Hamthology, Out Now!

You may recall that I involved myself in a comics anthology project called Hamthology last year. As a quick recap, here is a description of the project:

The people of the Ponju “Piggy Farm” online community of webcomic artists, writers and fans (of which I’m a member) has recently started a comic book anthology project. The end product is a book the size of most American graphic novels you’d see in Borders nowadays, but maybe thicker. Instead of one long comic book story, it’ll contain a collection of short comics each created by a different team of people who are members of the community. That includes me.

On top of submitting a short comics story about a young busker girl living in Victorian-era Melbourne, I was also taken in as editor for the publication but had to bow out due to an increased work load in the office (my day job as an IT analyst programmer). However, near the date of printing, I resumed my editorial role and helped proof-read the text in the anthology.

And now, after a long wait, our baby is finally finished and available for sale starting this week! As initially planned, my American colleagues will be selling copies of our book at anime and comics conventions across the US. And for those of us who couldn’t buy them at those conventions whether because we don’t go to those or we simply don’t live in the US, we can buy the book direct from the printing press at Lulu.com.

Here is the description of our book as written in Lulu.com:

Everyone undertakes a quest at some point in their lives, whether it be as mundane as fetching groceries from the store or as grand as researching a cure for a deadly illness. In the first Hamthology: The Quest, the artists and writers of The Piggy Farm forums take you on range of quests in ten short comics.

Join a variety of protagonists as they dodge enemy agents to make a contact, prove themselves in wrestling tournaments, and piece together the story of a silent ghost. From the hilarious to the heartfelt, there’s a little something for everyone in here.

Suitable for ages 10 to adult. Contains mild action scenes, mild language, and some mature themes. For more information, visit http://hamthology.ponju.com.

The Hamthology: The Quest (Volume 1) has the size of your typical graphic novel and is 122 pages thick. And all for only US$9.99!

As a contributor, I’d be getting two complimentary copies of the book via post in the next few days. Raquel and I can’t wait to get our hands on it.

Shower head exchanged

We finally got around to exchanging our old, water-inefficient shower heads for new, shiny ones last weekend. Gj was expecting to have a difficult time installing it but it was pretty painless. We’ve been using the new shower heads for several days now and would have to admit that we’re glad we made the exchange. We love that it has 3 settings (heavy spray, light spray and trickle) and matches our bathroom’s colour scheme.

Hubby was curious as to why the water company would give these shower heads for free, especially since we discovered that they sell for about $75 bucks each at the local hardware store. We would have loved to asked the librarian but the one who attended to Gj looks like she was in a (permanent) sour mood. Anyway, I’m guessing the council and the water company just wanted to chip in at making people save what precious little water we have left. For whatever reason that motivated them to do it, I’m glad that they did run the program. For those of you other Wyndham residents who still haven’t exchanged your grubby, old shower heads, today’s the last day so better do it now!