05/10/26 Episode 200 and four year anniversary!!
It's hard to believe that so much time has passed. I thought I would go for about two maybe three years. But I still have lots of stories left to tell, so I look forward to doing more episodes.

05/07/26 Change in Schedule
Well, I'm back from vacation and had a great time in Saskatoon and at Wakaw Lake. But now that I'm back, I see I was too aggressive on my update schedule. Unfortunately, I'll need to start regular scheduled programming a week later than planned. Our regular Tuesday update will begin on Aug 30th. See you then!!

05/04/26 **ALERT** Vacation Schedule 2005
It's vacation time again. The following is the schedule for updates:

July 19th - cartoon update as usual.

July 26, Aug 2, Aug 9 - we pause for some special vacation cartoons

Aug 16 - there will be no cartoon

Aug 23 - we resume our normally scheduled programming

05/04/26 Updated Links Page
This is a great comic I found on OnlineComics.net called Trevor! It's a funny 'interactive' comic. Check it out.

05/02/25 Updated Cast Page
I've finally got around to updating the Cast Page to include some of the newest characters. Check it out.

04/08/22 Updated Links Page
I found great comic awhile ago called Liliane Bi Dyke by Leanne Franson. There are some really good storylines here. Check it out.

04/07/14 Vacation Alert!!!

I will be on vacation for a month starting on Saturday July 17th. I've worked ahead of schedule so the cartoons will keep coming, but there will be no cartoon for Aug 17th and 24th. Have a safe and enjoyable summer.

04/06/13 I now have a weblog.

If you cast your eyes up and to the left, you can see I've added a weblog, or "blog". I'm my case, I made it small, so I call it a "blog-let". You will be able to put comments directly into the blog by clicking on the comment link below the blog entry you want to comment on. I'm not sure if it will work properly. I'm not a web designer, so if things go wacko, I might have to get rid of it. Many thanks indirectly to "Adam and Andy" and "The littlest Curmudgeon". I fashioned my blog after theirs. I never knew the things existed until I saw their webpages. The "News" area will remain the place to look for important announcements.

04/04/24 Now you can get Straight Ahead by email.

I've updated the main webpage so you can subscribe to get Straight Ahead sent to your email address each Tuesday. The subscription is free of course and you will only receive the comic -- no other junk mail. We already get waaaay too much of that stuff. The website will still be the place to come for news updates, forum, and other Straight Ahead related things.

04/04/03 More Updated Links.

I've updated the Links page again with a comic I should have added a loooooong time ago. I've been reading it for quite some time now. It's called "Adam and Andy". You can find this comic here. It's a gay themed comic about a commited male couple making their way through life together and keeping their sanity at the same time. The author, James Asal, recently added my cartoon to his links for which I am very honoured. It made me realize that I hadn't added his comic to my links. An oversight now fixed.

04/03/21 Updated Links.

I've updated the Links page with a comic I discovered this week called "The Littlest Curmudgeon". You can find this comic here. When I first read it, I went through the archives in one shot. When I was done, I wanted more. I can hardly wait for more updates.

04/02/15 Fan Art!!!

Yes!!! I received my first Fan Art. Many thanks for your great work. I'm posting the art as a 'special' on Monday Feb 16th. It comes from the Dark Artist of Red Lexi. You can find this comic here. When I get my act together, I will add a link to the main page for a gallery so any fan art I get will be properly presented.

04/02/09 Wasn't that special.

Well comicgenesis has been down for the last two weeks. The cartoon could be viewed, but I couldn't update anything. I was cut off from my reader(s) (I should be so bold to use the plural). It gave people the impression that I had stopped updating the cartoon. Not a chance. If (when) this happens again, just go to the forum to get the latest news on what's happening (the forum is on a different server). If Keespace is competely down, bookmark the forum so you can always get the latest. I've just uploaded the comics that have been missing, so hopefully we're back in business. Full steam straight ahead!!

p.s. Thanks to the good folks at comicgenesis for all the hard work they did to get the system back up and running!!

04/01/17 Forum added.

Happy New Year. I hope everyone had a good, safe holiday. Yes, we now have a hosted forum for Straight Ahead. Come on in and chat about the comic, or just say 'hello'. The link is at the top of the page along with the other links.

03/12/22 Happy Holidays From Straight Ahead!!!.

Happy holidays and all the best in the New Year. For Tuesday Dec 23rd and Dec 30th, There'll be holiday themed cartoons to enjoy. And on Jan 6th, the gang will be back with the continuing storyline. Thanks to everyone who's supported the cartoon and voted for me during the past year. Keep safe and healthy. I'm off to Saskatoon to relax and enjoy the holidays, so let's hope comicgenesis behaves. So until next year, so long folks!

03/11/30 Two Year Anniversary!!!.

Well, here we are at the second anniversary of Straight Ahead!! I just wanted to say thanks to all the people who have come by to enjoy the show and to those of you who have written to me - many thanks. I appreciate your comments. So onto more laughs in the third year!! By the way, I've updated the links page and added some stuff to the "Other Links" page.

03/11/11 Rememberance Day.

I did this Rememberance Day special as a small tribute to my Dad. He was a WW2 vet and died shortly after Rememberance day last year. We miss him. Drawing Parliament Hill was hard. Gothic architecture is difficult to get onto paper with limited drawing capabilities. For those of you who don't know, poutine is a French Canadian cuisine made of french fries topped with gravy and cheeze curds. It looks like it's been... well..."pre-processed", if you know what I mean. It was a long time before I tried it. When I did, it was really good and wondered why I hadn't tried it sooner. Anyway, next week we'll be back to the continuing storyline.

03/11/04 Rememberance Day Special Nov 4th and Nov 11th.

I hope everyone enjoyed the Halloween special. I had a great time doing it. It's some of my best stuff so far I think. It was a mix of Frankenstein, the Elephant Man and Judgment at Nuremberg all rolled into one. Since Rememberance Day lands on a Tuesday, I decided to do a two part Rememberance Day special. Hope you enjoy.

03/10/18 Halloween Special Oct 28th and 31st!

Yes, this year there'll be a two part Halloween special. Complete with colour... well, more like tinting.

03/09/07 Episode 100 and Second Year Anniversary coming soon!!!

It's hard to believe I'm nearing episode 100 on Sept 16th, and the second anniversary of the comic in November!! To observe these milestones, it might be fun to hear about which episode you liked best, or perhaps which character you like best, or whatever. For those of you who draw, send me some fan art. I'll post it next time I update the site. A forum would be a better way to do this, but it looks like requesting a forum and getting one are like winning the lottery. At any rate, I hope you're enjoying the show. Now it's time to get back to the drawing board. I had a *great* vacation, by the way.

03/07/17 Vacation Alert!!!

Yes, summer vacation has arrived!! This year, I'm taking an extended vacation of 6 weeks. But don't worry, I have worked ahead and have comics for almost every week I'm gone. The only weeks that will have no comic are August 19th and 26th. From there, we'll be back on the regular weekly Tuesday schedule. I won't have access to a computer while I'm on vacation, so hopefully everything will update properly while I'm gone. Also, I have put my comic on Buzz Comix Top 100 listing. So you'll see two choices for voting now, one for comicgenesis Top 100 and one for Buzz Comix. Any votes are appreciated. And now, off to Wakaw Lake for a much needed rest!!! Just me, the lake, a canoe, and the high tech pleasures of a 1955 Hi Fi. The joy of slowing down! See you after the break. Have a safe summer (or winter, if you're in the southern hemisphere).

03/06/03 Updated Cast Page

I've updated the Cast Page with our newest character. Take a look.

03/05/27 New Character

EP86 introduces Phil's Grandfather. It's a quick one frame introduction, but we'll see more of him in the coming weeks. And, of course, Fang the Cat gives us the world feline view of things. I'll update the cast page soon with more complete information.

03/05/20 Cheat!!!

Major cheating alert!!! Technically, I drew all the frames in EP85. But Frames 4 and 6 were traced from photographs. So really, I can't take the credit for these frames. I did, however, take the photographs specifically for the cartoon when I was on vacation. But that's as far as it goes. The other frames I drew from scratch. Frame 5 was really hard. All those houses and trees. I'm not good when it comes to backgrounds. They don't come to me easily. Some of you might recognize the Broadway Theatre. It's a very well known landmark in Saskatoon (on, you guessed it, Broadway Ave). The houses were fashioned after the Broadway neighbourhood I lived in when I was renting a house at one time. To me, these old neighbourhoods have a lot of character and are really nice. So where is Phil running to anyway?

03/05/13

Whew!! What a marathon EP84 was. Eleven frames, my longest yet. I'm not sure how well EP84 turned out. It may have worked better as an animated cartoon. Either way, the Guilt Dyke and the "Don't Be A Drag" Queen had their little spat. The name "Moe Howard" is referring to Moe of the Three Stooges (Larry, Moe and Curly). Moe was the short one with the bowl hair cut. If you want to know more about the Three Stooges, check out the following link... The Three Stooges ... and click on the bios. And how did Phil change so quickly from his poka dot jammies into his street clothes in the last frame? Hmmmmm...

03/03/26 Oops.

If you look closely at EP77, I missed the Don't Be A Drag Queen's goatee in the last frame. I usually draw that in last after I'm happy with the facial expression. So this one slipped by me. Maybe I'll get a chance to correct it in the coming days. Last week's cartoon (EP76) had two versions of text. One of these days I'll have to get a way of polling to see which version is liked best by the readers. Maybe a forum or something. I usually know which version I like, but what do I know.

03/03/02 The drag queen has a name.

Well, we finally know the drag queen's name. I can't take credit for the band that appears in the background of EP #73. I drew it from the cover of an old 78 record album. Hopefully, EP #74 will update on time this Tuesday. I've updated the cast page with a more complete description of the "Don't Be A Drag" queen. Hopefully the comicgenesis updating problems have been solved. If not, I will try to manually update if the next episode does not appear on Tuesday. Again, thanks for your patience.

03/02/19 Update problems.

Sorry about this week's comic being late. Seems comicgenesis was having auto-updating problems. I did the manual update, but even that didn't work until today. I really like the way Episode #72 turned out. Especially the third panel. Hopefully we won't have any update problems next week. Also note that my email address has changed. I have updated the email link.

03/02/08 Updated Cast Page.

I finally updated the cast page to include the newest character - take a look. The comicgenesis server still seems to have intermittent problems, or is slow. Thanks for your patience while the problems are being worked out.

03/02/01 comicgenesis Problems.

If you're reading this, that means the comicgenesis server is working again. Glad to have you back. The last week has been bad for the comicgenesis server, but they have a dedicated group working on the problem. Hopefully, things will be back on track soon.

03/01/14 Better news.

Hi Everyone, I'm back. Despite all that's happend recently, Christmas was nice. It was different without Dad, but we still had a nice time. New cartoons are going up now, but my buffer has been depleted. I'm trying to build it back up. Hopefully, I won't run out of cartoons in the mean time. A new character appears this week (episode 67). Hope you enjoy. I'll update the cast page soon to include this character.

02/12/08 Sad news.

I'm very sad to say that shortly after Straight Ahead's one year anniversary, I lost one of my first and most loyal readers of my comic. My Dad died unexpectantly on Nov 23rd. I'm trying to keep up with my drawing because it helps me. For the weeks of Christmas and New years, I'll be posting Christmas/New year cards I have drawn from the past. I may have to pause for a bit in January, I don't know. I'll see how things go and how I feel. I will definately let you know of any temporary changes to the regular schedule. For now, the family is the top priority, especially now that Christmas is around the corner. Here's hoping 2003 will be a better year.

02/11/18 Much news!!

It's the one year anniversary of Straight Ahead!! The year has gone by quickly - and it's been fun. I hope you're having fun too. I've updated the Cast page to include the two new characters that were introduced last week and this week. I will start putting episode numbers on the cartoons so it's easier to line up the news with a particular cartoon. I've added a new links page to cartoons I read on a regular basis. I still have a few links to add. For now, onward to a new year.

02/09/17 A bit of colour.

Yes, I've experimented with colour for the first time. I thought it turned out pretty good for just using my Laurentiens (pencil crayons). Maybe I'll use more in the future.

02/08/27 Episode 50!!.

Yes, Straight Ahead has reached it's 50th episode (not counting special events like Christmas, etc). Hope you're all enjoying the story. I've also updated the Cast page to include the Guilt Dyke. Take a look.

02/08/13 We're Back!!.

Well, I'm back from vacation. All rested up... now back to the drawing board!

02/07/13 Vacation Alert!!.

I'm on vacation for the next four weeks (yay!!). But don't worry, the cartoons will keep rolling out while I'm gone. I noticed the site didn't update properly this week, so I hope the auto updating will work while I'm gone. I will check the site as often as I can. I'll be up at the lake for quite a while, so I hope the site will behave. No computer at the lake, no TV. A 1955 HiFi and rotary dial phone is as high tech as it gets. And that's a good thing at the lake.

02/06/22 Happy Saskatchewan Pride Day!!.

I hope everyone has a good time at the parade in Regina. Everyone loves a parade!

02/05/21 And so ends the May Blitz.

Well Phil made it out of the bookstore with everything intact (except maybe his pride). Hope everyone enjoyed it. I got a lot of practice drawing my speech bubbles and lettering. I hope I've gotten better at it. We now return to the regular scheduled programming of weekly Tuesday updates.

02/05/12 New Cast page added.

I've added a new Cast page. Take a look.

02/05/09 The May Blitz.

I finally got around to adding a 'news' section to the web page. For those of you who missed the note on the April 23rd episode, I've been updating Monday to Friday. This will last until May 22nd, at which point we'll return to the regular weekly Tuesday update schedule. Hope you enjoy.

All Straight Ahead drawings, related characters and concepts are © Neil Murphy. All rights reserved. Any reproduction of this material without written permission is strictly prohibited.

STRAIGHT AHEAD is hosted on comicgenesis, a free webhosting and site automation service for webcomics.