Just wanted to wish all JEFBOT readers, friends and family a Happy Thanksgiving. A couple of the biggest things I’m thankful for this year are (finally) getting JEFBOT up and for having an audience who comes to the site and reads the strip, which makes doing it so much more fun than if I were just drawing it for myself. Special thanks to those that have left a comment or emailed me with feedback letting me know what they thought about the strip or the website. I truly enjoy getting these responses and it gives me a little thrill whenever I see a new comment has been posted.

So thanks everybody! Eat lots of food and drink, hopefully with loved ones and family, and with any luck I’ll be here next year giving thanks for a whole 2008s worth of strips. I’m sure you all have lots to be thankful about this year, too. If nothing else, be thankful Hagryphus giganteus, the 75 million-year-old prehistoric turkey who stood 7 feet tall and could run over 25 mph, won’t be dining with you this year, as the turkey in that case would definitely be stuffed. With human. *insert scream here* Happy Thanksgiving!

Congratulations to the winners of the Free JEFBOT T-Shirt Contest II, and a big thank you to everybody who sent in an entry!

It was an interesting group of winners - we had our first one from outside the USA, we had two “Pauls,” and we had a return winner from the first contest whose husband also won (what are the odds!?)! Oh, and if that sounds like too many winners, it’s because, swept up in the chaotic fun of randomly picking the winners, my mom decided to donate an extra shirt to the contest (thanks, mom!).

Without further ado, here are the champions, my friends:

General Contest Winners
• Paul, Dracut, MA
• Paul Zeidman, San Francisco, CA
• Kurtis B., Northridge, CA

Mailing-List-Peeps-Only Contest Winner
• Kellee B., Northridge, CA

Bonus MOMbot T-shirt Winner
• Shan M, Ottawa, Canada

I was on the phone recently for an interview with Bryan Mashinter of Just Another Game Site. Check out the transcription of it by clicking here: justanothergamesite.com.

Videogames have been a huge part of my life since I first discovered an old Pong-playing console in a closet of my parent’s house when I was a kid. As you can surmise from many a strip, they still play a big part. So when Bryan contacted me about possibly doing an interview for his site, I jumped at the chance. What ensued was an epic, 2 hour conversation about videogames and the JEFbot webcomic, which Bryan has thankfully distilled into more manageable chunks, the first part of which can be found here.

If you’re a videogame fan (I know there are a lot of you readers who are), bookmark the Just Another Game Site. In addition to Bryan, whose reviews I’ve found I can trust, it also has a very enthusiastic staff posting reviews, comments and opinions about videogames, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

JHorsley3, a fellow webcomic guy and winner in the Rad JEFbot T-shirt Contest a couple months back, made creative use of his new tee by including it in his webcomic, Y2CL! His strip’s hard to describe, but it’s often gory, random, funny, shocking, NSFW, zombietastic and bizarre. The strip jefbot appears in is a standalone one and outside the main continuity, but you should still get a kick out of it, especially if you’re familiar with those “stick figure” webcomics out there. Check it out by clicking here and tell JH3 I said, “hi!”

And if you’d like to “keep warm, in style” by wearing your own JEFbot tee, click on over to the botSHOP.

Just wanted to let you guys know that my webcomic partners-in-crime over at SubCulture recently released a trade paperback titled, appropriately enough, SubCulture: the TPB, collecting their four-issue SubCulture comic mini-series. Written and drawn by the same amazing team that does the webcomic, my buddies Kevin Freeman (writer) and Stan Yan (artist) have created a book that’s a must for fans of the strip and of geek culture in general.

Although at first you might think you’re reading a typical “Beauty and the Geek” type story, you’ll soon find that the girl, Noel, is no typical beauty, and the guy, Jason, is no typical geek. Noel’s a somewhat snobbish, avant-garde artist, who looks down on “the mainstream” and is new to the whole “fanboy” scene (and the neighborhood). Jason’s a guy who, although he loves reading comics and playing videogames, hasn’t entirely embraced his inner geek. In fact, that’s one of the things I liked most about the book – it doesn’t blindly embrace the geek lifestyle of many of its characters, and isn’t just a bunch of Star Wars references and D&D jokes. In fact, in many cases it casts a critical eye on this behavior, most notably when Noel and Jason head down to the “Super Con” with his comic store friends. When Noel starts lashing out at all the costumes, adolescence and testosterone on display on the convention floor, it only seems especially harsh because of the truth behind the words. 

So how does it all end up with this seemingly mismatched pair? Can they reconcile their differences and make it work? Is Noel’s artwork just too “out there” for Jason? Will Jason’s geeky roommate and friends down at the local comic shop ruin it for him? Well, you’re gonna have to read the book to find out. And with Kevin providing the great dialogue and story, and Stan providing the visuals that continue to impress me twice a week at SubCultureComic.com, it’s worth buying the book to see what happens.

Now’s a great time to buy, too, since they’re having a sale on the book right now. Go check out your options here (they have a regular edition and a signed-and-numbered edition). And while you’re there, check out the SubCulture webcomic if you’re not reading it already, since if nothing else, you just know the characters have impeccable taste in clothes and webcomics, as evidenced by this strip.