The first collection of Station V3 strips is now available! An Experimental Space Pod Visits Station V3! is over 100 pages, with a few of the earliest strips, the strips from April to mid-October 2004, and some new material exclusive to the book. Could make a great gift for someone, or you might want to get it for yourself… and then there’s the deluxe “both” option!
Today’s first bonus is a sprite strip in which two rumormongers discuss novel writing, and the second bonus is a sketch in which Morty tries writing a how-to book.
As for my own progress, I’ve got a couple hundred words written and a vague idea of where the story might go. Which is probably about as far as I got last time I tried the NaNoWriMo bit, but this time I got there by the middle of the month instead of the end, so maybe I’m getting somewhere… And as for the other book (the first collection of Station V3 strips), I’m putting the final bits together and checking to make sure all the pages look right.
You may have noticed it’s been a little quiet here lately, apart from new strips still going up every day. Due to some computer problems last month, I’ve switched operating systems (to Linux), and put in a new hard drive. Fortunately, this hasn’t affected the update schedule here (or at the other strips in the “V3 universe”) – the first thing I did was get the scanner and printer working, and the GIMP works as well as any of the programs I was using before. Also fortunately, I didn’t lose any data along the way, but it did delay work on the Station V3 book, which is a little frustrating, since it was very close to being done. At this point I can start getting back in to finish work on it – It looks like I may have a few formatting issues to work out with the different program (OpenOffice) I’m using now, but hopefully it’ll be ready soon.
In other book news, The Kid’s Book Project is almost done, with all the pages in.
In other other news, November is National Novel Writing Month – I’ve signed up at nanowrimo.org, since what’s one more thing not to have time for? 
And finally, I’ve put up two new voting bonus sketches today – in the first one, a book is being written, and the second one is a preview of what might happen once V3’s crew gets their new replacement station. Thanks for voting!
The Kid’s Book Project is close to being done – 50 webcomic artists (including me) making a story where they only see the page before theirs (working from the front) or the page after (working from the back), and some lucky artist gets to tie the two parts together. It’s down to the last 10 artists, and should be coming out in December. It’s £6 plus shipping (US price with shipping currently works out to $17.50 or so), and the proceeds go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
In completely unrelated news, today’s bonuses: A bad translation of today’s strip, and a sprite strip in which two rumormongers discuss the Rumormonger Idol reunion.
And speaking of rumormongers – for any webcomic artists reading this, Get a Rumor!
The first Station V3 book will be available this month. (Not last month, as I’m sure some of you have noticed…) I’m making a few more changes to it, and adding a few more pages of new material. So when it does come out, it’ll be that much more enjoyable!
To get the month started on the voting lists, there are two news bonuses up today: At TopWebcomics, the Rumormonger Idol reunion special continues, and at buzzComix, a rumormonger discusses the simulation tournament with one of the monsters. As an added incentive (bribe?), if V3 makes it to the Top 40 on either list this month, I’ll add another desktop image to download to this page. Vote early, vote often!