I was up til 3.30 am finishing this and then my mum told me to go to bed. There are so many things wrong with this I do not even know where to begin. I am looking at a flat tomorrow and I think I will take it even if the bed is made out of live rats. Orthopedic!

Part of the reason it took so long was that I dithered for a long time about potential careers for my maze monster. You can see one of the alternatives to panel 6 if you go and vote. I'll leave it up to you to decide which is funnier.

I have a feeling those last 3 panels took away rather than added. I need to learn: less is more. In particular, less work is more sleep.

The more observant among you might have noticed I've gone back to hand lettering with this strip; this is because, against all common sense, it actually seems to take me longer to letter the comics on the computer. I don't really understand how this is possible (it probably largely stems from the fact that I don't really know how to use photoshop), but since I like to sleep more than 5 hours a night, and it looks nicer like this way anyway I guess I am going to go back to hand-lettering for good. Hooray for hand-cramps!

And now for some EXCITING NEWS: the NEW SHIRTS are now available in the shop! I went for green and black for the heart shirt in the end (dark green for boys and army green for girls because those were the best out of the colours available), and red for the shoes. I hope I have not offended too many people with my reckless hue selections.

I've been feeling a little weary lately, so I opted to just do a very quick (i.e half-arsed) comic last night, to tide me over until I can get a bit more sleep. Hopefully I'll get some for christmas.

I hope to have this christmas special wrapped up before the big day, but that means I'll be doing all large-size strips for the next two weeks. And at around 6 hours a strip that's going to mean a lot of lost sleep. Why do I do it? Gah, ask me again when I've had some more sleep.

I've tried doing a re-useable background in this strip to save time, and I took the lines out of it so it's easier to read against the foreground action. What do you think? The only annoying bit is that no matter how I position it I always ends up interrupting the foreground somewhere (like the top of the snowman's hat lining up with the top of the fence in panel 1. Tsk!). I'll keep practicing.

What's this? Two completely finished comics in a row? And finished before 2am too? It can't possibly last!

The festiveness is almost unbearable.

In order to fit in all the christmas adventure goodness before the big day there are going to be TWO more updates this week, one on thursday AND one on friday. I hope you are enjoying it!

Oh! Do you have something that you would like the internet to see? Over at the main Beaver and Steve website I am trying out a new advertising program, and you could have your banner appearing right at the top of the page for just a few pence per day. It's would be seen by lots of people (on a good day the site gets over 10,000 visitors) and best of all, the more people who are interested in the space the more its value increases, so everybody wins! If you do think you've got something you'd like to advertise you can go here to place a bid.

Gah - it always seems like I am trying to get you guys to stump up money for t-shirts or books or something. I am not really as money grubbing as I come across! But somewhere, in my furthest most wildest dreams, I would actually like to do this for a living someday, and evry time I sell a t-shirt it makes me think that maybe, just maybe, it would be possible. But until then ... I should probably get back to work.

Oh, and to put you in the festive mood here is a picture of a moth drinking tears out right out of the eye of a sleeping bird:

Sweet dreams!

Here's your thursday update you lucky lucky people. Enjoy!