I know that to you, I’m just Mild-Mannered Steve Ogden, unknown cartoonist and national disgrace. However, much like David Hasselhoff, I’m HUGE in Europe. No, really. Europe, in fact, is the only place you can see Croaker’s Gorge in print. Sure, it’s in Italian, but I took Latin in school, so for me - well, I still can’t read most of it.

Gianluca Pireddi, for some reason, decided to publish Croaker’s Gorge in an Italian newspaper insert called Strip Seasons, alongside some really cool European artists that kick my butt daily. Oh, and Garfield, curiously.

Anyway, it’s a real honor to have the strip in print again, and I hope the humor translates. I’m really curious to know how my terrible puns and colloquial humor is going over with that audience, but, hey - Italians are hip, so I’m sure they are cutting out the strips and posting them on their refrigerators, office bulletin boards and gymnasium lockers even as we speak. Pireddi generously handled the translation himself, and I’m sure it’s no mean feat.

What’s that you say? You would like to see a page of Croaker’s Gorge in Italian, but you don’t live in Italy? Never fear. I’ve posted a pagefull HERE.

So… yeah. Just call me the Hoff.

Well… I guess that’s enough time off from Croaker’s Gorge. The strip is back. Not sure I can do more than one post a week, but I suppose that’s better than zero strips over the past 3 months. UGH! Still, I’ll see what I can do.

For those of you wondering, I’m still cranking along on my graphic novel pitch. It was originally going to be a 5 page sample. I am now working on page 8 of a 9 page chapter, and the package will also include a sample cover and a brief pitch document. I really shouldn’t be updating Croaker’s at all until that graphic novel pitch is done, but I didn’t think it was fair to my readers, who have been very patient, to drag this out now that I’ve added so much more to the pitch I’m assembling.

Well, this is an historic day - Croaker’s was noticed by the folks over at Gigcast. Got a nice little mention in the TBBA spotlight there. And this is hot on the heels of a mention over at Belfry Comics. It seems my little under-the-radar comic attempt has its fans after all.

I’ve also recently gotten some fan mail of a type that, at the risk of seeming immodest, I thought I should address publicly:

I really hope you’ven’t given up on this - the artwork is excellent, the characters are amusing, the humor is good.
– Duke of URL

First of all, Duke, thanks for the kind words. I’m glad you enjoy the strip, and I definitely enjoy drawing it. I’m glad it has an audience. Judging from my hate mail, the strip doesn’t always appeal to everyone, but then it wouldn’t, would it?

That said, I thought I should say publicly - I haven’t given up on Croaker’s. I know it was tremendously unfair of me to ask what you’d rather have - less comics per week in color, or more comics per week in black and white - only to suddenly and without explanation go on hiatus.

But go on hiatus is what I did. The deal is that I have an excellent opportunity to do an original graphic novel. Sorry, it’s not a Croaker’s graphic novel, but if you like Croaker’s, I do think you’d like this GN as well. I will tell you more about it as it moves toward publication, but meanwhile, understand that I am working very hard on the pitch for that, and that’s what has knocked Croaker’s Gorge temporarily to the back burner.

When the pitch is done, I will get back to Croaker’s Gorge, and that’s the good news. The bad news is that it will probably take me another 3 weeks to be able to get back to it, and even then, it will be down to one day a week for a bit.

I do thank you for your feedback and your support. If you’re coming here from Belfry or Gigcast, thanks for coming by, and I hope to have more comics for you soon.

We are borrowing billions of dollars from China to spend on fossil fuels from the middle east and it just goes up in smoke. We could be using renewable alternative energy sources. Wind. Solar. Tides.

The fact that we are not makes you scratch your head. Seems like Someone just doesn’t want us to get off oil. Perhaps it’s time we give Someone a little push?

Want a better world? Want a stronger economy? Check THIS out. Get involved. We can solve it.

Love this commercial for We Can Solve It. Love the mission even more. If you’re tired of waiting for governments and corporations to solve our collective crises, I would urge you to get involved. See you there.