Hey everybody! How you doing? I’ve been busy, you know how it is.

Most important of all, the image above is a screenshot of the new landing page for PUPPYTEETH, where you can buy or PREORDER both issues of our little anthology. That’s right, the second issue of PUPPYTEETH is all ready to debut at TCAF this year, and in the meantime you are more than welcome, encouraged even, to preorder a copy of your own. This issue is considerably bigger than the first, with more artists and larger physical dimensions, and in full color! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

I’ve always been much more interested in artist blogs than portfolio sites

On a related note, check out these new digs, huh? As you can see, I’ve spent some time restructuring my blog/website here. This comes as part of a plan to reconfigure and consolidate my web presence, as I alluded to previously. I’ve always been much more interested in artist blogs than portfolio sites, mostly because blogs are always moving a changing, and build up content like nothin’. Contrast that with your typical artist portfolio site (and feel free to include me in this sweeping generalization), which usually gets an update every couple of months, and is abandoned easily. I think the reason, in part, has to do with how the behind-the-scenes work gets taken care of. Typically, my process for making a website has been, work really hard on getting a new design all put together, iron out all the bugs, write all the content, and then put it up… And then a couple months later start working on the new design, rinse and repeat.

In fact, many of the best blog posts are comprised of little sketches and process work — it’s this extra material that makes us feel closer to the artist and their work.

This is largely because it’s usually so much work or outside of my regular activities to reformat and update everything on a portfolio site. Also, given the nature of the content, it only really makes sense to post finished work, which may or may not have long intervals in between. Even if you are constantly making work, there still is the tendency to update your portfolio last. And in those quiet periods, it’s just… really quiet. It’s easy to then drop the practice of updating all together. Blogs, on the other hand, are by their nature always being updated, with less emphasis on “finished work.” In fact, many of the best blog posts are comprised of little sketches and process work — it’s this extra material that makes us feel closer to the artist and their work.

So that’s why blogs are always the better choice for me, but of course, you can’t just ignore the advantage of a portfolio site. My goal here was to rethink how I was approaching a website — focus on the blog aspect, serving as a hub for all the other things I do on the web. At this moment in my internet life, I’m spending most of my time of Twitter, and then second after that are my weekly posts for the Comix Cube and then inspirational stuff on Tumblr. I decided to make twitter more of its own separate thing, but I plan on setting up this blog to sync up with the Cube and my Micropedia Czapiewski stuff. That way there should be something new to look at every week, even when I’m too busy to devote a proper personal blog post. To that end I’ve tried to make the whole thing as flexible as possible, so I can pop in and out at a higher rate of frequency. Fingers crossed!

If you take a gander at the top and right-side menus, you will see a fine selection of links to check out. Up top, you can access my “portfolio,” including a devoted section for Comics and Drawings, as well as a link to my now-matching Art of Comics class blog and, finally, the archives for the Encyclopedia. To your right, underneath the snazzy new “Czap” logo, I’ve condensed my “about-me” section, which includes the very important social media connections. Below that is a list of key external links, including the aforementioned Comix Cube, PUPPYTEETH landing page, and a link to the Spoilers site.

But wait, there’s more!

Speaking of which, I’ve also given that site a final(?) overhaul, though one that is different from this new theme. The previous design was centered around the idea that the comic was still in a state of mid-serialization, so I wanted you to notice the recent page updates, etc. Since it’s wrapped up, and since I’ve developed my thoughts a bit more on how a long-form webcomic site should be (informed very much of course by Blaise Larmee’s “2001″), I’ve pared things down even further to the essence. My only hope now is that people will read it.

The title refers to the opening line of the Shangri-La’s “Leader of the Pack.” It doesn’t have much to do with this post, I just think it’s one of the best openings to a song.