Follower, Page 51

2013 Ursa Major Awards Nominations

January 30, 2014 bugbyte

The nominations for the 2013 Ursa Major Awards are now open, and this year I’m hoping to see Messenger and Follower nominated in either of the Best Graphic Story or Best Other Literary Work categories! The Ursa Major Awards are, as written on their site:

More formally known as the Annual Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Award, the Ursa Major Award is presented annually for excellence in the furry arts. It is intended as Anthropomorphic (a.k.a. Furry) Fandom’s equivalent of the Hugo Award® presented by the World Science Fiction Society, mystery fandom’s Anthony Award, horror fandom’s Bram Stoker Award, and so forth. Anyone may nominate and vote for candidates for the Awards. These Awards are decided by the fans, not by a committee.

I feel that both Messenger and especially Follower qualify for these awards due to the Chio storylines in both comics. Although I don’t identify as someone in the furry fandom, I know a lot of my readers do — and being nominated could help the comics reach a new audience. While I don’t think I stand much of a chance competing against some really big webcomics as have been nominated (and won) in the past, even being nominated would be a huge honor, and help both Messenger and Follower become more known. Seeing Follower nominated would be a huge boost for us since the comic is so new.

How can you help? Visit the Ursa Major Awards site and click “nominations page,” and then either enroll to register or login if you’ve registered before. Then, add Messenger and Follower under Best Graphic Story and/or Best Other Literary Work. For clarity, you may want to submit the comics both by name with their URL, so there is no confusion – for example, “Follower – https://follower.messenger-comic.com”. Submit the form, and you’re done! It’s easy. You can (and should!) nominate other comics and media you enjoy for the other categories, as well. You can even nominate multiple things for the same category, if you like.

What’s next? The nomination period is open through February 28th. After that, if the comics were successfully nominated, you can then start voting for real on them!

If we can make it into the nominations category, I’ll come up with some kind of small reward comic. If we can get even further than that, I’ll have to think of something bigger!

As always, I appreciate your ongoing support. Thanks for reading my comics!

Guest Art?

January 5, 2014 bugbyte

First off, happy 2014, everyone!

I wanted to make a post as a follow-up to my last news bit about taking a short break from comics for a few weeks. There’s been a lot going on in my life recently, like a death in the family, a new job, ten million winter holidays, and then getting sick. I’ve not been feeling well on and off since November, and finally went to a doctor last week and found out I have pneumonia. Oops. I’ve been dealing with that and am starting to feel much better, but just incredibly drained all the time. I had been planning to start posting both Messenger and Follower again this week, but the most I’ve been able to accomplish is sleeping and looking at my DS occasionally and doing other exciting sick activities. It’s really, really frustrating to want to get all these things done and just not have the energy to do them.

So all of that aside, if there is anyone who would like to contribute any kind of guest art/fiction/etc to the site, I would certainly love to share it up on the front page as filler for another week or two while I kick this bug out of my lungs. I will provide credit and links to your own comic/DA/whatever, of course, and will also put your art up on the as-yet-unmade Follower Fan Stuff page for everyone to see for the rest of forever after. You can e-mail anything you’d like to share to me at bug [at] messenger-comic.com, submit it to DA and note me a link, or post it on the forums.

If not, hey, at least here’s an update about what’s going on with the comic! Here’s to a (hopefully) much better and healthier 2014. Thank you for all these years of continued support; just knowing there are readers out there enjoying what I do makes it worthwhile.

CCF Fundraiser & A Minor Break

December 8, 2013 bugbyte

It’s week 2 of the CCF Fundraising Drive, and we’ve raised nearly half of our goal of $5000! This year I’ve contributed art of Eldora from Follower’s companion comic, Messenger, looking how she might if Chios had awkward school photos. The Comic Creators for Freedom are a group of webcomic artists who get together every year to create a giant collaborative wallpaper featuring characters from all of our comics, which is given to those who contribute to the fundraiser. All proceeds raised go directly to Love 146 to help stop modern-day slavery, so please consider donating today! This year’s wallpaper features art from 167 different creators, and likely includes many of your favorites.

In other notes, due to a number of things happening in real life, I am taking a few weeks off from both Messenger and Follower. I’d like to put an exact date on when I plan to start updates again, but unfortunately I don’t enough specifics to make that goal. 2013 has been a really rough year for me personally and I just need a break for a little bit while life settles down. I’d like to be back by the end of December/start of January, but we’ll see how it goes. You can follow me on Twitter @radio_chio for news and updates.

Thanks again for all your support, and I’ll be back soon!

Page Header

Page Footer