First, I wanted to let everyone know that I’m not dead. It’s an important detail, one should think.

Also, I wanted to send out a much belayed thank you to everyone I met at Otakon this year. CTCon also gets thanks. Heck, while I’m at it, another round of thanks to AX and Heroes Con. This was one heck of a summer.

To recap some behind the scenes matters, dern was in fact homeless the day he got back from CTCon. That lasted nine days while banks debated how much money they wanted to loose by not selling a house. When they finally agreed to let me and my wife into our new digs, the internet, phone service and television were still another nine days away. So I became a digital hermit.

Now, we’re back, up and running at the House of Seven Chairs, home of dern. We’ve almost gotten around to unpacking the seven chairs, too. But in the meantime, there’s been a lot of crazy running around going on.

Instead of doing what I want to do, in updating Dear Pirate and getting back to entertaining you good folk, I need to get back to doing what I want to do, and that’s finishing up a secret project OOOE, which will entertain you good folk. I will be getting up new questions and answers soon, very soon. Other projects that I might have mentioned to people at conventions will be worked on later.

But one secret project is something I can announce now: Super Art Fight, coming Sept. 20 at the Ottobar in Baltimore. I’ll be a sideshow exhibition, sculpting up a diorama of crazy. Though I will have no idea what I’m sculpting, I will be bringing plenty of clay.

Finally, to answer the question of those wondering “What the heck is this?” This is from my other comic, The Expert’s Guide on How to Kill Things That Go Bump in the Night.  It’s a collaboration between me and the talented Robert Zailo. Frankenfido and Dead Monkey Elvis are starting up a 6-part adventure there, and it updates every Tuesday. A week or so after each update, I’ll be simulcasting episodes here. So if you want to know what happens next, go to expertcomic.com.