So, real quick.  I’m back from Ukraine, and my last four days there went like this:  Mountain climbing!  Awesomeness!  Love this!  Beautiful amazing view!  Let’s go walking in the rain to see one last waterfall, okay?  Great!  Beautiful!  I’m a bit cold…and wet…like real cold!  Okay, I’ve taken a shower, but I’m still cold.  And I kinda hurt.  Like, really.  Okay, should I have a fever this high?  FEVER!!  Heart racing.  Is this how Jim Henson died? Fever’s gone. Sore THROAT!  Soresoresoresorethroat.  More-sore-throat.  Hit it with ibuprofin.  Lots.  not a lot better, but some. Dinner party on a boat in Kiev.  Really nice.  Get on the plane to come home.  Eat a sandwich. INSTANT EVIL NAUSEA!  Want to die.  Want to die.  Going to get off the plane in Warsaw and die, then they can send my body back to the U.S. and reanimate me there.  Warsaw.  20 minutes until plane boards.  Bathroom ZUUKE!!!!!  MORE ZUUUUUKE!!  (at this point a couple of strangers outside are chuckling and saying something about Polish food poisoning)  ZUKE!!  Feel better.   No more zuking.  Then many trips to the bathroom on the 10 hour flight home.

So there.  I’m going to write more at length about the rest of my trip, which was very nice, but not much in the way of a vacation.  More of a visiting trip, which is important too.

In actual Milo news:  This was posted on Aintitcool.com the other day, and is a very nice thing for someone to write about my strip.

Here’s an excerpt, but you can read the whole thing here.  (you have to scroll down a ways)

“…I found MILO THE CLOUD’s preview book and remembered how enamored I was with the simple concept of a chipper little cloud and his rambunctious friends: a balloon, a cardinal, and an emo girl. Milo seems to always be in pretty high spirits and often gets somewhat metaphysical with his other airborne friends. Although this strip is cuter than all get out,… it is also smartly written and cleverly humorous… If the strips in this book are any indication, I’m definitely going to be seeking out the truly original, undeniably cute, and devilishly funny MILO THE CLOUD. …Sean Archer deserves all the recognition he can for this original concept and excellent execution MILO THE CLOUD. Archer says there’ll be Milo plush toys on the way too…and dammit if I can’t help but want one of those! Read the webcomic from the beginning here and if you’re not addicted after a few hits you have a heart as cold as ice.

Many thanks to AmbushBug for the kind words.

Soon.  Comics.  Promise.

So, I had these plans of getting a backlog of strips and goodies together so that when I left for Ukraine, I’d not be leaving you in the lurch, without cloud, nor bird, nor surly balloon.  And at the very least I’d not be leaving you hanging on a storyline for two weeks because I’d have finished the arc.

Ha.

All of these things hinged on the planets aligning, I guess because none of that happened.  Instead, I painted two exterior walls of my new house, and I packed and packed, and then packed some more.

OH! and I painted more house.

I apologize profusely and promise that when we get back from our Ukraine trip, I’ll be able to focus more and draw more, and by fall, I’ll be putting out more toys and other goodies.  Really sorry, folks.  I know you know this is not my day-job, but that doesn’t mean that I feel it’s less important.  I’m just living, and learning.

More to come after August 11th.

Much love and fluffy clouds,

s

I’ll be posting Monday’s comic tonight.  Seeming like I should just change my updating to Tuesdays and Fridays.  The weekend is the main time for me to work on the house, so I’m not getting much else done at the moment.  Anyhoo, expect the new comic sometime tonight.

Also, an interview with me was just posted by Greg Sitkowski, on his ezine over at Laughingiron.com

Go check it out, and read things you never knew you wanted to know about me.  Or maybe you knew, but you secretly didn’t want to tell anyone you knew, because if everyone knew, they’d know you knew more than you were letting on.