A favorite here at Squirrel Central — The Losers is bound for the big screen. Does that mean it's no longer in danger of being cancelled? Thanks to Raph for keeping track of these things.

Though I didn't discover it when I was just miles away from getting a copy, The Baltimore Sun has undergone a major redesign, including commissioning a new typeface named for its most famous columnist.

I think Matt's got maybe the best pictures you're gonna see from SPX.

Literally, just a couple hours before SPX, the domain registration/transfer thing came through, and Monica got the site for 7000 BC up. Good timing, as we distributed a whole bunch of postcards publicizing the book. Now, if Xeric just comes through . . .

Back from SPX (Monica and most of our haul will be along later this week). An incredible, busy, chaotic, fun time. Caught up with some old friends, met some new folks, and came away with armloads of new comics. We'll be going through them in the coming days, but for now I've been reading Eddie Campbell's After The Snooter, required reading for all creators (esp. if you can get it for less than cover when they're shutting the convention down).

Dr. Dremo had an impressive debut at the table, but didn't win the Ignatz for Best Debut. That went to former Santa Fean (but still a member of the local group) Liz Prince.

Our books have arrived in Maryland, and we should be there this time Thursday night. The DCC has its table assignment for SPX, and we're gonna be in Versailles — the big room.

To see us on our way, here's Tyrrell's contribution to the gallery.

We've wrapped up and submitted our contribution to the Hurricane Katrina benefit comic. It's all true, as best we can remember.

OK, we've seen our proof of the book, and have authorized its production. If all goes exactly according to plan, it'll be in Maryland before us. In the meatime, some work by another artist we were lucky enough to get — here's Paul's contribution to our gallery. We're anxiously awaiting the comic he and his brother Pete are working on.

Laura and Jake have a strong connection with New Orleans, and have put together a pretty wonderful story for the benefit comic anthology organized by Red City Comics in Baton Rouge. Here it is. The book will be on sale at SPX.

Jake, Deb, and Andrew have all previewed their gallery images for the RBS book. While our printer continues to keep us guessing if we're going to make our deadline, we're featuring the images from our Santa Fe contributors. First up, Pete's take on the mysterious Mister Five.

"what are you doing to help new orleans?"

This week's strip from Lulu Eightball, my favorite alt-weekly comic. While you're there, check out the archives.

invisible, insane*

Okay, I admit it. I was Googling the phrase "Raised By Squirrels."

But check it out: I found a Polish comics site that mentioned us — along with many others — in a review of SPX 2004. Of course I couldn't read it, so I ran it thru a handy-dandy web translation thingus:

Raised Squirrels concentrate around - sensational plot it comics Tyler - former agent organization S.Q.R.L. Which (who) has quitted work as to time one of mission has been leave for (after) on certain death by partner it Rose, however, now it contacts with (from) again Rose Tyler and it wants in order to it has returned for work it.

Maybe we should use that as the blurb for the back of the TPB.
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* When the first machine translators were given the English expression "out of sight, out of mind" to translate into Russian, then back into English, the end result was "invisible, insane."

The Santa Fe newsweekly has a piece in their annual Fall Guide about our local comic group and the anthology we've put together. It's going to be a while until the book is published, so we've posted a PDF of Autumn, our contribution.

RBS is back up. The folks over at DirectNIC have, in addition to dealing with the destruction of their city, managed to get their servers up and running. Way above and beyond.

we are experiencing Katrina-related technical difficulties... please stand by

Well, we never knew until now, but the servers where the Raised By Squirrels website lived, are (were?) in New Orleans. This is just one tiny thing, one non-life-threatening, one completely insignificant thing. But it drives home how freaking huge this is, and how it will affect all of us in ways we can't even begin to predict.

(We will continue to update the blog portion of RBS here at http://raisedbysquirrels.blogspot.com/)