No shuffling about with long-winded expository: Orbz is back. Hopefully, for quite a while. In mid-August, I faced a problem: what to do with Orbz. I posted the question, along with background, to my friends. Not long after I originally posted my dilemma, I got a lot of feedback, the overall gist of which was positive enough to be encouraging. Unfortunately, at about that time, I left for college, with Natasha (my then-shiny new computer) in tow. To make matters worse, I didn't have a copy of PhotoShop that would work on my OS X side, so, if I wanted to create new strips (which is one of those important things) I would have to boot into XP. The kicker, of course, was that my copy of PhotoShop refused to install properly on XP. Well, that's that, I thought. I did try using other software (GIMP, etc.), except I never liked it much at all, due to a combination of unfamiliarity and lack of necessary software features. So the school year started, life happened, and then I was able to come home for Thanksgiving. It was during those few days home when I hit paydirt: I obtained a copy of PhotoShop that would work, and not only that, but it would work on OS X. Functionality and convenience. It was at about that time when I pulled the Orbz files out of mothballs, reacquainted myself with it, and settled on a course of action. I started work during finals week (because of my schedule, it was almost wholly dead time in any case), and had the graphic design of the site laid out. By Christmas break proper, I had a working layout of the whole thing, a tentative schedule, and had started work on graphics. I left the country a few days into break to be with my mother over Christmas; there I had no Internet access. By that point, though, the graphics were live, the layout was functional, and all that was left was content. Then, a good thing happened: Northwestern's football team went to the Alamo Bowl. I, being in the marching band, of course went with them. Point is, I didn't get back to internet access until the evening before school started again. So much for a January 1 launch. I've spent the last two weeks working through the site, uploading the archives, fixing things that ought to be, and so forth. Nifty New Features include, among other things: * New and expanded commentary for every strip * Webcomic format for easier reading of archives * More streamlined format overall * Better technical features for better-looking strips * Syndication! Woo! * Public availability * A witty FAQ Of course, for those of you who have never seen any of it before, it'll all be new. Like this strip! Yeah, it's a terrible joke. But it's a little thin, and that's the really terrible joke. Hm. I probably should have written the copyright as '2009.' Whoops.