Some of you know that I keep the entire story of Grand Blue Door in a little green notebook. I do have plans to scan in the pages of the little green notebook at some point in time so that you can see how the story developed, along with hundreds upon hundreds of page layout thumbnails.

As I was leafing through it last night, I had the idea of asking for guest artists to help me build up a buffer of comics. I assign the guest artist one page and send them a thumbnail and dialog, and the artist draws it (full size and full color) and sends it back. The benefit is two-fold: It’s one less page that I have to draw in a timely matter, and one more page for you the reader when real life inevitably demands my full attention once more. Secondly, the guest artist, meanwhile, gets to see a snippet of the story in advance of everyone else and a link back to their site. Win-win!

If you’re interested, reply below saying so with a link to your site, or just email me.

Also, twitter.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Book Four lately, and have taken to writing GBD again in novel form to get it all out of my head. Book Four, you ask? Why yes. I’ve got five books in my head, and this is what they are about:

• Book One: The Truth
• Book Two: The Fraternity
• Book Three: The Loss
• Book Four: The Murders
• Book Five: The War

Since it’s unlikely I’ll have time to make that many comics (especially since I want to start all over again with a different art style and larger page format), I’m hella tempted to just tell everyone what happens in future books. But then I think that I should keep writing and dropping hints about the future, and just getting off my heinder and drawing. This semester should be a light one, and my creative energy is screaming for an outlet. You’ll hear more from the GBD Universe in some form or another.

Headmistress Clara Hallimumston
Prickett Boarding School for Girls
506 Lemon Way
Hudson, Ohio

Dear Madam,

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Edgar Truitt, and I am the owner and proprietor of the Grand Blue Door Hotel in Cape May, New Jersey.

It has come to my attention quite recently that my late cousin Jack Truitt’s daughter is enrolled in your school. Her name is Fiona Truitt. It is my understanding that Fiona’s mother Elizabeth outlined in her will that her child become a ward of the state and that she remain enrolled in the Prickett Boarding School until graduation at the age of eighteen, and her assets paid the tuition in full. It is also my understanding that during the summer months Fiona resides at an orphanage.

I respect the late Mrs. Truitt’s wishes that Fiona attend your fine academy, but the idea of the girl living in an orphanage for three months out of the year breaks my heart. My cousin died shortly before Fiona was born, and I lost contact with her mother not long after. I am prohibited by the terms of Mrs. Truitt’s will to adopt Fiona, and my status as a bachelor and business owner would make me an unsuitable guardian. However, I would like to extend to her an invitation to visit my hotel and stay with me for the duration of the summer until classes begin again in the fall. With your permission, I believe she would enjoy the opportunity to see the ocean, learn how a business is run, and be with her family once more.

I eagerly await your reply and can provide references as to my character upon request.

With Respect,

Edgar Truitt

Because I did.

I’ve always thought that offering up weak excuses for your shortcomings is lame. What you should do is apologize and promise to do better next time.

Sorry I’m late. I’ll do better next time.

So I didn’t post anything Friday because I didn’t start anything before Friday and Friday I had a lovely root canal. I know, right?

So I’m at work on the next page now, but as a heads up, it might be late. Sorry. Love you all.

I try to research. I really do. The current story takes a LOT from the Hindu religion. In fact, the whole Gajadhipati race comes out of my love for Ganesh. Because he’s just awesome and fun to draw.

So, since Hindu is a real religion and people do worship Ganesh, I tried to do my research to get everything right and keep from offending anyone. I’m not Hindu, after all.

But I made a mistake.

See, the way I read the superstition regarding Ganesh’s birthday, aka Ganesh Chaturthi, is that looking upon the moon will prove you innocent when you’re the victim of false accusation. Sadly, I got it backwards. Gazing at the moon on Ganesh Chaturthi will result in you being falsely accused. See, the Moon insulted Ganesh, and we ought to avoid those who insulted the Lord on his birthday.

Well crap.

I don’t know if my information was wrong or if I just didn’t do well on my reading comprehension.

The story hinges quite a bit on this backwards belief, so it’s a pretty big fowl-up on my behalf. So we’re going to just work around it by saying that since the Gajadhipati consider themselves favored by Ganesh that the rule doesn’t apply to them and the opposite is true. Which is pretty weak, I know, and I’m sorry.

My humblest apologies to you all for fowling this up. I’ll try not to do it again.

I’ve traveled a bit in life. The location of New Jersey as a setting for this comic was chosen because of my mother’s family. She’s from there, and all her sisters still live there. Growing up, I spent many holidays and a few summers out there. Naturally, we went to the Jersey shore.

Something that sticks out in my mind about the Jersey beaches is the grass, so I made sure to put it in here. Tall, grayish green, and growing just along the edge, letting you get peeks of the water before you eventually reached the sand.

Here’s the passage of time. I’ve said before that the story takes place over Fiona’s summer break, and now June comes to an end, leaving two months left before she goes back to her boarding school in Ohio (my home state). Enjoy!

Until I update twice a week, I’ll be giving a preview of where I am on Monday’s comic on Friday.

This page right here is all done, but because I have such a big weekend coming up, (many parties to attend) I wanted to hurry up and get it done by last night.

Which honestly just proves that I can get two pages done a week. That’s the goal. Let me build up a buffer first.

Anyhoo, enjoy the preview.