Teepublic Sale!

Hey, my Teepublic shop is on sale for like 8 or 9 more hours from the time of posting this! I’ve got licensed Star Trek and Cartoon Network designs and original stuff like animals and characters from my webcomic!

You can get cool stickers and shirts and stuff and I can afford to pay my phone bill next month, maybe!

Here’s a new design I just released based on the project patch for Project Cottontail from Follower!

Bug’s Got Car Problems

An update! As of 11:15 PM July 27. We made the goal, and I’m incredibly humbled, and I’m going to be able to get places. I’m leaving my stuff on sale for a while if anyone still wants to grab anything, I’m just gonna go. Fall down. 😲

So, as you probably know by now, I’ve been dealing with a newly-diagnosed connective tissue disorder as well as a heart condition which are basically ruining my life and making it hard to make comics or do anything pleasant in life, really. I have an amazing team of doctors who are making huge improvements to my life, but the big problem is that they are all about an hour (one way) from where I live, and to add insult to injury, my car needs an oil change I can’t afford and I realized the registration expired a while ago and I can’t afford to re-register, or pay the ticket for driving illegally. 😬

So, as a last ditch attempt to try and mitigate some of this, I put all my digital comics on sale on itch and ko-fi. All I need is 9 people to buy a bundle on itch and I can fix these issues.

If you’ve ever wanted to pick up some of the Follower bonus stories and single issues, this is the best opportunity for you and me!

Bug is Broke Sale!

Ha, you read that right! 🥲

Things have been a bit rough with my hands being unreliable for the past few months, and we’ve got bills and a cat vet appointment coming up, so it seems like as good a time as any to put our comics on sale for the next week! You get cheap comics, we get to survive a little bit, so everyone wins!

All of our comics (and CSP brush pack!) downloads are automatically 50% off in our itch.io shop. You can also download everything as a giant bundle for just $15! That’s a lot of comics!

You can also use the code ‘BUGISBROKE‘ in our Ko-Fi shop and get 50% off everything there, too!

Thanks so much for reading this post, and share with your friends if you think they’d be into our work!

Create a Chio Returns!

It’s that time again! I’ve been working on a batch of new Follower pages, and I need a whole cast of background Chios! If you’ve ever dreamed of having your very own custom Chio character drawn by me, with their own cameo in Follower, now’s your chance!

I’ll work with you to create a canon Chio character who will appear on at least one page of Follower! For a slightly higher price, your character can appear on at least 3 pages, with the possibility of a speaking part.

All levels will get a fully customized character sheet illustration of your Chio, and will appear with your name as credit on the Follower cast page.

Here are the details:

  • $50 base level: Your custom Chio will have a background cameo on one page in Chapter 8 of Follower. You’ll get a custom character sheet image, and your character will appear on the Follower cast page.
    • +$100: Your character will appear on at least 3 pages of Chapter 8 of Follower, with the potential for a line of dialogue. (This level is $150 total.)

If this sounds good to you, hop on over to my Ko-Fi commissions page and select the “Create a Chio with comic cameo” option! Please be sure to check out my terms and conditions, which can also be viewed below.

Standard Commission Terms and Conditions

I. Timeline and scope of work

  • The artist will submit a sketch before proceeding with the final commissioned piece.
  • Once the sketch has been approved, major changes to the design will not be allowed.
  • The final commissioned piece will be accomplished within the agreed upon timeframe.

II. Payment

  • The artist requires 100% payment before starting work.
  • Refunds for commissioned pieces will not be granted.

III. Revisions

  • Only three (3) minor revisions to the commissioned piece will be allowed.
  • Succeeding revisions will not be entertained.
  • Revisions after the final commissioned piece has been submitted will not be entertained.

IV. Copyright and Reproduction

The artist reserves the right to:

  • Include the commissioned work in portfolios, online profiles/pages, commission sheets, etc.
  • Modify, edit, and repurpose the commissioned piece.
  • Claim the commissioned piece as their own work.

The commissioner and other parties may NOT:

  • Reproduce the artwork for merchandise such as prints, t-shirts etc. without an agreement or contract.
  • Modify, edit, and repurpose the commissioned piece.
  • Mint the artwork as an NFT, or non fungible token.
  • Claim the commissioned piece as their own work.
  • Post the commissioned piece online WITHOUT proper credits and links to the artist. (Bugbyte/Radiochio, radiochio.com)

March 2023 News & Updates

I’ve been in physical therapy for around two months now, and I’ve been slowly working myself back into drawing. Bluntly, physical therapy kicks my butt and I tend to feel sore and awful for around a day afterwards, and doing this multiple times a week is a bit of a rollercoaster. We’ve moved on to working on my shoulders lately, which are a literal sore point, and that’s been rough going. But things are improving overall. 

I am still working on comic pages, and have been posting progress for the Chio Club as usual. It’s been a bit more of a mountain climb to get anything to completion than I expected, but I’m doing my best. I most recently posted a batch of rough sketches of ideas for the Chio Club sticker tier (discussed further down this post) including a bunch that weren’t shown during the stream where I started working on them!

Among some of the other less drawing-heavy projects I’ve been working on, I’ve also been dabbling with some fiction outside of the Messenger/Follower-verse. I’m not sure if anyone would be interested in checking out drafts of that story in process, but it might be a future Chio Club feature if there’s interest.

Join the Chio Club!

What’s new?

I posted my first ever storytime video on our Youtube channel this month, to pretty good reception! Not so coincidentally, it talks a bit about some of the problems I’ve been having with my hands, so if you want to watch me draw a little bit and listen to me talk, check out my video!

It would also be really helpful to us if you subscribe to our Youtube channel! Like every other webcomic artist out there, we’re always looking for another trickle of revenue to make this whole thing possible, and we can’t even get paid for ads until we reach 1,000 subscribers. We’re pretty close to approaching 100, and while that’s only a tenth of the way, once the snowball starts rolling it gets easier and easier to reach new viewers. It also helps us to have more watch hours, so if you’re interested in our comics, I highly recommend checking out one of the art stream playlists we have and letting it run!

After sleuthing for some opinions and data, I’m tentatively going ahead with the idea of a physical sticker tier for the Chio Club. Whether you join via Patreon or Ko-Fi, I’m planning to introduce a tier where you can get a monthly sticker. You can get all the details in this blog post: https://www.radiochio.com/sticker-club-update/

Our Teepublic store will be up to 35% off
March 8-11 and March 23-26.*

*Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.

Our Redbubble sticker shop will be up to 20% off
March 1-6*

*Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.

Community News

I’ve been attempting to get back into regular streaming, but I’ve been thwarted twice so far: once by weather, and once by health, so I’m shaking my fist at the universe and insisting I’m going to continue anyway. My next stream date will most likely be during the week of March 6th. Keep an eye on my Twitch schedule page for changes!

As usual, some caveats apply: I have to go by how my health and joints are doing that day, even if something is scheduled. I try to move things by a day or two, but sometimes I have to cancel outright. It is what it is, unfortunately. The best places to find out when I’m streaming are on my Twitch page and on the Discord.

I’m also planning on dual streaming to Twitch and Youtube whenever possible, since my YT audience has been growing a bit!

And, as usual, our Discord is always open and welcoming new folks! It’s a little slow and quiet, but that’s not always a bad thing. Pop on in for comic updates, general chat, and potentially some new community events in the coming year!

Thanks For Reading!

Once again, thank you so much for reading about our newest stuff, even if things are still a bit slow.

Sticker Club Update!

So I took an informal poll in various places around the internet where our community gathers, to see if there’s interest in a potential physical sticker tier for the Chio Club, and the answer seems to be a tentative-but-mostly-yes!

This will take a little bit of planning on my part to put together, but overall should be pretty easy since I’ve got a lot of the necessary artwork planned out and in various states of completion.

Here’s what you need to know:

  • Sticker Tier will be $10 for US folks and $12 for the international crew. The shipping is a little pricier for places outside the US, which I have no control over, sorry!
    • You’ll receive either one large sticker (approx. 3″) or two smaller stickers (approx. 1-2″) every month you’re a paid member. Stickers will be sent at the end of the month you’ve paid for, so everyone has a chance to pledge if they want to.
    • The stickers will be a heavy vinyl good for sticking on all kinds of things. I’m a fan of high-quality stickers and want to make a nice product. There might be other fancy types in the future if Sticker Tier is successful. (Maybe holographic, glow in the dark, etc.!)
  • Every month will have a different theme! It’s a surprise! The themes will feature characters from our comics, mostly Chios.
  • After a couple of months, I’ll open up a “secret shop” for members where you can buy past months’ stickers at a steeply discounted price.
  • If nobody pledges, it just won’t happen. I need 1-2 pledges at minimum to make it work!
  • Right now, I’m planning on opening up pledges for the Sticker Tier in April 2023.

…and that’s the bulk of the details. Things won’t open up until April since I need a little lead time to organize, in addition to regular comic work, but I hope this will be interesting to folks who maybe haven’t pledged to the Chio Club before!

As usual, if you’re interested, you can join the Chio Club via Patreon or Ko-Fi:

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