I hope you’re having a good March! For those of you who are fans of my science-fiction webcomic Artifice, I have some good news and a sneak peek at a beautiful Artifice wallpaper folks who have signed up for my mailing list are now able to download.

First the good news!

You can now get a printed copy of Artifice!

Thanks to the reader-supported Kickstarter campaign, I was able to print gorgeous, jumbo-sized (8.5″ x 11″) copies of Artifice on really nice glossy paper. The books will be shipping on May 1st and you can now pre-order your copy of Artifice on Amazon right now.

And that means our little sci-fi comic is finally getting reviews in the mainstream press! Publishers Weekly calls Artifice an “emotional winner” where “the narrative grips the reader from the first panel to the last, treating the audience to a moving rumination on love, free will, sexuality, and the question of whether a machine can feel.” The Midwest Book Review calls Artifice a “striking, vivid, and memorable graphic novel” that “will keep the reader fascinated to the final page.” (You can read more reviews here.)

Of course, if you’re reading this blog, you probably know all that for yourself. (And you can still read the entire Artifice story for free online if you want to check it out again!) A lot of you have written me asking when and how you can get a printed copy of Jeff and Deacon’s story. Well, (finally!) now you can!

Pre-order Artifice on Amazon and be first in line when they start shipping on May 1st!

Get me to sign your copy at Wondercon 2013!

I’m going to selling a limited number of advance copies of Artifice books and prints at the Prism booth at Wondercon 2013 in Anaheim, CA from March 29 through March 31st. I’ll have buttons and keychains for my super-hero webcomic The Young Protectors too. It’s been incredibly fun getting a chance to meet y’all at Emerald City Comicon, AhnCon, YaoiCon and BENT-CON over the past few months. If you think you can make it, please stop by and say hi!

(Also, I’m going to be going to a bunch of other conventions over the next 12 months—maybe even one close to you! You can check out my Conventions page to learn about my upcoming Con schedule.)

A brand new Artifice wallpaper for readers to download!

I continue to hear back from my mailing list subscribers that they’ve enjoyed the other wallpapers I’ve sent them. Well, for the Kickstarter campaign, I commissioned Artifice artist Winona Nelson to digitally paint two scenes starring Deacon and Jeff. The first one was a special “Happy Ending” moment not found in the comic that I pictured in my head and wanted to share with all the readers. I wanted a happy, intimate, safe-for-work scene with beautiful, striking colors. How did Winona do with that request? Judge for yourself!

Here’s what it looks like (click to enlarge):

(I created different version of that image for different sizes of computer screens and mobile devices. Subscribers of the Yaoi 911 News & Downloads list get to download those for free. If you’d like to get those things too, you can sign up for my mailing list on this page.)

Thank you!

Thank you so much for your interest in my comics. Your kind words and support really make creating these comics worth all the hard work. It really means the world to me. And I’d love to hear what you think about the new Artifice painting in the comments!

Howdy!

So, it’s been a long while since I posted up something on the regular blog. Because I’m posting up comic pages once a week over at my webcomics site, I tend to do many of my announcements there. And then for shorter announcements, I often find it easier to use my Tumblr account.

But I wanted to give you a quick update about my comics here, since a lot of you still follow this blog via RSS and email and many of you like the commenting system. And I might start posting up some longer articles on this site that are more suited for a blog than, say, Twitter or Facebook. And right now, I have a lot of news: updates to a new webcomic, appearances at Yaoi-Con 2012 and a new wallpaper for mailing list subscribers!

First off, just in case you don’t know, I wanted to let you know that now that Artifice is finished (and in the process of being printed!), I’m putting out a new yaoi webcomic, this time with superheroes!

Which means I should probably do one of those big headline thingys:

You can the first 39 Pages of The Young Protectors for free!

Actually, you’ll get to read it all for free. But it’s a webcomic that I post up one page a week (on Saturdays!), with 39 pages so far. And things are just starting to get good, so it’s a great time to jump in!

Our hero is Kyle, the young superhero you see over there on the right. And we start with him doing a very brave thing: stepping into a gay bar for the very first time. Unfortunately he’s seen doing that by the most dangerous supervillain in the world: The Annihilator. And now that The Annihilator knows Kyle’s secret, it seems he has a few demands…

Of course, with a premise like that, there was a fair amount of controversy in the early pages—both around The Annihilator’s scandalous behavior and also with the fact that I’m now writing a superhero story. But this is still me, so just like with the sci-fi story Artifice, while I’m enjoying playing with the yaoi and superhero genres, I’m taking it in my own direction. At five chapters and a prologue, this will be a much longer comic than I’ve created before, so there’s lots of room to dive deep into character and plot. And there’s just something about a villain in a tux in the latest pages that readers seem to be finding particularly appealing.

Right now I’m working with DC/Marvel penciler Adam DeKraker and Mouse Guard colorist Veronica Gandini on this project and, IMHO, they are hitting the art for this comic out of the park. Curious to find out what the fuss is about?

Read The Young Protectors for free online right now

Say “Hi!” to me at Yaoi-Con 2012!

I’m going to be speaking at Yaoi-Con 2012 in Long Beach, CA at the Westin Long Beach Hotel and it’d be awesome to get a chance to meet some of my readers there. I’m going to be sharing the story behind the creation of Artifice, answering readers’ questions and talking about how you could create your own yaoi webcomic. It’s going to be a blast!

Yaoi-Con takes place next weekend (October 12-14) and here’s my schedule:

• Yaoi for Everyone – Saturday, 11:00AM, Melbourne Room
• The Story Behind Artifice – Saturday, 2:00PM, Barcelona/Casablanca Room
• Why You Should Create A Webcomic – Sunday, 12:00PM, Melbourne Room
• How To Launch A Successful Kickstarter Project – Sunday, 3:00PM, Melbourne Room

Also, I’m going to be going to a bunch of other conventions over the next 12 months—maybe even one close to you! You can check out my Conventions page to learn about my upcoming Con schedule.

“A Shot in the Dark” wallpaper for subscribers to download

And I’ve been hearing back from my mailing list subscribers that they’ve enjoyed the other wallpapers I’ve sent you, so I comissioned awesome webcomic artist Jayd Aït-Kaci (Sfeer Theory, The Fox Sister) to create a new wallpaper with characters from the very first comic I ever made way back in 2007: the magic school short story “A Shot in the Dark”. It’s got senior apprentice Ethan confronting his boyfriend the junior apprentice Ben and, um, there seem to be tentacles involved. Ahem.

Here’s what it looks like (click to enlarge):

I hope you like it!

(I created different version of that image for different sizes of computer screens and mobile devices and subscribers of the Yaoi 911 News & Downloads list will get to download those for free. They also get to download the comic where these characters came from, “A Shot in the Dark”, for free. If you’d like to get those things too, you can sign up for my mailing list on this page.)

Thank you!

Thank you so much for your interest in my comics. Your kind words and support really make creating these comics worth all the hard work. It really means the world to me. And I’d love to hear what you think about The Young Protectors and the new wallpaper in the comments!

So… it’s been forever and a day since I wrote an article on this blog. ::blush:: The webcomic has sort of taken over my life (in a good way). But today I have two really cool things to share with you!

First off, my aforementioned sci-fi yaoi webcomic Artifice (with art by the awesome Winona Nelson) is now at 84 pages and in the very last scene. For some time, folks have been asking me if I planned to create a printed book when Artifice finished. So, I decided to start a Kickstarter project to try to raise the $7000 I’d need for a full-color offset print run. I figured that $7000 was a huge amount of money to ask for and that it was a long-shot that I would get anywhere near that, but other webcomics have been successful with Kickstarter projects and so I thought maybe by the end of the project’s 30 day run, it might happen.

I was wrong. The Artifice Graphic Novel Print Drive Kickstarter project reached its $7000 goal in less than 48 hours.

So, I have some good news! Artifice will be printed as a beautiful, full-color, jumbo-sized 8.5″ x 11″ book! And the Kickstarter project still has over 22 days left in it, so if you’d like to pre-order your own copy, you can still do that!

If you haven’t been keeping up with android soldier Deacon, young space colonist Jeff and the good Dr. Maven you can

Read Artifice for free online right now

and if you like what you read (or if you want to see just how goofy a very nervous Alex can look in his “Kickstarter video” ), you can

Check out Artifice’s stunningly successful Kickstarter project

and maybe even pre-order one of the books yourself (or get one of the other special rewards for project backers!).

A new Tough wallpaper for Yaoi 911 News & Downloads subscribers

Also, while I’m sad to say the art for Tough: Chapter 3 remains stalled *major sigh* and so I don’t know when that comic will be released, the story of Mike and Rob is still very dear to my heart. And since my subscribers let me know that they’ve enjoyed the other wallpapers I sent, I commissioned artist Ponderosa (who made the first Tough wallpaper, “Junkyard”) to create a brand new, completely Safe For Work wallpaper starring Tough‘s heroes.

It’s Mike and Rob in a non-canon “noir” scene based on one of my most favorite films of all time, To Have And Have Not. Obviously, the heroes of Tough don’t live in a film noir film world, but I thought it would be fun to see them in that setting. (And if you yourself would like to get a copy of this wallpaper, you can sign up for my mailing list here. It’ll be sent along automatically in a few weeks. )

Please let me know what you think!

As always, I do my best to try to come up with things I think you’ll all enjoy. So, please let me know what you think of the wallpaper and the Kickstarter project!

Thank you!

Thank you so much for your interest in my comics, Yaoi 911 and for signing up for checking out this blog in the first place. I know I’ve been a little M.I.A. here, but your kind words and support really make creating these comics worth all the hard work. It really means the world to me.

I hope you all are having a great weekend!

How is artist Winona Nelson creating the “amazing” art of Artifice?

In a comment on my webcomic site, Winona responded to a reader asking just that question. I know there are creators and artists who are following Artifice, so I thought I would post up her response here. It gets a little technical, but even for us non-artists, it’s kinda cool to think about all the work that goes into making one of these pages.

(Click to enlarge the images. Then hit the arrow key to cycle them.)

Winona here I’m flattered that you asked (and that it doesn’t look like obvious Photoshoppery!) Here’s the whole process:

Yaoi 911 Artifice Page 5 Pencils
Art by Winona Nelson
© 2011 Alex Woolfson

I did pencil 1/4 page thumbnails of each page, then scanned and blew them up and did digital pencils. I like to do the pencils digitally because at that stage I’m still moving things around a lot and this way if I want to move a figure over an inch it doesn’t mean redrawing the whole page. I also built the sets in 3d using Sketchup, and used the models as reference for the perspective.

I then printed the pencils and taped them to the back of the paper I was going to ink on. I didn’t have a big printer for the first half of the project so I was printing on two pages with the middle overlapping, hehe!

Yaoi 911 Artifice Page 5 Inks
Art by Winona Nelson
© 2011 Alex Woolfson

The inks are Staedtler and Prisma technical pens (and a .25 Pilot Hi-Tec C for tiny details) on Borden and Riley #234 Paris Bleedproof paper for pens. The paper was trial and error. I tried Blueline boards, which are too thick for lightboxing and too rough (and they aren’t archival; they yellow over time), then regular cover stock which was thin enough to lightbox well but was too absorbent, it bled a lot. Then a friend tipped me off about the B&D paper, which is suuuper smooth, really translucent on a lightbox, and the ink doesn’t spread at all, it’s fantastic You have to cut it to size but it really is the best to ink on!

Yaoi 911 Artifice Page 5 Colors
Art by Winona Nelson
© 2011 Alex Woolfson

Then I scan the inks and color in Photoshop. For the spots that look more painterly, like that explosion, what I’m using is a hard round brush with pressure set to opacity and the flow set to 25%. [EDITOR NOTE: For us non-artists, what Winona means here is that she is using a pressure-sensitive Wacom pen which changes the opacity of the colors depending on how hard she presses it against her tablet.] I’ve used that hard round brush forever but changing the flow never occurred to me until fairly recently, and it’s made a big difference. It just makes it feel a bit more intuitive and it’s easier to blend with. Most of the form shading is done with that brush (or a soft-edged brush for big gradients and things I want to be very smooth, like skin). The actual shadow areas are done on a separate layer set to Color Burn, all the same sort of purple-blue (no K).

I’ve been subtly colorizing the inks too, which I do by making a new layer and then adding a layer mask made from the ink layer. The layer mask allows you to paint outside the line as much as you want and none of it shows up, but if you then need to make changes to the inks you can delete the layer mask and make it again from the revised inks and the color will still be there. You can get pretty much the same effect by copying the ink layer and locking the transparency and painting on it, but that method doesn’t make it so easy to make changes since you then have to make the changes in the appropriate color and it takes a bit longer.

One final thought that might be interesting to you is that this is all done in CMYK because we’ve always intended to print the book. That means some colors don’t get quite as bright as RGB, but those colors aren’t printable. It also means I had to be very aware of K values sneaking in, because if you’re not picking every color with the color picker and setting the ink percentages to contain 0% K, you can end up with muddy colors when it prints. K is the only opaque ink and it’s also very slightly thick on the paper so it appears ever so slightly raised; you don’t want it anywhere but the inks and maybe some really dark shadow areas if you can help it.

Hope that made some sense to you! I’ve used Photoshop for so long I can get a bit technical talking about it 0_0

Have any questions? Please ask them here and I’ll forward them on to Winona to answer!

In addition to the webcomic Artifice, I’m also offering some of my other yaoi comics as free PDF downloads for my mailing list subscribers, How do you get them? Well, it’s easy! Just fill out the form on the Free Comics page and the links will be sent right to you!

Find articles like this one interesting and useful? Don’t miss out! Get Yaoi 911â„¢ blog posts emailed right to you — for free!

Learn More!

• Want to learn more about the process of creating pencils and inks for comics? Then check out Yaoi Art: From Thumbnail Sketches to Final Pencils and Yaoi Art: From Pencils to Inks!
• Interested in creating your own comics? Start with How to Write a Full Comic Book Script and How to Find the Perfect Yaoi Artist for your Graphic Novel!
• Curious about why I decided to start a webcomic? Then read Gay Sci-Fi Webcomic Artifice Now Online and Why call Artifice a “gay sci-fi webcomic”?
• Want to read reviews of other yaoi comics? Then please take a look at my in-depth Yaoi Reviews!

I got an email yesterday from the contact form of my webcomic Artifice. The email itself was actually fairly thoughtful and the writer had more than a couple intriguing suggestions about ways to treat same sex relationships in a sci-fi setting without evoking the concept of a gay identity. But they also had a couple questions and concerns that I wanted to respond to. Artifice has a story that might appeal to some readers who aren’t that familiar with what’s it’s like to be gay and thus might have similar questions.

This was the email (quoted in its entirety with permission from its author):

Subject: Artifice story vs. presentation

I’m sort of offended by the Gay heading in the upper-left corner. If this is to be a story of some sort of same-sex affection, can we simply put it in the context of a future with artificial people? At least this would be a refreshing approach to realize that if you could manufacture people you couldn’t likewise manufacture their personalities.
-Or is the Gay heading supposed to mean that you shouldn’t be reading this comic unless you’re gay?
Frankly, what offends me the most is gays saying that they’re special when all they mean is they have sex differently than heterosexuals (who don’t go around telling people they’re different.) Why should it matter if this character who has been artifically created finds some emotional level he has not been programmed for- except for that emotion itself which is a declaration of uniqueness and identity?

And this was my response:

Hello!

Let’s see if I can answer your question.

I’m sort of offended by the Gay heading in the upper-left corner… is the Gay heading supposed to mean that you shouldn’t be reading this comic unless you’re gay?

No. I’m delighted to have anyone read my comics. And looking at the demographics of my mailing list and Facebook Insights, it seems to break down to about 50% gay and 50% straight readers (mostly straight women, but there are straight guys there too). I work very hard to be inclusive on my blog and elsewhere and I’d like to think the tone of my comics isn’t “inside baseball”—meaning that non-gay readers will understand the references and that I am respectful of people of all orientations.

I use the “gay sci-fi” heading in the title of my pages for search-engine purposes. It’s not to be exclusive in any way; it’s to make it easy for readers who like sci-fi and gay romance to find my comic when they search for it on Google and such. You see, there aren’t a lot of gay male romances set in a sci-fi world and so I think readers searching for that might particularly enjoy Artifice. So, I’m trying to make it easy to find my comic when they search for “gay sci-fi” or “gay webcomic”. That’s the only reason I’m doing that.

Frankly, what offends me the most is gays saying that they’re special when all they mean is they have sex differently than heterosexuals (who don’t go around telling people they’re different.)

Because you wrote me a thoughtful email, I’m going to assume that you’re looking to understand why gay people like myself would tell people they’re different (even announcing to the world that their webcomic is gay!), so I’m going to respond to this as well. (Please forgive me if you were just venting.)

If you’re not gay yourself, I can understand why it can be confusing why gay people would feel the need to “come out” and tell others that, unlike 90% of the population, they don’t fall in love with members of the opposite sex. The truth of the matter is, most of us (including myself!) wish we lived in a world where such distinctions were irrelevant. It certainly is no fun having to say to someone who is assuming you’re straight (and asking what kind of girl you like or making an anti-gay joke) that actually you’re gay and then wondering how they are going to react. Honestly, sometimes, it’s exhausting.

But unfortunately, we live in a world where most people assume everyone is straight. We live in a world where the word “fag” or “queer” is the ultimate put-down in the school yards and the word “gay” can be used to mean anything “sucky” or “weird”. We live in a world where in many places you can be denied work, education and housing simply because you were born to fall in love with members of the same sex. We live in a world where people can marry members of the opposite sex and get tax breaks, hospital visitation rights and lots of family and social support; but if you fall in love and want to marry a member of the same sex, in the vast majority of places you can’t do it. Here in the U.S., if you can actually get married, you won’t get any federal benefits (thanks to the Defense of Marriage Act), and many folks will see you as a threat to family and children for even wanting to get married. And this isn’t even getting into the parts of the world where if people found out you were gay, you could expect to be attacked, arrested and even executed (such as in Iran and Saudi Arabia). These are things many straight people never have to think about if they want to start dating someone. They can just do it because it’s considered “normal”.

When I was growing up, there were those who would argue that gay people didn’t need explicit protection under the law for things like work, education and housing. That asking for that protection was asking for “special rights”. But it’s not a “special right” if everyone else gets to do something without a second thought and you can’t. I would argue it’s an “equal right” if you get to do the same thing as everyone else. Straight people can apply for a job and don’t have to hide that they date people of the opposite sex. Same for applying for an apartment or even just talking about how they spent their Saturday night. In many places in the world and the U.S., that’s not true for those who are attracted to the same sex. And in most of those places (including most of the states in the U.S.), it’s perfectly legal to deny gay people that apartment or that job, just because they are gay.

Now, if you live in the U.S, you probably have noticed this is changing. Twenty states now have anti-discrimination laws that forbid denying people work or housing because of sexual orientation. Five states even give equal access to marriage. The U.S. military has just been ordered to change its policy of firing soldiers because of their sexual orientation. This is good news—both for gay people and, I’d argue, for all citizens of the U.S. And none of it would have happened if gay people had kept their mouths shut and just let everyone assume they were straight.

I’m going to end this with one of my favorite quotes from Pastor Martin Niemöller, but before I do, I just want to point out that while I’ve framed this response mostly in terms of equal protection under the law and personal safety issues, that there is one other very real reason why gay folks tell others that they are gay. It’s because falling in love is a huge part of the human experience and it feels wrong to lie or be evasive to the people in my life who care about me about such an important thing. Telling someone I’m gay isn’t just saying I “have sex differently than heterosexuals”. While others may define you by it, speaking as a gay man, I can tell you that sex is actually a very small part of the experience of being gay. It’s really about who you want to spend the rest of your life with.

I wasn’t always “out” and so I can tell you, to not be able to talk to my friends and family about those romantic hopes, dreams (and yes, failures and even successes) is like being buried alive in concrete and it created a wall between myself and those who cared about me. You see, people talk all the time about love and romance. If you’re straight, you don’t have to make any special declarations to answer those questions or start conversations of your own. I’m sure you’ve had conversations with friends and co-workers about dating. Imagine if it were a very real possibility that those around you would be “offended” if you were simply being honest in those conversations—that they might actually seek to hurt you for joining into that conversation as an equal—and then you might be able to begin to understand why it is important for many gay people to try to create a world where you don’t have to lie about or hide who you fall in love with. And that world can only happen if you’re willing to “go around and tell people you are different.”

I want to thank you for taking the time to write me your email. You could have just kept your thoughts to yourself but instead you reached out to me to share them. I don’t imagine you expected to get this lengthy reply back. But the truth of the matter is that I do care about all my readers, both straight and gay. You took time to reach out and write me. And so I wanted to give your words a thoughtful response.

Alex

The quote from Pastor Martin Niemöller (shared with me originally by a straight friend after I came out):

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

We live in a world where bad things quite often happen to good people. And it’s important to remember that sometimes the only way to stop it is by speaking up. Even when we don’t “have to”.

So that was my response and I’m happy to share here that it was well-received and that, in their reply back, the author of the email went out their way to say very nice things about Artifice. For both gay and straight people, it can be easy to jump to conclusions about how open someone is going to be to understanding another person’s view. But I have to say one of the most gratifying experience of starting this blog is the happy discovery that the vast majority of people out there are cool and thoughtful, if only you’re willing to engage in a real conversation. I’m glad this person wrote to me and proved, yet again, that I have the absolute coolest readers in the world.

In addition to the webcomic Artifice I’m also offering some of my other yaoi comics as free PDF downloads for my mailing list subscribers, How do you get them? Well, it’s easy! Just fill out the form on the Free Comics page and the links will be sent right to you!

Find articles like this one interesting and useful? Don’t miss out! Get Yaoi 911â„¢ blog posts emailed right to you — for free!

Learn More!

• I’ve had other interesting and provocative reader questions. Want to read another response? Then check out Why This Gay Man Is Creating Yaoi!
• In my day job, I got the chance to edit a video made for gay teens at risk for suicide also talking about coming out and what it’s like to be gay. Find it at It Gets Better: Google Employees!
• Want to learn more about why I decided to start a webcomic? Then read Gay Sci-Fi Webcomic Artifice Now Online!
• Want to read reviews of yaoi books that might or might not offend you? Take a look at our in-depth Yaoi Reviews!
• Interested in creating your own comics? Start with How to Write a Full Comic Book Script and How to Find the Perfect Yaoi Artist for your Graphic Novel!

READ THIS FIRST: If you created an account at The Yaoi 911 Store at https://store.yaoi911.com or to comment on this blog, please read the rest of this blog post. If you didn’t, no one else was affected by this and you do not need to worry. (To be clear, that means if you just have an account for The Yaoi 911 News & Downloads mailing list, the Yaoi 911 Zazzle Store or any of my other logins or simply downloaded comics from one of my newsletter emails, you do not need to worry, this does not affect you. It only affects people who created an account at https:/store.yaoi911.com.)

UPDATE 5/5/11: OK, having reviewed all the files on the FTP, I also found some suspicious files in this blog and in my webcomic. Based on reviewing those files, it looks like the ultimate goal of this attack was to turn my sites into zombie spam sites. I caught it before the malware could really do much and now all the files have been cleaned. But in light of the fact that I noticed some strange files on this blog, then I’d say if you are a registered user here, you should also read below. Again, if you’re a mailing list subscriber or used any of my other stores, this still doesn’t affect you. And even if you did create an account here or at the Store, the chances of someone capturing your password are pretty remote. (The real damage seems to be wasting a couple days of my time triple-checking that there weren’t any more hidden files lurking anywhere. Grrr.) But because I want to make sure all my readers are safe, I still think it’s wisest to change your passwords if you reused them here or at the Store.

Well, this sucks. The Yaoi 911 Store (at https://store.yaoi911.com) was hacked today. I caught it in less than 24 hours and I’ve locked it down with a password, but it still happened.

After a reader left a comment saying she was having difficulty accessing the Tough chapters, I went to my store to see what was going on and there was a lovely little hacker program running that allowed anyone on the Internet to see every file on my store and, I assume, its database contents as well. I’ve thrown up a password barrier so no other jerks can get at that information and I know that not a huge number of people took advantage of my store to get my comics, but if you did create an account at https://store.yaoi911.com, there are some steps I think you should take to protect yourself.

What You Should Do If You Created An Account At The Yaoi 911 Store or this blog

Ideally, you used a unique password for The Yaoi 911 Store or this blog. That’s a very good idea and I strongly, strongly, strongly recommend it for every account you create on the Internet (and I recommend using a password locker program like 1Password, which I use myself, to make the process of creating unique super-strong passwords really easy and painless.)

But I know not everyone does that.

So… if you used the same password on The Yaoi 911 Store (which was at https://store.yaoi911.com) or as a commenter on this blog anywhere else, stop what you are doing right now and change that password on those sites!

I don’t know if this jerk was able to download the passwords, but they might have. The passwords weren’t stored in plaintext, of course—your password would have been encrypted in the database using a “hash algorithm”—but if you used a dictionary word under 15 characters or so, there are programs on the Internet that make unencrypting password hashes possible for the determined hacker. So, please, change those passwords!

Also, even though not many people included their postal address information or full names when creating an account, some did. I doubt this hacker could find any real use for that information, but I just want to remind you that it’s possible that they might have downloaded it. It also seems possible they could access the email address you used. So please be extra aware of phishing scams attempts and remember that no one reputable will ever ask you for your password to any of your accounts over email.

And just to be very clear: I will never ask you for any of your passwords through email ever. So if you get a message claiming to be from me or “Yaoi 911″ or yaoi-anything asking you for personal information of any kind, it’s a hoax—don’t do it! (A phishing scam is a very, very unlikely risk, I’m hardly Chase bank after all, but I really, really care about your safety and so I’m wanting to cover all the bases.)

So, the main thing you should do is change your password on other sites if you used the same password on The Yaoi 911 Store or on this blog. And if someone contacts you by email and pretends to be me asking you for personal information of any kind, tell them to go jump in the lake.

I made a PayPal payment to you through The Yaoi 911 Store. Is my PayPal account at risk?

No. You had to leave the Store and actually go to the secure PayPal site to make a PayPal payment and thus none of your PayPal passwords or credit card information were ever stored in my databases (which is one reason I went with PayPal; I didn’t want to store your private payment details). So long as no-one hacks PayPal, you should be fine.

What if I never created an account at the store or this blog? Are any of the other Yaoi 911 logins at risk?

No. There are a number of reasons I’ve kept this blog, my mailing list, my blog subscription list, The Yaoi 911 Zazzle Store, Yaoi 911 Prints and The Yaoi 911 Store as separate accounts and this is one of them. I use a different password for every single account, so even if the evil jerk was able to figure out MY password for The Yaoi 911 Store and its database, they couldn’t use it to get access to any of the database information anywhere else. If you are a Yaoi 911 News subscriber, a Feedburner blog subscriber or someone who’s bought from one of my other stores and your password is different than what you used for this blog/The Yaoi 911 Store (meaning at https://store.yaoi911.com, which is just used for downloading my comics) or you never signed up with this blog/The Yaoi 911 Store, then your information is safe.

(If you did create an account at The Yaoi 911 Store and used the same password on this blog, then change that password here now by logging in and changing the password on the bottom of your profile page!)

What’s going to happen next?

For the time being, I’ll be taking down The Yaoi 911 Store Web site. But I know there are some of you that found it a convenient way to download my comics, so I will start working on a replacement—ideally a very secure replacement—in the near future. This blog and the webcomic use much more secure software, so now that they are cleaned, they should be fine.

And in the meantime, all I can say is I’m sorry. And that I’ll do everything in my power to make sure this won’t happen again. (And remind you, to yes, please change those passwords if you used the same one on other sites!)

The response to the first only-for-subscribers wallpaper by Ponderosa was overwhelmingly positive, so I’ve decided to send out another one. This time the pencils and inks were created by DC/Marvel/Dark Horse artist, Adam DeKraker, and the colors are by Arifice artist, Winona Nelson. (You can read a bit about them here.)

"Pillow Fight" | Click to enlarge.

It’s Mike and Rob from Tough having a pillow fight in their underwear! Who says sorority girls have all the fun?

Let me know what you think!

As I’ve said before, creating exclusive downloads for subscribers is an experiment; one that I’m hoping you’ll like. So what do you think? Do you like seeing Mike and Rob like this? And what do you think of the art? Sweet, sexy, cool, not cool? Let me know in the comments section of this blog post! If it turns out you all continue to like these, then I’ll commission more of them. (And if you really like this one, you can get it right now as a poster or card.)

So, what’s next?

Some readers have said while they really liked Ponderosa’s art with the shirtless guys, that they would need something a little… different to show their support for Tough and Yaoi 911. Something, y’know, tamer, that wouldn’t give casual bystanders heart palpitations if they were to see it.

Well, that makes a lot of sense to me, so in addition to creating some more sexy wallpapers, I’ve also commissioned a couple fully-clothed, safe-for-Grandma ones. The first of which I’ll actually be sending you next month! It’s by yaoi artist Agent Agnes and it’s super sweet. Sound good?

Please let me know what you think of Adam’s and Winona’s work in the comments!

Want to download the high-res versions of this wallpaper? Well, it’s easy! Just fill out the form on the Free Comics page and the link will be sent to you about a week after you sign up! (And in the meantime, you get download links for the first two completed chapters of Tough sent to you immediately in the Welcome Email. That’s 70 full-color pages of yaoi goodness. For free. Score!)

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Learn More!

• Take a look at the last wallpaper I sent out for Tough!
• I’ve also just launched a gay sci-fi webcomic that you won’t want to miss. Check out Artifice now!

Well, it’s been a long time coming, but my sci-fi yaoi graphic novel Artifice is finally ready for you to read. If you’ve been following my work for a while, then you know my original plan was to release Artifice as a for-pay PDF that you would download at our store. But after following the excellent work of Hamlet Machine with Starfighter, EMIRAIN with Teahouse (both webcomic links NSFW, BTW) and Cheera and Muun with sfeertheory, I’ve been inspired to try something different. I’ve decided to post Artifice up, for free, one page a week, as a webcomic.

What’s Artifice about?

It was supposed to be a routine “clean-up” mission on the isolated colony Da Vinci Four, but Deacon, a prototype android soldier, has failed spectacularly. Not only did he disobey orders, letting a 19-year-old business liability named Jeff survive, he also attacked and killed those who were sent to help him. Now, the brilliant and uncompromising robopsychologist Clarice Maven has been summoned by the Corporation to determine why.

With Deacon at her absolute mercy, Maven will find out exactly what happened between the android and this boy—and she will use her terrible power to make sure Deacon never fails the Corporation ever again.

Check it out for yourself!

I wrote Artifice and all the art from pencils through colors is being created by the totally awesome Winona Nelson. And to give you a good feel for what’s to come, I’ve posted up the first five pages on the webcomic site. (Starting next Saturday, I’ll post up a page a week until the story is complete.) Please take a look!

Read Artifice right now

(Be sure to click the Next button under each page to keep reading! )

Why a webcomic?

Well, like sending out the pin-ups to my mailing list subscribers, this is another experiment. My current method of publishing my comics is to wait for each one to be fully completed before sending them out to my readers as PDFs. This means that when they are released, it’s a lot of fun. (I have over 14,000 subscribers of my mailing list and all my readers are awesome sweethearts, so I get a bunch of great comments and feedback when each comic comes out.) But then, several months pass before the next comic is ready and that explosion of momentum and energy—which frankly is so useful for morale for me and my artists—naturally falls off quite a bit. And, I also think quite naturally, in those intervening months, a lot of readers wind up forgetting all about me and my comics, even if they really enjoyed reading them. I have a busy life myself, I know how it is.

This has been on my mind for a while now. And so, when I went to YaoiCon last October and I saw how much buzz was around the (awesome) webcomics Starfighter and Teahouse, it got me thinking. What if I were to have a comic that was released on a more consistent basis like once a week—like, well, a webcomic! And so after talking with a bunch of folks about that idea (including Starfighter’s awesome Hamlet Machine who was very helpful), I’ve decided to give this a try to see if it helps keep readers engaged with my work. Now, I’m not expecting the kind of success of Starfighter and Teahouse, but just having something to share with my readers every week, just having a consistent way to connect with my readers every week, well, that just sounds like a lot of fun.

I’m very, very proud of the work Winona and I are doing on Artifice. The truth is, I think it has some of the the best writing I’ve done out of all my comics. And, frankly, if I put it out as a $4.99 e-book, there are only so many people who would choose to pay for it. I’ll still try publishing a for-pay e-book at some point (maybe with the 18+ Chapter 4 of Tough), but I think by putting Artifice out as a free webcomic, a lot more people are going to be able to enjoy it. And that’s something I really want.

Please let me know what you think

So, I’d love to know what you think of what I’m doing. Good idea? Bad idea? Cool? Not cool? And what do you think of the pages I posted up? Please let me know by commenting on this blog post or on the pages of the webcomic itself.

I really hope you enjoy reading the webcomic pages I’ve put up so far and that you’ll come back to find out what happens next!




And, of course, my other full-color yaoi comics are still available as free PDF downloads for subscribers of my mailing list. Want to get your hands on those download links? Well, it’s easy! Just fill out the form on the Free Comics page and the links will be sent right to you in the Welcome Email! You’ll get the first two completed chapters of Tough sent to you right now! That’s 70 full-color pages of yaoi goodness. Score!

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Well, this was an awesome thing to wake up to this morning. The first chapter of Tough gets a review in Brian Cronin’s “Comics Should Be Good” column at Comic Book Resources.

I’ll admit, when I first saw the link on Twitter, my heart skipped a beat and no small amount of terror filled my heart. What would a mainstream comics reviewer think of my first efforts? And when I was actually reading the review, it was certainly strange to read about myself referred to only by my last name (as I am wont to do with other creators in my own reviews.)

But what did he think?

Well, check it out for yourself!

(And Brian will be reviewing LGBT comics for all of March, so be sure to check out his other Month of LGBT reviews. )

Oh, and stay tuned! I’ll have something new and exciting (and non-Tough-related) to share with you in a couple weeks! (And here’s a hint, it’s not just a pin-up.. It’s in full-color and there are words and characters and a plot and….)

Just a quick post to share some new art with you. While I’m waiting on art for “Brother’s Keeper” (just got the last penciled pages today!) and Artifice (which is so close!) to finish, I’ve started work on a superhero yaoi. That’s right: a superhero yaoi.

I’m working with DC/Marvel/Dark Horse penciler Adam DeKraker on this and he just sent me character designs for our two main characters: superhero Kyle and supervillain “The Annihilator”.

Check them out and let me know what you think in the comments!

Want to make sure you get the free download link to this comic when it’s finished? Well, it’s easy! Just fill out the form on the Free Comics page and the link will be sent right to you when it’s done! (And in the meantime, you get the first two completed chapters of Tough sent to you right now! That’s 70 full-color pages of yaoi goodness. Score!)

Enjoy reading articles like these? Don’t miss out! Get Yaoi 911â„¢ blog posts emailed right to you — for free!