Most notably there’s a brand new Facebook page for Optipess. This replaces the old group thing on there, the biggest difference being that this one will actually be updated! At the very least I’m running a magical RSS import script that notifies you of every new strip (when it works as advertised, I should note), but there’s also a chance other news and semi-important messages will appear here. And maybe later some exclusive comics? Who knows!

Also, even less formal and basically bordering on the completely mundane, I’m also on the micro-blogging sensation site “Twitter” which you may have heard of already. Here I will inform you of what I just ate for breakfast or the current color of my socks. Oh, and the existence of new comic strips will also be tweeted about along with other comic-related events. Such as my excitement if I discover a new Photoshop shortcut key, for example. Thrilling!

PS: In addition to these, I’m also present on other more or less “social” music sites such as Last.fm and RateYourMusic, which may or may not be of interest, probably depending on how good your taste in music is.

Ok, now back to drawing tomorrow’s comic!

And to make matters even more uncanny, I seriously contemplated calling in sick to work today – as I felt pretty awful – but decided against it when I realized that I always do. Well, I guess that’s not really uncanny, just… sad.

Anyway, I hope you found this amusing as well, whether you’re at work or at home wrapped under a blanket watching Oprah reruns.

Hopefully most of these get the intended emotion across, and if they don’t – my excuse is that I pretty much had to look up a few of these words in a dictionary. Either way, a fun wholesome game for the entire family can be played if you cover the words below each image and try to guess the correct description based on the drawing. So gather your parents and grandparents for some festive fun cramped together on the couch! Once completed, you can go right back into your regular Christmas schedule of fighting and screaming. Oh, and if you’re a comic creator yourself, or even if you’re not, an empty template to doodle on is located here.

Also, with some luck there should be a new comic strip later this week, but unfortunately I seem to have caught some sort of nasty cold. Basically I feel most like the expression in the lower right corner at the moment (lower left corner is how I’d like to feel), so I guess we’ll have to see if I feel up to some drawing later.

• The first 15 Optipess comics were made within a few weeks of spring 2007 to meet the deadline to a comic strip contest run by Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet. Of these, only five have been posted on this site; Amazing Superpowers, Bomb Threats, An Epiphany, Stopwatch and The End.
• Optipess did not win the aforementioned contest or anything, but I was quite pleased to rank in the top 25. As a result of this a select few of my early strips were even featured in an art gallery exhibition during the summer of 2007.
• 44% of these first 100 strips featured someone dying. This proves that death is quite hilarious in most cases.
• 48% were pantomime, i.e. without speech bubbles. This is interesting to me since my very first strips were very focused on having text-boxes accompanying each panel. Eventually it dawned on me that a “show, don’t tell” approach would be a better way to go.
• 14% are without the glasses guy, whose character design more or less is based on me. Actually, Optipess was first intended to be a personal journal comic of some sort, but I decided against it when I realized that truly interesting events in my life are very few and far between.
• There are actually 102 strips posted on this site. The odd ones out are the very first Optipess comic and the excellent guest strip by reader Mico.
• 15% are in an “alternate style”, where I basically tried to experiment in other styles than the usual cartoony look. I can’t tell if these attempts were successful, but at least they were fun to do.
• Only 6 strips were sketched and inked with traditional media, the rest are completely digital. All strips were colored digitally, except one.
• According to Google Analytics, Optipess.com has been visited 266 253 times since December 1st 2008, ranking up 774 680 page views — which probably are the same numbers Penny Arcade get in one day.
• The top 3 most viewed strips are Jason, Friend of the Butterflies, Support Groups and The Microwaveman.
• Top 3 referrers to Optipess.com have been StumbleUpon, Reddit and IsItFunnyToday.
• Weirdest search terms leading traffic to my site are probably “Ape Escape porn comics”, “one leg pelvic thrust” or “zlorx”.
• Most site visitors are not surprisingly from the United States, with Canada and United Kingdom trailing behind. Norway is in 5th. At the bottom of the list we have less awesome countries such as Vanuatu, Burkina Faso, Libya, Gabon and Kazakhstan.

Ok, that’s it. Thanks for reading these first 100 comics, and hopefully you’ll stick around for a hundred more!

The Bad Chemicals by a guy named Brent and his bulldog Junior is a dark and hilarious depiction of life in America, complete with pretty colors and huge triangular noses. Much like the equally excellent Pictures for Sad Children, The Bad Chemicals also features somewhat simplistic drawings that in the end adds to the humor, making it all the more funnier. Especially the consistently sad eyes all the characters are sporting make every twisted scenario even more tangible, heartwrenching and hilarious.

Haiku Comics by brothers Nathan and Robert Olsen does not only exactly what the title promises, fusing haikus and comics together, but also features aliens, a lot of vampires, and literally a ton of zombies of every variety — even zombie babies. I’m loving the half-tone look of the art by Nathan which works wonderfully coupled together with the words by Robert, succeeding in elevating Haiku Comics to something truly unique and refreshing in the webcomics scene.

Sin Titulo by Cameron Stewart is the only long-form comic of this roundup, coming across like a combination of the intriguing storytelling technique of LOST, and the surreal and twisted reality of a David Lynch movie. Stewart teases the readers excellently with every new page, always keeping them guessing where the story may turn. Actually, the week-long (and lately even longer) wait between each installment may become too much for most, though. Here’s hoping the entire story, once completed, will be compiled in a book available for purchase – so that Sin Titulo can be called a “page-turner” both figuratively and literally.

Space Avalanche hails from Ireland, where creator Eoin Ryan presents his hilarious random mashup jokes, ranging from this classic setup with a brilliant twist to numerous Star Trek strips that will have both fans and non-fans alike in stitches. The pop-culture references are frequent, but rarely too obscure, giving the comic a vibe similar to both The Perry Bible Fellowship and Truck Bearing Kibble. Highly recommended!

Maybe you know someone who loves dogs, cats, chickens, birds or zombies? Or perhaps they’re in love, or falling out of it? Either way, with this plan in motion every person on this planet should know about Optipess within the day!

GASP… at the overly ludicrus attention to unessential detail!
MARVEL… at the razor-sharp accuracy and blazing speed of the inking process!
SHUDDER… at the obvious frustration with the third panel, culminating in offensive swearwords!
ROCK OUT… to the tones of Icelandic post-rockers For a Minor Reflection!
LAUGH… at the realization that this entire process in real time is something like 10-12 hours total!

The making of an Optipess comic strip from Kristian Nygård on Vimeo.

Please share this video with your artist friends so they can learn how to NOT make a comic strip!