• January 27th 2007:

If you missed the running commentary above the strip for the past few weeks, here's the abridged version:

My computer was falling to bits and nothing worked right. I asked for a bit of money to help get a new machine. I expected at best to get about 400 in a week to help go towards a basic machine. I got 1000 in three days (more if you count the fat cut PayPal takes)! In short, my fans are awesome and so is the sexy black monolith sitting next to me now!

PS: You might have noticed that I removed the webcam. I was never updating it any more so I canned it in favour of some link icons.

• October 23rd 2006:

I'm back! What I've been workign on this past week will start tomorrow! ;)

• October 1st 2006:

Kept forgetting to post this. Ah well, a few day late don't hurt. Anyway, 8 years of doing SSDD. I don't know if I should be happy or really, really depressed!

At least I know I've improved art wise over the years. I've taken things a bit more seriously the last 14 months and even I'll admit it shows. Heh, it took me eight years, but I'm finally "getting" it I guess.

I hoped to have updated this site and have the new one up and running by now, but I seem to have web-designist block. I've sketched up a load of designs and didn't really like any of them. I need to pull my thumb out tho. This site is an eyesore!

• July 12th 2006:

Hello! Lets start the obligatory I suck paragraph with the customary excuses for not updating the news section for so long. Besides the obvious fact I'm a lazy bastard, I've been planning this move for a while and only just recently pulled my thumb out and done it. I've been putting off this update until I had something concrete and me being me, my procrastination rained supreme for over half a year. Trust me, when you're dyslexic, you'll find ANY excuse not to write any amount of text.

So anyway, what have I been doing all this time? Turning Poisoned Minds into what I originally envisaged that's what! Well... almost. If you have far too much free time you might have wondered why this site is called Poisoned Minds and not ssddcomic.com or something. Well the answer is that PM was going to be an everything-nothing site. The idea was that I'd do SSDD twice a week, and then work on a Flash project the rest of the week. Of course without a deadline, the latter never seemed to happen. Oh I would start stuff with the best intentions, but they never got finished. My hard drive is littered with the corpses of various games and animations I spent many hours on and then got tired of and let to rot.

What I needed was a deadline. What I needed was something small that I wouldn't get bored of. THAT is my new project. So where is it? Well it's not up yet (surprise!). I wanted to get the sister sites up and running first, mainly so I could cut my teeth building CSS based sites. As I was drawing the Church strips regularly, it was just common sense to give it it's own site. That will update more or less like it has been here with a Church strip on a Wednesday and SSDD Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. I might change that but that's the schedule for now.

As for the next site... well... I gave Sticky the Stick Man a comic. For the love of God WHY? I hear you ask. Well simply put, Sticky strips are easy and fun to do. While I love SSDD to bits, working to the story that it spawned can get a bit tiring and I miss the random toilet humour of the past. After of having a week of him here and him getting a warm reception (well, nobody complained at least). Oh, and I'm also going to revamp this site too. Lets face it, it's getting a bit old and fugly.

What else? Well I was sent a fan strip a while back and I kinda lost it, so whoever sent that send it again please. Oh and I've been playing with fruity loops some more. Did these a little while ago:

Using atomic explosions for bass we have Cherry Flavoured Nuclear Weapons and revamping one of my old songs with new shit I learned we have Heavy Organ Grinder: Acid Redux. Hey, do me a favor and masterpiece them ;)

Peace, out!

• November 26th 2005:

Good lord I suck! Only I would wait until I have over half my needed total to actually explain why I want it. I'm sorry, with my dyslexia I do not enjoy writing and always find something else that needs doing first before I sit down at the keyboard. It's a lame excuse but it's the truth. But then it just shows how awesome you guys are! Mad props to everyone who gave me money!

Anyway, the reason I'm asking for the money is to get the tools for a new, non-SSDD project I'm planning. I won't go into details but I'll think you'll like it :) Oh and don't worry, I won't stop SSDD. I want to see that bastard though to the end! Normally I would get these myself, but after having to buy some warmer clothes and Christmas coming up, the old credit card bill is going to look a bit ugly.

Why do I need Flash 8 after bad mouthing it a while back? Well the problems I had with Flash 8 appear to only effect the compatibility modes which I use for ad banners and the like so they'll run on older versions of the Flash player. If all I have to do is keep a copy of MX on my machine then that's cool. Flash 8's new features outweigh that minor annoyance. Although if I find any more bugs in it I'm going to be pissed!

Why do I need FL Studio (AKA Fruity Loops)? Well the new project will need music loops and as Keenspot is a popular commercial site and I do make a little bit of money doing this, it's not a good idea to rip other peoples music off. Especially how the idiotic the music industry has been acting lately I thought making my own music would be the way to go. Actually I've got it already (because you guys are so great and stuff) and I've also found it's THE MOST DAMN FUN I'VE HAD IN AGES!!! Really, FLS kicks ass! I never knew I would love making music so much! I've got the "Fruity" edition and I'm already thinking of upgrading it to the next level. *Looks at bill* maybe after Christmas though. I've also ordered a plugin called Sytrus which was going for $59 instead of $179. Even though it's breaking the bank somewhat, there is a reason why Sytrus costs more then FL itself (the sounds it makes are awesome) and I would be a fucking idiot not to pick it up for such a knocked down price.

Want a listen to what I've done so far? Here you go!

Not bad for someone who's never done this before huh? :) Oh and to everyone who have offered me cracks, thank you but I'll pass. I have this thing where if I use something then I should pay for it. In short, stealing is bad karma! However, for overpriced crap I use maybe once every seven months astalavista.box baby!

Lastly, special thanks to my friends over at Exterminatus Now for the link here telling people to give me money! :)

• November 1st 2005:

No, your eyes don't deceive you! This is an update! It's a sort update, but an update none the less. One that I was (tankfully) forced to do due to a Halloween piece of fan art appearing in my inbox at 11pm on October the 31st. Now the reason I've not updated the news is two fold: One, I'm dyslexic and I hate writing at the best of times. Second, now that I'm doing this five times a week, by the time I've done the strip I'm in no mood to fuck about with typing and HTML. As I write this it's gone 4am. While I'm not going to do the full update I've been putting off forever, I well update the damn fan art page seeing I'm being an ungrateful shit and letting this pile up.

Firstly, the slightly late Halloween pic from Andrew Metis.

The first first of the evening, the first SSDD fan animation by William J Ford

The second first being the first SSDD model of Norman by "Melgar" with kung-fu cattle prod grip!

And lastly something that's been sitting in my inbox since March I've just noticed (literally just now) by somebody with a broken internet site and didn't leave a name. They mixed Anne and Tessa up so I don't feel TOO bad about it now.

There where a few others, but they made the terrible mistake of begging for a link so fuck em. Seriously, don't do it. It pisses me off that your just after extra hits so your pic has to be fucking mind-blowing if you want to try that with me.