Comic Insurrection

[Ananda]

I'd like the username 'comicinsurrection' for my website and my email is anandaDOTstarATgmail.com.
I would like to use my site for a couple of comic projects I'm doing.  My main project is the comic story 'Shipwalk,' an adventure of friends who happen to live aboard humanities first biosphere spaceship several centuries after launch.  I will update this story arc once a week initially with the goal of moving to M-W-F updates once I get a large enough buffer of comics.  I also sketch/ink comics daily, some which I would like to showcase on my site as well.  Eventually, I would be housing other comics on my site, but those projects are too nascent to be relevant to my application.  I quite hate mucking about digitizing my 'old tech' drawings, so I've become quite adept at procrastinating by whatever means available.  I believe having a website needing updating constantly will motivate me to put in the time I need to become adept and regular with my digitization habits.  Not to mention; if I get a site here it will be a matter of my honor to update regularly, as my alliance with Xepher.net is based upon my agreement to do so. 
I participated in Hourly Comic Day 2013, mine is posted in the forum here: http://www.tencentticker.com/msgbrd/viewtopic.php?t=2618
Enjoy the comic I did yesterday.  It's the only one I can make small enough to attach to this post.  I also have the first Shipwalk, another daily comic and a couple of coloring sheets that are decently small that I'll try to finagle ways to post those here in the upcoming future.  A tiny portfolio, but it's what I have. 
I am asking for a challenge please!

[Ananda]

Here are the coloring pages attached to this post.  The beaver one is based on a photo by Steve at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Beaver.jpg.
This is a comic I drew the other day.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/47er8s34xdkzdld/crankypantsweb.jpg
This is the first two comics in Shipwalk.  I've just sort of plunged into all of this, so I was experimenting with drawing the stars initially.  She's looking at the same strip of stars the whole time in the first one.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/aa7hmldc375rilb/shipwalk00webnew.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2pu5vptrboo490d/shipwalk01web.jpg
I will continue to post more comics here as I finish making them web ready. 

[Xepher]

A few questions to start off with.

How long have you been regularly drawing (and how long for comics in particular?)

Do you have any galleries anywhere like deviantart, tumblr, or any other art site?

What's the longest running project you've worked on?

[Ananda]

How regular am I?
Although I've been drawing/painting/artsy-fartsying for my whole dang life, I believe the answer you seek is every day for the past year or so.  Well, almost every day.  I've been focused on comics specifically for the past six months, really flexing those strip a day muscles even when I'm not funny or motivated.  In addition for the past two months I've added sketching/inking a Shipwalk comic a week to my art routine.
Galleries?
I must admit to you that I am woefully old-tech with my art.  Although I have physical stacks of art floating all over the place, I despise trying to turn paper into electrons and have done tragically little of it.  This right here is my big digitization push.  And it's working already!  No matter what else happens, I come away from this experience with knowledge of the Curves dialog and the smudging tool in GIMP.  Speaking of, I changed Episodes 00 and 01 (and updated the links above) so the color is more consistent and pasted pieces aren't so obvious.  More ShipWalk:
Episode 02: https://www.dropbox.com/s/heftry2cb2vozhw/shipwalk02web.jpg.
Episode 03: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zihsqgmqr5skzp4/shipwalk03web.jpg
Episode 04: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6kn1tq6anviaeg4/shipwalk04web.jpg
Longest project?
When I was younger I went to Reed College, where one of the graduation requirements is to write a thesis your senior year.  So that there's a nine month project that doesn't relate to drawing at all.  'Fameworks and Tensegrities,' fine, dry reading material I once LaTex'd up for anyone interested and available on the web thanks to my excellent advisor.  Being a rather large project spread over the school year with a single deadline; I learned a lot about scheduling my time, creating my own deadlines, working out the unexpected on the fly, presenting my work to others, and the ferocious, stubborn tenacity that is inexorably intertwined with my will.
More recently....Well, I hope you'll indulge me and see the pojecticity of this!  I've lived on an intentional farming community for three years now.  We garden organically, almost two acres now.  Although we don't farm everything we eat, I haven't bought produce since I moved here.  I participate in the process all year round; from mid winter seed ordering and crop rotation planning, to starting starts and direct sowing seeds, to weeding and tending the crops, to cover cropping and amending the soil, all the way to canning and harvest season.  And then rinse and repeat for a whole new year of work and face stuffing! 
Harvest!  That right there's the whole reason I have a two month buffer of comics before I even I have a website.  I can tell you right now there's no way in sh*t I'll have time to draw then, but I'll have a whole little fleet of comic minions updating for me.  Alright, alright, I'll just set up some sort of auto-post thingy, but I'll still call them minions! 
Right now, this time of year, it's farmer vacation.  Doesn't mean the work stops, but we're pretty much only building the chicken coop right now, so I've got time, sweet precious time, to devote to some non food or money making endeavors.  Time to apply to xepher.net and set up a website! Yessssss!
Can you set up a website?
I know you'll want to ask and I want to get to the good questions.
I set up a few Drupal websites a couple of years ago.  I believe in me, but just in case my web skills rusted shut in the interim, I got my boyfriend to be my back up.  He can code me some straight html goodness in a matter of hours so I will be ready to set myself up with a website if I get in.

[Xepher]

So you live and work on a co-op? Next challenge question is this. Sell me (or anyone) on the idea! That is to say, why's it worth doing, what made you choose that lifestyle, etc.

[Ananda]

Here at the farm, food is the glue which binds us together.  Beyond farming much of our food together, we each cook a meal for the others once a week.  We tend to end up sharing three or four dinners weekly.  I have to tell you, having a few meals a week cooked for you is like a having a magic house.  I can work all day, then arrive home to a friend cooked meal filled with vegetables we all grew together.  Freaking Awesome!
Division of labor and resources among the many of us is a pretty great aspect of our life.  We work together to achieve many things greater than one could alone.  Recently we mixed at least a cubic yard of cement to pour our own cement pad for the floor of our new chicken coop, something we definitely needed many hands to accomplish.  I've never built a real building before, and I've gotten to be a part of each step of the coop, with the experienced farmers teaching us young backs the ropes.   
When it's time for vacation, we've got each other to care for the chickens and and the garden, tasks that are not easy to pawn off on on your neighbors or mom.  Something I never anticipated, but appreciate, is the built in pet sitting arrangement around here.  Our dog gets to stay here on the farm with her friends on her own turf when we go somewhere dogs can't come.  We all take care of each others pets, plants and houses while we're away.
Furthermore....um...yeah, well, seems to me, we're fracking up the earth pretty bad at this point.  I'm one of these first world citizens, you know, constantly trashing everything for some new tidbit of technology, some breaking taste sensation or one more titillating mile to drive over.  I'd like to spend at least part of my time here fighting the active destruction of this planet I share with seven billion other people.  I believe growing and preserving my own food is a victory to that end and I derive a deep sense of satisfaction in life from doing this.   
We eat so good and we'd feed you too.  Sharing meals with people is fun.  Although all this togetherness I speak of is awesome, I must bring up the space we share as well.  I believe it is particularly functional for us all to have separate dwellings, allowing each of us our private domains rule over. 
Finally, all this splitting of expenses and work we do keeps our cost of living very low.  This allows me the freedom to work part time, which gives me both the time and mental sprightliness to pursue my artistic endeavors. 
I feel like I could write an entire graphic novel about the benefits of living, working and feeding each other together.   Indeed, the way the people of Shipwalk live is very agrarian and communal, imagine that.   Well, I sure hope I condensed my vast idea into some post you can parse here.

And some more Shipwalk.
Episode 05: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qro45d2eu5zj2he/shipwalk05web.jpg
Episode 06: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ax3y7v1vpodj771/shipwalk06web.jpg
Episode 07: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gz1urpvciipmxy9/shipwalk07web.jpg

[Xepher]

Alright, you're in! You should have an email with login credentials and instructions. Please read/follow them, and let me know if you have any questions. Welcome Aboard!

[Ananda]

Thank you!