I had an exciting talk with Ryan Sohmer last week about the future of Animated PvP. We sat down and went over our plans for the year and tried to come up with the smartest plan of attack for moving forward.

Working on the animated series has been one of the toughest and most rewarding creative experiences of my career. It has so many parallels to my first years as a self publisher with Dork Storm Press. It’s was almost like going to college. Everything was a learning experience.

It’s exciting and frightening at the same time to break new ground. You get caught up in the work, but you get scared a bit at what’s at stake, especially when good people are putting up money to fund such a large project. So it’s exciting when it pays off and you get the reassurance that it’s okay to continue. I’ve experienced it with the strip and with the comic book, and now we get to experience it with the animated series too.

As we wrap up our first season (Ep 12 should be here shortly), and start production on the DVD, you guys have questions and I wanted to take the time to answer them here.

Is there going to be a season 2: Both Ryan and myself want to make a season two, but it’s not going to start right away. We’re going to see how the DVD sells before deciding how to move forward. We want to give the PvP readership what it wants, and if that’s more DVDs instead of online subscriptions, that’s how we’ll move forward. I also need a break from the production schedule to make time for the extra traveling I’ll be doing this year to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the strip and promote the How to Make Webcomics book.

When is the DVD coming?: As soon as Episode 12 is complete, we’re starting production on the DVD. All of our voicecast became huge fans and supporters of the strip over the last year and they really want to help make the DVD special. So we’re going to be recording commentary tracks and filming some behind the scenes stuff to include. I’m hoping to be in LA next month doing just that. My personal goal is to have DVDs in time for Emerald City Con.

Is Blind Ferret canceling season 2 of PvP to make animated CAD/LFG/LICD?: Absolutely not. Blind Ferret has expanded greatly in the last year so that they can produce more than one feature at a time. Ryan and Randy have big plans and I’m proud and excited to be a part of them. This is all about playing it smart, and safe and making sure that we’re giving the fans what they want.

So that’s the state of the union as far as animation is concerned. It was a year of long hours and rewarding work. There’s more to come and as always, we appreciate your passionate support. We’re making it all for you guys, and it means a lot to get such passionate support.

Stay tuned.

I had an absolute blast drawing the recent World of Warcraft series. Not just because I’m re-hooked on the game and it was a wonderful outlet for that pent-up-excitement, but because it was so fun to draw.

I know it’s my strip, and I can draw whatever I want, but let’s be honest for a moment. Most of the time I’m drawing the same four to five characters in an office setting. So finding new ways to break out of that has become a priority. The best part is that I feel it’s really stretching my art and that’s always a good thing.

I talked to Gabe and Tycho today about it. I link to them solely out of etiquette as I’m sure I can send them no new traffic. They’re hooked too and restraining themselves from drawing more WoW content. I think that’s a shame since Gabe’s WoW art is second-to-none. Join me in encouraging Mike to at least draw some stuff for us.

And now a proposition for you: does anyone remember Ding!? It was a single panel comic strip I did back in the day about my exploits in Everquest. If I were to resurrect Ding! as a weekly color Sunday feature for a while, would there be rejoicing or a vengeful swell of an uprising? This would replace the normal Sunday edition of PvP.

I’m seriously considering it.