Sorry for the drop off the planet. I knew once that I started to get out of the rigid 3 a week schedule, it would be a spiral I could not stop. Yes, I have been slammed with freelance illustration work for hte last 3 months (yay!). And that has started to die down. But I'm not sure I'll be able to return to the 3 a week format. I have various other projects that are coming down the pipeline.

One of those projects is that my brother and I just signed a contract to have a graphic novel Dream Maiden Megan from Slave Labor Graphics! It will be coming out in June! Look for it!

And finally my last feature film Monday Night Gig, is now available on DVD! ! am so excited to see the whole package. And I’m very proud of the whole product. If you’d like to more about the movie and see the trailer you can go to www.mondaynightgig.com.




I have been pretty good at updating my new portfolio site over at www.tysonsmith.com. come on over and check it out! I'll be posting my new work as the year goes by.

Instead of PnA, I have been extremely busy with freelance work, and putting together my resume together. I have finally updated my long neglected portfolio site over at www.tysonsmith.com. It isn't completely finished (I need to fix up the comic and film sections) but it's close. Please stop by and check it out.

I've written a PnA, I just haven't had the time to draw it, I plan on getting it up later this week.

I will have a new Thanksgiving themed strip this Wednesday. I have it written in my head, I just need to finish up this big gig from Scholastic before I can start on it.

See you Wednesday!

I hope to get a strip up later in the week. It's a good thing for me that I am slammed with work, but not a good thing for PnA. I'll see what I can do.

And no, I didn't win the pumpkin contest. But the one that won, was really cool. I'll see if I can track down the photo.

My art rep is having a pumpkin carving contest and this is my entry.



You can vote on them (um, I mean mine, it's #9) here!

I will be doing a Halloween theme strip for this week, so It'll run on Wednesday this week.

You didn't really think I was going to get a strip done with the Red Sox winning the World Series last night, did you?

Yes I'm a member of Red Sox Nation (since 1986). And I would love to congratulate my team for winning the American League Championship and advancing to the World Series.

Now I now comics and sports don't regularly mix, so I'll leave it at that. I am planning on this once a week schedule for the time being until my job situation is resolved. And then I hope to go back to the 3 a week plan. Now perhaps I can update more than once a week, but I'm promising once. It'll depend how each week goes.

Yes, I'm not dead, and the strip isn't, yet. I've been working hard trying to get a new job (something I haven't had to do for 10 years). Which requires me redoing my portfolio, learning new programs and setting up a new website to display said portfolio. I have sent out some resume's and had a phone interview with a major toy company, so we'll keep our fingers crossed and see how things pan out.

And it it seems that my luck has changed for the better. I just got an email from a Nigerian prince. He tells me that if I put all my money in his bank account he promises to send me millions back in return. This is just what I needed, I can't wait to tell my wife about this!

In the meantime, Pirate and Alien will be switching over to a new format. Once a week, getting rid of the continuing storylines (I'll try), and bigger, more like a Sunday newspaper edition. It'll start next Monday (22nd). The first one will hopefully clear up the loose ends in the current storyline.

I'll be attending the Stumptown Comics Fest this weekend in Portland, Oregon. This is the 4th year of the show, it's like an APE held in the Northwest. Lots of independent comics and whatnot. I really enjoy the show, and hopefully you'll make it to the booth.

And when I say "I'll be attending," I actually mean my brother. Saturday is my Boy's birthday party, and I have a funeral to attend on Sunday. I'm hoping to make it out for a little bit, but time is tight.

If you do make it, stop on by, and Ian will give you something nice. No, it's not a lollipop.

This is a page from an unpublished short story with the characters from my first comic series ODDJOB. If you want to read more about the comic and characters go here.

I didn't want this site to be devoid of new content for too long, you guys deserve something to distract you from work. This story has 3 more pages that will run over the next few days.

Thanks to those that have emailed me with good thoughts on my job search. I'm looking for an illustration and/or graphic design job. I also have experience in videography and editing and producing film and media content.

Sorry about the slow down since I got back. I'm losing my job of the past 9 years, in a month or two, and I need to rework my portfolio and resume. I don't think it's quite appropriate to be working on this side-side project when a sudden loss of income is knocking on my door. I do plan to update as much as possible, please keep checking back.

Maybe I'll work out a new schedule of updating twice a week, I'll let you know what I come up with.

I did find a little time to watch Hot Fuzz this weekend, very funny film, and I highly recommend it.

Be here again!!! AVAST! Splice the Mainbrace, and Shiver Me Timbers! Talk like a Pirate Day is here again. So go out into the world and before you speak, ask yourself this... "How would Pirate say it?"

Today we also return to the storyline I started before the little hiatus. Pirate has been Shanghaied upon a pirate themed cruise ship. GO back to the archives if you wish to reacquaint yourself.

And tomorrow is my birthday. What did you get me? Oh what a week!

And I have a new tan to show off. 2 weeks in southern Italy to relax was exactly what I needed. I had a great time and I promise to put up an update and some photos soon. I also have a big freelance job waiting for me as I got back, which is perfect for paying off my trip and all the pairs of Italian shoes my wife and I purchased (9 if you must know. Not all for us, plenty of gifts as well).

I got this guest strip from Benoit right after I left, he does a nifty webcomic called OGUM. Since I was in a pretty remote part of Italy, checking email was no much of an option. But I sure could get Horse Meat whenever I wanted it. Strange, isn't it? I didn't want his hard work to go for nothing so this will be the last guest strip before I return with brand new strips (and also picking up the storyline I started before I left) on Wednesday.

Don't ask me what I had to do to get it back. But here ya go!

Oh, and... Visit www.DontEatAnyBugs.com or else!

Evil Brother Ian here... with a late guest strip. I beseech you to look into your soul and ask yourself who the real 'evil' brother is? After all, I didn't abandon you all for 3 weeks of vacation in Italy. If Ty were committed to his loving audience, he would refuse to leave the house, dutifully providing a new Pirate and Alien strip 3 times a week.

Me... I'm too devoted to go to Italy. And I'm poor. Mainly, I'm poor.

This week we'll have 3 guest strips from Ali Graham, Bryan Chojnowski, and Ray Friesen. They were kind enough to take some time out of their busy schedules to help provide me, and my readers with some content.

I won't say when they will all go up, but I'm hoping for a Monday, Wednesday and friday thing. It's up to when my brother gets them up.

This first one is from Bryan Chojnowski who does the really cool webcomic Muffin Time

The next one will be from Ali Graham who did HOUSD and is currently doing AFTERSTRIFE.

The last one will be from Ray Friesen who does YARG! a weekly continuing web comic.

Do be nice and visit their cool sites, and I think next week will be hiatus until I return. Unless my brother comes up with something cool for you guys, but I doubt it.

Sorry everybody. Life sometimes gets in the way. I was all ready to make it a 3 week hiatus so I can get better, catch up, and go on vacation. I've had some very generous people contact me about doing guest strips, so I'll be running some while I'm gone. I'm not sure how many at this point, but they will start running this Friday.

If you're a fan and want a crack at doing something, let me know. I don't care if you can't draw. If it's funny, it's funny. Stick people work.

Now I'm the sick one as the roller coaster of sickness makes it way through our family. I'm not sure when I'll get the new strip up.

And I was hoping to do a 2 week guest strip period starting next week. But I have not got around to asking my fellow web comic allies, and I feel it would be unfair to ask them with only a week to come up with something. So I might have to go on hiatus for that period.

Our little boy is not feeling well, I hope to get a strip posted sometime Monday.

Update. Strip is now up.

Today's the 250th strip I have done for PnA. #268 if you include guest strips. I am pretty proud of getting this far with this side-side project of mine. I hope you guys are having fun too. I haven't been able to devote much time to PnA the past year with the baby around. But I hope to update the site a little bit in the coming months.

Have a good weekend.

Yes, I bet you missed it too. Yesterday was Friendship Day. Now all your friends think you hate them, because you didn't contact them on friendship day. Don't worry, I think "I'm Sorry Day" is coming around the corner. And if you miss that, then you'll have to wait for "No, I Mean It. I'm Really Sorry Day."

This is the first time in 12 years that I won't be at the San Diego Comic Con with my brother. I was starting to feel that I was missing something this summer, and then I read that they sold out Saturday a week in advance of the show, and I realized I made the right decision. Take a year off, re-start the engines, and go back out for 2008.

Instead I'll be checking out Plastinized Corpses up close and personal. YAY!

From my week off of vacation. Now it's time to catch up on things that I missed.

Here's what I would look like if I were on an episode of The Simpsons

If you want to make one of yourself go here.




































..

I'm taking this week off to recharge the batteries. I could have got some guest strips, but I decided against it as I will be doing a 2 week run of guest strips in early September.

But don't fret, I have new content for my faithful readers to enjoy. My previous comic book Emily and the Intergalactic Lemonade Stand has been optioned over at Warner Bros the last 2 years, and I recently got it back (since they did nothing with it). It's a good thing, as we are in talks to bring it to a different company. That being said, I have a 2 page comic that I did as part of the 20th anniversary of Slave Labor Graphics (my publisher) with the Emily characters.

Page One

Page Two

Have a good week, and I'll be back on the 23rd!

And no I won't be going to the San Diego Comic Con this year, the first time in 12 years. More on that when I get back.

Today's strip will be up later today. My illustrator file for today's strip bombed on me, and I lost a bunch of the work I did. I don't have the time or energy to finish it tonight (Thursday), so I'll get to it in the morning.

cheers

It's up!!!

I have had the stupid song to this commercial in my head for over 20 years. I was singing it the other day and thought that I should try to see if somebody put it on YouTube. Lo and behold it was. Now my life is complete.

If you want to see a top 10 of commercials for similar toys check this out.

Yes I promised to update the blog each update day this week... And that is what I am doing. But what to write about? Well I've been wasting some quality time with a couple of online games I found, so I will share that with you, my loyal readers.

The first one is fun little puzzle game called Bloxorz.

And the 2nd is a really nifty flash board game called Get The Glass. It's sponsored by the California Milk Processor Board, which is quite odd. But the graphics are amazing, and it's fun.

Also, I'm not sure how many of you guys are Wall Street Journal readers, but I have an illustration in the Sunday edition. It's for a column titled "Getting Going." Should be in the financial section.

You might wonder what some of the freelance illustration projects I get to work on. Well most of the work I do is editorial for magazines and newspapers. Stuff like kids playing soccer, or a man riding the bus listening to his ipod. Often lighthearted stuff to make the page look pretty. And sometimes I get to draw BIG BUTTER JESUS.

What's BIG BUTTER JESUS? I had to ask that question myself, well check out this youtube video to find out.

Not a lot of time to blog away these days. I do promise to post an update every day this week (ooh a tease)!

Here is a cool animated fan art I got from Mike Alonso. yay!

Oh my Gosh! I totally forgot! Today is National Yo-Yo day! I'm outta here, got's to get me yo-yo and "walk the dog", or perhaps go "around the world."

No new strip today, I'm taking the day off like you should be. But if you didn't get the day off, thanks for coming by, and we'll be back to our regularly scheduled program on Wednesday.

For those of you who did swing by and are bored at work, you can go check out this cool Hold Steady video.

Have a good holiday weekend. I think it's time to fire up the grills and BBQ some meat and consume some alcohol. I'm not sure if I'll have a Monday strip or not, it depends how the weekend goes.

Why do people throw shoes over telephone wires? What purpose does it serve. Is it some sort of message to those who are watching us? A gift perhaps? Or is it simply something to do when you've run out of toilet paper for "TPing" a house.

The weather has been good these days, getting me out of the house to do fun stuff (Farmer's Market, Baseball practice and games, taking the boy for a walk in the sun). Now I need to mow the lawn and wash the car. Maybe I'll just wait till the boy is old enough to do them for me.

Go outside!

My bro got me hooked on The Deadliest Catch. He calls it Danger crabs. I just had to write a few strips on the show. I think there will be a couple more coming up.

My wife can't stand crabs, she calls them the spider's of the sea, and she hates spiders.

I'm On the Crab!

I found this little jewel on the web the other day. I know that you guys have a great interest in music from previous posts. This is a French production of artists performing their songs as they walk the streets. I've only seen a few so far, but I'm really impressed.

The Take Away Shows

I also will have some very big news for you guys. Hopefully in the next 1-2 months. Feel free to guess what it is, but I doubt anyone will figure it out.

I have been sick all weekend, and you're lucky that I am obsessive compulsive about getting the strip up.

Time to crawl back to my hole and sleep.

Sorry for the lack of blog entries this week, I'm smack dab in the middle of Birthday Week. What's that you say. Well Tuesday was my dad's birthday, Wednesday was my brothers and today is my Mom's birthday. The overkill of food and opening of gifts leave us all glad that we have a 5 month reprieve till the next birthday (mine, yippee!!!).

Anyway, as a gift to my fine readers I will direct you over to Afterstrife by Ali Graham for a guest strip I did for him this week. Please enjoy, and stay and check out the archives of his new strip.

Of course everyone knows the natural enemy to the pirate and the ninja is the eskimo, didn't you know that. You'll have to wait till next week to find out why!

Just got back from an Asylum Street Spankers show, they put on a good show. But for some odd reason 1/2 the crowd wanted to sit down. The Spankers put on a fun fast paced booty shaking kinda beat, it really didn't work with the "kumbaya" ass on the hard cement floor.

Check out there video for Stick a Ribbon on Your SUV.

Starts today! Woot. One of my favorite days of the year after x-mas and my birthday. My favorite non-gift giving day of the year. Time to turn on the TV and/or radio and enjoy. And if you are lucky enough to live in a city with a major league team, I envy you.

Play Ball!

Sorry for the lack of new updates the past couple of weeks. I've been slammed with freelance work. Work is good, it makes me money. When I have money I'm happy, which then makes me wnat to draw more Pirate and Alien strips. It's a win-win for everybody.

If you're not getting enough pirate goodness every day (we need like 80 grams a day) then try checking out YARG. A daily webcomic by Ray Friesen.

Those Wacky Germans.

Pirate Toaster

A pretty good short movie about drawing pirates.

A video of Leonard Nimoy singing a song about Bilbo Baggins.

A new fun curse word, I picked it up from Steve over at The Sneeze.

Pirate must be a fan of the pickle, in a previous strip he exclaimed "Sweet Gherkins!"

Now I'm hungry for a pickle.

Oh, come on. You know you'd watch it. You'd get extra high ratings during shark week.

I was in Ireland for my birthday a couple years back, and as a special treat we ate in a castle. It was kind of a hokey dinner theatre kind of thing, but it was still fun. Before the meal they served mead and I drank 3 glasses of the delicious "honey wine" before I realized I was getting loopy. I barely made it up the 3 flights of stairs to the dining area. Luckily they had a bounty of irish brown bread, and lox for me to eat.

Moral of the story, drink as much mead as you can.

My last film Monday Night Gig will be playing tonight in Salem, Oregon as part of the Mid Valley Film Festival. If you happen to be in Salem stop on by and say "hi."

To find out more and to check out the trailer go to MondayNightGig.com

I have been waiting all year for President's day. Now that it's here, I really don't care all that much. Once I found out that I don't get mail, it lost it's luster.

A friend of mine, Mr. Mike Russell, is relaunching his webcomic Culture Pulp over at webcomics nation, go check it out! It's an order!

Well I didn't quite get to a Valentines themed storyline, but I got close. Pirate's got himself a date! Where will this lead?

Sure valentines may be a trumped up commercial holiday, but they all are nowadays. Take President's Day, damn. Just wait, tomorrow all you'll hear is Washington this, and Lincoln that. And don't get me started on all the President's Day songs on the radio.

Not a whole lot going on that is interesting. But I thought I should post a little something-something.

I'm working on my spring promo illustrations for my freelance illustration work. It's tough picking out illustrations that show off your style. I try to find some of my work that shows a variety of subjects such as women, and men, children, animals, inanimate objects, color and the list goes on. You never know what will catch the eye of an art director or designer.

If you're in Grenada, Happy Independence Day!

First I was sick, now my wife is sick, and we're just waiting for the baby to get sick. A fun cycle I can look forward to for the next 18-20 years.

Enjoy you're weekend. Oh yeah, it's the Superbowl. Have some chips!

I'm still trying to catch up from my trip to Vegas last week (yes I did stick it to Vegas to the tune of $10. Thank you very much).

I was so kindly reminded by Jesse N, that I had not posted his cool fan art yet, so I did! Take that Jesse. You can see it in the fan art page.

Cool link of the day, BadAstronomy.com. I saw Dr. plait speak at last week's TAM. He was very engaging while giving a talk on why people who think the we never walked on the moon, are idiots. You should check it out, you just might learn something.

I'm back from vegas, I had a good time, met some cool people and got some really good interviews for the super secret documentary project. I'll see about writing up a report on my adventures, after I get caught up.

I understand there was an "issue" with last Friday's update. It was my fault, sorry about that. It has been fixed. And today's strip is what you were to see on Friday.

Onward and Upward.

I'll be going to Vegas this week to continue work on a super-secret documentary project. I'm looking forward to a little warm weather, it hasn't broke 35 for the last week. Yes, I know I'm a wimp, but I'm in Portland. We're not used to the cold.

For anybody who is interested I will be at the AMAZING MEETING!. Maybe I will learn what it takes to become AMAZING!!! I'll let you know when I get back.

Did you "rock" in the new year? Having a 3 month old kind of puts the damper on the ability to "rock." But I did have my Pimms!.

And to everyone that has emailed in the last few weeks, that I haven't gotten back to. I make a promise, no an oath (wait I can do one better), a resolution (perhaps to celebrate the new year) to write back to you before the end of this week, so I can clear out my inbox.

I am in the midst of planning a PnA re-design, and maybe I can coax my wife into helping me get it done.

And look, I changed the copyright info to 2007. Wow, it only took me 3 tries!

It's 2007! Yay!

It looks like I forgot to change the date on the copyright info. Technically I drew it in 2006.

Cheers to all!

My fellow Portlanders might recognized Kinky's Kleenin' Korner. It used to be a cool looking laundromat in SE Portland. A while back they changed the name to some boring name that no one would remember. And as I drove by the other day I noticed it was out of business. I liked the name so much I wanted to see it live on. And live on it will!

Have a super New Years! See you in 2007!

New strip on Monday!

Have a good x-mas? I did, but my little boy had an even better one. On his first x-mas he received a bounty of gifts from the grandparents and family. Being a first time Grandchild, Beckett sure cleaned up. Way to go boy!

PnA got rate #1 "Cosmic and Futuristic Books From The Depths Of Time," by Webcomics-in-print, and blogger Mike Rouse-Deane. Check it out.

As I write this, I'm watching Man Vs. Wild. That guy is just plain crazy. He just munched into a live fish all "Golem-like."

Whether it's X-mas, or Hanukkah or Kwaanza or Festivus whatever it is, have a good one, and enjoy your time with friends and family.

I'll have a special X-mas PnA up next Monday. A little treat to one and all.