Waffle

Vote for Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan on Topwebcomics today to see the last of the cocktail dress sketches: this one is of one of Queen Elspeth's Advisors. The Advisors are sort of like smurfs in that most of them don't have individual names but they can tell each other apart anyway. They do like to dress up though.

To vote, click on the link. You will be asked to click a button twice to confirm that you are voting for this comic and that you're not a bot or script that automates voting (unsurprisingly, people have apparently done that in the past). The final page in the process has the vote incentive image. Vote incentive images will only be available until they are replaced, so you will have to vote today to see these sketches; there will be new incentive art up tomorrow.

(Or if you've come to this post via a web search, why not simply visit the comic this post is promoting, Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan?)

... but as the real thing is two days late already and I've not heard from Adam about what his plans are, I've decided to post the links that were placed in comments to his calls for links or that were sent to me by mistake. Last time we spoke, Adam did say he got more of them in through the e-mail address he posted, Waffleblog@gmail.com, which he created especially for the event and which I don't have access to (I didn't ask him for access).

Bryan W/a 'y' at Science. Why not? discusses a study of the alleged health benefits of spirituality. He does not think various claims about the benefits of churchgoing, improved brain activity from meditation and the usefulness of intercessory prayer hold up.

Andrew at Evolving mind looks at a large Chinese study of the benefits of vitamin supplementation, described in Science Daily, and believes there's something there but let's not get over-enthusiastic as the subject is very complicated and there's some bad news as well.

Kay at Perhaps we Learn is unimpressed by a study of people's reaction to witnessing physical pain versus emotional pain, arguing that it is too small, poorly designed and some of the premises don't seem to be right in the first place.

That's it - sorry for keeping the descriptions short and not engaging with the topics in any way. I'm just posting them in case people were waiting. The real Skeptic's Circle post will come ... soon, I hope.

Vote for Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan on Topwebcomics today to see sketches of Krakatoa and Queen Elspeth from Chronicles of the Witch Queen and Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan in their cocktail dresses. These were made in preparation for the final page of the Invasion storyline last Christmas, when I was staying with Aggie Janicot. The strappy boots shown in the thumbnail are actually Aggie's work - the original idea was that Krakatoa would try to one-up Marion with a more provocative outfit. In the end, Marion wasn't visible and much of Krakatoa's costume was hidden. So this will be your only opportunity to see what she was wearing. The rejuvenated Elspeth is looking rather good in these sketches too.

To vote, click on the link. You will be asked to click a button twice to confirm that you are voting for this comic and that you're not a bot or script that automates voting (you will be somewhat miffed to hear that people have apparently done that in the past). The final page in the process has the vote incentive image. Vote incentive images will only be available until they are replaced, so you will have to vote today to see these sketches; there will be new incentive art up tomorrow.

(Or if you've come to this post via a web search, why not simply visit the comic this post is promoting, Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan?)

If you're awaiting the Skeptic's Circle that was planned for yesterday, it's been delayed. I don't know for how long; I spoke to Adam last night and he told me he'd arranged for it to be postponed, but he didn't mention any specifics. In any case, there's no draft for it in the WordPress back-end either. As I'm at work right now, my opportunities for communicating with him are limited and I'm only allowing myself to post this so I can keep you informed.

Adam, any chance of you just posting the links in a minimalist form? Reducing the effort-per-update has got me out of many sticky situations as both a blogger and a webcartoonist, after all.

Vote for Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan on Topwebcomics today to see two sketches of the Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan characters Shireen and Marion in cocktail dresses. These sketches were made last December in preparation for the final page of the Invasion storyline, in which Shireen ended up barely visible and Marion didn't show up at all. For the record, though, both were present at Queen Elspeth's party.

To vote, click on the link. You will be asked to click a button twice to confirm that you are voting for this comic and that you're not a bot or script that automates voting (you will not be at all pleased to hear that people have apparently done that in the past). The final page in the process has the vote incentive image. Vote incentive images will only be available until they are replaced, so you will have to vote today to see these sketches; there will be new incentive art up tomorrow.

(Or if you've come to this post via a web search, why not simply visit the comic this post is promoting, Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan?)

If you've come here for the Skeptic's Circle installment Adam's running, you may find yourself scratching your head and wondering what the rest of this blog is about. Most of the other posts on the blog's front page right now are promotional announcements asking readers to "vote" for something called "Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan" on something called "Topwebcomics" and offering them sketches as bribes for doing so. Many of said sketches are of pointy-eared characters in the buff. "What does all this have to do with science or skepticism and why is this Reinder Dijkhuis person posting these messages?", you may find yourself asking.

Here are the answers: I'm Reinder, I'm a translator by day and a cartoonist in whatever stolen moments I can rustle up for cartooning. I own and run this blog. Adam (who sometimes uses a pseudonym) is a co-contributor; officially he is one of about seven, but all the others have dropped out over the years and currently do not even have full access to the WordPress back-end I switched to about a year ago. The blog, Waffle, was founded as an adjunct to the webcomic I make, Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan and as a vehicle for me and my cronies to talk about whatever we want. Sometimes, months go by in which I don't post about the comic, but it just so happened that my advertising budget ran out last month and I've been going back to traditional, free methods to publicize my work, and Top Web Comics, an old-fashioned topsitelist, is one of them. When enough readers 'vote', my comic gets pushed up in that site's popularity ranking, so that more people will (theoretically) take notice of it and visit it. Offering sketches as a bribe is allowed under its rules and so many of the sketches are of pointy-eared characters in the buff because drawing pointy-eared characters in the buff is easy and fun and I can do it during my lunch break if I am far enough away from the office.

None of this has anything to with science or skepticism - I have an interest in those topics but I mostly leave posting about that to Adam. I haven't figured out yet how to make WordPress display bylines properly (I used to spend a lot of time figuring out stuff like that when the blog was still on Movable Type, but these days I think life is too short), but you can see which posts are Adam's because we tag them in the subject line.

The connection between the blog and the comic means that the blog has a diverse (if small) readership, so when commenting, please everyone keep in mind that you're not preaching to the choir. There is no official moderation policy because the comment volume is tiny, but we do moderate.

Vote for Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan on Topwebcomics today to see a sketch of the character Erkenwald from the forthcoming storyline Muscle, written by this blog's Adam Cuerden.

When I say "forthcoming", I'm afraid I don't know when it's forthcoming, just that I'm stubborn enough to start on it once Feral is done, whenever that is. At the current pace, that could take a while.

To vote, click on the link. You will be asked to click a button twice to confirm that you are voting for this comic and that you're not a bot or script that automates voting (you will lose what is left of your already tenuous faith in humanity upon hearing that people have apparently done that in the past). The final page in the process has the vote incentive image. Vote incentive images will only be available until they are replaced, so you will have to vote today to see these sketches; there will be new incentive art up tomorrow.

(Or if you've come to this post via a web search or from the recent Skeptic's Circle that Adam did, why not simply visit the comic this post is promoting, Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan?)

Vote for Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan on Topwebcomics today to see a character sketch for Morgan Turniproot from the current storyline, Feral. This is another sketch that suffered from bad sketchbook syndrome, to the point where clean-up was futile, but it's still worth showing as it's the first where I got her body type right. So it's a little rough ... that at least shows you how I work and change my plans as I go along!

To vote, click on the link. You will be asked to click a button twice to confirm that you are voting for this comic and that you're not a bot or script that automates voting (you will be absolutely astonished to hear that people have apparently done that in the past). The final page in the process has the vote incentive image. Vote incentive images will only be available until they are replaced, so you will have to vote today to see these sketches; there will be new incentive art up tomorrow.

(Or if you've come to this post via a web search, why not simply visit the comic this post is promoting, Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan?)

Vote for Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan on Topwebcomics today to see another sketch of Hywel ap Hywel, and one of Hildegard, both as shown in the Feral storyline.

To vote, click on the link. You will be asked to click a button twice to confirm that you are voting for this comic and that you're not a bot or script that automates voting (you will be shocked and scandalized to hear that people have apparently done that in the past). The final page in the process has the vote incentive image. Vote incentive images will only be available until they are replaced, so you will have to vote today to see these sketches; there will be new incentive art up tomorrow.

(Or if you've come to this post via a web search, why not simply visit the comic this post is promoting, Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan?)

Vote for Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan on Topwebcomics today to see character sketches for Hywel ap Hywel from the Feral storyline.

To vote, click on the link. You will be asked to click a button twice to confirm that you are voting for this comic and that you're not a bot or script that automates voting (you will be hurt to the quick to hear that people have apparently done that in the past). The final page in the process has the vote incentive image. Vote incentive images will only be available until they are replaced, so you will have to vote today to see these sketches; there will be new incentive art up tomorrow.

(Or if you've come to this post via a web search, why not simply visit the comic this post is promoting, Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan?)