I also forgot to mention another killer book I read:
Harlan Ellison's The City On The Edge Of Forever (Published by White Wolf). If you want to take a lot at how Star Trek can REALLY warp original ideas and stories, see that classic episode and then read this book, which contains Ellison's original screenplay. Some genius cannot be buried though, as this episode STILL became an all-time favorite, and the original version won a major writer's guild award.

I am putting this up to let you know that, yes, I am still alive, and no, the new cartoon isn't finished yet. The job I work at now takes up a bit more of my time than my previous one. I'm not going to go into a whole rant about work clashing with doing what I want to do, since you've most likely heard all the rants before. Probably even going through some of it yourself. Suffice to say that progress is being made on it. I still want to thank all of you that write in with your words of encouragement. I may take a while to get back to you , but I DO write back.

In something not really related, just to give you a rundown of all the non-Knights material I've absorbed in the few times I've had to myself:

Ender's Game: Excellent sci-fi story by Orson Scott Card. Excellent read. Highly recommended.
Elric of Menibon: The classic first story by Moorcock. Some good ideas and a good read. If you want to read about a sword that might be able to take on Dave's Hackmaster +12, then....
Dogma: I really enjoyed Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy. Kevin Smith just keeps getting better. If you can have a sense of humor about religion then check this movie out too.
Toy Story 2: Ah, if only I had the knowledge and time to make the Knights this well animated. Not only is the animation top notch, but the story is excellent as well. Plus you get to see some truly inspiring images from Disney's summer computer-animated movie Dinosaurs.

Thanks for your support and patience, Knights. And thanks for giving Retro a chance, too. I've been getting some good feedback on it. And I will make the navigation easier too.

Yes, my birthday has come and I've turned 30 years old. I'm not sure how I feel about that just yet. I've had time to reflect. (November doesn't seem to be the best time to gather people together for a celebration what with Thanksgiving and the holiday rush, so I don't really put on a big party or anything.)
If anything, I am now the same age as the character I portray, B.A. Maybe it will lead to more authenticity in my vocal performance. :)

Be sure to check out the Retro page. The cartoon is going to on weekdays for the next couple of weeks. Of course the bulk of you check here for the Knights toons, but some of you have been checking out this new strip, and even been kind enough to give me feedback! Here's to successful diversification! :)

I've been getting a lot of mail about having trouble viewing the cartoons, whether it be the new cartoon or the four previous ones. One main problem is that people haven't downloaded the newest version of the Flash plug-in. As for not seeing the other cartoons, I've been considering an update of those to the newest version, but it won't be an easy task, plus I have the next cartoon to finish. We shall have to see how things go from here. I will keep you updated. Hey, I managed to get an update in within a month! Haha. I hope to shorten it even further.

In other news, I've put up the first strips of the cartoon 'Retro' up. This is a cartoon I drew a long time ago dealing with characters from older video games. There are 18 strips in the story I wrote and I have ideas for new situations. I'm going to check reaction on it to see whether more strips are in order. Or maybe I'll just draw 'em anyway. :)

And I wouldn't go this far without including some new content. Yes, KoDT #5 is up! You can check it out by clicking here!

In other news, two of my voice people John "Brian" Raymond and Claire "Sara" Raymond have just recently brought their second daughter into the world! You can congratulate them on the birth of little Ilyana !

Hope to hear from you on how the new design and cartoon stand up!

(All the Knights in unison: WHERE'S THE NEW CARTOON?!!?)

Me (After stopping the bleeding from my ears) Believe me it's coming. I'm in the 'lip-sync' stage of the toon which takes up a lot of time. But, thankfully, it's one of the last stages I have to do in the cartoon. Everything is 'blocked' out and positioned, so this detailing of the mouths is one of the last jobs I have to accomplish. I thought I'd be able to have it done by Sunday, but I underestimated. Hey think of it this way, this is a sequel you won't have to wait 16 years for, and it will feature computer animated characters that everyone will actually like! (For the record, I LIKE Jar Jar Binks.)

This cartoon will be the vampire cartoon ("Lords of Darkness", issue 2). Here's a sneak peek:

OOOooohhh, scary! There will be a few other surprises too, including a guest voice!

Hey, I've been invited to do something I haven't done in a little while....roleplay! I've been invited to sit on a couple of games, Star Wars and Deadlands! We'll see how they go.

The Knights: WHO CARES?! GET BACK TO THE CARTOONS!!

Me: OK, OK... the games don't start until Sunday anyway.... :)

As much as I'd love to say I have the next cartoon ready, I don't. I CAN promise that you won't have to wait sixteen years for the fourth movie in the series. In lieu of this (and to show that I HAVE been working on it) you can go to the cartoons page and download a couple of WAV files with bloopers from the voice recording sessions.

Oh, and one other thing. My cartoons are in another online film festival: The FIFI Internet Film Festival! Most of the text however is in French, so before I completely understand any of it, I'll have to get Erik Bouchard to translate.. :)

Well, almost all the e-mail I receive is overwhelmingly positive and I'm grateful that something I'm having a lot of fun doing is enjoyed by others as well. I've had some time to tinker around with Flash and it's ability to export these movies to AVI format with the thought that some people might be having trouble getting the Shockwave plug-in to work and would like an additional option to the Flash format. The only problem so far is that a file I can post for the plug-in that only weighs in at just under 400K turns into a 7MB AVI, and that's for a 320x225 pixel window with 11khz mono sound, and this is WITH MPEG video compression. The conversion still isn't perfect and I might be able to bring the file size down a bit by zipping it, meaning you might have to download more plug-ins and/or programs. Plus I try to keep in mind that everyone doesn't have high speed net access like I do and downloading large files can be a big pain.

On a productive note, all voices (except Bob's) have been recorded for the next three cartoons. Once I get Bob, the real process can start.

I've thought of adding a short bio of all the people that voice this cartoon, plus an illustrated walkthrough of how I put these cartoons together.

Oh yes... Soon I'll have some big news about these cartoons. Check back here for more details.

Well, you'll be happy to know that the next batch of cartoons are scripted and ready to start production, right with the voice recording!

Also, please note that I have once again alerted Kenzer and Co. as to the existence of this page (as well as the new address!) and asked them for some official sanction of this page. Keep your lucky dice in hand, fellow Knighted!

January 1, 1999

I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year's holiday. I got Baldur's Gate for Christmas, and so far it really rocks! My friends and I are looking forward to trying the multiplayer aspect of it. Also, the holidays (and my work on this site) brought me some great opportunities, such as a cooking website that wishes me to create some cartoons to open up their site (more on that as it develops), and John (the voice of Brian) and I are developing an original cartoon based on a couple of Dungeons and Toons games I've ran (using Steve Jackson's Toon system). The project is called "ToonQuest". We are almost ready to start recording voices for the first installment, and again we'll let you know how things are moving along on that project as well.

As of this writing, Kenzer and Co. have still not responded to my e-mails regarding official sanction of this site. I am writing them again, hoping to at least have enough clout to get their attention. Keep your 20-siders crossed, faithful Knighted! :)