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Making an Entrance

by Josh on June 18, 2013 at 12:01 am
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Alamo City

by Josh on May 7, 2013 at 6:01 pm

Odd Quartet will be returning to the Alamo City this summer for the Southwest Music Summer Exhibition July 21-24 in San Antonio, TX. Woo-hoo! Come by booth #7087 for all the awesomeness.

This year, the Texas Bandmasters Assoc. has joined forces with the Texas Orchestra Directors Assoc. and the Texas Choral Directors Assoc. to bring us the Southwest Music Summer Exhibition. This is the first year the conventions have been combined. I exhibited at the TBA convention last year and it was a lot of fun. It was a great success and I’m looking forward to the new combined exhibit hall this year. Hope to see you there!

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Under A Rock

by Josh on February 25, 2013 at 11:56 am

This past week has felt like I’ve been living under a rock! The good thing is that I have been very productive while under my metaphorical rock this week. I’ve been working on a refresh for the Odd Quartet site. That effort alone has taken up most of my time. I’ve also been working on restocking the online store and getting the strips posted on time. I feel really good about the work on the site refresh that I’m doing. there is still a lot of work to do, but it should make the site cleaner and more user friendly while keeping all of the existing functionality. With most of the heavy lifting done, I am looking forward to more time out from under the rock. Can’t wait to share your new site look with you all…soon.

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TMEA Wrap Up

by Josh on February 19, 2013 at 6:36 pm

So, TMEA happened…

and it was UUUH-mazing! Seriously though, I was really nervous about going to TMEA. I felt nervous because TMEA is the biggest convention that I’ve done so far, and I had no idea what to expect. After having gone through the entire TMEA experience now, I know that my pre-convention jitters were unfounded.

First of all, everyone who came by the booth was really nice. It was fun to meet people who have been reading the comic for a while and also meeting people who were seeing Odd Quartet for the first time. Another thing that made the show run smoothly was the generous assistance from some friends who helped out at the booth (I owe them so much). I didn’t get a lot of time to walk the exhibit halls or go see clinics. But, I did get a chance to see David Pogue’s Keynote speech on Friday morning which was very entertaining. I also got the chance to do an interview for the Free Music Ed podcast. Stephen and Gannon are wonderful hosts. If you get a chance, check out some of the great episodes they have so far. All in all, I had a great time at TMEA this year and I hope to go back next year. I know I say this a lot, but I can never say it enough – thank you for reading and supporting Odd Quartet!

P.S. We sold out of most of the items in the store during TMEA. We’re working on getting things re-stocked as fast as we can!

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TMEA 2013

by Josh on January 24, 2013 at 11:30 am

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I will be exhibiting at TMEA in a few weeks!! The convention is in San Antonio, TX from Feb 13-16th. I will be at BOOTH #3423 along with all of the Odd Quartet shirts and posters for sale. Hopefully, I will also have some new merchandise to debut at the convention. This convention is, so far, the biggest I’ve exhibited at with Odd Quartet, and that makes me really REALLY nervous. However, I have attended this convention before as a student and it is a really great show. Help spread the word to all of your Texas based musician friends – you can share the Facebook announcement with your friends, or look for Countdown Updates from the twitter feed (only 20 days until the convention, at the time I wrote this post). There will definitely be more updates to come, both on Facebook and Twitter. I hope to see many of you there! I will be sketching, chatting, giving out free high-fives, and there may even be a merch give-away or two during the show.

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The Future

by Josh on January 5, 2013 at 2:52 pm

I got this great question from Rayanne over at the facebook page: “Ok, so here I go: Rhodes is of course a music major, and he has been in college for quite some time. What if in future comics he became a band director?” After trying to type up my response four or five times, I realized that I had quite a bit more to say than would nicely fit into a comment box. So I decided to write up this blog post in response to the question.

I think about this a lot, actually. The future of the strip, the future of the characters, where I want certain story lines to end up, etc. True, Rhoads has been a music major for “quite some time” and I don’t think it’s been established EXACTLY how long he’s been in school because I liked the ambiguity of not knowing. The strip could just be about being a student and go  on like that forever with the characters never aging (e.g., The Simpsons, Peanuts). If there are enough interesting stories/jokes to tell I think the strip could go a long time being about students in college.

However, I want Odd Quartet to be about all the different experiences people have being musicians, and being a student is only one part of that. Sometimes you’re the student and sometimes you’re the teacher. I think eventually I want Rhoads to have those kinds of experiences, but that would also mean he would have to leave behind that college environment – and most likely leaving behind Jason and Cara. Why leave behind Jason and Cara? Think about it, how many of your closest friends followed you from elementary school to high school, from high school to college, from college to wherever your first job took you? Unless you’re really lucky (or extremely afraid of new places and things), you don’t get to stay in that bubble your entire life. You have to experience the world.

So, yes, I want Rhoads to experience what it’s like to be a teacher. I want him to learn how not to be a student. I want him to grow up…eventually. When exactly will this happen? I’m not sure. I think when I’ve told all the stories I want to tell with Cara, Jason, and Rhoads it will be time for the story to move on.

Thanks for the great question, and I’m sorry for the rambling answer.

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