Holiday Singalong 2018

QUICK VERSION:

The 8th annual Christmath parody, "Sequenced", can be found at this link.

AUTHOR ASIDE:

Before this past weekend, I hadn't done any drawing for over 6 months. There's been a few reasons for that.

(1) The most recent post here (the one ending Series 9) went up the same day my daughter was born. (Obviously I had it queued up in advance; the little one was induced and arrived in the wee hours of the morning.) So the new family dynamic's been taking up a lot of my time.

(2) My serial site also finished its reruns late that June, and thus what time I've had for writing has been focussed there, cranking out a new part every two weeks based on audience votes. (Four votes is about average, if you want to feel like your vote matters somewhere.) Another priority has been putting effort into "Time Untied", the sequel time travel story for that site, in particular this past November. Oh, and I contribute monthly to The Time Travel Nexus.

(3) I got a Wacom tablet as a gift last May (along with "Painter Essentials 6"), and thought I might start going digital. But my Mac OS hadn't been updated, to the point where even trying to download the current version wouldn't install, and of course it was incompatible with said tablet. Which was another thing to deal with.

I got that last sorted out in mid-September... which incidentally broke "Final Cut Express", so doing videos is going to be problematic going forwards. Also, September was when I was back at work, and so I had no time to play around. I FINALLY started tooling about with it only two days ago, Dec 23rd. I think I have a sense, but obviously ended up hand-drawing and scanning for this update (on the 23rd/24th), as per my usual.

So that's me and my comic, how're things with you?

It's worth mentioning that I'd actually had a couple of students involved with the school holiday assembly ask if I'd be performing again this year, and a few other students make similar inquiries later on. I said I would, and FWIW this year's song parody was mostly completed on Sunday, December 16. I got positive feedback after the fact too. I guess the parody is entrenched in tradition now.

Will there be any updates in 2019? I honestly don't know. I might try doing a few one-shot panel updates. A lot of this stuff does depend on whether there's actual interest out there for it (you'll notice I stopped doing videos even before my new OS broke "Final Cut Express"). So let me know. 

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and hope you have a wonderful New Year.

Here's a rundown of the past 8 years, with the newest song as the last link:

(2011) "Decimal" (tune of "Deck the Hall")
One of my earlier math parodies. Not much to say about it.

(2012) "A Squared Song" (tune of "Jingle Bells")
The year of my most prolific songwriting, and the first one I performed at a school assembly.

(2013) "O Factor Tree" (tune of "O Christmas Tree")
Also one performed at an assembly. Again, not much to say.

(2014) "Polar Plot" (tune of "Let It Go")
My web serial had folded by this point, but I went all out for the performance. Created a video to go along with both versions of the tune. As of today, four years later, the Idina Menzel version (played at the assembly) has managed 94 views on YouTube.

(2015) "Like a Bell" (tune of Pachelbel's Canon)
My web comic had stared up by then. The assembly was scaling back though, I would have been the only video performance, so I tried without a video. It didn't go that great; bad year to experiment. Someone (a teacher?) prompted people to wave phones back and forth though, so that made it into the video when I did finish it. It presently has 53 views.

(2016) "Do We Have a Square Here?" (tune of "Do You Hear What I Hear?")
I'd largely shied away from religious themed music, but I was on leave from teaching, so gave it a try. No performance (I did go back to the school to watch the assembly) but there was a video, which presently has 36 views.

(2017) "Triangles Rock" (tune of "Jingle Bell Rock")
I was coming off a comic hiatus in part due to medical leave. A colleague asked me if I was doing a performance, and I tentatively put my name forward. I printed out a bunch of lyric sheets this time (no video made at all), and it went well enough to get a mention in the Yearbook.

*(2018)* "Sequenced" (tune of "Sleigh Ride")
I talked about this one above. Hard to believe it's been eight years. Hope you enjoy.