Write-O-Rama was a literary and financial success. We raised over $10K for a great cause. My friends and family came through in the pledges and showed some fantastic support.
11/25/09
Alrighty. So far I've been pledged $175.00 towards Write-o-Rama.
I'm hoping to see a lot more support coming soon. If there ever was a way you could encourage me to keep writing and earn some good tax-deductible karma, this is it.
Please, please, please -Support Richard Hugo House by clicking here. Just put PlanetHeidi in the designation field and fill out all the other necessary information.
11/19/09
I'm also once again participating in the Richard Hugo House Write-o-Rama. If you remember, last year I raised money for a good cause and did the rough drawings of what would become Tr0jan. This year, I've been honored by the House as a Write-O-Rama Laureate.
The Richard Hugo House is center for writers and readers that offers classes, youth programs, literary events, original stage productions, writer residencies and scholarships to the disadvantaged. There are only three organizations like it in the United States. It's a place of great love and support for those who love the written word, young and old. If there was no Hugo House, there never would have been a Heidi Hoffman.
In 2009, Hugo House served over 850 youth with creative writing classes and summer camps, and their scholarship fund awarded more than $13,000 to teen writers who would not have been able to attend their programs otherwise. Hugo Writers-in-Residence gave over 350 no-cost writing consultations to the public. And the Zine Archive and Publishing Project (ZAPP), which is the largest collection of handmade and small press periodicals in the nation, reopened in a bigger space upstairs. Those are just a few of the programs a donation will support.
Your gift is tax deductible as allowed by law and there are also donor benefits.
You can support us online by clicking here. Just put PlanetHeidi in the designation field and fill out all the other necessary information.
As things progress, I'll share some tidbits about the Heidi story I'll be writing during Write-o-Rama. Last year, as some may recall, I penned Tr0jan.
11/01/09
With the end of Act Three, I'm going to give my drawing arm a break
for a while. There's been a lot going on in my life lately,
including some health issues and a major household move, so I need a
little respite from drawing 12 hours a week. I can assure you, the
whole story is written from start to finish. It's the illustration
and coloring that is so time-consuming.
In any case, it doesn't mean that things will be totally dead here. I
plan to do a few Author's posts on the writerly process of creating
Heidi and flesh out some of her inspirational material.
Stay tuned.
7/23/09
Back from vacation. Disneyworld and Savannah were fantastic. Updating will resume this Sunday.
Remember, if you're ever fixing for a Heidi update there's always Tr0jan. It's also a great way to show your support (which will encourage me to update faster).
7/13/09
Wow, I am wiped. Last last weekend, Toorcamp. Then pack it up and fly to Florida so this past weekend, we could do Disneyworld with a 2-year old.
This is an new fully-illustrated Heidi short story. It takes place several years after the current story line, which means this Heidi is even smarter, wiser, and more confident than the current girl we all know and love. This book was designed from the ground up as a tangible comic book, with the proper layout and design work done to match a paper medium not a web client. Like the web,it's full-color (which sadly drove up the price) and on high-quality paper.
If you ever wanted to show your support for the site, please consider purchasing it. The small amount I make off each sale helps defray the hosting cost for planetheidi. If you're looking to introduce others to Heidi, this is also a great way to do that as this story stands alone from the other Heidi adventures. You'll find the story full of twisty little plot turns and interesting twists (beginning on page one). As always, I had a lot of fun putting this comic together and I hope you enjoy it.
Buried in the credits of Heidi book 1 (and also in the foreward to the paper version) is the following acknowledgement to the women who inspired Heidi. I thought I'd write about the biggest influence on Heidi, and not coincidentally the first name on this list.
I met GG back in the early 80's in my first computer science class as a freshman. It was a weed out class, a tough large lecture class on algorithms where they threw you into the deep end. With minimal instructions, we had to figure how to login and navigate a command-line system (MPE), find and learn a text editor (no up down cursor controls), and generally fight with the Pascal compiler. This was a weed out class and you needed an B or better to move on. Only about ten percent of the class made it. It was a big class of hopeful computer programmers with a male-female ratio of maybe five to one.
To survive the class, I spent a few nights a week in the terminal room (open 24x7) tanning myself in the glow of a Vt100. That is where I got talking to talking to a fellow classmate, GG.
The first thing she showed me was the the other thing in the terminal room, the Plato system and it's online multiplayer gaming system. Sure, I had met girl computer users before, but GG was the first hard-core one I'd met. The first who made me feel like a newb, not just in technical skillz but in online culture. She led me in some of my earlier explorations of Bitnet and taught me a lot about how systems worked and where they didn't (ahem). She was also deep into InfoCom games, so we often discussed puzzles and solutions between coding sessions.
Okay, let me head off a distracting concern some might have. I'm male, she's female. We were not romantically. I never really thought of her that way. She just wasn't my type (and I don't what that means either since I did date geek girls later in life) My attraction to her was entirely about a kindred geek spirit. She was simply smart, creative, curious, and technically experienced.
We progressed on in the CS program (we both passed the weed out class). She got a terminal operator job at a large bank and one of her duties was running reports to chase down credit card fraud. She helped bust a couple of people.
After a few years, our little community of hackers splintered into factions around rival BBSes and online flame wars. Though we never disagreed with each other directly, GG and I ended up on opposing sides of a particularly nasty schism that ended with the police getting involved in a hacking investigation (no arrests, they had no idea how to treat us back then). After that, we all kind of parted ways and lost touch.
I haven't seen her since the late 80's. She may have gone on to be a dot-com success story or a helluva CIO. She was never one to self-promote or call attention to herself, so who knows? She wasn't a genius hacker, or a particularly gifted innovator. Just a keen, bright techie. The whole male/female thing never really came into play - we were all just geeks. Her confidence and whatever attitude formed the foundation for my writing of Heidi. There are times when I'm writing when I can hear her in my head. And that makes me smile.
2/1/09
Back.
Yep, back from my little break. And what a special chapter this one is. In case you didn't read these notes before, maybe you didn't realize that I write out the entire story before drawing a single panel.
So when I put together the concept of the Cxor worm, it was way back in early 2004. Strangely enough, I thought I had come up with a new kind of
killer exploit that would be revolutionary and scary - an exploit that was delivered via image files. Well, a few months later, reality caught up with me.
Then I had to come up with a worm that was going to cripple the Internet... a massive bot-net.
The FBI would be baffled as to how to stop it and who to blame. Sadly, this has already come true... a couple times already.
This story was written before Storm and certainly before Conficker.
At the time, over a million infected computers in a botnet was terrifying. Now we're up to what... 15 million?
There's one more crazy concept I came up with for this worm, which you'll see play out in chapter 12. But it too has already become reality since I wrote this.
Sigh, life in the Internet age really is murder.
We just need a few more real world Heidis.
12/28/08
A little break.
With the end of Chapter 11, I'm going to take a little break from updating. I've still not fully caught up on things from the system crash
a couple months ago, plus it's the holidays, a lot has gone on at work, and this whole Seattle Snow-storm-o-doom has really mucked things up.
I'd also like some time to finish up Tr0jan.
So consider us on holiday until Feb 09. For many of you, it's a chance to catch up on the story anyway. Don't worry, we'll be back.
12/8/08
Write-O-Rama Written
Yes, Write-O-Rama is over and it was a blast.
I got 20 pages of sketches done (sample below)
It was an immense amount of fun to spend some time up at the Hugo House, visiting the classroom where Heidi was born. I also spent an hour and took a fantastic little workshop with David Lasky which was a lotta fun.
Thank you to those of you who donated to sponsor me in Write-O-Rama. The House came within 90% of making our fundraising goal for the event. Not bad considering the impending doom of the Financiapocalpyse. Secret bonus: All Write-O-Rama donors will get FREE COPIES of the Tr0jan comic book when it comes out. (and it will be only offered in paper form).
Oh, and I had a birthday too. Write-O-Rama was my special gift to myself. So thanks again to all who helped it.
11/25/08
Survey says...
I need to tell an additional Heidi story. Luckily, I had the very thing in mind.
As a writer, I was very interested in telling the story of the process of "hard boiling" the private detective. It also gives me a chance to make Heidi more like us... emotional, careless, fallible and very human. The current Heidi web-graphic novels chronicle Heidi's "origin story" and how she becomes the fully capable private eye that you've come to expect in detective fiction. However, I've also been itching to tell some stories showing Heidi as the full fledged detective. Well, I'm doing it. I've got a Heidi short that's been sitting in draft form that I've been dying to illustrate. But I've also decided to design and release it as a paper comic. A bit about what I mean by that.
When I first conceived of Heidi as a web comic, I didn't want to take a comic strip and whap into a web page. Having to read a comic from left to right in a series of little frames seemed stupid. Why retrofit an old medium into a new one? So, inspired by Scott McCloud's infinite canvas, the web comic layout goes down, taking a decent portion of the screen with no clutter. If you hadn't noticed, clicking on an image automatically advances you to the next frame. So basically, I made it as easy to read as possible, with nothing in the way. It's also why I haven't released any of the web comic in graphic novel form. I'd have to rethink my layout and design from scratch. Tough work for a kid who raised on Will Eisner and aspires to his fantastic use of the page. So, this new story will be designed for paper... and not for the web.
To make it all the more interesting and inspiring to me, I will be returning to Heidi's birthplace to finish this story. On December 6th, I'll be working on the story at the Richard Hugo House Write-O-Rama, a writing marathon to raise funding for the literary arts center.
So, get ready for a new Heidi short story, Tr0jan. One set in current times. If you check the Heidi timeline, you can see it's already been accounted for in the plan.
Now, the best way to encourage me to finish and publish is to sponsor me in Write-O-Rama. All you gotta do is hit the link and pony up whatever you like. Under "Designation" type "Write-O-Rama" and under "Dedication" type in "Planet Heidi". All proceeds go to the Richard Hugo House.
11/22/08
The Heidi survey
While you're waiting for the next chapter to post, I invite you to fill out the Planet Heidi survey.
Just a short series of questions I'd like to know about to improve your Heidi experience.
Click to take the Planet Heidi survey
11/02/08
Why is it the only time I update lately is delivery news of delays? Could be the kid and my Real Life consume all available time. Hey, at least I'm still updating the webcomic with some kind of regularity.
And speaking of... I've had a recent computer crash. Bad. I'm now working on a brand new MacBook (yes, I love it, thank you very much) but this definitely will delay updates downstream. Combine that with the holidays and a very large audit at work, and you can expect chapter 11 to be a week or two late. Sorry.
The good news is that I'm hoping the new machine will help me with my artwork. Yeah, maybe the Heidi drawings will look less sloppy and hastily whipped out (which of course, they are). We'll see how it goes.
Last bit of news - my author email has been jammed up for months. Sadly, this has only come to my attention recently. Thanks to the folks at SpeakEasy, email is flowing smooth again. I welcome your comments, so fire me off some email. author@planetheidi.com.
7/13/08
No update this week. Busy with family and summer and stuff.
But here's a splash screen from your desktop.
For those of you who are curious... yes, this scene is in the current book. Somewhere around Chapter 23. And that's all I'm saying.
5/7/08
To make sure I'm even further delayed in updating the comic and because I'm not spewing enough noise about security, I've started a security blog.
Unless you're a security geek, you probably want to steer clear. I plan to be voicing a lot of my true opinions, so maybe you want to steer clear anyway.
Bonus points if you can spot the Zork joke in there.
If you don't get it, then you're not geeky enough.
3/9/08
So much being written about Gary Gygax's death. I'd blogged a bit elsewhere, but I feel the need to write a little more.
D&D was a big part of my life early on as well. I started way back in 1979 on the first edition, which I still have.
I quickly progressed to the addictive job of dungeon-mastering. No doubt, those DM-skills are directly responsible for much of my writing hungers.
Why do you think it's called Planet Heidi? It's an alternate world and every book, Heidi faces a deadly new dungeon.
And speaking of Heidi, here's an ironic preview from chapter 6.
Ironic because I wrote what is now called book 2 and chapter 6 a couple of years ago. Yes, Heidi will be facing off against D&D players soon.
But it's release will appear to be timely. I didn't mean it that way, but it's inclusion is there because as all the news articles you're reading say, D&D and Internet geeks go hand and hand.
12/6/07
Wow, long time no update. Sorry, all I can to keep the comic flowing.
So, tomororow is my birthday. I'm uh... older. Big older. Oh well. But with the baby (she just settled down for the night as I type this)
and just hitting my six month mark at my new job... it's been a time of reflection.
Last night I started reading Craig Thompson's Carnet de Voyage which I'm liking even more than Blankets. His artwork is nothing short of miraculous. So amazing that the artwork conveys the story far more than words or plot. Now that is a true comic artist. Makes me feel like a hopeless plodder. I mean, same league? Heck, I'm fantasy baseball compared to him. Yeah, I know I'm not much of artist. I am conciously trading off quality for quantity, so I can blast out the story as fast as I can. And yeah, it feels like an excuse to be a sloppy artist.
Then I of my other talents. I make very good living as a security professional. I've had some wonderful opportunities in the field, respect of enough of my peers, have fun doing it and most importantly at this stage of the game - earn enough money to support wife and child.
But when I see Craig's work... well. I think: would I trade for his talent? Last night, I thought maybe.
Then again, there's the sheer joy of writing Heidi. And the fun we're going to have with her in this adventure. All of it inspired by things that have happened in my career. Things I wouldn't give up for nothing.
Yeah. Okay. Sorry, just deal with the primitive art. I know I'll slowly get better over time. Or at least faster.
PS: August says "hi" to everyone.
9/27/07
Yes, The baby is doing fine. Thank you for asking.
Yes, we are back and starting a brand new adventure.
Yes, I didn't even bother with a teaser or video like in book one.
Yes, the format has changed, wider and fitting the screen better.
Yes, you can still click right on the image and jump to the next frame. No need to scroll.
Yes, I'm not giving estimates for the next scenes, but as you can see, I am going at about a scene a week.
Yes, this adventure is more suspenseful than book one. Not that you know all the players, the action will start sooner.
Yes, I haven't told you exactly how much time has passed from book one, but you can kinda guess. More clues coming.
Yes, you can still buy merch. Maybe I'll make some new designs.
Yes, you can always email me with questions, corrections, complaints and praise.
Yes, there are other forthcoming Heidi adventures coming... and not necessarily in comic form.
No, I can't draw or write any faster. But I'm trying.
8/11/07
August Elizabeth.
A girl. Not a geek girl. Yet.8/6/07
Book two delayed, baby coming earlier.
All the illustrations are done for Chapter one of book two. But our daughter decided she wanted to come about a month early.
So, expect a longer wait. Please be patient, because she isn't going to be. Of course, we'll be a bit tied up for a bit.
7/24/07
Yeah, I'm still alive. And I'm still drawing up the chapters for book two.
Where have I been? Where's book two? What's going on?
Alright, here's the deal.
The outline for book two is done. The manuscript is 80% done. The basic
character sketches are done. Some of the background art is done. And
scene one is 10% illustrated. So, I'm 30 to 40 hours away from
finishing the first chapter.
Y'know me, I want to make sure when I release, I do it in a way that
doesn't leave you hanging. Well, no more hanging than a week between
scenes. So, I prefer to have things all organized and ready to go.
And I'm not anywhere near that. Especially since book two is a long,
long, cliff-hanger of a story. I am committed to finishing it. Heck,
the story is burning to be told.
But...
My real life has been rather busy. One, I've changed job. Two, my
disabled father moved in with us until he gets settled in Seattle. And
three, my wife is 10 weeks away from giving birth to our first child.
Before you ask, it's a girl and I wasn't allowed to name her Heidi.
Anyway, I'm a little busy so it might be until early fall before you see
book two.
It's full of additional scenes, extra exposition and more explanations. If you loved the webcomic, then please show your support by purchasing the book. It's under ten bucks and pretty high quality printing. The real fun will be seeing the differences between the book and the web-comic. And yeah, there are some differences.
In the meantime, I'm back working on book 2. Enjoy!
When I was writing Lex Talionis, I did it in the modern fashion. That is, I took my laptop to coffee shops and wrote there. To help find my muse, I had the iTunes cranked with what I called the "Heidi mix". Featured prominently in that mix was The West Marginals, another group of artists spawned out of the Hugo House. If you cross-reference carefully, you'll find one of the WM's is thanked specifically in the credits of Lex Talionis. We worked together on the Surveillance Inquiry a few years back, where the first seeds of Heidi germinated.
The WM are now history, having gone their seperate ways. However, the music lives on at thier website. Their melacholy tunes match perfectly with the latter half of the book. I especially loved Well Fed as a theme to the Heidi-Peter relationship. Burning Fuel works well for Heidi's flight to Victoria. And Four Steps and Fall Down made me almost want to give Heidi a substance abuse problem.
4/21/2007
We're just beginning.
So yeah, I'm enjoying a little break from drawing 8-12 hours every week. But dont' think we're done yet. My editors have been working furiously to clean up the manuscript for the novelisation of HGGD, Lex Talionis. Expect it to be on sale within a month or so. It will feature "deleted scenes"and additional material. As the web comic was adapted from the novel, there will also be some slight differences in the stories.
In my copious free time (ha!), I'm putting the finishing touches on No One Knows You're a Dog. Expect to see some teasers and pics up soon. I plan to begin the "second" adventure in the Heidi series. (I say "second" because there is a Heidi prequel roughly laid out, which will appear as book four, SunDevil. I think ahead.) I plan to release new chapters sometime in mid-late summer.
Thanks again to some of the other securitygeeks as well a certain Amazonian for plugging the site. I appreciate any and all spreading of the word. And no, I do not plan to ever have advertising on here. Why add competition to visual clutter?
4/14/2007
Some background material.
Redid the info page, adding a new link to a cyber-crime section. The cyber-crime page gives you some of the stories that have been made public that inspired this novel. Warning - there are spoilers on that page.
4/11/2007
And we are done.
Thus concludes book one, Lex Talionis. Aka, the Heidi origin story.
My first novel has been translated into comic form. I will be releasing the novel in traditional novel form in a month or so. And then I'll begin work on the second Heidi adventure.
For those of you who have stayed with me for the whole ride: thank you. It's been even more fun for me. Again, I look to your feedback and e-mail. Especially when it comes to crafting further Heidi adventures.
Please, take this time during the lull in adventures to spread the word. Now that the story is complete, feel free to tell others to come check us out.
And stay tuned.
3/9/2007
This is it.
It all comes down to this.
You think you know all the answers? You'll find out now. One hint: The worst is yet to come
2/3/2007
Long time, no update.
Whew, I'd forgotten to put a note here for quite a while. Sorry about that. Hey, feel free to poke me with an e-mail if you've got a question or want me to post here more.
Thanks for being loyal readers and putting up with having to wait nearly an aching week between each updates. I know a number of you prefer to wait until I've built up a nice block of episodes and catch up all at once. Well, either way, I'm grateful for the time you spend here. As you can see, the story is wrapping up. Most of the big questions have been answered and Heidi's career is looking up.
A few notes on updates. I try to pace things at about a "weeks worth" of story. So that means if a scene is short, then I'll update more rapidly. If it's long, I might update in a week and change later. I also try not to leave things too cliff-hangary for you. Well, sometimes.
Shout out to the readers around the world. I can see you in my web logs and the countries listed just blow my mind. The Netherlands, Singapore, Germany, Portugal, Japan, South Africa, Norway, Israel and the UK. Wow. And of course, my friends up north in Canada (thanks for e-mailing). Of course, you can see part of our story takes place in your beautiful country. And yeah, lots of Heidi-lovers Down Under.
BTW, if you've never noticed... when you're reading the comic, you can just click directly on the panel and you'll auto-advance to the next panel. That way you don't need to use the scroll-bar or page down. It does it for you. I thought I came up with a nice innovation for webcomic user-interface but people don't seem to realize it's there. Well, it is.
Lastly, I'll mention this one more time again. The entire Geek Girl story has already been written, start to finish. It was done before I drew the first panel. So the way the plot unfolds has already been pre-determined. All your screaming and ranting won't change how things end.
If you feel need to rant or scream or shout out from your country, well... author@planetheidi.com
12/9/2006
Nearing the end
As you can see, we're bearing down on the final chapters of Heidi's story. She's heading towards the heart of the mystery and soon she will have answers. Now, it is the holiday season and I've already been pretty busy with family and work obligations. I've kept to my promised schedule and will hopefully that will continue. I just ask to bear with me as it takes me a while to draw up the exciting conclusion.
In the meantime, coming soon...
10/19/2006
A year of Heidi
It's been a full year since I got this story rolling. Honestly, I thought I'd be finished with it by now, but I guess I draw slower than I originally thought. The good news is the story is drawing towards it's conclusion. It's been quite a thrill watching the readership grow. In my writing studio, I have a big corkboard where I put things up relating to my writing projects. I've taken down all the rejection letters for the novel manuscript and replaced them with some your email and reviews. So keep them coming.
Thank you all again for spending the time to hear Heidi's story. I promise you, the best is yet to come.
9/23/2006
Next chapter begins Act 3
Please fasten your seat belts and secure all loose objects. Return your tray table and seat back to the upright and locked position. The author has advised us that we will be entering a region of severe turbulence shortly. In the event of sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will pop down from above. Thank you for your cooperation.
8/13/2006
Summer travelling
Doing some summer travelling for conferences and what-not, so I'm slowing the pace a little to just one update a week. Once I get back and get settled, we'll speed things up a bit more. In the meantime, don't forget the Heidi Store. 7/13/2006
Thank yous and some news
Special thank you to the GirlieGeeks. Heidi is proud to be an affiliate of your site. It just so happened that
today's scene includes a moment where Heidi has to surf the web, so I took the opportunity for a little shout out. It's a geek thing, baby.
I hope you all enjoyed the double-postings during last chapter's Scavenger Hunt. I was pretty beat doing all twice as much artwork. That said, I'm trying to pick up the pace in getting more updates out sooner. I know as the book hits the third act, the suspense is ratched up (as my teacher taught me to do). With this, I know the demand for more updates will also ratchet up. Sorry, when I wrote the thing, it was intended to be a paper novel... y'know, a page-turner. Now you gotta suffer with the waiting. Sorry.
At some point as we near the end, I'm going to consider putting up the novel version of the story... probably self-published and available at a marginal cost. The book is slightly different than the comic, but 95% the same as the comic. And of course, you can read it faster. If you think this might be of interest, shoot me an email and lemme know. I'm still weighing the possibilties. Here's a sample.
How many people noticed to the new font? I hope it makes things easier to read while still retaining the overall "Heidi" look to her thoughts and words. Font nerds will let you know the old font was Blambot's Chronicles of a Hero, and yeah, I loved the name. The new one is Blambot Pro and it was worth every penny.
Thanks again and keep an eye around you. And remember, Heidi is everywhere.
Mini-updates
Yeah, I know the RSS feed keeps getting messed up. Sorry bout that, I'm working on it.
This chapter features a rather long, hopefully exciting, sequence of events. Because of the cliff-hangary nature of the scene, I'll be updating twice a week.
In case you've been wondering, we're now at the half-way mark of the story. From here on out, things are going to get rather rough for Heidi. But she can take it.
I notice I have a lot of fans in Europe and would to love to hear from you.
And everyone else, feel free to e-mail me with any questions, comments, etc. I love to hear from readers.
4/29/2006
The new Heidi store
So I wanted some Heidi stickers and junk to give to my friends and family. Then I figured, what the heck? So we've opened a little Cafe Press store of Heidi Merch. Next thing you know, I was getting inspired to add a few things, like a "I am the network guy" bumper sticker and well... something very special coming soon.
In the meantime, check it out. If you like, order a thing or two.
3/26/2006
Misc updates
A smattering of things to say. First, apologies to the dialup users and the bandwidth-challenged. This scene is a monster. Normally I try to keep them down to 20 or 25 frames max, not only to lessen load-times but also to provide some relief for my sore drawing arm. Second, I'm not as tough as Heidi and thus have been lured back into the corporate world with promises of fabulous riches and accolades. With this rather large update I just posted and my new work responsibilities.... well, basically I'm saying I might slacken a bit in updating. I'll always try to keep the deadlines I set (never missed on yet), but expect those estimates to push out a little farther. I do promise the screws will continue to tighten for our heroine. And if you think you know what's really going on at PRB... well, just you wait. Heh.
What? Not enough you say? Okay, okay. How about two more Heidi wallpapers?
3/17/2006
Bonus scene
As I have mentioned before, this webcomic is adapted from a yet unpublished novel. In the process, I've had to condense and combine many scenes and chapters. I've also dropped a few scenes that weren't absolutely essential to moving the plot or the characters forward. One such scene that I decided to cut was a fun little sunday brunch moment between Heidi and Peter. In novel form, this comes across as a nice quiet moment for a few pages that the reader can blaze thru and get back to the story. In web comic form, it means you wait another week to get back to the action. I couldn't do that to you. But I do love this scene, so for those of you who care to read it, here it is:
I went to prison as a visiting author. It was pretty moving experience, so I was compelled to write an essay on the experience.
Prison essay 2/11/2006.
Botnet
It's a bit of a small news item but there's a good hacking story in the
news here. The best part of it to me were the players involved. The
victim, a hospital, could have had real casualties because of the hack.
The perpertrator wasn't after thrills but profit. This is the new face
of cybercrime. Lives at risk for profit to be made. Get used to it.
There's going to be more.
First of all, thank you to all of you who have written and expressed
your appreciation so far. Special thanks to Leigh (who will appearing
at notacon in April) who created a LiveJournal feed for us. If you're a LJ'er and want to quickly subscribe, you can just add to LJ friends to get your Heidi updates.
Second, Shout to Gypsy, who's recovering hopefully from the last bit of surgery she'll need forever. Get well girl.
Third, down to business: Several of the scenes in this chapter are
quite long. Long enough that they'd probably choke anyone on dial up
trying to load. Long enough to cramp up my arm drawing them. So, I'm
going to split a few of them in half. I'll put up the second half
shortly after the first, so's ya don't lose the story.
Enjoy the show.
1/3/2006.
Author appearance!
Unfortunately, you have to kill someone to get in. Literally. I've been invited to teach a writing class at
Monroe Correctional Complex as part of the Hugo House Prison program.
Ain't that a kick in the pants, Heidi in prison! I'm sure new ideas
will come out of this. In any case, it's a rare opportunity for a web
comic author to get and I'm jumping on it. Gabe and Tycho, eat your
heart out.
11/24/2005.
We have a new layout. I hope you all like the new site design. I was
hoping for something clean, simple yet included everything you needed
with nothing you didn't. I'm formatting everything to work best at
around 1024x768. Things should still look pretty good at sizes smaller
or bigger as well.
Thank you, Rebecca and Jana for helping with the site design.
11/8/2005.
"I am the Network Guy" was one of the suggested titles for this book,
but I figured it would be too confusing. I do love the title and that
first scene from Heidi's story. It's a shame that it's not entirely
fiction. When I sat down to write this story, I consulted with many of
my female geek friends. One of them (shout to Julie!) told me of a
recent incident that became the basis for "I am the network guy".
Despite having worked around female computer scientists (and my fair
share of lady hackers), I was a bit taken aback that such sexism still
existed in the field. Many of the women out there weren't. That said,
perhaps it's time for me to list a few relevant links:
The Escapist: "OMG Girlz don't exist on teh Inatarweb!!!!1"
As the story progresses, I'll probably put in some commentary and more
links to other questions and issues raised. Feel free to drop me an
e-mail and let me know how you feel. I might even answer you.
