This is one in the “Rules and Terms” series, aka “The System’s Guide to ______”. Also considered for the series on home ownership (maybe to be revisited at a later time):

• How and when water heaters know when to break.
• Why all home owners love to rub it in when something goes wrong and say things like “ah, the joys of home ownership”.
• The number of trips necessary to the hardware store to get what you actually needed.

Some Convention Updates

DINK! Denver! See you next weekend!

If you are in the Denver area (Denver! Yeah!) I’m coming to DINK, the Denver Independent Comics and Art Expo this weekend, April 14-15. I have never been to Denver for a show, and would love to see some of you there. I’m bringing books, prints, and hopefully shirts if I can get them all into checked baggage. I know my friends Nick and Danielle will be there, so come hang out with us. I have no idea yet where my table will be but if you keep an eye on my Twitter account, I’ll announce it when I figure that out.

Awesome Con! I did it, was of course awesome.

Two weekends ago, I had a table at Awesome Con, and met a ton of sweet people. To all of you that came by and said “oh yeah, I’ve read this comic before” or “I used to read this when I was in high school” (*cough*, Enzo) or “why haven’t I heard of this before? I can’t wait to read it” (which, if you’re now reading this, I assume you’ve corrected), a sincere thank you. I know this project is not what it once was to me. It’s turned from “maybe The System is my route to fame and fortune” to “maybe I can make a ton of friends making comics” which has been a much happier place for me, and not to mention more sustainable. But more on that another time. I’ve gotten discouraged in the past by my lack of huge readership numbers, as much as I know I shouldn’t. But conventions always help to remind me that one “view” is oftentimes one reader, sitting at home, who maybe hasn’t read the comic in a while but gets a laugh out of it. And that really is a great feeling.

PAX East: Old friends, sushi boats, and nobody died.

This past weekend I was with the Super Art Fight gang doing a panel at PAX East (no table, just the show), which was loads of fun. A huge shout out to our friends that came to the show to support us. Specifically Allison, Pete, and their crew of awesome people as well as Victoria, Alyson, both Nicks, Animal Jenkins, and their entourage of people. Together, we sunk a sushi boat. I’m not kidding!

Boat record: 15 minutes. #paxeast2018

A post shared by Ross Nover (@rossnover) on Apr 7, 2018 at 7:33pm PDT

That’s all for now, gang. See you next week!

Good morning.

First there was FACTBOMB, now “subtle bomb”. Here it is, demonstrated by myself and my friend Meredith.

No, I wasn’t falling over at the end. Just sitting down. Feel free to send in your own examples…

Buycycling is how I never have more than a $60 grocery bill. It’s also why I never have soda, chips, or really much food at all in my apartment.

Any of you guys buycyclists?

(Thanks to Marty and Ben for assists with the writing on this one.)

Think Geek + Super Art Fight Tomorrow

Yep! Tomorrow! We’re doing a show with ThinkGeek in Vienna, VA!

• Details on SuperArtFight.com about the show are here »
• Buy tickets here »
• RSVP on Facebook here »

Facebook

I made a Facebook page for The System. Still figuring out what to put there, but if nothing else if you show a little love it’s greatly appreciated.

You can find the Facebook page here »

This comic, co-written by my mom (Rossmom) in the comments of The System 626. You can see where I get “it” from.

And I’m just gonna leave this here…

I’m still deciding if I’m really going to make the next comic about “procrasturbation”. Also, thanks to Systemics Marty and Grace for help figuring out how to write this one. I can’t say it took the whole month but I was a little stuck.

Super Art Fight at the Black Cat on February 22nd!

In an ongoing effort to pretend to be a rock star, the Super Art Fight crew (including myself) is playing a show in Washington, DC at the legendary Black Cat rock club! I couldn’t be more excited. February 22nd, 9:30pm doors, $12 tickets, all ages. More details and info on preorders here.

I’m talking about comics and stuff in Baltimore!

I’m giving a talk called “How Comics Can Make Us Better Designers” to the web/design/development community in Baltimore as part of “Refresh Baltimore” on February 26th. It’ll be based upon but a revised and awesomer version of the talk I gave at Refresh last fall. It’s free. You should come! Here’s the EventBrite. Here’s the other details.

I’d love to see some Systemics in the crowd, and I’ll have time to answer all the questions people have on design and comics and stuff. Let me know if you can make it!

Inspired by Letterpress, and my newfound knowledge of my coworkers bathroom habits.

I saw this twice today, people “liking” posts where the post was bad news. Did they really like the bad news? No, they were merely showing support through a “like”. Sounds to me like we should change them from “like” to “approve” or “support”, because that’s what you’re really doing anyway. In real life, when someone says “I think we should get pizza”, you don’t say “like”. No, you agree. Do that. Just agree.

Have any funny (or sad) Facebook stories? Share them in the comments! I’m reading, and as always so is Rossmom.

This was fact-checked thanks to my good friends Spike Jetpack Solomon, Steven Motocross Fluffybutt, Riley Day, and Delilah Whatshername. Yes, they’re all cats. And, while adorable, they don’t give a f*%k about you.

Clearly I now need to make a t-shirt with an adorable cat on it that says “I DON’T CARE IF YOU LIVE OR DIE.” I may just do that.

Speaking of cats, if you like cats on t-shirts, you may want to check out Professor Internet.

A followup to yesterday’s Antisocial Networking.

If you like this one, you’d probably like the other rules and terms we here at The System have defined over the years. Such as:

• The Rules of Mooching
• Relatiolators and Escalationships
• Factbomb
• Adorabull
• The Double Goodbye
• Lazivator, Crappling, and the Crappling Hook
• Friemployees and the E-Beuller
• Singletasking
• …and a whole lot more!

Thanks again to Marty F’n Day, who helped me come up with this and many other comics. His blog is Blast-O-Rama, and has great nerd news and interesting finds, as well as well-crafted movie reviews you should actually listen to.

And if you like these comics, you might like to see Marty and I collaborate on stage, as we do at every Super Art Fight show as co-hosts of the craziness that is THE GREATEST LIVE ART COMPETITION IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE. This weekend, we’ll be performing at Magfest on Saturday, 12:30pm in the National Harbor right outside of DC. More info over at SuperArtFight.com here »