Yes. There will be tentacles.

The CD packaging project I mentioned earlier has been on hiatus through the holidays – until all its text has been massaged and tickled to perfection – so in the meantime I’ve been working away at the future illustrations for The Lair of the Clockwork Book. By the time I have to switch back to the CD I hope to have lots of pages ready for you in the buffer. Well, I say lots; there are already enough illustrations done to see you through sometime in February, but I want as many done as I can manage by the time I have to switch projects again because that Clockwork Book buffer is an unforgiving beast… and these are mostly pretty challenging illustrations.

With all of that on my plate I haven’t had a chance to work on the serial that will follow The Lair of the Clockwork Book. In fact I’m so disappointed with my progress on the other story – Part Two of The Toaster With TWO BRAINS – that I’m certain that something is going to have to change in the near future; I’m just not positive exactly what is going to change, and how, or when. It’s a mystery.

I’m sure we’ll all find out what that means, eventually. But until then… at least we have tentacles.

You may not have any trouble believing it but I’m still amazed that with this picture – completed a couple of days ago – I’ve finished 100 illustrations for The Lair of the Clockwork Book. Just twenty-five more to go!

And neither one of us should be surprised that this is also pretty much the way I feel about that. Click it to embiggify.

Yep, I shifted the gears of my brain almost on time to return to the final illustrations for The Lair of the Clockwork Book.

I skinned my fourteen new semi-generic characters – very few of whom turned out to be generic – to their skeletons. I wish I had thirty or forty of them, but when all’s said and done it’s just me here in the Secret Laboratory and, well, I sleep sometimes. I’m not sure what’s causing that.

To further complicate things I’m now working on a CD packaging project for Leslie Fish‘s upcoming Avalon is Risen, from Prometheus Music. I’m happy to be doing some Celtic knotwork on the side again but it’s also a pleasure to do because it’s been twenty-five years, somehow, since I did the cover and illustrated songbook for Leslie’s Cold Iron. It’s nice to see the old neighborhood again.

But as you might expect that makes my schedule for the next month or so even more exciting than it was before.

I’ll be finishing the last couple of dozen Clockwork Book illustrations in this phase. Once those are done I really do have to do some re-evaluation of how Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual is running my life – I love working on the stories, and a serial is a necessary part of the site, but the serial’s inflexible schedule has made it very hard for me to complete Part Two of The Toaster With TWO BRAINS which – for those of you who remember – was the main focus of Thrilling Tales in the beginnning.

I wouldn’t want to have a hiatus before the next serial starts; but that’s one of several things that could happen once The Lair of the Clockwork Book concludes. And I have some format changes in mind for the next serial.

It may have longer updates that come just once a week, for example, and what I have planned for those updates won’t fit so well into the existing layout of the site. So whatever happens I’ll have a lot to do before you even see the final page of the Clockwork Book. One way or another I just have to be able to set aside the time to work on TWO BRAINS, not to mention any other freelance jobs that come in. And somewhere in there I’ll be laying out the print version of The Clockwork Book, too.

So the short version (too late!) is that The Lair of the Clockwork Book is headed toward completion, although it’s sharing my days with the CD project; that I’ll have at least as much to do while those pages play out for you; and that my serial schedule has been playing hell with TWO BRAINS and everything else. Film at eleven.

For today only – in what may be a misguided celebration of Pearl Harbor Day – you can get 25% off all of my archival art prints at Retropolis and The Celtic Art Works.

You don’t have to do anything to get the discount except, now that I think of it, ordering an archival print. D’oh.

You do have to do that.

Today is also the final day of a free shipping offer on my T-shirts and hoodies from The Retropolis Transit Authority, Saga Shirts, and Hot Wax Tees: get free Super Saver shipping on a shirt order of $20 or more with the coupon code 2011SuperFree, or blow out all the stops and get free Standard shipping on an order of $50 or more with the coupon code 2011StandardFree.

The shipping offer on shirt orders runs through midnight Mountain Time, while the 25% off sale on archival prints runs a little longer – Midnight, Pacific Time.

Today – and today only – you can save up to $15.99 on every t-shirt and hoodie at The Celtic Art Works and Retropolis. Just pile $50 worth or more in your shopping cart and use the coupon code CYBERMON11 during checkout, and you’ll see that order total fall, fall, fall.

The savings vary from one product to another: I’ve listed some of the most popular ones below in a handy reference guide.

And the best part is… no one can hit you with pepper spray!

Also for today only – my Celtic Art and Retropolis archival prints are on a buy two, get one free sale. Which is just the sort of sale that lets you feel all warm and fuzzy about getting gifts for two of your more discerning friends while accidentally getting something for your more discerning you.

Both sales run for today only. The T-Shirt sale ends at midnight, Mountain Time, while the prints sale runs through midnight on the West Coast.

Shirt or Hoodie	Original Price	Sale Price
Dark T-Shirt	$26.99	$18.20
Dark Long Sleeved Tee	$30.99	$20.60
Men’s Baseball Jersey	$25.99	$17.60
Women’s Baseball Jersey	$27.99	$18.80
Hooded Sweatshirt (Dark)	$44.99	$29.00