In my newsletter, which you can sign up for here, I offered a prize (to be determined later and not of any huge value) to the first person to identify that lurking figure who, well, lurks around the library in earlier strips. I’m opening that to everyone who reads this. It’s a personage pretty much everyone has heard of, and the library theme of this comic may help you guess the medium from whence this character originates. Just contact me if you think you know. And if you do get it right, don’t tell anyone else for a few weeks.

Update: Wow, someone got it! So contest over. I have a prize idea, I’ll just have to speak to the lucky winner, someone I actually know.

I once heard an artist tell an audience that most people who want to make a comic never finish the first page. So here I am on page 2, with page 3 ready for next week already. The trick is is to keep the thing rolling. And find an audience, are you out there? Drop me a line if you are. I’ll have to think up a suitable prize for my first real fan letter…*

*Offer void where prohibited, no guarantee of actual prize or prize worth having is implied, Erik admits that he may never receive an actual fan letter and though it wrenches at his heart in the wee small hours he goes on with his life. Side effects may include nausea, dizziness, dropsy, rickets, and lycanthropy. Take only as directed.

Quite possibly no one else is, but I am very excited about the launch of Hex Libris today, Tuesday January 1st. If you’re going to launch a Web comic, why not make it easy to remember the anniversary. If this thing lasts a year. It’s scripted beyond that, at least loosely. But I’m going to need to exercise more discipline than I’ve been able to muster over the past three months.

Hex Libris will be updated weekly, possibly with breaks between chapters depending on how quickly I’m working. So that’s another good reason to launch on January 1st: I can declare a New Year’s resolution (something I don’t usually do) stating that I will create one page of my strip a week for the next year.

So the fireworks are finished, friends gone home, dishes washed and alcohol working its way out of the bloodstream. Happy New Year to all. I’m actually doing this before I go to bed, because I truly am that excited about this comic. Let me know what you think.