in PDF format for Android/PC/Whatever

A few people have asked about a PDF version of The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One, so for the past couple weeks I’ve been working on that. It’s almost done, and I’ve started looking into ways to sell/distribute it. (Speaking of which, if anyone knows of good services for selling digital downloads, lemme know!)
Like the iBookstore version, the PDF version will be in HD, DRM free, and cost 99-cents. If things go to plan, it could be out as soon as a few weeks from now (no promises, but hopefully). Stay tuned!
Continue reading Two Exciting “Kameoka Diaries” Announcements! (Plus a Couple Boring Ones)→

(This comic is available on the iBookstore. Click here to buy.)

In case you missed the first two installments:
Young Men of a Certain Mind Preview 1/4
Young Men of a Certain Mind Preview 2/4

I planned to write a little introduction here like I did for the first two entries, but it’s been an exhausting week, so I think I’ll just skip it this time around. (Also, I promised a couple of totally thrilling announcements this week, but I’m just too exhausted to write it; sorry! I’ll put it up next week for sure!)

So here’s the third part of the preview:

Continue reading “Young Men of a Certain Mind” Preview (3/4)→